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“The real challenge to creating a viable next generation biofuel is the ability to produce it in large volumes which will require significant advances in both science and engineering,” J. Craig Venter, CEO of SGI, said in a statement. “The alliance between SGI and ExxonMobil will bring together the complementary capabilities and expertise of both companies to develop innovative solutions that could lead to the large scale production of biofuel from algae.”

Algae is one of a number of potential alternative fuel sources, though many of the others, like ethanol, are derived from plants also used for food. Algae also can thrive in a variety of conditions.

(Credit:
PetroAlgae)

In an economic climate that has made life tougher for alternative-energy companies, ExxonMobil is wading into biofuel waters that recently swallowed a once promising algae-minded start-up, GreenFuel Technologies, which said in May that it had run out of funds and would be shutting down. Still, other smaller companies such as PetroAlgae and Aurora Biofuels remain hopeful about commercial production of algae biofuel.

SGI says it’s spent several years working on a way to harvest the oil produced by photosynthetic algae. Past methods have proven costly and time consuming, but SGI says its process for collecting the oil has so far proven more efficient and cost-effective, though work remains to be done.

ExxonMobil and biotech firm Synthetic Genomics (SGI) announced on Tuesday a new alliance to produce alternative fuel made from photosynthetic algae. ExxonMobil expects to spend more than $600 million on the project–$300 million internally and another $300 million to SGI if key R&D milestones are met.

Will you be pumping up your car of the future with algae-bred fuel? Possibly, if ExxonMobil’s latest venture is successful.

Under the partnership, SGI will research and develop systems to grow large amounts of algae and convert them into biofuels. ExxonMobil will provide engineering and scientific talent throughout different phases of the project, from increasing the level of algae production to manufacturing the final product.

“Meeting the world’s growing energy demands will require a multitude of technologies and energy sources,” said Emil Jacobs, vice president of research and development at ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company. “We believe that biofuel produced by algae could be a meaningful part of the solution in the future if our efforts result in an economically viable, low net carbon emission transportation fuel.”

Based in California, Synthetic Genomics is a privately held company that develops energy solutions based on genomics research.

Yared isn’t alone in his beliefs. A friend recently wrote me to suggest that open source is at its best when disrupting big, profitable markets:

SpringSource is demonstrating how it can be done. It’s an aggressive company with the finances, management, and product ambition to become a very big player in enterprise IT within just a few short years. It’s a company that Microsoft should fear and that Oracle or IBM should buy.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

SpringSource and its ubiquitous Spring Framework, however, promise something different. Something much more ambitious. Not only does Spring challenge the status quo in application development, deployment, and management (Hyperic), but SpringSource is proving that commercial open source can peacefully coexist with community involvement.

In a conversation with Spring creator and SpringSource founder Rod Johnson, he clarified SpringSource’s competitive differentiation:

Of course, SpringSource being SpringSource, it might actually be planning to buy Oracle or IBM instead.

Of course, our offerings are also leaner (more productive and faster), cheaper and more open than those of the old incumbents, and that’s a huge selling point in today’s market. But we’re focused on being the enterprise Java leader–and not merely in open source.

Some argue that open-source software can’t innovate. In fact, one of the industry’s former executives, Peter Yared, recently argued that “the only successful open-source companies sell commodities.”

The essence of SpringSource is that we’re not a commodity play but have a far more ambitious agenda. We’re not interested in replicating what closed-source vendors already offer, at lower price: We are providing a superior experience to developers and operations teams–for example, in our integrated approach to unifying the application life cycle from developer desktop to the data center–which doesn’t presently exist in Java.

Gartner estimates that there are currently at least 2 million Spring developers, an impressive number suggesting that the Java community is looking to Spring to help it migrate Java applications onto lighter-weight containers (Tc Server), across highly virtualized environments, and ultimately to the cloud. Given SpringSource’s strong financial performance, the company seems to be doing a good job of monetizing a significant percentage of that Spring adoption.

