billso.com

Andrew Grove, a co-founder of Intel and the man who coined one of my favorite concepts, the strategic inflection point (SIP), is rallying corporate and government support for electric cars in the US. He realizes that Americans are reluctant to buy an all-electric vehicle, however:

While car makers have been developing plug-ins, Grove says the nation should consider ways of retrofitting the 80 million low-mileage pickups, sport utility vehicles and vans on the road to make them capable of running on both gasoline and electric power.

Giving these vehicles “dual fuel” functions would be similar to changes made in other technologies. DVD players, for example, were often combined with VCR tape players when they were first introduced to help consumers make the transition.

See this Associated Press article titled Ex-Intel head pushes electric cars for more details.

Related articles and pages on billso.com

• Strategic inflection point
• 12 November 2007: I want a better television - but it’s not ready yet
• 7 March 2007: Microsoft vs. Google

As we approach the 9 June 2008 launch announcement for iPhone 2.0, it’s a good opportunity to discuss the iPhone’s power requirements.

I’ve never heard anyone ask if an iPhone can be solar powered, but I have had a professor ask me when someone will “solve the battery problem”. She was annoyed that her mobile phone and computer needed to be recharged daily. Since she works outdoors for a few hours a day, she thought a solar-powered iPhone would be a great invention.

Is that a solar cell in your pocket?

The short answer is that a solar powered iPhone is almost impossible. The iPhone is really a small computer with a very bright LCD screen. It takes a powerful lithium-ion battery to run an iPhone, and that battery needs more power than the sun can provide. Apple’s official page on iPhone batteries has some details and tips, but is light on technical specifications. Even the Apple specs page doesn’t list the battery’s output and charging requirements.

I ended up searching through eBay and Google Checkout listings to find a number that sounded reasonable: 1400 mAh. It takes a few hours to charge that battery from a 2.5 watt USB cable. iPhoneAtlas has a nice article with some tips for extending the iPhone’s battery life

It’s just silly to add a solar panel directly to an iPhone, for three reasons.

1. iPhone users like carrying the device in their pockets or purses - and those are places the sun doesn’t shine!
2. Many mobile phone users recharge their phones at night, while they are asleep.
3. There’s also the problem of heat. Apple recommends keeping the iPhone out of direct sunlight, because heat can damage the battery and the iPhone itself.

Adding a solar cell to the iPhone would probably make the device thicker - according to Wikipedia, the device is 4.5 inches long by 2.4 wide, and is only 0.46 inches thick. A solar cell that is small enough to fit on the device would produce only a few minutes of iPhone power in an entire day of sunshine.

Apple does hold a patent for putting solar panels on portable electronic devices. But the best solar cells can only deliver a 20% efficiency ratio - and that’s when the solar cell is outside on a clear, cloudless day. Solar cells just do not work well indoors or in overcast conditions. This post from TUAW and these two articles from Forbes have some more details.

Solar chargers

It’s easier to design a solar-powered charger than placing the solar panel on the iPhone itself. The solar charger contains a large battery and several solar cells. The user places the charger in the sun for a few hours to charge the built-in battery. Then the user connects their iPhone to the charged solar device, so that the large battery is recharging the iPhone’s smaller battery.

Solio makes a cute hybrid solar charger that can handle an iPhone. It’s shown in the picture, which was provided by benbrown through a Creative Commons license.

Solar Technology sells several models of hybrid chargers, but they only ship to the UK. The Solarmonkey resembles a clamshell phone, but it can charge an iPhone.

Brando of Hong Kong has a more versatile solar device that can charge its battery from an onboard solar panel or through a USB port. It’s designed for charging small devices that require a maximum of 4.5 watts. Brando will ship to the USA. This Gizmodo article has some additional pictures.

Solar furniture

Frankly, it takes a large solar panel to directly charge an electronic device. The designers of the SOLo lounge table have the right idea. they’ve come up with an outdoor glass-topped table that is a very attractive and expensive solar panel. The table costs US$14,000 and is built to order, making the SOLo a good fit for businesses in sunny climates, or homeowners who want an interesting conversation piece.

Related pages and posts on billso.com

• iPhone
• 29 April 2008: New iPhone will be subsidized, faster and thinner
• 7 March 2008: Solar powered Bluetooth headset

One of the country’s largest web hosting companies, The Planet, is still down after a fire knocked out their main data center’s transformer. To their credit, Planet managers have been providing regular updates on a web forum. Here’s update #2, which is a good example:

Today at approximately 5:45 p.m. [CDT], a transformer in our H1 data center in Houston caught fire, thus requiring us to take down all generators as instructed by the fire department. All servers are down.

The Houston Fire Department ordered Planet staff to shut down the data center’s electric generators. Approximately 7500 9000 web servers and 9000 7500 customers are affected.

One reason that I use DreamHost.com to host billso.com is the incredible level of transparency that DreamHost provides. DreamHost is employee-owned, which helps explains their reporting policy. I’ve never had a major problem with DreamHost, but I know that I can check the status reports for the data center and most of their servers at any time, on the Web or with RSS

See Center Networks for more comments about the Planet fire. I agree with Allen Stern - given the number of servers and clients affected, I expected to hear much more on the blogosphere this morning. The outage affects Planet’s Server Command, ResellOne, and legacy EV1 customers.

The Hosting News posted an excellent article on 29 May 2008 about several recently completed projects at The Planet. It’s tempting to think that this project and the fire are connected, but there’s no indication of that yet. The Planet used to be known as EV1. I remember EV1 from from my years in Austin, when that company offered cut-rate dial-up internet service and web hosting. Their radio commercials were just awful.

The Register and Broadband Reports have posted very brief reports, and here’s the Wikipedia page for EV1.

USB ports are handy, but only when they are fully powered. On some models of the MacBook Pro, it’s the left USB port that is the primary port. If you’ve got an iPod, a headset, a USB-powered hard drive or an external USB hub, plug it in to the left USB port.

The right USB port on the affected MacBook Pro models is hubbed. That means the USB port is sharing the some bus and power source as the keyboard, trackpad, IR receiver, Bluetooth and the iSight video camera. There’s not much power left to run a hungry USB device.

The problem was reported by Andy Ihnatko during the 8 May 2008 MacBreak podcast.

On older MacBooks, the fully-powered USB port is towards the keyboard. The USB port that is nearest to the MagSafe power socket is the hubbed, underpowered port.

I read a Wired article called The MacBook. All USB Ports Are Not Equal and a ZDnet article called (wait for it…) All USB ports aren’t created equal for a few more details, but I checked Apple’s documentation (also at http://snurl.com/appleusb) for the official version. According to Apple, the USB implementation may differ depending on the computer’s model number. It looks like the problem affects older models made in 2006 and 2007. The Wikipedia pages for the MacBook Pro and MacBook can help you determine when your model was built.

The MacBook Air has only one USB port, but it is fully powered.

Image courtesy of wGa HK through a creative commons license.

Related pages and posts on billso.com

• Mac
• 3 March 2008: Building the perfect laptop
• 21 January 2008: The MacBook Air does not impress me

Google has invested US$10 million in BrightSource as part of the Internet firms’s RE>C initiative. According to news.com and ValleyWag, BrightSource builds solar thermal facilities and sells the generated electricity to commercial customers and electricity. The generation system is cost-effective during peak periods of the day.

Google’s data center use large quantities of electricity, so Google.org has been awarding grants to suppliers of renewable energy technologies such as solar, thermal and wind.

Google also announced today that it is hiring a Head of Renewable Energy to supervise the company’s research & development programs. The company already invested in eSolar and Makani Power - see this Google web page more details and links.