Lights, cameras, smart phones
Move over, sun
A Japanese agricultural company has recently purchased a large quantity of red and blue Light Emitting Diodes (essentially tiny light bulbs) from Seoul Semiconductor for use in plant growth. Experts say these special LEDs give off just the right amount of light in the right spectrum so that when they are combined with water and fertilizer they actually result in a better yield of plants than those grown with sunlight.
The LEDs, according to the company, also much more energy efficient and greener than the large incandescent lamps traditionally used with indoor farming, and they don’t turn the building into a sauna.
Seoul Semiconductor has estimated that switching from the old lamps to LEDs on a 7400 acre farm will use 70 percent less energy and save roughly $12 million per year! Even better is the fact that plants can be grown efficiently and cheaply anywhere in the world, including deserts and arctic regions.
Cisco Flips Out
Smartphones have claimed a new victim in the hand-held electronic device war. Earlier this month, Cisco announced they are dropping their Flip video camera line, calling the move a“restructuring” of the company. However, many who have their ear to the ground in the technology industry assert that the real reason is due to the ever-increasing quality and ease-of-use of the video cameras built into every smartphone on the market today.
In 2009, Apple CEO Steve Jobs mocked the Flip cameras for offering nothing more than video recording. At the time, the fifth-generation iPod Nano was debuting with a video camera for the same price as a Flip, plus the Nano was also able to play music and do everything iPods were already capable of. On the bright side, retailers everywhere should be deeply discounting all the Flip models, so now is a great time to shop if you’ve been thinking of getting one.
The Apple “spyPhone”
You are carrying a spy in your pocket. Two researchers have recently discovered that iPhones with iOS 4 (the latest version of the software released alongside the iPhone 4 last June) are secretly keeping track of everywhere in the world the phone goes, whether the owner wants it to or not. It’s a hidden application that is constantly running in the background on every iPhone without the user’s knowledge or consent and without a way to turn it off. Cellular carriers already track phone locations by default on every cell phone, but it’s only really for giving to law enforcement in a crime investigation. Why this data is being recorded by iPhones is a complete mystery; Apple has yet to respond to the findings.
Another mystery as of yet is whether this is exclusive to iPhones or if other smartphones, such as Androids do it as well. The Congress and the FCC have both stated they too want to know why this data is being recorded and plan to question Apple and any other involved parties.
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