Monday, 15 February 2016

'MyShake' App Turns Your Smartphone into Earthquake Detector

'MyShake' App Turns Your Smartphone into Earthquake Detector


Smartphone earthquake detection will help seismologists study quakes and could inform early-warning system design.


Seismologists and app developers are shaking things up with a new app that transforms smartphones into personal earthquake detectors.
By tapping into a smartphone's accelerometer — the motion-detection instrument — the free Android app, called MyShake, can pick up and interpret nearby quake activity, estimating the earthquake's location and magnitude in real-time, and then relaying the information to a central database for seismologists to analyze.
In time, an established network of users could enable MyShake to be used as an early- warning system, the researchers said. [The 10 Biggest Earthquakes in History]
Crowdsourcing quakes
Seismic networks worldwide detect earthquakes and convey quake data to scientists around the clock, providing a global picture of the tremors that are part of Earth's ongoing dynamic processes. But there are areas where the network is thin, which means researchers are missing pieces in the seismic puzzle. However, "citizen- scientists" with smartphones could fill those gaps, according to Richard Allen, leader of the MyShake project and director of the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory in California.
"As smartphones became more popular and it became easier to write software that would run on smartphones, we realized that we had the potential to use the accelerometer that runs in every smartphone to record earthquakes," Allen told Live Science.
How it works
Accelerometers measure forces related to acceleration: vibration, tilt and movement, and also the static force of gravity's pull. In smartphones, accelerometers detect changes in the device's orientation, allowing the phone to know exactly which end is up and to adjust visual displays to correspond to the direction it's facing.
Fitness apps for smartphones use accelerometers to pinpoint specific changes in motion in order to calculate the number of steps you take, for example. And the MyShake app is designed to recognize when a smartphone's accelerometer picks up the signature shaking of an earthquake, Allen said, which is different from other types of vibrating motion, or "everyday shaking."
In fact, the earthquake-detection engine in MyShake is designed to recognize an earthquake's vibration profile much like a fitness app recognizes steps, according to Allen.
"It's about looking at the amplitude and the frequency content of the earthquake," Allen said, "and it's quite different from the amplitude and frequency content of most everyday shakes. It's very low-frequency energy and the amplitude is not as big as the amplitude for most everyday activities."
In other words, the difference between the highs and lows of the motion generated by an earthquake are smaller than the range you'd find in other types of daily movement, he said.
Quake, rattle and roll
When a smartphone's MyShake app detects an earthquake, it instantly sends an alert to a central processing site. A network detection algorithm is activated by incoming data from multiple phones in the same area, to "declare" an earthquake, identify its location and estimate its magnitude, Allen said.
For now, the app will only collect and transmit data to the central processor. But the end goal, Allen said, is for future versions of the app to send warnings back to individual users.
An iPhone version of the app will also be included in future plans for MyShake, according to Allen.For seismologists, the more data they can gather about earthquakes, the better, Allen said. A bigger data pool means an improved understanding of quake behavior, which could help experts design better early warning systems and safety protocols, things that are especially critical in urban areas prone to frequent quake activity. With 2.6 billion smartphones currently in circulation worldwide and an anticipated 6 billion by 2020, according to an Ericsson Mobility Report released in 2015, a global network of handheld seismic detectors could go a long way toward keeping people safe by improving quake preparation and response.
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Lenovo Reveals Dual-Speaker Setup for 'Gorgeous' New Smartphone Set to Launch at MWC

