PARC Events

Collective Intelligence In Organizations: Toward a Research Agenda

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

February 06, 2010 |

A new generation of web tools is penetrating organizations after successful adoption within the consumer domain (e.g., social networking; sharing of photos, videos, tags, or bookmarks; wiki-based editing). These tools and the collaborative processes they support on the large scale are often referred to as Collective Intelligence (CI).

This workshop will focus on CI tools for collaboration in work-related settings, especially for task forces now increasingly common in industry and government. The workshop is aimed at refining the problem, summarizing pioneering work on CI in general (i.e., exemplars of practices and tools), and ultimately developing a research agenda that specifically addresses the problem of supporting CI among knowledge workers in organizations. Participants will present studies of task forces suggesting specific design requirements, CI tools, and/or new methods for empirical or design research on CI.

Call for Participation

The workshop aims to assemble a diverse set of participants with a research or practitioner interest for CI in organizations. Workshop participants should submit either a position paper (1500-2000 words) or extended paper (up to 8000 words) reporting more substantial research.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

Empirical studies of work practices in organizations: e.g., case studies of taskforces illustrating practices and design requirements Designs of new software tools or proof-of-concept prototypes supporting CI in task forces, communities; or in-depth evaluations of tools already deployed that support CI in organization Theoretical contributions on collective intelligence, crowdsourcing, and community-based learning in organizations, which can directly inform design and research Cases of multidisciplinarity research showing the interplay between field studies, analysis of requirements, and development of CI tools Deadlines & Process 20 November 2009 -- submissions should be sent as a PDF or Word attachment to ciorg@parc.com [2-3 researchers will review each submission; based on a shared evaluation scheme, the reviewers will assess the significance of the contribution, its relevance to the workshop themes, and its clarity] 18 December 2009 -- notification of acceptance [accepted paper titles will be posted here and shared through a wiki] 6 February 2010 -- workshop to take place [participants will be asked to prepare a brief summary and read all accepted position papers prior to the workshop] Outcomes

The 1-day workshop will focus on identifying and discussing the key themes and, ultimately, developing a research agenda.

Optical negative index meta-materials at near-ir wavelength

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

November 19, 2009 | 7:30pm - 9:30pm

The optical negative refractive index metamaterials (NIMs) are nanostructure-patterned artificial materials, which have both negative permittivity and permeability in the same frequency range, hence a negative refractive index. We have designed, fabricated and characterized various optical NIMs at near-IR (i.e. 1.55 m) range. Moreover, we also demonstrated the first tunable NIM, ultra-fast modulation of NIMs and the first third harmonic generation (THG) based on NIMs at near-IR range. Due to their unique properties, NIMs have a potential of applications, including e.g. sub-wavelength imaging, compact, efficient nano-photonic devices and ultra-high resolution nanolithography.

Visualizations of our collective lives [and] (Ab)using indentifiers: indiscernibility of identitiy

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

November 10, 2009 | 7:30pm - 9:30pm

Visualizations of Our Collective Lives, S. Joy Mountford, Osher Fellow, Exploratorium

The lines between art, design, and information are dissolving as we experience new places and objects. Consider, for example, the organic flow of air traffic over North America at daybreak, the bursts of search query memes spreading around the globe, and the pointillist surge of mobile phone usage on New Year's Eve. Using the new techniques of generative data visualization, a new generation of artist/designers/engineer/scientists are creating gorgeous, dynamic experiences driven by massive sets of data about our own lives. Their work comes to life in architectural spaces, on walls of wood and metal and light and shimmering glass clouds suspended overhead. Of course it must be touched to be appreciated and engaged with, simple gestures launch a thousand images and possibilities. Many of these projects have received international recognition. They are primarily 3D applications that can run in real time, but really can only be appreciated by watching them, as movies. These data movies aim to make information easier to understand while being enjoyable to watch. Surprising insights surface through looking at our 'data life' in new ways, and may compel us to design in different, even better ways.

(Ab)using Identifiers: indiscernibility of Identity, Ben Gross, doctoral student, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

People segment aspects of their everyday lives to manage their time, impressions, and relationships. Much of modern electronic communication hinges on digital identifiers--email addresses, instant messenger IDs, usernames, domain names, URLs, phone numbers, and social network IDs. These identifiers are increasingly relevant in shaping how we wish to present ourselves to others and how they present themselves to us.

