Recently in Innovation Category

Some men have life-changing experiences in their youth. Others spend their lives dreaming. A few have the opportunity to work through these moments later in life.

In Fawn Township, a group of retirees is turning discarded aviation memories into working studies of history.

Some men have life-changing experiences in their youth. Others spend their lives dreaming. A few have the opportunity to work through these moments later in life.

In Fawn Township, a group of retirees is turning discarded aviation memories into working studies of history.

Jack Kosko flew 18 missions in a Grumman TBM Avenger as a radioman during World War II.

"It took me out there and brought me back," Kosko said of the Avenger.

One of the planes made a bad landing on the aircraft carrier USS Langley. Kosko salvaged an altimeter and voltmeter before the bomber was pushed into the sea.

Today, the first Avenger Kosko ever restored still flies at the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum in Reading, carrying those gauges with it.

Kosko owns the Fawn Township property where the group gathers about twice a week to restore the old planes.

One of the men, Bill Butler, remembers how his father, a naval aviator during WWII, would take him to air shows.

"I can't fly, and I like to watch," said the Sykesville, Md., resident of the hobby, "so this is my big chair."

Frank Darney, of Jefferson, was an Air Force mechanic during WWII and with the Maryland National Guard for almost 40 years.

"We never had to do much with these planes back then other than daily inspections," he said.

While working to reconstruct the bomber doors of the group's second Avenger, Darney said, "This gives me something to look forward to."

Progress here isn't measured by time. It can take more than five years to reconstruct a vintage aircraft. But as Kosko will tell you when you meet him, "There are no problems, only challenges."

I met four people this weekend that define peace.

William Jenkins, a WWII draftee, found himself in a German POW camp for his 19th birthday. He came home to Hanover and married a German woman.

Dalea Lynn's house was gutted by a fire and her husband was killed by police while in their custody in Springettsbury Township. She likes her Wrightsville neighborhood and has a poster on her front lawn supporting the local police.

James Abram, of South Carolina, and Bill Hoff, a resident of Jefferson, became lifelong friends in 1966 while fighting the Vietnam War. Sunday, the two men were followed by a combined family of 28 people.

Small, efficient, and the ability to condense data packages and hardware saving consumers time, energy, and money.

Worldwide mobile phone sales totaled 269.1 million units in the first quarter of 2009, a 9.4 per cent decrease from the first quarter of 2008. Smartphone sales surpassed 36.4 million units, a 12.7 per cent increase from the same period last year. cellular-news.com

Hewlett-Packard is off and Dell is expected to be off. cnn.com/money

I look down my block and I know the five houses surrounding me no longer use land line phones. The number of mobile-phone users in the U.S. surpassed the number of conventional land-based phone lines in the second half of 2004 latimes.com

When my last roommate moved out and into a rural area and away from my cable internet wi-fi cloud, his desktop computer became a dinosaur. His primary mode of email and communication became his phone.

Although data packages and hardware for smartphones cost more than a regular cell phone, the overall cost can be less when combining the cost of a high speed connection to the home, multiple hardware purchases and an existing cell phone account.

Add to this the mobility of a smartphone and the trend for smart phones gradually to be able to take on most computing tasks of a desktop you have a trend that is unstoppable.

A free online dating & social networking community site specifically for Green Singles, with a focus on the environment. If you are a 'tree hugger' looking to meet other eco-friendly singles, then Green-Passions is the site for you. Find others who share your interest in animal rights, alternative energy, recycling, organic farming or endangered species. Sign up now to enjoy free Green chat, Eco-friendly forums & email. And on top of all that, enjoy something extra.

Upcycling takes a waste product or a combination of waste products and innovates them into something new and useful.

The Sugarloaf Crafts Festival, will feature more than 300 artists from across the country at its upcoming show in Timonium, April 24-26.

Among the "green" artists at Sugarloaf are Ed Kidera - who uses parts from cars and farm equipment, and steel cylinders (re: SCUBA tanks) to create large-scale metal sculptures. You'll also find clothes and fashion by Mo O'Grady, who takes a holistic approach to her art by using natural fabrics to create her pieces, creating fringe and decorative elements on her pieces with excess fabric to minimize waste. In addition, artist Bud Scheffel uses recycled scrap metal to create his mobile and wind sculptures designs.

