GreenPower: Environmentally Responsible Storage

For several years, I have continued to struggle with the fact that I work in an industry which failed to address broader social concerns beyond data storage capacity (I work in the HDD industry). A couple of years back, I switched to WD (another HDD manufacturer) -- and yesterday, I saw that our company announced the release of a new hard disk drive with more capacity (of course! A whopping 2TB, in fact), but this one is different as it claims to reduce power consumption by almost 38%. While it may not change the world, it is refreshing to feel a part of some effort to help a broader cause -- a rare feeling while working in this highly-competitive, high technology, commodity manufacturing, corporate environment. You can read more about the WD GreenPower Hard Drives on PC World Blog or on the WD website.

Dilemma: A new wave of industry or TV on my iPhone?

Another bay area CIGS-based solar start-up company got $79m in funding recently. The near future looks quite interesting in the Bay Area with companies like Nanosolar, Miasole, Solyndra & Solaicx (not CIGS based) among others compete to carve out their piece of the new emerging industry.

While it is great to see small start-ups emerge in the field with the help of venture capitalists, it would be great to see increased investment and subsidy from the government to catalyze the growth of The New Alternative Energy Industry (not just solar). It wouldn't be so bad after all to see large-scale engineering & manufacturing jobs re-emerging in the United States.

Read the article on Solyndra on CNET.

Dotcoms and Financial Services are great for some, but doesn't help much with opportunities for the majority of the population - the shrinking middle class and poor.

A new wave of industry collaboration between the public and the private sector is what I'd like to see. I love Technology and it would be gratifying to watch it applied to a broader scope benefiting the entire society (their is a lot of opportunity here) and reach beyond serving primarily the prodigal lifestyle of the MTV Generation and the Yuppie Dilettante. Again, technology advances in consumer products have been great in recent years, but we might want to put our TV shows on our "Camera-PDA-MP3-Video-YouTube Enabled-Mad Ringtone-Widescreen" fancy phones on pause for a bit and look at a bigger picture.

There is a lot of opportunity for advances in societal application of new technologies out there.

First Impressions from Bogota

A dear friend of mine is in Bogota, Colombia for the summer as part of her graduate program. She posted a brief glimpse into her first days here.

AKIVA Music

Just found a music video of an old friend of mine on his way to "rock-star" stardom. Check out his video featured on myspace.com. You can also check him out on www.akivamusic.com.

RED HERRING Top 100 Private Companies

For all the technology lovers, this is a fun list of companies to browse through to see what's going on in the new technology frontiers. RED HERRING Spring Top 100 Private Companies

You've Gotta Love Google!

Google recently started an experimental service to make local-business search accessible over the phone. To try this service, just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone. Google Voice Local Search is awesome. Beats paying $1.40 for my Verizon 411. For those know me personally, are well that I'm notorious for easily getting lost while driving places. Now with Google Voice Local service and my Garmin GPS, all that's history! You've got to love google's free gifts to the world.

New photos added to flickr

see more at on Flickr

Big Blue and Nanotechnology

Interesting read: IBM applies self-assembling nanotech to chip manufacturing

Visual Shopping

Just got back from playing tennis with a guy who works in the peninsula at a startup named Like.com. Turns out the company allows users to shop via a new kind of visual search engine (called Riya). The search is personalized based on metadata as well as an actual vector-based image matching of an item (picture of an item, obviously) you like. Then, you click on that item (or you can even select a certain portion of the item you like), it finds all that look similar, and links to you to online shop to purchase the item. It's always quite interesting to see how the 'dotcoms' continue to manage to innovate on such simple concepts -- fashion magazines should love this!

Sofia & Gabriela

A couple of new pics of our cats, Sofia & Gabriela. They just turned ONE couple of weeks back.

Nouvelle Vague at The Fillmore

Saw Nouvelle Vague at The Fillmore last night. They do a lot of late 70s-early 80s cover songs, a lot of bossa nova style renditions of many new wave classics. Great show. It's always refreshing to see shows that are not over produced. Check them out on their website or on myspace.

