plug-in

Google offers $10 million to 'sustainable transportation' firms

Google is earmarking more greenbacks to make cars greener.

The nonprofit arm of the Web search giant, Google.org, on Wednesday issued a $10 million request for proposal from companies involved in commercial plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and other forms of sustainable transportation.

The RFP process--to be done entirely online--is meant to accelerate development of cleaner forms of transportation at a large scale in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to Google.org.

Google intends to invest between $500,000 and $2 million in companies that are approved and will not take up position on those firms' boards.

It … Read more

Bill Clinton to test-drive electric SUVs at Lake Tahoe

Security will be crawling at Lake Tahoe on August 17 as bigwigs such as U.S. Senator Harry Reid and former president Bill Clinton along with his wife (who has some sort of government job) attend the Lake Tahoe Summit.

(Update: Arnold Schwarzenegger was listed as a possible attendee. But apparently he can't make it now, according to his press office.)

And one of the highlights, at least in my mind, will be the test-drives of the all-electric SUV from Phoenix Motorcars. Phoenix's car can go 130 miles on a single charge and hit 100 miles per hour. (… Read more

Plug-in hybrids: 100 miles per gallon or 59?

Plug-in hybrids have emerged as the favorite form of transportation for reducing greenhouse gases in the near term, but calculating their energy efficiency can be a little complicated.

Plug-ins won't conk out after 130 to 200 miles, like electric cars, and they don't require major technological breakthroughs, like hydrogen cars. Converting a Prius to a plug-in hybrid costs about $10,000 to $15,000 now--that's part of the reason only about 50 exist--but if car manufacturers decide to make these at the factory, the additional cost may only run $6,000 or so, say proponents. That'… Read more

X prize for autos: The fine print

When the X Prize Foundation announced that it was going to give an award to inventors who can get 100 miles a gallon and win a cross-country race, I thought "so what?"

Full-electric cars like the ones coming from Think and Tesla Motors top that, and so do the hydrogen vehicles that DaimlerChrysler says it will release in 2012 to 2105. Plug-in hybrids also get 100 miles per gallon.

You could even load up a Winnebago with a bunch of lithium-ion batteries and go for the victory. (Such a stunt could also mean dying in a fireball after … Read more

Fluid Mask 3 stands on its own

Vertus, the Boston-based developer of technology designed to ease the selection of specific elements in a digital photo, has released version 3 of its Fluid Mask software, the first time the product has been able to run as a standalone application and not just as a Photoshop plug-in.

Fluid Mask 3, costing $239, attempts to reproduce some of the human mind's ability to naturally distinguish an element from its background, a task that's tricky when backgrounds are complicated or the element's border isn't well defined. The common but notorious example is hair.

The new version includes … Read more

Battery maker for electric cars retools

Valence Technology won't go it alone.

The company, which is angling to sell lithium ion battery markets to vehicle makers, has signed a licensing deal with Lishen Battery Stock Co. to help it gets its batteries quicker to market, said CEO Bob Kanode in a recent interview with News.com

Under the deal, Valence will sell its lithium powder to Lishen. Lishen in turn make battery cells out of the material and sell them back to Valence. Valence will then take the cells and make battery packs that it will sell for use in electric cars, military vehicles or … Read more

Trivia question: How many plug-in hybrids have been made?

You've probably read quite a bit about plug-in hybrids. Plug-ins contain more battery cells than regular hybrids and thus can get between 70 to 100 miles to the gallon.

Converting your Prius to a plug-in reduces your gas costs to around $1 a gallon and results in far fewer emissions in most cases.. They can even be used to send electricity to the grid and prevent a brown-out.

So how many are there on the road? 50, according to Felix Kramer, president of Calcars, which promotes the concept and is trying to persuade lawmakers to pass tax breaks for … Read more

Cheaper than a dentist: Photoshop teeth-whitening filter

Austin, Texas-based Image Trends plans to release new Photoshop plug-ins Tuesday that automate two common tasks for cosmetic retouching of digital photos: whitening teeth and removing skin glare.

The company's PearlyWhites and ShineOff plug-ins cost $49.95 each. The plug-ins work on Windows, but Mac OS X versions will be available later.

The filters can operate in a batch mode, allowing Photoshop users to edit large groups of images in bulk. The PearlyWhites plug-in doesn't need to be told where teeth are located--the often-laborious selection process. Instead, it applies its changes to white areas that it finds surrounded … Read more

Box.net rolls out Microsoft Office Web storage plug-in

Box.net is beta testing a new plug-in for Microsoft Office that lets users save Office files to their Box.net storage folders. The plug-in works for both Office 2003 and 2007 on Windows XP and Vista, provides users a new "Save to Box.net" button, and gives visual notification when the file is uploading and then successfully sent. Users can then access that file anytime on their Box.net Web storage folder.

The new plug-in was built using Box.net's developer API, which the Box.net team says can be used to add this functionality to … Read more