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Ultracapacitor maker Ioxus today said it has raised $21 million from a handful of large industrial companies, a vote of confidence in this relatively young energy-storage technology.

The lead investor was Energy Technology Ventures, a joint venture of General Electric, utility NRG Energy, and fuel company ConocoPhillips. Another investment group involved was Aster Capital, which represents transportation and power companies Alstom, Schneider Electric, and Rhodia.

The series B round will be used for product development, for sales, and to ramp up the company's manufacturing facility in Oneonta, N.Y., Ioxus CEO Mark McGough said today. These "strategic partner&… Read more

Reviewing budget cameras is tricky. Add in a brand name that is synonymous with another product category like light bulbs and appliances and taking the camera seriously is even more difficult. Such is the case with the GE X5.

During the 2010 holiday season I received a few reader e-mails asking me about the X5, and frankly I knew nothing about it. There are so many point-and-shoots released each year that brands like GE don't generally show up on my radar because reader interest is low. (The cameras are actually made by a company called General Imaging, but it … Read more

General Electric plans to build a thin-film solar factory in the U.S. that will produce solar cells that have an efficiency of 12.8 percent, the company announced today.

In conjunction with this news, GE also announced that it has acquired PrimeStar Solar, a company GE has had a stake in since 2008.

The thin-film solar cells to be manufactured using cadmium telluride were developed by PrimeStar through a cooperative research program with Department of Energy's National Center for Photovoltaics. The cells were given a 12.8 percent efficiency rating, through a verification process conducted by the National … Read more

General Electric Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt defended the nuclear industry's safety record today during a trip to Tokyo to show support to the operator of a stricken nuclear plant using reactors designed by the U.S. conglomerate.

Immelt met with executives at Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), operator of the Fukushima power plant that was crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and is leaking radiation in the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986.

GE and its nuclear business partner Hitachi have sent over 1,000 workers to help with the so far unsuccessful efforts to get the … Read more

General Electric's new hybrid light bulbs have begun shipping to retailers and are expected to be available nationwide by April 22, Earth Day, the company announced yesterday.

The hybrid halogen-compact fluorescent (CFL) light bulbs, announced in October 2010, look like a spiral frosted CFL light bulb snugly fit inside a clear glass bulb shaped like a typical incandescent light bulb.

One selling point is that the bulbs don't take time to light up like many CFLs currently available. When switched on, the hybrid bulb's halogen portion lights up within a half-second. Then once the CFL portion has … Read more

General Electric Energy today said it has agreed buy power conversion company Converteam to boost GE's industrial and renewable-energy businesses.

GE Energy said it will pay $3.2 billion for 90 percent of Massey, France-based Converteam, which makes power control technologies including motors, generators, and power electronics.

With the acquisition, which is expected to close in the third quarter this year, GE is seeking to play into the "mega trend" toward using electricity in heavy industries, such as mining and pumping gas through pipelines, the company said. Converteam's equipment can reduce electricity of motors by one … Read more

SustainX announced today it's received $14.4 million in funding from GE subsidiary GE Energy Financial Services, Cadent Energy Partners, Polaris Ventures, and Rockport Capital.

The New Hampshire-based company is a start-up that grew out of the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College in 2007, and has been developing a compressed-air energy storage unit intended for integration with smart grids.

Simply put, its innovative storage unit uses compressed air to store, then generate electricity. But unlike other compressed-air storage units, which use a compressor to store air underground, SustainX stores the air in a standard tank located above … Read more

Nvidia's CEO added his two cents to an increasingly popular theory on laptop design: that is, the MacBook Air as a template for all future designs.

In case you're wondering where the laptop is headed--circa 2014--Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang offered what could be considered a highly educated guess in response to a question I posed to him in a phone interview today.

"You'll have trouble finding one that doesn't look like the MacBook Air," he said. "I think the Macbook Air is a good mental image of what a clamshell laptop will look … Read more

You can include halogens to the list of lights that can replace traditional incandescent bulbs.

General Electric on Monday announced a line of halogen lights, which are available now, in the shape of the familiar incandescent which up to 22 percent more energy efficient.

A 2007 law created mandated efficiency levels for home lighting, which is expected to lead to fewer incandescent bulbs, starting with the 100-watt incandescent next year. Governments in other countries have set similar lighting efficiency requirements, which has led to more options for efficient lighting.

Compact florescents and large LED bulbs are expected to meet the … Read more