Open up your mind and say, ahh...

One of the biggest issues with hydrogen fuel cells, aside from the lack of fueling infrastructure, is the high cost of the technology. Fuel cells use a lot of platinum, with is frightfully expensive and one reason we’ll pay $50,000 or so for the hydrogen cars automakers say we’ll see in 2015.

That might soon change. Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed a platinum-free catalyst in the cathode of a hydrogen fuel cell that uses carbon, iron and cobalt. That could make hydrogen fuel cells “two to three orders of magnitude cheaper,” the lab says.

Although the discovery means we could see hydrogen fuel cells in a wide variety of applications, it could have the biggest implications for automobiles.

Despite the auto industry’s focus on hybrids, plug-in hybrids and battery electric vehicles — driven in part by the Obama Administration’s love of cars with cords — several automakers remain convinced hydrogen fuel cells are the best alternative to internal combustion.

Hydrogen offers the benefits of battery electric vehicles — namely zero tailpipe emissions — without the drawbacks of short range and long recharge times. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are electric vehicles; they use a fuel cell instead of a battery to provide juice. You can fill a car with hydrogen in minutes, it’ll go about 250 miles or so and the technology is easily adapted to everything from forklifts to automobiles to buses.

Toyota, Mercedes-Benz and Honda are among the automakers promising to deliver hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in 2015. Toyota has said it has cut the cost of fuel cell vehicles more than 90 percent by using less platinum — which currently goes for around $1,800 an ounce — and other expensive materials. It plans to sell its first hydrogen vehicle for around $50,000, a figure Daimler has cited as a viable price for the Mercedes-Benz F-Cell (pictured above in Australia).

Fifty grand is a lot of money, especially something like the F-Cell — which is based on the B-Class compact — or the Honda FCX Clarity.

In a paper published today in Science, Los Alamos researchers Gang Wu, Christina Johnston and Piotr Zelenay, joined by Karren More of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, outline their platinum-free cathode catalyst.

The catalysts use carbon, iron and cobalt. The researchers say the fuel cell provided high power with reasonable efficiency and promising durability. It provided currents comparable to conventional fuel cells, and showed favorable durability when cycled on and off — a condition that quickly damages inferior catalysts.

The researchers say the carbon-iron-cobalt catalyst completed the conversion of hydrogen and oxygen into water, rather than producing large amounts of hydrogen peroxide. They claim the catalyst created minimal amounts of hydrogen peroxide — a substance that cuts power output and can damage the fuel cell — even when compared to the best platinum-based fuel cells. In fact, the fuel cell works so well the researchers have filed a patent for it.

The researchers did not directly quantify the cost savings their cathode catalyst offers, which would be difficult because platinum surely would become more expensive if fuel cells became more prevalent. But the lab notes that iron and cobalt are cheap and abundant, and so the cost of fuel cells is “definitely two to three orders of magnitude cheaper.”

“The encouraging point is that we have found a catalyst with a good durability and life cycle relative to platinum-based catalysts,” Zelenay said in a statement. “For all intents and purposes, this is a zero-cost catalyst in comparison to platinum, so it directly addresses one of the main barriers to hydrogen fuel cells.”

Photo: Daimler. The Mercedes-Benz F-Cell hydrogen fuel cell vehicle roaming Australia during the round-the-world F-Cell World Tour.

This post reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily those of Mashable as a publication.

Sam Shrauger is vice president of Global Product and Experience at PayPal. Most recently, Shrauger served as VP of Global Product Strategy where he took the lead in defining the company’s vision for its global product portfolio, including the launch of PayPal’s digital goods payment solution.

The transformation of consumer payments is a hot topic right now. The market is changing both on mobile devices and at the point of sale. Every day it seems like there is a big announcement from a giant in the tech, payments, banking or telecom space that is characterized as the next “big” thing to transform payments.

But, after reading a steady parade of these articles for what seems like months on end, I can’t help but be left with one simple feeling: That the entire debate raging before us is completely missing the point.

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Why Do People Want This?

