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Artificial photosynthesis A sample of a photoelectric cell in a lab environment. Catalysts are added to the cell, which is submerged in water and illuminated by simulated sunlight. The bubbles seen are oxygen (forming on the front of the cell) and hydrogen (forming on the back of the cell). Artificial photosynthesis is a chemical process that replicates the natural process of photosynthesis, a process that converts sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide into carbohydrates and oxygen.
5 Best Practices for Digital Marketers in 2012 Jonathan Gardner is director of communications at ad company Vibrant Media. He has spent nearly two decades as an innovator at the nexus of media and technology, having worked in communications leadership roles and as a journalist around the world. The egg nog’s been drunk, the bells are done jingling, and the mistletoe has been taken down. It’s time to ring in the new year with resolutions that’ll make 2012 one to remember — online and off. All signs point to an exciting year, with the arrival of new (and inevitably covetable) Apple devices. Financial services for the unbanked are among the most promising opportunities for mobile-telecom operators hoping to counter slowing subscription growth with auxiliary offerings, such as banking, health care, and education services. In emerging markets, formal banking reaches about 37 percent of the population, compared with a 50 percent penetration rate for mobile phones. For every 10,000 people, these countries have one bank branch and one ATM—but 5,100 mobile phones. A new focus on bringing financial services to the unbanked—those without easy access to traditional banking channels—represents a strategic shift for mobile operators. The very small deposits and loans held by poorer customers make them unprofitable for banks that use traditional delivery models.
How to Manage Your Smartest, Strangest Employee - Jeff Stibel by Jeff Stibel | 11:00 AM July 16, 2012 There is a brilliant and highly accomplished engineer in my company who has managed to break the coffee machine, the toaster and so many other appliances in the company kitchen that we’re considering giving his trail of broken appliances their own line item in the budget. Apparently making toast is more challenging than the complex algorithms he works with every day. Such is often the case with the uber-talented… with genius comes quirkiness. The same personality traits that make them brilliant can also make them quirky and sometimes disruptive. To be successful, a company needs creativity, but it also needs cohesion. Parabolic trough Array of parabolic troughs. A parabolic trough is shaped as a parabola in the x-y plane, but is linear in the z direction A diagram of a parabolic trough solar farm (top), and an end view of how a parabolic collector focuses sunlight onto its focal point. A parabolic trough is a type of solar thermal collector that is straight in one dimension and curved as a parabola in the other two, lined with a polished metal mirror.
Predictions for Social Business in 2012, Part II: Knowing Your Customer - Founder of Altimeter Group, Author of Open Leadership, Coauthor of Groundswell Rather than simply make prognostications, I wanted to give actionable advice based on these trends. This is the second of my three predictions and priorities for Social Business in 2012 (read the first prediction). Prediction #2: Your customers want to be known.
Bankers across Europe believe that mobile devices will transform the retail-banking landscape in the next three to five years. In a recent survey of European bankers, however, a majority of the respondents acknowledged that they are not investing sufficiently to take advantage of the opportunities and that telecommunications companies and other nonbanks are leading the way. These findings—based on joint research by McKinsey and the European Financial Management and Marketing Association (EFMA)—come on top of an additional analysis suggesting that mobile devices’ overall economic impact on the banking industry may be neutral at best. Individual banks should be able to increase their revenues and cut costs if they successfully exploit the convenience of mobile, its potential to drive digital commerce, and the opportunity it represents to target the unbanked in emerging markets. Exhibit
Aiming for the Young Crowd, Google Pitches a Google+ Summer Camp - Mike Isaac - Social Kids driving you nuts, now that school is out? Google announced an online summer camp on Monday, a collaboration with Make magazine that matches teens with maker-movement celebrities through the Google+ social network. Using the company’s Hangouts video group chat tool, kids age 13 through 18 can watch makers create projects online, many of which are composed of stuff lying around the house (think Mentos and erupting Coke bottles). The “camp” lasts for six weeks, on Monday through Thursday mornings, with most Hangouts run by teenage camp counselors when the celebrities aren’t guest-starring.
Solar panel made with ion cannon is cheap enough to challenge fossil fuels Twin Creeks, a solar power startup that emerged from hiding today, has developed a way of creating photovoltaic cells that are half the price of today’s cheapest cells, and thus within reach of challenging the fossil fuel hegemony. The best bit: Twin Creeks’ photovoltaic cells are created using a hydrogen ion particle accelerator. As it stands, almost every solar panel is made by slicing a 200-micrometer-thick (0.2mm) wafer from a block of crystalline silicon. You then add some electrodes, cover it in protective glass, and leave it in a sunny area to generate electricity through the photovoltaic effect (when photons hit the silicon, it excites the electrons and generates a charge). This is where Twin Creeks’ ion cannon, dubbed Hyperion, comes into play. If you look at the picture above, 3-millimeter-thick silicon wafers are placed around the outside edge of the big, spoked wheel.
12 B2B Social Media Predictions for 2012 2012 is going to be a big year for adoption of social media for B2B companies. We expect that early adopter companies will move even further out in front by becoming social in many areas of their business, while more of the second wave adopters will begin to see value in social media and move forward with planning and execution. This means that there will be a greater spread of B2B social media activities than ever before. More resources are available for B2B marketers, as well as more experienced practitioners, both of which will make the previously steep learning curve more manageable. The following predictions for 2012 reveal many of the ways B2B companies will leverage social media for their business success. 1.
The rate of asset growth in developing countries is 3X that of developed ones. The are less likely to put money in equities, choosing deposits. Lack Trust. Changes sources of capital. by johntodor Dec 8