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Submission + - Well, That Didn't Work: The Segway (wired.com) 1

Submitted by turkeydance
turkeydance writes: We were all supposed to be riding Segways by now. The company was supposed to be rolling in cash, the scooter’s inventor a modern day Jay Gatsby (minus the bootlegging and murder). It didn’t happen: Today, the Segway is a punch line, a way for mall security guards to prevent sore feet. So what happened?

It’s not that it didn’t work: Envisioned as a way for people to get from home to work in urban areas, the Segway is a technological marvel. It can maintain its balance better than a human and is much more fuel efficient than a car, which are a pain to drive and park over a short journey. No, the problems that sank the Segway weren’t technological. They were social.

Submission + - Interest Rates Have Gone Negative in Europe

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Matthew Yglesias writes at Vox that something really weird that economists thought was impossible is happening now in Europe where interest rates have gone negative on a range of debt — mostly government bonds from countries like Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany but also corporate bonds from Nestlé and, briefly, Shell. As in you give the owner of a Nestlé bond 100 euros, and four years later Nestlé gives you back less than that. "In the most literal sense, negative interest rates are a simple case of supply and demand. A bond is a kind of tradable loan," says Yglesias. "If there isn't much demand for buying the bonds, the interest rate has to go up to make customers more willing to buy. If there's a lot of demand, the interest rate will fall."

But why would you want to buy a negative interest rate loan? The question itself seems absurd – the very idea that anyone should have to pay someone to keep their money safe rather than demand an interest payment for the use of their money is counter-intuitive. But according to Yglesias, very rich people and big companies need to do something with their money and most European banks only guarantee 100,000 euros.Plowing the money into negative-yielding government bonds can appeal to banks when the alternative is to pay even more to store cash on deposit. J.P. Morgan calculates there is currently 220 billion euros of bank reserves subject to negative interest rates, which looks set to grow exponentially because of the European Central Bank’s forthcoming colossal bond-buying program. "It may be the case that if governments push the negative interest rates thing too far the entire economy would become a cash based system," says Merryn Somerset Webb. "But that might take a while to get to."

Submission + - Sony plan to pull out of MPAA revealed (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Earthquake Retrofit
Earthquake Retrofit writes: The New York Times is reporting: "... Sony Pictures chairman Michael Lynton last month told industry colleagues of a plan to withdraw from the movie trade organization, according to people who have been briefed on the discussions. He cited the organization's slow response and lack of public support in the aftermath of the attack on Sony and its film “The Interview,” as well as longstanding concerns about the cost and efficacy of the group."

Submission + - Progressing Being Made in Renewable Energy Storage Technologies (vancouversun.com) 2

Submitted by dave562
dave562 writes: As astute Slashdot commentators frequently mention when renewable energy is discussed, the biggest challenge faced by renewable energy is its inability to provide stable baseline power. Progress is being made to address those concerns, and companies who can deliver successful are trying to tap into a market that has been valued at $10.5 billion dollars.

From the article,

"The problem for a lot of renewable power sources — wind and solar farms, run-of-river hydro — is that they often pump out the most power when utilities don’t need it, but dim down when they really want it.

For electric utilities, balancing those peaks and valleys from intermittent energy sources is a major challenge to integrating them into the grid, which is why some B.C.-based firms are hoping to cash in on the development of energy-storage technologies.

ZincNyx’s technology, the so-called flow battery, is a regenerative fuel-cell system that takes in electricity when the power isn’t needed and uses it to create fuel out of zinc-oxide that is stored in a tank, and which is then run through a fuel cell that converts it back into electricity when it is needed."

Is this the answer to the challenge faced by renewable power? What other hurdles still remain?

Comment Who uses cars anymore? (Score 2, Interesting) 481

by WillAffleckUW (#48985453) Attached to: DOT Warns of Dystopian Future For Transportation

No, seriously, I don't know what it's like in the empty states but in the growing GDP powerhouses that are the tech cities, people are just not using cars at all.

They might rent a car once in a while, but most of them use transit, bike, walk, take Bolt, take the High Speed train (if it exists), and maybe fly to a place that's far away.

People are already adapting. You're confused because the deadenders aren't adapting.

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