Generous subsidies for Germany's green energy sector have been so successful at fostering growth that the government is now asking if the industry can survive without them.?
Berlin and Feldheim, Germany
Germany?s renewable energy sector has experienced a boom in the last decade that has far superseded expectations. Supported by generous subsidies, a public that is fairly open to green investments, and a widespread skepticism of nuclear power, energy producers have covered the country with wind generators and solar panels. Twenty percent of Germany?s electricity now comes from renewable sources.
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But the industry risks becoming a victim of its own success. It is locked in a bitter debate with the government about the future of the subsidies that have allowed it to flourish. The government wants to severely curtail the financial support ? particular for solar energy, which provides only 3 percent of Germany's electricity but receives about half the subsidies ? although there are doubts the renewable energy industry could survive without it.
Feldheim, a tiny village just south of Berlin, is pretty, but otherwise unremarkable. Two dozen houses sit along a street lined with chestnut and maple trees. Nothing hints at why this place claims to be ?the future? ? but as the first energy self-sufficient village in Germany, and maybe the whole Continent, it just might be, says Werner Frohwitter.
Mr. Frohwitter?s company, Energiequelle GmbH, provides all of the town?s homes with heat and electricity generated from renewables at their doorstep, which feed into a local grid. Windmills rotate just behind the houses, a biogas plant on the outskirts provides heat and additional energy on windless days, and a bit farther down the road, rows of solar panels in a field face the dull winter sky.
Feldheim residents? energy prices are 30 percent below the average in Germany. Energiequelle profits from feed-in tariffs, a subsidy on the amount of energy they feed into the system. It gives the company, as a renewable energy provider, a 20-year guarantee on the amount of energy they can feed into the grid at a price that is considerably higher than what fossil energy providers get on the free market.
It is a good deal for the company, and people outside Feldheim are noticing. The solar power industry is booming. The government predicted an increase in solar power installations in 2011 with a total output of 3.5 gigawatts, but actual production far exceeded that prediction: at the end of the year, Germany had produced an additional 7.5 gigawatts of solar energy.
The feed-in tariff is regulated by the Renewable Energy Bill and financed not by the state budget, but by German consumers. A levy dedicated to the support of green energy is added to the electricity bill of each household. It rises with the number of solar panels and windmills out there, even though the government tries to adjust the tariff downward at regular intervals. Last year, the average household paid ?130 ($171) extra to foot the green bill.
ROME ? Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, a past president of Italy who helped write its post-war constitution and was a founding member of the former Christian Democrats, died Sunday in Rome. He was 93.
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano paid tribute to his predecessor as "a protagonist in the democratic political life" and called him an example of "moral integrity."
No cause of death was immediately reported.
Scalfaro held numerous prestigious posts before becoming Italy's ninth postwar president, a position that is largely ceremonial but carries the significant role of moral compass for the country.
As president from 1992-1999, Scalfaro was often called upon to resolve Italy's recurrent political crises, either choosing a new premier or calling early elections. He once called Italy's volatile political situation "pathological."
The National Magistrates Association remembered Scalfaro as a "strenuous defender of constitutional values and the autonomy and independence of the magistrates."
A devout Roman Catholic with a law degree from the Catholic University of Milan, Scalfaro spent the war years working to help imprisoned anti-Fascists and their families.
Then, in 1946, he won a seat in the assembly that wrote the constitution for the Italian Republic, declared in late 1947 after a popular referendum abolished the monarchy.
Scalfaro, a native of the northern city of Novara, was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in the republic's first general election in 1948 and remained a deputy until he was elected president in 1992.
He also was one of the founding figures of the former Christian Democrats, for decades Italy's most powerful party until its demise in corruption scandals in the early 1990s.
Scalfaro held junior posts at various ministries through the 1950s and early 1960s. In 1966, he gained his first Cabinet position when Premier Aldo Moro appointed him transportation minister.
In subsequent governments, Scalfaro served two more stints as transport minister and was education minister and interior minister. He was vice president of the Chamber of Deputies from 1976 to 1983.
He became a senator for life after completing his term as president.
Personal recommendations have always been a part of ecommerce, but there has been little innovation since Amazon introduced retail and product personalization 10 years ago. But with the increasing mountains of data at digital retailers' fingertips, ecommerce is about to get even more personal. The fact is that right now there is little iteration from personalized ecommerce beyond what is taking place on Amazon. So you'll see suggestions of what other shoppers who bought a certain item also purchased, or recommendations to similar items to what you have purchased, but there is a whole world of social data, and even more-in-depth purchase data that can be mined by retailers to help increase sales.
NEW YORK -- Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said Friday he had "no idea" who leaked information to the media suggesting that prosecutors investigating a rape complaint against the New York City police commissioner's son doubt the credibility of the allegations.
A front-page story Friday in the New York Post, citing anonymous sources, described Manhattan prosecutors as skeptical of the rape complaint against Greg Kelly, 43, a local newscaster and son of Ray Kelly, the city police commissioner. The alleged sexual assault occurred in October, after the woman and Kelly had drinks, she reportedly told police this week.
No charges have been filed against Kelly, who maintains his innocence.
