OK, admittedly, so-called "smart" electricity meters may not have the cool factor of say, smart refrigerators. But Britain is banking on them to help citizens save money, and help the country meet its European Union obligations to reduce energy consumption and cut carbon emissions. If all goes according to the British government's plan, the next decade will usher in a huge roll-out of smart meters in the UK. So, my Wide Angle assignment was simple: find someone in the smart meter industry who could tell me how smart meters work, and what kind of energy savings one might be able to expect. I found Mark England, Managing Director of a company called Sentec, which is based in beautiful Cambridge, England. England in England...I like that. Anyway, Mark told me that Sentec's been around for 12 years or so, and has been working on smart meters, and in particular the sensor technologies embedded in smart meters, for the past five years. I start the podcast with a very simple question: just what is a smart meter, and how does it work?
Some weeks it is very hard to pull out one story from the Technology Podcast to feature front and center on the blog. After all, this week we run a wide tech gamut, featuring everything from writer Evgeny Morozov talking about the so-called "Twitter Revolution" in Moldova to Urban Pac-Man on the streets of Lyon, France. But for my money, the worthiest little story this week is about a solar oven, or "cooker" as the Brits would call it. It's called the Kyoto Box, and it recently took first prize for "green ideas" in a competition run by an organization called Forum for the Future. Solar ovens, which use sunlight to cook food or boil water, are not a new idea. But the Kyoto Box may be a game-changer because...well, they've kept the cost down by making it of cardboard. Yep, cardboard. We have an interview with the Kenya-based inventor of the Kyoto Box, Jon Bohmer. He tells us that he feels widespead use of the Kyoto Box would cut down on the burning of wood and other fossil fuels in resource-deprived parts of the world. Advantages: no carcinogenic wood smoke to be inhaled, or to contribute to global warming. Disadvantage: can cardboard really work as a cooker without catching on fire? Ah....listen in to find out.
There are also a couple of interesting, and potentially scary, security-related items in this week's podcast. We hear about the growing cyber-threats to America's electricity grid, and also about how extremist groups are using US servers to host their websites.
At the end, we lighten things up a bit. Jerome Burg is a retired teacher living in northern California. For more than 35 years, he taught high school English and tried to avoid chaperoning dances by also teaching technology to the school's journalism students. Then, a few years back, he was at Google headquarters learning about Google Earth, and it hit him: why not use Google Earth's different tools to help "three-dimensionalize" great works of literature? You know, add pictures, notes, geographical details, etc. Yeah, not bad, is it? And that's how Burg came to create GoogleLitTrips was born. The site recently won the 2008 Goldman Sachs Foundation Prize for Excellence in International Education.
Oh, and just because you know you secretly just HAVE to see this...video from Urban Pac-Man in Lyon, France:
I'm sorry, but you have to love a robotic fish, especially one that is being deployed to combat pollution. This little guy's been swimming around the London aquarium for a while, but Tech Podcast 236 brings word that schools of the little beauties will be equipped with sensors, and then deployed to monitor pollution at ports around Europe. Bottom feeders, indeed. We'll hear from Rory Doyle, a researcher who is involved in the project.
We also hear about Omidreza Mirsayafi, an Iranian blogger who recently died in the country's notorious Evin Prison. Mirsayafi had been arrested once before, but released. Then, in February, he was summoned again for questioning, and detained. It is unclear exactly how Mirsayafi died, although as you'll hear in the podcast, he had been extremely depressed since being detained. Most of the articles on Mirsayafi' blog were about Persian music and culture, not politics. Human rights groups are calling for an investigation into the circumstances surrounding his death. This post will give you a feel for Mirsayafi's writing.
There was a lot of feedback, both on the blog and via email, to our segment last week on closed-circuit television in the United Kingdom. One great email came from Doktor Jon, a 30 year industry veteran who took some of our coverage to task. Listen in to our follow-up and have some CCTV myths and statistics questioned and debunked.
And we end with homage to Battlestar Galactica (BSG), the Sci-Fi network's immense "reimaging" of the original series. We know it's not strictly tech, or even science, but we couldn't resist including it this week, considering the United Nations thinks that the way BSG tackled hot topics like terrorism, torture and refugees makes it worthy of (a panel) discussion. Frak me.
