Afghan Women Access to Mobile Phones

Check-out the impressive stat's in USAid's cool infographic about Afghan Women's Access to Mobile Technology.

US Clean Energy Facts From Obama's 1st Term

There is no doubt that clean energy sources increased significantly in President Obama's first term in office. Here are some of the highlights:

1. Boosted fuel standards for cars and trucks that is expected to reduce climate-warming pollution (like CO2) by 6 billion metric tons.
2. Wind energy production has doubled in the last 4 years.
3. Solar installations have increased 6-fold in the last 4 years.
4. In 2007 the Supreme Court ruled that carbon emissions are indeed a pollutant as defined by the Clean Air Act.

However, despite the advances in clean energy right now in the US "Energy Independence" is still code for more mining and more drilling but it doesn't need to be so in the future. Energy independence needs to become more interrelated to weaning ourselves off of fossil fuels with renewable energy. Subsidies for renewable energy are being reduced and in some cases coming to an end.

On the other hand, oil subsidies remain stronger than ever even after decades of exponential industry growth and multiple economic downturns and hardly come into to question. Moreover with all of the big craze around natural gas in the US, many are forgetting that methane that escapes from drilling and pumping natural gas is 70 times more harmful than CO2 emissions.

In fact the head of the Environmental Defense Fund, Fred Krupp says that "Fugitive gas is the biggest unknown of all the US emissions sources."

The Mobile Phone Internet Revolution Projections

Here are two a very interesting projections I picked from Al Gore while reading the recent article about him in Time Magazine ("From Chads to Riches" by David Von Drehle). While the focus of the article was Gore himself, Gore provided the author with two projections for the future of Internet use in the 21st century which somehow cleverly made it into the piece:

1. Mobile-only Internet users are expected to increase 56-fold over the next 5 years.
2. Information flow over smartphones is expected to increase 47-fold over the next 5 years.

IBM Smarter Cities Tests and Finds...

Using one of its own facilities to in a way "beta" test some of its new building analytics gadgets the IBM Smarter Cities team found some interesting cost-saving metrics to lure new customers to its portfolio of data-based services. In their Ireland facility they found that replacing paper towels in bathrooms with high-speed hand-dryers saved the IBM Ireland Research Lab building around 5,000 euros a year. In addition, the hand-dryers also reduced the environmental impact involved with processing 400,000 pieces of waste paper.

The Electric Vehicle Chicken and the Egg Problem

Transitioning to Electric Vehicles (EVs) is not just about getting more vehicles on the road, it also requires additional infrastructure investments to help support charge/power EVs. Thus while EV subsidies to end users are helpful to increase the EV customer base (public or commercial) there also needs to be a plan/strategy - some financial help would also be ideal - for infrastructure improvements like EV chargers.

Interestingly progressive countries like Spain already have about 1850 EV chargers, but even more interesting is that Spain wants to increase that number to 85000 in the next 2 years. That's a lofty and very commendable goal, however how is that going to happen. For instance EV chargers are not very expensive, but policies are needed to help facilitate the actual installation. And then there is the elephant in the room that everyone is talking about: the actual cleanliness of the energy sources used by the EV charger.

Today EV's in a way its like the chicken and the egg problem, automobile manufacturers are hesitant to bring to EVs to countries that are not attempting to put forth EV strategies, but governments are also hesitant to put forth EV strategies if they do not see much of a public demand.

Before we can get to the "How green is your EV charge source?" question, we must first address the question of "Who should take the risk, government or private industry?

New Opps in Cheaper Health Care: Smart Devices & Wireless Medicine

My favorite concept that I read about today is about wireless medicine and how smart devices are opening new opportunities to provide better and cheaper health care everywhere, from airplanes to senior citizen’s homes to poor rural communities.

This is just a quick recap summary of an interesting article I read: The Key to Better Health Care May Be Already in Your Pocket and Its Not Your Wallet.

Did you know it's possible to snap an AliveCor device onto an iPhone and perform a cardiogram at 30,000 feet? Well it is. Dr. Eric Topol was recently able to do a cardiogram on a flight from DC to San Diego after a passenger on a flight started to into heart attach-like motions on the plane and a flight attendant asked if there was a doctor on the flight. Dr. Topol was able to assess that the passenger was definitely having a heart attack an recommended an emergency landing. The passenger was taken to the
hospital and survived the heart attack.

Dr. Topol told NBC: “These days, I’m prescribing a lot more apps than I am medications.”