This technology was used by a frnech female architect over 30 years ago for her projects. She used moltent salt for solar thermal storage in residential homes.
so its funny to realise that its simple and nothing new.
if you look at the design of the large Andasol plants they are the saem design as the solar thermal plant you hva in your house, JUST bigger and using hot stream, rather than water. And of course have a steam turbine.
The other thing going on is the use of ceramic parts for the turbine. This removes the issie of the steam turning to water, and then rusting the turbine.
so, MUCH of the issues with getting the cost down is handling the rust issues with boththe wolten salt and the turbine.
They actually concluded that Salt is Not the only option. The problem with salt is rust, and so you have to use carbon coating on all the steel parts, which makes it expensive.
Simple using concrete was a very attractive option also. And then that means that hemp concrete is also possible which is much cheaper again.
agree. Its a pity that google did not say this front and center on their web site splash page.
oh, and nice link from www.google.*
But i guess they did not want to offend or bit the hand of the mobile industry.
so basically they just did NOT want to seriously make it a full on venture, but rather wants to give the mobile carrier and oem makers a nudge nudge hint that they need to start selling androids OR they might just ramp up the heat .
pretty simple really. it was a smart business tactic by google, and worked exacyl how they wished.
The video shows the demos playing in IE and then shows them not working properly in other browsers. Its a very aggressive way to do a demo and quite hideous because the intetn with html5 is to allow harmonious support, but instead MS use these demos to highlight what they can do and other browsers cant.
This is chilling different from how Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome do their demos. They are not using their demoes to create FUD about other browsers.
It pisses me off how aggressive MS are and they cant help themselves resorting to FUD again and again.
This marketing tactic USED to play well into Microsoft hands, because they had market dominance and control over what browser comes with the OS. NOW, its actually closer to the other way around in many countries where in reality Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox are the dominate player.
So, i would like to invite Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox to actually start playing this FUD back onto Microsoft and selectively doing demos that show their features working better then Microsoft's. Its really a pertinent point because they are now in the dominant position in many markets.
It is actually Microsoft's horrible FUD tactic being played back on them - pay back.
As many people have pointed out the security permissions model in android is very good.
you cant have fantastic apps without allowing them access to other data. And so thats why the security permission authorization screens are there.
Its so dumb this article, because you cant have your cake and eat it too.
It pisses me off when journalists write a piece like this LL because it gets headlines. Hey CNet, get a life and stop taking backhanders from Apple or Microsoft. Just a ridiculous article in the first place.
True about valves being designed for 20 K psi being available.
However there are all the other aspects of the architecture of the systems down there that have to deal with 20 K psi. So many other bits of hardware have to be able to handle these pressures too. Together they make for a very risky architecture because when something goes wrong we are at natures mercy.
Lets take an look at this another way. When we design an aeroplane we design in a Safety Factor. That means that everything is over designed to whatever the "Safety Factor" requires. The engineering safety factor is determined by the consequences of a failure. For an aeroplane we design for a safety factor 1.5 . So everything structural is designed over by 1.5 times because if the wing fails it will likely kill 300 people. See the Nasa article about it as it shows that safety factors are commutative for all the hardware combined. http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/waynehalesblog/posts/post_1229459081779.html
For an oil well we should probably have a much much safety factor than just 1. So at 20 K SI, the equipment should be designed to handle at least a safety factor of 2, and so hence be designed for a 40 K psi.
Frustratingly because the damages claimable is limited to 75 million USD; and there is a self monitoring policy that wont design the hardware properly. For aeroplane makers, there is no statutory limit on the damages, and they are heavily monitored throughout the lifecyle of manufacturer and usage.
As we are seeing the consequences of a failure of the oil well are likely to ultimately kill more than 300 people when you factor in the laws of cause and effect. But humans that see it immediately; when an aeroplane crashes the laws of cause and effect are right in our faces, but when an oil well leaks if is less apparent to us immediately.