Lenovo Reveals Dual-Speaker Setup for 'Gorgeous' New Smartphone Set to Launch at MWC
Lenovo India on Monday posted a teaser image on its Twitter account, showing the top half of its upcoming smartphone's rear panel. The company has this time revealed the bottom half of the handset as well, teasing its superior audio quality with a dual-speaker setup
The smartphone is set to launch during the MWC 2016 trade show.
The image tweeted on Monday accompanies a text stating, "Brace yourselves for rich & powerful sound as this device is set to deliver the #Knockout punch thanks to DolbyAtmos." The teaser shows two speakers at the bottom back panel with the same design as seen with the recently launched Lenovo Lemon 3 - tipping the global launch of the China-only phone at the trade show.
Following speculation from Monday, multiple reports now point out that the handset will come with Lenovo Lemon 3 Plus moniker upon its launch. The 'Plus' is supposed to indicate the handset to be bigger (probably with a bigger display) in size than the Lemon 3. Nothing is confirmed as of yet.
For reference, the Lenovo Lemon 3 is a dual-SIM dual-standby dual-4G supporting smartphone running on Android 5.1 Lollipop. It sports a 5-inch full-HD (1080x1920 pixels) resolution IPS display with pixel density of 441ppi. Packing an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 616 SoC clocked at 1.5GHz, the smartphone bears 2GB of RAM and Adreno 405 GPU.
As for connectivity, the Lemon 3 features support for 4G LTE (supports India bands) networks, along with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, USB 2.0, and GPS options.
The smartphone houses 16GB of inbuilt storage, which can be expanded via a microSD card (unspecified limit). Also featured is a 13-megapixel rear camera with LED flash along with a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. Measuring 142x71x7.99 mm, the Lenovo Lemon 3 weighs 142 grams. It is backed by a 2750mAh battery, which is rated to deliver up to 15 days of standby time on 4G, 32 hours of talk time on 2G, 12 hours of audio playback and 6.2 hours of video playback.
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Sunday, 14 February 2016

New Solar Panel Technologies Will Drive Down Costs

New Solar Panel Technologies Will Drive Down Costs


This story was first published on Solar Love Reprinted with permission.
New solar panel technologies are poised to drive down the cost of solar power even more. Recently, we reported on new technology that makes solar panels out ofperovskite modules. In fact, Varun Sivaram, Samuel Stranks, and Henry Snaith have written an article for Scientific American about the wonders of perovskite solar cells, which have achieved stunning results in the laboratory. Sivaram says, “[M]any of us believe this is the field’s biggest breakthrough since the original invention of the solar cell sixty years ago.”

Perovskite Panels Have Faster Payback

One principal advantage perovskite solar panels have over conventional solar technology is that they can be engineered to react to many different wavelengths of light. That lets them convert more of the sunlight that strikes them into electricity.
Now a study by scientists at Northwestern University and the US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory finds the perovskite based panels pay for themselves much faster than traditional solar panels do, according to a Northwestern University press release.
Employing a cradle-to-grave lifecycle assessment, scientists traced the production costs of both types of solar panels from the mining of raw materials until the end of their useful life. They determined the ecological impacts of making a solar panel and calculated how long it would take to recover the energy invested.
Even though perovskite panels are less efficient that silicon-based panels, they still may be less expensive in the long run. “People see 11 percent efficiency and assume it’s a better product than something that’s 9 percent efficient,” said Fengqi You, corresponding author on the paper and assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering at Northwestern. “But that’s not necessarily true.”
A more comprehensive way to compare solar technology is the energy payback time (or energy return on investment, EROI), which also considers the energy that went into creating the product. Perovskites lag behind silicon in conversion efficiency, but they require much less energy to be made into a solar module. So perovskite modules pull ahead with a substantially shorter energy payback time — the shortest, in fact, among existing options for solar power.
One of the motivations for this study was the need to improve technology so that solar energy can be scaled up in a big way. “Soon, we’re going to need to produce an extremely high number of solar panels,” one of the authors of the study says. “We don’t have time for trial-and-error in finding the ideal design. We need a more rigorous approach, a method that systematically considers all variables.”
“Appreciating energy payback times is important if we want to move perovskites from the world of scientific curiosity to the world of relevant commercial technology,” says Seth Darling, an Argonne scientist and co-author on the paper.
Global energy demand is expected to nearly double by 2050, and Darling says there is no question that solar power must contribute a significant fraction. The real question, he says, is, “How quickly do we have to get a technology to market to save the planet? And how can we make that happen?”