(Credit:
SpringSource)

SpringSource isn’t simply replacing IBM WebSphere, Oracle WebLogic, or Red Hat JBoss application servers. It is actually doing much more, and it offers, in my opinion, the best example of just how disruptive an open-source vendor can be precisely because SpringSource isn’t seeking to be the open-source leader in Java, but the leader, period.

Commercial open source is a (commodity) replacement market. When it is not (i.e., people are building new, never-done-before cool/future-proof apps with open-source technology), then it is a pure-play Internet-based business model, one that is becoming so specific/demanding that people will want full control and (to) develop their own stuff, e.g., Google, Facebook, and others that heavily use open source to build their Web services.

commentary

After meeting with the SpringSource executive team at its San Mateo, Calif., offices a few weeks ago to discuss its strategy, I’m convinced that the company is on track to improve that percentage significantly too.

SpringSource's mantra: Managing the full Java life cycle.

We’re at the point when it’s not enough to be “the Red Hat of (CRM, ECM, ERP, etc.).” In a bad economy that sees open-source solutions adopted at an ever-increasing pace, now growing at a 22 percent CAGR (compound annual growth rate), according to IDC, it’s time for open-source vendors to lead and develop markets, not simply follow in the wake of established proprietary vendors, picking up their crumbs.

Yared clearly hasn’t heard of SpringSource, an open-source application platform provider that is redefining the J2EE application server and, quite possibly, the future of open source.

Engineers also have a lot of choices at Google. “We didn’t control what environments our engineers work in,” said Merrill, who is writing a book due out next year titled “Organization in the Google Era.”

“Humans are like rats. If you make it easy for them to get through the maze, they will,” Merrill said, acknowledging that the cynical viewpoint would likely end up as the main quote in news stories. (Sorry Doug.)

LAS VEGAS–You can take the man out of Google, but you can’t take Google out of the man.

(Credit:
Elinor Mills/CNET News)

That innovation should be fostered by companies by allowing employees to work on their own projects. (Sound familiar? Google lets engineers work 20 percent of their time on special projects of their own design.)

Douglas Merrill, ex-Google CIO who recently left EMI.

One feature in particular that seems to be helping users is a link at the bottom of Gmail that provides information about the activity on their account, such as Internet Protocol addresses used to access it and when.

“The center of innovation is consumer technologies, not enterprise,” he said. “A lot of companies are doing consumer technology that is a lot better than what we have in the enterprise.”

“Humans are like rats. If you make it easy for them to get through the maze, they will.” –Douglas Merrill

“Larry Page pushed us to add that feature. We all thought it was dumb, but he’s writing our checks, so we did it,” Merrill said.

“I paid my admin to put appointments and contacts in my private Google Calendar,” said Merrill, who left EMI earlier this year. If he were in charge of IT security, he would have had to censure himself for violating corporate policies, but he didn’t care–he just wanted to access his appointments while waiting in the Hong Kong airport.

Meanwhile, companies need to design security systems that will more readily and easily be used by people, and that eliminate the chances for human error.

While working as chief information officer and vice president of engineering at Google from 2004 to 2008, Douglas Merrill oversaw the search giant’s internal IT systems. He left to be chief operating officer of new music at EMI, marrying his professional ambitions with his love of music.

At least one IT security manager at the show disagreed with Merrill’s liberal attitude about security and the work environment.

“I’m for well though-out projects to promote innovation,” John Johnson, a senior security program manager at tractor maker John Deere, said during a chief security officer panel discussion.

But “it’s not security’s responsibility to go out there and say, ‘Users want to use Gmail. Let them use it,’” Johnson added. “If we decide to use Gmail, we need to have a project and treat it in a formal way and pay money to do it right.”

That might be a strange message to give to a group of security professionals, but it fit with a larger theme of the importance of innovation to companies, including innovation and practices driven by users with consumer software. That’s effectively a Google mantra.

“It’s just a lot easier to use,” he said of the free Web-hosted calendar his former company offers.

At EMI, employees used Exchange Calendar, which uses a “painful remote-access methodology,” he said in a keynote speech on Tuesday at the Black Hat security conference.

It turns out, the feature gets a lot of users, as people realize that information can help protect them, he said.

