Forget Apple’s Siri voice recognition technology taking over the world. I have seen two robots playing ping-pong and now I am truly scared for humanity.
Named “Wu” and “Kong”, these two human-sized robots are the products of China’s Zhenjiang University. They play ping-pong not only against each other, but will take on humans as well. In the video, it’s clear they’re as adept at forehand shots as they are at the backhand.
British homeowners are increasingly able to build greener homes by using cheap solar panels from China, but western workers are paying the price with a wave of corporate collapses and layoffs among green energy firms.
The price of PV (photo voltaic) solar panels has dropped by as much as a third this year alone, hastening the introduction of a low-carbon economy and reducing the time period when renewable energy needs public subsidy.
And there is a boom at present as consumers try to install the low-cost equipment before the level of handouts via the government feed-in tariff (FIT) is reassessed in April next year.
The world’s energy consumption is expected to grow 53% by 2035, according to the International Energy Outlook 2011 by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Fully half of that growth will come from China and India, where energy use is expected to more than double by 2035. EIA expects the two countries combined to consume 31% of the world’s energy, up from 21% today.
The good news is that renewable energy will be the fastest growing primary energy source during that time. Renewables, which accounted for 10% of demand in 2008, will grow by 2.8% a year and supply 15% of the world’s energy in 2035. (more…)
These candy-coated pavilions could be straight out of a Teletubby wonderland, but are actually an art installation in a waterfront park in Shanghai. Before the 2010 World Expo last year, the city created a new park along the Huangpu river to contribute to the expo’s theme of “better city, better life”. Although the expo is over and done and most of the amazing pavilions are torn down, the park remains and is a fixture in the lives of the people who live nearby and use it daily. These wind-powered pavilions in Bailanjing Park designed by Taranta Creations are part of a series of art installations along the waterfront. Their nighttime lights are powered by the wind and each pavilion serves a different fun purpose, like singing karaoke, playing chess, dancing, or sitting and relaxing with friends.
Armed with tens of billions in loans from the Chinese government, Chinese solar companies have scaled at a rate unthinkable only a few years ago. At the end of this year, there will likely be 50,000 megawatts (MW) of manufacturing capacity in place around the world, with much of that new capacity being developed in China and other Asian countries. (In the year 2000, there were only 100 MW of production capacity worldwide.)
In four years, the solar manufacturing sector shifted from being led by a geographically dispersed number of companies to one dominated by Chinese companies. In 2006, there were two companies from China in the list of top ten cell producers. In 2010, there were six, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. There are currently only two non-Asian manufacturers in the top ten, and those companies — First Solar and Q-Cells — have shifted a lot of their production to Asia.
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