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Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rob S. who wrote (27740)	8/12/2008 1:57:52 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Respond to of 46821

Your post serves as a fitting segue to a blogpost I had just finished reading moments earlier: -- "There is no doubt that the automotive sector presents a massive opportunity to the electronics industry" Laurence Marchini \| electronicstalk.com/blog \| Aug 2008 electronicstalk.com -- Abstract: The automotive electronics utopia would be for everyone to “drive” phenomenally energy-efficient and autonomous vehicles that would convey their occupants to their destinations in complete safety and in record time thanks to a real-time guidance system that would take account of all possible variables. Traffic congestion would be a thing of the past, as indeed would be human error. We wouldn’t be “drivers”: we would all be passengers. "However, this of course can never be. Just as the early cars had to share all highways with pedestrians and horses, today’s electronics-rich supercars have to share even the motorways with vehicles from the last century (like my own). "Fortunately, this point has not been lost on the European Commission, which last week embarked on a project that will move us one step towards that automotive utopia that can never be reached. The EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding announced that a small (30MHz) portion of the radio spectrum around 5.9GHz was to be ringfenced for communications between smart vehicles." ------

To: Rob S. who wrote (27740)	8/12/2008 2:02:37 PM
From: axial	Respond to of 46821

Hi Rob - Your post outlines a number of incremental steps that can be taken to mitigate energy cost problems. However, in the long run we'll need to change the way we live. Here I'm speaking to the way our communities are physically organized, and patterns of behaviour (addressed in your post), among other things. Sixty years ago, our fathers enjoyed their new-found mobility (founded on easy access to cheap energy) in events such as "the Sunday drive". In future, such activities will be limited to the few who can afford such indulgence. In our lifetime, we've witnessed an explosion of historically unprecedented abundance. Many still don't understand that this was a short "blip" in time, and view many aspects of their existence, including the availability of personal transport as an entitlement. However we can now foresee reversion to previous norms. Technology will provide some answers, but the underlying fundamental is the cost of energy, which will continue to rise. As it does, increasingly large portions of society will be marginalized: forced to adapt, as the cost of energy consumes increasing portions of their income for heat, light, transportation, food, water, infrastructure, education, raw materials: indeed, for every aspect of their existence. Transition to a new equilibrium will take a century of wrenching change. It won't be easy. Jim

To: Rob S. who wrote (27740)	8/13/2008 1:33:43 AM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

Motorists turn to carpool sites as gas prices rise AP \| MIT Technology Review \| Aug 12 08 Robert Gilliland didn't think much about carpooling until gas prices got out of control. Now, he's happy to trade his motoring freedom for $120 in weekly savings. Gilliland found one rider through the classifieds Web site Craigslist and another using the carpool-matching service eRideShare.com. Thousands of commuters like him have turned to the Internet to arrange shared rides as average gas prices hover around $4 a gallon. Each day, Gilliland picks up Brian McKenzie near his home in Lakeland, Fla., and Mike Rogers in Seffner on his way to work. He drops off McKenzie in Tampa and Rogers in Clearwater, where Gilliland works as a construction designer. He reverses that for the commute home. Cont.: technologyreview.com ------