Issues of privacy, security, and usability are intimately intertwined with our identifiers in ways we take for granted. What we think is reasonable, commonplace, or even possible in terms of protecting or violating online privacy shifts constantly. Recent developments in tools and techniques for tracking online behavior with Flash cookies and HTTP cache-control headers combined with advances in techniques to identify individuals from supposedly anonymized data sets should cause us to reevaluate what is possible.

Lasing on a sunny afternoon: from Einstein to Bell Labs to next-gen solar cells !

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

November 04, 2009 | 7:00-8:30

Laser tooling has historically been used for a number of routine production-line stages within both crystalline-silicon and thin-film cell and panel manufacture – performing mainly loss-preventative steps. With enhanced efficiencies being championed by almost every leading solar cell manufacturer to maintain competitiveness, laser-based tools now form the basis of new solar cell concepts, hitherto restricted to research laboratories and regionally-funded collaborations. This talk will start by reviewing pivotal timelines when the laser and solar industries overlapped since the start of the 20th century: followed by a review of the leading candidates for next-generation c-Si cell types beyond 2010 and why laser processing is vital to their success in the marketplace.

PARC model for innovation

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

October 27, 2009October 29, 2009 |

Don't miss this opportunity to share your experiences with your peers in the R&D community. This member-only event provides you with exceptional value, actionable ideas, and keen insights into topics such as:

Models for Innovation Long and Short-term effects of the Global Economy Removing Barriers between Industry and Laboratories (Federal and University) Creating New Business through Technology

The Singularity is Not Near: Slowing Growth of Wikipedia

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

October 25, 2009October 27, 2009 |

Prior research on Wikipedia has characterized the growth in content and editors as being fundamentally exponential in nature, extrapolating current trends into the future. We show that recent editing activity suggests that Wikipedia growth has slowed, and perhaps plateaued, indicating that it may have come against its limits to growth. We measure growth, population shifts, and patterns of editor and administrator activities, contrasting these against past results where possible. Both the rate of page growth and editor growth has declined. As growth has declined, there are indicators of increased coordination and overhead costs, exclusion of newcomers, and resistance to new edits. We discuss some possible explanations for these new developments in Wikipedia including decreased opportunities for sharing existing knowledge and increased bureaucratic stress on the socio-technical system itself.

Using the web to discover Inference, bias, and "private" data

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

October 23, 2009 | 11:00am - 12:00pm

Text content can allow unintended inferences. Consider, for example, the numerous people who have published anonymous blogs for venting about their employer only to be identified through seemingly non-identifying posts. Similarly, the US government's "Operation Iraqi Freedom Portal" was assembled as evidence of nuclear weapons presence in Iraq, but removed because it could be used to infer much of the weapon making process. We propose a simple, semi-automated approach to detecting text-based inferences prior to the release of content. Our approach uses association rule mining of the Web to identify keywords that may allow a sensitive topic to be inferred. While the main motivation of this work is data loss prevention we will also discuss how these techniques can be adapted to detect bias in product reviews and to assess the privacy of proprietary data.

Note: Most of this talk is joint work with Richard Chow and Philippe Golle.

Metal-clad Nitride Semiconductor Laser Diodes

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

October 22, 2009 |

We demonstrate nitride laser diode structures that employ evaporated Ag, sputtered Ag-Pd-Cu alloy, or sputtered ITO as waveguide cladding layers. The non-epitaxial films replace conventional p-AlGaN epitaxial upper-cladding layers used in typical InGaN laser diodes.

Optimization of MEMS devices

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

October 22, 2009 | 7:30pm-9:00pm

Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) Industry is working towards the goal of achieving optimum, reliable, efficient and cost-effective designs for the manufactured products. It is one of the significant fields which looks up for help from the Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) Optimization Industry. Typical interests are in a) determining the optimum design of the MEMS components when subjected to conflicting multi-objectives, b) understanding the relations between the input variables and output variables of the MEMS components, c) reducing the computational time to obtain the end results quickly, d) finding the optimum robust design which is not very sensitive to the uncertainties of the input variables, e) finding the reliable design at six-sigma level context. By carrying out the above list of interests manually and without a dedicated tool is quite a challenge but nowadays there are optimization software packages which do the job for us. In this presentation, different case-studies such as a) the thermo-electric actuator MEMS optimization, b)micro-mirror optimization, c)electro-statics structural optimization, d)gyroscope design optimization were analyzed and optimized to provide you with a proof of the easy, efficient, automated ways of performing the above optimization interests with a quality end-results using the sophisticated ANSYS & modeFRONTIER software tools.