Cigar box guitars were born out of necessity according to Shane Speal of West York.

During the early part of the last century when the wooden boxes were as popular as the cigars people smoked, the free container became the basis for many artistic kids looking to strum their way into music on a budget.

Today, the no rules instrument, tells a story of innovation, self-reliance and personal expression.

US carmaker General Motors is joining with scooter maker Segway to make a new type of two-seat electric vehicle.

The prototype, which will be debuted in New York, is aimed at urban driving. GM aims to start making them by 2012.

The vehicle, named Puma, can go as far as 35 miles on a single charge. It will use lithium-ion batteries.

Jay McGinnis' inconspicuous house near New Park, Pa. is an experiment of alternative energy.

The windmills produce compressed air and electricity. The innovative air compressing wind mill stores the air throughout the farm using underground lines that act as a reservoir taking on air when the wind blows.

The solar panels on the garage heat water. The solar panels on the workshop generate electricity that is sold back to Adams Electric Cooperative Inc. Instead of using expensive batteries, McGinnis sells the solar electricity back to Adams Electric during times of peak sun (and demand in Summer) and supplements the farms' electricity when the sun isn't shining.

The hopper at right holds corn burned in the outdoor furnace that pipes hot water back to the living spaces. The wood that also feeds his boiler is grown on his property.

The 3-cylinder 2005 Honda Insight has consumed an average of 55 mpg over it's service life. The vehicles hybrid system recovers energy from braking and supplements it's tiny gasoline engine with an electric motor and batteries. The shape of the car, fender skirts and other design features of the quirky 1999-2005 Insight was capable of squeezing out 124 mpg by one hypermiling competition.

McGinnis believes that our fossil fueled world is in big trouble and we all need to do anything to use less.

McGinnis' business, The Woolen Mill Fan Company, creates reproductions of water motor fans. The parts cast in Central Pennsylvania by an Amish foundry bears the unusual mark of something produced in the United States.

York Country Day students build a container that will protect an egg after it falls ten feet during the All-School Engineering Project. Each group was given 25 wrapped plastic drinking straws and six-feet of masking tape.

The exercise teaches that a given project often has limited resources.

First Presbyterian Church of York has rebuilt it's Moeller organ. The new version of the organ is part virtual instrument and part traditional pipe organ. The cost of rebuilding the instrument was about 25% less than rebuilding the instrument entirely of pipes.

"It's a seamless blend," said Spark, director of music ministries at the church.

The old version had an electro-pneumatic console, crumbling, leather-lined wind reservoirs and aging mechanisms that often failed. Water from a leaky roof had damaged the swell organ, and the tin and lead pipes needed cleaning or replacing.

The new version transforms keystrokes into digital signals that may actuate a valve, create a digital sound or combine mechanical and virtual. Speakers strategically placed with the pipes gives the listener the geography of sound that comes with a traditional organ.

Mike Martin plans to stack used tires on his garden plot in York to grow potatoes. The stacked tires are filled with soil and the potatoes planted.

The potatoes grow down through the tires and when the it's time to harvest, the stacked tires are torn down and potatoes extracted.

Mike Martin planted a community garden last year and gave out 1400 pounds of food to those who need it in his neighborhood. He's planting it again this year, aiming for 2,000 pounds of food, and he's adding a second garden for the food bank.

Students from the River Rock Academy, an alternative school in Spring Grove, were helping Martin prepare the garden for Spring this week,

Save $2 on $8 tickets online. Want to be even more cheap? They stop charging for parking a couple hours before the show closes. The show continues at the PA Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg through Sunday until 9pm each day.

The word "Hybrid" is plastered on many vehicles at the annual show.

There are green hybrid logos, leaves sprouting out of logos and green signs on the carpet. The same technologies as in previous years, but in more models.General Motors has their mild hybrid (a couple mpg more for a small price) on display in the new Malibu.

The GM 2-mode hybrid, that shares engineering with Chrysler, Mercedes-Benz and BMW, is on display. The electric/gasoline hybrid will be available in the Tahoe SUV and Silverado Pickup.

Ford has an interesting cut-a-way of their EcoBoost engine that is a direct injection gasoline engine boosted with turbo that promises a 20% increase in economy.

