The modern era of solar electricity got under way in 1954 as Bell Laboratory scientists unveiled a "solar battery" made from silicon that was used to power a toy Ferris wheel and a radio. In recent years, solar has boomed as costs have declined and government policies have favored a renewable energy source that can help combat climate change.

California's solar energy generation hit a record earlier this year, accounting for 6 percent of energy from the California Independent System Operator, which manages the bulk of the state's flow of electricity. Last year's growth in solar capacity was greater than all earlier years combined. The state backs solar through financial incentives and a law that requires utilities derive 33 percent of their energy from renewable energy sources by 2020.

Good news for responsible energy generation.

Debian has announced a security advisory about its apt-get software, and recommends that you upgrade your apt packages ... with apt, of course.

"It was discovered that APT, the high level package manager, does not properly invalidate unauthenticated data (CVE-2014-0488), performs incorrect verification of 304 replies (CVE-2014-0487), does not perform the checksum check when the Acquire::GzipIndexes option is used (CVE-2014-0489) and does not properly perform validation for binary packages downloaded by the apt-get download command (CVE-2014-0490)."

This update comes to you courtesy of the IOERROR Twitter account.

In a crowded room, how do you focus on your companion's voice while ignoring the conversations going on around you? A digital model of the cochlea, the shell-shaped organ that serves as an interface between sound waves and the nervous system, suggests the ear begins filtering out background sounds before they even reach the brain.

Studying how the brain hones in on a single voice, a phenomenon known as the "cocktail party effect," can help unlock how the brain perceives sound. But it's not just about the brain. For several decades, researchers have suspected that other parts of the auditory system also play a big role.

http://www.insidescience.org/content/physics-tuning-out/1586

California lawmakers have passed a bill that would enable residential and commercial tenants to install electric-vehicle charging stations, provided that they foot the bill, making it harder for landlords to enact lease provisions that would prevent tenants from buying and installing such stations. This to aid the state's goal of having 1.5 million zero-emissions vehicles on California's roads by 2025.

California is home to about 1,900 publicly accessible charging stations with about 5,400 charging outlets, according to the US Department of Energy. More than one in five US charging stations are in California.

By popular request, a new poll: "mobile devices I own/use." Include members of your family if you want to, and add anything I've forgotten in the comments. This list got unwieldy fast as there are so many vendors and models, and even some overlap in classification. So if you've got something interesting, or are simply still using your classic old Palm Pilot, Nokia dumbphone, Psion 5mx, and Zaurus, go ahead and tell us about it.

The poll is right here ------>

[Ed. note: there ya go, AC: instant gratification, Pipedot style. I notice our Monday polls have typically petered out by about Wednesday anyway; maybe we'll go to two polls a week if we can think of some subjects. I have a hard time coming up with new polls. Also: this is a test of linking to individual comments using shortcodes.]

Apple released the 8th version of its popular iOS operating system today, and as far as this editor can tell, the entire Internet experienced a collective nerdgasm. Every major tech site is either reporting on it, speculating on it, or promising sneak previews of hitherto undisclosed features.

Apple themselves are calling iOS8 "the biggest update ever." So we turn to the Register, who gives us a more precise list of new features:

IOS 8 can automatically filter, straighten and crop snaps, and it eases the process of sharing photos and others files with people ... will record time-lapse videos, if you want. And the iOS Messages app will be updated to include location info, video and voice records, and self-deleting vids, apparently. ...
The update will also include the HealthKit personal monitoring API that was seen at WWDC back in June. Other features include supposedly better predictive typing for the on-screen keyboard, and Siri apparently works better with getting information from maps and news. Not all the features will be available in all countries, however. Siri's ability to reserve restaurant tables, for example, will only be offered to people in North America when the OS launches. And, of course, the update will use the iPhone 6 smartphone and 6 Plus' NFC hardware as a cash substitute thanks to Apple Pay. That service is supported by many of the largest banks and credit card companies - although third-party app makers are frozen out of the party.

So what say you P8rs? Is this a revolution in pocket computing, or a marginal update to existing features? Or something in between?