Its a shame that the industry has been allowed to get away with this. Energy policy is screwed up. We want oil, and so we let them get away with low safety because we dont want to scare away investment. How crazy can it get...
The idea of incorporatin lyrics and thumbnails into the music file format IS smart.
Also as far as opening up the music biz to independent artists the idea of having the artists web page in the music file format is also good. This allows any users to be able to go to their web page to check tour dates etc.
everything else is pointless.
But a singel file format with this extra meta data makes perfect sense.
It can ALL be done as part of an extension to the ID tags specification of cource easily. and is the best open standard way to to it
There are many test sites. This means that the bandwidth problem for many video distribution companies is resolved, and the variosu codes can thrive. G
This stuff is basically allowing the idea of Google Chrome OS to become a reality. But it also has much wider implications. For instance for the YouTube Video codec question, it opens up the door for the codec to be delivered via the web site playing it. The same goes for anything. Mayeb you want to interact with Git and your file system. NACL does not allow file system access, but if you had a NAS sitting at home or anywhere you could fully interact with it over tcp/ip or Http/ running inside NCL.
On the Long Tail, what we REALLY need is the open codecs to be built into the GPS for encoding and decoding. Now with the purchase on ON2, Google will essentially have purchased patent power. This is the main thing. So Google will potentially be pushing to get a GPU manufacturer to implement a non patented codec into GPU, and use it for their Google Chrome OS ? Very similar business play to what they did with the Google Nexus Mobile phone. Work with the Hardware guys and supply the software, legal housing and OEM sales volume to make it all a sensible ROI for the hardware makers like HTC. Oh, and get the bandwidth providers to suck it up too _ Telecos are really just getting in the way, and the release of the Google Nexus is testament to this view that Google clearly has.
Of course, this does not make sense for the purchase of the ON2, so the really long tail prediction, would be that with the patent and intellectual property, Google would make their own video / audio codec, make it open, and make the GPU hardware (with an OEM of course). With ON2 patent, they can isolate a patent war (MAD - mutally assured destruction), and protect the open codec they made. Eventually, as critical mass of potential unit sales took over, most of the other GPU manufacturers would also implement the open patent codec.
1. ACTA agreement and license fees are up for renewal. http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/FAQ.aspx All OEM product makers and content encoders are now waiting on the 2010 agreement from the mpegla licensing aggregation company . It will be stiff fees apparently, although not confirmed yet. What is even stranger is that we are now in 2010, and they have still not released the new licensing terms. Very weird; What are they waiting on i wonder ? Maybe ACTA resolution ? Most China OEMS don't pay the fees, and hence why ACTA is being "negotiated" so secretly also. http://www.eetasia.com/login.do?fromWhere=/ART_8800463180_499501_NT_5bb04467.HTM So this is a "double whammy" waiting to explode.
2. There are many other codecs around to choose from and why not test the water for others. There is much discussion in this area. But its a chicken and Egg game. You can make a fantastic codec, but you gotta have GPU support, otherwise its pointless. See below for how this can happen in the Long Tail version.
3. Google knows that its Chrome OS is reaching a tipping point where they need to decide how they will handle video - they need to resolve this and get their ducks in a row. They can do flash on ARM CPU now, but i am sure they wish they did not have to. And they also know that with JavaScript and HTML% coming through like a train, Flash days are definitely numbered. See Sproutcore JavaScript framework for example of one of the many "flash replacements". And they have OpenGL covered with O3D and WebGl also moving forward very fast now with working implementations and even content conversion thinks to the Collada Open 3d format specification not fully entrenched.
So the cards on the table are all congealing based on the above factors, and its a good time for Google to see where the cards fall for them and their various business models. So, why not ask the users too.
I think it will come down to the h264 licensing terms to be released, and the ability for GPU's and embedded GPUs to handle video decoding.
The Golden Ratio . Is it "pleasing to the eye", or just pleasing to our own quantum state. Or are they both the same anyway ?