The Ford Fusion Hybrid is on display. It shares mechanical concepts with the Escape Hybrid and takes on the Toyota Camry Hybrid.

A small SUV/crossover from KIA with a small, 4-cyl common rail diesel engine (CRDi) that is European/Asian? spec that we won't get here, but you can see under the hood.

BMW features a full-size SUV with a new clean diesel that gets 26 mpg.

The weird award goes to the Nissan Cube. A boxy little, yet marshmallow looking car.

Thanks for this review -- I have been pouring over several to see if this is the computer for me. I want an extremely portable device that will allow me to surf the net, watch streaming video, listen/watch music and video files and work with Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. Would be nice to add images and photoshop -- but not necessary as I have my desktop as my photography studio.

All of my previous laptops and even my desktop have less than 1GB RAM (256MB and 520MB respectively) so I am thinking despite the reduced hard disk space, this will be an improvement. I can always add memory cards.

Any thoughts you have regarding the compatibility of this computer for my needs would be appreciated.

Review of Dell Inspiron Mini 9 (October 2008)

Over the past four months, I have been using the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 for web based documents/blog/email, still photo manipulation/transmitting and I have attempted to harness it for editing video.

I bought it as a low cost (motorcycle laptop) that would be less likely to be damaged by vibration (no mechanical hard drive) and would have a better risk/loss ratio than my expensive laptop.

The nice part about running Windows XP is that it's compatible with everything. I can browse swiftly with Firefox and Google Chrome or anything else I desire to download. It takes my Verizon broadband modem and has built in WIFI.

It will stream video content like any Windows XP computer. The speakers are smaller and less robust than with most laptops but adequate for personal listening. There are jacks for headphones and mic. With the headphones the volume is comparable to any laptop.

I used it as a backup laptop to edit/transmit photos last week from the Inauguration where I needed 17 hours of reserve power and had no ability to charge. I have not used Photoshop on the Dell Mini 9, but use the free image editing program GIMP

2009 Baltimore Boat Show's Green Boating Zone
Wednesday, January 21 through Sunday, January 25, 2009.

Green Boating tips from the National Marine Manufacturers Association

1. Choose Green Products: Use the cleanest maintenance products that do the job. Look for the EPA-certified "Design for the Environment" DfE label, which assures you that the product has minimal environmental impact and is safer for the person using it.

Benefit: Safer products. Reduce water pollution.

2. Use The Right Prop: Use a prop with the right pitch so your engine reaches its designed wide-open-throttle RPM. An adjustable-pitch ProPulse propeller allows you to dial in the optimum pitch angle in single degrees. Modular props, like the Quicksilver Flo-Torq II series, let you swap props while keeping the same hub. Product: ProPulse propeller (A West Marine Exclusive).

Benefit: Reduce fuel consumption, improve performance.

3. Don't Push Water: Install and use trim tabs or hydrofoils such as those offered by Bennett, Nauticus and StingRay. Most planing powerboats can improve hole-shot acceleration or reduce fuel consumption with properly adjusted trim tabs and hydrofoils. Keeping on a plane at lower engine RPMs can extend your range and reduce your time on passages.

Benefit: Improve boat performance & save gas.

High above the top hats and formal attire, recycled denim is hard at work as a sound cushion in this vast enclosed courtyard at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. The ceiling is packed with recycled denim to help pad the bouncing sound from all the stone surfaces.

The four-member Susquehanna Travellers from York County perform Sunday night at the Lincoln 2.0 Inaugural Ball at the Smithsonian American Art Museum -- the same building where Abraham Lincoln's second inauguration was held.

Group of us in my home town started the Emigsville Heritage Project as a way to touch base with the roots that made a small town work.

The same fibers that are gradually tearing away with the blur of regionalization, consolidation and globalization. The responsibilities that linked people together as they would strive to build better lives and that made them accountable to each other and themselves.

An excerpt from a recent Emigsville Story night with Sterling Krout. emigsville.org

It was very, very nice coming to Emigsville because in 1942 dad went to an auction to buy a house on Main Street (North George Street) and I was with him that day. It was a two story house, it had four bedrooms, it had a bath, and running water. Dad had $2,500 in his pocket.