The woman's complaint, filed Tuesday night, "just reeks of BS," a law enforcement official said, according to the Post.
"I have absolutely no idea what [the] source of that incendiary quote is, nor would I support an anonymous quote like that," Vance told radio station WNYC.
Manhattan prosecutors and the NYPD declined to comment on the leaks.
Former prosecutors called the leaks regrettable and said they could undermine the investigation, which began only days ago.
"I think it's unfortunate and even outrageous that any law enforcement source would be leaking to the media within 24 hours that the case has no merit," said Mark Bederow, a former Manhattan prosecutor and defense attorney. "These are real issues that may harm the viability of a case."
The fact that the case will likely hinge on whether the encounter between Kelly and his accuser was consensual make the leaks attacking her credibility especially problematic, said Roger Canaff, a former special victims prosecutor in the Bronx and a sex crimes consultant for the U.S. Army.
"Whether or not the case is provable, leaking the idea that it seems like garbage is really reckless," said Canaff. "It is unfortunate and it is dangerous."
Earlier this week, Kelly's attorney released a statement declaring that Kelly, who is unmarried, is innocent and "strenuously denies any wrongdoing of any kind."
Additional details about the rape complaint emerged late Thursday and Friday through leaks from law enforcement sources.
The woman who filed the complaint told police she became pregnant after the alleged assault and terminated the pregnancy, according to unnamed law enforcement sources quoted by the Associated Press and other news outlets.
Kelly, meanwhile, has claimed to police that "flirtatious" text messages sent by the alleged victim will show that the encounter was consensual, sources told the New York Daily News.
At a news conference at police headquarters on Friday, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly declined to answer questions about the investigation.
TD;TR: Converting games to HTML5 is hurting the cause. We need more games written in web technologies.
OK, I might be a bit late to the party but the latest ?web version? of Angry Birds, ?subtly? advertising this time not itself but Wonderful Pistachios was the talk of the day on some of my mailing lists.
The main thing was that it requires Chrome to run. This is nothing new, but I really enjoyed the ingenious way of testing for Chrome in the first place:
if(Modernizr.testProp('-webkit-box-shadow')){
So the CSS box shadow (which will soon be deprecated with the vendor prefix in Chrome) is the main identifier. Not bad. So let?s hack around the detection with:
var l = document.createElement('link');l.rel='stylesheet'; l.href='http://wac.5DC0.edgecastcdn.net/805DC0/site/static/css/style.css'; document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(l); GetCrackin.init();
Which leads us to a JSP file that detects on the server side and writes out a lot of inline webkit only code OK, never mind.
I am less annoyed that this is Chrome only. It was never claimed that this game runs everywhere (other than the Angry Birds released on Google IO). I am more annoyed about the bad performance the game has in Chrome and Safari on this Macbook Air. And I know the reason for this: conversion instead of dedicated development.
A look back in time ? games on Commodore 64
As I have mentioned before, I used to work on some games on Commodore 64. In its heyday there was no way to have a game without writing it by hand ? in assembly language and knowing what all the chips do. Perusing the memory map and the ROM allocations was part of the game of writing one.
When computers got more ubiquitous and better in terms of sound and graphics a lot of companies started building games on the other machines first ? Amiga mostly. And to make extra money and sell even more copies, they also made C64 versions as conversions afterwards. These were most of the time shoddy at best and weren?t tested much. The C64 was the machine that is not where the money was made ? the new hardware was the one to support.
The thing that got lost ? and later on even more so ? was the tinkering with the hardware and finding tricks to work around limitations. Out of the box the C64 had 8 sprites and a resolution of 160?200 pixels in 16 colours or 320?200 in 2 colours per 8?8 pixels. Using interrupts (executing code whilst the screen was painted by the TV or monitor) people came up with multiplexers that allowed for hundreds of sprites. With overlaying techniques we produced 256 colors at a interlaced 640 pixel resolution and so on.
A few of those tricks made it into the conversion tools from the ?higher? computers to C64 code, but most were deemed too costly and time consuming and didn?t make sense to do any longer.
HTML5 gaming without the web stack?
This is happening now with ?HTML5? games, too. Angry Birds is done with Google Web Toolkit, converted from Java I presume. It is made to work quickly and not show off what a web game can do, but instead how easy it can be to convert a game from Java to the ?web?. And when that fails to bring the results it should, then we limit the web to one browser. And even fail at that as Angry Birds ? in this case created to promote Chrome as a HTML5/games platform ? doesn?t work on my Chrome book ? the hardware dedicated to the browser.
Seeing this makes me frustrated, and it causes a lot of sniggering up to outright laughter from the Flash community. And they have all the right to. Flash games perform well, and showed that they can be easily changed and rebranded and extended when you build them the right way.
The HTML5 game engine vanishing act
Of course there are great minds on the case already and a lot of people build great demos and JavaScript frameworks to build HTML5 games in the technology rather than converting to it. The interesting thing about that is that every games engine released open source very quickly gets bought and un-opensourced and then vanishes from sight. The optimist in me thinks that this means there is great stuff afoot. The cynic in me sees the talent behind and the engines rotting away in a corporate environment as they were seen as a threat instead of an opportunity.
