Kassam was sporting the hottest new fitness monitoring gadget: a device that looks and acts like a watch, but which also measures heart rate and other physiological factors. The monitor, made by self-tracking startup called Basis (which Kassam cofounded), is unique in the number of metrics it tracks; it detects heart rate from the wrist using near infrared spectroscopy, along with both skin and ambient temperature, and galvanic skin response, a measure of sweat on the skin that is linked to both physical activity and stress or excitement. Only a few people have been selected as beta testers for the device, which is slated to come out “soon.”

“We analyze five different data streams and figure out what people are doing in the context of life,” says Julie Wilner, product director at Basis. “High heart rate and temperature probably means someone is exercising.” Low activity, as recorded by the accelerometer, suggests the wearer is sleeping. The device also tracks quality of sleep based on movement during this phase. It combines various measures to calculate the number of calories burned during the course of a day. Accompanying software helps users track and visualize how they are progressing over time. “Are they becoming more active?” says Wilner. “Do they get better or worse sleep on certain day of the week?”

The Basis watch is one of a growing number of new tools that seeks to passively collect data on the wearer’s health and behavior with the aim of helping them to change it for the better. These devices are part of the new movement in self-tracking, enabled by a new generation of wireless devices and smart phone apps to track exercise, nutrition, sleep, mood, and other variables.  “In the past, only a motivated few would keep a diary for more than a few weeks,” says Wilner. “We want to bring these tools to people who wouldn’t do this on their own, people who make New Year’s resolutions but don’t keep them.”

From technology review

GE has announced the first power plant to integrate wind and solar power with natural gas—a 530-megawatt plant that will start operating in Turkey in 2015. The power plant is made practical by a flexible, high-efficiency natural-gas system the company announced two weeks ago and a solar thermal power system created by eSolar, a Burbank, California-based startup that GE recently invested in.

Such hybrid plants may become the dominant type of new power plant in some parts of the world, GE says. The new technology is aimed at countries that use 50 hertz electricity (the United States uses 60 hertz). In particular, it could make it easier for China and the European Union to meet their renewable energy targets.

Adding solar power to natural gas plants isn’t a new idea, but it hasn’t been economical without government subsidies. GE says that because of its new turbines and related equipment, these hybrid plants can, for utilities with the right combination of sunlight and natural gas prices, be competitive even without government support.

While combining solar thermal power and natural-gas turbines is not new, adding wind power to such a system is, GE says. Pairing wind with the natural gas plant helps shave some of the cost of the wind power—the wind farm can share some of the natural gas plant’s control systems and its connection to the grid. The natural gas plant also smooths out variations from the wind turbines.

Solar thermal power involves the use of an array of mirrors to concentrate sunlight and the resulting heat to produce steam. That steam can be fed into the steam turbine at a natural gas combined cycle plant to boost its power output.

The solar concentrator array from eSolar helps lower costs in two ways—its modular concentrator system is easy to install and easy to modify for the needs of specific plants. It also produces higher temperature steam than some previous solar thermal systems, increasing power output. GE has also developed a natural gas power plant that is highly efficient, and whose power output can easily be adjusted to make up for variations in power output from solar power.

Connecting a solar thermal system to a natural gas power plant, and thus eliminating the need to buy a separate steam turbine and related equipment, can cut the cost of a solar thermal system by up to 50 percent, says Jon Van Scoter, CEO and president of eSolar. Paul Browning, vice president of thermal products at GE, calls it “the most cost-effective form of solar energy available today.”

From  MIT’s Technology Review

• Tuesday, June 7, 2011
• By Kevin Bullis

20 kW Induction System
Flanders’ Drive, Volvo, Van Hool, Bombardier and others are partnering to work on creating an induction charging system that could allow electric vehicles to be charged quickly and conveniently.

Just park over a buried plate and log into the system (unlike in the image,  it’ll probably be done by wireless identification), and voilà! Charging a battery pack of the size fitted to the Volvo C30 Electric(24 kWh), which Volvo will use for testing, is expected to take about an hour and twenty minutes, if the battery is entirely discharged.