“Fighting Oil Addiction: Ranking States’ Oil Vulnerability and Solutions for Change,” a report (PDF) prepared for the NRDC by David Gardiner & Associates, ranks U.S. states in two major ways. One list ranks U.S. states by their dependence on oil, taking in factors like gas prices. The other ranks states’ efforts to reduce oil dependence, taking into account public transportation funding, state fleet efficiency, hybrid car purchasing incentives, emissions standards, and clean-energy projects.

There were some surprises in the report.

The effects that fluctuating oil prices have had on the average American vary widely by state, according to a report released Wednesday by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“The failure of the 10 worst states to take meaningful action to reduce oil dependence exacerbates the national security and environmental harms associated with our current transportation habits. These and other states need to be drivers of change,” the NRDC said in its report.

The 10 states making the least amount of effort to reduce oil dependence, according to the NRDC report:

The states doing the most to wean residents off oil, according to the NRDC report:

California
Massachusetts
Washington
New Mexico
Connecticut
New York
New Jersey
Pennsylvania
Oregon
Florida

A state that you might not normally associate with clean energy (or clean air) seems to have reinvented itself. New Jersey, who just recently announced a major solar effort for its leading power utility, was ranked seventh for states doing the most to promote clean-energy technology and reduce oil dependency in 2008. Not surprisingly, California, which has also been buying big into solar power for utilities amid a plethora of other green initiatives throughout the state, was ranked first.

In 2008, Mississippi, Montana, South Carolina, and Oklahoma residents were the hardest hit by oil prices with their drivers spending a larger percentage of their income on gasoline than other Americans. The NRDC’s official ranking is by both percentage of income and actual dollar amount spent on gas. So while Mississippi ranked worst for drivers spending the largest percentage of their income on gas, Oklahoma drivers actually spent the most, spending on average $2,766.65 in 2008.

(Credit:
David Gardiner & Associates/NRDC)

Ten states were also singled out by the NRDC for exerting the least amount of effort to wean themselves off oil in the organization’s eyes.

West Virginia
Idaho
Wyoming
Mississippi
South Dakota
Oklahoma
Alabama
Arkansas
North Dakota
Alaska

What do I get if I participate in the settlement?
If you fill out a claim form at the Web site set up to administer the settlement, you’ll get $60 per work that Google has already digitized as well as options as to how that work will be displayed in Google Book Search. Claims for the cash payments must be submitted by January 5, 2010.

Why should I keep my book in Google Books?
The project has the potential to dramatically reinvent the concept of what it means to be a book. Books that are searchable and that can link to one another could pay enormous dividends for researchers, who will get access to the catalog of books as part of the settlement.

Do I get to set the price for my book?
You have two choices: you can set your own price or allow Google to set the price using one of its famous algorithms to figure out where your book will make the most revenue.

What happens if the settlement is rejected?
Who knows. Judge Denny Chin of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York will review all the filings in support or objection to the settlement following Friday’s deadline, and oversee a final hearing in October to determine the fate of the settlement. The Justice Department is also reviewing the settlement for possible “anticompetitive practices.”

Why does Google have a copy of my book?
Google entered into book-scanning projects with several publishers and universities around 2003 with the goal of transforming dusty old books into searchable sources of data. Google believed it was within its rights under fair-use laws to scan books that were out-of-print but still protected by copyright law so as long as it only presented a snippet of each book within Google Search. In cases where Google has cut deals with publishers, it’s allowed to show a much broader portion of the book if the rights holder gives consent.

Google’s rights under the settlement are nonexclusive, in that anyone can negotiate for scanning and display rights with the nonprofit Books Rights Registry. But no one has stepped forward as of yet, and there’s only a handful of tech companies with the cash resources and business models (Microsoft? Yahoo? Apple? Amazon?) that would allow them to consider such a project: Microsoft has scaled back its book-scanning efforts in recent years.

Authors, however, have a few choices to make as they ponder Friday’s deadline. Here’s a sampling of what they need to know:

I can’t believe anybody would pay money for that old book I wrote, but why not? How do I sign up?
You can claim your books here. You must claim the books by January 5, 2010 if you want the $60 per book, but you’ll be automatically included in the settlement class unless you opt out by Friday.