Well the bidding didn't last longer than 10 minutes and dad was off the bidding already, but there was a man standing right next to dad and he whispered to him and to this day I have no idea who that man was, but he said, "Albert if you want the house, I will give you the money for the rest of the house above the $2500. Well, the house went for $4000 and dad bought the house.

We were out of bed at 5 o'clock in the morning to bring the newspapers to everyone in Emigsville..no fear of walking the streets at 5 Gary will tell you a few that he had. I didn't even think of fear at that time, but nevertheless it was dark it was 5 o'clock in the morning, no street lights, no sidewalks, no cars. Actually the road was 22 feet across, from North York to Emigsville not much for cars to pass.

Every morning six days a week we would wait for the truck to bring the papers from York that were delivered to Emigsville, Manchester, Mount Wolf and I guess York Haven. It was a precious cargo it could not get wet. There were 90 newspapers brother Gary and I had to deliver every morning and we were happy to do that.

I wasn't aware that we were bringing the news of the world to Emigsville because everyone relied on the newspaper and the guys that were going to work in York they wanted their newspaper early and they wanted to read it before they went to work.

The newspaper to brother Gary and I were special because the newspaper went between the screen door and the regular door. The first thing you learned was that you did not slam the screen door at 5 O'clock in the morning. (laughing from audience) If you did you can bet someone would tell dad and dad would be right back to you.

The newspapers were used for everything...sometimes you shared them with the person next door. Can anybody help me with the price of the newspaper? (Voice from audience) Five cents.

I started to think about it. The newspaper was used for everything. Geraldine will tell me for sure. Mom lined the cupboards with newspaper. Newspapers were put in your peach basket, to put the things up in the attic. Mom used the newspapers in the pantry because when she had the canned items and the peaches and vegetables, you would put them on the newspaper with that date on it and then those were the ones that you would use first, the oldest date.

Mom would wash up the linoleum floor and then she would put newspaper on the floor after it was washed. It was just a ritual that everybody did. It kept the floor clean a day or two longer and then you would pick it up and so on.

For the past few years during electrical emergencies, innovative people have been using their hybrid Toyota Prius to power their homes.

During an ice storm last week Sweeney, of Harvard, Mass., powered his house by hooking it up to his Toyota Prius. The Prius, a hybrid vehicle, starts the gasoline-burning mode of its engine every 30 minutes to recharge the battery with an internal generator. In turn, Sweeney ran his refrigerator and freezer, wood stove fan, lights and television off the car's battery.

Sweeney, an electrical engineer, explained the simple procedure he used.

"I pulled out this thing I have, an inverter, that converts the current from the car to 120 volts, which is what the appliances in your house run on," Sweeney said in an interview. "The car ran for three days, turning itself on for a few minutes every half an hour, and it burned about five gallons of gas."

Sweeney estimated he used 17 Kilowatt/hours of energy, drawn from the Prius, while the power was cut off from his house. boston.bizjournals.com

According to news reports, about 1,200 homes in eastern Massachusetts are still without power 11 days after the ice storm hit on Dec. 12.

The organizers of "Be a Santa to a Senior" were worried this year after not receiving a healthy response to their giving trees. The trees were hung with names and placed in a few public locations. Sarah Hevner, office manager at Home Instead, though that the response was due to a sluggish economy.

After an article in the York Daily Record in November, the gifts started pouring in. Today the gifts were presented to the seniors.

Having grown up in a time when people had to do more with less, these historic faces beamed with very simple tokens of Christmas.

A pin, a bottle of body wash, even just a box of tissues wrapped in holiday paper brought shouts of joy and tears of appreciation.

It reminded me of how far our economy has deteriorated. Making more out of less has evolved into making more out of credit and trying to make more out of speculation, fraud and a ballooning federal deficit. Making more out of capitalizing on cheaper labor markets while making less to buy those products at home.

Making more out of less has morphed into less and less out of investing more and more.

Hope came today from the anonymous people who capitalized on those small dreams from the wish trees placed in Boscovs.

I was listening to U.S. Rep Ed Markey of Massachusetts, chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, address the automakers the other day on C-SPAN as the hearings kept grinding away.