Memorial for Robert Spinrad

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

October 20, 2009 | 3:00pm - 5:00pm

Dr. Robert Spinrad passed away on 2 September. He was a computing pioneer, technology visionary, and former manager of PARC.

To learn more about or share memories of his long and productive career:

read The New York Times obituary comment on our blog post visit the website dedicated to him

Sheryl Sandberg in conversation with Charlene Li

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

October 15, 2009 | 6:30pm -8:45pm

With more than 300 million active users, Facebook has become known worldwide for connecting people with their friends, family and other people they know. Now it’s also becoming a central way to connect with the businesses, celebrities, musicians and public figures people care about. Hear from Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg, about how the social Web is changing the way we connect, the number of people with whom we can stay connected and the new opportunities for businesses to connect with customers.

PLEASE NOTE FORMAT CHANGE: Registration/networking will begin at 6:30 p.m., with the program starting at 7:15 p.m. and concluding at 8:45 p.m. Light food and soft drinks will be provided during registration and networking.

To register online, click here.

Ultra-low-cost solar electricity

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

October 14, 2009 | 6:30pm - 8:30pm

Nanosolar combines an array of science & engineering intense innovations to produce ultra-low-cost solar electricity cells and panels which can be deployed with minimal balance-of-system cost. This talk gives an overview of the technology and explains why the Nanosolar approach is distinctly more cost efficient than others.

Wikimania 2009 redux

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

October 13, 2009 |

The annual international Wikipedia conference, Wikimania was held at the end of August. For those who couldn’t make it come hear a redux of the latest developments in the Wikipedia community and listen to some local area presenters share some of their results.

Guest-hosted by Adina Levin of SocialText, this evening will feature mini-presentations in a panel format sharing highlights from Wikimania 2009.

Some highlights include:

WikiTrust: "What should user reputation be on Wikipedia? Wikipedia Usability Initiative Lessons from WikiHow The slowing growth of Wikipedia: some data, models, and explanations

Panelists will include: Micah Alpern, Ed Chi, Jack Herrick

Core Memory: The Art of the Machine

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

October 09, 2009January 08, 2010 | 8:00am-5:00pm

Artist's statement: "I am drawn to the mundane, at least to what at first appears mundane. The 'average' is never that to me. While these images depict our machine past they also point towards our future as human and machine intertwine. This visuals mark a moment in history that may be as true a point of departure as the day Gutenberg completed his printing press.These photographs, I hope, reveal the human in the machine, and the machine in the human. Computers were people once. The word 'computer' comes from the 17th century and refers to a person or group of people who undertake complex mathematical calculations. In my photographs, a similar complexity unfolds from the simple toggle switch as it reveals binary, to hexadecimals, to visual. I try to show the act of creation in fields of switches and rivers of wiring. It is difficult to say whether these photographs serve as mirrors to the viewer showing us a cousin twice removed, or if they show the aspiration of an earlier time when inventors shaped their hopes for the future and without realizing, gave their designs, hands and eyes and mouth. Conscious or not, a visual parallel between wires delivering energy to mechanical memory and the neural pathways of human anatomy has been shown.. Seeing past specific byte and hard drive and wire, shows vein, nerve and human form. The beauty is both in the machine that shows and exceeds human imagination and, in the end, what a familiar and clearly human product that machine is."

If you would like to see this art exhibit anytime Monday-Friday please send a message to Lisa Fahey, our art program curator.

Controlling error propagation in mobile-infrastructure based localization

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

September 30, 2009 |

Iterative localization is one of the common schemes for obtaining locations of unknown sensor nodes when anchor nodes are relatively sparse in the network. The key idea is for a node to localize itself using its anchor neighbors, and then become an anchor for other unknown neighbors. The process continues until all nodes are localized or no nodes left can be localized. The major problem of the terative localization scheme is that it suffers from the negative effect of error propagation, where sensor noise results in estimation errors which then get accumulated and amplified over localization iterations. This paper proposes a computationally efficient error control mechanism to mitigate the error propagation effect for mobile-infrastructure based localization. In particular, we show how the error can be characterized and controlled in a mobile-assistant localization framework with angle-of-arrival type of sensing modality. Both simulation on a large scale and real experiments on a small scale have been conducted. Results have shown that our error control mechanism achieves comparable location accuracy as global optimization-based localization methods and has the advantage of being much more computationally efficient.

