southwest

Home Depot will begin to offer small wind turbines and installation services from Southwest Windpower, both companies announced today.

Southwest Windpower makes a small wind turbine called the Skystream 3.7 Personal Wind Turbine.

The turbine is rated at 2.4 kilowatts and produces about 400 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month when operating at a minimal wind speed of 12 miles per hour, according to the turbine manufacturer.

Not all Home Depot stores will be carrying the turbines immediately. The wind turbines are initially being offering only at some stores in particularly windy states including California, Idaho, Nevada, Texas, Utah, … Read more

It's bad enough when your plane is struck by lightning. But I'm not sure how I would react if a hole suddenly appeared in the ceiling of the 737 I was on.

I'm not sure my first instinct would be to take a picture. On the other hand, I'm not Shawna Malvini Redden.

Yesterday, Malvini Redden was on a Southwest flight from Phoenix to Sacramento when there was something of an explosion. Then, lo and behold, there appeared a three-foot hole on high. Yes, the plane had developed a skylight, sans glass.

Malvini Redden describes the … Read more

It sounds like the beginning of a joke: a couple dozen coders and geek entrepreneurs step off a shiny, high-tech bus at a barbecue joint in Texas.

But a joke it's not. It's a scenario that will likely play out this week on the Startup Bus, which is, yes, a group of a couple dozen coders and geek entrepreneurs riding a shiny, high-tech bus through the Lone Star State from their hometowns to the South by Southwest Interactive conference (SXSW Interactive) in Austin, Texas, part of the broader SXSW music and film festival.

This is no ordinary bus … Read more

Veteran wind turbine manufacturer Southwest Windpower unveiled a highly efficient small wind turbine at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas today.

Southwest Windpower claims the Skystream 600, its follow-up to the Skystream 3.7, can produce 7,400 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year when used in an area with an average annual wind speed of 12 mph.

If true, that's a pretty impressive small wind turbine. Many small wind turbines sold in recent years have touted around 2,000 kilowatt-hours annually under average conditions.

Consider that Helix Wind claims about 3,362 kilowatt-hours annually with an average … Read more

Violence solves nothing.

And yet so many are moved to it in search of vital prizes, such as peace, oil, or a safe landing in a plane.

Perhaps there is one man reconsidering his philosophy of violence more than others this morning after he allegedly thumped a 15-year-old boy sitting next to him yesterday on a Southwest flight from Las Vegas to Boise, Idaho.

There are many reasons why some might be moved to pummel someone in the next seat on a plane. The thought has crossed my mind when my fellow passenger won't stick to his side of … Read more

This is interesting. Sony Music's The Remix Project is a contest on Facebook where music fans can create their own remix of Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" using the song's original 4-track "stems"--the individual vocal, guitar, bass, and drum tracks.

Fans can mix and match the components of the original, with new versions of the classic that have been recorded for the project by Sony Music artists, including The Ting Tings, 2AM Club, and more. Best of all, fans can record and upload their own covers of "Subterranean Homesick Blues," and … Read more

Links from Friday's episode of Loaded:

Acer unveils a dual touchscreen laptop called the Iconia

Angry Birds, the popular mobile phone game, will come to a game console near you sometime next year

The U.S. military launches its own version of YouTube called MilTube

Microsoft revamps Bing Movies

Microsoft and Southwest Airlines are bringing Santa to an airport gate near you for picture time

A new social network for readers called Copia launched this week

Facebook is close to scoring a trademark for the word "face"

Southwest Windpower, which makes small wind turbines, said Wednesday that it has bought Deerpath Energy, which specializes in developing projects with multiple microwind turbines.

The acquisition--the value was not disclosed--brings with it Deerpath's pipeline of projects and its business model of financing installations of small turbines in places such as retail store parking lots and municipal buildings, said Southwest Windpower.

For example, Deerpath used Southwest Windpower pole-mounted wind turbines at a Sam's Club store in Palmdale, Calif., which put 17 turbines online in its parking lot this spring.

Sales of small wind turbines have grown rapidly over the … Read more

On Saturday, the crew of a Southwest Airlines flight between the California cities of Oakland and Burbank asked a passenger to leave the plane before takeoff because it deemed him too overweight to fly. Unfortunately, that passenger happened to be Clerks and Chasing Amy director Kevin Smith, who has more than 1.5 million Twitter followers and was willing to make sure that they all heard all about it.

"Dear @SouthwestAir - I know I'm fat, but was Captain Leysath really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated?" Smith asked in a heavily quoted tweet … Read more