Hacker group Anonymous could have the power to take town the United States’ electrical grid this year, National Security Agency director General Keith Alexander believes.

Sources that spoke to the Wall Street Journal said the director admitted his concern over the group at the White House, though he has made no public statement regarding this group in particular. But cyber security is a huge issue for the government as Anonymous continues to “attack for good,” with the expectation of exposing corruption. Anonymous routinely attacks the government on what it calls “F**k FBI Friday,” and it recently hacked into a phone call between the FBI and Scotland Yard when the two agencies were discussing the group itself.

The NSA declined to comment in an e-mail to VentureBeat.

Recently Anonymous’ attacks have seemed to be fairly surface value. Denial of service attacks, which simply attempt to access a website so many times that it overloads, have been behind some of its most high-profile “take-downs” in the last few months. This includes the Department of Justice shortly after the FBI shut down file-sharing company MegaUpload. The group is currently proposing a similar strategy to shut down the 13 servers that run the Internet.

Beyond denial of service attacks, the group has hacked security firm Stratfor and compromised credit card information. It also leaked e-mails regarding the Haditha Massacre from the law firm representing the Marine accused of spearheading the civilian-casualty-riddled mission. The group has also defaced the web sites of various law enforcement agencies across the country.

An attack on the electrical grid, however, would more likely be blamed on a country with which the U.S. has tensions. China has already been caught hacking into U.S. Department of Defense key cards to gain access to information, though it is unknown if the attack was associated with the Chinese government.

Those in charge of the electrical grid told the Journal that they are prepared for attacks, have backup to restore power quickly should an attack occur, and already face regular attacks that they are able to deflect.

But Alexander isn’t concerned about tensioned governments acting on their own behalf as much as he’s concerned about “leaking” knowledge to local cyber criminal groups.

“A near-peer competitor [country] could give cyber malware capability to some fringe group,” Alexander said, according to the Journal. “Some hacker, next thing you know, could be into our electrical grid. We have to get after this.”

We have reached out to the NSA and will update this post upon hearing back.

Electrical grid image via Shutterstock

Apple released its 2012 Facilities Report today, revealing the company’s data center in North Carolina will be powered by America’s largest end user-owned solar array.

It’s easy to peg Apple as a villain these days, given the situation with workers in China manufacturing its products under unsafe and even inhumane conditions. But Apple wants you to see its good side too — the side that recycles, constructs energy efficient buildings, and uses solar energy.

The report shows the environmental impact of Apple’s retail stores, corporate buildings, and data centers. Apple’s Maiden, North Carolina, data center (pictured right) was built to be highly energy-efficient with a “white-cool” roof, the use of outside air to cool the facility at night, and power monitoring.

And coming later this year, a solar array — a group of solar panels — will help power the plant, taking it at least partially off-the-grid. Apple writes in the report that the 100-acre, 20-megawatt facility will generate 42 million kWh of clean, renewable energy each year. The facility has also earned LEED Platinum certification, the highest award for energy-efficient buildings.

At the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, Apple has saved 5 million kilowatt-hours by retrofitting buildings with window and roof coverings and installing energy efficient lighting, according to the report. The company has also implemented shuttle buses to encourage greener commutes and has taken steps to reduce the amount of food waste at its headquarters.

Apple points out that only two percent of its greenhouse gas emissions comes from its corporate facilities. The other 98 percent is a result of producing, shipping, and recycling Apple products. While its great that the company is doing what it can to make its buildings more energy efficient, it’s time Apple focuses its attention on making its manufacturing and shipping processes more environmentally friendly.

Solar array photo via Shutterstock

“We want people to think about lightbulbs and the innovation behind them, we want you to throw away lightbulbs because ours are better and more energy-efficient,” Bill Watkins, Bridgelux chief executive and former Seagate CEO, told VentureBeat.

The company produces solid-state lighting, or light bulbs made of light emitting diodes (LEDs) that are more energy-efficient than traditional incandescent bulbs. LEDs are typically found in TVs, computers, and even car headlights, but the technology has previously been too expensive to be used in a simple consumer light bulb. Bridgelux changed that by releasing cheaper and more energy-efficient light bulbs that can be used in lamps and overhead light fixtures. The company backs up its products with a five-year warranty.

Bridgelux holds more than 600 patent filings worldwide and has developed many LED products including light bulbs that can be easily replaced when a diode burns out.

Bridgelux will use the fundraising to research and develop LED chips with silicon, which can be used in a larger LEDs for more light emission. Kaistar is teaming up with Bridgelux as a manufacturing partner for these new LEDs. The company also has several programs that the funding will go towards.

“We’ve recently rolled out a pilot program to give thousands of businesses and homes five free light bulbs that connect to a smart meter and be monitored by a utility company. The power company can then adjust the amount of energy flowing to the light bulb during peak and off-peak hours,” said Watkins.

Bridgelux is based in Livermore, California and has more than 130 employees. The company has been heavily funded in the past, with a $34 million investment in 2009 and $21 million in 2011 from Vantage Point Venture Partners, VC firm DCM, Chrysalix Energy, and El Dorado ventures.

Electric car maker Tesla unveiled its latest electric vehicle last night, the Model X, a cross-over that offers more space than the company’s Model S sedan and original sporty Roadster.

For those waiting for a semi-affordable electric car that offers plenty of space, power, and versatility, the Model X looks to be the best option yet.

Like other cross-over vehicles, the Model X sits somewhere between a sedan and a SUV. But Tesla couldn’t help but add its own spin to the form: the Model X features funky rear doors, dubbed “Falcon Wings,” that flip up and allow you to easily step into the car.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says that the Falcon Wings are the largest rear door openings found in a passenger car, CNet reports.

Tesla expects the Model X to retail close to the Model S’ price, which starts at $49,000. The company will offer the same battery options as the Model S as well, which ranges from 160 mile to 300 mile configurations. The Model X will get around 10 to 12 percent less range than the Model S, due to its added weight.

The Model X features a full third-row of seating (accessible by sliding the middle row forward), allowing it to hold up to seven passengers and their cargo. Tesla will also offer an all-wheel drive option, a first for the company, in addition to the base rear-wheel model. Thanks to the Model X’s electric drivetrain, the car can intelligently tweak the torque of every wheel to easily adapt to changing driving situations.

Tesla plans to begin production of the Model X in late 2013, with deliveries starting in 2014.

Smart-thermostat maker Nest is being sued by Honeywell for infringing on seven different patents owned by the technology giant.

“Competition is good and we welcome it, but we will not stand by while competitors, large or small, offer products that infringe on our intellectual property,” said Honeywell environmental and combustion controls president Beth Wozniak in a statement.

The Nest thermostat has become a need-to-have product for gadget-lovers. The smart thermometer learns your heating and cooling habits, and will adjust your house temperature accordingly. For instance, it knows what time you come home from work, what hours are good for energy conservation, the temperature you most like while sleeping, and whether you are on vacation. It also displays tips on saving energy money.

“We have not yet reviewed the actual filing, which we learned about this morning through Honeywell’s press release,” a Nest spokesperson told VentureBeat in an e-mail. “We will provide comment once we’ve had the opportunity to review it.”

Honeywell, which is also suing Best Buy for selling the Nest product, has its own line of connected thermostat products called the Total Connect Comfort Systems and insists that Nest infringes on a number of its existing patents. First, Honeywell believes that Nest’s setup process is too similar to its own. A “natural language” interview asks the user what her preferred hot and cold temperatures are. Another patent takes a closer look at Nest’s ability to provide energy saving tips by connecting to the Internet.

