Smart Meters May Increase Costs, Warns Analyst

A leading analyst has warned that there is a strong risk smart meters may not deliver on its promises, and the additional complexity that they bring will cause an increase in customer service costs for utility companies.

A report entitled '2011 - Trends To Watch' published by Ovum, claims that although smart meter and smart grid investments help address a number of issued utilities companies currently face, there is a possibility that they could increase costs. It says investment in further new technlogies such as analytics, billing and CRM systems is required to counter these effects.

Smart meters are currently being trialled by energy companies in Australia to counter the issue of resource scarcity, by influencing customer behaviour though demand-response programmes. These take control of appliances during times of peak demand, and either reduce their power or turn them off. They also help to improve customers' understanding of their energy usage, how it affects their bill and the environment.

Smart grids help to reduce the environmental impact of traditional electricity production by supporting increased volumes of renewable energy and energy storage, with which ageing infrastructure was not designed to cope.

Stuart Ravens, Ovum principal analyst and author of the report, said: "The utilities industry is facing some tough challenges and pressure is coming from all sides: concern over CO2 emissions is high, billions need to be invested in infrastructure and resources are becoming scarce. In addition, the rising cost of fuel forces utilities to drive down operating costs, their workforce is ageing rapidly and they are experiencing an increase in payment defaults due to the economic downturn.

"Smart grid and meter investments will go a long way to address these problems, but to extract the full value of smart energy, utilities will require further new technologies such as analytics, billing and CRM systems.

"Furthermore, customers may struggle to understand the benefit from smart meters and may be confused by the additional complexity smart meters bring. There is a very strong risk that this increase in complexity will cause an increase in customer service costs."

Ravens added: "While these benefits are significant, they should not be overestimated and seen as the answer to all the problems the industry is facing. While they could make an impact, the reality is that there is also a possibility they will not deliver what utilities are expecting."

smarthouse.com.au

Here is another example of how governments are pushing technology under the "GREEN" banner solely for the financial benefit of themselves and their crony established firms that fraudulently take monies from the general populous.

The people are brainwashed into thinking that they are 'saving money' by installing smart meters.

The general public does NOT have to install a smart meter on their property if they do not wish to, but the government deliberately fails to mention this.

Game developer David Braben creates a USB stick PC for $25

David Braben is a very well-known game developer who runs the UK development studio Frontier Developments, but is just as well known for being the co-developer of Elite.

Over his career his studio has brought us the Rollercoaster Tycoon series, Thrillville, Lost Winds, and most recently Kinectimals. In the background, however, Braben has been trying to tackle another problem: getting programming and general learning of how computers work back into schools.

Braben argues that education since we entered the 2000s has turned towards ICT which teaches useful skills such as writing documents in a word processor, how to create presentations, and basic computer use skills. But that has replaced more computer science-like skills such as basic programming and understanding the architecture and hardware contained in a computer.

His solution is not to create his own course, but instead to manufacture a very low cost PC that can be given to kids for free and courses built up around their use. When we say low cost, we mean so low even the OLPC would be impressed.

Braben has developed a tiny USB stick PC that has a HDMI port in one end and a USB port on the other. You plug it into a HDMI socket and then connect a keyboard via the USB port giving you a fully functioning machine running a version of Linux. The cost? $25.

The hardware being offered is no slouch either. It uses a 700MHz ARM11 processor coupled with 128MB of RAM and runs OpenGL ES 2.0 allowing for decent graphics performance with 1080p output confirmed. Storage is catered for by an SD card slot. It also looks as though modules can be attached such as the 12MP camera seen in the image above.

We can expect it to run a range of Linux distributions, but it looks like Ubuntu may be the distro it ships with. That means it will handle web browsing, run office applications, and give the user a fully functional computer to play with as soon as it’s plugged in. All that and it can be carried in your pocket or on a key chain.

This tiny, cheap PC is going to be distributed through a new charitable foundation called the Raspberry Pi Foundation. It will also promote computer science studies in schools.

