Massive solar tower will rank among world's tallest buildings

As reported at Gizmag, a full-scale solar energy project of truly towering proportions is brewing in the Arizona desert. EnviroMission is presently undergoing land acquisition and site-specific engineering to build its first full-scale solar tower, a massive 800-plus meter (2625 ft) stalagmite of high technology that will instantly rank among the world's tallest buildings. The tower's 200-megawatt power generation capacity is projected to reliably feed the utility grid with enough power for 150,000 US homes -- with virtually no maintenance for more than 80 years (?!) Tall order, or sky's the limit? You decide.

Oh, and by the way: Can the U.S. power grid even withstand such massive influx power from renewable energy sources?

How the Smart Grid will transform life as we know it

The social media news portal Mashable provides an in-depth breakdown and look into a topic we've covered before and are constantly seeking to cover more here at ICW, i.e. the rise of interconnected Smart Grid technology. As defined by Mashable, the Smart Grid is "a rapidly growing set of technologies, processes, devices and applications that affect and enhance the traditional electric grid [with technology enhancements] driven by exponentially growing demands worldwide for energy."

As reported by the social media site, the technology's rise reflects the far advances being made in Internet and mobile communications networks, as well as higher expectations from consumers regarding energy availability, rising energy costs and access to energy information. The Smart Grid will also be instrumental for integrating renewable energy sources including wind and solar into the mix of distributed utilities. The article goes on to provide perspective on Smart Grid developments and a breakdown of global Smart Grid areas of adoption.

Link: How the Smart Grid Will Change Your Life (mashable.com)

Apple iPad3 dock connector images leaked?

As reported at the tech blogs Tapscape and The APPera, the Taiwan website Apple.pro -- notoriously known for circulating leaked images of Apple devices ahead of formal release dates -- has done it again. This time, images reportedly leaked from Apple's internal inventory reveal a white dock connector with a 90-degree tail end for an iPad-like device -- speculated to be the iPad3, owing to the fervid amount of attention being paid to that device's anticipated release. No telling, however, whether the pictured connector might not actually be for the rumored iPad HD or even, it has been suggested, the quasi-mythical iPadPro tablets.

It's not the first time the rumor mill has swirled over these small, but not insignificant, parts of these no-doubt-soon-to-be-everywhere tablet devices. That it swirls at all may tell us something about how pervasive the footprint of this technology might very soon be.

Tearing down Apple's Thunderbolt cable

With a little help from their friends at iFixit, the technology watchdogs at Ars Technica have dug into the design of Apple's proprietary -- and, at a retail cost of $50, some might say pricey -- Thunderbolt I/O cable. The first Thunderbolt compatible peripherals (Promise's Pegasus RAIDs) started shipping this month, and use of them requires separate purchase of the cable. As reported by Ars's Chris Foresman, "We dug into the design of the cable to find out why Apple felt justified in charging $50 for some plastic-wrapped copper wire, and why Thunderbolt may have a hard time gaining traction outside of the higher-end storage and video device market—a fate similar to Apple's FireWire."