Technology Futures

A Canadian firm is showing off a hydrogen generator that they are using to increase the efficiency of existing gas and diesel engines. Current internal combustion engines are not very efficient, and the pollution caused by them is due largely to poorly burned fuel--much of it goes right out the tailpipe.

It has long been known that adding small amounts of hydrogen to the gas-air mix increases performance and lowers emissions, but the problem has been how to store hydrogen safely in the car, as well as provide a supply.

This firm has built a hydrogen generator that runs on distilled water (easy to supply) and creates hydrogen on demand, bypassing the storage problem completely. The small box is easily fitted in the engine compartment of existing cars. Independent testing shows that the device does increase efficiency (about 10%) and dramatically reduces emissions.

So one effect is to basically increase our supply of fossil fuels by 10% without any more drilling! On top of that, tailpipe emissions are so low that auto and truck pollution is virtually eliminated. The Energy Economy rolls along merrily, with big changes coming over the next five to ten years as all this new stuff reaches the marketplace.

The music industry continues to anger both customers and bands. The RIAA inexplicably continues to sue users for downloading music. Even though there is little evidence that downloading copyrighted music has contributed to the decline in sales, the industry takes a baffling approach to the lawsuits by apparently picking names out of a hat. The suits seem to lack even basic information or investigations that would support wrongdoing, and the defendants seem to be picked mostly on the basis of whether or not they have the resources to fight back. This is a long article, and is written by a group of people that have been sued, but it is an interesting read if even half of it is true.

In an even more bizarre development, a band called Switchfoot has posted instructions on how to bypass copy protection that Sony put on the band's latest CD. Even stranger is that the information is posted on a Sony message board. Note that if the link does not work, it is probably because Sony has removed the information.

So the record industry is attacking their own customers, and has made the source of their products (the bands) angry. There is a lesson here for businesses trying to adapt to the changes wrought by the Internet: you can try to hold on to the old ways, but it is not likely to work. Distribution and marketing have changed irrevocably, and the only thoughtful option (in my opinion) is to look for new ways and new opportunities that take advantage of the medium, rather than trying to fight it.

Christopher Miller points to an interesting survey that says 87% of Americans don't know what VoIP (Voice over IP) is. Ten percent thought it was a "low carb vodka," and another group thought it was some kind of European hybrid car.

The results actually track pretty closely to the number of people that read blogs. The estimates vary a lot, but suggest that somewhere around 10-15% of Americans read blogs, which is about the same number that are familiar with VoIP as a new way of making phone calls.

As communities struggle with broadband, local blogs written specifically to help people learn about technology can be an important way of educating people and helping to create a market for new services. It is never just a matter of getting some money and building some fiber or wireless infrastructure.

Google has released a beta version of a new blog search tool.

Just a little playing around with it suggests they got it right: it is fast, and was able to find a lot of good stuff quickly. The advanced search is particularly useful, as you can search by author, by topic, by date, and by a bunch of other criteria unique to blogs.

The other refreshing thing is that so far, the results of completely free of commercial dreck--no phony link farms and the related tricks that try to get you click on results that are not really relevant. It will be interesting to see if Google can keep the results "pure." Unfortunately, what we are likely to see is a sudden rise in phony blogs written just to get into Google search results. But right now, it works great.