Exploring Technology Alternatives

Wsj.com ran a front page article on Thursday about entrepreneur Greg Wyler, his company Terracom, and the dream to bring the internet to Rwanda.  

The country is one of the least wired in the world and Wyler expects to provide internet service for $80 per month to citizens.  Interesting as the average Rwandan annual income is $200. As mentioned in an earlier post, the US average annual income is $36,764. The US equivalent would be to spend $9100 a month for broadband.   The citizens are certainly not signing up directly, at least not yet, but internet cafes will certainly be in vogue.  Visiting the terracom site is an interesting experience; the page load times are extremely slow for a telecom company. Really demonstrates the current sad state of the Rwandan pipe.  Wyler has the right idea though; as growing industrial nations continue the unabated search for vanishing commodities, Africa remains poised for an explosion in growth due to the abundance of natural resources. We’re about to witness the Gilded Age of Africa, people who position startups now to provide needed infrastructure to new businesses will be the Vanderbilts of our time.

Slashdot ran a piece today about Steorn in Ireland - a company that has claimed to have discovered a technology based on magnetism that can create free and constant energy. 

Of course if we’re to believe this we would also have to throw out our current laws of physics….a small issue around creation vs transfer of energy.  The two possibilities here are either 1) they’ve missed something fundamental in their analysis, or more likely 2) it’s a scam.  Steorn placed a $100,000 full page ad in The Economist last week publicly challenging scientists to refute their claims.  Their site asks for scientists and the general public to register their email addresses in order to evaluate and review the test results. Interesting that this is the channel that they’ve chosen to approach the scientific community at large…  Also interesting is an internet archive site link from 2002 showing their primary business was IT project management. Not exactly high tech.

The real technology is learning how to efficiently harness all the free energy that surrounds us now - the sun, wind and ocean. 

Business 2.0 has an fascinating article on Roger Davey, his company Enviromission, and the ambitious plan to build a 1600-foot solar tower in the Australian Outback providing a renewable-energy source that can provide power for 100,000 homes.  The design is truly remarkable, essentially a supersized pipe that forces hot air heated by the sun to pass through turbines to produce electricity.  

Business 2.0 has this concept listed as one of their "31 best business ideas in the world". 

Unfortunately, it’s probably not going to be impoverished children, at least in Nigeria. Slashdot indicated the other day that Nigeria was lining up to commit to ordering a 1,000,000 units. Sounds good on the surface, but given the level of poverty, I have a hard time believing that the laptops will remain in the right hands for very long – if they ever get there. Nigeria’s average annual income is $300 US. The US average annual income is $36,764. The equivalent of receiving a laptop in Nigeria is like the government sending a US citizen a $12,254 piece of equipment. I don’t believe that the garish colors alone are going to be enough to keep them off ebay. The opportunity for arbitrage is far too great. How about investing instead in technology for their health care system? As of 2003, 5% of their population was infected with AIDS/HIV; One of the lowest percentages in Africa, but still resulting in 2,900,000 people currently living with the disease. Maybe the $1,000,000 should be spent here…. Quanta computers is the real winner here – they’re the company that will be making them. 

Two interesting but divergent articles about crop circles in the last few days.  The Daily Mail has a story about how this year has been anything but a bumper crop of fresh new ones in the UK.  Wired blog has an article however, about a recent one that has turned up in England - unusual with an intricate 3d pattern. Worth checking out if you’re into this type of thing. 

What is going on here with these?  My rational side immediately says man-made.  Seems to fit the point of the Daily Mail article - new crop circles have dropped off at around the same time as the mysterious death of a known crop trampler…But if you look at the picture that accompanies the Wired story, you have to wonder how someone can create a pattern as elaborate and mathmatically accurate given the size. Not sure how it could be done. Guess that’s the mystery.  Crop circle news states that the design is over 360 ft in length….

This is a great book. Available on Amazon.

I’m always fascinated with the implications of merging physical science with computer science. The author, Neil Gershenfeld, explores the idea that in the near future people will be empowered to design and actually create their own objects instead of purchasing items already manufactured.  The thought that people will be able to build their own items to solve problems unique to their environment has astounding social implications.  Gershenfeld explores this by describing how he set up test "fab labs" in remote Ghana and India, encouraging locals to design and build items that would otherwise be unaffordable or unobtainable to solve real world dilemmas; Things like solar collectors for power and instruments to measure crop quality.  The basic premise is that the physical world might some day be as a malleable as computer code is today…

Here’s the slashdot thread on Fab.

My first post   This blog is dedicated to discussions about technologies that I believe that are truly game changers; thoughts and trends that might change the world as we know it.  My goal is to highlight the truly unique individuals, entreprenuers and innovators, companies that are shaping our future.   

Also explored are alternative/emerging technologies…radical ideas that require rational thought.