As for when the Raspberry Pi device will become available, Braben says he hopes to be distributing it within the next 12 months.

geek.com 5 May 2011

Brynne Edelsten - see behind the sequins

EVER since she wore that dramatic diamante bikini to the Brownlow Medal in 2009, Brynne Edelsten has become a firm fixture on the Australian social radar.

The 27-year-old Arizona native showed off her splashy style after marrying one of the nation’s most flamboyant sexagenarians in a $3m star-studded wedding bash at Melbourne's Crown Casino in November 2009.

Brynne waltzed down the aisle with Geoffrey, now 67, dripping in $500,000 worth of diamonds and even imported The Nanny’s Fran Drescher and Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander for MC duties.

Since then, Brynne’s celebrity status has well and truly eclipsed that of her husband - infamous for his excesses in life and in business as a medical entrepreneur.

She’s turned red carpet reporter for the Logies, delighted many with her unconventional wardrobe choices and has now landed a stint on Dancing with the Stars. Then there’s her aspirations to launch her own fashion line, develop a career in the media, and even become a mother....

But until that baby arrives, her Gucci-clad dog, Juddy - named after Carlton AFL captain, Chris Judd - is the focus of her attention.

The glamour girl, exclusively invited news.com.au’s cameras into the Melbourne love-nest she shares with her husband for a rare look behind the sequins.

VIDEO: Take a tour of the Edelsten residence in our video above.

The newlyweds have converted two double-storey apartments into one palatial pad, and recently bought the two matching apartments across the hall.

By the time they’ve finished renovating, the couple’s inner-city penthouse will be the largest residential apartment in Melbourne's CBD. But for now, the two vacant residences’ sole purpose seems to be to house Brynne’s generous collection of evening wear, hats and shoes.

A private lift, smoke machine, bowling alley and 46 plasmas are just some of the rest of the trappings of wealth enjoyed by the couple.

news.com.au

Another example of a mindless bimbo put on display by the mass media, as a pinnacle(?) of what exactly?

With no real contribution to society and the only claim to her material possessions is that they were bought by Mr. Edelsten.

A real role model to the impressionable children of the canon fodder or goyim (cattle).

Charities get extra $500m to help poor

CHARITIES will have at least $500 million extra to help needy Australians under a plan to slash red tape in the federal Budget.

It is expected the Gillard Government will provide $53.8 million over four years to establish an independent single regulator for the not-for-profit sector, something charity bosses have wanted for years.

But the Budget will also tighten the tax concessions for charities that run unrelated profit-making businesses.

As of July 1, they will have to pay income tax on any earnings from any newly created businesses that are not ploughed back into their core charity work.

Sources said traditional small-scale fundraising, such as lamington drives and fetes, would be safe.

The current maze of complex regulation is estimated to cost the nation's 600,000 not-for-profit and community organisations more than $500 million every year.

In some cases, charities are required to pay lawyers to make individual contracts with 20 or more state and federal departments, as well as commissioning fully audited reports costing thousands of dollars each.

The Herald Sun believes a new Australian charities and not-for-profits commission will start in July next year.

It will be independent, but will draw on the expertise of the Australian Taxation Office.

The commission will report to Parliament via the Assistant Treasurer.

The new regulator is also expected to have powers to investigate the finances of individual organisations that claim tax-exempt status.

It could even be able to remove the tax-exempt status of organisations found not to be acting in the public interest.

Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten and Social Inclusion Minister Tanya Plibersek said this year that charities and community groups needed relief from red tape to concentrate on their core business.

weeklytimes.com.au 7 May 2011 from the heraldsun.com.au

Here is another scam and Money for Mates deal that the masses are deliberately misinformed about.

In the Anglo - Masonic governance structure 'charities' play an important part of society. All Freemasons MUST give to charity.

In charities and 'non for profit' organisations the majority of funds given to the organisation are dispersed into wages, new vehicles, operating costs, etc.

Financial information from charities indicates that over 80% of the government funds are providing the organisation with wages, and running costs, whereas only a small amount of monies ( anything from 10 - 15% ) is ACTUALLY allocated to the cause, i.e. the recipients.

Charities employ friends of friends of government or the organisation's head in what can ONLY be described as a blatant Money for Mates deal.