Sustainable Silicon Valley: Green team leaders information exchange

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

September 24, 2009 | 3:00pm - 6:30pm

Sustainable Silicon Valley is leading the Silicon Valley community to create a more sustainable future. We do this by engaging and collaborating with local government agencies, businesses, and community organizations to identify and help address the highest priority environmental issues in the Valley.

This meeting brings green team leaders in the Bay Area together in a meaningful way to share information. At this meeting you will have an opportunity to discuss topics that you told us in our recent survey were of most interest and value to you. This discussion will be in an "open space" conference format.

3 to 4 pm – (optional) orientation session for new green team leaders 4 pm to 6:00 pm Information Exchange for All Green Team Leaders 6:00 to 6:30 pm Social time/Networking

Light snacks will be provided.

Cost:

SSV partners Free Non-SSV Partners $45

Becoming a person of influence

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

September 23, 2009 | 7:00pm-9:00pm

Women who break into leadership get there by delivering results. Explore ways to gain a voice and a seat at the table in your organization. Learn to identify your six sources of influence, and understand the appropriate, effective use of influence within your organization.

Jo has a passion for helping women develop their leadership skills, confidence and presence, and specializes in helping women break into leadership in industries that have been traditionally considered 'a man's world', such as technology, finance and energy. Since 1998 Jo has developed and implemented coaching programs that have benefited women worldwide. Jo created the Women's Leadership Coaching Inc leadership coaching system, and has logged many thousands of hours coaching women who are in executive and management positions, or aspire to be.

She was named one of Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal's 40 people to watch under the age of 40 in 2006, and one of Silicon Valley's Women of Influence in 2008.

High aspect ratio solar cell gridlines by focused flow extrusion

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

September 21, 2009September 25, 2009 |

This presentation introduces a novel, non-contact, high-throughput, mask-less technology for direct-printing high aspect ratio silver gridlines on the front surface of solar cells. Narrower and taller front gridlines can increase the solar cell's current and decrease the series resistance compared to screen printed gridlines for an absolute efficiency gain of 0.3 to 0.9% depending on comparative geometries. The contact nature of screen printing also reduces the yield due to breakage and is an impediment to lowering cost by introducing thinner wafers. The purpose of this work is to provide a production-worthy drop-in alternative to screen printing to increase both cell yield and performance without requiring an additional plating step. To accomplish this, we developed a novel extrusion dispense method in which a viscous silver paste is squeezed into a multiple high aspect ratio beads within a printhead and then the beads are extrusion dispensed onto the substrate. The device is analogous to a multi-nozzle toothpaste dispenser. Importantly, this method uses the same basic material set (silver particles, glass frit, and viscous organic materials) that is used for screen printing. A separate dispensing print-station operates in parallel to print the bus bars onto the wafer. The silver ink flow can be focused to as narrow as several microns wide by 100 microns tall. Practical printed silver structures with fired dimensions of 50 microns wide and 30 microns tall have been printed. Test runs greater than 3700 prints in sequence have been completed. We have dispensed at speeds of up to 150 mm/second. The dispense speed enables greater than 1000 wafer per hour throughput from a single full-wafer-width multi-nozzle printhead. We have built compact, full-wafer width print-heads with up to 80 nozzles which can print <2 mm pitch gridlines on a 156 mm wafer in a single pass. Finer pitch nozzle arrays, down to 1 mm spacing have also been constructed. Starting and stopping the lines at the edges of the wafer is achieved by turning the dispense pressure on and off in coordination with the movement of the wafer below the print-head. Extrusion printed multi-crystalline silicon cells were fired and then compared to screen printed sister cells. In a rigorous 500 wafer experiment, the extrusion printed cells demonstrated consistently higher efficiency and higher yield.