I used to employ philosophy degree holders and physicists. This was by accident. It was an IT project in the banking system to use 6 degree of seperation theory to gain knowledge, These guys were always the best programmers because they just were for our project.
The "we are one" global consciousness aspect is valid to me. There are so many real world tests that show this in action.
1. The energy calculatiosn were done by a German consulting company almost 6 years ago, and the numbers look good. The software they wrote allows different sizes of systems to be inputted and metrics drawn out.
2. But there are a few issues.
a. The price of the tower both in energy and cost. The tower must be make out of concrete for structural reasons. A one kilometre high concrete tower is a very costly initial upfront cost. Also the cost for cemenet is very high now and the carbon output is massive. Concrete is a hugely inefficient material both from an environmental and ecconomic viewpoint.
b. Its all or nothing. By this i mean that for a PV or thermal solar solution you can expand your farm at stages. This makes projects much more viable financially. But the tower is monolithic.
I woudl like to see a design that is not monolithic, and i think it can be done. The concrete tower coudl be modular and extra height segments are just helicoptered in. The greenhouse of course is modular, as are the water filled piping at the base of the greenhouse.
The other big advanateg and i what i think woudl help this technology make progress woudl be for it to be residential scale. I dont knwo what the energy calcaultions woudl reveal on a 3 story high tower that is building integrated with a glase house around it.
As an architect i would like to see buildings designed for this, and the living spaces build around the tower. Often you need a riser in a building anyway for your plumbing, ventilation and electrical. It makes the cost of all these service installations much cheaper when you have a central riser, and also makes upgrading MUCH easier also.
The first step is getting the German company that wrote the software on this to open source it. Then budding architects and engineers looking to do the numbers coudl see for themselves the viability of small scale versions.
Oh, and the last thing si that cooling a building using solar towers has been done for centuries. So its a very very smart way to design building in general.
In many projects i do, i almost always have a central tower for services and ventilation anyway, just because it makes everything else so much cheaper and easier.
With the KVM & the new spice drives, you can virtualise even your HTPC !! It does HD quality video over my network with no problem. This is in the basement.
So all i need on All dekstops is a very simple thin client. 100 mbit nic hdmi.
Wow thats a very informative view. NVIDIA has a license, but cant outsource it or join with others in outsourcing it. NVIDIA has a licence to make low end based chipsets and cpus.
The way NVIDIA are heating their architecture is going to look a lot like the Sony cell architecture - One small CPU to do the marshaling of work off to the GPU cores.
Which begs the questions. Where are their current legal roadblocks ?
Slashdot Mirror
This technology was used by a frnech female architect over 30 years ago for her projects. She used moltent salt for solar thermal storage in residential homes.
so its funny to realise that its simple and nothing new.
if you look at the design of the large Andasol plants they are the saem design as the solar thermal plant you hva in your house, JUST bigger and using hot stream, rather than water.
And of course have a steam turbine.
The other thing going on is the use of ceramic parts for the turbine. This removes the issie of the steam turning to water, and then rusting the turbine.
so, MUCH of the issues with getting the cost down is handling the rust issues with boththe wolten salt and the turbine.
The costs for this plant are very high of course because its a new thing.
This simple power point PDF reallyshows the numbers of the solar thermal salt plant in spain that is run as a research plant.
http://www.dlr.de/tt/Portaldata/41/Resources/dokumente/institut/thermischept/Solar_Thermal_Energy_Storage_Technologies_Hannover2008.pdf
They actually concluded that Salt is Not the only option. The problem with salt is rust, and so you have to use carbon coating on all the steel parts, which makes it expensive.
Simple using concrete was a very attractive option also.
And then that means that hemp concrete is also possible which is much cheaper again.
agree. Its a pity that google did not say this front and center on their web site splash page.
oh, and nice link from www.google.*
But i guess they did not want to offend or bit the hand of the mobile industry.
so basically they just did NOT want to seriously make it a full on venture, but rather wants to give the mobile carrier and oem makers a nudge nudge hint that they need to start selling androids OR they might just ramp up the heat .
pretty simple really. it was a smart business tactic by google, and worked exacyl how they wished.