The public is being conned that the $500,000,000 is going to the needy people.

Because a lot of people 'feed' of this system it is UNTOUCHABLE.

Apple's iPhone and iPad hacked in just six minutes

RESEARCHERS have exploited a security flaw in Apple's mobile devices, taking just six minutes to steal passwords from the iPhone and iPad.

Experts at Germany's Fraunhofer SIT have found that passwords are not secure, even if the mobile device has an encryption.

The institute also warned that businesses which use iPhones and iPads are being put at serious risk of security breaches.

"Within six minutes the institute’s staff was able to render the iPhone’s encryption void and decipher many passwords stored on it," Fraunhofer SIT stated.

"The flawed security design affects all iPhone and iPad devices containing the latest firmware."

For someone to hack the device, they need to have physical access to the iPhone or iPad. They can then link it to a computer, run a few basic software scripts, and locate the user's passwords and other sensitive information.

Fraunhofer's technical manger Jens Heider said many people believed the mobile device's encryption provided a sufficient safety net.

"This opinion we encountered even in companies’ security departments", Mr Heider said.

"Our demonstration proves that this is a false assumption. We were able to crack devices with high security settings within a very short time."

Experts were able to attack the passwords by exposing a flaw in Apple's password management system, known as the 'keychain'.

The testers did not need to break the 256 bit encryption to retrieve to the passwords stored in the device's keychain.

Rather, the encryption is independent to the personal password, which is designed to protect access to the iPhone or iPad.

Any device using the iOS operating system can be sabotaged in such a way, irrespective of the user’s password.

If your lost iPhone or iPad lands in the hands of a hacker, all they need to do is remove the SIM card and they can quickly extract your email passwords, banking information, medical records and corporate logins.

Researchers at Fraunhofer warn that control of an email account allows the hacker to acquire even more passwords for services such as Facebook and Twitter.

heraldsun.com.au 11 Feb 2011

One of the key objectives in the politics of globalisation is to have a database of all citizens in the hands of government and / or 'private' companies that are conducive to government policies.

This is achieved nowadays via many firms, the likes being Google, Facebook, Twitter, Credit Card companies, etc.

Products are being pushed to the non tech savvy masses, for example from Apple that monitor and store all your information.

Recently it has been uncovered that the iPhone stores all your movements locally, BUT in Apple's EULA there is mentioned that Apple can obtain this information.

Now it has been revealed that the so called secure or 'encrypted' information on your iPhone is easily accessible.

Apple is fully aware that the information on the iphone is NOT secure BUT fails to notify the users.

This is NOT an accident on Apple's behalf as the coding required to encrypt or leave the information in a text format is NOT accidental but rather deliberate.

Mashable - 'Stealing' your information.

Here is another company that says that it can do ANYTHING with your data.

When you login to mashable.com via a third party app, like facebook or twitter, then you agree to the following:

Access my basic information:

Includes name, profile picture, gender, networks, user ID, a list of friends, and any other information I've shared with everyone;

Send me email:

Mashable may email me directly;

Post to my Wall:

Mashable may post status messages, notes photos, and videos to my Wall;

Access my data anytime:

Mashable may access my data when I'm not using the application;

Access my profile information:

About Me and birthday.


This information held by Mashable can open up new possibilities to online fraud or false online identity to commit fraud.

The law is deliberately lax in policing companies on the net to safeguard user information.

If such information is leaked out onto the 'net company CEO's never see jail time as if the deed was done by a private individual.

There are many example of this. including the 'hacked' playstation Credit Card user details that made the news of late.

corpau.

Double whammy in the next Federal Budget

• Aussies set for financial pain in wake of tight Budget
• Economists believe Reserve Bank will life interest rate
• "Inflation figures are bad news for mortgage holders"

A FINANCIAL double-hit is destined to drain the pockets of struggling homeowners - a June interest rate rise just weeks after a penny-pinching Federal Budget.

And it all comes as living costs soar to new heights.

Economists now believe the Reserve Bank will be forced to lift its official interest rates when its board meets next month, stirred into action earlier than expected because of runaway inflation.