Four different patents deal with Nest’s hardware and display, three of which pertain to its circular shape. Patent number 7,584,899, the HVAC controller, addresses the ring directly (photo of which can be seen right). The last patent touches on Nest’s ability to energize itself by essentially being a safe parasite on the home’s energy system.

We have reached out to Honeywell for comment and will update upon hearing back.

hat tip GigaOm

Creating biofuels and biochemicals from factory waste emissions is LanzaTech’s specialty. The company uses carbon monoxide emissions from steel mills, factories, oil refineries, and other waste sources to create ethanol, using a gas-liquid bacterial fermentation. LanzaTech captures  the carbon monoxide, pumps the gases into a bioreactor, and mixes with liquid. Bacteria feeds on the mixture, nutrients are added, and when the process is finished ethanol is produced.

The company works all over the world, helping manufacturing industries dispose of carbon emissions. In China, LanzaTech has used emissions from steel mill factories to create fuel. LanzaTech is also partnering with the Federal Aviation Administration in the United States to create jet fuels from industrial waste and is developing a facility in the state of Georgia to turn waste wood into fuel.

“The size of this round and the quality of the new and returning investors is a strong validation of not only our technology, but the unparalleled opportunity for LanzaTech to be a global leader in biofuels and biochemicals markets,” chief executive of LanzaTech Dr. Jennifer Holmgren said in a statement.

The funding will be used for the development of new biorefineries — facilities where gases can be converted into fuel.

LanzaTech was founded in 2005 in New Zealand and is now headquartered in Roselle, Illinois.  The company maintains offices in China and New Zealand. This latest series C fundraising round was led by Malaysian Life Sciences Capital Fund with participation from PETRONAS Technology Ventures Sdn Bhd, Khosla Ventures, Qiming Venture Partners, and K1W1. So far, LanzaTech has raised more than $85 million for its renewable fuel technology.

Smoke stack image via Shutterstock

Scientists from Bio Architecture Lab, Inc (BAL) and the University of Washington in Seattle have found a way to turn seaweed into fuel with the use of genetically modified Escherichia coli, most commonly known as E. coli, the Scientific American reported. E. coli is a bacteria that can show up in food and make humans ill.

In the last few decades, there has been a push to create biofuels — fuels derived from plants and grasses — to replace fossil fuels. For a while, corn was a major biofuel player. It could be transformed into corn ethanol, a fuel that could be use in flex-fuel vehicles such as the Ford Fusion and the Dodge Ram Pickup. While corn ethanol seemed like an obvious solution, it’s not as environmentally friendly as it was once touted to be due to amount of land needed to grow the crop and its impact on food production.

This is where seaweed comes in. Because seaweed grows rampantly in the world’s oceans, it takes up no land space and doesn’t affect food production like corn does. Seaweed also grows without any help from humans; relying on ocean water for nutrients with no need for fertilizers or pesticides.

The team of scientists genetically modified a strain of E. coli to digest the sugars found in kombu — an edible kelp often found in miso soup — and turn it into ethanol. Once modified, the team tested the new E. coli by adding it to a solution of water and ground up kombu and letting it sit for a few days.

After sitting for two days, the E. coli had broken down the kombu into a solution of ethanol and water. The entire process took place at a relatively low temperature; around 30 degrees Celsius or around 86 degrees Fahrenheit, meaning excessive heat would not be needed to covert seaweed into fuel on a larger scale. The full study was published in the January 20 edition of the journal Science.

Yasuo Yoshikuni, the co-founder of BAL and one of the researchers for the project assured that this new strain of E coli wouldn’t be able to get loose and consume all of the seaweed already growing in the oceans. ”E. coli loves the human gut, it doesn’t like the ocean environment,” Yoshikuni told Scientific American, “I can hardly imagine it would do something. It would just be dead.”

While the prospect of moving away from fossil fuels and corn ethanol seems appealing and environmentally friendly, turning seaweed into fuel does open up the possibility of the oceans being exploited. It’s no secret that overfishing is a major problem plaguing our oceans, with too many fish being caught for human consumption. If scientists move forward with creating ethanol from seaweed, hopefully it won’t be at the sacrifice of the world’s oceans.

E. Coli image via Shutterstock

They also took a lot of photographs. Here are some of our favorite images and finds from the CES 2012 floor, including an Atari controller for the iPad, exciting in-car computers, and the hottest new laptops and mobile phones. For even more images, check out the VentureBeat Flickr photostream.

You can find in-depth articles about these products and events in our collection of CES 2012 coverage, including hands-ons and videos.

Photos by Dean Takahashi, Devindra Hardawar, Dylan Tweney, and Sean Ludwig.

The new Flagship Ventures Fund IV L.P. was set at $250 million, but investors exceeded that amount. Investors included all types of organizations from foundations to corporations to individuals, including a few new limited partners that had not contributed to previous funds.

Flagship’s portfolio companies seem to be tackling big, human-scale problems from energy to epidemics, and the firm has seen exits that match that ambition. Some of its more notable exits include Adnexus Therapeutics, which was sold for $430 million to Bristol-Myers Squibb; Morphotek, which was acquired for $325 million by Japanese big pharma company Eisai; and Hypnion, which was bought by Lilly for an undisclosed sum.

“We are quite pleased by the market’s reaction to our fourth fund,” said Flagship CEO and managing partner Noubar Afeyan in a release.

“Despite the difficult environment for fundraising, especially for early-stage venture firms, we received strong support from our prior investors, as well as from several new important limited partners. We believe that the firm’s investment strategy and … history of building valuable, transformative companies are well aligned with the world’s ever increasing reliance on innovation, entrepreneurship and value creation.”

Indeed, VC fundraising had a lackluster year in 2011, according to Dow Jones analysts. On average, a U.S.-based venture capital firm in 2011 was only able to raise around $120 million.

Flagship’s last fund, which launched in pre-economic-meltdown 2007 with a healthy $235 million raise, fed a portfolio of 24 ventures such as Joule Unlimited, which aims to solve the global energy crisis with a biofuel alternative, and Selecta, which produces nanotechnology-powered vaccines.

Counting the new fund, Flagship now manages more than $900 million of early-stage capital and has cultivated a portfolio of more than 65 companies. Also, 25 of those companies came from inside Flagship itself via the firm’s in-house venture creation group, VentureLabs.

In addition to continuing its investment in early-stage companies, Flagship will use part of the new fund to invest in later-stage companies.

Green tech has dominated the conversation around cars, but now it seems these eco-friendly trends are edging into mobile at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, where SolarFocus is debuting its Kindle case. Taiwan-based SolarFocus has other solar-panel products that have USB ports, but its Kindle case might be the most interesting, specific device.

The solar-powered Kindle case fits only the fourth-generation Kindle, but it should be available for the Kindle Touch in the spring. The front part of the case features one long solar panel, which is a bit inelegant. On the inside, there is a pop-up light that can help you read at night or in low-lighting.

SolarFocus says its Kindle case will make the Kindle battery last three times the normal duration, which amounts to three months. But because you can charge solely off the solar charger, you could, in theory, never need to plug it into a wall or computer USB port again.

The SolarFocus solar-powered Kindle case is a 2012 International CES Innovations Design & Engineering Awards Honoree. The device will be available online starting Jan. 15 for $80.

Here are a few other photos of the innovative solar-powered case:

If you couldn’t tell by the avalanche of product news hitting VentureBeat over the past few weeks, the next Consumer Electronics Show is almost upon us. The annual trade show, which has been held in Las Vegas for more than a decade, is where many of the world’s biggest electronics companies debut their new products, announce major news, and desperately try to remind us that they exist.

