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Shell backs Alphabet's power-generating kites in latest renewable bet
Alphabet is turning yet another one of its X projects into a business, but this time it's enlisting the help of an unusual ally. Makani Power, a venture making electricity-generating kites (see above), has become a full-fledged subsidiary of Alphabet thanks in part to a minority investment from Shell -- yes, the fossil fuel giant. The two hope to shift the technology from the land to offshore, where winds are stronger. They're betting that the kites will be easier to deploy than conventional wind farms, since they could deploy with floating buoys instead of requiring platforms that reach down to the ocean bed.
Half of UK electricity now comes from nuclear and renewables
A record 50 percent of the UK's electricity was generated from renewables and other low carbon energy sources in the third quarter of 2016. That's up from 45.3 percent the year prior, a milestone fuelled by a sizeable increase in wind, solar and nuclear energy. A neat quarter came from renewables, including hydroelectric, while the other 25 percent was sourced from nuclear reactors. According to the UK government, the growth in green energy can be attributed, at least in part, to "improved weather conditions" across the UK, including higher wind speeds, increased rainfall and longer stretches of sunlight (though I don't remember that last one happening).
Simulation of hidden ocean tides could lead to better sonar
There's a lot of tidal movement under the ocean's surface, but we haven't had a great understanding of it so far. Internal tides, created around continental shelf breaks, are far more difficult to predict than the ocean waves you can see. However, MIT researchers just made a breakthrough: they've accurately simulated those hidden tides for the first time. They melded a hydrodynamic model with data from a coastal sound wave study to replicate an ocean environment (in this case, a shelf break near the US' eastern coast) with a previously unseen level of complexity, complete with background elements like currents and eddies. The technique should be useful for predicting climates and fishing populations, but it could lead to a surprising amount of technological progress, too.
World's largest offshore windfarm to be built in the UK
Britain is set to become home to two of the world's largest offshore wind farms after ministers approved plans for a new 1,800-megawatt project capable of supplying 1.8 million UK homes. Hornsea Project Two will be built 55 miles off the coast of Grimsby and could feature up to 300 turbines -- each one taller than the Gherkin building in London.
Panama Papers firm says it was the victim of a hack
That gigantic Panama Papers leak revealing the sometimes shady tax haven dealings of the wealthy? If you ask the law firm the data came from, it's no leak at all... it's the fallout from an attack. Mossack Fonseca co-founder Ramon Fonseca tells Reuters that this "is a hack," not the action of of a rogue insider. His company even has a theory behind the hack that it's investigating, but he won't say what that is -- he'll only say that the firm has filed a complaint, and that there's a "government institution" looking into it.
Huge data leak reveals the hidden wealth of the rich and famous
In one of the biggest data leaks ever (even larger than the NSA wires leak in 2013), Panama-based legal firm Mossack Fonseca has seen 2.6 terabytes of its private data leaked to journalists. Shared with German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, it was then spread to a wider network of journalists globally -- 370 reporters from 100 media organizations have looked into the leak for a year. The research has already unearthed that 12 national leaders, including monarchs, presidents and prime ministers, have been using offshore tax havens, including a $2 billion paper trail that leads to Russia's Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile, FIFA's attempts to clean itself up faces fresh criticism after the leak appears to connect executives being investigated to members of the ethics committee itself.
Folding offshore wind turbines could power 10,000 US homes
The US Department of Energy's plan to generate 20 percent of the nation's electrical power from wind by 2030 is ambitious, to say the least. To pull it off, the turbines will need to be located offshore, where winds are steadier and stronger. However, putting wind turbines in the ocean is also far more expensive, so they need to be enormous in order to make it worthwhile. Researchers from Sandia National Laboraties have come up with a design that features 650-foot blades -- over two football fields long -- that can generate up to 50 megawatts of power.