Having kept rates on hold since November, the RBA released a surprisingly hawkish report on the state of the economy yesterday, highlighting the need to lift its inflation forecasts for the next two years. It now expects underlying inflation - the best measure of the cost of living - to punch through the dangerous 3 per cent level by Christmas, one year earlier than it had predicted only two months ago.

The dire situation puts the Reserve Bank in a difficult and quite ironic position.

In a bid to rein in the surging cost of living, the bank has to raise interest rates and thus inflict more pain on household budgets.

Senior Westpac economist Bill Evans said the bullish inflation figures could only be viewed as bad news for mortgage holders.

It spelled one certainty - it's "go time" for the Reserve Bank with a 0.25 per cent hike in June an increasingly likely and untimely proposition, Mr Evans said,

"The change in the forecasts and the choice of words in the key paragraphs indicate to us that the [Reserve] Bank is likely to raise rates at its next meeting in June," he said.

"We have consistently argued the next move will be in the September quarter but a move in June has now become the more likely result."

Such a pre-emptive strike would put unprecedented financial pressure on homeowners, given that Westpac admitted this week that the number of customers defaulting on its mortgages were now higher than at the height of the global financial crisis.

In its quarterly report released yesterday, the Reserve Bank preached almost the same message to the rhetoric used in previous reports that preceded interest rate hikes, namely, the "need to ensure inflation remains consistent with the medium-term target".

That is RBA speak for impending rate hike, Mr Evans said.

daliytelegraph.com.au 7 May 2011


Here is another DIRECT assault on the middle class Australians.

This is deliberately designed to put this class into the POVERTY CLASS.

The article has stated that there is an increase in the cost of living i.e. the cost of goods has gone up.

The government produces fraudulent information regarding the official CPI rate. Most goods and services have gone up anything between 10 - 50%.

The claimed current inflation rate is at 3.33%

http://www.rateinflation.com/inflation-rate/australia-inflation-rate.php

other references:

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6401.0

Self-dusting Solar Panels Will Reduce Costs

Self-cleaning solar panel technology for use in Lunar and Mars missions could help increase the efficiency of solar panels on earth and reduce maintenance costs for companies, according to research presented to the American Chemical Society (ACS).

Researchers at Boston University developed the technology which can be used both in small- and large-scale solar panel systems. Said to be the only technology for automatic dust cleaning that does not require water or mechanical movement, it uses only a fraction of the electricity generated by the panels to remove 90 percent of dust deposited on it.

Currently less than 0.04 percent of global energy production is derived from solar panels, but study leader Malay Mazumder, from Boston University, says dedicating only four percent of the world's deserts to solar power harvesting could generate and completely meet global energy needs.

An emphasis on alternative energy sources and concerns about sustainability are already driving worldwide growth rates rapidly. The use of solar panels increased by 50 percent during 2003-2008, and forecasts suggest a 25 percent annual growth rate in the future. Currently the market size for solar panels is around US $24 billion.

Mazumder said: "A dust layer of one-seventh of an ounce per square yard decreases solar power conversion by 40 percent. In Arizona, dust is deposited each month at about 4 times that amount. Deposition rates are even higher in the Middle East, Australia, and India."

Large-scale solar installations already exist in deserts in the United States, Middle East, and Australia, where clean water is scarce, making it expensive to clean the solar panels.

The self-cleaning technology involves deposition of a transparent, electrically sensitive material deposited on glass or a transparent plastic sheet covering the panels. Sensors detect levels of dust on the surface and send a dust-repelling electrical wave across the surface when levels become too high.

It is hoped that the technology will play an important role in increasing the efficiency and reducing the maintenance costs of generating electricity from sunlight. The technology is expected to be available for commercial use in one year.

smarthouse.com.au 28 Aug 2010

Not old news BUT hidden away, and NOT on the front page of any solar installers website.

People are deliberately misinformed of the efficiency and power output of solar arrays in order for customers to make purchases.

Corrupt police fining motorists supported by the courts.

One of the greater silences in the mass media, is the corruption of the Anglo – Masonic legal system, and its victims.