A flood of news is par for the course at CES (VentureBeat will be covering the event extensively, as we’re sending more writers than ever before), but every year a few major themes emerge that will resonate for the rest of the year. While the value of CES has arguably declined over the past decade — with companies like Apple, Samsung, and Microsoft announcing plenty of products at their own press events throughout the year — the show still provides us an interesting glimpse of what lies ahead.

This year’s trade show is poised to be one of the biggest in years, as the Consumer Electronics Association believes it will draw 149,000 attendees to more than 2,700 exhibitors occupying more than 1.8 million square feet of exhibit space.

Granted, some of the most significant consumer electronics and computing products won’t have a presence at the show at all. Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 operating system, due later in 2012, will likely be the consumer tech product that affects more people than any other. And Apple’s iPad 3 (and rumored iTV) are among the most-anticipated and most-hyped upcoming products. None of these will have any presence at CES 2012. But that still leaves a huge electronics industry full of products, technologies and trends.

Here are our predictions for the CES trends that will make a profound impact on the technology world, both for businesses and consumers, in 2012.

4G networks, round 2

Verizon Wireless’s LTE 4G network was all the rage at last year’s CES, having launched just a month prior, and it marked the arrival of cellular networks that could finally achieve speeds comparable to home broadband connections. While Verizon has had its run of the LTE field for the past year, this year it’ll finally have some competition from AT&T and Sprint.

At CES, AT&T will be showing off its first run of LTE 4G phones, following the launch of its network  back in September. Leading the pack for AT&T will be the Nokia Ace, AKA the Lumia 900, which we think could turn the tide for Windows Phone. AT&T certainly has a lot of catching up to do, and we suspect that the carrier will be making some major announcements regarding aggressive expansion of its network.

Sprint, meanwhile, has said that it will have a major roll out of its LTE network in the middle of 2012, which will be followed by the arrival of LTE phones later in the year. The company was the first to launch a 4G network years ago, but it ran the slower WiMax standard. Now that LTE has proven to be faster and easier to deploy, Sprint has to jump ship from WiMax. We expect Sprint to divulge many more details about its LTE plans at CES.

That leaves T-Mobile, which for the past year has been embroiled in a potential takeover by AT&T. Now that that’s not happening, the carrier will likely move forward with plans to expand its HSPA+ 4G network, which at this point has already reached 42 megabit speeds in nearly 100 cities.

Ultrabooks, the new face of laptops

Last summer’s MacBook Air update proved that super thin ultraportables could finally go toe-to-toe with bulkier laptops. And not surprisingly, PC makers have since tried to replicate the Air’s success with ultrabooks, a term for the ultraportable machines coined by Intel. We’ve already seen some ultrabooks announced by Asus, Acer, HP and Toshiba, but at CES there will be between 30 and 50 new models announced.

Eventually, all laptops will resemble what we’re calling ultrabooks. The laptop industry has long aspired to fit as much power as possible in a tiny package. Ultrabooks are the realization of that dream. It used to be that ultraportable laptops came at a premium, then low-cost (but underpowered) netbooks eventually proved machines didn’t need to be expensive to be very portable. With ultrabooks, you get extreme portability and a decent amount of power at a price not much more expensive than mainstream laptops. Intel researchers say Ultrabooks enable “flow,” or the idea of being able to work in an uniterrupted manner.

Ultrabooks are also the best way for computer manufacturers to combat the rise of tablets. While slates like the Kindle Fire are getting increasingly cheaper, it’s still not as easy to be productive on a tablet (yes, even the iPad), as you can on a full-fledged laptop. At only a few pounds heavier than 10-inch tablets, ultrabooks could be seen as a companion to cheap tablets, and for some consumers they may even erase the need for a tablet altogether.

Mobile chipsets achieve desktop power

Silently powering the smartphone and tablet revolution are mobile chipsets that are powerful, while still being heavily optimized to not eat up too much battery life. Last year saw the rise of dual-core chipsets, including Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor, Nvidia’s Tegra 2, and Apple’s A5 chip.

This year, the race is on for quad-core chipsets that will bring to mobile computing power on par with some desktops. We’re expecting to see plenty of devices featuring quad-core chipsets from many of the above companies at CES. Qualcomm has the new Snapdragon S4, and Nvidia has Tegra 3, both of which will be able to run complex 3D games and high-definition video without a sweat. Qualcomm has one of the keynote speech slots, while Intel and Nvidia have press conferences on Monday.

Intel is finally stepping into the game with its new Atom-based mobile chipset, codenamed Medfield. It may not be initially as powerful as the competing Tegra and Snapdragon platforms, but after sitting out the mobile chipset wars until now, Intel has to start somewhere. The company will reportedly show off its first Medfield-based Android phone, built by LG, at CES.

The consumer cloud takes off

“Cloud” has been a code-word for enterprise for a while, but this year might be a big one for the consumer cloud. When iCloud and iTunes Match were introduced in mid-2011, we had a feeling that consumer-focused cloud technologies were about to start getting hot. Many other tech companies notably follow Apple’s lead, so it’s not hard to imagine other companies cashing in with their own cloud-based media services this year.

At CES, look out for companies showing off ways to connect your home and mobile devices with all sorts of media options. We expect cloud-based music and gaming to really get hammered into consumers heads, especially with connected TVs and mobile apps. Companies such as Verizon, Gaikai, Joyent , and Slacker will all be on CES panels discussing how to move forward with media in the cloud.

One company we expect to leave an impression at CES is Shodogg, which uses the web and cloud power to seamlessly move video content between screens, from TV to phone to computer. Another company that could shine is former DEMO winner WeVideo, which makes video editing in the cloud a reality.

Car tech revs up

As more car manufacturers develop electric engines and green solutions to help with gas mileage, they are also looking at ways to add more communication and media technology to vehicles. This year at CES, companies like Ford, GM, Mercedes-Benz and Audi will be showing off mobile apps that interact directly with cars and dashboards that function more like full-fledged computers. CES will also play host to a panel about cars that use short-range vehicle-to-X (V2X) technology that will allow cars to interact with other cars, traffic lights and pedestrians.

Ford specifically will be a big player in this space at CES with the introduction of a cloud-connected concept car that can beam data between cars and sync your schedule and music from home. The company will also show a beta version of its MyFord mobile app, which can find electrical charge points for electric engines and plan efficient routes using MapQuest.

With the ever-increasing demand that technology should help make driving safer, we can also expect that sort of tech getting a spotlight this year. CES will have a number of companies detailing technologies to help with “auto collision avoidance, land drift assistance, parking, speed monitoring, hands-free, text-to-voice, driver drowsiness detection and more.”

The start of a great year

While CES is bastion of consumer technology, there are still plenty of trends that will dominate the year that won’t have much of a showing at the trade show. One of the biggest is Windows 8, Microsoft’s latest operating system that will boldly attempt to unify a tablet and desktop interfaces. From what we’re hearing, Microsoft won’t be announcing much significant Windows 8 news at CES, though you can be sure plenty of other companies will have Windows 8-related news in tow.

Looking beyond CES, there’s plenty to look forward to this year: Tablets that won’t suck; the eventual release of Apple’s completely revamped iPhone (which we’re hoping will prove those iPhone 5 rumors true); and mostly for me, the many surprises that 2012 will bring.

Electric car maker Fisker Automotive has issued a recall for 239 of its Karma vehicles, fewer than 50 of which have been sold to customers. The $96,000 luxury electric sedans have an issue with a hose clip in their battery units that could result in a coolant leak and possibly a fire.

All Karma owners have already been contacted by Fisker, and the company aims to have all the batteries replaced in customer cars before Jan. 1, Fisker spokesperson Roger Ormisher told VentureBeat.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report, the issue is with all Karma models produced between July 1 and Nov. 3. The battery units, which are produced by A123 Systems, were positioned incorrectly, making it possible for the battery compartment to interfere with the hose clamps, resulting in a leak from the coolant hoses. If the coolant leaks into the battery compartment, the battery could short out and cause a fire. No owners reported any issues related to the battery before the recall.

