Google will buy London-based artificial intelligence company DeepMind. The Information reports that the acquisition price was more than $500 million, and that Facebook was also in talks to buy the startup late last year. We’ve emailed Google and DeepMind for comment. The acquisition was originally confirmed by Google to Re/code.
If you knew how much electricity your plasma television used or how much water your dishwasher drank at different times of day, would you change your habits to conserve more and spend less on utilities? Researchers at the University of Washington, Duke University, and Georgia Tech believe that you might. Several years ago they invented sensors that could track the electricity consumption and water usage throughout an entire building via a single point on each system. In 2008, the researchers founded a company called Zensi to commercialize the technology, and last week, they sold that company to Belkin, an electronics hardware manufacturer.
Logitech is launching a new conference camera that turns any meeting room into a video collaboration place.
The Logitech ConferenceCam CC3000e will sell for $1,000, which is a lot more than your typical webcam but offers video conferencing capabilities that usually cost $7,000 or more. The company hopes to disrupt more expensive video conference solutions and make video collaboration more mobile across the enterprise.
Los comisarios Maria Damanaki y Günther Oettinger han presentado hoy un nuevo plan de acción para facilitar un mayor desarrollo del sector de la energía oceánica renovable en Europa. Un elemento central de este plan de acción será la creación de un foro de energía oceánica, reuniendo a las partes interesadas para reforzar las capacidades y estimular la cooperación. El plan de acción debe contribuir a impulsar este sector incipiente «de energía azul» hacia su plena industrialización. La energía oceánica abarca todas las tecnologías que aprovechan las energías renovables de nuestros mares y océanos distintas de la eólica marina.
A small group of special individuals could act as an early warning system for the next epidemic. Their special power? Super-spreading disease.
When the next highly infectious disease begins to spread through a densely populated metropolitan area, the authorities will have a only short period of time to put in place emergency measures to prevent an epidemic. Hit this window of opportunity and the number of casualties could be relatively small. Miss it and the number could be frighteningly large.
So it’s no surprise that there is significant interest in finding efficient ways to spot the early cases. The stakes could hardly be larger.
Audi is investing in a startup, Paris-based Global Bioenergies, that says it can make cheap gasoline from sugar and other renewable sources. The strategic partnership includes stock options and an unspecified amount of funding.
A new approach to harvesting solar energy, developed by MIT researchers, could improve efficiency by using sunlight to heat a high-temperature material whose infrared radiation would then be collected by a conventional photovoltaic cell. This technique could also make it easier to store the energy for later use, the researchers say.
Earlier this month, as Google was snatching up the smart-thermostat maker Nest for $3.2 billion, a lesser known home sensor company made its own announcement. SNUPI Technologies, a Seattle startup, said it had garnered $7.5 million in funding. That might be pocket change compared to the Nest deal, but it was a significant endorsement just ahead of SNUPI’s first product launch: a low-power wireless sensor network called WallyHome that tracks humidity, water leaks, and temperature throughout a building.
As rooftop solar panels become increasingly popular, utilities are growing concerned that they will put pressure on local grids, destabilizing power service and requiring costly equipment upgrades.
The rapid adoption of solar photovoltaics has already prompted changes in Germany and parts of Hawaii, California, and New Jersey. Because nearly 10 percent of Hawaiian Electric’s customers have rooftop solar, the utility now requires solar contractors and customers on the island of Oahu to get approval before installing a PV system. It’s also developing a model for sharing the cost of studying what upgrades may be required to add another rooftop solar system, says a spokesperson for the local utility.