The settlement has drawn attention and criticism from groups such as library ethicists and academics for the way it concentrates control of this potentially wondrous public good in the hands of a for-profit company. The Department of Justice is also taking a look at the settlement, which has the potential to throw a large roadblock ahead of the project.

Google has scanned over 10 million books since 2004 in participation with libraries and publishers in hopes of creating a unique digital library and storefront, and if its pending settlement with books rights holders is approved next month at a hearing, Google will be able to make a far greater portion of those works available through its search engine. Friday is the deadline for authors to decide if they want to participate in the settlement.

It could also mean a little bit of money in your pocket and extend the life of an older book that is gathering dust on a library shelf.

You’re also entitled to 63 percent of both the revenue that Google makes from the sale of your book through Google Books, as well as 63 percent of the ad revenue linked to that book. That revenue can be claimed at any time, and will be held by the Books Rights Registry set up as part of the settlement to distribute payments to authors until it is claimed.

It seems pretty obvious that if the settlement is thrown out, rights holders won’t be bound by the terms of the settlement. What seems likeliest is that the Authors Guild and other groups will renegotiate a settlement on different terms, but the issue could conceivably wind up back in court, delaying the project indefinitely while Google continues to scan books.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)

The issues surrounding Google’s Book Search settlement are among the most complex surrounding the company this year: what do authors need to know about their rights and responsibilities?

The Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers disagreed with Google’s interpretation of copyright laws, and filed a class-action lawsuit in 2005. The parties settled in October with an agreement that could give Google the right to display books it has already scanned in a variety of ways depending on the status of the book and the wishes of rights holders.

What if I don’t want Google to display my entire book?
You have several choices under the settlement regarding how Google is allowed to display your book. You can ask Google to display the whole thing and charge for online access to the book, ask Google to display just a preview copy with links to bookstores where it can be found, have just a few snippets included, or exclude your books entirely from Google Book Search.

I don’t want anything to do with this settlement. How do I tell Google?
If you wish to completely opt out of the settlement, you have to let Google know by Friday here. Opting out of the settlement allows you to sue Google for digitizing your out-of-print book. You can also ask Google to avoid scanning your book if it already hasn’t (at least until April 5, 2011) as well as remove any instances of your book from Google Book Search.

Is Google the only place that’s going to offer this kind of service?
No one really knows, but nobody else is scanning books on this scale, and few are believed to have the financial resources to attempt such a project.

Books that do not get claimed by their rights holders will have 20 percent of their pages displayed as a preview.

If they don't opt out of Google's settlement with book publishers and authors by Friday, authors will have to make decisions about how to display their content in Google Book Search.

How do I know if I’m affected by this settlement?
If you’ve written a book since 1923 that was published in the U.S., you’re probably eligible if you hold the copyright license (some “for-hire” authors cede this to publishers, such as with multi-author technical manuals and the like). Check with your publisher to be sure, but note the settlement only covers books published on or before January 5, 2009.

If you participate in the settlement, you’ve also authorized Google to use your book for non-display purposes that include internal testing and bibliographic information unless you specifically request otherwise when you claim your payout.

If your book is out-of-print, it’s a little trickier. As a result of the settlement Google has to offer you the opportunity to decide how, or if, you’d like that book displayed in Google Books, as well as whether you want to claim compensation for Google’s digitization of your works as a member of the class.

If your book is still in print, Google has had to ask you or your publisher for explicit permission to scan and display your book. Several publishers have cut deals with Google to display and distribute books. Check with your publisher to see if you’re a member of the Partner Program and how your work is displayed.

The update went live just a moment ago, and I’ve successfully sent my first MMS on CNET’s iPhone 3G. I was able to exchange photos both with another iPhone and a Samsung SPH-M330 on Sprint.

For more information, check out Apple’s links for updating and enabling carrier settings. And if you’re having problems, see Apple’s troubleshooting tips or the MMS send failure fix from iPhone Atlas.

