Hey readers! This post is a part of the 2008 Blog Action Day where bloggers around the world unite to talk about a common topic that is important to our world. This year’s topic is poverty (FYI, last year’s topic was the environment, and you can read that here) and this post will link poverty and the usual tech that is discussed here and provide possible solutions.

What poverty looks like (From Anewgreenitude.info)

The Issue

According to Wikipedia, HALF (3 billion people) of the world’s population suffers from poverty. And according to this GlobalIssues.org post those people live on less than $2.50 a day. Just pause now and think about it…

What would you do if you only lived on $2.50? Well first off, you would not even be thinking about that new iPod, or laptop, or TV, or bed, or going out for dinner, or buying a new book, or even living in that house (or apartment) that you live in. Just think…. and that isn’t just for a few people, that is for half of the world.

With only that little amount of money, one wouldn’t be able to get enough food, which results in malnutrition, they can’t have a real home, which leaves them vulnerable to others and nature, and can die because they can’t afford healthcare.

What I Think We Should Do

You, right now, are lucky, though you may not think so because of the current state of the US economy, but you are. You have a computer, you have an education, you have a job (or are a student), and those allow you to have a relatively comfortable life. Now how are you going to get 3 billion people out of poverty and into a better way of life?

I feel that the answer lies in technology. We, as users of the “cloud” can do so much. We can make donations online (Check out http://www.kiva.org/, where you can make loans to entrepreneurs in developing worlds in order to help bring them out of poverty), we can tell others about poverty through email, and we can learn about it through the Internet.

Also, if you are interested in improving your vocab while donating rice, you should check out http://freerice.com/. There, for every word you get right, 20 grains of rice is donated through the UN World Food Program. Though this isn’t poverty, hunger is definitely related to it since if you don’t have food, you can’t work, so you don’t get money.

The OLPC (Topnews.in)

We could also bring technology to developing countries and educate them through the use of them. Projects such as OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) can enable them to self-learn and get better jobs in the future and lifting them out of the poverty cycle. Other techs like the MotoFone, can enable people to bring themselves out of poverty through conducting business on a mobile cell phone.

So do something, whether it is just telling others about poverty, or donating money to poverty combating programs, that difference will help reduce poverty in our world. And by reducing poverty, we not only help those people, but also our entire world by bringing more people to a new level and enabling our society to progress forward.

Thank you for your help!

The Internet giant, Google is launching a program, named Project Virgle, for you Earthlings to live on Mars. Virgin and Google have partnered up to bring the first permanent Mars colony to reality. In 2014, the Virgle 1 be sent to Mars to set up the colony. After the Virgle 1 lands, a group of autonomous robots will be sent out. In 2016, the first people will be sent to Mars. After living there for 100 years, in 2108, a truly new community has emerged on Mars, just like a city on Earth.

Sign up for the trip at http://www.google.com/virgle/index.html. Good luck, and happy first day of April!

I couldn’t think of a better title, because I’m going to cover a bunch of stuff that I haven’t done yet. I know, I’m sorry, I’ve been really busy lately, so I haven’t gotten too much time to work on the Funknowledge Blog or the “Advice from Life” Blog.

CES 2008

First there is CES. That happened a month and a half ago, but if you guys didn’t check it out, here is your quick patch up! One product that caught my eye was the Lenovo Ideapad. This sleek little laptop is the first laptop from Lenovo to be more home user friendly. I still like the normal ThinkPads, but this thing is cool. It not only has a cool looking design with a frameless screen, but also some pretty advanced features too. This includes a secondary display near the keypad on some models, solid state hard drives, and even facial recognition.

I also saw something pretty cool. The Buglabs BUG. This is a platform where you can make your own gadget from premade parts or your own. So you could combine say… a camera, a GPS, and a 3G network card, and you’ll be able to take a picture anywhere and upload it with where it was took. And because it is open source, you can do virtually anything with it. Check our their website at: http://www.buglabs.net/

The new iRiver also seems pretty sweet. It is one of the first MP3 players to also have GPS, but the antenna isn’t built in (odd…). Instead you have to dock it in a car cradle. It also has a 3 in touch screen and many multimedia features including flash games and your basic music and video. There is also an FM tuner, an eDictionary, and a MicroSD slot (which is always useful!).

GSMA World Conference 2008

Okay, some cool things that showed up there is first a Google Android Prototype from ARM. This is a very basic prototype with the Android Software on it. Also, the Nokia N96 showed up, the follow up to the Nokia N95. It sports a bunch of new features including a larger screen and a sleeker design. The N96 also has 16 GB of memory, a MicroSD Slot, a flash on the camera, and it also can shoot and play video a 30 frames per second.

