David Geer Talks Tech
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Saturday, August 25, 2007
More on Sony recycling program; TeRK robotics education kits for all; Toshiba's 32GB SDHC cards! Courtesy of http://www.geercom.com.
Welcome!
The Sony Take Back Recycling Program, Part One
By all impressions, Sony’s free consumer electronics recycling program (debuting mid-September) should be a big hit with consumers and environmentalists.
For details about the program and how to take advantage of it, see the media release and blog entry at these links:
Sony media release;
Sony Electronics Blog entry.
For the deeper skinny, I invite you to peruse this first installment of an exclusive interview with Rick Clancy, Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications and host of the Sony Electronics Blog for additional tidbits.
(Note: This author is not compensated for posting this interview.)
Me: Rick, how much do you expect the Sony program to save Sony consumers and Americans in general by providing an avenue for proper recycling of Sony products?
Rick: Ultimately, our goal is to recycle a pound of end-of-life Sony products for every pound of new Sony products sold in the U.S. Sony Electronics is making a significant investment in this Take Back Recycling program.
There is no charge for consumers to recycle any Sony-branded products at the participating Waste Management recycling centers.
While we are starting modestly, our aim is to eventually have a WM depot within 20 miles of 95 percent of the American population.
Me: How does the program help Sony?
Rick: Eventually, we hope to be in a position to benefit from being able to reuse recycled components in the production of new products. Examples include plastic, metal and glass.
In the meantime, we know we are doing a good thing for the environment and hope that American consumers will step up to the idea of consumer electronics recycling.
Me: What are the other impacts Sony and consumers can expect from the program?
Rick: Consumers will have a free outlet for recycling their electronics products, including all Sony products at no charge and other manufacturers' products for a modest fee determined by Waste Management.
That said, we encourage other manufacturers to join the program so Waste Management can recycle their products at no cost to consumers as well at some point.
See coming blog entries for parts two and three of this exclusive interview.
The Carnegie-Mellon Telepresence Robot Kit (TeRK), appearing in this month’s Servo Magazine:
http://servomagazine.com/preview.php?issue=51
In my most recently published GeerHead column in Servo Magazine (August issue), I revealed some of the finer points of an educational robotics kit from Carnegie-Mellon University called TeRK.
Here are some tidbits on what you’ll learn about TeRK in this issue of Servo.
CMU created TeRK to aid robotics education for kids and adults around the globe. The affordable robot kit(s) teach robot construction and control using “recipes” rather than instructions.
Key parts come with the kits; many necessary parts do not. Some lessons you can learn from these kits are advanced.
Roboticists can easily control the resulting robots from a Web browser that connects through the Internet to a nearby wireless network, which communicates with the robots.
The robots are practical, useful tools and artwork fit for long-term applications. The kits are also re-usable for those who want to tinker with new designs repeatedly.
Toshiba delivers unprecedented 32GB SDHC cards:
http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2007_08/pr_j2201.htm
Available in Japan, January 2008, the new Toshiba memory cards rival the more-but-not-altogether common 4GB SDHC (secure digital high capacity) cards from other makers.
While SDHC cards are the favored choice among flash memory cards available today, the Toshibas will no doubt be the favored choice among SDHCs given their amazing capacity. (The SDHC cards have a theoretical capacity of 2,048GB.)
The downside is the thin selection of gadgets that support SDHC cards. You will have to invest in new devices if yours don’t support this technology.
Toshiba is releasing SDHC cards based on lesser capacities and special applications (mobile phones).
Best Regards,
David Geer
Geer Communications
Welcome!
The Sony Take Back Recycling Program, Part One
By all impressions, Sony’s free consumer electronics recycling program (debuting mid-September) should be a big hit with consumers and environmentalists.
For details about the program and how to take advantage of it, see the media release and blog entry at these links:
Sony media release;
Sony Electronics Blog entry.
For the deeper skinny, I invite you to peruse this first installment of an exclusive interview with Rick Clancy, Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications and host of the Sony Electronics Blog for additional tidbits.
(Note: This author is not compensated for posting this interview.)
Me: Rick, how much do you expect the Sony program to save Sony consumers and Americans in general by providing an avenue for proper recycling of Sony products?
Rick: Ultimately, our goal is to recycle a pound of end-of-life Sony products for every pound of new Sony products sold in the U.S. Sony Electronics is making a significant investment in this Take Back Recycling program.
There is no charge for consumers to recycle any Sony-branded products at the participating Waste Management recycling centers.
While we are starting modestly, our aim is to eventually have a WM depot within 20 miles of 95 percent of the American population.
Me: How does the program help Sony?
Rick: Eventually, we hope to be in a position to benefit from being able to reuse recycled components in the production of new products. Examples include plastic, metal and glass.
In the meantime, we know we are doing a good thing for the environment and hope that American consumers will step up to the idea of consumer electronics recycling.
Me: What are the other impacts Sony and consumers can expect from the program?
Rick: Consumers will have a free outlet for recycling their electronics products, including all Sony products at no charge and other manufacturers' products for a modest fee determined by Waste Management.
That said, we encourage other manufacturers to join the program so Waste Management can recycle their products at no cost to consumers as well at some point.
See coming blog entries for parts two and three of this exclusive interview.
The Carnegie-Mellon Telepresence Robot Kit (TeRK), appearing in this month’s Servo Magazine:
http://servomagazine.com/preview.php?issue=51
In my most recently published GeerHead column in Servo Magazine (August issue), I revealed some of the finer points of an educational robotics kit from Carnegie-Mellon University called TeRK.
Here are some tidbits on what you’ll learn about TeRK in this issue of Servo.
CMU created TeRK to aid robotics education for kids and adults around the globe. The affordable robot kit(s) teach robot construction and control using “recipes” rather than instructions.
Key parts come with the kits; many necessary parts do not. Some lessons you can learn from these kits are advanced.
Roboticists can easily control the resulting robots from a Web browser that connects through the Internet to a nearby wireless network, which communicates with the robots.
The robots are practical, useful tools and artwork fit for long-term applications. The kits are also re-usable for those who want to tinker with new designs repeatedly.
Toshiba delivers unprecedented 32GB SDHC cards:
http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2007_08/pr_j2201.htm
Available in Japan, January 2008, the new Toshiba memory cards rival the more-but-not-altogether common 4GB SDHC (secure digital high capacity) cards from other makers.
While SDHC cards are the favored choice among flash memory cards available today, the Toshibas will no doubt be the favored choice among SDHCs given their amazing capacity. (The SDHC cards have a theoretical capacity of 2,048GB.)
The downside is the thin selection of gadgets that support SDHC cards. You will have to invest in new devices if yours don’t support this technology.
Toshiba is releasing SDHC cards based on lesser capacities and special applications (mobile phones).
Best Regards,
David Geer
Geer Communications
Labels: sony recycling program take back terk robotics robot kits education toshiba 32GB SDHC cards