He brought up the idea that Detroit has worked on the premise that you can litigate and advertise your way to profit. If you don't want to meet mileage standards then sue the government agency trying to force you to meet them and then once you have something profitable keep selling it even if it goes against a global trend of sustainability.

Meanwhile, other companies innovate and fill the void that is reality ultimately taking the market.

U.S. Rep. Todd Platts, from York County, commented on the auto bailout earlier this week in this video.

Intel is working on tiny sensors that draw power from the environment and transmit information when enough power has been stored.

Think of everyone's cell phone as a pollution monitor, or chips embedded in the human body to relay information about condition.

And if you tend to think paranoid, a whole host of new ways to invade your life.

informationweek.com

I got an update to my Cit credit card in the mail today. It seems they are raising their interest rate to something obscene from something obscene. There is a list of stipulations based on credit sins that I might commit which all result in a higher interest rate.

This seems odd to me when the prime rate is in the single digits and Citi has engineered themselves a government bailout. Taxpayer money should benefit consumers.

Citigroup Inc. was also interested in leasing the Pennsylvania Turnpike with a Spanish company earlier this year. (greenmesh 7/08) How cool would it have been if we had to bail out that operation too.

From long-term managed profit maker for the Commonwealth, to short-term profit taker for an investment group that would like to charge me 28% interest after receiving a taxpayer bailout for risky investment decisions.

I have officially put the Citi card to sleep and gone cash. I would rather give the 2-3% user fees charged business by banks to use credit cards into the pocket of local small business.

Better yet, dump the federal reserve and barter.

Milwaukee neighborhoods could soon be printing own money.

"You have all these people who have local currency, and they're going to spend it at local stores," said Sura Faraj, a community organizer who is helping spearhead the plan. "They can't spend it at the Wal-Mart or the Home Depot, but they can spend it at their local hardware store or their local grocery store." chicagotribune.com/business/

Sustainability be my guide.

After a public relations massacre last month when pan handling CEO's seeking a bailout from consumers cruised in on jets that cost $20,000 for the day, Tuesday was a day of reckoning.

This time, the big three drove cars to Washington.

"There is not a Plan B," said GM Chief Operating Officer Fritz Henderson. " Absent support, the company can't fund its operations.

The chief executives of GM and Ford, stung by the public relations mess caused by recent comments at congressional hearings, said they will be willing to accept salaries of $1 a year. Ford plans to sell its five corporate jets, while GM will stop using corporate jets. cnn.money

In 1978, Lee Iacocca took on the challenge of transforming Chrysler for just $1 in compensation which was saved after he sought and landed a loan guarantee from Congress in 1979.

Chrysler went on to use those resources to build the K car platform on the success of the Omni, Horizon twins. These fuel efficient front-wheel-drive cars would be considered junk by today's standard, but for a country fresh out of a 1970's Arab Oil Crisis, they were great frugal tools from a manufacturer with a history of building big Detroit iron.

A few days ago I posted Jimmy Carter's solar panels shine in the movie "W"

The panels, installed on the White House by Carter in 1977 (along with a wood stove below) during that oil crisis, were an example set by leadership illustrating to the populous that they should move away from oil. The panels were removed in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan who was more of a let the free market work as it will guy. The money went with oil.

Solar panels returned to the White House in 2002.

In the 1870s and 80s, many scientists feared exhaustion of coal reserves.

"One must not believe, despite the silence of modern writings, that the idea of using solar heat for mechanical operations is recent. On the contrary, one must recognize that this idea is very ancient and its slow development across the centuries it has given birth to various curious devices." -- Augustine Mouchot, 1878, at the Universal Exposition, Paris, France.

An interesting review of solar history by Radford University, Radford, Va. with many pictures.

• Abel Pifre, Mouchot's assistant, set up a solar engine to print The Solar Journal in 1880.
• John Ericsson , inventor of the ironclad ship USS Monitor during the Civil War, believed solar engines would be needed in the future.
• American engineer Frank Schuman built a practical industrial scale solar plant at Meadi, Egypt in 1910.
• 1982-1988 If someone had said, "Build the world's biggest technological turkey to prove that solar power doesn't really work," the Solar One plant is the one they would have built.

Trinity United Methodist in New Freedom, Pa., has exchanged its natural-gas-fired boiler for a geothermal heating system drawing energy from 450 feet underground. The system should reduce the church's energy costs by an estimated 70 percent.