While the number of vehicles affected may not seem high for a car recall (GM issued a recall for 4,296 vehicles the following day), it is actually a good chunk of all the Karmas that have been produced so far. The Karma only began shipping over the summer, after two years of delays and a disappointing EPA rating. Fisker plans on ramping-up production to between 10,000 and 12,000 Karma vehicles in 2012, slightly down from its earlier goal of 15,000 a year. Currently, it is producing 25 cars a day.

“What was interesting for us was how quickly we did this recall,” said Ormisher. “It can take weeks to get a recall in place and we did it in less than 48 hours.” The company acted immediately after discovering the issue, and had already called all retailers and started the process of replacing batteries when the official National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report went out.

It’s been a bumpy year for the electric-car startup. In October, the company missed manufacturing goals for its next vehicle, the plug-in extended-range dubbed Project Nina, and had to delay plans for production. The Karma is produced in Finland, but the Nina will be manufactured in a revamped GM plan in Wilmington, Delaware. Ormisher says there’s already a pre-production model of the Nina, and the company plans to start production on the car at the end of 2012.

Fisker Automotive has raised over $760 million in private equity financing so far, and has received $529 million in loans from the U.S. Department of Energy as part of the government’s green jobs initiative. Only $169 million of the U.S. loan money has gone toward production of the Fisker Karma.

via GigaOm

Next month, the largest and most prominent of tech conferences will be occurring in Las Vegas – the Consumer Electronics Show  – and you can be sure, even with new versions of smartphone and tablet apps exclusively for the 2012 event, that reams and reams of paper will be wasted.

(Full disclosure: I run a mobile publishing company, GENWI.)

I was struck by how much paper I saw at last year’s CES: The conference distributed at least 25 different print versions of its magazine. CES 2011 had 140,000 attendees, and let’s assume 30% picked up a copy. There were close to a million copies of printed magazines distributed. This is discounting the 140,000 copies of the conference program guide and maps printed (or that other primitive corporate totem changing hands between individuals – the business card) .

At least CES appears to be moving in something of a right direction: Attendees of CES 2011 were given the option of refusing the official CES booklet, and the show released a free iPhone application called “Follow Me,” which included some material previously restricted to a paper pamphlet, such as floor maps and schedules.

According to The Wall Street Journal, other tech conferences are adopting similar policies: The Web 2.0 Summit and Macworld Expo have been integrating smartphone functionality as well, with similar kinds of apps, as well as the use of Google Calendar. To quote Journal, though, the services offered so far are “not nearly enough.”

Even if you give attendees the option to use apps instead of paper, there is still the matter of all that paper continuing to be generated. And don’t forget that there are lots of CES-type shows for different industries that aren’t so tech-savvy. Let’s assume that there are 100 conferences of a similar size and composition (in various industries) in a given year. The total copies of magazines printed and distributed around these conferences would be approximately 100 million. Let’s also assume that each magazine contains, on average, 25 sheets. That gives you a total of 2.5 billion sheets of paper. One tree produces an estimated 8333.33 sheets of paper. So that’s about 300,000 trees.

If you’re an environmentally conscious techie, what’s the point of driving a Nissan Leaf, or using energy efficient appliances in your home, if you’re contributing to the razing of potentially 300,000 trees when you unthinkingly pick up a guide or magazine at one of these conferences? Consumers and end users are beginning to embrace paperless magazines and other media. Why can’t those of us participating in these B2B activities join them at the same rate of adoption? You don’t have to be a treehugger to see the basic and simple sense behind all this.

What I propose is making all show guides and magazines totally tablet compatible. Don’t even offer the unnecessary and wasteful option of a paper guide or magazine. Conference organizers can very easily put all of the same information within a smartphone or tablet app that they can on bound pieces of paper. In addition, there are things you can do with a tablet app that you simply can’t with old-fashioned paper such as:

1. Provide instantaneous updates that aren’t locked into a publication deadline, providing important information on the go.
2. Provide content that can be more easily shared or reproduced.
3. Integrate features like rich media, video, zooming, etc.

The only good reason for an outdated reliance on printed hard copies is, well, the outdated reliance on printed hard copies itself. Take this example from a May 2011 New York Times article on paperless conferences:

“Apps can also work for medical conferences, where delegates are given large amounts of information. Catherine Foss, executive director of the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, said she loaded the equivalent of 183 pages of medical paper abstracts and other research documents onto an app for her biannual conference last year. The society still spent roughly $27,000 to print hard copies because attendees are in the habit of taking the books back to the office for reference [emphasis my own], but Ms. Foss said she expected members to gradually make the transition to a digital format.”

183 pages worth of medical abstracts and research documents! If the Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery can do it, and if our tablet-wielding parents and grandparents can do it, we certainly can. Here’s my challenge to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA): Let’s go as paperless as we can for the 2012 CES and maybe even go completely paperless in time for 2013!

PJ Gurumohan is the co-founder and CEO of GENWI, a cloud-based mobile publishing platform. He holds two patents in wireless technology, has authored several journal articles, routinely speaks at technology conferences, and has held various engineering positions at IBM and US Airways. He holds a Ph.D. and a Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Arizona State University.

[Rolls of paper image by Kenneth Sponsler/Shutterstock.]

GMZ Energy specializes in renewable and economically viable energy. “We have a solid state material that lets you generate electricity from heat. There are huge amounts of waste heat, and if that can be harnessed it can be used to generate tons of electricity,” GMZ CEO Aaron Bent told VentureBeat.

Essentially, instead of creating electricity from burning fossil fuels, the company uses a renewable thermoelectric (heat-electricic) material to convert heat to electricity using the sun and wasted heat from industrial and automotive sources.

The material, which developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston College, works by generating an electrical current from temperature changes. A heat source is placed on one side of the material, creating an electrical current.

GMZ Energy is currently developing its first product for launch in 2012; a solar hot-water collector that will generate electricity for homeowners.

“The funding will be used for two major things; to complete the release of our new product and move in it to production, and to accelerate our other waste heat recovery projects,” said Bent.

GMZ Energy was founded in 2007. GMZ Energy has been funded by BP Alternative Energy, Energy Technology Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Mitsui Ventures, I2BF Global Ventures and strategic corporate partners.

Nuclear Plant photo via Shutterstock

While the implosion of solar power company Solyndra has seemingly cast a shadow on the viability of the solar industry, that hasn’t stopped Google from investing $94 million in photovoltaic (generating power through solar radiation) projects in California.

Google says it’s investing the funds in four photovoltaic projects near Sacramento, Calif. which are being built by Recurrent Energy. The investment brings Google’s total clean tech portfolio to over $915 million. At this rate, Google’s clean tech investments will likely reach $1 billion within the next year.

“We’ve already committed to providing funding this year to help more than 10,000 homeowners install solar PV panels on their rooftops,” writes assistant Google treasurer Axel Martinez. “But this investment represents our first investment in the U.S. in larger scale solar PV power plants that generate energy for the grid — instead of on individual rooftop. These projects have a total capacity of 88 MW, equivalent to the electricity consumed by more than 13,000 homes.”

Google is making the investment together with KKR, which is today forming a new venture for solar projects, SunTap Energy. This will be KKR’s first clean tech investment in the U.S.

Solyndra ended up falling apart because it couldn’t compete with the falling solar panel prices from competitors. The company received a $535 million loan from the Department of Energy, a move that has undergone quite a bit of scrutiny over the past year. The failure of Solyndra is definitely a warning sign for the clean tech community, but hopefully more high-profile investments like Google’s will serve to rekindle excitement in clean tech, and specifically solar power.