Say Hello To Organic Semiconductors

Another report in Science Daily focuses on a breakthrough by researchers at Kaunas University of Technology in Switzerland. Its organic chemistry laboratory has developed an organic material which is a much cheaper alternative to the inorganic material currently being used in silicon-based solar cells. The efficiency of the semi-conductors created by the team of KTU’s chemists was confirmed at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne.
“The material created by us is considerably cheaper and the process of its synthesis is less complicated than that of the currently used analogue material. Also, both materials have very similar efficiency of converting solar energy into electricity. That means that our semiconductors have similar characteristics to the known alternatives, but are much cheaper,” says professor Vytautas Getautis, head of the chemistry research group responsible for the discovery.
The tests at the Federal Institute of Technology revealed outstanding results: the new organic material converts 16.9% of solar energy into electricity. There are only a few organic semiconductors in the world that have such a high solar cell efficiency.

How Cheap Is Cheap?

The world of solar energy has two interesting new contenders for the solar panel market. One, perovskites, cost far less to produce, shortening payback times from years to months. The other, a new organic solar cell, promises high efficiency at half the cost of silicon.
Just when you thought solar panels couldn’t get any cheaper, they might. There is little doubt that, in the near future, price improvements will take place in the fields of inverter technology and battery electric storage as well.

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Solar Heating & Cooling

Solar Heating & Cooling


A solar water heating system using evacuated tubes installed at the George Washington University in Washington, DC (Photo courtesy of Skyline Innovations)

Solar heating & cooling (SHC) technologies collect the thermal energy from the sun and use this heat to provide hot water, space heating, cooling, and pool heating for residential, commercial, and industrial applications. These technologies displace the need to use electricity or natural gas. Today, Americans across the country are at work manufacturing and installing solar heating and cooling systems that significantly reduce our dependence on imported fuels. We need smart policies to expand this fast‐growing, job‐producing sector.Download the PDF
The U.S. Solar Heating & Cooling Alliance is a division of SEIA focused on growing the solar heating & cooling market through reducing barriers and advocating for policies on the federal, state, and local levels. To learn more about the SHC Alliance, click here.

Did You Know? Solar Heating & Cooling Fast Facts

  • Solar heating systems are affordable for families. The return on investment can be as little as 3-6 years. Commercial systems help companies reduce and manage their energy bills, managing long-term costs. Meanwhile, fossil fuel prices fluctuate considerably and are expected to rise significantly over the next decade.
  • Water heating, space heating, and space cooling accounted for 72 percent of the energy used in an average household in the U.S. in 2010 ‐ representing a huge market potential for solar heating and cooling technologies!
  • In 2010, the U.S. saw 35,464 solar water heating systems and 29,540 solar pool heating systems installed, heating a total of more than 65,000 homes, businesses and pools.
  • Post=2010 has also produced some record-breaking solar air heating installations, with systems ranging up to 10,000-50,000 ft2 on a single wall being installed across the country, showing the large scale energy opportunity in addressing space/ventilation heating.
  • Three out of four (74 percent) Americans agree, ‘the growth of the solar water heating industry will produce jobs and help the American economy.’ This support is strong across regions of the country and across party lines.
Basics of Solar Water Heating Technology
Solar water heating systems can be installed on most homes in the U.S., and are comprised of three main elements: the solar collector, insulated piping, and a hot water storage tank. Electronic controls can also be included, as well as a freeze protection system for colder climates. The solar collector gathers the heat from solar radiation and transfers the heat to potable water. This heated water flows out of the collector to a hot water tank, and is used as necessary. Auxiliary heating can remain connected to the hot water tank for back‐up if necessary. 
Basics of Solar Air Technology
Solar air heating is a solar thermal technology used for commercial and industrial buildings in which the energy from the sun is captured and used to heat air. It addresses one of the largest usages of building energy in heating climates, which is space heating. It is also used for agricultural drying.
Most solar air heating systems are wall-mounted, which allow them to capture a maximum amount of solar radiation in the winter.  Specially perforated solar collector panels are installed several inches from a south facing wall, creating an air cavity. The air is generally taken off the top of the wall and is heated anywhere from 30-100 degrees F above ambient on a sunny day.  The solar heated air is then ducted into the building via a connection to the HVAC intake.

