Your iPhone kills jobs

Like teenagers who enjoy the social benefits of a mobile phone but rue their parent’s newfound ability to contact them at any time, workers who perform their tasks on-the-go can now be monitored step-by-step by their managers with the help of smartphone applications Read more: Your iPhone kills jobs

Da, Windows Phone outsells the iPhone in seven countries...or does it?

Microsoft, always looking for any way to tout good news about Windows Phone, claims that it outsells the iPhone in seven countries. But is that really the case? It's not as clear as it first appears. Da, Windows Phone outsells the iPhone in seven countries...or does it?

Apple’s Shares Have Outperformed Samsung’s for a Decade

"Even with its recent pullback, Apple has crushed Samsung over the last ten years.” Apple’s Shares Have Outperformed Samsung’s for a Decade

Solar power cheaper than coal: One company says it’s cracked the code

CleanTechnica has an exclusive on a new solar technology that claims to be able to produce power with a levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of8¢/kWh. That is mind-boggling, “two-thirds the price of retail electricity and over 3 times cheaper than current solar technology.” If the claim proves to be true (and a lot can happen between prototype and mass manufacturing), it could revolutionize the solar industry.

The company is called V3Solar (formerly Solarphasec) and its product, the Spin Cell, ingeniously solves two big problems facing solar PV.

First, most solar panels are flat, which means they miss most of the sunlight most of the time. They only briefly face direct sunlight, unless expensive tracking systems are added. The Spin Cell is a cone:

V3Solar

The conical shape catches the sun over the course of its entire arc through the sky, along every axis. It’s built-in tracking.

The second problem: Solar panels produce much more energy if sunlight is concentrated by a lens before it hits the solar cell; however, concentrating the light also creates immense amounts of heat, which means that concentrating solar panels (CPV) require expensive, specialized, heat-resistant solar cell materials.

The Spin Cell concentrates sunlight on plain old (cheap) silicon PV, but keeps it cool by spinningit.

It’s just so damn clever.

Here’s a video that explains:




The V3Solar Spin Cell rotating under the power of the afternoon sun:

Read the full story of Solar power cheaper than coal: One company says it’s cracked the code By David Roberts

Apple users love their devices, Android users not so much

Yet more evidence proves the biggest difference between Apple [AAPL] iOS and Android users is that iPhone and iPad people actually use their devices, while the majority of Google-driven 'Droids don't seem to use them at all.



Read the full story: Apple users love their devices, Android users not so much

Solar Cells May Supplement Smartphone Batteries

Solar cells under development by a Silicon Valley start-up, Alta Devices, could give smartphone batteries a boost of as much as 80 percent of a batterys power. The company uses hybrid gallium arsenide solar cells, which are better at capturing energy than silicon solar cells.

 Read the full story at The New York Times

Apple's iWatch Could Be Super Profitable

Help End Child Hunger in America

The Child Hunger Ends Here program is part of ConAgra Foods' ongoing commitment to help end child hunger in America. For every code entered by 8/31/13, ConAgra Foods will donate the monetary equivalent of one meal** to Feeding America, the nation's largest domestic hunger-relief organization. 

Thanks to the help of caring people like you, ConAgra Foods donated the monetary equivalent of 3.4 million meals to Feeding America as part of the previous Child Hunger Ends Here campaign, which included online, school and retailer programs. With your help, we can make the 2013 campaign just as successful. http://www.childhungerendshere.com/about.html

The New Face of Child Hunger:

Click here to learn more about Hunger In America

Macs dig in as standard business PCs

Enterprise backup of Macs is the latest in a string of products that show OS X is becoming part of the IT landscape By Galen Gruman

In the last year, I've witnessed a sea change in Macs' acceptance in business. To be sure, Macs have been the standard PCs for designers, layout artists, and the like since the mid-1980s, and Silicon Valley developers adopted the Mac as the preferred dev platform years ago (because it runs Unix, Linux, and Windows, too). MacBook Airs became senior execs' preferred status-symbol PCs a couple years ago as well.

But for bread-and-butter computing, it has been a Windows-only world. Those creative, dev, and exec Macs were the "other" handled outside the normal IT processes. That's changing -- fast. Gartner says IT will consider Macs to be as valid as Windows PCs next year. The tools to enable that are already coming.

Continue reading: Macs dig in as standard business PCs