Tim Cook says US-made Mac will be new model in an existing family
When Apple's Tim Cook revealed that his company would once more assemble a Mac line in the US, there was a flood of questions almost immediately: which model? Where would it be made? While the CEO isn't revealing all his cards quite yet, he just gave us a better sense of those domestic production plans through a Politico interview. The American Mac will be a new iteration of an existing family, Cook says. It also won't just be a collection of parts shipped from overseas, as multiple pieces will come from Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky and Texas. We're glad to hear that Apple's partial shift to US manufacturing is sincere, although the timing of the news isn't coincidental: Cook is about to defend Apple's growing offshore cash supply in front of a Senate committee, and any visible support for the US economy is likely to burnish his firm's image.
Modern Warfare 3's final two DLC packs fully reconnoitered
The year of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 post-launch content is coming to a close, but it's going out with a bang (gun pun fully intended). The Chaos Pack – previously half-detailed – brings three Face Off maps and four Spec-Ops missions, as well as a new mode, dubbed "Special Ops Chaos Mode." It's a wave-based survival mode, albeit with a Spec-Ops twist. The whole shebang launches for Xbox 360 on August 9, with PS3 and PC versions launching later on.In September, MW3 players on 360 get the "Final Assault" pack, which adds five multiplayer maps ("Gulch," "Offshore," "Boardwalk," "Decommission," and "Parish"), two of which are already available on 360. Again, this content arrives on PS3 and PC at a later (unknown) date. As Activision community blog One of Swords points out, Call of Duty's Elite season ends with more content than it originally promised, which seems pretty boss if you ask us. But don't go getting your precedents miscalibrated, as this may not be the case in future years.
Corning and Samsung plan LCD glass plant in China, may toughen up a few laptop screens
Corning and Samsung were the best of friends well before even the Lotus Glass deal, but the relationship just got a little cozier. The two have agreed to build a plant in China's industry-heavy Wuxi New District focused on making glass to cover LCD panels in laptops and desktop displays. The roughly $600 million factory will be a major production hub for Samsung, not just an expansion: it's planning to stop some of its glass production in South Korea and send that work to the new facility when it opens. There won't even be signatures on the agreement until sometime later this year, so the plant itself is still a distant prospect -- but while the two haven't outlined their exact strategy, the new plant may be the ticket to toughening up that future Series 9 laptop with a touch of Gorilla Glass.
Modern Warfare 3's July content for Elite PS3 and Xbox 360 subscribers
Call of Duty Elite members on Xbox 360 will get a new content drop in Modern Warfare 3 on Tuesday, July 17: three new multiplayer maps and a Spec Ops mission.The multiplayer maps include a graveyard of derelict ocean liners called Decommission, an oil rig built for sniping called Offshore, and the remake of Modern Warfare 2's Terminal map, available to Elite members on Tuesday and free for the rest of Modern Warfare 3's Xbox 360 players the following day. In the Spec Ops mission, Vertigo, players must take down enemy troops and helicopters while perched atop the Oasis hotel.On Thursday, July 19, Call of Duty Elite subscribers on PS3 get to tussle with three new Face-Off maps and a Spec Ops mission, content released on Xbox 360 back in June. Multiplayer maps include a tornado-rocked town called Vortex, a dilapidated middle-eastern highway in U-Turn, an urban NYC-based map called Intersection, and the Spec Ops mission, Arctic Recon, which tasks players with assaulting a Russian warship.%Gallery-160351%
NYT: Video-game companies take lucrative advantage of US tax code, especially EA
If the United States tax code were cheese, it would be more Swiss than American -- tax breaks and incentives for software development, research and technological advancement were established to promote an intellectual advantage in the US, and video-game companies are in a unique position to take full advantage of federal funding, especially EA, The New York Times reports. EA boasts $1.2 billion in global profits over the past five years -- which is technically a net loss, after deferred revenue, executive-stock-option deductions and other accounting necessities, including a payout of $98 million, cash, in taxes worldwide. The US federal tax rate on any company is 35 percent, but that's before the creative accounting. In 2004, EA hired Glen Kohl, formerly an employee of the Treasury Department under President Clinton, to make the most of its tax incentivies. Kohl has since lobbied for federal tax breaks on domestic production and established offshore subsidiaries in low-tax countries. EA now has 50 offshore subsidiaries in countries such as Bermuda, Singapore and Mauritius, and holds $1.3 billion in offshore funds that won't be taxed unless brought into the US. EA spokesman Jeff Brown justified EA's monetary exportation as a consequence of running an international business:
World's largest offshore wind farm spins into action off the coast of Britain
They stretch up to two and a half times the height of Nelson's Column at Trafalgar Square, their number is close to a hundred, and their mission is to bring clean, renewable energy into British homes. Yes, we're talking about turbines. The latest wind farm to be erected near the Queen's most sovereign isles is said to be the largest in the world (for now) and promises to produce enough energy to keep 240,000 homes going -- the equivalent of half the county of Kent. It's part of the UK's grand plan to generate at least 20 percent of all its power needs through the taming of the winds and cost the Kingdom a cool £780 million ($1.2b) to build. That's admittedly a big bill to swallow, but there are worse things to blow your billions on... such as, say, the Millennium Dome.
