On February 24th, 2010, we were finally enlightened as to what Bloom Energy, after almost 9 years of research and development with over $400 million in investments, have been working on. Its called the Bloom Energy Server. What now, you ask? According to the company, the Bloom Energy Server is a solid oxide fuel cell technology designed as a new class of distributed power generators. In lay terms, small, clean, affordable power plants right in your homes or businesses. For those of us not aware of what exactly is a fuel cell, then let yourself be enlightened. Fuel Cells are devices, like batteries, that create electricity by processing fuel through an electro-chemical process. However, unlike batteries, fuel cells never lose power. Fuel cells are commonly found in your everyday hybrid and electric cars.

Bloom Energy Servers are self-sustaining power generators so they don’t need to be hooked up to the central grid to distribute electricity. Instead, fuel (both renewable and fossil) mixed with simply oxygen is what is required to create the electricity, right on the spot. Now you are probably saying, that’s crazy man, this sounds more like rocket science? Funny thing, it’s founder and creator of Bloom Energy Server K. R. Sridhar was a NASA scientist, and this fuel cell technology is a modification of a technology originally meant for the Mars Program. However, since Mars project was scrapped, so K.R. took this rocket science and turned into something for the rest of the world. But the most astonishing part about all this technology, unlike its sister hydrogen based fuel cell constructed from expensive materials like platinum, the Bloom Energy fuel is made out of common, ordinary beach sand. SAY WHAT? Beach Sand, Oh and a secret paint coating that K.R. developed himself. Fine, this technology is literally space age, but so what? What does it mean for the U.S? That’s a valid question. So lets talk numbers.

According to Bloom Energy, one single Bloom Energy Server has the capacity to produce power of about 100 kW which can run a 30,000 sq. ft. office building or 100 Average North American Homes, while its foot print is no larger then a parking space. Now the price tag on this magical power generator is still unknown, but K.R. hopes that he can refine the manufacturing process to the point where the cost of a single Bloom Energy Server should range in the vicinity of $3000 USD. But that is a long way. As part of its commercial research, prominent corporate giants like Google, ebay, FedEx, Walmart, Bank of America, Coke, and Staples have already been using Bloom Energy Servers. Right now, information is still flowing in, as the launch was just a couple of days ago. But, if K. R. can pull this off, couple of years into the future, very near future, the possibility of having your own power plant in your back yard could be a possibility. Regardless of what the future is like, K. R., you have my attention, forget about paying off my student loans, I am saving my money for my own Power Plant.

Author:Aadil Maan

One of my friends often says Google is the new God. It knows everything and what it does not know, it is working very heard to find out. However, the trend is now changing to Facebook.

In past few months, almost every one of Facebook’s applications has raised issues of privacy and how safe it is for people to use it. And almost every debate ends with the fact that there are people who oppose it and there are people who are all for it.

Chris Mejaski (centre-left), Tim Inman (centre-right) and other pairs of Facebook look-alikes.

The latest one is finding your look-alike on Facebook. The application uses the same technology used by security agencies; however it just puts the same fact more nicely, saying “you’ll be able to find a person that looks just like you.”

The disclaimer is how you use this application is “up to you.”

Experts are obviously not too happy with this application. University of Toronto’s Professor Andrew Clement researches online privacy and did not feel comfortable using the application.

Why?

He says “I’m not sure that it’s harmless.”  “Once you’ve allowed it, it looks like it’s too late. There’s no indication of your privacy rights, whether you can pull out if you don’t like it.”

In spite of the privacy issues, more than 200,000 people have already signed up and found their look-alikes. Most of them are not looking to find their childhood lost twins or any such matter, but the photos are remarkably similar.

Professor Clement points to another hazard of the application: “all the matches on the Facebook application point to a flaw in larger databases. People do look like each other, which can create hassles if you have the misfortune of sharing facial features with a criminal.”

“If one of your doubles comes afoul of the law, and they (government or police) use facial recognition software on your face, that other person is very likely to come up,” he says. “It shows a match without it being a match. This is a very big problem for large-scale databases.”

Author:

I have been on Twitter for close to a year and I thought that I was a late adopter, however, I still hear comments such as ”No, I am not on Twitter”, ”How do you use Twitter?”, ”Why should I use Twitter?” or “I am addicted to Twitter.” In this post, I share some of my thoughts, experiences and tips on how one can use Twitter effectively to add more value to personal and professional life.

