Virtual Cable makes car guidance child’s play

From time to time there is new ideas that make us pray every night they become commercially available products as soon as possible. Virtual Cable from MVS in the US is such a great and elegant looking idea. No more need to have a small screen for the GPS instructions. All you need and indeed get is a guideline that seems to hover above the vehicle following the correct route. Follow the line and that’s it. The Virtual Cable display is volumetric in order to create the desired 3D effect, must be preinstalled and can cooperate with any navigation method, much like a monitor is matched to any PC. The MVS site states that all components are already available and mass produced, an important factor to keep the cost within reach.

Link: MVS

The wind powered UK

 

Wind turbine producers crank up your production! If Britain’s plans go ahead to power all homes with wind turbines by 2020, there will be unprecedented demand for turbines. Current wind power covers about 2% of total demand. To achieve the optimistic target, large coastal areas will be set aside for power generation, so the view of the coastline will change completely, something we are not sure will be acceptable in such a huge scale. Homes are responsible for almost half of total greenhouse gases and are additionally the weakest link in the fight for green energy as their replacement rate -unlike cars and electronics- is extremely low. In other words it would take almost a century to replace all buildings with energy efficient versions, unlike for example cars that could be replaced in 10 to 15 years. Therefore, the UK’s intended move is wise since feeding inefficient homes with green energy would still do the trick! Here at electronrun we applaud the effort wholeheartedly and wish there would be similar moves elsewhere. We also have a feeling that the wind turbines would make formidable windsurfing slalom courses :-)

Link: CNN

Who is responsible for the digital divide in Greece?

Greece is the 14th richest country in the EU. In a place with almost 100% mobile telephony penetration, one would expect the internet penetration statistics to be very good. Unfortunately, the news coming from the Observatory for the Greek Information Society is very disheartening. Here is some shocking numbers. Only 27.4% of Greek homes have internet access. And even more significantly, only 21.7% of those make use of the internet weekly. What this means is that a shockingly low 6% of Greek homes uses the internet weekly! And bearing in mind that not everybody in a home is a user it is simple to understand that the pinnacle of the modern economy is not taken incredibly seriously. The average numbers for the EU are 51%, 47% and 24% respectively, not good enough, but a totally different picture to the Greek figures…