Wind farm announced for Lake Erie, could produce 1,000 megawatts by 2020
Wind farms have started popping up around the states -- including one off Rehoboth Beach -- and if the Lake Erie Energy Development Corp has its way, twenty megawatts of power will be generated off the coast of Ohio beginning in late 2012. The direct drive wind turbines, each generating four megawatts of power, will be supplied and maintained by General Electric, who designed them especially for off-shore use. Subsequent projects are also in the works by the dynamic duo, with the eventual goal of 1,000 megawatts by 2020 -- by which time the Insane Clown Posse will be eligible for the Rock'N'Roll Hall of Fame and the United States will have its first Juggalo President. PR after the break.
Baryonyx to build largest offshore wind farms in the US, power massive data centers
Uh oh Mr. Pickens -- looks like you've got some competition down in Texas. With the aforesaid energy baron scraping plans to plant 687 massive wind turbines in Texas' panhandle, Baryonyx has stepped in to do the honors via a slightly different project. Just this past week, Baryonyx won a bid to create a pair of sizable offshore wind farms that Jerry Patterson -- Commissioner of the Texas General Land Office -- says "could be the biggest offshore wind farms in the nation." Additionally, another lease was granted for a prospective wind energy development in the panhandle, and now the company is eager to get going on the green energy gigs. The best part of this whole plan involves that actual purpose of the turbines; aside from providing juice for grids, they'll also be used to energize forthcoming Tier 4 server farms, with a minimum of 750 megawatts of power being pumped to two coastal areas all the while. Ma Earth would be proud.[Via CNET]Read - Baryonyx announcement [PDF]Read - Patterson announcement [PDF]
SeaAway's offshore Sea Sentinels detect incoming contraband
A Florida-based startup dubbed SeaAway (no relation to Segway, truth be told) is looking to make our ports a good bit safer in the future by implementing an offshore screening process that could detect "chemical, biological, and nuclear traces as ships travel through." The aptly-dubbed Sea Sentinels would be anchored to the seafloor some 14-miles from a port, and will even house up to 15 humans and an array of unmanned aerial vehicles for extreme situations. The platforms would utilize RFID readers to detect what types of cargo passed through its screen, and if sensors flag a suspicious container, the Coast Guard is called into action. Unfortunately, the $100 million it costs to erect each system would have to be subsidized by a passage fee of $20 per container, but tax breaks for shippers are currently be pondered. Nevertheless, a prototype system will see construction later this summer, and if all goes well, finalized versions could be patrolling our seas in the not too distant future.
IBM gearing up to lay off over 100000 American employees?
We'll admit, even we're a bit frightened that immensely intelligent humanoid bots may one day oust us from these seats, but according to whispers going around at IBM's HQ, something just as momentous could be going down as early as this year. Shortly after Lenovo told 1,400 of its US-based employees to politely hop off the payroll, IBM's LEAN plan could call for over 100,000 American workers to be canned in favor of (surprise, surprise) hiring overseas. Already, the firm has laid off 1,300 employees in 2007, but according to a recent report, an ongoing "planning meeting" for how to handle the company's Global Services could eventually axe "up to 150,000 US jobs" while hiring cheaper labor in China and India. Interestingly, this news could actually be sweet music to Wall Street, at least in the short term, but we can't imagine how this logistical nightmare will ever bode well for Big Blue's future.
