Technology Blog 4

USA Today:
Energy Industry says more plant construction needed
Paul Davidson
April 21, 2008

Environmentalists say more energy efficiency could decrease the need for huge new wave of power plants and transmissions lines.

2 studies say this is very unlikely:

More efficiency can offset a big but also a small portion of the increase in making the capacity needed to meet the rising electrical demand.

Even with people buying energy-saving appliances and homes that are insulated better the US will still need to build more than 151 gigawatts of new generation-- this is enough to power 75 million homes by the year 2030.

These projects aimed at meeting the demand and replacing old plants is going to cost at least $457 billion. The largest wave of construction in a generation will also require at least $900 billion just for the lines to transport the power.

The power demand is going to go up by 30% by the year 2030 as the population grows and more people buy higher energy required electronics. This projection accounts for the current utility programs that give the consumers rebates for buying efficient appliances, and also includes a recently passed law that strictens the appliance standards and phasing out the incandescent light bulb by the year 2020


Additional utility efficient efforts could possibly cut the power demand in 2030 by 7-11%

With that estimate, the new generation could be sliced by a third to 151 gigawatts, though a more realistic 17% drop would still require building 188 gigawatts of capacity, enough to light 94 million homes.

"Nadel, says the decrease in power demand could be much higher. He cites plans by Maryland for ambitious efficiency programs designed to freeze demand at today's levels by 2030, virtually eliminating the need to build new plants. Other states could follow suit, he says."

Munn states utilities can not count on things that may never develop. "We could find ourselves without" adequate supply, she says.

Technology Blog 3

Study: Editors, readers differ on online comment rules

Date of Publication: April 8, 2008

Source: USA Today

Written By: Anick Jesdanun

In New York a new study has been found on news credibility. Newspapers don't like anonymous remarks. Editors more than the reads want that principle applied to reader comments online according to a study released today by the Associated Press and Institute at the University of Missouri

70% of editors surveyed said that requiring people who make comments to show their identity show good journalism, only 45% of the public supported that. 58% of editors said that letting journalists get onto online conversations and state their views would cause harm to journalism, but only 36% of the public agreed.

Expressions ones views seem to appear to help readers interest and trust the websites they are using.

This study was made to help gauge the priorities and practices that newspapers should be desgining as they increasingly blend their print and web observations. This got few answers on how editors can meet their reader expectations online without compromising their name.

This research study did find agreement on the practices that are needed to ensure accuracy and correct their mistakes. Editors and readers supported the fairness in the coverage in the news, and labeling in their commentary.

The study did find widespread agreement on basic practices such as the need to ensure accuracy and correct mistakes. Both editors and readers overwhelmingly supported fairness in news coverage and the labeling of commentary.

In more findings editors and readers said any web news items made by readers should have to use the same standards journalists follow when they report their news stories. The editors are more than likely to say it is vitally important to enclose different opinions in news articles and create some content to attract different types of readers.

The telephone study conducted included 500 members of the public and "1251 print online editors from U.S. newspapers was conducted August 23 to October 12. This study had a margin sampling error of plus or minus 5 percentage points for readers' sample and 3 percentage points for editors".

USA Today Tech Blog 2.. Megan Warren

Source Information:
USA Today: Article: Media Companies Battle Google or Ad Dollars
By: Anick Jesdanun
March 24, 2008

Forbes Inc is going to announce Monday that it will start selling ads this spring for about 400 financial blogs. Conde Nast, Viacom Inc, CBS Corp and more major companies have talked about topic-specific ad networks to get advertisers that want to buy more ads than most single sites can offer or sell. If newspapers, magazines and broadcasters can't expand online ad space, then they are "under threat of becoming less and less relevant to the advertiser," said Russ Fradin, chief executive of Adify Corp. They supply and run ad networks for big networks like Forbes.

Some of those media networks might have a hard time competing with the large networks such as Google, Yahoo, Time Warner and AOL. $11 Billion has be spent by these companies to buy smaller ad networks, so they can expand. Microsoft alone spend over $40 billion for Yahoo.

Advertisers would perfer not to handle with thousands of individual websites, they want more networks like Google. The portal ad networks have accomplished selling their affiliates' leftover ads at smaller prices and then splitting their revenue.

Many traditional media companies are used to selling their ads on their own offline channels, therefor they are resisting overtures to join these large networks. Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. thinks it is better off recruiting one to two dozen leading lifestyles sites that meet the standards and selling high priced ads to places like Macy's, Ace Hard ware. Rather than joining large networks

USA Today and Tribune the nations 2 largest newspaper publishes have formed networks amongst themselves. These two newspapers have joined Hearst Corp and the New York times has formed QuadrantOne that collectively sells some online ads. 26 other newspaper companies have also joined. Smalled networks can't produce on the large scale advertisers are looking for says the operators of the larger networks.

Forbes is wanting to increase business by 10 - 15% with hundreds of blogger. Even if a media company can bring together 10-20 blogs the traffic overall won't be growing that much compared to what a large Internet company offers.

Media companies are have a hard time finding their networks hard to ignore, even if they were to join the larger efforts. MSNBC partners with NBC and Microsoft use Microsoft's ad technology and sales teams by recently created networks around politics.

"We can't match what Microsoft does, ... but they represent a lot of different products," said Kyoo Kim, vice president of sales with MSNBC.com. "We want to make sure we protect our brand and be in charge of our own destiny as well."

Technology Blog 1

USA Today online article March 17: Robot gets eyes, tools in third endeavour space walk:

Monday astronauts stepped out for the third time to give Dextre the giant robot a set of eyes and tools. The eyes are made of cameras and are placed upon the robots tool belt. The work done by Linnehan and Behnken should complete the assembly of the robot outside the International Space Station. The robot is 12 feet tall and contains two 11 foot arms. Both arms have 7 joints and when checked out by the crew everything seemed to be in working order.

The robot Dextre costs over 200 million dollars and is supposed to help assist with spacewalking astronauts and maybe help with some of the duties in space. Maybe eventually Dextre will end up replacing batteries and some other space station parts. The robot is very strong, lifting up to 1300 pounds. Dextre can also sense touch and force and movement, hence the name Dextre derived from the word dexterous.

At the end of the space walk expected to come to a close Tuesday Dextre should have three different types of tools and a platform for holding bigger items such as batteries. It will take five space walks in all to complete everything for Dextre.