The video shows the demos playing in IE and then shows them not working properly in other browsers.
Its a very aggressive way to do a demo and quite hideous because the intetn with html5 is to allow harmonious support, but instead MS use these demos to highlight what they can do and other browsers cant.
This is chilling different from how Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome do their demos. They are not using their demoes to create FUD about other browsers.
It pisses me off how aggressive MS are and they cant help themselves resorting to FUD again and again.
This marketing tactic USED to play well into Microsoft hands, because they had market dominance and control over what browser comes with the OS.
NOW, its actually closer to the other way around in many countries where in reality Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox are the dominate player.
So, i would like to invite Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox to actually start playing this FUD back onto Microsoft and selectively doing demos that show their features working better then Microsoft's. Its really a pertinent point because they are now in the dominant position in many markets.
It is actually Microsoft's horrible FUD tactic being played back on them - pay back.
http://www.pcengines.ch/alix.htm
Stick Zero shell on it and you have everything you could want.
Fear, Uncertainty & doubt is all this article is doing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt.
As many people have pointed out the security permissions model in android is very good.
you cant have fantastic apps without allowing them access to other data.
And so thats why the security permission authorization screens are there.
Its so dumb this article, because you cant have your cake and eat it too.
It pisses me off when journalists write a piece like this LL because it gets headlines.
Hey CNet, get a life and stop taking backhanders from Apple or Microsoft. Just a ridiculous article in the first place.
google TV might help.
The Eu project for bit torrent based multi source video streaming is great too.
wow that amazing.
i rememebr in cuba i needed my passport to get into the capital building to use the internte. thats was about 7 years ago.
Amazing place.
hub and spoke design much better.
If google, yahoo, etc can simply work out a common API, then all these retailers can simply implement to that API and then job is done.
How hard can a shopping API be in complexity really !!
True about valves being designed for 20 K psi being available.
However there are all the other aspects of the architecture of the systems down there that have to deal with 20 K psi. So many other bits of hardware have to be able to handle these pressures too.
Together they make for a very risky architecture because when something goes wrong we are at natures mercy.
Lets take an look at this another way. When we design an aeroplane we design in a Safety Factor. That means that everything is over designed to whatever the "Safety Factor" requires.
The engineering safety factor is determined by the consequences of a failure. For an aeroplane we design for a safety factor 1.5 . So everything structural is designed over by 1.5 times because if the wing fails it will likely kill 300 people.
See the Nasa article about it as it shows that safety factors are commutative for all the hardware combined.
http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/waynehalesblog/posts/post_1229459081779.html
For an oil well we should probably have a much much safety factor than just 1. So at 20 K SI, the equipment should be designed to handle at least a safety factor of 2, and so hence be designed for a 40 K psi.
Frustratingly because the damages claimable is limited to 75 million USD; and there is a self monitoring policy that wont design the hardware properly.
For aeroplane makers, there is no statutory limit on the damages, and they are heavily monitored throughout the lifecyle of manufacturer and usage.
As we are seeing the consequences of a failure of the oil well are likely to ultimately kill more than 300 people when you factor in the laws of cause and effect.
But humans that see it immediately; when an aeroplane crashes the laws of cause and effect are right in our faces, but when an oil well leaks if is less apparent to us immediately.
Its a shame that the industry has been allowed to get away with this. Energy policy is screwed up. We want oil, and so we let them get away with low safety because we dont want to scare away investment. ...
How crazy can it get
The idea of incorporatin lyrics and thumbnails into the music file format IS smart.
Also as far as opening up the music biz to independent artists the idea of having the artists web page in the music file format is also good.
This allows any users to be able to go to their web page to check tour dates etc.
everything else is pointless.
But a singel file format with this extra meta data makes perfect sense.
It can ALL be done as part of an extension to the ID tags specification of cource easily. and is the best open standard way to to it
ged
The EU is rolling out a P2p video streaming system.
http://www.p2p-next.org/
There are many test sites.