"Why not use what's in God's Earth to heat and cool his house?" said Anne Duff, a Trinity member

And just in time as a 6% rate increase has been approved by Columbia Gas customers has been approved by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission beginning tomorrow.

Typically, it takes four to eight years to recoup the investment, depending on the type of the existing system, according to R.R. Kling & Sons.

A geothermal system works like an air conditioning system. However, instead of transferring energy with the outside air, energy is transferred with the ground.

The ground temperature remains 53 degrees in southcentral Pennsylvania year round. This means that when the temperature is 90 or 20 degrees outside, the geothermal system can transfer heat to and from the ground more efficiently. A standard heat pump that transfers energy to the outside air becomes less efficient as the temperature outside drops.

The earth provides a stable temperature for maximum efficiency.
original story from inyork.com/ydr

America didn't become the greatest nation on earth by spreading the wealth, we became the greatest nation on earth by creating new wealth. (McCain at last night's debate.)

This is a key phrase motivating both campaigns and the undercurrent of voter despair.

Before globalization, creating new wealth meant capitalization resulting in more domestic jobs. Today that end more often means "spreading" wealth and power to China, and other developing nations with cheap labor pools and sending our energy dollars to oil producing nations in a global oil market.

It is no longer a simple formula of trickle down economics. It's more rolling pin economics where the roller pin has an oval shape and the dough is spread thin where it is least profitable.

That is the reality of global free trade and the dough in the United States is getting thinner. As some of the bakers get stronger and beat away the other bakers, a few fat bakers roll all the dough.

However, the free market in the United States has always been balanced with a democracy that once the majority believes it is no longer prospering, moves to conserve it's resources.

The old-school conservative thinking that motivated my grandparents to save rolls of string and hoard things in their basement long after the depression was over is different from modern conservative thought.

My "conservative" grandparents would have been repulsed at people who drive huge SUV's and demand drilling when the future of oil is a one way downward spiral. My grandfather would be in the garage retrofitting a bicycle with a lawnmower engine when gasoline got over $2 a gallon. He was a successful small business owner whose employees worked for him for decades and never desired a union even when they were petitioned by a local.

Beneath the blind moral eye of the fat bakers who rule a "free market", those who eat the cookies are always the one who call the shots in the end.

What we use and don't use - in our innovation we change the play of the game.

Projectors have come a long way from huge multi-filament power sucking tungsten bulbs 50 years ago in mechanical movie projectors that weighed the same as a small car.

The waste infrared heat from these bulbs would fry a modern projector. These projectors often had secondary bulbs to read the sound track and power sucking vacuum tubes to interpret the analog sound track image from the film.

Then came digital projectors that shoot light from really expansive exotic bulbs through LCD panels. The bulbs are expensive because they are very precise, have rare materials, and it's a great revenue stream. Replacing the bulb is almost as expensive as the projector and they last about 2000 hours.

Texas Instruments is marketing DLP® picture technology. With millions of tiny mirrors on a single chip, DLP®.

Think LED, cool running, 10,000 hour bulbs with little color decay over the lifespan, and lower power consumption.

A video produced by Texas instruments about the technology, that includes a presentation DLP® projector that can fit in your hand.

Dell began marketing a tiny Texas Instruments DLP® projector, the MS109s, for $499. Which if the bulb lasts $10,000 hours, it would basically be a disposable projector.

The 50 ANSI lumens (maximum) rating seems low when 1,000 lumens is a minimum for leaving the lights up in a small meeting room.

Here is a list of other manufacturers

Maybe someone will buy one and report back to us.

Check back for updates as I start to use this mini computer.

I love small cars and motorcycles. Tools that can do the job with the smallest footprint for space and energy consumption.

I use Linux/Ubuntu on a Shuttle Computer Small Form-Factor system for my desktop that is about the size of a shoe box. For work, I am supplied with a robust Dell Inspiron 9400 that can handle video tasks. It's a laptop with a screen almost as large as my desktop screen, but wonderful for video editing.

A couple months ago, I resurrected a vintage Dell Inspiron 5000e with Windows 98 for my ultra mobile/higher risk needs like motorcycle trips. It was cobbled together with a pre-release version of Windows 2000. Although really slow with 128 MB of RAM, it was functional for browser functions.

