Clean And Expensive

There is a tipping point in the Climate Change debate where clean energy starts competing in price with dirty energy.

Why Solar Is Much More Costly Than Wind or Hydro

no surprise that if environmental costs are considered, renewables—particularly wind power—are a far better bargain than coal power. But it might surprise many that according to a new such analysis, solar power lags far behind wind and even hydroelectric power in its economic impact, at least in the European Union. ........ the economic costs of climate change, pollution, and resource depletion as well as the current capital and operating costs of the power plants ....... a metric ton of emitted carbon dioxide costs around €43 ($55). ...... many of world’s solar panels are manufactured in China, where electricity is very carbon-intensive ...... new coal and natural gas plants in the E.U. have levelized costs of just over €50 ($64) (in 2012 euros) per megawatt-hour (assuming they are running at maximum capacity); onshore wind is around €80 ($102) per megawatt-hour; utility scale solar PV is about €100 ($127); nuclear power is around €90 ($115); and hydropower is as cheap as €10.

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New York To DC In An Hour

Makes total sense. Boston to NYC to Philly to Baltimore to DC totally deserves this. So it would not matter where you worked and where you live. It would take the Northeast economy to a whole new level. The whole of Northeast would become one mega city.

Maglev Train Seen Making Washington-to-Baltimore Trip at 311 MPH

a $10 billion Japanese magnetic-levitation train line to the 40-mile (64 kilometer) Washington-Baltimore corridor for 15-minute trips ..... Japan is looking for an overseas customer for maglev technology as the country works toward opening its first line in 2027. ...... Maglev trains rely on magnetic power to float the cars above the ground, eliminating the friction of steel tracks. The trains start off running on wheels, the same as used on F-15 fighter jets, until they’re going fast enough for the magnets to kick in and create lift. ..... A Washington-Baltimore starter line eventually may be extended to New York, putting the biggest U.S. city within reach of the capital in 60 minutes by train ..... proposed line could carry about 9.2 million passengers a year

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Data Security

Edward Snowden showed the government is dipping into data centers at will. That set off alarm bells. It's not just the government. There are many prying eyes.

The “Soft and Chewy Centers” That Put Your Data at Risk

More and more sensitive data is being entrusted to data centers connected to the Internet. ...... The interior of those complex networks is mostly unobserved or protected, meaning that attackers who manage to remotely access the computers can explore mostly as they please .... Servers inside modern data centers usually run multiple copies of Windows, or Linux-based operating systems at the same time. Illumio’s product works by attaching software “agents” to each of the operating systems inside every server. The data those agents send back to Illumio’s central control panel provide a global view of the data moving around inside a data center. Responses to suspicious activity can then be sent back to the software agents for enforcement—potentially shutting down hacking attacks as they happen. ..... “Overall, network security solutions haven’t evolved for the past 20-plus years”

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Star Citizen: Gamers Pay For Gaming

Gamers' funding fuels meteoric rise of 'Star Citizen'

Roberts' brain spun out a grand vision: a rich, immersive galaxy; exquisite spaceships traversing between infinite star systems with thousands of computer gamers manning the cockpits, racing, dogfighting and defending humanity. ...... it would be built outside the traditional publisher system dominated by big game companies such as Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts. ....... The vision was clear. All he required was money. ....... Chris is demonstrating you can fund 100% development of a game if you have an audience that wants the game. We've never seen this for a game of this size. ..... Roberts — former Hollywood producer, movie director and veteran computer game creator — had a plan: raise several million dollars from true believers who would place advance orders. That would prove demand to venture capitalists, who could supply the tens of millions of dollars more that "Star Citizen" would require. ...... It turned out he didn't need the venture capitalists......... More than $58 million has poured into the coffers of Roberts' West Hollywood company, Cloud Imperium Games Corp., since "Star Citizen's" inception two years ago. And cash continues to flow — nearly all of it raised from hard-core gamers who make pre-orders and spend cash on digital goods that range from one-man spaceships to interstellar caterpillars that look cool when they explode in space. ....... Small-scale video games have raised as much as a few million dollars through crowdfunding, a fundraising technique in which creators pitch ideas on the Web to attract relatively small amounts of cash from lots of people. But "Star Citizen" did something extraordinary: It quickly reached the several-million mark and then blew past it. ...... The result is a game industry phenomenon. .... The full product isn't scheduled for completion until sometime in 2016, but, according to Roberts, more than 600,000 fans worldwide are playing modules of the partly built game and suggesting improvements to developers. And they're buying digital goods — an average of more than $90 per crowdfund contributor. Roberts attributes the success to the game's possibility to last a lifetime. ...... "The idea is to make it a huge space playground that you dream of spending time in if you've ever watched 'Star Wars,'" he said. "You can be a pilot, a mercenary, an explorer, a salvager; everything's available to you." ....... Cloud Imperium's website features a live fundraising tracker and monthly progress reports on the accomplishments of its 280 employees and contractors ...... He's spent $1,500 on spaceships, including $300 this month to partner with a wingman to buy the 890 Jump, an exclusive space yacht whose "very presence signifies power," according to Cloud Imperium. ...... "How many of us have dreamed of being astronauts at some point?" Snyder said. "This is the only way it's going to happen these days for a lot of us ...... By 2011, technology had "massively changed," he said. Powerful graphics processors, computer chips and memory cards had become cheap enough for Roberts to deliver a game that drops people and their friends into an Internet-hosted universe where players by the thousands interact in a virtual reality. ....... Activision's console title "Destiny," a first-person shooter game released last month, sold 5 million copies in its first five days. ...... With their support, he avoided the strings of big corporations and wealthy individuals......... The video game market is huge: $15.4 billion in U.S. sales alone in 2013 .... About half of that revenue comes from digital content like "Star Citizen," downloaded on a computer, not bought in a store. ...... Cloud Imperium's marketing budget includes large dollops spent on keeping the community engaged, holding live events, producing regular programs on YouTube and Twitch, and pumping out promotional videos that trumpet the latest spaceships on sale as if they were the newest must-have Mercedes-Benzes. ...... I wouldn't be surprised by $100 million in crowdfunding