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The current market discussion goes something like the following. Mobile phones, and specifically smartphones, are gaining rapid consumer adoption. Smartphones have become what the first PDAs aspired to be: the center of your life, in the palm of your hand. In effect, they’re meant to enhance all the things you do every day — communication, entertainment, content discovery and shopping. If mobile devices are going to enhance such activities, they should also enhance the act of paying for those purchases. Mobile devices are poised to eventually replace our wallets.

Unfortunately, this is the point where an interesting discussion seems to veer off into the trees. Rather than focus on the main issue at hand, the debate becomes about competing technology.

Several technology companies are vying for a piece of the pie. Some have an open operating system, while others have a closed one. Some are pushing near-field communication (NFC), while others are keeping their options open. Some will pay for merchants to have NFC terminals, while others are waiting for the market to adopt them, at which point, they will be poised to pounce. Some are building apps, while others are embedding wallets into devices. Some companies have lots of devices in the market, while others started late and are catching up quickly.

Meanwhile, no one is asking the basic question: Why would people want this? And more specifically, what are people looking for in a payment system that will compel them to actually replace their physical wallets with a digital one?

Until that question is answered, the debate about which device, which standard and which operating system are completely irrelevant. The shiniest, sleekest device and the best operating system in the world won’t get you anywhere if you can’t offer consumers a payment experience that they want and value.

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The Digital Wallet

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What do people want in a digital wallet? In a lot of ways, it’s actually pretty simple. Consumers want security and trust, which are absolutely crucial whenever you’re moving money. They also want convenience — something that is easy to use and saves them time, or money, or both. They want financial freedom and control — the ability to pay the way they want, on their own terms, for any transaction. They want ubiquity — the knowledge that their form of payment can and will be accepted by any other person or business they want to pay.

Those are the things that will determine success with consumers. People couldn’t care less which technology a hardware or software manufacturer would like to sell them. They couldn’t care less which technology merchants may or may not put in their stores. Ultimately, they just want something that makes their life better when it comes to buying and paying.

So, I’d like to issue a challenge to the industry: Let’s change the conversation and start talking about the customers for which we’re creating these products and technologies. Let’s talk about what might be right for them when it comes to a digital wallet and how we can make their lives better. At the end of the day, that’s what matters most.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, coreay

Canadians planning to tweet election results during next month’s elections had better think twice, because it could result in a $25,000 fine or up to five years in prison, thanks to a 73-year-old law.

Elections Canada, the non-partisan agency responsible for administering Canada’s federal elections, has come under fire for saying that it will enforce the Canada Elections Act, specifically a section that mandates that nobody prematurely announce or send messages about the election results until all the polls are closed.

The following is from section 329 of the Canada Elections Act:

“No person shall transmit the result or purported result of the vote in an electoral district to the public in another electoral district before the close of all of the polling stations in that other electoral district.”

The law was originally enacted in 1938 to prevent radio stations from prematurely transmitting elections results, thereby influencing voter behavior on the west coast by the east coast. The polls close up to four and a half hours later on the west coast because of time zones.

This wasn’t a law designed for Facebook, Twitter and social media, though. There are simply too many potential sources of information for this law to be enforced in a feasible way. Despite that fact, Elections Canada says that public messages on social networks could be construed as breaking the Canada Elections Act.

“As administrators we have to inform people and make sure they are aware of that provision,” an Elections Canada spokesperson told the Vancouver Sun. “It’s not like Elections Canada will be monitoring your Twitter stream. However, if there are complaints, the Elections Canada Commissioner will investigate.”

Elections Canada has no choice — it has to enforce the laws that are on the books, and it’s up to the politicians to change the law. Citizens, especially Twitter users, have vowed to protest Elections Canada and the Canada Elections Act by tweeting, blogging and using social media to discuss election results as a way to defy the archaic law. Expect a lot of tweets with the hashtags #Tweettheresults and #elxn41 to be bending or breaking the rules.

It doesn’t seem like Elections Canada is going to go proactively go after citizens who tweet about election results, but we still hope this is the last time Canada has to deal with this law for its elections. Information cannot be suppressed in the digital era.

Daily deals juggernaut Groupon has partnered with consumer packaged goods giant General Mills to offer subscribers a first-of-a-kind home delivery grocery deal Thursday.

