Cisco to cut 6,000 jobs in streamlining
New York (AFP) Aug 13, 2014 -
US computer networking giant Cisco Systems said Wednesday it plans to slash some 6,000 jobs, or eight percent of its global workforce in the coming year.
Chairman and chief executive John Chambers called the move a "limited restructuring" that will allow Cisco to "reinvest cost savings in key growth areas."
Chief financial officer Frank Calderoni said the move to streamline comes with C ...
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Canada, Kazakhstan start nuclear cooperation
Ottawa (AFP) Aug 15, 2014 -
Canada heralded Friday the implementation of a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with Kazakhstan that allows nuclear technology to be exported to the former Soviet republic.
The deal, which was inked in 2009, "marks our shared commitment to expanding cooperation in the nuclear sector in a safe and secure manner, while strengthening economic ties between our two countries," said Lynne Ye ...
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German utility RWE says conventional power 'losing ground'
Essen, Germany (UPI) Aug 14, 2013 -
German energy company RWE said Thursday it will pull back from the electricity market after posting a major decline in earnings for the first half of 2014.
"Conventional power generation is losing ground [and] not just at RWE," the company's chairman, Peter Terium, said in a statement.
The nation's largest power producer, RWE said it would idle 1,000 megawatts of power plants by ...
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US dominates Chinese world university rankings
Shanghai, China (AFP) Aug 15, 2014 -
US universities dominated the top 20 in an annual ranking of global educational institutions released by a Chinese organisation Friday, with Harvard remaining in first place ahead of Stanford.
The top 20 in the 2014 Academic Ranking of World Universities included only four non-American institutions, all from Europe, including Cambridge in fifth place and Oxford in joint ninth.
The top 10 ...
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After breakups, newspapers seek path forward
Washington (AFP) Aug 17, 2014 -
Following an unprecedented series of spinoffs by major US media companies, the print news industry now faces a rocky future without financial support from deep-pocketed parent firms.
The wave of corporate breakups comes with newspapers and magazines struggling in a transition to digital news, and shareholders of media conglomerates increasingly intolerant of the lagging print segment.
Ga ...
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WTO confirms China rare earth trade limits break rules
Geneva (AFP) Aug 07, 2014 -
The World Trade Organization on Thursday upheld its ruling that China had violated global trade rules by restricting exports of rare earths, used in hi-tech goods like mobile phones and televisions.
Beijing had appealed a decision by a WTO panel in March that its use of export duties, quotas and control over who could export the metals had skewed global commerce.
That panel of independen ...
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Energy, Army departments working on EV efficiency
Washington (UPI) Aug 15, 2013 -
The U.S. Energy Department said it was investing more than $55 million on more than two dozen projects aimed at improving electric vehicles.
"Investments in the next generation of vehicle technologies will both strengthen our economy and lead to a more fuel efficient, clean energy future," Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said in a statement.
The initiative is part of a project laun ...
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Yahoo brushes up its e-commerce for small business
San Francisco (AFP) Aug 14, 2014 -
Yahoo announced Thursday the relaunch of its e-commerce platform, which allows small businesses to easily set up online retailing.
The new Yahoo Stores system, said a company blog post, allows users to "turn your idea into a business in less than two minutes."
Amit Kumar, head of Yahoo Small Business, said the new platform was "a completely reimagined, next-generation version" of a servi ...
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NRG Reaches Agreement to Acquire Goal Zero
Princeton NJ (SPX) Aug 18, 2014 -
NRG Energy have reached an agreement that brings the rapidly growing consumer products company into the NRG family of companies. The acquisition aligns with NRG's mission to lead the market in offering cleaner, smarter choices and sustainable lifestyle solutions to end use energy consumers across the country.
"The ultimate manifestation of distributed clean generation is personal power. On ...
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Stinky gases emanating from landfills could transform into clean energy
San Francisco CA (SPX) Aug 18, 2014 -
A new technique that transforms stinky, air-polluting landfill gas could produce the sweet smell of success as it leads to development of a fuel cell generating clean electricity for homes, offices and hospitals, researchers say. The advance would convert methane gas into hydrogen, an efficient, clean form of energy.
The researcher's report is part of the 248th National Meeting of the Amer ...
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Google buys travel guide app startup Jetpac
San Francisco (AFP) Aug 18, 2014 -
Google confirmed Monday it has bought the startup behind a Jetpac mobile application that creates insightful travel guides by analyzing pictures from social networks such as Instagram.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Jetpac said that its application would be removed from Apple's online App Store in the days ahead and that it would stop supporting the software in the middl ...
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Michigan speedway makes low-carbon commitments
Brooklyn, Mich. (UPI) Aug 18, 2013 -
Michigan International Speedway said it joined a utility program in the state that matches 100 percent of its electricity use with renewable energy.
Michigan International Speedway hosted the Pure Michigan 400 race Sunday. Michigan International Speedway President Roger Curtis said that, with a major viewing audience, race organizers have an obligation to environmental stewardship.
...
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Recycling old batteries into solar cells
Boston MA (SPX) Aug 19, 2014 -
This could be a classic win-win solution: A system proposed by researchers at MIT recycles materials from discarded car batteries - a potential source of lead pollution - into new, long-lasting solar panels that provide emissions-free power.
The system is described in a paper in the journal Energy and Environmental Science, co-authored by professors Angela M. Belcher and Paula T. Hammond, ...