Quintessential Companion for All Artists

Saw this comic strip in the paper the other day. Quintessential Companion for All Artists. I could definitely use this Super Hero as an amateur photographer myself. In the meantime, I have decided to better my "super hero" skills and enroll in a framing & matting class every Tuesday at the Piedmont Adult School. Classes start next week and I'm quite excited. Also, I have been working on a new website to share my photographs. Here is the new link -- nomadiclens. So when you have time please visit, browse, share and leave me some comments/feedback. I am also thinking of merchandising some of these photographs (maybe postcard set or posters or t-shirts), so if anyone is interested in something like this, feel free to email nomadiclens@gmail.com or leave a comment.

Going Green with the former leader of the Soviet Union

Gorbachev's global initiative for solving the world's most pressing environmental challenges.

"We need a new system of values - a system that recognizes the organic unity between humankind and nature and promotes the ethic of global responsibility."

- President Gorbachev

http://www.globalgreen.org/index.html

what a beautiful concept...

synesthesia means "joined sensation" (Greek, syn = together + aisthesis = perception). It refers to an involuntary physical experience in which the stimulation of one sense modality reliably causes an additional perception in a different sense or senses. For example, a synesthete might describe the color, shape, and flavor of someone's voice, or seeing the color red, a synesthete might detect the "scent" of red as well.

Laura's SF Chronicle Letter to The Editor

Source: SF Gate online The real Coit Tower

Editor -- In response to the June 20 letter, "How to make Coit Tower real," I wanted to bring your readers attention to San Francisco City Guides, a nonprofit organization that leads free walking tours on the history, legends and lore of San Francisco. The letter-writer lamented the lack of educational opportunities at Coit Tower. Yet, every Saturday at 11 a.m., informative local volunteers do lead free walking tours of Coit Tower and share the stories behind the vibrant and controversial murals that depict scenes from the Great Depression.

For 28 years, San Francisco City Guides has been an integral part of the San Francisco landscape bringing equal voice and color to the historic landmarks and hidden treasures of San Francisco. As a sponsored program of the San Francisco Public Library, these tours are offered free of charge. I would encourage all of your readers to join us on a tour. They will not be disappointed. Information on San Francisco City Guides can be found at www.sfcityguides.org.

LAURA SCHROEDER

City Guides director

San Francisco

Visited Countries

create your own visited countries map

Reinventing Gore

Just finished reading a good article in May 2006 issue of WIRED Magazine on Al Gore's pro-growth, pro-tech fight against the "Climate Crisis". It's a light read, well-written (although can't help but notice the yuppie journalistic style), extermely interesting, and gives a much better perspective into Gore's passion and persona. Perhaps not becoming the President of the United States is the best thing that happened to the man, Al Gore. (Not sure about the country, however.) Give it a read, particularly if you have an interest in subjetcs like sustainability, business and economics, and technology.

Beijing or Bust: Documentary Filmmaker detained by Chinese Authorities

You always hear about such stories on the news or read about it on internet blogs, but it's always different when you find out it's about someone you know. Global Voices stalwarts Rebecca MacKinnon and Ethan Zuckerman have launched a blog covering the story.

"On February 22, Chinese authorities detained filmmaker and blogger Hao Wu. He has not been charged with a crime."

I've never met Hao, but had he not been detained on February 22 by Chinese authorities, I may have very soon. Perhaps on his next visit to the US. We have a mutual friend who had told me loads about him and how our interests intersected in many avenues such as film, technology, culture, politics, and travelling to name a few. My girlfriend and I had a chance to watch Hao's debut documentary, Beijing or Bust, on a video copy my friend had lent me. Previously screened at the 6th Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival (Fall 2005), it is a cinematic montage of interviews with US-born ethnic Chinese who now live in China’s capital Beijing -- a refreshing and enlightening journey into one of today's most rapidly transforming society. FREE HAO WU! Please join in appeal for Hao's release by calling attention to the situation.

Bluetooth : Emperor's New Toy

While researching bluetooth headsets I should get for my new Verizon 8100, I stumbled across an interesting fact on CNET's quick guide to Bluetooth headsets.

What's in a name? In case you were wondering, Bluetooth gets its name from a 10th-century Danish king, Harald Blatand (or Bluetooth) who unified Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. According to legend, he had an affinity for teeth-staining blueberries. Oh, and the logo combines the runic alphabetic characters for H and B. read more on CNET.com

Charlie Brown Goes to China

From last weekend at a street fair in Oakland downtown, a week before Chinese New Year.