This means that the bandwidth problem for many video distribution companies is resolved, and the variosu codes can thrive.
G
I noticed that the vimeo videos look much better anti-aliased that the You tube videos.
both are doing h264, but vimeo is much better looking !!!
come on Google get your Sh% together ...
This is the proposal from Google as part of their "Long Tail" requirements
This allows native code running from the browser.
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Plugins:PlatformIndependentNPAPI
There is also once for Audio, and its fully featured.
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Plugins:PepperAudioAPI
This stuff is basically allowing the idea of Google Chrome OS to become a reality.
But it also has much wider implications. For instance for the YouTube Video codec question, it opens up the door for the codec to be delivered via the web site playing it.
The same goes for anything.
Mayeb you want to interact with Git and your file system.
NACL does not allow file system access, but if you had a NAS sitting at home or anywhere you could fully interact with it over tcp/ip or Http/ running inside NCL.
LONG TAIL version of what could happen
On the Long Tail, what we REALLY need is the open codecs to be built into the GPS for encoding and decoding.
Now with the purchase on ON2, Google will essentially have purchased patent power. This is the main thing.
So Google will potentially be pushing to get a GPU manufacturer to implement a non patented codec into GPU, and use it for their Google Chrome OS ?
Very similar business play to what they did with the Google Nexus Mobile phone. Work with the Hardware guys and supply the software, legal housing and OEM sales volume to make it all a sensible ROI for the hardware makers like HTC. Oh, and get the bandwidth providers to suck it up too _ Telecos are really just getting in the way, and the release of the Google Nexus is testament to this view that Google clearly has.
Of course, this does not make sense for the purchase of the ON2, so the really long tail prediction, would be that with the patent and intellectual property, Google would make their own video / audio codec, make it open, and make the GPU hardware (with an OEM of course). With ON2 patent, they can isolate a patent war (MAD - mutally assured destruction), and protect the open codec they made.
Eventually, as critical mass of potential unit sales took over, most of the other GPU manufacturers would also implement the open patent codec.
There are many reasons why this is happening:
1. ACTA agreement and license fees are up for renewal.
http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/FAQ.aspx
All OEM product makers and content encoders are now waiting on the 2010 agreement from the mpegla licensing aggregation company . It will be stiff fees apparently, although not confirmed yet. What is even stranger is that we are now in 2010, and they have still not released the new licensing terms. Very weird; What are they waiting on i wonder ? Maybe ACTA resolution ?
Most China OEMS don't pay the fees, and hence why ACTA is being "negotiated" so secretly also.
http://www.eetasia.com/login.do?fromWhere=/ART_8800463180_499501_NT_5bb04467.HTM
So this is a "double whammy" waiting to explode.
2. There are many other codecs around to choose from and why not test the water for others.
There is much discussion in this area. But its a chicken and Egg game.
You can make a fantastic codec, but you gotta have GPU support, otherwise its pointless.
See below for how this can happen in the Long Tail version.
3. Google knows that its Chrome OS is reaching a tipping point where they need to decide how they will handle video - they need to resolve this and get their ducks in a row.
They can do flash on ARM CPU now, but i am sure they wish they did not have to.
And they also know that with JavaScript and HTML% coming through like a train, Flash days are definitely numbered. See Sproutcore JavaScript framework for example of one of the many "flash replacements".
And they have OpenGL covered with O3D and WebGl also moving forward very fast now with working implementations and even content conversion thinks to the Collada Open 3d format specification not fully entrenched.
they can do NACL (NativeClient), and have already implemented a NACL c language h264 decoder. This was one of the first libraries they did !!
Native Client FAQ: http://code.google.com/p/nativeclient/wiki/FAQ
H264 Implementation: http://geekglue.blogspot.com/2008/12/google-native-client.html
So the cards on the table are all congealing based on the above factors, and its a good time for Google to see where the cards fall for them and their various business models.
