Teknovis

Another news story that caught my attention during the week was the first commercial flight of the Boeing 787 (otherwise known as the Dreamliner), as reported in Boeing’s Dreamliner completes first commercial flight. There are some good videos in the article, and as a passenger I am impressed with the extra overhead baggage room.

For more information about the aircraft see Boeing 787 Dreamliner, and for the best photos see Airliners.net.

Tags: Boeing

I read a review of the Renault Fluence ZE during the week in Renault drives into the electric future. The aspect that caught my attention the most is:

Renault has confirmed the price of the Fluence ZE will start at €21,620 on the road (after the €5,000 Government grant), the same pricing as a Fluence diesel. But the big difference between the Fenault’s approach and Nissans is that buyers will lease the battery pack for €79 per month instead of buying it outright with the car.

The upfront cost seems very reasonable, but I think that the monthly rental would be quite significant to somebody who does low kilometrage. However, the reasoning behind this approach is explained as follows:

Renault’s approach is based on the fact that the industry is focussing on battery technology these days there are likely to be significant advances in the coming years, particularly in terms of range and weight.

As these improvements are rolled out, owners can upgrade the Fluence’s battery pack and benefit from the better range. The risk of obsolence and redundancy therefore rests with the car firm.

It is an interesting approach, and I wonder if it will succeed.

Tags: Renault

Boston Dynamics have a new robot – the Alpha Dog!

I previously wrote about its robotic endeavours in Boston Dynamics PETMAN.

Tags: Boston Dynamics

Fascinating, if not somewhat scary, visualisations of the US national debt – A Visualization of United States Debt.

I bet it would make people from the PIGS countries feel a lot better if their debts were also shown to scale!

Tags: Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain

The first Galileo satellites were launched last week, according to Galileo Navigation Satellites Lift Off Thursday.

It seems that this has been discussed and planned for years, so it is great to finally see it starting to happen!

Tags: Galileo

I came across the following interesting facts in Ireland on clean-tech high as it sets new wind power record:

Ireland hit a new wind-energy record on Thursday, 6 October at 2.30pm, when the power generated from wind reached 1,341 megawatts (MW) – enough power to supply 870,000 homes.

And:

Wind generation provided 39pc of the electricity being used in the Republic of Ireland at the time of the record on 6 October.

Very impressive!

Tags: Ireland

Happy Birthday Teknovis!

You are now three years old!

The EPO Patent Information Conference 2011 is being held in Ireland this year, and it is starting tomorrow.

Patents are certainly getting a lot of media coverage these days (for better or for worse)!

Tags: EPO, Ireland

I read an article yesterday claiming that tablet users consume more online news. See Tablets Drive Deeper News Consumption [STUDY].

Yes – I am definitely one of those people!

The thing that really annoys me about certain news websites (RTE, The Irish Times, BBC) is that their RSS feeds only contain the first line of the news story, and then I have to browse a very heavy desktop page to read the rest of the story. I wish that they would provide either a full feed, or a second feed with the full articles!

Tags: BBC, RTE, The Irish Times

Apparently today was World Standards Day! I did not know such a thing existed, until a colleague told me about it this morning!

So happy World Standards Day!