What HTML5 gaming needs to impress
I would love to see more real web games. Built in open technologies, with source available (or not, this is a nice to have) and really using the web. A web version of Angry Birds to me wouldn?t have a very long loader and ask me to sign in to Google to use it. It would be snappy and load the levels on demand, storing the ones I played and the next one locally in my browser while I am playing the current one. It would also allow me to build my own levels and share them on Twitter to see if I can build awesome stuff in the game that other people enjoy. All of this would be a total pain to make work on a mobile and a 3G connection, but is very much fine in a browser on a laptop with a good connection.
In other words, HTML5 games should be fit for the environment and use it to its strengths.
What about WebGL?
WebGL is an awesome opportunity for game developers to get into web gaming without needing to learn a new skillset. It is pretty obvious that an openGL developer could take it up much easier than a web developer would. Right now, WebGL is great for demos, but we have the issue of hardware access. If the biggest sound of the game is the fan of your processor and video card then this diminishes the experience. I for one never started gaming on PC as every new game coming out told me I need to buy new hardware in order to play it. This is not what I could afford. And this is not what we should force onto people on the web. A web app saying I need a certain browser or that my video card is not good enough to use it is not much better than the old ?best viewed in IE4 with 800?600 pixels?.
We should think less World Of Warcraft and more Doodle Jump when it comes to HTML5 gaming.
Maybe I am a dreamer, and this is so not how the games market works. That is fine, though. A new market could emerge that takes the best of offline gaming and online experiences. But, we need to make that happen.
For decades, animal activists have gone undercover to take jobs inside large-scale livestock farms in order to document conditions for farm animals that they say are routinely inhumane. Their hidden camera footage has resulted in criminal charges against owners and workers, plant shutdowns, and after one at a California slaughterhouse in 2008, the largest meat recall in U.S. history.
But these images could soon be made illegal. Legislation pending in five states ? Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and New York ? would criminalize the actions of activists who covertly film farms. Proponents of the various pieces legislation say that their proposed laws would lead to beneficial consequences, including the protection of such farms from potential terrorist infiltration (preserving the integrity of the food supply) and espionage; the prevention of images that mislead consumers; as well as regulating the job application process to circumvent potential employees from lying in order to be hired. See the legal assault on animal-abuse whistleblowers.
These so-called "ag-gag" bills have ignited a national debate about undercover videos and have raised concerns about free speech and journalists' and whistleblowers' ability to report on the farming industry.
TIME traveled to Iowa, the nation's leading producer of eggs and pork and the first state to propose a ban on undercover videos, with one former investigator for a rare glimpse at how these videos are made and why they are so controversial.
LIST: Top 10 Pictures of the Year of 2011
SPECIAL: TIME's 2011 Person of the Year: The Protester
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NEW YORK ? The interest among television viewers in President Barack Obama's annual State of the Union addresses is dwindling.
The Nielsen measurement company said Wednesday an estimated 37.8 million people watched Obama's speech the night before on one of the 14 networks airing it. Obama's audience for the speech has dropped each year, from a high of 52.4 million in 2009.
Obama narrowly missed President George W. Bush's least-watched State of the Union. Bush's last one was seen by 37.5 million people in 2008.
The largest individual audience for Obama's speech was NBC's, more than 8 million. On cable, MSNBC beat CNN for the first time for second place behind Fox News Channel.
Heather Locklear, who was rushed to the hospital earlier this month after mixing a dangerous combination of drugs and alcohol, is not seeking treatment in a rehabilitation facility.
TOKYO (Reuters) ? Japan logged its first annual trade deficit in 2011 for over 30 years as the aftermath of the March earthquake raised fuel import costs even as slowing global growth and the yen's strength hit exports, threatening to erode the country's ability to fund its huge public debt with domestic savings.
Few market players expect Japan to immediately run a deficit in the current account, which includes trade and returns on the country's huge past investments abroad, as a steady inflow of profits and capital gains from overseas outweigh the trade deficit.
But the trade data underscores a broader trend in which Japan's competitive edge in the global market is eroding and it is increasingly reliant on fuel imports due to the loss of nuclear power, with reactors staying closed after routine checks due to public safety fears following the March disaster.
"What it means is that the time when Japan runs out of savings -- 'Sayonara net creditor country' -- that point is coming closer," said Jesper Koll, head of equities research at JPMorgan in Japan.
"It means Japan becomes dependent on global savings to fund its deficit and either the currency weakens or interest rates rise."
Japan logged a trade deficit of 2.49 trillion yen ($32 billion) for 2011, Ministry of Finance data showed on Wednesday, the first annual deficit since 1980.
Total exports shrank 2.7 percent last year while imports surged 12.0 percent, reflecting reduced earnings from goods and services and higher spending on crude and fuel oil.
In a sign of the continuing pain from slowing global growth, exports fell 8.0 percent in December from a year earlier, roughly matching a median market forecast for a 7.9 percent drop, due partly to weak shipments of electronics parts.
Imports rose 8.1 percent in December from a year earlier, in line with a 8.0 percent annual gain expected, bringing the trade balance to a deficit of 205.1 billion yen, against 139.7 billion yen expected. It marked the third straight month of deficits.
Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said on Tuesday he did not expect Japan to continue logging a trade deficit as a trend and did not foresee the country's current account balance tipping into the red in the near future.
But Japan's days of logging huge trade surpluses may be over as it relies more on fuel imports, which may weaken the yen in the longer term.
Running a current account deficit would spell trouble for Japan as it means it cannot pay the cost of financing its huge public debt without overseas funds, although few analysts expect this to happen in the foreseeable future. ($1 = 77.7100 Japanese yen)
(Additional reporting by Linda Sieg; Writing by Tetsushi Kajimoto and Leika Kihara; Editing by Michael Watson)
TRIPOLI (Reuters) ? Violent crime and clashes between armed militants are running rife in Libya as the jubilation of last year's liberation fades, to be replaced by the harsh and unromantic reality of building a new state.
Although much less frequent than the celebratory shooting in the weeks after Muammar Gaddafi died in October, the sound of gunfire can still be heard at night in Tripoli, where security sector workers say theft, infighting and murder are on the rise.
Last week, two grenade attacks were reported in central Tripoli and gunfights occur on a near-daily basis.
"The country is coming down off a victory high," a western diplomat in the capital told Reuters.
"Not only are there clashes between rival militias, but we are seeing a lot more reports of crime in the capital and I think it is because people are disillusioned with the slower-than-hoped progress of the country," the diplomat said.
The National Transition Council (NTC), Libya's internationally recognized but self-appointed government, has received praise for getting many of the country's ministries up and running and, notably, for drafting an election law in which NTC leaders will be unable to run in June elections.
But many Libyans thought progress would be faster, and the defense ministry and the interior ministry are failing to incorporate disparate militias, armed with anything from pistols to tanks, into a police force and an army.
These groups fought hard in the campaign to topple Gaddafi but now refuse to hand in their weapons, saying they are suspicious of the country's new rulers.
The ramshackle government lost control of a former Gaddafi stronghold on Tuesday after local people staged an armed revolt, posing the gravest challenge yet to the NTC's authority.
The revolt in Bani Walid will heighten doubts in the West about the NTC government's ability to instill law and order crucial to rebuilding oil exports, to disarm tribal militias and to guard Libyan borders in a region where al Qaeda is active.
Elders in Bani Walid, 200 km (125 miles) southeast of the capital, said they were appointing their own local government and rejected any interference from the authorities in Tripoli.
Although seen unlikely to spread elsewhere, the fighting added to the problems besetting the fragile new government.
The sense of lawlessness - and the lingering influence of Gaddafi even in death - is exemplified in recent clashes between the neighboring towns of Assabia and Gharyan, 50 miles south of Tripoli.
ESCALATING FIGHTING
Although accounts are conflicting, residents from both towns -- perched on the edge of the sandstone Western, or Nafusa, Mountains -- say that a knife fight broke out at a weekly market along a road that connects them.
The towns' respective militias rapidly amassed their troops, blocked off the main connecting road with walls of dirt to hide behind and started a three-day battle, in which shells, mortars and 9-foot-long GRAD rockets were fired.
Near the front line, a towering Catholic church can be seen at the peak of a nearby hill. During the Italian occupation in the early 20th century, fighters from Gharyan and Assabia fought together to decolonize Libya.
During the fighting, the military council of Gharyan swore that they were fighting the remnants of pro-Gaddafi forces still hiding in Assabia.
"Assabia and us are brothers, but due to the presence of Gaddafi fighters we have a problem," Gharyan spokesman Ismail al-Ayeb told Reuters.
He said there are more than 1,000 pro-Gaddafi troops in Assabia -- a town of just over 50,000 people -- and showed Reuters documents which listed tens of thousands of weapons that the Gharyan military council claims are in Assabia.
TORTURE CLAIMS
In Assabia, a different story was being told, in which residents not involved in the fighting were kidnapped and tortured, one to death, by Gharyan fighters.
"We are not Gaddafi supporters. Gharyan just want to legitimize their fight against us," said Ibrahim Mohammed, 23, who was covered head to toe in black and blue bruises which he says he got from beatings with metal chains in Gharyan.
"I was on the road to the capital and I was stopped by Gharyan fighters. They asked me where I was from and when I said Assabia they forced me out the car with guns and took me to a military base," he told Reuters from his bed at the central hospital in Assabia, having been released in a ceasefire agreement brokered by the NTC.
"I recognized them as being from the military council in Gharyan," he said in a coarse voice, adding that his ankles were crushed in metal workshop clamps and that his finger and toe were smacked with metal bars. Blood seeped from under his fingernails during the interview.
"During my interrogations, I saw our main military commander in Gharyan lying on the floor in a pool of blood ... he was barely breathing and they had tied a metal pole to his arms and legs and were giving him electric shocks," Ibrahim said.
The body of this Assabia military commander, Ezzedine al-Ghool, was anonymously dropped at the Tripoli hospital where it was later collected by members of Assabia's city council, including Bashir al-Nwer, who says Gharyan fighters took the body to Tripoli to avoid escalating the conflict by returning the tortured body directly to Assabia.
