global

11.21.09

Will Cellphones Save the World?

If Dean Kamen and Nokia have their way, the answer just may be "yes"

By Abby Seiff and Paul Adams Posted 09.19.2008 at 4:09 pm 6 Comments

If you live in the United States it can be difficult to understand the role mobile phone technology plays across the globe. Here, you may use your phone for calls and messaging, perhaps for some computing lite, but likely little more. In Senegal, however, farmers are using phones to track crop prices, in Japan, writers are SMSing whole novels, and in Sweden, they're texting to apply for instant loans. An app that lets you kill time on the subway, this is not.

Within a year and a half, half the world will use cellphones, predict analysts, and with the bulk of new users emerging from developing nations, the question of what phones can do for their owners has never before had such potentially world-changing answers.

Enter Nokia and Dean Kamen.

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READ MORE ABOUT > Abby Seiff, cellphones, dean kamon, global, nokia, paul adams, sms, web 2.0 expo

The Greenest Green Fuel

Looking for a clean fuel that grows anywhere, needs only sunlight and water, and could produce enough oil to free the U.S. from its petroleum addiction? Here´s one start-up´s plan for converting oil from algae-yes, algae

By Elizabeth Svoboda Posted 07.01.2007 at 1:00 am 4 Comments

Take a peak inside the Solix labs to see their oil-from-algae operation up close in our photo gallery and video â€Here it is!â€ Jim Sears says with a tour guide´s come-see enthusiasm.

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READ MORE ABOUT > algae, alt-fuels, alternative, biodiesel, energy, fuels, global, solix, warming

If We Destroy Our Planet

Will science find us a new one?

By Dawn Stover Posted 09.01.2006 at 1:00 am 0 Comments

Scientists are exploiting one of Einstein's predictions to find Earth-like planets around other starsplanets that might even support Earth-like life. Let the evacuation plans begin!

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READ MORE ABOUT > earth, earth size, earth-like, Einstein, exosolar planets, global, huge swaths, light, new planets, planet, planets, relativity, rocky planets, warming

The Race to 100 MPG

Gas prices are up, fuel economy is down-but the brightest minds in auto technology are about to do something about it

By Billy Baker Posted 09.01.2006 at 1:00 am 12 Comments

Over the past several decades, the promise of the "car of tomorrow" has remained unfulfilled, while the problems it was supposed to solve have only intensified. The average price of a gallon of gas is higher than at any time since the early 1980s. The Middle East seems more volatile than ever. And even climate skeptics are starting to admit that the carbon we´re pumping into the atmosphere might have disastrous consequences. To these circumstances, automakers have responded with a fleet of cars that averages 21 miles per gallon, about four miles per gallon worse than the Model T.

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