As promised, AT&T’s
iPhone finally has the capability to send multimedia messages to another phone number. Whatever AT&T had to do to gets its act together, the carrier did it.

To confirm that your device is ready, go to Settings > General > About. Your carrier version should be “AT&T 5.5,” and you’ll need the latest iPhone 3.1 software update. Also, remember that owners of the original iPhone will miss out on the fun.

You’ll need to connect to iTunes to receive the update, which should download in seconds. We were able to send an update immediately, but you may have to restart your iPhone first.

Welcome, AT&T iPhone, to 2003. Now we just need that tethering.

MMS on the iPhone photos

(Credit:
CNET)

Third-party Twitter apps are typically more powerful, crammed with managerial features that get you quickly viewing, sorting, replying to messages, and retweeting in a click or tap. They automatically shorten URLs to fit Twitter’s character limit, and help you post pictures through other services, like TwitPic and yfrog. Most of these desktop apps manage multiple Twitter accounts, are customizable, and are more attractive than Twitter online. They also sometimes succeed in posting your tweets during times when Twitter’s site famously fails.

What’s better than posting tweets from Twitter.com? Just about everything.

Convinced yet? Good. We’ve rounded up five desktop applications that help you post tweets and retweets to Twitter. Four run on the Adobe AIR runtime environment (Windows | Mac | Linux), which you need to download before you install the Twitter apps. But enough of the technical details–get tweeting!

Related story: Tweet your music preferences with these apps

But Ljungberg told CNET News on Thursday that at the very least Pandeya will not make some of his deadlines for opening a restructured Pirate Bay, the world’s best known file-sharing site. That’s because much of the preparation has yet to be started.

Ljungberg isn’t the first to express doubts about Global Gaming’s ability to pull off the Pirate Bay acquisition or to turn it into a legitimate service. Last month, Pandeya hired Wayne Rosso, the former president of Grokster, to help him secure licenses from film studios and music labels.

Johan Ljungberg, CEO of Peerialism, the technology company that is supposed to be an integral part of a revamped Pirate Bay, said Thursday he has developed doubts about the plan.

Rosso walked away from the deal after only three weeks, citing issues about Pandeya’s credibility. He also said that he didn’t think Pandeya had enough funding to close the deal.

Pandeya has said all along that he does have the money and that the acquisition will likely be completed sometime soon after August 27, the day his board will vote on whether to approve the plan.

Ljungberg said that while Pandeya has been very communicative with the press, he is far more tight lipped with partners.

Peerialism’s technology improves the transferring and storage of data over peer-to-peer networks. Pandeya’s stated intention is to use Peerialism’s technology to help tap into the computing power that belongs to The Pirate Bay’s 20 million monthly users and create a huge content distribution network. Provided users offered enough hard drive space, Pandeya would in exchange supply users with free movies and music.

More than two months ago, Pandeya hired Peerialism to begin doing some of the production work. Pandeya agreed to pay half the money upfront and the other half when the job was completed.

A much more detailed update be found here.

“From the beginning we asked to see a business plan, the names of his investors, or to see some (technical specifications),” Ljungberg said. “We still haven’t heard a thing…the question marks are growing bigger by the day. We’re not quite comfortable with the situation. We had really high hopes and ambitions for our technology but I’m not sure if this is the right home for it.”

When it was announced in June that Global Gaming Factory X, would acquire The Pirate Bay for about $8 million, the Swedish software company said it would also pay about $13.5 million to obtain Peerialism.

“That was two months ago but he hasn’t paid anything,” Ljungberg said. “We have his signature on the contract, but he hasn’t paid and we haven’t done the work.”

Pandeya, who is scheduled to present his plan to Global Gaming’s investors and board next week, did not respond to interview requests.

In additon, Rosso also said that Pandeya hasn’t paid him for his services.

In terms of priorities, clearance of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) tops the general’s wish list. Other needs include programmable unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) to patrol and make deliveries on planned routes or conduct “persistent stare,” i.e. long-term surveillance missions.