Let's face it. If you really wanted to make "green" choices this Christmas when it comes to purchases of fancy gadgets and gizmos, you'd look around and just admit that you have enough. Just say no. You don't need a newer cell phone, a second mp3 player, or a 52-inch plasma screen television. Bah, humbug, I know. It isn't going to go down that way. But that doesn't mean you and I can't try to be a bit greener this holiday season. And so, Greenpeace gives you Version 10 of its "Guide to Greener Electronics." It takes 18 computer, game console, cell phone and television makers to task, rating them on a set of criteria that are part of Greenpeace's Toxic Tech campaign. From Greenpeace:
Companies are scored on disclosure of their greenhouse gas emissions,
commitment for absolute cuts in their own emissions and support for the
mandatory global emissions reductions that are needed to tackle climate
change. On energy efficiency, a selection of each company’s product
range is assessed to see how far they exceed the current de-facto
global standard, the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star. Energy Star sets minimum standards for energy efficiency for many types of electronic products. The overall percentage of renewable energy in a companies total energy use is also assessed.
Electronic, or e-waste, is something this blog has tackledbefore. Top score (6.9 out of 10, Greenpeace notes, isn't all that great, but...) goes to Finnish cell phone maker Nokia. The company's phones still contain plenty of different materials that don't break down in the environment, but it got high marks for its voluntary take-back program, which includes more than 5,000 collection points in some 124 countries for phones deemed to be at the end of their lives. Also, Nokia phone chargers exceed Energy Star requirements. Looking at the graphic above (and you can click on the image for a larger version), I'm feeling ever so slightly smug that I'm packing a Nokia N-95, and not an iPhone.
But then again, I will admit that I'm jonesing for a Nintendo Wii these days. Ouch, Nintendo, the report notes "remains in last place with a pitiful .8 points out of 10, scoring zero on all e-waste criteria." Maybe Chris and Andy over at Powrtalk, or Alyssa over at Super Duper Sustainable Stuff can tell me how many trees I need to plant to offset a Wii purchase?
Believe it or not, what you're looking at there is essential to your cell phone, your Playstation, and a host of other electronic products. In Africa, it's called coltan. From it, we get a blue-grey powder called tantalum...and tantalum, because it's durable and can withstand high temperatures, is great for making capacitors, which can store tiny electrical charges. That, as you can imagine, makes them handy in electronics. Unfortunately, one source for the increasingly valuable coltan is...the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo. And that's the story that leads this week's Technology Podcast (WTP 220). We speak with Jack Ewing, BusinessWeek's European Correspondent. He's been following the coltan trail to see just how much so-called "conflict coltan" actually makes it into the electronics we carry around with us all day. The answer might surprise you, so be sure to give a listen.
We move to West Africa for our second story. You have doubtless received an email which starts "I am a manager at the Bank of Nigeria," and then goes on to entice you with promises of millions. It's lovingly referred to as a 419 scam. It's named after the Nigerian law governing this kind of fraud. Despite all the warnings against answering such emails, many folks are duped into replying. West Africa has gotten a reputation for being a hotbed for Internet scams, but this week, computer experts gathered in Ivory Coast to discuss ways to the tackle the problem. We speak with the BBC's John James in Abidjan.
Then, we have an ever-so-brief item on a new Google Earth project called Virtual Rome. Too freakin' cool.
Our next story is the latest twist in the increasingly strange tale of Hossein Derakhshan, or Hoder as he's known to the blogging world. Hoder's widely regarded as the "Blogfather" of the Persian blogosphere. Back in 2000, he was one of the first to launch a blog in Persian. He even wrote a how-to guide for other would-be Iranian bloggers. His blogs, both in English and Farsi, covered a wide range of topics. His posts, however, made it clear that he was a critic of the Iranian government. Then things changed, and Hoder started siding with the Iranian government, and attacking dissidents. Not long ago, he moved back to Tehran from Canada. And now, this week, news has trickled out that he may or may not have been arrested. We get an update from Cyrus Farivar, who leads us through the twists and turns of Hoder's blogging career.
Then, we wish Happy Birthday to the International Space Station. Ten years ago this week, the first module lifted off, carrying the first module, a Russian one named "Dawn." It was soon joined by an American module called "Unity." Ten years later, it's still not finished, and it's way over-budget. Critics contend that it's not worth the money. Supporters say the ISS is proving a valuable teaching tool and training ground for future long-duration missions, possibly even to the Moon and Mars. We hear from smart people on both sides of the argument.