"We have come to get the doctor's report which proves he was tortured to death. Then we will take his body to Assabia. Three days after Ezzedine was killed, his wife gave birth to his son, Ali, and we want the son to see his first and last glimpse of his father," he told Reuters at the morgue in Tripoli.
Ezzedine spent two months in a Gaddafi prison during the war and is heralded as a hero of the revolution.
Reuters travelled in a convoy of dozens of cars which transported Ezzedine's body back to Assabia hospital where Ezzedine's wife was recovering from giving birth a day before. On arrival, the widow's wails echoed through the corridors and she kissed her dead husband's face and whispered prayers.
"This is your son," she said, holding her newborn child, tightly wrapped in blankets to protect him from the thin, cold mountain air.
TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION
So far, the NTC has been efficient at mediating and ending these sort of flare-ups that are happening all over the country and undermining Libya's fragile stability.
The Gharyan-Assabia ceasefire was brokered quickly, and prime minister Abdel Rahim El-Keib and NTC head Mustafa Abdel Jalil personally visited both towns.
But the NTC has yet to prove it can prevent militia fighting and rising violent crime.
"Libya is making a transition from war to peace and trying to deal with what happened," said the western diplomat who is involved in a movement to start a truth and reconciliation committee to document war crimes committed during the civil war.
"After going through what Libya went through, any country would have problems and especially as people realize that the country will take time for laws to be enforced and adhered to."
PYONGYANG, North Korea ? North Koreans bundled against the freezing cold paid respects again to late leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang's main plaza Monday and celebrated the Lunar New Year holiday with colorful flowers and children's games.
A massive portrait of Kim Jong Il, absent after the mourning period for his death last month, has been restored at the vast Kim Il Sung Square. People stood in line to bow and lay single red flowers ? the late leader's namesake "kimjongilia" begonias ? made of fabric.
The capital city that was barren and somber for several weeks is filled with color again: flower beds and planters bursting with blossoms and the red, white and blue national flag fluttering from signposts. Banners celebrating the year and posters marking the holiday called "Sol Myong Jol" here were pinned to buildings and walls.
The North Korean year "Juche 101" counts from 1912, the year founder Kim Il Sung was born.
The holiday comes as new leader Kim Jong Un, who has pledged to uphold his father's "military first" policy, visits military units. North Korea recently credited him with commanding nuclear tests and working closely with his father on military and economic matters, dismissing other countries' doubts about his ability to lead a country with an active nuclear program and chronic food shortages.
The new era of leadership comes as North Korea prepares to celebrate the 100th anniversary in April of the birth of national founder, late President Kim Il Sung.
In downtown Pyongyang, lanterns printed with "2012" and "Congratulations" dangled from the eaves of Pothong Gate. At the plaza in front of the Pyongyang Grand Theater, hundreds of children scampered and shouted as they flew kites and played traditional Korean games in freezing temperatures.
Pyongyang residents said they were encouraged to celebrate the holiday as they usually do, despite the death of Kim Jong Il, only the second leader North Koreans have known since the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was founded in 1948. State television aired a segment late Sunday on making rice cake soup, a traditional New Year's meal in both Koreas.
At the Mangyongdae Schoolchildren's Palace, high-ranking military and political officials watched an annual song-and-dance performance by students and a troupe of performers from the ethnic Korean community in Japan.
On Mansudae Street, Ro Chang Hae said his first emotion on Lunar New Year's Day was to miss the late leader.
"My eyes sting with tears whenever I think about how he provided us with such a comfortable home and always worried so much about us year after year," he told The Associated Press.
His granddaughters, an 8-year-old dressed in a school uniform and a 3-year-old wearing in a pink Korean dress, bowed as they wished him well.
The girls poured a tumbler of Korean liquor for him, saying: "Grandfather, we hope you'll be healthy and hope for your longevity."
Ro, 68, said the whole family would gather at lunchtime for rice cake soup.
___
Follow AP's North Korea coverage on Twitter at twitter.com/newsjean and twitter.com/dguttenfelder.
We can't say we were overly concerned about busting through the Vita's 2GB monthly data threshold when the handheld's 3G variant hits AT&T next month, but the network, it seems, isn't taking any chances. According to the Vita's AT&T page, Ma Bell's making sure you'll never be blocked from nabbing those download-capped PlayStation Minis by upping the previously announced 2GB for $25 plan to 3GB for $30. Surprised? Don't be -- this change just brings Sony's next generation handheld in-line with the network's updated data plans. The Vita's budget-friendly $15 for 250MB option is still ripe for the picking, but that won't get you far if you plan to watch Netflix on the go, will it?
REL, Inc. teams with NYU-Poly to create lightweight, ultra durable automotive brake rotorPublic release date: 19-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kathleen Hamilton hamilton@poly.edu 718-260-3792 Polytechnic Institute of New York University
REL, Inc. teams with NYU-Poly to create lightweight, ultra durable automotive brake rotor
Researchers at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly) and Michigan-based REL, Inc., are creating a next-generation aluminum composite brake rotor potentially weighing 60 percent less than today's cast iron rotors with triple the life expectancy.
Due to expense, today's composite brakes have been reserved for motorcycles, race cars and high-performance sports cars, but this new, fiber reinforced, metal matrix composite (MMC) brake rotor aims at the mass market. It will be easier to manufacture, and the fiber reinforcements will provide longer life span.
