Galileo, a global navigation satellite system that will reach more places and work more precisely than today’s GPS services, is now available for free public use. When it is complete, expected by 2020, Galileo will have taken two decades and an estimated $10 billion to build. But the system, created by the European Union, will make your phone run better and offer new possibilities for both corporate and government users.
Continue reading Europe’s New Satellite System Will Improve Your Phone
Tag Archives: Business
IBM debuts hyped ‘cognitive cloud’ biotech HQ in Cambridge
In September IBM announced deals with Teva Pharma and Sage Bionetworks to use its Watson Health Cloud platform for a range of services, from selecting molecules for drug development to planning clinical trials and advising clinicians. A couple of weeks later, Microsoft, in Redmond, Washington, revealed a partnership between its Azure cloud computing platform and the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) Genomics Institute for data storage and analysis to support its work on genomics research. Information technology firms large and small are expanding their ecosystem of cloud computing facilities and services, hoping to attract players in industry and academia. Cloud systems can ferry, store and combine clinical, research, social and health data. Companies are attracted to these services because they allow them to keep up with the constantly growing pool of information without having to invest in their own information technology infrastructure.
Read the rest of this news story in the December 2015 issue of Nature Biotechnology: [html].
Who Are You?
I often travel to different countries chasing stories. It’s hard for me, let alone my credit card issuers, to predict where I’ll be at any given time. This summer, for example, I moved from Madrid, Spain, to Oaxaca, Mexico, and in November I made quick trips to both California and Nicaragua. Confused by my unpredictable spending patterns, my credit card companies often block my legitimate transactions. Continue reading Who Are You?
Production of Solar Panels Outpaced Investments Last Year
Worldwide photovoltaic (PV) solar panel production rose 10 percent in 2012 despite a 9 percent drop in investment, reports the European Commission (pdf). The numbers are imprecise, because solar panel makers use different types of production and sales figures, but the Commission authors estimate that producers added between 35 GW and 42 GW of PV capacity in 2012. The growth follows several years in which European governments have trimmed subsidies to solar power, prompting many private investors to shy away from the sector and driving some companies to bankruptcy.
Something about solar is special, though: investment in PV capacity still made up over half (57.7 percent) of new renewable energy investments, for a total of $137.7 billion, and analysts predict further growth through 2015.
Read the rest of this blog post at IEEE Spectrum’s Energywise blog: [html] [pdf]