In an early test of the OLPC XO in Nigeria, the student users dropped every laptop several times a day. Despite the laptops' rugged construction, they occasionally needed fixing, and a group of six-year-old girls opened up a "hospital" to reseat cables and do other simpler repairs. Mary Lou Jepson, ...

COMING SOON Regular readers have long known my enthusiasm for solid state drives and their potential.  While the costs of these drives today vs. mechanical hard drives is still substantial and the relative benefits still incremental, there are some big improvements on the horizon.  This ComputerWo...

Katie Fehrenbacher, writing on Earth2Tech, is one of the most prolific of the cleantech journalists. She compiled this week their 2009 top 10 cleantech predictions. Here's my take, worth the electronic paper it's printed on, of what she got right, wrong, "duh, of course", and most understated. Just ...

Despite a significant drop cleantech startups investments in the fourth quarter, 2008 still delivered a record level of investment for the cleantech industry, according to two reports out recently. According to the Cleantech Group’s preliminary results for the fourth quarter of 2008, $1.7 bill...

While walking the dog early in the morning, I usually look at news headlines, primarily using the New York Times free iPhone app. One article caught my eye early today, OPEC Orders Cut in Oil Production. It started out with, "The OPEC cartel said Friday that it would reduce its oil production by at ...

Much like Gordon Moore’s chart that predicted chip performance, this Deutsche Bank chart and reflects Wall Street’s predictions for solar/electricity costs.  There are about 80 known solar manufactures, all scurrying to increase capacity and drive down cost.  Plus, who knows how many stealth m...

I've been saying for a while, that with enough money, someone is bound to crack the CIGS nut in thin film, and deliver the cleantech sector another First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) like renaissance for the always around the corner technology. That's not because it's easy, or even because it's a good idea t...

In 1994 I had an idea for a business: a printed directory of all “Internetâ€� companies to be mailed out each month.  True, Jerry Yang and David Filo had a fine project at Stanford with “Yahoo.eduâ€� …but the problem was most business professionals were not on the Internet – which rende...

By Kevin Maney, Editor, Tech Observer, Portfolio.com Blaise Zerega misses $4/gallon gasoline: The Segway is a huge success–as a technology product. But even as high gas prices have increased sales, as reported by WSJ today, it’s hard to term it a business success. And for that reason, gr...

Arjun Murti, the head of Goldman Sachs energy research team, is considered one of the best oil analysts out there. He foresaw $100 oil prices when the market was at $50. The group this week predicted that oil prices could reach $200 this year. While some may look at such prediction with concern - it...