Harry Kolar, an engineer with IBM, described harvesting energy from human movements as bodies becoming “an energy-generating machine,” in a blog post about what energy changes may occur in the next five years. In essence, we create energy from many of the little activities we do throughout the day. This includes the simply click of a heel on the ground, jogging and biking. It’s similar to the hamster on the wheel scenario. This time, however, it’s on a much larger, human scale and only takes energy from our regular activities. Kolar explains the energy collection could come from a small device and antenna implanted into the sole of your shoe, measuring each time it comes in contact with the ground, or even simply bends. Similar devices could be implanted on the spokes of bike wheels, or even attached to pipes to catch energy from running water.

“This science — parasitic power collection — pulls and transmits energy created by the slightest movement.” said Kolar in the blog post. “Think about the possibilities.”

Kolar also predicts that we will figure out how to best harness wave and tidal energy. Currently, we have floating energy receptacles, which harvest wave energy, but they are clunky and may have a negative impact on the environment around it. When we think of pollution, we usually think about plastic bags and bottles floating in water, confusing fish into thinking it’s food, and hurting the environment. This is certainly one kind of pollution, but rarely do people consider noise to be pollution. If you’re a person raised in the quiet countryside, trying to fall asleep to car alarms and sirens may feel intrusive. Well, this is the same for fish and marine animals who have to listen to hums and whirrs that exist from man-made machinery.

“My team is working with The Sustainable Energy Authority Ireland to use real-time streaming analytics that monitor the underwater noise and track its potential impact on the marine environment,” said Koler. “That data will be shared across the wave energy industry to help build a clearer picture of how this type of technology can be safely, sustainably used and controlled.”

Others are already taking advantage of this parasitic power collection, with the goal of powering third world countries through soccer. Yes, soccer. Soccket has created a durable soccer ball that when kicked around for only a half hour can power up an LED light for up to three hours. The balls are made specifically for communities with little resources and sometimes rough terrain. The ball replaces kerosene lamps, which according to Soccket are the equivalent of smoking 40 cigarettes a day.

Kinetic energy will play a big role is where we get out energy from, and we’re already starting to develop way of capturing it. It’l be important to keep innovation rolling over the next five years as Kolar believes we’re running out of resources — and quickly.

“With populations growing and electricity demand expected to grow at 2.2 percent per year to 2035 (according to the World Energy Outlook 2010),” Kolar explain, “Our current energy infrastructure is just not enough.”

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*Coming spring 2012. Limited availability.

Posed in front of a mirrored glass office building under a colorful logo, they are the final employees of the now-defunct electric-car startup Aptera Motors on the last day of its existence, Friday, December 2, 2011.

If there’s one lesson to be learned from the closing of Aptera, it may be this: Starting a car company takes a huge amount of money — orders of magnitude more than the software startups Silicon Valley venture capitalists like to fund.

And if the cash runs out at any point, the company will die.

Over the last week, we interviewed former CEO Paul Wilbur and former marketing VP Marques McCammon, who were there to the very end. We also spoke at length with company founder Steve Fambro, who resigned his seat on the Aptera board of directors early this year. He had been replaced by Wilbur as CEO in September 2008. From those interviews and other research, we’ve compiled this inside chronology of the events that led to the end of Aptera.

Not just a single car

Aptera 2e development prototype at company offices in Vista, California.

Through several hours of conversations, a few themes emerged from the Aptera story as recounted by Wilbur and McCammon.

The pair speak highly of the entire workforce, all of them now looking for jobs.

It is clear that the car designed by founders Fambro and Wilbur was not the car Aptera ended up developing. In fact, it created a longer, larger version of the Aptera 2e three-wheeler to comply with the 738 separate Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards covering cars that may legally be sold.

After it became clear that funding a three-wheeler wasn’t going to be possible, the company switched gears in January and threw all its design resources into creating the 4e, a four-seat, four-wheeled car using the same plastic composite body shell construction as the original three-wheelers.

Coming very close?

Both Wilbur and McCammon believe the company came very close to surviving — and suggest that years of discussions with the Department of Energy over its advanced technology vehicle manufacturing (ATVM) loan program ultimately took too long, dooming Aptera to run out of cash.

That $25 billion DoE program offered low-interest loans to automakers and parts companies that would use the money to retool existing plants to build advanced-technology vehicles with fuel efficiency at least 25 percent higher than vehicles they replaced.

Here’s the chronology of the startup:

• 2006: Founders Steve Fambro and Chris Anthony start Aptera to build an ultra-efficient three-wheel electric car (to be registered as a motorcycle)
• Sep 2008: Paul Wilbur is hired as CEO, replacing Fambro
• Dec 2008: DoE rejects Aptera’s ATVM loan application within three days because three-wheelers are not defined as cars
• Jun 2009: Tesla receives $365 million of low-interest loans under the Department of Energy’s ATVM program
• Sep 2009: Fisker too is awarded $529 million in loans under the ATVM program
• Oct 2009: Three-wheeled vehicles are defined as cars for the purposes of the ATVM program
• Jan 2010: Aptera resubmits application to DoE for loans to build both the 2e and a new four-wheeled, four-seat vehicle
• Late 2010: DoE assessment of 2e portion of business plan indicates it cannot pay back capital costs under DoE’s sales projections (a fraction of Aptera’s own numbers)
• Jan 2011: Aptera shifts all development efforts to the 4e, a four-door, four-seat electric sedan that it believes has a better shot at getting DoE funding
• Sep 2011: DoE issues a conditional commitment letter for $150 million of loans to loaning Aptera–IF the company raises $80 million privately
• Nov 2011: DoE turns down ATVM loan application submitted by Next Autoworks (nee VVC) for its low-cost plastic-bodied basic economy car design
• Nov-Dec 2011: Investors spooked by the Next Autoworks denial refuse Aptera’s requests for further operating funds
• Dec 2, 2011: Aptera Motors shuts down

So if you believe Wilbur, Aptera simply ran out of time amidst a loss of confidence by its investors.

Doing the right thing

Aptera 4e

Surely the political controversy around half a billion dollars of DoE loans to failed solar-panel maker Solyndra didn’t help. There was also a small kerfuffle over the low 20-mpg EPA gas-mileage rating for the 2012 Fisker Karma range-extended electric luxury sport sedan, now finally on the market–and partly funded with DoE loans.

With a presidential election year coming up, Wilbur says, “the [ATVM] program could go away completely.” No big-name investor stepped up to carry Aptera, in the way that Next Autoworks had famed Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins to lead its funding.

So, Wilbur says, “We wanted to do the right thing for our employees,” closing the company while there was still enough cash to pay them a small amount of severance.

“Bright shiny object disease”

In the end, Wilbur says, if he had it to do over again, he would avoid what he termed the “bright shiny object disease” of DoE loans. He spent three of his three and a half years at the company pursuing Energy Department loan funding, logging time in Washington, D.C., in endless meetings with government officials and lobbyists.

Because Tesla and Fisker got loans, “we listened to that too much,” Wilbur admits. “We should have raised the money ourselves rather than relying on the DoE.”

Aptera 2e development prototype at company offices in Vista, California.

There’s a broader question, of course: Was a three-wheeled two-seater that looked like a Cessna cabin on wheels ever going to sell the 20,000 per year that its executives touted?

All three men pointed to the 5,000 Californians who placed a deposit of $500 to get on the list for an Aptera 2e when the car went into production.

Conversion rates are notoriously tricky to estimate (they’re always less than 100 percent, but by how much?). Whether more than a few thousand souls would be brave enough to drive such a radical device will likely never now be answered.