Related Resources

In colder climates with the possibility of freezing temperatures, an indirect system is used. An antifreeze solution, such as non-toxic propylene glycol, is heated in the solar collector and circulated to the hot water storage tank via a heat exchanger. The potable water in the storage tank is warmed by the hot, antifreeze‐filled heat exchanger, and the heated water can then be used as necessary, while the cooled glycol is piped back to the solar collector to be heated again. 
Another common type of solar water heating system design for cold climates is called “drainback.” This type of solar energy system typically uses water as the heat transfer fluid, and is designed to allow all of the water in the solar collector to “drain back” to a holding tank in a heated portion of the building it is used on. When no sunlight is available for heating, the solar pump turns off and the water flows into the drainback tank by means of gravity.
No matter which type of solar energy system is employed, a properly designed and installed soalr water heating system can be expected to provide a significant percentage (40 to 80 percent) of a building's hot water needs.

How Solar Water Heating Collectors Work

Solar water heating collectors produce heat energy, distinguishing them from photovoltaic (PV) modules which produce electricity. There are several types of collectors: flat plate, evacuated tube, Integral Collector Storage (ICS), thermosiphon, and concentrating. Flat plate collectors are the most common type of collector in the U.S.; copper pipes are affixed to an absorber plate contained in an insulated box that is covered with a tempered glass or polymer coverplate
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Friday, 12 February 2016

Twitter says Dorsey continues to forego direct compensation

Twitter says Dorsey continues to forego direct compensation



Twitter Inc Chief Executive Jack Dorsey has agreed to continue to forego any form of direct compensation, a regulatory filing by the company showed on Friday.Dorsey in June agreed to no salary until the company's compensation committee agreed upon a package for him.

The committee decided on Wednesday to introduce a performance-based equity compensation program for Twitter's top executives to tie their performance more closely with that of the company, according to the filing.

Twitter reported its first quarter of no growth in users earlier this week, stoking fresh concerns on how long it will take for the company to reverse the trend.

In January, four top executives left the company. Following the departures, Twitter named American Express Co executive Leslie Berland as its chief marketing officer.

Facing slowing user growth, Twitter has been experimenting under Dorsey, who became interim CEO in July and then CEO in October, with ways to make its website more engaging.
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Facebook India MD Kirthiga Reddy stepping down

Facebook India MD Kirthiga Reddy stepping down


Facebook Inc's India managing director, Kirthiga Reddy, said on Friday she is stepping down and returning to the United States to "explore new opportunities" at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California.
Reddy, who joined Facebook in 2010 as its first employee in India, said in a Facebook post she would be relocating in the next 6-12 months.
Reddy is working closely with William Easton, MD of emerging markets (Asia Pacific), and Dan Neary, vice president of Asia Pacific, to search for her successor.
The move comes days after India introduced rules to prevent Internet service providers from having different pricing policies for accessing different parts of the Web, in a setback to Facebook's plan to roll out a pared-back free Internet service.
The service, earlier known as internet.org, has also run into trouble in other countries that have accused Facebook of infringing the principle of net neutrality - the concept that all websites and data on the Internet be treated equally.
Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg was disappointed with the Indian ruling and said that the company was still "working to break down barriers to connectivity in India and around the world."
"As she had planned for some time, Kirthiga Reddy is moving back to the U.S. to work with the teams in Headquarters," a Facebook spokesperson said. "During her time in India, Kirthiga was not involved in our Free Basic Services efforts."

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Apple to launch new iPhone, iPad in March: Report


Apple to launch new iPhone, iPad in March: Report


Apple Inc is on target to introduce its next iPhone and iPad models on March 15, and aims to start selling the devices in the same week, technology blog 9to5Mac reported, citing sources.
Apple, which will introduce a new 4-inch iPhone, dubbed the "iPhone 5se", and a new iPad Air at a launch event, is unlikely to take pre-orders for the new devices, the blog reported.
The technology giant has hit a trough in iPhone demand. The 0.4 per cent rise in shipments in the fiscal first quarter was the slowest-ever increase in iPhone sales since the phone was launched in 2007.
The new 4-inch iPhone 5se is designed to spur iPhone hardware upgrades for customer seeking faster devices without upgrading to the far larger iPhone 6s and 6s Plus screen sizes.


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