Electrical performance tests on multi-crystalline silicon solar cells printed with extrusion, a novel metallization technology

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

September 21, 2009September 25, 2009 |

A novel approach to maximize the efficiency of silicon solar cells called extrusion printing has been developed at PARC. It is used to deposit contact-less, top contacts with narrow high aspect ratio lines to minimize the shading of the photosensitive front side. Theoretically, this technique is capable to increase the relative efficiency up to 5.5%. The purpose of this work is to demonstrate with experimental and theoretical (electrical) data, the capability of silicon wafers with co-extruded top contact metalization in comparison to the standard technique screen printing.

High-speed MEMS-enabled cell sorting

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

September 17, 2009 | 7:30pm - 9:00pm

The first Fluorescence Activated Cell Sorters (FACS) were developed over 40 years ago. These machines, now extremely sophisticated, are all based on sorting of an aerosolized stream of particles passing between electrostatically charged plates. While ideal for many research purposes, they have a number of limitations that make them difficult to employ for a growing number of emerging clinical applications. For instance, they do not have fully closed, easily sterilized, and disposable fluidic pathways, resulting in risks to both patient and operator. And, while capable of sorting more than 30,000 events per second, they are relatively slow when considered in light of the large sample volumes required for many emerging clinical applications. IMT has developed a novel cell sorting device that uses a micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) silicon microfluidic chip to separate a particular targeted cell population from a biological sample. This results in a system that is based on a sterilized, fully disposable, closed fluidic path. Furthermore, the system is capable of speeds greatly in excess of current sorters. These characteristics make the technology ideal for clinical applications.

Green IT & sustainability

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

September 16, 2009 |

What is the optimal balance between increasing production of energy and water vs. increasing efficient use of energy and water? How is advanced information technology making it easier to find this balance? What are the primary technologies and key companies offering potential sustainability breakthroughs on both sides of this equation?

Moderator, Nancy Pfund, Managing Partner, DBL Investors

Rich Lechner, Vice President, Energy and Environment, IBM Tony Prophet, SVP Supply Chain Operations, Hewlett Packard Mark Bernstein, President & Center Director, Palo Alto Research Center, Inc. Richard McCormack, SVP Server and Solutions Business, Fujitsu America John Skinner, Director of Marketing, Eco-Technology, Intel Corporation

Creating value with a smart technology scouting, acquisition and licensing strategy

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

September 13, 2009September 16, 2009 |

Frost & Sullivan’s flagship client event "GIL Global" is your bridge to accessing a community supporting senior executives’ and their efforts to accelerate the growth rates of their companies. Each year, thousands of CEO’s and their Growth Teams return to engage in this global community to explore actionable strategies, solutions, and growth processes that they can put to work in building a solid Growth Acceleration System. GIL Global is a "must-attend" for any organization serious about improving their performance in growth, innovation and leadership.

Bringing together this global network of today’s best thinkers, visionaries and thought leaders, Frost & Sullivan provides participants the opportunity to develop relationships with one another and take part in candid discussions focused on rethinking and strengthening their companies’ growth strategies.

Technology and economics of high-efficiency silicon photovoltaics

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

September 09, 2009 | 7:00pm-8:30pm

High efficiency silicon-based photovoltaics is widely regarded as one of the most competitive platforms for cost-effective solar energy. This presentation will cover key aspects of the technology and economics of high efficiency PV. An overview and some in-depth information on the full value chain, including starting materials, wafers, cells, modules, and systems, will be given. Financial information will include calculation of valuation metrics such as the levelized cost of energy (LCOE), how LCOE should and should not be used, and what the key levers are to reduce LCOE.

Design implications of behavioral economics [and] Rethinking education in the age of technology

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

September 08, 2009 | 7:30pm-9:30pm

Design implications of behavioral economics, David Fetherstonhaugh, IDEO

Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology, Allan Collins, Northwestern University

All around us, people are learning with the aid of new technologies. Children play complex video games, workers get advanced degrees through on-line courses, commercial learning centers prepare students for tests, and everyone on the web references Wikipedia. New technologies create learning opportunities that challenge traditional schools and colleges. These new learning niches enable people of all ages to learn on their own terms. People around the world are taking their education out of school into homes, libraries, internet cafes, and workplaces, where they can decide what they want to learn, when they want to learn, and how they want to learn.

These developments change how people think about education. This rethinking will take many years to fully penetrate our understanding of the world and the society around us. To be successful, leaders will need to grasp these changes in a deep way and bring the government's resources to bear on the problems raised by these changes. We will have to build our vision of a new education system around these new understandings. We are beginning to rethink the nature of learning, motivation, and what is important to learn. Further, the notion of a career has shifted, as has the way people transition back and forth between learning and working. Allan will help us understand the affordances of new technologies in support of a vision for education that will bring the new resources to everyone.