Car or three-wheeled motorcycle?

Aptera 2e

And clearly the vision for a three-wheeled electric motorcycle that Fambro discusses at length in last week’s Transport Evolved interview was not shared by the executive team brought in during late 2008.

The car that those 5,000 investors put down deposits for was Fambro’s concept, although he does not feel that the final design–two years ago, it was leaked on the day we drove an earlier 2e prototype–stayed true to his original vision.

Nonetheless, the ATVM program is one that’s meant to allow companies to bootstrap technology to get more efficient vehicles into the hands of many, many drivers more quickly.

$5.9 billion to Ford

That’s why Ford has been the single largest recipient of loans thus far, getting a whopping $5.9 billion to roll out its EcoBoost line of smaller, more efficient gasoline engines across its entire model range–as it’s now doing.

Those are hundreds of thousands, soon to be millions, of engines–against tens of thousands of Apteras.

Lingering questions about the collapse:

Paul Wilbur, Aptera Motors CEO, 2008-2011

Many more questions remain about Aptera’s collapse, and they’ll no doubt be endlessly debated. We have partial answers to a few.

Does the DoE Conditional Letter of Commitment really exist?  Both Wilbur and McCammon assert–emphatically, even angrily–that it does. McCammon provided to GreenCarReports a scan of a cover sheet for such a document, dated September 13, 2011. GreenCarReports has not, however, seen the actual letter, which McCammon offered to show to a reporter in person.

He also provided a heavily redacted e-mail–which he stated was from a DoE official, although it cannot be confirmed from the scan–that refers to “a letter…addressing the status of Aptera’s application,” and is dated October 19, 2011.

Presuming that the DoE did issue a conditional commitment letter–it has refused to comment on Aptera–it’s worth noting that Aptera executives claim it required the company to raise $80 million of matching funds to obtain the DoE low-interest loans. And its executives were unable to do that.

What happened to all the deposits?  Wilbur claims the majority of the deposits have been returned–starting last August–though “they’re having a hard time finding” some depositors. On the other hand, at least one GreenCarReports commenter has yet to receive a deposit back and is not having calls or e-mails returned by either the company or its liquidators.

Did Aptera take 2e deposits even after it knew it was dropping development of the car?  Wilbur says that although the website didn’t drop its offer to take deposits until June, the company disabled the back end in January so no deposits could actually be accepted. If any potential Aptera buyers were able to put down a deposit on a 2e after January, that would contradict the ex-CEO’s claim.

This article by John Voelcker originally appeared on GreenCarReports.com, one of VentureBeat’s editorial partners.

This sponsored message is brought to you by Chevrolet.

Note: The 2012 Chevy Volt has an EPA-estimated 94 MPGe ; 35 city, 40 MPG highway. Actual range varies with conditions.

The Chevy Volt* is unique among electric cars because it runs on two sources of energy. You have an electric source – a battery – that allows you to drive gas-free for an EPA–estimated 35 miles. And there’s also an onboard gas generator that produces electricity so you can go farther. So if you want to drive using only electricity, you can. If you want to drive using electricity and gas, you can do that, too. Hear what one proud Volt owner had to say about how the electric car has reinvented his driving experience.

Meet Billy Bell of Orlando, Florida. One might think he loves his Volt because he’s driven more than 1,600 miles without gassing up. That’s because through regular charging and keeping commutes within the EPA-estimated 35 miles per charge, Volt drivers are able to achieve extraordinarily low gas usage.

But for Bell, it goes beyond just saving on fuel costs. “I feel more connected to my Volt than I have with my previous cars — and not just because my phone is connected to it,” says Bell. He’s referring to the fact that iPhone and Android users can download the OnStar RemoteLink mobile app to check charging status, and even schedule future charging times**. He also likes the feeling of being the first kid on the block with a new toy, so to speak. Bell was the first person at his company to get an electric car. “My studio installed a level 2 charger for me and then made an announcement that anyone else that drove an EV to work would also get a free charger to plug into,” he says. Since charging time is about four hours, it can get done during the work day. “Since then, I’ve had lots of people at work asking me about my car, and my coworkers love to ride to lunch with me.”

Going with the Volt wasn’t a decision that Bell took lightly at first, however, especially since he traded in a Mercedes Roadster to do it. “Most of my friends probably thought I was crazy. But I work in the tech industry and I’ve always been an early adopter. I’ve been wanting an EV for several years now,” he says.

Now that he is an EV owner, Bell has found that being a Volt driver has made him infamous, at least for a little while. “I’d been going to the different charging stations around Orlando, taking pictures of my Volt charging up and then posting them to an album on Facebook called, ‘Yeah, but where can you charge it?’” he explains. One of my photos was taken at the local zoo’s charging station next to two Prius cars. About a week later, he met a new work hire, who saw the Volt model Bell keeps on his desk and asked if he owned one. “Then he asked if I parked at the zoo the previous weekend.” Turns out, the new coworker was one of the Prius owners. “Needless to say, he rode to lunch with me and had a lot of questions about the Volt that day.”

Beyond the perception of others, though, Bell is grateful for what the Volt does for him on a personal level. “Driving the Volt puts a smile on my face every day, and I could never go back to a non-electric car.”

*Volt is available to order at participating dealers. Quantities limited.
**OnStar is standard for three years on the Chevy Volt. Visit onstar.com for coverage map, details and system limitations.

Ticketfly partnered with technology providers Aloompa and Intellitix to make event management smoother at venues, with radio frequency identification (RFID) authentication of tickets and passes, ticket scanning, and box office tools, all of which are available on Android devices and the iPhone.

For attendees, Ticketfly partnered with car sharing service Zimride to help concert-goers find carpools to events right after they have purchased tickets online. Ticketfly is an enterprise technology provider focused on providing end-to-end solutions for music promoters and venues, such as ticketing solutions, email and social marketing tools and analytics.

“Events are inherently social, and we love to facilitate the community-building component,” Ticketfly co-founder Andrew Dreskin told VentureBeat. ”Music festivals are a very interesting and exciting part of the live event landscape in the U.S. You can never pirate the live experience, so people continue to go to music events.”

Dreskin says live festivals have come to the forefront of the music industry in the U.S. with events like the Ultra Music Festival, Bumbershoot and the Treasure Island Music Festival drawing crowds both regionally and nationally. Sometimes crowds come from even further afield.

By partnering with Zimride, Ticketfly is expanding access to events and helping attendees reduce their environmental impact at the same time. ”The ability to marry Zimride’s ridesharing solution with Ticketfly will save fans and venues millions of dollars on transportation costs while creating a new community for fans to meet before and after the show,” said Logan Green, founder and chief executive officer of Zimride in a statement.

Winter is a slow time for the music festivals, so launching its new integrated product now may give Ticketfly and partners a chance to stomp out any bugs before the festival season ramps up again. In April, Coachella will kick off the music festival season followed by Bonnaroo, Sasquatch, Outside Lands and many more. These major music festivals of the spring and summer will allow Ticketfly and its tech collaborators to see how well their technology has worked together. Some Ticketfly partners are currently providing services to festival organizers such for Bonnaroo and Outside Lands, while Ticketfly certainly hopes to do so with its integrated offering.

The fees paid for purchasing tickets represent a $10 billion opportunity, says Dreskin. The face value of all tickets sold worldwide is more than $50 billion. “That’s pretty juicy,” says Dreskin.

Ticketfly is based in San Francisco, and has raised $15 million in funding. The company has 70 employees and has been generating revenue for the past 30 months, said Dreskin.