“Most folks are familiar and comfortable with (UAVs), and we’ve shown over eight years of combat just how critical those systems are to the warfighting effort when properly used and integrated,” Lynch said. “There are hundreds of other robotic concepts that could also be useful to our Army and this Robotics Rodeo will showcase some of those–it’s a great educational opportunity.”

However, most UGVs in service today are limited to detecting and defusing IEDs. Concepts to broaden their uses are many, but it’s unclear how practical and feasible they are. In any case, much of the technology on display at the “rodeo” is commercial off-the-shelf–some of it already in use in private industry.

The true test: be the first to sign off on a M240B machine-gun-mounted UGV.

So what’s keeping the stuff on display from becoming standard issue? Three letters–ONS–according to vendors.

FORT HOOD, Texas–Soldiers and civilian contractors braved the heat here this week for the first Robotics Rodeo to view and interact with a long lineup of robot systems and to give feedback on which ones could potentially find a place in the U.S. Army’s robo stable.

Photos: Robots audition for Army

Qinetiq’s Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System (MAARS).

The Army wants robotic researchers, developers, and manufactures, many of whom have collected millions in government seed money and grants over the years, to get off the dime and start delivering (PDF).

(Credit:
Mark Rutherford)

(Credit:
Mark Rutherford)

The U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) and Fort Hood III Corps invited more than 40 vendors to attend the rodeo and show off their wares.

Despite the hundreds of military robots that show up in concept or as prototypes on company Web sites and corporate reports, humans still do the fighting on the ground and it’s likely to stay that way for a while. However, there’s a growing niche for “the dirty, the dull, and the dangerous” jobs where robots could take over. In fact, it’s the law. The 2001 Senate defense authorization bill mandates that “one third of the operational ground combat vehicles of the armed forces will be unmanned by 2015.”

Lynch cites the rapid advancements made in fielding unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

If there’s an urgent need for equipment, a general officer may step forward and submit an ONS, or Operational Needs Statement, to get the ball rolling. No one is willing to do so, vendors complain. For example, the Qinetiq rep says his modular advanced armed robotic system (MAARS) could be ambushing IED-planting bad guys right now, but for the paperwork (PDF).

“The enemy often places IEDs in the same locations that he has used in the past. A robotic system that can observe these locations for a prolonged period of time and alert us of a significant change would be of great value,” Lynch said.
One of true tests would be a UGV that acts as a robotic wingman or can assume a role as a member of a squad.

View the full gallery

“If you’re not fielding, you’re failing,” said Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch, Fort Hood commander and co-host of the Robotics Rodeo.

Ask Deals is expected to launch Tuesday, blending links to coupons from a plethora of online coupon aggregation sites alongside search results for certain types of queries, such as “cheap jeans” or “plasma TV deals,” said Scott Garell, president of Ask Networks. There will also be a link to a Deals page off the Ask.com home page, which will have a “deal of the day” type promotion as well as links to other opportunities for savings.

A screenshot of the new Ask Deals feature, which will provide links to coupons atop search results for certain queries that have shopping in mind.

Despite a very public ad campaign with Nascar this year, Ask lags Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft by a wide margin according to ComScore’s latest figures on the search market. And its share has actually dropped since last year, from 4.5 percent of the search market in July 2008 to 3.9 percent in August 2009.

Ask’s index is drawing from about 40 coupon sites, crawling some sites and partnering with others to bring the coupons to the service. It is also overseeing the coupon aggregation with a team of employees tasked with sorting out coupon quality.

It’s safe to say that even with signs of an economic recovery surfacing, as long as the unemployment rate remains high there will be a fair amount of people interested in scoring a deal. It’s less clear whether that will motivate those people to give Ask a try as their primary shopping search engine.

(Credit:
Ask)

Ask isn’t giving up on efforts to expand its niche in the search market, this time hoping that coupon clippers will make it their search destination of choice.

The company had noticed that searches for coupons on Ask increased 50 percent in 2008 compared to 2007, likely a result of the state of the economy, Garell said. But it thought it could do a better job organizing and presenting those coupons than the dozens of coupon sites have done to this point, with the added benefit of having additional information about the product come up within search results.