And speaking of the ISS...there was a spacewalk on the station that went, well, slightly awry this week. Here's the video I promised, and bear in mind...this HAS happened to you, too, just not in space.
We then switch into "science mode" for a bit, and hear about an amazing medical breakthrough in Spain. Doctors in Spain removed the windpipe of a woman with respiratory disease, and replaced it with a new airway created, in part, in the laboratory using adult stem cells. Read the write-up in The Lancet. See a video depiction of the process here. We hear from Barcelona, where the surgery took place.
And we end...with a tribute to that incredible piece of Eastern European automotive technology -- the Yugo. Didn't you know that it's production run is ending? I'll miss the jokes.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office yesterday pulled no punches in a report (full PDF) on electronic waste. E-waste, as it's called, is a growing global scourge, particularly in the developing world. And if you doubt it, I invite you to take a look at this National Geographic expose on it. All of those old monitors, keyboards and hard drives (not to mention laptops, cell phones, PDAs, etc.) we throw out every year end up somewhere, right? More and more often, "somewhere" is India, Pakistan, China, Nigeria and Ghana. Computers are full of potentially hazardous materials; the old cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors are considered particularly harmful because of the amount of lead they contain (up to 4 pounds!). As you can see from the picture, much of this e-waste ends up being sifted through for bits and pieces that may have some miniscule value in local markets. As the GAO report notes: "Recent surveys taken on behalf of the United Nations found that used electronics exported from the United States to many Asian countries are dismantled using methods like open-air incineration and acid baths to extract metals such as copper and gold."
How do those old computer parts get there? Why, professional "recycling" services offered right here in the U.S., of course. At the beginning of 2007, the Environmental Protection Agency actually began regulating the export of CRTs. Companies doing the exporting are required to notify EPA before exporting CRTs. The GAO wanted to check up to see how the agency was doing.
The verdict? Not so good, according to GAO. First, the EPA only regulates CRTs, not any of the other potentially hazardous electronics that leave our shores. Second, some GAO folks posed as foreign buyers looking to buy some CRTs. In so doing, It found some 43 U.S. companies prepared to skirt reporting regulations and export the CRTs. And finally, the GAO found the EPA's enforcement mechanisms lacking. The report notes that in Hong Kong alone, 26 containers of illegally exported CRTs were intercepted and returned to U.S. ports. And that's just since the rule took effect in January 2007.
Among the GAO's recommendations to the EPA: develop a systematic plan to enforce the CRT rule, and develop options to broaden its regulatory authority to cover other potentially harmful electronics.
In a letter to the GAO, the EPA defended its voluntary, "non-regulatory" approaches, and countered that it had opened some 20 investigations on e-waste violations in the past 18 months.
The GAO countered by pointing out that only one violator had actually been fined during that time, and that EPA officials "said they have neither plans nor a timetable to develop an enforcement program."
Doubtless this post will be overshadowed by a Mountain View of stories and posts about a certain company releasing a new, whaddya call it, browser? To be honest, I'm tapped out on that, so I went looking for something else to blog about. Ah, and just down the road aways I found out that online auction giant eBay is getting all warm and fuzzy. Forget all the lawsuits in various countries aimed at eBay over the sale of counterfeit goods, etc. Today, the company announced the creation of a website called World of Good. It's billed as something called an "ethically sourced" marketplace, where a shopper can find "products that have a positive impact on people and the planet." That includes fair-trade coffee, organic clothing, and animal-friendly beauty products. Ebay claims that some products are made by artisans in developing nations, so you're purchases may not only be eco-safe, but may aid international development as well. No bidding, though. All prices will be fixed.
It's hardly a new idea. In fact, Overstock has been doing something similar, without quite so much of a "green" bent, for years now.
Back to those pesky lawsuits, though, about the provenance of certain luxury goods for sale on eBay. Some (lawyers, mostly) might ask -- if the company can reliably source an organic blouse made by poor people in Kandahar, then why can't it guarantee that a particular handbag is really made by Gucci? I'm just saying that's a question one might ask. From the company promotional material on the launch of World of Good, it looks like eBay will rely on third party organizations working in developing nations for verification.
Worldofgood.com general manager Robert Chatwani said of the site: "We really want consumers to drill down into the detail of what's behind that product."