When the first 3-D printer designed to work in a weightless environment is sent up to the International Space Station - as early as next week! - it will mark one small step toward a giant leap for manufacturing in outer space.

"Imagine if you're going to Mars, and instead of packing along 20,000 spare parts, you pack along a few kilograms of 'ink,'" NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman said in a video recorded in March before starting his stint on the station. "Now you don't even need to know what part is going to break. You can just print out that part. ... I really like that, and it'll be fun to play with that in orbit."

[Ed note: finally able to use the "printer" icon in a "space" article. Life is good.]

Once upon a time, the Qt developer kit was written and published by Trolltech. Then it was sold to Nokia. Then Nokia sold it to Digia. And now, Digia is spinning it off as an independent entity. Freedom at last?!

The Register reports:

While Digia puts an upbeat spin on the separation, it's hard to avoid wondering if, like Trolltech and Nokia before it, the company has found it hard to reconcile the coexistence of the open source and commercial versions of the platform.

It said as much in August, noting that "The installers and product packages for the open source and enterprise versions are different, and there is a complete disconnect between qt-project.org and the commercial pages on qt.digia.com" when it announced its intention to create the subsidiary.

Digia holds 100 per cent of the new Qt company at this point, and said one of the aims of the new operation will be to unify the two sets of packages, starting with one set of installers.

The first step of the creation of a new Qt has now gone live, and a few days ago the unified operation popped its head up at the IBC conference in Amsterdam to position its capabilities as a set-to-box and digital TV UI development environment.

[Ed. note: Now that Qt is on its own, they should come up with a good name for the organization. I propose "Trolltech" - just so we can truly come full-circle.]
[2014-09-17 15:15 Title updated from QT to Qt]

The Enlightenment team announced this week that the 19th version of their popular-but not popular enough- desktop environment has been released. Enlightenment DR 0.19 brings a number of useful improvements, refinements, or fixes, including a new profile for tiling workspace windows, better video previews, the return of the E16-style live pager, a new compositor API, non-recursive make files for building the system, and improvements to the file manager, system action menus, better performance on multiple monitors, support for high DPI monitors, and better rendering of shaped (non-rectangular) windows. It also has full support for Wayland including its own, rewritten Wayland compositor.

The Enlightenment project has always marched to the beat of a different drum. So their disclaimer: "Enlightenment developers cannot be responsible for any successes which occur during testing of E19" seems like they're still having a lot of fun.

If you're interested in seeing what E19 is capable of, Bodhi has a good intro to Enlightenment E17 on their site, but this Youtube video of E17 is also a good place to start.

Among the more interesting aquatic species on our earth is Polypterus senegalus ("Bichir"), a modern African fish that has lungs for breathing air, and stubby fins. It can use the to pull itself along on land for short periods of time. That makes it an good candidate for research into previously unknown aspects of evolution. So scientists have raised a bunch of them out of water for eight months to better understand how ancient creatures may have transitioned to life on land. Have a look here for a picture of the species.¹

"The researchers discovered the bichir raised on land were dramatically different than those raised in water. The land-raised fish lifted their heads higher, held their fins closer to their bodies, took faster steps and undulated their tails less frequently and had fins that slipped less often than bichir raised in water. These land-based fish also underwent changes in their skeletons and musculature that likely paved the way for their changes in behavior."

The Bichir is a pretty interesting fish. From Wikipedia, "Bichirs possess paired lungs which connect to the esophagus via a glottis. They are obligate air-breathers, requiring access to surface air to breathe in poorly oxygenated water. Their lungs are highly vascularized to facilitate gas exchange. Deoxygenated arterial blood is brought to the lungs by paired pulmonary arteries, which branch from the fourth efferent branchial arteries (artery from the fourth gill arch), and oxygenated blood leaves the lungs in pulmonary veins. Unlike most lungfish and tetrapods, their lungs are smooth sacs instead of alveolated tissue. Bichirs are unique in that they breathe using a recoil aspiration."

¹ So, a bichir is worth a thousand words? Sorry.
[2014-09-17 17:54: Typo fixed: bichir, not bichr. And definitely not bitcher.]