The researchers also estimate that their composite rotor will shave approximately 30 pounds from a mid-size sedan a significant advantage in an industry facing fleet a fuel economy requirement of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.
REL, Inc., a developer of MMC transportation and aerospace components, received a $150,000 Phase I Small Business Innovation Research Grant from the National Science Foundation to develop the initial product design, material and manufacturing process. The company tapped the expertise of NYU-Poly Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Associate Professor Nikhil Gupta and his Composites Materials and Mechanics Lab to develop the technology for automotive application. The collaboration will result in a prototype, first-of-its-kind rotor that may revolutionize a market valued at $10 billion annually.
Manufacturers have long sought to improve the durability and performance of automotive brakes, which are subject to tremendous temperature and pressure changes.
Gupta and REL are developing a one-piece brake rotor uniquely tailored to meet the extreme and variable temperature and loading conditions. Most of today's brake rotors are made of cast iron, which offers strength but at a cost of weight. Iron also doesn't adapt well to the demands placed on different sections of the rotor. A brake rotor has three functional zones, each of which requires a material with distinct strain and thermal properties to function optimally. Temperature and pressure changes across the rotor surface are a major cause of wear, warp and brake failure.
The team will replace the traditional rotor material with a high-temperature aluminum alloy reinforced with functionally graded ceramic particles and fibers to create a lightweight but extremely durable material that can be customized to best serve each section of the rotor.
"These functionally graded materials allow us to create the optimal composition for each part of the rotor," Gupta explained. "The hybrid material allows us to provide reinforcement where additional strength is needed, increase high-temperature performance, and minimize stress at the interfaces between the zones. Together, this should boost rotor life significantly, reducing warranty and replacement costs, and the weight savings will improve the vehicle's fuel efficiency."
"As auto companies strive to meet increasingly high efficiency and low emissions targets, there's a tremendous business opportunity in creating novel lightweight components which reduce overall vehicle weight and increase vehicle performance", said Adam Loukus, vice president of REL, Inc. "Professor Gupta is highly regarded in MMC research and analysis, and his expertise backed by the resources of NYU-Poly is an ideal complement to our goals for this exciting project."
"This is a valuable opportunity for our students to gain real-world business experience," Gupta added. "Working closely with the REL team, they will understand the demands of the automotive component development process."
In addition to the automotive market, the composite rotors may benefit military fleets, where up-armored vehicles operate at weights well above their design capacity. While the development of lightweight armor remains a long-term goal for the military, any weight savings on the vehicles themselves will immediately improve fleet efficiency, which can be critical to mission success where fuel delivery is difficult.
Gupta and the team at REL expect to complete a functional rotor prototype within 12 months.
###
About Polytechnic Institute of New York University
Polytechnic Institute of New York University (formerly Polytechnic University), an affiliate of New York University, is a comprehensive school of engineering, applied sciences, technology and research, and is rooted in a 158-year tradition of invention, innovation and entrepreneurship: i2e. The institution, founded in 1854, is the nation's second-oldest private engineering school. In addition to its main campus in New York City at MetroTech Center in downtown Brooklyn, it also offers programs at sites throughout the region and around the globe. Globally, NYU-Poly has programs in Israel, China and is an integral part of NYU's campus in Abu Dhabi. For more information, visit http://www.poly.edu.
About REL, Inc.
REL of Calumet, Michigan, specializes in designing and building Custom Automated Equipment and manufacturing Advanced Lightweight Composite Materials. REL has developed and deployed new and innovative MMC products in motorcycle braking applications, lightweight survivability materials and high temperature insulation materials. REL's vertically integrated approach to manufacturing MMCs has made composites more cost effective and thereby is expanding the use of MMC materials in targeted markets. For more information, visit http://www.relinc.net.
Note to Editors:
To download an image, visit http://research.poly.edu/~resourcespace/?c=510&k=0da2e1409d
Contacts:
Kathleen Hamilton, NYU-Poly
718-260-3792 office
347-843-9782 mobile
hamilton@poly.edu
David Bekkala, REL, Inc.
906-337-3018 office
david@relinc.net
Joshua Chamot, NSF
703-292-7730
jchamot@nsf.gov
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
REL, Inc. teams with NYU-Poly to create lightweight, ultra durable automotive brake rotorPublic release date: 19-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kathleen Hamilton hamilton@poly.edu 718-260-3792 Polytechnic Institute of New York University
REL, Inc. teams with NYU-Poly to create lightweight, ultra durable automotive brake rotor
Researchers at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly) and Michigan-based REL, Inc., are creating a next-generation aluminum composite brake rotor potentially weighing 60 percent less than today's cast iron rotors with triple the life expectancy.
Due to expense, today's composite brakes have been reserved for motorcycles, race cars and high-performance sports cars, but this new, fiber reinforced, metal matrix composite (MMC) brake rotor aims at the mass market. It will be easier to manufacture, and the fiber reinforcements will provide longer life span.
The researchers also estimate that their composite rotor will shave approximately 30 pounds from a mid-size sedan a significant advantage in an industry facing fleet a fuel economy requirement of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.