In September, Dell debuted the Inspiron Mini 9, known as a UMPC (also known as a netbook. The tiny laptop measures Width: 9.13" (232mm) Height: 1.07" (27.2mm) front / 1.25" (31.7mm) back Depth: 6.77" (172mm). This computer is so tiny you could almost fit it into a pair of cargo pants with a large pocket.

I came to the conclusion that phone browsers aren't yet up to the task of doing all the tasks that I can do with a desktop/laptop. The only device that does this would be a mirror of my desktop/laptop, only smaller. The device would have a universal operating system like Windows XP, something that can easily accommodate Verizon's USB broadband and most of the mindset you have in place for working on a desktop/laptop.

The Mini 9 uses less power than a laptop and much less than a desktop. It uses Intel's smallest and lowest power consuming processor, the Atom. According to Intel, the chip is built with the world's smallest transistors.

The Mini 9 doesn't have a traditional hard drive with a motor and other moving parts. It uses chips to store permanent memory adding to it's frugal power consumption. Chips are also not subject to shock and the failures of mechanical hard drives in mobile applications.

My experience so far is 4+ hours of straight run time from a really tiny battery pack. The whole computer only weighs 2.28 lbs. (1.035 kg).

The Chrysler EV combines the electric-drive components of an electric vehicle with an integrated small-displacement engine and generator to produce additional electricity to power the electric-drive system when needed.

The Chrysler EV Range-extended Electric Vehicle can drive 40 miles on all-electric power, and boasts a range of 400 miles on approximately eight gallons of gasoline.

The sports car version is 100% electric 270hp 450 lbs. of torque, 0-60 in less than 5 seconds with a 150 mile range.

The video says the electric equivalent costs about 75 cents a gallon.

chrysler.com press release

Dedicated website with videos
www.chryslerllc.com

Sen. Barack Obama recently visited Voith Siemens Hydro Power Generation in West Manchester Township. Bob Silknitter, of Red Lion, raised his hand and wondered why Sen. Obama never mentions hydroelectric power during his campaign speeches exhorting clean energy alternatives.

Solar and wind can be micro installations. Small businesses, and individuals are capable of exploiting this technology now and adding renewable energy to the electric grid.

You can't dam up your backyard and build a hydro station. It would be very difficult, if impossible, for Met-Ed to dam up a portion of the Susquehanna River and build a new hydro station.

New technology will make this cheaper and more available. If people are inspired and demand their government to provide incentives to empower all of us to be energy independent.

Hydro installations are huge capital expenditures taken on by government or huge power companies. Waterways in the United States are highly regulated and highly developed with people. In short, it is really difficult to build new hydro installations.

At the turn of the century about half of US power was generated by hydro, now that amount is down to 10%. Hydro takes a huge amount of land and water and most of those ideal situations have been used in the U.S.

U.S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey has some great charts and graphs about hydro power in the U.S.

Most of the work done by Voith and American Hydro here in York is turbine replacement and to increase efficiency of the turbines at existing installations so utilities can squeeze more power out of falling water. The craftsmanship and innovation at these plants constantly evolves the planet's oldest form of producing power.

It really isn't realistic to promote hydro in the way one would promote solar and wind.

Commercial hydroelectric generation in the U.S. has been around since the 1880's Companies like Voith and American should be commended for constantly making technology this old even better.

The solar cell was invented about the same time (1883) but the evolution and application as part of our energy plan are quite different.

And a face...

A lithium-ion battery pack supplemented by a variety of propulsion possibilities will power the Chevrolet Volt, including gas and, in some vehicles, E85 ethanol to recharge the battery while you drive beyond the 40-mile battery range.

How about a clean running diesel? Diesels love to run in constant speed applications like generators.

Fully charged in 3 (220) or 8 hours (110) depending on the power source, the vehicle differs from a hybrid in that it uses its internal combustion engine to charge the batteries that turn the wheels. The ICE never drives the wheels.

Citing a 10-cent per kilowatt electric utility rate, GM estimates Volt owners will spend about 80 cents per day recharging without filling up at a gas station. boston.com

So do you think these will roll out of Chevy dealers?