And while I applaud eBay's efforts to allow consumers to stay abreast of the products they buy online, I wonder if Chatwani's comment applies to this news item as well?
Yep, it's Friday, and that means it's time for the latest edition (WTP 205) of The World's Technology Podcast, courtesy of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH Boston. This week's podcast even comes complete with an audio slideshow, but more on that below.
We lead this week with the news that the US Department of Justice busted a global cyber-crime ring. Eleven suspects were arrested, three of them American. The others were from Estonia, Ukraine, Belarus, and China. The scary part is how easy it was for them to do it. They just went wardriving, found open wireless networks at big retail stores, and hacked into their systems. The haul -- a reported 40 million or so debit and credit card numbers. We have a report on the arrests, along with a primer on global credit card fraud from Jim Lewis, Director of the Technology and Public Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in DC.
But for my money, the best part is our correspondent's unused interview with Bruce Schneier, Chief Technology Security Officer at BT Global Services. Schneier, who regularly blogs on computer security issues, started the interview by saying, "I'm not sure why you're doing this story. There's nothing new here. I'm not even blogging it." Fair enough, if you listen to the points he makes in the interview.
Then, we go to Ghana to hear about the problem with electronic waste, or e-waste as it's called. Discovery looked at the problem here in the US in this video. But the real dumping ground for this stuff is quickly becoming the developing world. For background, listen to how we covered the subject in Tech Podcast 179.
This week, we also have a funny look at some new research into boredom. Specifically, that yawning might only be contagious between humans, but contagious between humans...and dogs.
And, my personal highlight for the week...
I do a regular audio check-in with a blogging outfit called AfriGadget for the Tech Podcast. This time, though, AfriGadget founder Erik Hersman came back with some amazing photographs from his recent trip to Nairobi, Kenya. The best bit is to see just how easy it is for Hersman to get his cell phone fixed.
In closing, I'll mention that you can follow all of The World's technology coverage via Twitter, or Facebook. You can also place the widget below on your own website, and get automatic updates.
Gartner, Inc. today released a report with some facts and figures that should make all tech-heads (especially environmentally-conscious tech-heads) sit up and take notice. The research company says that the number of installed PCs worldwide has surpassed one billion units. (I note, quietly, that my little family alone is responsible for three or four of those billion). Anyway, Gartner analysts estimate the installed base of PCs is growing at just under 12 percent annually. If we stay on that pace, the number of active PCs will double to two billion by 2014.
Not surprisingly (automobile market, anyone?), the main drivers for this explosion in computing hardware will come from emerging markets. Governments worldwide are pushing very hard to close the so-called digital divide, and that means huge investments not only in the actual computers, but in connectivity as well. Just look at the recent explosion in the lower-cost netbook market, and you'll see where the money and numbers are headed.
Now, let's talk turnover. Gartner says that 180 million PCs -- about 16 percent of the existing base -- will be replaced this year. Gartner principle research analyst Meike Escherich said, "We estimate a fifth of these, or some 35 million PCs, will be dumped into landfill with little or no regard for their toxic content."
The picture at left comes courtesy of Greenpeace. It was snapped by Natalie Behring. It shows a Chinese child sitting amid a heap of e-waste. The toxin list for this kind of scrap pile is a long one, and may make you think twice about reaching for your keyboard. Computers, especially the old cathode ray tube models, contain lead, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, cobalt and mercury. For starters.
Much of the computer hardware we throw out in the developed world ends up, eventually, in the developing world, where it is picked over for scrap, or left to sit in landfills. Remember, 180 million computers will be swapped out this year alone. A toxic brew, to say the least, that is almost certain to grow worse in the coming years.
One of the best treatments of the e-waste story I've seen recently came from National Geographic writer Chris Carroll. He not only travels to places like Accra, Ghana, where e-waste "recycling" takes on whole new, perhaps deadly meanings, but also details the sometimes shady ways your "recycled" machine makes it to developing world dumping grounds and town markets. You can also (lucky you) take a "tour" of a computer's toxic components.
For those of you with audio inclinations, you can hear an interview I produced with Chris Carroll for PRI's The World public radio program.
And yes, I'm aware of the irony of how this blog is currently being written on one of the PCs that will probably, one day, be part of the problem. Even more, I'm still trying to figure out what to do with two or three inactive PCs.
So, how many PCs do you have moldering in your basement? And how are you going to recycle them, if at all?
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