Image via Christian Holmer/Flickr

GainSpan’s goal is to create incredibly low-power Wi-Fi modules and drivers that are suitable for all kinds of devices, including household appliances. On top of creating hardware, the company also develops embedded Wi-Fi software. The five markets the company said it focuses on are: healthcare and fitness, smart energy, industrial control, commercial/building automation and consumer home.

The new funding round was led by existing investors Sigma Partners, Opus Capital, New Venture Partners and Intel Capital. New investors Hatteras Funds and Mobile Internet Capital participated along with prior investors In-Q-Tel and Camp Ventures.

“Being able to attract such world-class companies is the ultimate seal of approval that we are in the right place at the right time with the right solution,” said Greg Winner, President and CEO of GainSpan, in a statement. “While the debate over what wireless technology works best will continue, it’s hard to argue with powerful financial backers, real customers and proven, innovative products in a hot market.”

San Jose, Calif.-based GainSpan was founded in 2006 and maintains a research and development team in India. With the new funding, the company has raised about $56 million, including a $5 million investment back in November 2010.

eMeter, which is led by Veritas CEO and former Oracle executive Gary Bloom, gathers information from two-way meters. The data then travels to utility companies and allows them to make better business decisions, to understand peaks in demand and to read meters automatically.

Consumers can also use the information to find ways to use less energy and lower their bills.

Collectively, the practice of gathering and disseminating energy usage information for greater efficiency and sustainability is known as the smart grid, and it’s been a focus at Siemens of late.

“The acquisition of eMeter will allow Siemens to expand its reach globally in the energy information and meter data management space,” said Jan Mrosik, CEO of the Smart Grid Division of the Siemens Infrastructure & Cities Sector, in a statement today.

While Siemens has its own energy division, eMeter’s staff and technology will be part of the company’s Smart Grid division within the Infrastructure & Cities Sector. (As an interesting footnote illustrating Siemens’ scope, this sector alone has 87,000 employees worldwide.)

eMeter has taken a total of $68.8 million over six rounds of institutional funding. JP Morgan advised eMeter in the acquisition.

The technology tour will be rolling out in selected cities across the country, showing off the vehicle’s drive train and electric motor, as well as the battery pack, front suspension and rear drive unit.

The idea is to let people get up close and personal with the new car, and experience an electric car not as some luxury toy, but as something they might one day own.

“Tesla stores are designed to let people explore and learn about Tesla’s technology for themselves,” said vice president George Blankenship, in a statement. “You’ll never see a ‘Don’t Touch’ sign in a Tesla store. We want everyone — from kindergartners to grandparents — to come in and see for themselves why driving electric is the future.”

Blankenship was hired by Tesla to design its retail facilities after successfully contributing to the signature look of Apple’s retail stores. He was Apple’s vice president for real estate from 2000 to 2006.

The Tesla Model S Beta is the first mass-market electric car produced  by the company, whose headquarters are in Palo Alto, CA. The first Model S Beta units will be on the streets in 2012, and the company has taken orders for more than 6,500 pre-orders, selling out completely. VentureBeat recently visited the Palo Alto facility, and we got to test ride the new Model S.

What makes the Model S different from the company’s earlier vehicle, the Tesla Roadster, is that it looks like a regular sedan, and is built to seat seven people, five adults and two kids. It’s also priced like a normal car, starting at about $49,000. By contrast, the Tesla Roadster was a two-seater sports car and had a sticker price of $112,000 and up.

Even with a price tag that makes owning Tesla Model S more affordable, don’t expect any Black Friday madness at the Tesla store.

The advantage crystaline solar panels have over thin film (the more popular manufacturing technique) is they rely on optical concentrators which can deliver 30 percent more output from the same amount of surface area. Solaria power modules have a 14 percent efficiency rating, while the most efficient solar panels in ready supply throughout California are rated at 15.64 percent efficiency, according to SROeCo. Solar panel efficiency is calculated by dividing the power output in watts by the surface area of a cell.

Solaria solar modules are built for solar collectors which follow the sun’s movement throughout the day in order to harvest the maximum possible amount of energy.

Previous Solaria investors include Sigma Partners and Moserbaer India. The company raised $65 million in a Series D in September of 2010.

VentureBeat contacted Solaria for a comment on the funding announcement. No one was made available at press time. We will update with any comment.

Renters can now review a space’s potential for productivity with categories such as noise and Wi-Fi strength. There are rankings for “coolness,” which include the overall vibe of the space and the neighborhood. A community category wants to know what your co-workers were like, and if there was a potential for networking. Loosecubes has also added Facebook comments to the profiles of particular spaces, and a feature that will show who the regulars are at a particular location.

“Through shared workspace we’ve seen a lot of really great relationships formed both personally and professionally, co-founder Anthony Marinos told VentureBeat. “Because the vibe is more open, sparks fly.” Marinos says creating community is just as important as helping businesses rent out excess space.

Services such as Getaround (rent out your car) and Airbnb (rent out your home) have helped popularize the idea of collaborative consumption, another term for sharing for profit. There are lots of things in our garages or closets we own but never use, and there’s a good chance someone nearby could use them. With smartphones and social networks it’s easier than ever to connect to a pool of people who can harness the idling capacity of all that stuff. And now office space is no different.

Loosecubes has more than 1,300 listings spread across 534 cities worldwide, and its inventory has increased by 150 percent in the last six months, according to Marinos. Loosecubes’ website now lists an inventory worth more than $50 million, co-founder and chief executive officer Campbell McKellar told VentureBeat. And in New York City, where the company is located, there are more Looscubes locations than Starbucks. Loosecubes recently surpassed rival Regus in the number of office locations it offers. Marinos says that the average number of weekly reservation requests has increased by 600 percent since April.

Loosecubes is ideal for businesses that have extra space and want to make money renting it out. It’s common for new startups to rent desk spaces from a larger company until they get funding, or until they hire more people and outgrow the situation. Generally these arrangements are formal and somewhat longterm. Loosecubes makes it possible for entrepreneurs to rent space only when they need it.

Perhaps best of all, Loosecubes has a sweet portfolio of well-known companies renting out spare office space. As hard as it may be to get your resume in front of the decision makers at today’s hot startups, with Loosecubes you can work alongside Silicon Valley stars such as HotelTonight, Task Rabbit and Rickshaw Bags in San Francisco. In New York, the roster of Loosecubes office spaces includes Weldbilt Studio and the DUMBO Spot, both of which are in Brooklyn.

To date, Loosecubes has raised $1.2 million from Accel Partners, Battery Ventures, and friends and family.

The city of New Orleans today is rolling out the social media red carpet for aspiring entrepreneurs, as applications open for NOLABound, with the hopes of spurring a startup scene in the Crescent City. Think of it as a mini-dose of the TechStars meets The Real World New Orleans.

The NOLABound program will provide travel stipends for 25 individuals interested in starting arts-based businesses, those in the biosciences, digital media, and sustainable industries, to spend five days in the city and share their experiences interacting with the New Orleans entrepreneur community on the NOLABound website. Applications will close on Dec. 16, and the program period runs from Mar. 14-Mar. 18, 2012, which partially overlaps with New Orleans Entrepreneur Week. The experience of the participants will also be filmed as part of a documentary to highlight the growing stature of New Orleans as a entrepreneurial destination.

NOLABound is being overseen by Idea Village, The Downtown Development District of New Orleans, and Greater New Orleans, Inc., and has received money from the U.S. Department of Commerce‘s Economic Development Administration.

New Orleans was hard-hit by Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the Gulf Region in August of 2005. A slow recovery effort by the federal government and FEMA left the citizens of this dynamic cultural hub scattered to the winds. Prior to the storm New, Orleans was heavily dependent on oil drilling as well tourism and entertainment for its economic livelihood. With NOLAbound, the city is hoping to make a strong case that the so-called Big Easy is place for work and play alike.