The “Redeem From Home” General Mills Sample Pack features $40 worth of General Mills products — including a coupon book and breakfast, lunch and dinner fare — for $20.

The grocery deal was offered solely in San Francisco and Minneapolis. Eligible consumers responded with alacrity and snatched up the groceries before day’s end. In Minneapolis, for instance, the deal sold out at 3:05 p.m. local time with all 4,500 Groupons purchased.

General Mills believes itself to be Groupon’s first consumer packaged goods partner. There’s no indication that the soon-to-IPO company is exploring other consumer packaged goods deals, and we suspect that most big brands are likely to balk at the company’s margins, but there’s still something fresh about this supermarket sweep.

As for General Mills, the brand is hoping the deal will turn Groupon samplers into grocery-store name brand buyers.

“We’re always looking for efficient ways to sample our products and given Groupon’s scale, we thought this would be a way to reach a sizeable audience,” General Mills’ director of product marketing Karl Schmidt told Advertising Age. “Our goal is to get trial across a breadth of products and get people to go into the grocery store with follow-up purchases.”

Image courtesy of Flickr, Artbandito

Investors have established the first investment vehicle dedicated to Android-focused startups and developers. Dubbed the A-Fund, the $100 million fund will invest between $500,000 and $4 million in products that will shape the Android ecosystem.

The A-Fund is being managed by DCM, a firm with a presence in Silicon Valley, Beijing and Toyko. Additional fund investors represent the top names in Asian mobile and social innovation and include GREE Inc., KDDI Corporation and Tencent.

“The rise of Android is a rare and massive opportunity — one that comes only once in a major tech cycle,” said DCM co-founder and general partner David Chao.

By some reports, Android is already the top smartphone platform in the U.S.. DCM and friends are doubling down on the belief that Android platform is on the verge of a windfall in Japan and China.

It’s also following in the footsteps of esteemed venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. KPCB established the iFund with $100 million in 2008 to finance iPhone development, and then upped the ante to $200 million in 2010. It’s seen relative success with its investments, and portfolio companies include the now heavily financed Flipboard, social gaming behemoth Zynga and the just-acquired Pelago.

The A-Fund, then, seems much overdo. “Android is one of the fastest growing technology platforms in the world in terms of both adoption and application deployment,” DCM’s press announcement states. “In the last 12 months, the number of Android enabled devices has grown 861 percent; today there are more than 250,000 applications in the Android market and millions of Android devices around the world.”

The A-Fund has made four investments that will be revealed next month, according to The Wall Street Journal.

While there’s clearly an interest in jump-starting Asian development around the Android platform, DCM and its partners are said to be to open to startups and developers from around the world.

If you have a fancy electric car, you may be kind to the environment but chances are you’re always on the lookout for places to recharge the thing. Now, Google, the U.S. Department of Energy and 80 other companies are helping you find charging sites and repair shops for electric cars and other alternative fuel vehicles.

Google and companies such as Pacific Gas and Electric Co., Tom Tom, and Best Buy (which hosts charging stations in some of its parking lots) have entered a partnership called the GeoEVSE Forum. Its purpose? To build a database of all charging stations and electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) locations.

On the user end of the deal, you get an interactive map at the Alternative Fuels and Advanced Vehicles Data Center, letting you search and browse for charging stations accross the USA. You can filter the map by fuel type (electric, biodiesel, hydrogen etc.), station type, station owner and payment method. You can also view stations by state, or even map a route for your alternative fuel vehicle.

The data, collected and maintained by the DOE Clean Cities Initiative and National Renewable Energy Laboratory, is also available to third parties, meaning it might soon become part of your in-car navigation system.

via CNET

By Mark Brown, Wired UK

The breakout star of this month’s Aero show in Friedrichshafen — Europe’s top aviation event — has to be the electric FlyNano “fun flyer”.

It’s the creation of aviation consultant and flight designer Aki Suokas, who reckons that the lightweight body and tiny design makes it the closest you’re going to get to experiencing personal flight.

