g8

Robot takes your protest tweet to the street

While protesters have long taken to the streets to broadcast their messages, their words are now hitting the pavement, literally, thanks to a mobile robot that paints their tweets right on the road.

Meet the ultimate early 21st century protester, ONE Street Tweeter, a hydraulic robot that uses nontoxic, water-soluble paint to print nearly real-time tweets onto street surfaces.

One, a grassroots advocacy group that fights poverty and preventable disease, created the robot as a way to "maximize the impact of member voices to push for the positive changes we are all seeking to achieve." The Street Tweeter made itself known to the world at the G8 Summit in Camp David, Md., last week. … Read more

Zuckerberg: Privacy anxiety is fleeting

Facebook products in the past have created controversy over privacy, but people get used to new features that initially scare them, founder Mark Zuckerberg has told the e-G8 Forum.

Facebook services that have increasingly allowed "friends" to keep track of each other have drawn criticism from users, who then begin to use them, Zuckerberg told the e-G8 Forum conference in Paris this week.

"We'll roll it out, and pretty often there'll be this backlash, and people will say, ok, we don't like this new thing," said Zuckerberg. "It's I think a … Read more

Japan eyes solar panels on all new buildings

Struggling with a continuing nuclear crisis and strains on its power supplies, Japan is thinking of requiring that all new buildings, including homes, come equipped with rooftop solar panels by 2030, according to a recent Nikkei newspaper report.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan may announce the plan this week at a G8 summit in France, the business daily reported. Kan has pledged to review Japan's energy policy and increase renewable sources following the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was hit by the March 11 earthquake and tsunamis.

Kan hopes a solar-energy requirement for new buildings, along with technological innovation, would help reduce the cost of solar-power generation.

The government's current energy policy includes plans to increase nuclear energy to more than half of the total supply by 2030 as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Japan now gets about 30 percent of its electricity from nuclear sources. … Read more

Schmidt: Want to get rich? Build a platform

A number of waves have led to tremendous wealth generation in the computing industry: microprocessors, PCs, desktop software, business software, networking, online search. But to get rich today, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt has this advice: build a platform.

Speaking today at a panel discussion at the e-G8 Forum in Paris, Schmidt advocated the idea of creating a foundation on which others' software can run.

"The fastest path to wealth is the construction of these digital platforms," he said, in which a company becomes the center of activity and "where other people depend on you."

And … Read more

2009 Pontiac G8 GXP rated at 415 horsepower

Back in July, our editors spent time with the Pontiac G8 GT, complimenting the vehicle on its muscle car engine, yet noting the lack of a manual gearbox option. Perhaps Pontiac reads Car Tech, because they've released the specs on the 2009 G8 GXP and they've bumped the power and included a six speed manual transmission.

Users on the GM Inside News Forum have unearthed a PDF dyno chart on GM's media site that shows the 6.2 liter LS3 V-8 engine from the Corvette transplanted into the G8 GXP generating 415 horsepower and 415 pound-feet of … Read more