“Innovators and entrepreneurs need to consider NOLA for a unique mix of culture and business that is nurturing the startup community here,” said entrepreneur Patrick Comer, who set up his most recent company, Federated Sample, in New Orleans and was quoted in NOLAbound’s press statement. “The rich vein of creativity is unlike anything else I’ve seen, and the system of technology development and angel investor tax credits creates immediate return for both investors and startups.” Federated Sample is a New Orleans-based online market research company that currently employs 22 people, and has received $2.8 million in investment.

[New Orleans musicians image vis ShutterStock]

Based on Ford’s Transit Connect van, the five-seater Ford Transit Connect Electric Wagon will be available for sale in North America by early 2012. The announcement comes just in time for the Los Angeles Auto Show, where vehicle makers debut futuristic concept cars as well as new and exciting production models.

The Ford Transit Connect Electric van was chosen as the 2010 Truck of the Year and has been used in delivery fleets of such companies as AT&T, FedEx, Post Norway, and DHL, among others. The partnership with Azure Dynamics has been critical to the production of the electrification of Transit Connect, because the company makes the Force Drive powertrain for the vehicle.

The wagon will have a maximum range of between 55 and 80 miles, depending on how loaded the vehicle is. The vehicle is aimed at businesses more than individual, says GreenCarReports, which is different than the van, because it will have a second row of adjustable seating.

Although no price has been disclosed, GreenCarReports is reporting that the Ford Transit Connect Electric Wagon is expected to qualify for the same electric vehicle credits as the cargo-carrying van upon which is was based.

via CNET

The two natural gas projects in Texas, in the towns of Sherman and Temple, will generate a total of 1950 megawatts and will be among the cleanest natural gas-fueled power plants in the U.S., according to the firm.

“The closing of our first private equity fund, in this capital market environment, is a validation of the business strategy, market knowledge and industry relationships developed by an executive team that has worked closely together for many years,”  Todd W. Carter, senior partner of Panda Power Funds, said in a release. “We are well positioned to execute our business plan and to take advantage of the significant opportunities we see in the power sector.”

Already $94 million from the fund has been spent on the 20 megawatt Pilesgrove Solar Farm in New Jersey, which is the largest in the Northeast U.S., with more than 71,000 panels and the capacity to power about 5,100 homes, according to NJ.com.

Panda Power Funds was launched in April of 2010 to invest in natural gas and solar power generation facilities and has built energy projects with more than $2.8 billion in financing since the company was started in 1982.

A Bloomberg story from Friday highlights a third fire involving a Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car–only 7,500 or so of which are on the roads today.

NHTSA side-impact test

The latest case occurred in June in a Chevy Volt that had been crash-tested by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The car was subjected to a side-impact “pole test,” which not only destroyed the car but cracked the battery pack housed in the center tunnel and under the rear seat. Then, as per the standard test procedure, the car was put on a rotisserie and rotated 90 degrees every five minutes to test for any fluid leakage. Coolant leaked out of the battery pack, though the electric components stayed put.

Fully three weeks later, the wrecked Volt caught fire in an open storage yard in Wisconsin, with the flames ultimately spreading to surrounding cars. After news of the fire, both Chevrolet and the NHTSA independently replicated the crash test and subsequent vehicle rotation procedure. In neither case could they reproduce the conditions under which the battery pack ignited.

Electric vehicles not “at greater risk” of fire

Months later, the NHTSA doesn’t appear to view the fire as terribly alarming. It has given the Volt a five-star safety rating, and the IIHS designated the Volt a Top Safety Pick as well. “Based on the available data, NHTSA does not believe the Volt or other electric vehicles are at a greater risk of fire than gasoline-powered vehicles,” the agency said in a statement today. “In fact, all vehicles — both electric and gasoline-powered — have some risk of fire in the event of a serious crash.”

Nonetheless, novelty and lack of public knowledge is likely to make any conflagration noteworthy if there’s an electric car nearby.

Salvage yards, tow-truck operators

The immediate concern, the agency noted, was to ensure that first responders, tow-truck operators, salvage yards, and even dealerships that handle wrecked electric cars understand what must be done to ensure safety. GM has been training first responders how to approach crashes involving electric cars for more than a year, since before the 2011 Volt went on sale last December.

It is also developing procedures for all parties on how to remove lithium-ion battery packs from wrecked Volts to alleviate any potential of long-term fire risk.

Garage fires, with Volts inside

The two previous fires with Chevy Volts involved were in Mooresville, North Carolina, just last week, and in Barkhamsted, Connecticut, last April. Both occurred in garages that happened to house Chevrolet Volts. In the Mooresville case, a Volt was charging in the garage at the time of the fire–leading local electric utility Duke Energy, in a surfeit of caution, to advise electric-car owners not to plug in their cars to charge until the cause of the blaze had been established.

No conclusion has yet been drawn by local fire officials, but GM sources–none of whom would go on record–seem confident that the Volt will not be deemed to have been a cause of the blaze.

As for the Connecticut blaze, the fire marshal’s report concluded the Volt that was parked in the garage had nothing to do with the cause of the fire. It was sitting next to a Suzukiconverted by the home’s owner to a battery electric vehicle.

Keeping an eye out

With electric cars slowing spreading into the market, manufacturers and regulators alike will be keeping a very close eye on any fires with electric cars nearby. The NHTSA’s statement concludes, “As manufacturers continue to develop vehicles of any kind — electric, gasoline, or diesel – it is critical that they take the necessary steps to ensure the safety of drivers and first responders both during and after a crash.”

Given that there are 250,000 or more fires in gasoline vehicles every year, the sample base seems too low to draw any useful conclusions about electric cars and fires thus far.

For everyone’s sake, let’s hope it stays that way.

This post by John Voelcker originally appeared in GreenCarReports, one of VentureBeat’s editorial partners.

Related articles

• 28 electric car makers that are ready to rule the streets (venturebeat.com)
• First look at the new Tesla Model S Beta electric car (venturebeat.com)
• GM slashes Volt slashes price tag (venturebeat.com)
• Volt cruises into North Carolina and South Carolina (venturebeat.com)
• GM riles electric car advocates over charger sharing (venturebeat.com)

Better Place is working with Nissan/Renault on the production of electric cars with swappable batteries that can be charged at home, or taken to battery-swapping stations where fresh batteries are inserted within minutes. Vehicle owners will rent the batteries from Better Place, and pay only for the miles they drive.

This battery-swapping technology is not yet available commercially, though in 2010 in Tokyo, Better Place ran a pilot program with electrified taxis running on swappable batteries. Better Place founder and CEO Shai Agassi joked that the taxi’s batteries lasted longer than the drivers’ bladders, after only one cab ran out of juice during the program.

“We’ve worked hard over the past four years to engineer and build a technology solution that competes with oil-based transportation,” said Agassi in a statement. “We are entering the next phase of growth for our company where we prove that our solution works, that it’s in demand, and that it scales, as we begin to push into new markets and attract new investors and new partners. I believe that our investors should be applauded for having the vision to finance the future of transportation.”

Better Place has partnered with local governments in Denmark and Israel to build a charging infrastructure to support its brand of electric cars. The company is also rolling out city-wide charging initiatives in Toronto, Hawaii and throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Better Place will provide commercial charging infrastructure for electric car owners of all models, and is in the final testing phases to choose the Renault Fluence Z.E. (Zero Emissions) as its vehicle of choice.

Today’s investment in Better Place raises the company’s total to $750 million, with previous investors Israel Corp., HSBC Group, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, VantagePoint Capital Partners, Ofer Group and Maniv Energy Capital also joining the round.