When a year back I joined Twitter, I could find a handful of friends who had a sleeping account on Twitter, that is they were on it but not actively using it. I found Twitter very useful right from the beginning.

Three Best Reasons to have Twitter Account:

There were three main reasons for why I found Twitter useful – first, the time when I joined Twitter the Mumbai attacks happened and I could get all the news about Mumbai on Twitter. I really felt more connected to the incident. I was not just a spectator to the event, but I could actively engage with people living in Mumbai and experiencing the incident.

The second great thing was that I was immediately connected with professionals, researchers and academicians engaged in new media research.

Third was that I found myself amidst an active community of bloggers and thinkers. Almost immediately, instead of being an isolated grad student, I became a part of active community with similar interests and professions. In short, I found a whole new world opening before me. 

Even in my offline life, I had an immediate effect of joining Twitter. I enjoyed recounting my Twitter experiences to my friends, colleagues and acquaintances about how important Twitter is. Also it became a habit to ask anyone I met, if they were on Twitter. It was almost like instead of asking them their email ID, I felt more comfortable asking them about their Twitter handle. I felt, it was easier to connect through Twitter.

How to Use Twitter?

Now we get to the question of how to use Twitter effectively. Once you sign up for Twitter, you will create your account, here are simple tips that may help you –

Be authentic – I think there is a lot of value in being authentic and your real self if you want to engage with serious and like-minded individuals.

First, use your real name for your twitter account so that when someone is searching for you they can find you. Also use a short and snappy twitter handle but use a part of your real name. 

Second, put a good close-up shot of yourself. A simple photo is good but if the photo can show your personality then it is even better. Be very clear about how you want to project your image. Because when you put your picture on Twitter, the whole world can see it even if you protect your updates. So put a nice smiling picture. 

Third, give an adequate one-line description of yourself. When writing your description, use words through which you would like to connect with people. For example, I used “mobile phone research” and “youth” because I wanted to connect with people who are interested in these two topics.

Following and followers – The first thing you need to do after joining Twitter is to follow individuals who you think, you will find interesting. First use your email list to identify who is already on Twitter and then follow them or you can go through their follower-list to identify people you may find interesting. In the beginning try and follow few people. You can also use the search options to find people you might want to follow, but who may not be on your email list. But do follow some active users so that you can understand the use of Twitter and what happens on it. 

Tweet - Twitter allows you to send out tweets in 140 characters. Use them wisely. If you are using it for professional purpose, try and update more work-related tweets, if you are a blogger, you may want to share your blog posts and get people’s reactions. You can use Twitter to ask questions and even have a good discussion. Even if you are using Twitter for professional purpose, it might be a good idea to intersperse few tweets about your personal life, where are you and what you are doing are important information about you. It helps build your online personality. You can also decide to protect your tweets, so that you can decide who receives your tweets. I think initially that’s not a great idea, but you may differ. 

1. Retweet – Twitter also allows you to retweet someone else’s tweets which you find interesting or you think may be of interest to your followers. Always acknowledge the person whose tweet you are retweeting.

5. Technology – You can tweet from your cell phone, mobile device or from your computer. If you are a beginner and do not want to spend too much time, you may not want to integrate your mobile device with Twitter. However, if you do, you may want to set aside 10 – 20 min a day to check your tweets. Because it can be very overwhelming in the beginning to check it every time you receive a tweet. 

6. Hashtags – Hashtags # have a great significance in twitterville, so use them wisely. When you see a hashtag appearing before a word, it means that there are a few people following that particular subject. You can also do a hashtag search on twitter by using this link - http://search.twitter.com/. It shows some of the trending topics on Twitter. You can use this search even if you are not on Twitter. 

Finally, have fun and make the most of your twitter experience. Let me know how you liked my post and if you have anything to add or share. Happy Tweeting!!!

   Author: Priyanka Matanhelia is a media studies doctoral candidate and her research is on mobile phone usage amongst North America Indian youth. Her blog is available on http://priyankasblog.com/.

The sight of a teen texting on his/her sidekick or phone is nothing new, be it a shopping mall, a living room, gym or even a classroom. Teenagers in North America are used to having cell phones at the young age of 12 or 13, some even before. However as the years have passed by, teens are now developing a new trend of texting more instead of talking on the phone. Many school officials considered having phones in classrooms a big distraction but this text-obsession might end up being a serious one.

