greentechZONE Archive of engeniusBLOG

When scientific questions are elevated to public significance they are debated in a way that is utterly nonscientific -- eloquence, prejudice, even ridicule sway public opinion when facts are perceived as too arcane for the populace to understand. So, today, I invite you to use scientific techniques to address a fundamental point in the global warming debate.

Is it reasonable to expect the general populace to be scientifically literate? We expect citizens to be able to read, why not expect them to remember a little high school science? Or is the problem that scientists so rarely invite the populace to the argument that it is unreasonable to expect them to know the language?

Here's your invitation: calculate the percentage increase in the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere due to the oil that people burned last year. As you can see, this argument rather lacks eloquence.

When attending conferences, I normally avoid keynote speeches, any panel that involves analysts, and briefings with CEOs. That's because the heavily-scripted materials at such events usually contain so little new information that, according to Shannon's Law, they can be classified as noise. That's why I was pleasantly surprised when Freescale CEO Michel Mayer offered some very useful insights on the future of our industry when he addressed a gathering of the tech media at their annual Technology Forum in Orlando. While the analysis he presented was intended to provide guidance for the traditional electronics industry, it provides some valuable insights and a very hopeful message for those of us interested in green-tech and other socially-responsible applications of technology.

One of Mayer's basic premises is that the consolidation we're seeing in the semiconductor indus...  -- Click Here to Read More >>

As weird as they look, I have a certain fondness for Bluetooth headsets because they always make me think of my childhood heartthrob Lt. Uhura, everyone's favorite communication officer on the Starship Enterprise. Besides being a pioneering role model for African-American women, her low-cut uniform and high-tech headset presaged the geek-chic look twenty-five years ahead of its time. While we may not be able to open a hailing frequency, or decode an Antarean sub-space transmission, with the Bluetooth headsets that have blossomed lately in so many ears, they certainly give us a taste of what the future may look like. And now that reality is bumping up against fiction, I've got mixed feelings ab...  -- Click Here to Read More >>

I saw lots of hints that green power issues are on the minds of the industry's early adopters when I attended the Embedded Systems Conference where former Vice President Al Gore challenged the engineers attending his keynote with developing the tools to build a greener future. Mr Gore's inspirational talk -- and flashy demos, like the teardown of a Toyota Prius on the show floor -- are great ways to raise the average engineer's awareness about their potential role in designing more energy-efficient products; but it won't amount to anything without some solid follow-up.

That's why I'd like to challenge my colleagues David, Rich, Patrick, and the rest of the ESC team to move beyond the sizzle and start to give engineers some of the tools they'll need to build the energy-efficient technologies t...  -- Click Here to Read More >>

After a day of sticking my head inside VLSI chips and Internet protocols, I try to clear it out with something less technical, often in the form of a novel. But thanks to an unexpected holiday gift, I've had the pleasure of spending the last week's worth of stolen late night hours with Suspended in Language, the illustrated biography of Dr. Niels Bohr's life and discoveries. Remember Niels Bohr? If the name only conjures up fuzzy recollections involving something to do with Einstein and Quantum mechanics, you're not alone. Although he was a minor celebrity in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, few people today (including myself) outside the physics community really grasp the central role he played in shaping our current understanding of the universe. So it's been a treat for both the intellect and the soul to f...  -- Click Here to Read More >>

Editor's Note:

It's easy to take a pessimistic view of the future, at least until you meet a young lady like Sasha Mathas. Inspired by Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth, this junior high school student decided to see what she could do to help us prevent the troubling future the movie warned about. The article below is the first fruit of a semester-long independent study course she and her mom (an industry colleague) put together to see what an ordinary citizen could do on a personal level to reduce their own "carbon footprint." Her first report documents the changes she's helped make in her own household to reduce the family's carbon footprint. A future installment will document the work being done by her local school district to cut its fossil energ...  -- Click Here to Read More >>