study

Biomass used to make biofuels must be carefully sourced, or the biofuels they produce may be no greener than conventional jet fuel.

That's according to a study that was published this week in the online version of Environmental Science and Technology and was conducted by a group of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

For the nearly four-year study, researchers conducted a life cycle analysis on 14 diesel and jet fuel sources made from feedstocks, and identified the key factors that make a difference in whether a biofuel is truly an environmental improvement over conventional jet fuel.

The … Read more

Companies are actively looking for Microsoft Office alternatives such as Google Apps, but so far their interest hasn't dented the productivity suite's dominance, a Forrester Research study released today said.

"Adoption of alternatives relative to Microsoft Office is paltry, but interest remains high, with more than a quarter of companies actively looking at or experimenting with Web-based alternatives," Forrester said in the study. "While the free versions of these programs make it easy for companies to try, concerns over user acceptance and compatibility with Microsoft Office file formats continue to hinder broader deployments."

Interest … Read more

As Apple and Verizon's quarterly earnings noted, iPhone 4 sales have been brisk. How brisk? A new report put out by the NPD Group earlier today put Apple in third place in U.S. smartphone sales during the first quarter of this year.

Apple came in behind Samsung and LG, but did better than HTC, Motorola, and Research In Motion. During the quarter, NPD says Apple nabbed 14 percent of sales, due in large part to the launch of the iPhone on Verizon's network in February.

"Apple and Verizon had a very successful launch of the iPhone 4, which allowed the iPhone to expand its market share that was previously held back by its prolonged carrier exclusivity with AT&T," said Ross Rubin, NPD's executive director of industry analysis in a statement.

Rubin said some of that growth "came at the expense of the Android OS" even though phones running Google's mobile phone OS made up half of the devices sold in the three months counted.

According to NPD's data, this was the first time Android's overall sales shrunk, going down to 50 percent from 53 percent the previous quarter. RIM's BlackBerry OS share also dropped to 14 percent of sales, down from 19 percent the previous quarter. Eating into those numbers was Apple, with iOS jumping 9 points to rest at 28 percent of smartphone sales, due to combined sales of the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 3GS, both of which NPD includes in the top five sellers. … Read more

Apple frequently touts the number of applications available to iOS users, which now sits north of 350,000. But that number could be in danger of coming in second place to rival Google in just a few months time.

In a new report by market research firm Distimo for the last month of activity on Apple's various App Stores, the BlackBerry App World, GetJar, Google's Android Market, Nokia's Ovi Store, Palm's App Catalog, and Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, the group found Google and Microsoft's efforts to be growing the fastest.

"If all … Read more

A new study put out by ComScore found that there are more than double the number of iOS users in Europe compared with those on Google's Android platform.

The study, which tracked residents in the U.K., Germany, France, Spain, and Italy, pegs combined iOS users at 28.9 million, with Android coming in at 13.4 million. Combined, the two make up less than a fifth of the total number of mobile subscribers in those five regions ComScore said.

ComScore is careful to point out that the share for iOS includes users on iPhones, iPods, and iPads, with … Read more

Search marketing was already a big business, but it's poised for even more growth this year, according to Econsultancy's State of Search Marketing Report, published with the not-for-profit Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization.

According to the report, search marketing hit $16.6 billion in North America in 2010, up 14 percent compared with 2009. This year, that figure will jump by 16 percent to $19.3 billion, said the researchers, who surveyed 900 companies and agencies around the world.

"The healthy growth reported for the industry in 2011--surpassing the 14 percent growth in 2010--is gratifying," SEMPO … Read more

Super Why is an interactive, educational reading game for preschoolers based on the hit PBS Kids show of the same name, featuring (much to the delight of Super Why fans, no doubt) many of the original sounds, games, and characters from the show.

Super Why gives you four different character-narrated, touch-based games, each with a different task for kids: Super Why's Story Saver (picking one of three words to correctly complete a sentence), Princess Presto's Wands-Up Writing (identifying letters by sound to spell a word, then tracing those letters with your finger), Alpha Pig's Lickety Letter Hunt (… Read more

Boeing's two-year study of jatropha-curcas agriculture in Brazil has found that location choice and strong seeds are the key to maximizing the crop's benefits, the company said today.

The jatropha-curcas plant has been under close scrutiny in recent years by scientists and companies because its olives yield an oil that can be made into an alternative jet fuel. The weedy plant can grow in adverse soil conditions. And in addition to yielding oil, it provides, like most plants, the secondary benefit of removing carbon from the atmosphere. Many have been trying to compare the carbon footprint of producing … Read more

The initial results of pilot programs on plug-in electric vehicles may spook companies and create a vicious cycle of inefficiency when it comes to charging.

That's according to one of the topics covered in the "Changing the game: Plug-in electric vehicle pilots" report (PDF) released yesterday by technology consulting giant Accenture.

The Accenture report examined the recent data garnered from over 25 pilot programs scattered around the world that have been monitoring EVs and driver habits.

Overall the pilot programs found public charging stations have not yet been getting enough use to pay for themselves and their … Read more