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MarLar Properties' Rehabbed Homes Add Solar and Geothermal
Chicago IL (SPX) Aug 19, 2014 -
Marilee and Larry Spatz through their MarLar Properties of Highland Park, Illinois have recently completed a solar rehabbed house in Highland Park. This is the first solar rehab of five that are planned by them. They will also convert a house in Glencoe to geothermal energy.
"We are very excited to bring solar electric and geothermal systems to our houses," said Larry Spatz, owner of MarLa ...
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Trina Solar to Develop 49.9MW Solar Power Plant in UK
Changzhou, China (SPX) Aug 19, 2014 -
Trina Solar has announced the acquisition of a 49.9 MW utility-scale ground-mounted power project in the UK from Good Energy Group PLC ("Good Energy").
The solar PV power plant received planning consent in January 2014 and will utilize Trina Solar's high quality PV modules. Construction will start in the third quarter of 2014 and the site is expected to be connected to the national grid be ...
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Foreign investment in China slumps in July: govt
Beijing (AFP) Aug 18, 2014 -
Foreign direct investment (FDI) into China dropped by more than a sixth year-on-year to a two-year low in July, the government said Monday, but denied any link to Beijing's multiple probes into foreign companies.
FDI - which excludes investment in financial sectors - fell 16.95 percent in the month to $7.81 billion, the commerce ministry said, its lowest since July 2012, when it was $7.579 ...
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Canadian Solar Modules to Power 44 MW North Carolina Solar Farms
Guelph, Canada (SPX) Aug 19, 2014 -
Canadian Solar has announced that the Company executed a 44 MWp module sales agreement with affiliates of Entropy Investment Management and Entropy Solar Integrators. Entropy will construct seven solar farms in North Carolina in 2014 by using high efficient Canadian Solar CS6X-P PV module series.
Over the next twenty years, the projects are anticipated to generate more than 1.1 Mio. kWh of ...
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Westinghouse to Provide Finland's TVO with Advanced Reactor Internal Pumps
Vasteras, Sweden (SPX) Aug 19, 2014 -
Westinghouse Electric Company has received a contract in excess of 40 million euros from Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) to deliver 12 advanced reactor internal pumps for Finland's Olkiluoto Units 1 and 2 boiling water reactors.
This investment, a prerequisite for TVO to secure a long-term, safe and reliable operation of their nuclear reactors, also will allow for possible future power uprate ...
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Mercedes-Benz accused of 'price-fixing': China media
Shanghai (AFP) Aug 18, 2014 -
China has accused Mercedes-Benz, a unit of German car giant Daimler, of price-fixing, state media reported, amid an anti-monopoly investigation into foreign carmakers.
Pricing authorities in the eastern province of Jiangsu have collected evidence that Mercedes-Benz controlled prices of its spare parts and maintenance services, the official Xinhua news agency reported Saturday.
The total ...
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Bionic Liquids from Lignin
Berkeley CA (SPX) Aug 19, 2014 -
While the powerful solvents known as ionic liquids show great promise for liberating fermentable sugars from lignocellulose and improving the economics of advanced biofuels, an even more promising candidate is on the horizon - bionic liquids.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have developed "bionic liquids" from lignin and hemicellulose, two by ...
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Solar Cells Tested on Flexible Array Design
Cleveland OH (SPX) Aug 15, 2014 -
On the campus of NASA Glenn Research Center, rows of solar arrays are a permanent part of the landscape. But this summer, a very different kind of solar array arrived at the lab.
Deployable Space Systems (DSS) of California has developed a flexible solar array design that can unfurl in space to generate spacecraft power supplies and then retract for delicate maneuvers and docking to other ...
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Geothermal Industry Asserts Technology as Beneficial and Affordable
Reno NV (SPX) Aug 15, 2014 -
Nearly 300 industry leaders gathered in Reno last week for the Geothermal Energy Association (GEA) National Geothermal Summit. The leading forum for Western State policy discussions, the National Geothermal Summit brought together the industry for a dialogue with state and federal policy makers.
The industry met to discuss such issues as moving geothermal forward in Nevada; utility perspec ...
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Juwi Will Build 50-Megawatt Wind Farm in Uruguay
Worrstadt, Germany (SPX) Aug 15, 2014 -
juwi has announced that it has sold the project rights for one of the largest wind farms in the company's history and its first in South America, and has retained responsibility for building the wind farm. The wind farm will have a total installed capacity of 50 MW and is expected to achieve commercial operation in mid 2015.
The wind farm is located in Cerro Largo, next to the town of Melo ...
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Bald ambition: Chinese county exports human hair to Africa
Taihe, China (AFP) Aug 14, 2014 -
Long, black and lucrative: sacks bulging with human hair spill onto the streets of a rural county whose farmers have helped make China the world's biggest exporter of products made from the material.
As dawn broke over the morning market in Taihe, vendors bringing hairy wares from across China haggled with dozens of buyers, and tempers frayed.
"We have to bargain for hair," said buyer Li ...
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Cisco to cut 6,000 jobs in streamlining
New York (AFP) Aug 13, 2014 -
US computer networking giant Cisco Systems said Wednesday it plans to slash some 6,000 jobs, or eight percent of its global workforce in the coming year.
Chairman and chief executive John Chambers called the move a "limited restructuring" that will allow Cisco to "reinvest cost savings in key growth areas."
Chief financial officer Frank Calderoni said the move to streamline comes with C ...
more