As of the year 2008, more than 75 billion text messages are sent each month compared to 18 billion in the year 2006 which shows an increase of more than 200 percent. 

Many teenagers say it’s easier and more advantageous to text than to call a person. Teens believe it’s awkward to talk on the phone especially when the conversation has a “dead end” where no one knows what to say. Savannah Young, an employee with the Revol Wireless store on South Raccoon Road in Austintown, believes “With texting it’s to the point, so like three hours later, you might resume your conversation. If you get a text back, that’s cool, but if not, that’s OK.”

Furthermore, recent phones like iPhone, blackberry and G1 have Wi-Fi enabled which allow a user to use the internet but many use it just for IM or chat. Psychologists believe that “tapping away on a mobile phone or computer keypad or checking them for electronic messages” temporarily takes away 10 points from a user’s IQ. This means that Electronic messaging lowers a user’s IQ by 10 points which is higher than Marijuana which lowers it by four points.

80% of teens own cell phones

Average of to get a phone is between 10 and 11

Teens average 2,272 texts per month

An average teen sends 75 texts per day

40 percent teens can text blindfolded

In addition, text messaging is more dangerous than just reducing someone’s IQ.  Brandie J. Conklin who was 22 died on April 12^th as her car crashed with a milk truck. Officials have said that she had been exchanging text messages with her boyfriend at the time of the crash. Eleven States in the U.S have already passed laws which prohibit texting while driving which include Alaska, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Utah, Virginia and Washington—and the District of Columbia.

Author: Rahul Mehta

Tough economic times call for innovative approaches. With the unemployment rate on the rise, how does one find career opportunities fast? One great option is Twitter.

Twitter( ) is evolving as another resource, in addition to traditional methods, for both job searching and recruiting.

Twitter( ) is evolving as another resource, in addition to traditional methods, for both job searching and recruiting.

Get the most out of your page

• Make your Twitter presence “employer-friendly”

o Put your job pitch in your Twitter bio (which is 160 characters)
o Use a professional looking avatar
o Tweet about your job search

• Utilize your Twitter background. There’s lots of space you can use to promote yourself. Don’t know how to create a professional-looking Twitter background? Use this free template to design your own.

• Include a link to an online CV or resume in your bio. Use a tool like VisualCV. (For more information on building an online resume, see Dan Schawbel’s post HOW TO: Build the Ultimate Social Media Resume)

• Establish yourself as an expert in your field on Twitter. It’s important to note that you should not misrepresent yourself. If you’re not a medical doctor, don’t play one on Twitter. As those on Twitter become interested in your content, when employers are looking at you, you’ll have more than just your resume to back up your knowledge and experience.

 “It’s about who you know”

How do you get to know the right people? It’s not always about who you’re looking for, some people on Twitter are actually looking for YOU.

There are many job recruiters who use Twitter to look for potential candidates. Before contacting a recruiter via Twitter, check out:

•Their bio
• Follower/Following ratio (Have they been around a while? Do they follow people back?)
• Click the link to their website
• Ask others in your network whether or not the recruiter is a credible source

Author: Sarah Evans is the director of communications at Elgin Community College (ECC) in Elgin

As I was leaving work at the end of the week, my friend rushed out, knocking a few things on his way out. I followed him because we go together but he said that he wanted to catch an early TTC train. I asked why impatiently. His response was

“Because I have to water my plums.”

For a moment, I thought I hadn’t heard right. I asked again. The same response followed as I almost ran after him towards Dundas Square.

“Plums? You don’t have plums in your garden. What are you talking about?”

“Which world do you live in? You can be a farmer at Facebook.”

Facebook?

“I hate Facebook. You know that and what is this plantation thing.”

What he told me went well over my head. I have hated Facebook; I always will. To my mind, it took over verbal communication with friends…and maybe loss of language from human species all together.

But apparently from what I gathered from my friend’s conversation, Facebook plantation has taken over minds of many smart people.

As if this dosage of watering my barren mind was not enough, my sister came to me seeking help in her Math paper the same night at home.

But as the clock struck 10, she got up and ran to her laptop while I was teaching her by the way.

I complained to my mom about this sheer rudeness and for what? Farming – on the Facebook.

Now this was too much.

I decided to research it. As I did so, I was taken aback by the vocabulary used in this Facebook application: hoe,  plow fields, scythe, harvest, shed, fertilizer, seeds, crops, farm animals and so on. This goes as far as to hire workers to plow your fields for you, to water the choice of your vegetable or fruits, for God sake!   And add to that newsletter called “Buckeye Farm News.” There are instructions available online on how you protect your farm from cheaters.

