Good news, the US to switch to efficient light bulbs too

Saving energy is preferable to producing more of it, even if it is 100% green. Politicians have recently got the message and earlier this year EU leaders decided to follow Australia’s lead and stop the sale of incandescent light bulbs by 2010. Now the new US energy bill makes a similar move and 2012 will be the date after which consumers will only have access to more efficient incandescent or new technology bulbs of the fluorescent type. The news is more than welcome since the EU and US are the largest energy consumers worldwide with a combined population of 800 million consumers. The race is on of course for even more efficient LED lighting, a technology promising further efficiency gains.

Link: New York Times

How I would like to watch my internet TV

I watch very little conventional TV, not because I dislike some of its programs, but because I have zero control over what I watch and when I watch it. Standard definition channels are not that great either, certainly not good enough to keep me away from streaming video sites and free downloadable programs. So is TV going to die slowly? Impossible I think for the moment. But it is going to change from what we know now, that is for sure.

One reason TV keeps going so strong is the failure of internet video to get to our living room in a convincing and simple fashion. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal addresses these very difficulties and proposes some solutions. At least in the US it is clear that if you want to stream internet TV you can make it mainly via cable with one of a collection of boxes. Unfortunately, cable is not available in all countries and the boxes used are aimed at certain markets with a subset of the total of programs that consumers could possibly access in total.

Merry Christmas everybody!

When is the market dominated by a single player?

This post is a direct result of recent rumours in several blogs that state that Intel’s Penryn chips might appear later in the market than originally projected because AMD currently has a very weak product line and is not a threat even for Intel’s current CPU models! Of course Intel has the last word in this, but even the rumour is enough to make me think that there are cases when users do not receive the freshest technology developments as they become available at company R&D departments. For this to happen, the particular company must be the absolute leader in its market, the undisputed number one. Here is some examples:

• Intel obviously. It dominates computer CPUs for ages now.
• Canon in photographic cameras.
• Microsoft in operating systems.
• Apple in portable music devices and music downloads.

So apart from market share how do you judge that a company is in such a strong position?

Canon EOS DSLRs pass the 10 million mark

Since Canon released its first EOS DSLR the D30 in 2000 it has now shipped the significant number of 10 million digital reflex cameras! The EOS line first appeared in the market in 1987 and total sales up to now are 30 million cameras. This is no surprise as Canon together with Nikon completely dominate the single lens reflex segment, especially its professional top end. Here is a few facts and comments referring to the EOS DSLR part of Canon’s history:

• The 3 Mp resolution of the D30 caused laughs among film users but picture quality was a good sign of things to come.
• New product releases in the first part of the decade were major jumps in resolution. For example, in 2002 the D60 offered 6 Mp, effectively making the D30 obsolete.
• Again in 2002 Canon brought to market the first ever full frame DSLR, the 1Ds with an incredible resolution of 11 Mp. Film photography had a real challenger… Replaced by the 1Ds Mark II and later by the 1Ds Mark III, the 1Ds series has smashed the film myth and offers resolutions comparable to much more expensive medium format cameras.
• In 2003 the 10D did not offer more resolution but its picture quality became an instant hit and drew lots of amateur as well as professional photographers to the digital realm. The 20D, 30D and 40D models are direct evolutions of the 10D.

Can the Desertec project provide the EU with green energy?

Desertec is one of those huge projects that could have instant positive environmental impact. It is a proposal by TREC (Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation) an initiative between the EU, North Africa and the Middle East. The target is to provide Europe with about one sixth of its energy needs and the countries where production takes place with energy and much needed fresh water. It all works as follows:

In tech there is more beyond China and India

In the technology, telecommunications and internet sectors no doubt China and India see the emergence of numerous middle classes that no sane international business can overlook. While their huge populations understandably attract most headlines, there is a group of countries (Brazil, Indonesia, Russia & Turkey) that follow closely but more quietly as they do not appear in the news so often. They are much smaller than China and India but have large enough populations to justify large investment projects and high expectations. Saturated markets in Europe, North America and Japan already start to bring significant investment and news elsewhere.

Vodafone has reasons to be optimistic as the latest results a few days ago point to both India and Turkey as great markets with 40% growth rates that balance the low 2% of Europe. And this with a Vodafone entrance to the Turkish market that is very recent. Japan’s DoCoMo plans an international expansion to Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and New Zealand. Russian telecoms and IT sectors are set to grow next year by 20% a number unthinkable a decade earlier, and Brazil is jumping on the 3G bandwagon.

New standards that want to replace DVI/HDMI

As if the Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD mix wasn’t enough, now new digital panel connection standards arrive to make consumers’ life even more difficult. In the last couple of years we have reached a nice state of equilibrium. As things stand now, we know we need DVI for our PC monitor and HDMI for our flat panel TV. The use of HDMI for computer monitors is not worrisome as DVI and HDMI are fully compatible.

How soon is OTE going to be privatised?

Speculation over the fate of OTE has reached an all time high when earlier this year the Greek government sought startegic partners in an effort to make the organisation more competitive. An expensive early pension plan for staff failed to attract a large investor and has not reduced the risk of falling behind in terms of infrastructure and service quality against similar European companies. The current position of OTE could be described as extremely critical for its future. The stock market euphoria of the end of the nineties and the need for more cash of the Greek government to meet EU targets of this decade have brought repetitive sales of government packages. The current Greek government holding to OTE is a currently low 28%.

Second largest photovoltaic park in Europe to be constructed in Greece

The public electricity producing company of Greece announced that it will construct a 5oo MW photovoltaic park, the second largest in Europe. A large proportion of energy production in Greece is lignite based, resulting in Greek plants in the list of 10 most polluting stations of Europe and high levels of polution in the areas surrounding the plants. The new park will be operational by 2011 at Megalopoli, where energy production from lignite is already taking place. It will have a personel of up to 100 people and is part of the Greek public electricity company’s plan to clean its act by introducing more renewable energy generation.

There is a large number of small private photovoltaic parks that await approval for funding. A recent decision to reduce subsidy levels for smaller parks from 60% to 40% is possibly going to temper initial enthousiasm and some of those projects might never go ahead. Therefore, the plan for the new large park is a much needed positive development for the Greek green energy market.

Link 1: Reporter

Link 2: Naftemporiki