REL, Inc., a developer of MMC transportation and aerospace components, received a $150,000 Phase I Small Business Innovation Research Grant from the National Science Foundation to develop the initial product design, material and manufacturing process. The company tapped the expertise of NYU-Poly Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Associate Professor Nikhil Gupta and his Composites Materials and Mechanics Lab to develop the technology for automotive application. The collaboration will result in a prototype, first-of-its-kind rotor that may revolutionize a market valued at $10 billion annually.
Manufacturers have long sought to improve the durability and performance of automotive brakes, which are subject to tremendous temperature and pressure changes.
Gupta and REL are developing a one-piece brake rotor uniquely tailored to meet the extreme and variable temperature and loading conditions. Most of today's brake rotors are made of cast iron, which offers strength but at a cost of weight. Iron also doesn't adapt well to the demands placed on different sections of the rotor. A brake rotor has three functional zones, each of which requires a material with distinct strain and thermal properties to function optimally. Temperature and pressure changes across the rotor surface are a major cause of wear, warp and brake failure.
The team will replace the traditional rotor material with a high-temperature aluminum alloy reinforced with functionally graded ceramic particles and fibers to create a lightweight but extremely durable material that can be customized to best serve each section of the rotor.
"These functionally graded materials allow us to create the optimal composition for each part of the rotor," Gupta explained. "The hybrid material allows us to provide reinforcement where additional strength is needed, increase high-temperature performance, and minimize stress at the interfaces between the zones. Together, this should boost rotor life significantly, reducing warranty and replacement costs, and the weight savings will improve the vehicle's fuel efficiency."
"As auto companies strive to meet increasingly high efficiency and low emissions targets, there's a tremendous business opportunity in creating novel lightweight components which reduce overall vehicle weight and increase vehicle performance", said Adam Loukus, vice president of REL, Inc. "Professor Gupta is highly regarded in MMC research and analysis, and his expertise backed by the resources of NYU-Poly is an ideal complement to our goals for this exciting project."
"This is a valuable opportunity for our students to gain real-world business experience," Gupta added. "Working closely with the REL team, they will understand the demands of the automotive component development process."
In addition to the automotive market, the composite rotors may benefit military fleets, where up-armored vehicles operate at weights well above their design capacity. While the development of lightweight armor remains a long-term goal for the military, any weight savings on the vehicles themselves will immediately improve fleet efficiency, which can be critical to mission success where fuel delivery is difficult.
Gupta and the team at REL expect to complete a functional rotor prototype within 12 months.
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About Polytechnic Institute of New York University
Polytechnic Institute of New York University (formerly Polytechnic University), an affiliate of New York University, is a comprehensive school of engineering, applied sciences, technology and research, and is rooted in a 158-year tradition of invention, innovation and entrepreneurship: i2e. The institution, founded in 1854, is the nation's second-oldest private engineering school. In addition to its main campus in New York City at MetroTech Center in downtown Brooklyn, it also offers programs at sites throughout the region and around the globe. Globally, NYU-Poly has programs in Israel, China and is an integral part of NYU's campus in Abu Dhabi. For more information, visit http://www.poly.edu.
About REL, Inc.
REL of Calumet, Michigan, specializes in designing and building Custom Automated Equipment and manufacturing Advanced Lightweight Composite Materials. REL has developed and deployed new and innovative MMC products in motorcycle braking applications, lightweight survivability materials and high temperature insulation materials. REL's vertically integrated approach to manufacturing MMCs has made composites more cost effective and thereby is expanding the use of MMC materials in targeted markets. For more information, visit http://www.relinc.net.
Note to Editors:
To download an image, visit http://research.poly.edu/~resourcespace/?c=510&k=0da2e1409d
Contacts:
Kathleen Hamilton, NYU-Poly
718-260-3792 office
347-843-9782 mobile
hamilton@poly.edu
David Bekkala, REL, Inc.
906-337-3018 office
david@relinc.net
Joshua Chamot, NSF
703-292-7730
jchamot@nsf.gov
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
WORCESTER, Mass. ? U.S. Sen. Scott Brown has officially kicked off his re-election campaign, casting his chief Democratic opponent Elizabeth Warren as an ideologue and pledging to be an independent voice in a deeply partisan Congress.
Brown, speaking to a crowd of cheering supporters, said he would continue to oppose the health care law signed by President Barack Obama and would fight against wasteful government spending.
Brown timed his Thursday evening event to coincide with the anniversary of his special election win in 2010 that catapulted him into the office once held by the late Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy.
Brown also criticized what he called "establishment candidates" who wage class warfare by pitting one group of Americans against another and attacking the country's free enterprise system.
Warren called those remarks part of the "standard Republican playbook."
iBooks Author was part of Apple's big education announcement today, at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. It's new software, available for free in the Mac App Store, that can be used to create interactive electronic textbooks. These books can then be read on the iPad.
Compared to traditional textbooks, iBooks take advantage of being in electronic format. They can include "text, shapes, charts, tablets, and Multi-Touch widgets", like 3d objects and animations. An entire photo gallery can be put on a single page, and the reader can swipe between pictures. HTML widgets let an iBook pull in things from the web, and iBooks can be edited at any time once they're already published, keeping them up to date. Finally, textbook authors can build quizzes into the end of each chapter.