Either I am crazy or there really is much fun in it. I think there is fun with colourful presentation, engaging music, pop-up instructions on how to proceed with the next level of plantation.

Here’s how you do it:

Once you are a Facebook user, simply search the applications for “Farm Town”. When you are prompted, allow access to the application and it will set up a new virtual farm for you. All “farmers” start at Level 1 as a “Getting Started Farmer”. With the game “coins” you will begin by using the “hoe” icon to plow fields, the “store icon” to buy seeds to plant and the “scythe” icon to harvest them. Once you harvest them(and always use the harvest and store option – you get more coins than harvest and sell!), you will see the harvests accumulate in your “shed”. When you are ready, click the shed icon and it will take you to the market to sell the harvest for more coins. Then you go back to your farm to plow and plant more seeds!

As with all real farm communities, growth comes with community! The second option to earning coins is to visit the marketplace FIRST and hire workers to pick your crops for you. They receive a nice payment of coins and you receive your full crop price – PLUS 25% for hiring them to do it. You will ALWAYS receive more for your crops if someone else harvests them. A hint – add the workers you hire to your buddy list

As in real life, as you get more money, your options increase. With each new level, new seeds and farm items will become available for you to buy. The seeds will cost more but will yield more coins when harvested.

I tried following these instructions. I tried planting pineapples…Gosh…I don’t even know if pineapples grow in this season…but I did it.

My conclusion.

I still hate Facebook. Come on people I know you hate me for saying this, but isn’t our life already too busy without Facebook farming.

    \\

 Author: Rahul Mehta

With schools open again, class boredom will have to be combated. Ever thought how? Well, just think of the Gameboy. Sure there is the PSP, which is the latest innovation and here is a quick glimpse at Nintendo’s latest creation.

With the Gameboy, Nintendo revolutionized handheld gaming and conquered the portable world. It actually happened with the launch of the DS/DS Lite itself, and now with DSi, they made an intriguing evolution.

Holding the DSi is a pleasant experience for sure. It’s twelve times thinner and wider than the DS Lite, in fact what makes it more attractive is its grippy matte finish.  All these tiny details make you feel more comfortable. After hours of play, the DS Lite surely becomes little inconvenient. This is not the case with DSi. You can feel the difference of comfort while playing with it during long lectures.

Though the buttons most probably appear same to the naked eye, they’re coated with a new texture. The D-Pad and XYAB buttons are less mushy than the DS Lite. The start and select buttons are bigger and easier to press, and the L and R shoulders click with all the obviousness that you would want in a button.

The biggest upgrade, however is that the console now boasts an ARM9E CPU clocked at 133 MHz (in place of the original ARM9/66MHz) and has a 16 MB RAM. The biggest downgrade is the missing GBA slot.

Apart from a new body, the DSi’s interface has been redesigned for better. Navigation occurs through a single row of icons. Moving between programs is fairly snappy, and most icons are big enough on the new touch screen allowing for stylus-less navigation. In other words, you can use your fingers most of the time.

The first time you load the DSi, it snaps a shot of your face. Your face then fills the entire top screen whenever you’re in the main menu screen. From the main screen, you can take a picture at any time by pressing the L or R shoulder buttons. You can toggle the camera that you’d like to use, too. From the built in programs, the power button acts as a home button, bringing you back to the main screen with a soft reset. (It’s useful, until you realize that this poorly-placed button can be hit easily mid-game, resetting the system without saving.)

The biggest disadvantage however is the Opera browser. Kids will have foray with internet porn. And the experience will be far more traumatizing when they loose their virginity.

WarioWare: Snapped! Its like any other typical WarioWare game (collection of frantically paced mini games) but you can use the DSi’s camera for motion control. When things work, its fun to reposition your head to catch a dropping hat, or grab coins before the buzzer runs out. But it also stresses the limitations of the DSi’s camera. Often, in a variety of lighting situations, you simply can not get the camera/game to recognize faces/hands. And in these cases, the game is nothing more than contortionist’s torture as you try to line yourself up with the DSi’s camera and a lighting source. 