A phone from Garmin also was shown at GSMA, not surprisingly named the Nuvifone. It has a nice touch screen with the Nuvi navigation system, it’ll also have the normal features of a smart phone including music playback.

Samsung also came out with a really cool slider phone called the Samsung Soul. It has a mini touch screen below the normal one that you navigate with. So it changes depending on what you are doing. So if you are taking a picture, it will have camera functions. If you are just in the menu, there will be arrows.

So, that is about it for all the major happenings in the tech world. I’m working on Super Mario Galaxy right now and I’ll be finishing the story part of it soon, so stay tuned for a review of it!

Thanks to CNET.com for providing info for this post!

Today is the 2007 Blog Action Day where bloggers around the world all write about how to help save the environment. It is an event supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Opera, Mokono, Reddit and a few other organizations and the website development, hosting and promotion is done by Eden.cc.
I’ve decided to discuss about renewable and clean resources. One, because it is the best way to clean up the atmosphere, and two because I can still talk about some technology!

Ethanol

First, I’ll start with my favorite, making energy with plants, Ethanol! Yes, energy from corn or other high in cellulosic plants. This is basically the best way to cure our oil addiction. Although it is not completely clean, it is 80% cleaner (according to Wikipedia) meaning it will help our planet a lot if it replaces oil, and it won’t be too hard to convert existing cars to work on ethanol. Thus, making this the best way to replace oil. The only problem right now is that we can’t get enough to totally replace gas. The actual process is simple enough to understand: Take a plant, extract the cellulose, and some enzymes to it and turn that into sugars. Then ferment the sugar and it turns into alcohol and distill into usable fuel. The only problem is that although cellulose is everywhere in plant cell walls making it a unlimited fuel source, cellulose is hard to break down. Nature has given many animals the power to do this, but harnessing them to do it quicker is not easy.

Right now, it is made mostly from corn, which is not the best source (It only produces 30% more energy that it takes to grow and process it (According to Wired Magazine)). Scientists now think that switchgrass is our best bet. This plant will produce 80% more energy than growing and producing it, much more than corn. The problem is, it can’t be produced at a cheap enough price to challenge gas.
Some people like Lee Lynd are approaching it as making an all-in-one factory. He is trying to create a bacterium that will take cellulose and spit out ethanol. People think he’ll do it, but how long it will take is the question.

Others are like Joel Cherry who want to make a cheaper enzyme. Cherry and his team after four years say that they have reduced the cost of the enzyme mixture from $5 per gallon of ethanol to under a dollar.

And finally the companies who want to find a better enzyme, like Verenium. Nature’s creations like termites process cellulose easily. They have taken the termite and removed the insides and together with the Department of Energy they want to find the genes that make it so good at breaking the tough molecule. After that they’ll try and find the best mix of celluloses.

Wind and Solar Energy

Wind, you feel that everywhere. The Sun, that’s just about everywhere too. Why not use it? According to Wikipedia, only 1% of the world’s energy is produced through wind turbines. There is an estimated 50 to 100 times more wind energy than biomass (Ethanol), most of which is at high altitudes.

Most wind turbines right now are firmly attached to the ground, and only harnessing the power of the wind close to the ground. Others that are attached to the ground under the sea are most effective since the wind come from the sea, but the most effective is in the air, preferably the jetstreams where winds are continuously over 100 mph.

A modern Wind Turbine near Aalborg, Denmark

Solar energy is using the sun’s rays to make energy. The main reason why they are not used very commonly is since they are expensive to make, thus making the prices of electricity higher, which US citizens don’t want. Now as the prices drop they are becoming more popular. In many places the solar panel will cover the cost in only five to ten years, and after that, it’s free electricity!

A Solar Power Plant near Surpa, Portugal

What YOU can do

As global warming becomes more of a problem, we need to take action. If we want to have our children live normal lives without higher than normal temperatures, more hurricanes, or sea level, we have to change what we are doing now. The Earth could be destroyed if we continue what we are doing, but that won’t happen. Everyone needs to take action whether it is doing research in a lab or just changing your light bulbs to the more efficient kinds or just turning off the light when you are not using it. This way, Earth will stay a wonderful place with a wide diversity of life. I hope you will decide to help save the world!

All Images from Wikipedia.
Special Thanks to Wired magazine for providing info on Ethanol.