Here's a look at who will be able to use this new software from Apple:
People with a compatible Mac
The only place you can download iBooks Author is from the Mac App Store. It is available as a free update, but only for Macs running OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or later (this includes 10.7 Lion).
If your Mac is running OS X 10.5 Leopard or earlier, you can upgrade to Snow Leopard for $29, by purchasing a disc from the Apple Store. Snow Leopard requires an Intel Mac, though, so if your Mac uses a PowerPC processor (meaning it was build before the switch to Intel in 2006) it won't be able to run Snow Leopard, or the App Store.
Windows and Linux PC users are out of luck.
Parents and Educators
You don't need to be a certified textbook author to write an iBook. Even if you're just creating something for your high school class to use -- or creating a bedtime story for your child -- you can just create the book and share it or publish on iTunes.
Students and Authors
If your school has a Mac lab that's equipped with Intel Macs running Snow Leopard, students there can also create and share their own books. And again, you don't have to be connected to education to use iBooks Author. Aspiring storytellers can create their own iBooks and sell them (only in the iBooks store).
iPad owners
You can't create books on an iPad; the iBooks Author app only runs on a Mac. iBooks itself runs on the iPad, though, as well as the iPhone and iPod Touch. So if you have one of those devices, you can preview your books as you're writing them.
Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
It is easy to give up on Haiti reading through the litany of articles about where the country stands after two difficult years since the January 12, 2010 earthquake. In many ways, that was true even before the quake -- in the last five years, there have been food crises, multiple hurricanes, and political and electoral crises.
With more than a half million people still living in the squalid displacement camps and cholera still threatening the health of thousands, what can be said about the recovery in Haiti that doesn't reflect only hopelessness? That doesn't make donor nations and their taxpayers throw up their hands in despair? That doesn't make forgetting about Haiti easier than following through on promises made in the months after the quake?
Women's rights is one example of huge problems and work ahead, and yet it also shows why no one should give up on Haiti. Groundbreaking work is being done to promote the rights of women and girls -- who have suffered immeasurably in Haiti's disasters and instability -- through new legislation.
Haiti's current criminal justice system does little to protect women and girls from rape and gender-based violence, and its health system is also failing victims. In 2010 and 2011, I interviewed over 120 women and girls living in shredded tents in displacement camps about sexual violence and health services, as well as scores of officials.
Rape survivors described brutal attacks and poor state health and justice system responses. I found that the government is doing little to inform the public about access to post-rape care, and few health providers are trained to address gender-based violence. Professional schools for doctors and nurses do not include instruction on treating gender-based violence as part of their core curricula or continuing learning programs. Medical and judicial communities cannot agree on the necessary forms to record forensic medical evidence of rape. The penal code fails to encompass most forms of violence against women, and provides virtually no victim protection measures.
But this under-developed and unwieldy system is capable of change, and in fact, it's under way.
Years before the earthquake, women's rights activists and the Ministry of Women's Affairs began preparations for legal reforms to address gender-based violence. A significant step was taken in 2005 when rape was redefined as a crime against a person with significant penalties. This came after almost two centuries when rape was treated as a "moral" offense in Haiti.
Sadly, the ministry and the women's rights advocates suffered heavy losses during the earthquake. Some of the strongest workers for reform lost their lives in the quake.
Yet, 2012 can be the turning point. The Ministry of Women's Affairs is forging ahead with legal reforms. A draft law it plans to introduce in parliament soon would provide new protections against gender-based violence and to women in the workplace, home and community. If adopted in its entirety, it would be nothing short of a rights revolution for Haiti's women.
Of course, much could happen to water down this bill before it passes, and the government will need outside support for resources to carry out some components, like a shelter system for survivors of violence. But the very fact that this bill is gaining momentum inspires optimism.
During my first human rights investigation in Haiti, a Haitian friend of mine looked through my camera and saw only images of despair. Disappointed, he asked me to look harder for positive images of his country -- something that I could capture with my camera to prove to people back in the U.S. that not everything in Haiti was bad. This was years before January 2010, and even then it was a difficult exercise.
Two years after the quake, with much still going wrong, looking for signs of progress, particularly for the rights of the most vulnerable, is not easy. But, we must keep reminding ourselves and others that not everything in Haiti is going wrong. Women's rights leaders in Haiti are proving this again with their remarkable work to change the laws to guarantee justice and equality for women and girls.
Amanda Klasing is a women's rights researcher at Human Rights Watch who has done research on post-earthquake conditions and services in Haiti.
Personal recommendations have always been a part of ecommerce, but there has been little innovation since Amazon introduced retail and product personalization 10 years ago. But with the increasing mountains of data at digital retailers' fingertips, ecommerce is about to get even more personal. The fact is that right now there is little iteration from personalized ecommerce beyond what is taking place on Amazon. So you'll see suggestions of what other shoppers who bought a certain item also purchased, or recommendations to similar items to what you have purchased, but there is a whole world of social data, and even more-in-depth purchase data that can be mined by retailers to help increase sales.
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Public release date: 19-Jan-2012
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