Central detection of malware

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

September 08, 2009September 11, 2009 |

A new paradigm for defending against malware using client-based reporting of events.

The future of the internet

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

September 03, 2009 | 9:30am

The goal of this workshop is to consider some of the ideas that would address the congressional goals but that do not fit neatly into any of the other workshops, in part because the ideas cross so many different topics. The workshop will also be an opportunity to consider some of the ideas that came up in earlier workshops but that deserve particular additional attention. In addition, this workshop will be a forum for considering the impact of developments over a longer time period that are important for the United States reclaiming and maintaining its leadership in broadband.

PARC Research Fellow, Dr. Van Jacobson, will be giving a panel talk titled One version of networking's future

Some of the other topics will be:

What might unmanaged (i.e. “over the top”) Internet TV become, and what would be the implications if it becomes popular? How can broadband Internet be used to maximum advantage as a medium of education and information? What might the Internet architecture look like in 10-20 years? What might competition look like in a fiber-to-the-premises world? How vulnerable is the Internet, how vulnerable are its users, and can we improve protection? Are there new spectrum management policies that might make more spectrum available for broadband?

The next cleantech blockbuster [following] PARC Forum on vehicle electrification

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

August 20, 2009 | 4:00-8:00pm

This week's PARC Forum on Vehicle electrification will be followed by the Wharton Energy Network's "The next cleantech blockbuster" panel discussion. Both events are free and open to the public. No registration is required (though if you plan to attend the 6-8pm event please RSVP to help estimate food needs); seating is on a first-come first-served basis. 4:00-5:00pm -- PARC presents PARC Forum speaker John Suh of General Motors speaking on "Vehicle electrification: Petroleum independence, vehicle types, charging infrastructure, and CO2 reduction"

5:30-6:00pm -- Light refreshments courtesy of the Wharton Energy Network

6:00-8:00pm -- Wharton Energy Network presents "The Next Cleantech Blockbuster Company" panel discussion featuring the following speakers and perspectives:

Emily Chiu - Formerly GI Partners - Moderator (Private Equity) Dharmesh Thakker - Advanced Technology Ventures (Venture Capital) Tom VonReichbauer - Tesla Motors (Electric Cars) Edwin Liu, PhD - Quanta Technology (Smart Grid) Carla Peterman, PhD Candidate, UC Berkeley (Academia) Jon Bonanno - The Keiretsu Forum (Angel Investor) Forrest North - Mission Motors (Electric Motorcycles/ Batteries) Erfan Ibrahim - Electric Power Research Institute (Think Tank) Ty Jagerson - Simple Energies

Fighting mobile malware: the need for a paradigm shift

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

August 20, 2009August 22, 2009 |

A review and comparison of current types of online fraud. A description of likely future trends, and why. Then a description of mobile malware and why it needs to be addressed.

Ink-jet printed electrodes for organic field-effect transistors

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

August 16, 2009August 20, 2009 |

Ink-jet printing is a desirable manufacturing technique for electronic devices as this mask-less, additive method should allow for integration of different electronic components over large substrate areas at low cost. In order to realize entirely jet-printed devices, appropriate printed electrodes for organic semiconductor-based field effect transistors (FETs) must be chosen. Typically, printable conductive inks are silver based, which often leads to poor energy level matching with the organic semiconductor. This report will study the use of both a nanoparticle silver ink as well as a soluble silver-complex ink and will show that by modifying the surface chemistry of the printed silver, though the use of self-assembly techniques (particularly thiol chemistry), the work function and wetting characteristics of the electrodes can be tailored. Combining these modified electrodes with organic semiconductors such as 6,13-bis(triisopropyl-silylethynyl) pentacene (TIPS-pentacene) yields high performance devices with field-effect mobilities > 0.5 cm2 V-1 s-1.

Electric energy storage: an essential asset in the smart grid

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

August 12, 2009 | 6:30pm-8:30pm

Dan RastlerI will review the current electric energy storage landscape; why utilities are interested in storage; key drivers; and then focus on specifically energy storage and PV renewable integration and current R&D efforts and plans.