Brain Age Express: Math is essential. The math sections of Brain Age 1 and Brain Age 2 are broken out here in the game. It’s a good deal if you are looking to improve your math. There are also mini-games inside this that make you act and make faces for the DSi’s camera.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with either of these games, but these are essentially mini games within a system that’s already founded on mini games. The DSi could make DS gaming into something frighteningly granular. Then again, $2-$5 DSiWare quality already looks to outpace the games you get on the iPhone for the same amount.

Why You’d Want to Upgrade

• You want access to DSiWare (downloadable mini games/apps)

• The DS Lite feels too narrow for your hands

• You’re a screen real estate individual

• Nintendo will release full games that have DSi-specific functionality

• You like new things

Why You’d Want to Stick with the DS Lite

• The DS Lite is $130 ($40 cheaper than the DSi)

• It accepts old R4 cards and other ROM loaders

• Longer battery life (19 hour max vs. 14 hour max)

• You’re racist and only want to play on a white console

By: Bhaven Kapadia

A revolution has taken place and we haven’t really even thought about it, yet we are living it everyday. The majority of the Internet is Free. Free as in liberal speech and Free as in lunch. But its the latter that I am interested in and so is every Internet company (from startups to the established brands). Yes, we pay for our Internet usage to our ISP (well, those of us not stealing WiFi from our neighbors), but that is the cost of the distribution infrastructure, not the actual content. From news articles, funny on-demand videos, search results to your social network of choice – these are services that provide us with value at no cost to us.

Why we don’t pay for viewing websites?

The revolution is that as we move from the world of the atoms to the world of bits we inherently change our economic point-of-view. And why not? It costs an insignificant amount per user to distribute the 0s and 1s of the Internet that its not worth it for a company to charge nickels and dimes to us. Given the decision to pay even 1 cent online for everything we do would severely limit how we use the Internet. The mental cost of making the decision to pay for something would cripple our usage. Not to mention that a competitor would come along that will provide a free service because the cost is marginal for getting our attention.

 That has been the trend driving every website to move to a model where $0 is price to use their service. But then what? Sure it costs practically nothing to serve a single user, but what happens when you have a million users and “practically nothing” amounts to several hundred thousands in server and maintenance costs?

So how does this really work?

Make money by making your website go viral!

Free is not a new concept, as Chris Anderson points out in his new book “Free: The Future of a Radical Price”. Marketers have been using this concept to get consumers to buy “2 for 1″ or to try out a sample that hooks you on the product, or even give away hardware for free or really cheap but make up the money on expensive but necessary accessories (think free printers to sell ink). Radio has been free and so has the content on cable television – supported by advertising of course. 

The move from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 has been defined in various technical (desktop-like interactions, user-friendly) and social ways (collaboration, crowdsourcing). But one other way to describe it is the trend of building websites that gain lots of users as quickly as possible without a solid business model (also known as making your site go “viral”). Then somehow or other the site would make money by being acquired by a larger company or by laying out advertising on the page and hoping people would click on them. Well Google did it they say! But Google is a search provider – people are trying to find something, so its only natural to show them an ad. But you aren’t trying to find anything when you are talking to your best friend.

 The new web, Web 3.0 which again can be described in many different terms (semantic web, personalized/humanized web, mobile web) can also be thought of in terms of a more economically stable web. And we are in the midst of it.

Websites may even Charge you to use their service

Companies will no longer just rely on advertising (and advertising itself will be highly targeted and relevant). In fact, websites may even – hope you are seated for this – charge you to use their service!

 Actually, even this is not new. As in anything on the web, it is simply a reshaping of previous models and ideas. There is also no hard-line between the different “versions” of the web. What I am talking about has successfully been adopted before by Flickr, LinkedIn and Basecamp, but its adoption to the rest of the web is only now starting to happen.

‘Freemium’-10% users pay for all others

The business model is called “freemium”, where a basic form of the service is free and support say 90% of users, and premium features cost a subscription free per month or year by the rest of the users. So 10% of the users of a site can essentially subsidize the use for the rest of the 90%. But why would a company even care about those 90% of users? Well – they act as proponents of the service (word-of-mouth marketers) and as potential customer base to transform into the premium service. They also are very adept at producing content (added value to your service) and driving traffic to your site (increasing your brand and reputation). The real trick is figuring out what features 10% of your users will be willing to pay for and what limitations will not annoy your free users. 

But if you can figure this out for your web startup, then you can leverage free to actually make a lot of money. This may all be not-so-new to some of you but what will be interesting about the new sustainable web is how freemium and other creative business models that leverage free will evolve.

Author: Fahad Butt