Its featherweight 70 kilogram body (154 pounds) and low power propeller means the FlyNano skirts the definition of an aircraft. That’s deliberate — by landing outside the classification of what makes a plane a plane, the craft can be flown in a number of countries without going through the rigmarole of securing a pilot’s license.

The FlyNano, which takes off and lands on water, has a cruising speed of 140km/h (87 mph) and a range of 40 kilometers (25 miles) on a single charge. You don’t have to stump for electric, if you don’t fancy: the G and R Series versions come with 24- and 35-horsepower petrol motors and greater range: upwards of 70 kilometers (44 miles) on a full tank.

The carbon fiber body has a wingspan of just 5 (16.4 feet) meters, the craft is 3.5 meter (11.4 feet) from tip to tail and as long as you keep the weight of everyone aboard to less than 200 kilos (440 pounds) you can take it up to an altitude of almost two miles.

If you fancy a FlyNano it will cost you around £22,000 to £24,000 — about $40,000 — to secure one, once the firm starts deliveries in around three months time.

Image: FlyNano

Clay McDaniel is the principal and co-founder of social media marketing agency Spring Creek Group. Find him via @springcreekgrp on Twitter.

Do you remember life before Evite, Facebook Events, and Eventbrite? Handwritten paper invitations and RSVP phone calls seem like relics of a forgotten age. The web has dramatically changed the way people plan special occasions. Social media is making it easier than ever before to plan, promote, and execute a wide range of events from industry conferences, client events and partner symposiums, to large social gatherings and charity events. What’s more, social media allows you to solicit feedback and extend the life of your event by inviting attendees to connect via online communities before and afterward.

Whether you just want to generate a bit of buzz or instead have specific goals to increase ticket sales and attract top speakers and attendees, social media can make the planning process smoother by leveraging digital word-of-mouth. Here are eight tips for best results.

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1. Establish Your Event-Related Channels

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The months and weeks before your event is a critical promotional period. Use every social media channel at your disposal to get the word out about your event, and encourage people to share information on the event in return for small rewards. For example: “Share this event with 20 friends for 10% off your admission.” Start by creating an event page on Facebook and an event hashtag on Twitter, then create an event blog where you’ll post updates about it (new speakers, registration discounts, etc.). Make sure your Twitter hashtag is specific to your event or organization, without being too long.

Once you’ve created these pre-event social links, populate them with lots of content. If it’s a social event, post video or music clips, create a pre-event contest, or connect event-goers through socializing and games. For a social or community event, content should be engaging, fun, and shareable in order to drive word-of-mouth interest. If the event is more corporate in nature, offer fans and followers sneak peeks at topics to be discussed, or special pre-conference articles and presentations.

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2. Provide Incentivized Word-Of-Mouth Promotions

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Make sure that everyone who follows or likes your event on Twitter and Facebook is rewarded for their interest. Offer fans and followers special discounts or content. To incentivize people to register for the event, offer them early-bird discounts, invites to pre-event parties, or other rewards. If you really want to boost the power of word-of-mouth, you can use tools like Meteor Solutions to identify your key influencers, then actively motivate and reward them for sharing information about your contest.

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3. Make Registration Social

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Don’t forget to use a social registration service like EventBrite, which not only makes registration easier and more streamlined, but allows attendees to share their event activity with friends. Other popular social event invitation platforms include Plancast and Twtvite. Most of these services are highly integrated with social networking platforms and can be configured with user caps and privacy options.

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4. Use Location-Based Services and Checkin Rewards

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Geo-location sites let you set up a page with rewards including badges, coupons, specials, or gifts. These location based services are easily integrated with other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, so checkins will be shared with larger networks. When attendees come to your event, you can reward them for checking in at different stations, panels, or activities. Rewards such as free ice cream, a gift card, or other small incentives can be redeemed after the show.

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5. Bring your Event to Life With Twitter

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Using social media during an event can mean the difference between a flat, boring affair and one where attendees are engaged and excited. But too much real-time social interaction can also derail the main presentations or talks.

First and foremost, encourage attendees to tweet during the event using the established hashtag. An active Twitter stream during your event not only engages participants in real time but also allows people who could not attend to get a feel for the sessions and topics being discussed. Some event organizers set up a huge screen behind speakers to display hashtagged tweets in real time. But again, this “backchannel” can backfire if the tweets become negative or go off-topic. All that interaction can derail speakers as they try to respond in real-time to all the “interference.”

