Tom Raftery - Issue #2

Welcome everyone to the second of my weekly newsletters. I was bowled over when I saw that last week's edition had an open rate of 34% (which is very impressive, but then again, it was the first newsletter, and people were probably curious).We also had one only person unsubscribe after receiving it - a very low number which suggests that the targeting of the email is spot on.

It'll be a challenge to maintain the 34% number this week - especially seeing as this is a holiday weekend in a lot of geographies. Then again, that may actually help with the open rates. Let's hope we can match, or even improve on last week :)

Let's go...

The Internet of Things (IoT)

Two stories from the Internet of Things space caught my attention this week - the first goes into detail about things which need to happen before the Internet of Things becomes more mainstream (and one thing it misses mentioning is the need for better battery technology for remote, connected devices), while the second article talks about the vast potential the IoT has for hundreds of millions of people in India. Awesome stuff.

What needs to happen before IoT can change the world — thenextweb.com 5 things that need to happen before IoT can really shake things up.

Internet of Things to connect millions in rural India to mainstream | Zee News — zeenews.india.com The IoT connectivity also offers a host of development opportunities to untapped areas, including manufacturing and e-commerce to market local and traditional products.

Energy

Lots of love in the Energy space this week for solar power. Two of the better pieces I saw dealt with the continuing democratisation of solar - first there's rooftop solar, and for those with no access to rooftop solar (apartment dwellers, for example), the second article talks about the upsurge in shared solar.

With Solar, U.S. Rooftops Could Provide Nearly Half Of Nation’s Power :: Solar Industry — solarindustrymag.com The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has almost doubled its previous estimate of the total U.S. technical potential for rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) systems and has found that U.S. building rooftops could generate close to 40% of national electricity sales.

Love solar power but got no rooftop? "Shared solar" is coming for you. - Vox — www.vox.com Shared solar is a way for non-rooftop folks to directly support clean energy, while also supporting local jobs and economic development.

CleanTech (catch-all term so I can include other stories I liked!)

Apple announced new devices, and a new version of its mobile operating system at its Spring event this week. What was most interesting (to me) though, and went largely unremarked was the fact that Apple put its Environmental director Lisa Jackson onstage Immediately after CEO Tim Cook, to discuss Apple's latest initiatives around renewable energy for its facilities and supply chain, and sustainable forestry for packaging. So I wrote about that on tomraftery.com

Apple puts its environmental initiatives front and centre at its spring event – Tom Raftery — tomraftery.com   Apple held it's annual spring event yesterday in Palo Alto to make iPhone, iPad, and iOS related announcements (amongst others). However, this year for a change the first executive invited to address the audience was Apple’s vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives, former EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson. Lisa was greeted by warm applause which became…

Climate

Finally, there's a lot of hot air talked about climate change (sorry, couldn't resist), but you rarely find articles with a better data-science based pedigree than the ones on the FiveThirtyEight blog. They have a great piece this week on climate change, so obviously I included it here :)

When Will The World Really Be 2 Degrees Hotter Than It Used To Be? | FiveThirtyEight — fivethirtyeight.com Climate data is a fussy thing, with a bunch of different organizations measuring data against a bunch of different baselines. But all of them agree on one thing…

In conclusion

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