Power Consumption of TVs

In May 2011, the government is mandating that TVs have stickers on them displaying the cost to power it for a year. It is estimated that currently, TVs and related electronics such as cable boxes and sound systems account for 10-25% of the power consumption in a household. Yet, while laundry machines and refrigerators are being marketed for the energy efficiency, TVs are not. Households have an average of three TVs and they are turned on approximately eight hours per day.

(If those number are true, a more energy efficient TV could have a drastic effect on the power consumption in a household. This would draw a lot of customers, I believe. I also wonder how much research has been done on making TVs more energy efficient. It seems that all the innovation so far has been towards better picture quality.)

Technology means to human

Gist: Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired magazine, was talking about how the technology change people’s life. How technology is used by human or how human is controlled by technology? The technology invented by human not only changes the lifestyle of human, but also transform human itself physically. For example, the invention of cooking changed our bodies, it changed our teeth and jaws. Human remakes us with our own technologies. New technology is a possibility that will allow somebody’s talent can be fully expressed. If the technology has not been invented in the right time for the right person, there would be much great loss for human assets. Technology is a background, an environment for human to solve the problems. To solve a problem, people will not stop thinking about any possible ideas, they will come up any ideas even if it is bad. So does better technology will come out to help human to solve problems.

Apple Eases Off

Gist: Apple eased off on rules for developers who make apps for the iPhone and iPad. Developers are now allowed to use whatever tool they want to create the app. Before, Apple's business model was much more closed. Developers had to develop the apps according to Apple's rules. For instance, you could not use Adobe Flash.

A possible reason why Apple eased off was because Google's Android Mobile OS is cutting into their market share. By giving app developers more freedom like Google does, they hope to get some of that back. Also, Adobe file with the FTC against Apple for anti-competitive practices. This could be a way to fend that off.

Either way, software developers are thrilled.

(Could this have any effects on Apple's stock? Or perhaps a software development company's stock?)

On the fly innovation

Before the BP spill the technology to drill deep far outpaced the technology to clean deep spills. Engineer Nancy Keener says it’s because we don’t spend money for things that are not broken. BP spent 8 billion dollars so far on the gulf oil spill. BP were forced to innovate a few developments but Keener said that on the fly solutions are not enough and that we should use these new developments in the initial plans and not just use them in case of an emergency.