power

Promise of more efficient solar panels

There are two major problems with the current silicon panel technology used to generate electricity. For one, silicon is inefficient in converting solar energy. The thinner the silicon panel, the less efficient it becomes. Secondly, silicon panels make up about 45 percent of the total cost of current solar power installations. So thinner panels requiring less silicon would cut down on installation costs.

Now researchers in Australia say they've found a way to make silicon films, 1 to 2 microns thick, into more efficient energy converters. The trick is to impregnate the silicon film surface with small amounts of … Read more

SunPower leaps past expectations

SunPower, which makes high-efficiency solar panels, continued its rapid expansion in the first quarter as revenue climbed to $142.3 million in the first quarter, while net income rose to $1.2 million.

When acquisition and other non-recurring costs (such as stock based compensation) are excluded, net income came to $23.3 million, or 29 cents a share. Gross margins, meanwhile, came in at 29 percent, in part because the average selling price of solar cells and panels rose three percent over the previous three months. Typically in most hardware industries, average selling prices decline.

The figures, which came out … Read more

Russian petroleum and electricity direct to North America

Those friendly Russians want to bring more energy directly to your doorstep if you live in North America. That means digging the world's longest tunnel. The proposed project would dig a tunnel over 60 miles long beneath the Bering Sea, surfacing at two islands en route.

Next week a coalition of Russian businesses will present this plan to Canada and the U.S. If it moves ahead, the tunnel would be twice as long as the one now connecting Britain and France.

The tunnel would connect major highways and pipelines yet to be constructed. The hope is to deliver … Read more

Meet Windmill 2.0

It just had to come out of the Netherlands. These contraptions, called the "Light Wind," are manufactured by Dutch design firm Demakersvan, and they're outdoor lights powered by wind. They might look like design-savvy variations on those little propeller beanie hats that I'm sure a few people over at the Googleplex have been known to accessorize with, but I personally think these are a cool "green" idea. They even have the capacity to store up energy when it's windy so that the light will keep shining all night long. (For size comparisons, the … Read more

Buzzillions is a better shopping experience

When we last checked in with PowerReviews, the company that powers user review feedback for online retailers, the team had just launched a user-facing site to aggregate reviews from its clients. I liked it, although I had some criticisms. This week, PowerReviews launched a new site, Buzzillions, which addresses some of the early site's issues and adds a few more features. (It's too bad the name sucks, though.)

The new site does a much better job of clumping products together. You're less likely to find 15 different listings for the same camera now (one for each store … Read more

SlideAware makes PowerPoint a Web 2.0 app

We're big fans of Web-based productivity apps here at Webware, but we also like tools that bring Web 2.0 features, such as easy collaboration and access from anywhere, to the apps we know and use already. Xcellery (see Xcellery review) does that for Excel, and a new app, SlideAware, does a similar thing for PowerPoint.

SlideAware has two components. First, there's a plug-in you add to your PowerPoint toolbar (it doesn't work for Office 2007 yet, so I couldn't test this component). The plug-in lets you zap your PowerPoint presentations directly to the SlideAware service. … Read more

Surrealists rejoice: here's a power strip for you

Are you one of those artsy-fatalist types who has a poster of Salvador Dali's The Persistence of Memory up on the wall? That's the "melting clock painting," also known as the backdrop of the 1938 cartoon short "Porky in Wackyland." (Yes, it's on YouTube.)

If so, we've found something perfect to further indulge your fantasies of things that appear to be melting into a puddle of surrealist goo. Called the "ElectriciTree," this stretchy power strip/extension cord is technically supposed to look like the branches of a tree to remind … Read more

News Roundup: Viacom sues YouTube, MySpace News screens leaked, Microsoft to buy Tellme

Viacom drops $1 billion lawsuit on YouTube. The news came this morning that Viacom is suing Google-owned YouTube for "massive intentional copyright infringement." The suit is due to the repeated viewing of almost 160,000 clips of Viacom-owned content that were hosted on the service. It was only a matter of time before the big lawsuits came from content providers after Google's acquisition of YouTube late last year. It's worth noting that the lawsuit amount is more than half of what Google paid for YouTube in stock in November. ( CNET News.com)

Shots of MySpace News surface. … Read more

A purse that can charge up your phone

Regardless of what you think of its design, this is no ordinary handbag. The "Power Purse's" name refers not just to its importance as a fashion accessory but also to its functionality--as a portable source of solar energy.

The bag is covered with small solar panels that can power cell phones or any other gadgets through a USB port built into its interior. MobileWhack says the ingenius purse was designed by a student at Iowa State University and marketed through Solarjo, "a company that produces unlikely items from something that looks quite ordinary."

The price … Read more

2007 Canon PowerShot SD models hold a few surprises

Another year, another crop of snapshot cameras. This year, Canon's going a bit retro with its Elph design, bringing back the high-contrast black accents that appeared on the original film Elphs 10 years ago.

They've come a long way in that decade. This year's SD750 and SD1000 are 7-megapixel replacements for the the very popular 6-megapixel models, the SD630 and the SD600, respectively. Yes, that's right: The SD750 is the higher-end model of the two.

Despite disparate outsides, the two cameras are fundamentally the same. The major difference is a 2.5-inch LCD on the SD1000 … Read more