Luz Ramirez Pascual's Blog (11)

Making electricity in central power plants is so 20th century. K.R. Sridhar has a better idea: Create energy on the spot, right where it's consumed. His startup, Bloom Energy is developing a fuel cell that could kick-start the distributed-energy industry.

The problem with today's centralized approach is its vast inefficiency. In coal-and gas-fired power plants, almost 2/3 of the energy produced by converting fuel into kilowatts escapes as heat. Another 8%, on average,

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Sometimes you hear about new technologies that sound scince-fiction...that's exactly what happened when I heard about this company: Eureka Aerospace, a company that has been developing a new approach towards impeding the progress of suspicious ground vehicles. They called it the High-Power Electromagnetic System for Stopping Vehicles (aka HPEMS), a compact, tunable power source and a high-gain antenna to beam microwave energy in the direction of targeted vechic

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There's not much connection between Internet and building medical devices. But that's exactly the transition made by Barry Schuler, former CEO of AOL. His two-year-old startup, Raydiance, is taking aim at the $3 billion medical laser market with a technology called USP, or ultrashort pulse.

USP lasers are phenomenally accurate and of very high intensity, and when focused, they strip the electrons from atoms in a process that vaporizes the material with extraor

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It is not just a fashionable mood ring for your single expresso. This coffee lid changes color with the temperature of your beverage (who hasn't burnt her/his tongue with Starbucks's beverages!!) and let users know how securely they're attached to cups giving retailers added protetion against coffee spills. Sidney-based Smart Lid Systems is solding out all its lids for just 5 cents a piece. Interested in reading more about it?:

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Imagine a world where you don't have to deal with "toner low" messages from your printer or to buy pricey replacement cartridges. In this new world, you may not even need a printer - because there's one built into your cell phone or your digital camera. All you need is special paper on which your words or images appear like a Polaroid picture, but without the shaking or the waiting.

Welcome to the future as envisioned by Zink (which st

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If you live in a large city in the US, you've probably seen people driving in Zipcars. These are not your typical rentals. Zipcar operates a fleet of 3,000 cars in 23 cities, but you won't find one at any airport. They are more likely to be Volkswagen Jettas or Mini Coopers than the bland sedans you get from Avis and Hertz. And there are no customer service clerks to deal with, no lines, no paper contracts to sign.

Instead, you book a car on the Web or

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Even this far into the digital age, one basic part of business remains analog: the legal contract. Now, Negonation,a Spanish start-up is decided to change the rules with Tractis, the first Web platform that lets users create, manage, and execute contracts online - no lawyers needed. The service is stocked with a data-base of contract templates from around the world, and its contracts are legally enforce-able in the offline world, even if

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It may seem strange that the emirate of Abu Dhabi, one of the planet's largest suppliers of oil, is planning to build the world's first carbon-neutral city. But in fact, it makes a lot of financial sense. Masdar, a city with a very tentative completion date of 2009, will cut its electricity bill by harnessing wind, solar, and geothermal energy, while a total ban on cars withing the city walls should reduce pollution dramatically. Examples like this makes us believe that everyone - even those who… Continue

Hotelmóvil is a Spanish company which has gone the extra mile in the recreational vehicle sector. Why? How about an 18-wheel semi that, at the press of a remote control, "pops up" into a motel with room for nearly 48 people? Yes..a Hotelmóvil arrives at a site - looking very much like a standard semi - and you simply detach the cab and hit "play" on a handheld remote to start the 30-minute hydraulic unfolding process. Four legs lower to the ground stabilize the structure, the second story rises… Continue

Did you know that an Israeli physician may have stumbled on a pill that treats obesity without side effects- one that has been right under our noses for more than 60 years?

After learning that blocking the brain's histamine-1 receptor causes weight gain, Nir Barak a Tel Aviv-based nutrition expert went hunting for a drug that would stimulate that receptor. He found B

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The next wage in Electricity

The potential market for wave energy - electricity generated by bouys - is worth $1 trillion worldwide, according to the World Energy Council, a nonprofit research organization. In the US alone, wave technology could supply 6.5% of the nation's energy. Therefore, companies like Ocean Power Delivery (OPD) of Scotland, have began sending electricity to 1,500 homes on Portugal's north coast from a wave fa

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