THE ECONOMIST TECHNOLOGY QUARTERLY

Random points from the September 6-12th issue.

A web address for every car?
“IdleAire Technologies of Knoxville, Tennessee, is installing “travel centres” at truck stops. These offer electricity and air conditioning to truck drivers sleeping in their cabs. That allows them to turn off their engines and still keep any refrigerated goods fresh. Along with these services comes TV, telephone and internet access plus the option to download movies.”

Fountain of truth?
WebFountain is creating a database with statistics that allow it to provide a “service to analyse the web in different ways to serve different markets.”

Banking on the technology cycle
“Japanese consumers not only pay bills via ATMs as well as withdraw cash, but most of their machines are now connected to the internet, so consumers can do other things (glance at their e-mails or download a song) while transacting their business.”

Out of the ether
“At least 98% of the world's computers are actually embedded processors that currently do not connect to any networks (a car, for instance, has around 30 such processors in it). These may all become connected over time, thanks to Ethernet built to the “Personal Area Network” protocol (known as 802.15.4 in the trade) that is currently under development. Efforts are under way at start-ups such as Ember Corporation in Boston, and also at the now-independent PARC itself, to create networks out of tiny wireless sensors. These could change the way troops engage in battle, or allow drivers to know when traffic patterns change. For now, these networks are too rudimentary to do much, but they represent perhaps the most exciting part of Ethernet's future.”

Reinventing Europe
IP2IPO, a British venture-capital firm, has raised more than €50m over the past three years to commercialize university IP.