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Magic Leap: Magically Augmented Reality

I am impressed Google has been able to spot this company. Looks like Google has scouts that are constantly scouring through the tech startup landscape to try and find the next big things. What it can not do in-house, it hopes to invest in heavily. Good idea. Not even Google can do it all in-house. Google could kill Magic Leap if it acquired it, even Google could. And they are pretty good when it comes to innovation. They can claims to be the most innovative large company out there.

Magic Leap: Google bets big on augmented reality firm

Google is making a big bet on augmented reality, leading a $542 million investment in a shadowy startup called Magic Leap, based in Dania Beach, Florida. ..... The investment, one of the largest ever made by Google ..... Magic Leap - which superimposes animated digital imagery over what someone sees with the naked eye - ...... the little known company outlines an ambitious vision for displaying rich interactive graphics alongside what people see naturally, using what it calls a dynamic digitized lightfield signal. ..... "Magic Leap is an eclectic group of visionaries, rocket scientists, wizards, and gurus from the fields of film, robotics, visualization, software, computing, and user experience" ...... Magic Leap's chief executive, Rony Abovitz. "Magic Leap is going beyond the current perception of mobile computing, augmented reality, and virtual reality. We are transcending all three, and will revolutionize the way people communicate, purchase, learn, share and play."

Google Invests Heavily in Magic Leap’s Effort to Blend Illusion and Reality

hammerhead sharks will swim through your office, elephants will fit in the palm of your hand and dragons will fly among the birds...... landed Google as its biggest investor. ..... Valuing Magic Leap at about $2 billion, the $542 million cash infusion from Google and other investors immediately vaulted the shadowy start-up into the upper echelons of young technology companies....... Ma gic Leap’s soaring valuation is based on little more than an ambitious vision and some nascent code. Magic Leap, which is based far from Silicon Valley in the suburbs of Miami, has no revenue — and no products currently on the market....... Details about Magic Leap’s plans remain sketchy. ..... Seahorses float above children in a schoolroom. A yellow submarine hovers near an outdoor promenade. An astronaut walks through a train station. ....... an ambitious vision for displaying rich interactive graphics alongside what people see naturally, using what it calls a dynamic digitized lightfield signal. ...... “Magic Leap is going beyond the current perception of mobile computing, augmented reality and virtual reality” ..... “We are transcending all three, and will revolutionize the way people communicate, purchase, learn, share and play.” ........ augmented reality could become a new platform — one that he argued could outstrip mobile devices in popularity. He compared the potential advancements to the rise of cinema: a new way of seeing the world. In this case, the start-up’s technology allows highly realistic graphics to appear alongside real-life objects. ........ Magic Leap is better coordinated with how the human eye and brain process images, making the computer graphics feel, and move, more naturally. ......... the technology could be applied to an array of other applications, creating a real-life equivalent to the magical newspaper from the “Harry Potter” books. ....... “For a while, we thought it was technically impossible, and then financially impossible,” he said. “Now it’s technically and financially possible.” ......... With more than $60 billion in the bank, Google cannot seem to find enough ways to invest its money. Google Ventures, the company’s venture capital arm, has invested in diverse companies including Blue Bottle Coffee and Uber, the on-demand taxi service. ....... The tech giant has spent much of the last two years trying to gain entry to essentially everything with an Internet connection ....... Google and Facebook ....... “They’re willing to take risks on the belief that their business will not be around forever” ...... “an eclectic group of visionaries, rocket scientists, wizards and gurus from the fields of film, robotics, visualization, software, computing and user experience”

Magic Leap raises $542 million Series B to bring realistic augmented reality to life

It announced a $542 million Series B round today, raising its total funding to date to $592 million. ....... Magic Leap has yet to show the public a product. ..... Right now, most augmented reality involves a semi-transparent screen floating in your field of view. It doesn’t cover the entirety of what you can see, and it’s rare that it actually interacts with reality. ........ That kind of augmented reality takes some intense computing and advanced graphics. I have yet to see a headset and software demonstrated at that level from any company. ...... if it works, Magic Leap is coming for just about every industry ...... “[Magic Leap] will revolutionize the way people communicate, purchase, learn, share and play”

Google takes big leap of faith in next-gen augmented reality tech

"cinematic reality." ..... Such "reality" will supposedly produce a more realistic 3D experience than anything else created so far. The company is reportedly working on hardware and software that can deliver augmented reality, including adding computer-generated images as an overlay onto what people can already see. ...... An interesting thing to note is this funding is being led by Google and not Google Ventures or Google Capital. As such, Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Android, Chrome and Apps at Google, will join the board at Magic Leap. ...... an elephant hovering in someone's hands or a submarine that is floating around in a city. ....... "It's one of the few things I've ever experienced in my life where I came out and said, 'This changes everything. This is a marker of the future.' " ...... "The space program had Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions, and we're in our Apollo phase," continued Abovitz. "We know that space travel is possible. We're in the middle of full-blown product development and commercialization."

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