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6. Include Non-Attendees

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Don’t forget to set up a livestream during the event using Facebook or UStream so fans can follow along online. Facebook enables you to store this stream so that people can watch it after the event proper. You can also create a YouTube channel for the event to post videos before, during, and after. Encourage non-attendees to ask questions through Twitter or Facebook during the event and answer them live.

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7. Post-Mortem: Extend the Shelf Life of Your Event

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Your event doesn’t have to end the day it’s over. Social media can keep the momentum going for many weeks and months afterwards. On your blog, post a “wrap up” of all the key highlights. You can add links to presentations, key learnings, and other downloadable documents. Of course, you’ll want to post photos on the blog and on Facebook, and continue tweeting about the event even after it’s over. You can post thoughts, ideas, or links to longer articles that might be of interest to those who attended.

Another great way to keep your event from fading fast from people’s memories is to create ways for attendees and other interested parties to continue socializing, discussing, or debating topics covered there. Do whatever you can to keep the conversation alive.

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8. Use Social Media Metrics to Measure Success

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Consider using online surveys to ask attendees for feedback on panels, venue, speakers, topics, and other facets of the event. Facebook polls are fun, easy ways to get quick responses and feedback from attendees. Be prepared for honesty. If someone has a negative comment to share, make sure to address their comment or concern and store the information to improve next year’s event. Lastly, pull total social media stats from sites like Search.Twitter.com and Social Mention, or set up Google Alerts ahead of time. If the results are positive, don’t be shy about publicizing some of these metrics to highlight the reach and impact your event had.

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Image courtesy of Flickr, dhammza / off

NEW YORK — Toyota gets all the love for ushering in the hybrid era with the Prius, but Porsche is here to say its founder had a hybrid on the road almost a century before those guys in Japan.

Porsche rolled into the New York Auto Show with Semper Vivus, a meticulous $750,000 reproduction of the series hybrid Ferdinand Porsche built in 1900. The car provided a nice contrast to the $95,000 Panamera S Hybrid making its North American debut at the show.

Semper Vivus, Latin for “always alive,” works a lot like the Chevrolet Volt. Batteries provide juice to the hub-mounted motors, and a pair of tiny single-cylinder engines step in to drive two 2.5-kilowatt generators that keep electricity flowing when the batteries go kaput.

The specs are impressive, even by today’s standards. The batteries have a range of 40 kilometers (25 miles). Once the 3.5-horsepower engines fire up, Semper Vivus can go another 160 kilometers (100 miles). Top speed is 35 mph, quite quick for its day. One cool bit: the tires were chiseled from solid blocks of rubber, the only way to support the weight of the car. Semper Vivus weighs 3,700 pounds.

Ferdinand Porsche, who had a background in electrical engineering, was fascinated by EVs and developed the original car with Viennese coachbuilder Ludwig Lohner. The car Porsche is showing in New York was meticulously recreated from the scant information squirreled away in the company’s archives. Almost every part was fabricated from scratch, although the engines are the real deal. One was found in England, the other in France.

“The Porsche museum decided to rebuild this car in 2007. It represented a big challenge because nothing was in existence anymore,” said Alchim Steiskal, director of the Porsche museum in Stuttgart. “All we has was one sketch and one drawing to go by.”

Porsche’s eager to carve out a piece of the hybrid market, and it’s even taken gas-electrics racing. The Cayenne Hybrid S represents 18 percent of all Cayenne sales, and the Panamera Hybrid S is the most fuel-efficient car Porsche ever. By wheeling out a bit of its past, the company hopes people will look ahead to its future.

Photos: Mark Dye/Newscast

Taking it for a spin on Pier 54. The original’s front wheel hubs weighed 270 kilos apiece.

Porsche’s first hybrid alongside it’s latest, the Panamera S Hybrid. There will be some debate as to which looks better.

The car shown at a private party in New York is an exact replica of the car Ferdinand Porsche built more than a century ago.