Mass media headlines usually say that they do not understand why logically won cases have been lost, all too aware of the influences that the ‘brotherhood’ has in these matters.

The judicial system favours its members often dismissing matters where non masons are involved, as lack of evidence or just plain and simple dismissing with no valid reasons given.

In recent times Police have mounted an assault on motorists fining them for allegedly speeding and other road offences fraudulently.

Police are under pressure to be an ‘asset’ and to make money for the government, thereby falsely fining motorists, at an alarming rate.

The government has issued millions of dollars in fraudulent fines against the masses, BUT this information is kept strictly confidential in order not to cause unrest in the masses.

Many motorists are unaware that they have been ‘illegally’ fined, and are deliberately kept in the dark with respect to the information given to them, and are maimed into silence

The court system in structured in favour of the police, and this can been seen with its actions.

The processing of fines is once example of how the court system works solely toward its benefits.

The payment of offences is processed immediately, whereas if the motorist wishes to contest the fine it is done later in the day. Most people resign from fighting the fine as the whole day is to be spent in court, resulting in greater financial losses.

When the motorist fronts court, cases are dismissed by the magistrate in favour of the ‘system’ or police.

If judges give away too many verdicts in favour of the motorist, their livelihood can be under threat.

Many a road offense has been sorted out at the lodge BEFORE the due court date.

If the motorist on the rare occasion has proved to be in the right, ANY inconvenience is not paid by the system to the plaintiff.

If you inconvenienced the authority or court financial judgement is made against you.

Magistrates who are aware the police have made fraudulent statements against motorists do not reprimand the police officers involved, but rather dismiss the matter.

Corpau has documentation that shows police and the court system in Victoria and New South Wales is corrupt against the motorists.

The naming of the officers and magistrates involved serves no purpose as they are ABOVE the LAW, and only endangers the whistleblower involved.

The system does not hand out verdicts against itself.

Corruption is rife and will continue to be so, with governments and police denying any such allegations to be true, and anyone who exposes this will be dealt with accordingly by the government, with the first text book step of public character assassination

corpau

Telstra T-Hub 3 Times More Expensive Than An iPad

Telstra who is set to lose a billion dollars on fixed line income over the next couple of years is now trying to lure customers back to using a phone at home with a new social networking touch screen device that will cost a minimum of $2,651 which is 3 times more expensive than what the new iPad will be in Australia.

Telstra who is set to lose a billion dollars on fixed line income over the next couple of years is now trying to lure customers back to using a phone at home with a new social networking touch screen device that will cost a minimum of $2,651 which is 3 times more expensive than what the new iPad will be in Australia.

To use the new Telstra T Hub, you also have to have a BigPond broadband connection and a Telstra landline as well as a 13 digit account number.

Designed to generate data and voice revenue the device has a 7" touch screen and is plastered in Telstra services which when used generate more revenue for Telstra.

A Telstra press release says that the minimum Min cost is $2651 plus a $9.95 delivery fee and usage. The T-Hub Bundles are only available to new customers or those with a 13 digit account number. Prices for the T-Hub may vary at T-Life, Telstra Licensed Stores and Telstra's third party dealers.

Designed to be a be all end all device for the home it also has a music player, video player, digital photo frame program, digital radio, contacts book, notepad, White Pages, Yellow Pages, calendar and the ability to store content.

Yesterday consumer marketing division executive, Jenny Young, admitted that the device was all about getting more revenue out of consumers.

In February, Telstra reported a 6.9 per cent drop in revenue from fixed line services in the six months to December 31 with analysts now claiming that Telstra is facing a revenue black hole as consumer's desert home phone for mobile devices and new video services like Skype.

Telstra CEO David Thodey recently said "Our business is not selling devices; our business is selling broadband and fixed line".

A Telstra spokesperson admitted today that to get the full benefits of the new device which includes applications such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and MySpace the device has to be on all the time with questions now being raised about the amount of power that a device like this uses when connected all the time to a power grid.

smarthome.com.au

Another consumer rip off by the telco giant.

Now it has been discovered that the device draws too much power.