Tue, Apr 3, 2007 3:03 EDT

Standards and Technology

Topic: Development

Current Rating: Comments: 4

Last week, President Bush met with executives from GM, Ford and DaimlerChrysler to talk about corn, or more specifically, their commitment to make half of their vehicles flex-fuel (capable of running on ethanol) by 2012. What they didn't spend much time talking about was fuel economy standards, which is a little disconcerting, considering it’s a topic that could stand to receive a little more attention.

Only a third of gas stations in the United States carry the gasoline and ethanol fuel blend that flex-fuel cars run on. So even if you drive such a vehicle, if you happen to live in one of the 22 states (according to the advocacy group Public Citizen) without a gas station carrying the blend, you'll be forced to fill your car with regular gasoline. A recent BusinessWeek article says that an estimated 99 percent of flex-fuel cars run on regular fuel. So in the end, car manufacturers are able to continue making flex-fuel vehicles, which are cheaper to manufacture than cars with better gas mileage, and they get credit for doing so. Kind of makes you feel like the whole push for alternative energy investments is a ruse, doesn't it?

While I firmly believe in the need for alternative energy investments in ethanol, algae, hydrogen, solar power, wind power; you name it—it's not the answer to the energy crisis. Technologies take investments, time to develop, and often, time to become commercially viable. Concept cars running on hydrogen fuel cells are not going to reduce carbon emissions in the immediate future. So while we certainly need to invest in such areas (The X Prize Foundation recently announced a contest to develop a vehicle, affordable for the average consumer, that gets 100 miles to the gallon), we also need to keep an eye on the changes that don't require cutting edge technology to work. The former is only one side to a multifaceted coin.

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Wed, Apr 4, 2007 3:26 EDT

Standards and Technology

Posted by: PaperMario
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If Archos offered that kind of codec support plus a TV tuner on their devices, they would absolutely own the PVR market.

Hot MP4 Converter
http://www.mp4-converter.net

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Mon, Jul 16, 2007 3:13 EDT

Standards and Technology

Posted by: armstronglouis
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While we can't be sure exactly what is responsible for the iPod's success, its user-friendly interface, its superb integration with Apple iTunes, and its killer marketing campaign probably had something to do with it

www.ipodconverter.com

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Sun, Jul 22, 2007 22:23 EDT

Standards and Technology

Posted by: armstronglouis
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All Converter is a powerful, all-in-one, multimedia application converting the media files among the most popular media formats.

http://www.allconverter.net

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Mon, Jul 23, 2007 23:17 EDT

Standards and Technology

Posted by: armstronglouis
Rating:

All Converter is a powerful, all-in-one, multimedia application converting the media files among the most popular media formats.

http://www.allconverter.net

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