Wall Street Journal's Technology Innovation Awards
Carl Bialik writes "Gene-sequencing company 454 Life Sciences was selected as the Gold Winner in the Wall Street Journal's 2005 Technology Innovation Awards. 'Around 750 applications were screened by a Wall Street Journal editor, who narrowed the field to 104 semifinalists. Then a panel of expert judges from industry, research organizations and academia scored each entry and picked the winners.' (Listen to an MP3 clip on how the judges chose.) Other winners include a company that has developed a low-cost method for manufacturing RFID tags; Riverbed Technology's network appliances; Fujitsu's ID system that uses the veins in a person's palm instead of fingerprints; and the Agitator tool to debug code."
Great to see this company getting some attention. We're using their devices, and it borders on black magic how much data reduction they're able to do over our WAN. I highly recommend them for anyone setting up a branch office!
"Solar Integrated Technologies Inc., Los Angeles, won for its solar roof system designed for large commercial and industrial buildings. The company combines a lightweight, flexible solar-energy system with a single-ply roofing membrane, enabling buildings to generate solar power from their flat rooftops. It has installed SmartRoof panels on a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Los Angeles and a Frito-Lay distribution warehouse in Torrance, Calif.; the Frito-Lay building's 70,000-square-foot roof is less than half covered with solar panels, but the system generates more than a quarter of the building's annual energy needs."
Too bad that 50% roof coverage only generates 25% of the power they need. Perhaps they could get the rest from geothermal energy, although at some plants that would certainly be out of the question.
It pains me to see new buildings going up without any form of solar panels, or light tubes put into them, when it wouldn't cost much to do so, and saves energy in the long run.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Since the WSJ didn't link to it, here is MIT's web page for their filtration system: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2001/nepalwater.html