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Micrium climbs ranking among RTOS users

November 7, 2011 | Comments | technology

New Tech Press Managing Editor Joe Basques interviews Jean Labrosse on the RTOS company’s new relationship with Newark/Element14, and Micrium’s climbing status among engineers, according to the UBM/EETimes Embedded Market Survey.

Sponsored by Element14.

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Solyndra collapses. Why are the generals smiling?

Can Solar survive Solyndra aftermath?

November 1, 2011 | Comments | technology

By Lou Covey
Editorial Director, Footwasher Media

Solar Industry according to monty python

Solar industry is feeling much better now.

The recent collapse of a few high-profile solar energy companies, like Solyndra and Beacon Power, has caused even the most ardent fans of alternative energy to ask, “Can this industry survive?” The answer is a resounding, yes and no. It all depends on what government on all levels does.

Current public impressions of the health of any industry are colored by recent history. The financial failings of companies and industries considered “to big to fail” are what most people think of when hearing news about solar. But unlike the auto industry, with a population of three major players, the solar industry is filled with hundreds of start-ups struggling to establish themselves. Even if one, two or two dozen go down, it is still well populated.

“Although panel manufacturing is in trouble, the solar industry is doing relatively okay.” said Chirag Rathi, a senior consultant on the energy industry for Frost and Sullivan. “This is largely due to the advent of solar leasing companies in the U.S. One such company, SolarCity, was even give a contract to install solar power on up to 160,000 military homes. The program was supposed to be supported by the Department of Energy (DoE), which had extended a conditional commitment for a partial guarantee of a $344 million loan to support the project.”

Government subsidy and purchase are the key to whether the industry thrives. The DoE recently announced a new initiative to fund solar collection technology development and the Department of Defense (DoD) is under congressional mandate to reduce fossil-fuel consumption by 50 percent.

The reality is that all forms of energy production are heavily subsidized by government throughout the world. China has invested hundreds of billions of dollars in their solar panel industry. Spain’s financial difficulties are directly tied to the 100 percent subsidy it gave to the industry there, that it can no longer support. Even Germany, relatively healthy in the world economy, is struggling to maintain its levels of support to the industry. In the US, most of the government support – Federal, state and local – is actually tied to the installation industry.

“The purpose of government subsidies for renewables is to reduce costs and make them economically viable alternatives to fossil fueled electricity generation.” said Jay Holman, research manager for solar energy strategies at IDC. “As the cost of electricity from renewables drops, it is natural that the subsidies drop as well: this is an indication of progress. The trick with subsidies is to encourage industry growth without placing too heavy a burden on electricity ratepayers or taxpayers. A flat, constant subsidy won’t do the trick: it needs to drop in line with falling costs.”

Holman said Germany and Italy automatically reduce subsidies based on the amount of solar installed in the previous year, which provides transparency and predictability for the market.

“In the US, however, we send the issue back to congress every few years and let them duke it out. That is an incredibly inefficient approach that makes the subsidy situation extremely difficult to predict.”

Holman concluded that what the US industry needs is a long term subsidy plan that makes automatic subsidy adjustments based on the rate of installations and/or the cost of electricity from renewables.

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Find out why the generals are smiling at Element14.com

The fall of Solyndra was expected, and the DoD is happy

October 31, 2011 | Comments | technology

By Lou Covey
Editorial Director, Footwasher Media

The collapse of Solyndra has been the subject of both major news coverage and a foundational bit of political discourse recently. A closer look at the facts reveals that the reality of Solyndra and the solar industry is far from the speculation, especially when viewed from a military perspective.

Did Solyndra burn Obama? Maybe not.

In the wider scope, industry analysts and observers wonder what all the kerfuffle is about because everyone who knew the industry knew that Solyndra was not going to make it, especially in the current market.

“Solyndra’s CIGS solar panels were expensive,” according the Chirag Rathi of Frost and Sullivan. “The technology was innovative when it started out 6 years ago, but the global market place changed so fast in this time period that it became incredibly difficult for them to compete on price. Their per watt production cost was widely believed to be above the $6 mark, much higher than the poly-crystalline technology of $1.75 per watt and falling.”

According to the industry rule of thumb, for alternative energy to be competitive with fossil fuels, the cost per watt needs to fall below $1.

Rathi pointed out that the solar panel industry is in oversupply with the massive capacity coming out of China and Taiwan. “The Chinese government has provided more than $30 billion in soft loans to the domestic panel manufacturers.”

With all this common knowledge, the persistent question has been: Why did the Obama administration push forward with the loan program? The first answer is, well, that’s been the way things have been done for some time.

Contrary to conventional thought, alternative energy gets the lion’s share — by far — of any government investment in energy, including fossil fuels. According to the Institute for Energy Research, direct federal subsidy (that’s cash, not tax incentives) for renewable energy topped $14 Billion in 2010, while total subsidy of fossil fuel (gas, oil and coal) was just under $3.4 Billion… and 90 percent of the latter was in tax incentives, not actual cash payments. And since the Solyndra investment was only in the form of loan guarantees, it won’t come out of the federal budget until the bankruptcy is complete. In other words, the fall of Solyndra has not yet cost the government anything.

So what, specifically, did the government get out of the Solyndra deal? That’s where no one is looking, and where you need to look to find the more interesting story.

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Making ID verification affordable

October 27, 2011 | Comments | technology

Running a business, large or small, has become fairly complicated in recent times, especially because in so many cases, you have to verify that the person you are dealing with is who they say they are.

One of the most difficult, annoying and controversial is dealing with identity theft and hiring documented workers. Despite popular belief that hiring undocumented workers is rampant, most companies do comply with the law and check submitted documents according to established procedure.

However, that doesn’t stop lawsuits from parties fired for submitting false documents, as former California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman discovered. It also doesn’t stop people, whose identity may have been stolen by a potential employee, from suing companies that hire the frauds. While no court has held a company or employer liable for accepting false documents unknowingly, it still creates an undue financial burden to defend themselves.

And in the political climate developing, it appears the burden of proof will soon be switching from the potential employee to the employer. In the United States, an employer can now face significant jail time plus a fine of up to $250,000 per count for hiring workers without proper documentation. That is a powerful incentive to thoroughly check identities.

All that makes verifying identity is big business and, so far, most of the investment has been going toward government agencies. For example, the US Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) this month is spending millions of dollars to test technology allowing agents to spot falsified documentation. In India, the government is working on identity-theft resistant ID cards for the poor to allow them to get aid.

On the corporate level, there are multiple companies that provide that kind of service that can end up costing several thousand dollars a year, which makes it effective for large corporation.

On the private-citizen/local-business level there are several products and services available to verify customer identities, check the authenticity of document formats and do background checks on individuals, but they are most have separate functions. Some check the validity of passports, some credit cards, some drivers licenses. Some do only credit checks. So again, if you purchase all the equipment, it can end up costing several thousand dollars. The problem with a technology-only focus on verification is that it is not always accurate. False positives and false negatives can occur more than is acceptable, which means the human element cannot be totally eliminated.

A very small number of companies combine expertise and technology to handle multiple applications. One such company is IDChecker in the Netherlands. The company offers a cloud-based and hands-on approach to document verification that includes passports, drivers licenses, national identification cards. Its also looking into the potential of providing personal identification codes that can fast track users through verification processes for e-commerce and and travel. IDChecker also employs identification experts, many hired out of government service to “eyeball” scanned documents. The services comes at a premium but when absolute accuracy is required, nothing can beat the human eye. At least not yet.

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