Ferdinand Porsche’s original series hybrid. Photo: Porsche

Porsche didn’t identify the two chaps taking the Ferdinand’s hybrid for a spin. Photo: Porsche

Michele Cuthbert is the principal of Baker Creative, a brand architectural firm. Baker Creative practices an holistic branding approach which encompasses marketing, business, HR, public relations, social media and new media with creative execution. You can follow her on Twitter @BakerCreative or read the team’s blog.

Giving is big business. Every year non-profit organizations solicit companies in the hope of obtaining much needed funding to accomplish their missions and help others. Giving USA reports corporate giving increased 5.5% to $14.1 billion in 2009.

Businesses are willing to give, but are often confused as to which causes might be best for them. A successful match can lead to a fulfilling partnership and helping others, while a mismatch may lead to disaster. Businesses can build stronger relationships with their stakeholders through their charitable endeavors. Helping others while helping themselves can lead businesses to bigger profits.

Here are some quick tips and pro advice for helping your business choose the right charities to support.

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First Steps

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• Clarify your business’ values: A great place to start is your mission statement. Most companies use their mission statement as the philosophy that guides their daily operations. Clarifying your mission will help you see the natural connection between your organization and a potential charity partner. You will be able to help identify other goals more readily in other areas of your business.
• Find out where your stakeholders are donating: Survey your customers to identify which causes and non-profits they support. Demographic and psychographic profiles may provide you with more insight about the cares and concerns of your customers. Identify what is important to them and any specific causes they may support on their own. Choosing a cause which resonates with your customer shows you are in tune with the matters that are important to them.
• Don’t forget your employees: As the heart and soul of a business, employees’ concerns should be taken into consideration as well. Identify if there is a need coming from within your company. Choosing a cause that your employees care about will get everyone excited and yield better campaign participation.

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Picking a Charity

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Now that you’ve done your research, it’s time to actually pick a charity.

• Determine the criteria for the potential charity: You should consider certain factors such as the size of the charity, the age of the organization and whether the charity will do its work locally, nationally or internationally.
• Narrow it down: Search for charities that meet your criteria. Here is the tedious part. Giving USA cites there were more than 1 million charities in the United States in 2009. You may want to enlist another person or a committee to help with the selection process. GuideStar.org has a wonderful search function that allows you to pick through its database by criteria.
• Compare mission statements: Choose organizations whose mission statements resemble or complement your company’s values. Organizations that share the same ideals may work more harmoniously toward a common goal. List the non-profits that fit your predetermined criteria and focus the remainder of your search on these organizations.
• Make sure organizations are registered with the IRS and have proof that meets the criteria for tax-exempt organizations. If your chosen organization doesn’t meet these specifications, your company’s contribution may not be tax deductible. The Better Business Bureau, CharityNavitagor.org, GuideStar.org, Charity Watch and the Charity Review Council are great resources for helping you determine legitimacy and accountability. If the organization does not show up on any of these databases, ask to see its letter of determination. Faith-based non-profits not listed with these resources may still be legitimate. Ask to its official listing in a directory for its denomination.
• Transparency and accountability is key to obtaining funding from any donor in the non-profit sector. Foundations require the organizations to keep track of financials to ensure the monies are spent as promised. A reputable charity will define its mission and programs clearly, have measurable goals and use concrete criteria to describe its achievements, according to GuideStar.org.
• Trustworthy non-profits will discuss their programs and finances. GuideStar.org suggests avoiding non-profits that use pressure tactics to obtain funding or won’t share internal information.
• Be confident in your partnership. If an organization makes you feel uneasy, it was not meant to be. Do not pair with them. Many reputable organizations do the same kind of work and use funds wisely to do good deeds.
• Give your partnership a trial run. Test your partnership by donating to a small project before doing a large campaign. Observe how the charity works during the process. Check for accountability, transparency, and trustworthiness. You will get a sense of how well your organizations work together without the large commitment up front.

Charities are a fulfilling way to further the mission of your organization while helping the community in which you live and work. Keep these tips in mind the next time you conduct your next cause marketing or charitable campaign, and your organization will be sure to come out ahead.

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Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Devonyu