So, why not ask the users too.
I think it will come down to the h264 licensing terms to be released, and the ability for GPU's and embedded GPUs to handle video decoding.
http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Documents/AVC_TermsSummary.pdf
its free for the first 100,000 oem units, and then pretty cheap.
BUT; it states these are for up to 2010, so we are now in 2010 and i cant find the costs on their site yet
ged
http://www.google.com/finance?q=google
http://www.google.com/finance?q=baidu
Or to see the differential together:
http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=Linear&chdeh=1&chfdeh=true&chdet=1263416400000&chddm=10108&chls=IntervalBasedLine&cmpto=NASDAQ:GOOG&cmptdms=0&q=NASDAQ:BIDU&ntsp=0
Just thought it might have an effect. Its huge effect !!
Google will take a small hit for this i thought, but its really more than i thought.
I have mad about 250% on shares this year, and simple world events like this combined with technical trading make this an easy game for making money
The Golden Ratio . Is it "pleasing to the eye", or just pleasing to our own quantum state. Or are they both the same anyway ?
I used to employ philosophy degree holders and physicists. This was by accident. It was an IT project in the banking system to use 6 degree of seperation theory to gain knowledge,
These guys were always the best programmers because they just were for our project.
The "we are one" global consciousness aspect is valid to me. There are so many real world tests that show this in action.
Telephone Telepathy being the obvious phone.
http://deanradin.blogspot.com/
Ged
1. The energy calculatiosn were done by a German consulting company almost 6 years ago, and the numbers look good.
The software they wrote allows different sizes of systems to be inputted and metrics drawn out.
2. But there are a few issues.
a. The price of the tower both in energy and cost. The tower must be make out of concrete for structural reasons. A one kilometre high concrete tower is a very costly initial upfront cost.
Also the cost for cemenet is very high now and the carbon output is massive. Concrete is a hugely inefficient material both from an environmental and ecconomic viewpoint.
b. Its all or nothing. By this i mean that for a PV or thermal solar solution you can expand your farm at stages. This makes projects much more viable financially.
But the tower is monolithic.
I woudl like to see a design that is not monolithic, and i think it can be done. The concrete tower coudl be modular and extra height segments are just helicoptered in.
The greenhouse of course is modular, as are the water filled piping at the base of the greenhouse.
The other big advanateg and i what i think woudl help this technology make progress woudl be for it to be residential scale.
I dont knwo what the energy calcaultions woudl reveal on a 3 story high tower that is building integrated with a glase house around it.
As an architect i would like to see buildings designed for this, and the living spaces build around the tower.
Often you need a riser in a building anyway for your plumbing, ventilation and electrical. It makes the cost of all these service installations much cheaper when you have a central riser, and also makes upgrading MUCH easier also.
The first step is getting the German company that wrote the software on this to open source it. Then budding architects and engineers looking to do the numbers coudl see for themselves the viability of small scale versions.
Oh, and the last thing si that cooling a building using solar towers has been done for centuries. So its a very very smart way to design building in general.
In many projects i do, i almost always have a central tower for services and ventilation anyway, just because it makes everything else so much cheaper and easier.
Send the other one over to push or tow it out !!
http://www.techworld.com.au/article/329382/red_hat_open_sources_desktop_application_protocol
Here is the link:
http://www.linux-kvm.com/content/rhev-spice-guest-drivers-released-windows
I agree fully.
With the KVM & the new spice drives, you can virtualise even your HTPC !!
It does HD quality video over my network with no problem.
This is in the basement.
So all i need on All dekstops is a very simple thin client.
100 mbit nic
hdmi.
Wow thats a very informative view.
NVIDIA has a license, but cant outsource it or join with others in outsourcing it.
NVIDIA has a licence to make low end based chipsets and cpus.
The way NVIDIA are heating their architecture is going to look a lot like the Sony cell architecture - One small CPU to do the marshaling of work off to the GPU cores.
Which begs the questions. Where are their current legal roadblocks ?