Tom Raftery's weekly newsletter - Issue #6

Welcome to Issue 6 of my weekly newsletter - thank you for your interest in the stories that I gather here.

This has been a week of tremendous highs, and terrible lows on the news front. I've put in as many of the good news stories as I could, and a couple of the bad news ones as well because it is important to be aware of them too, depressing though they may be. But, it is mostly good news :)

And so, onto the updates...

The Internet of Things (IoT)

In the Internet of Things space, Avery Dennison signed a deal with Evrythng to give a digital identity to clothing. While this may sound a little creepy - think of the transparency this gives us as consumers to see the provenance of our clothing 

And then Pfizer teamed up with IBM to use sensors on patients to track the efficacy of Parkinson's treatments - what a great idea 

Exclusive: Internet of Clothing Is Coming Through Huge Label Deal — fortune.com Labelling giant Avery Dennison has signed a deal with digital-identity firm Evrythng to give unique online identities to 10 billion items.

Pfizer joins up with IBM for internet-of-things collaboration - PMLiVE — www.pmlive.com Aims to develop an IoT remote monitoring system for Parkinson’s patients

Energy

Some amazing news in the Energy sector this week as it was announced that Saudi Arabia are going to set up a $2tn soverign fund to help the country break its dependence on oil revenues

The amount of wind energy installed globally is expected to nearly double in the next five years  - which, if it happens, will be an incredible achievement considering the amount already installed

And finally, in solar news, if you are based in California and thinking about having solar installed on your roof, today could be your lucky day. Sungevity have a great offer on solar. It is an online-only offer with no marketing spend, so the savings for homeowners on solar installations is in the order of $2k!

The $2 Trillion Project to Get Saudi Arabia’s Economy Off Oil - Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com

On April 25 the prince is scheduled to unveil his “Vision for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” an historic plan encompassing broad economic and social changes. It includes the creation of the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, which will eventually hold more than $2 trillion in assets.... The tectonic moves “will technically make investments the source of Saudi government revenue, not oil,” the prince says. “So within 20 years, we will be an economy or state that doesn’t depend mainly on oil.”

Global wind capacity to nearly double in next five years: GWEC — www.reuters.com Global wind energy capacity will nearly double in the next five years, largely led by further market growth in China, but also as a stronger industry emerges in the United States, the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) said on Tuesday.

Sungevity Online Solar Offer — sunshine.sungevity.com We harness the power of the internet to bring solar to the masses. To celebrate our 9th anniversary, we're making it even easier for California homeowners to go solar. For this online-only offer, we’ve cut marketing costs, sales costs—everything we could cut—to offer this unbelievable price.

CleanTech/Misc

Remember the Opera browser? Possibly not, it has been out of the news for some time. Well this week they launched a version of their browser with a built-in free VPN. I tried it out and it is awesome. I logged into my Netflix account using a US VPN and I was presented with a much larger catalog of movies and series! This will also be extremely useful on my laptop to keep my connection secure any time I'm using free wifi when I'm travelling. Everyone should use a VPN on public wifi. Now, thanks to Opera, you can. Free

A UK-based blind marathon runner is working with IBM to create technology which will allow him (and other visually impaired runners) to run independently

And German refugees are trolling the Far Right in Germany. They created video ads explaining how nice refugees are and are putting them on the anti-refugee videos being uploaded by the far right. How cool is that?

Opera Now Has a Totally Free and Unlimited Built-In VPN — gizmodo.com Dodging firewalls and masking your IP address usually requires firing up separate—often paid-for—software or plug-ins while you’re browsing. Now, though, Opera has its own free VPN baked right into the desktop browser.

How One Blind Marathon Runner Is Using Technology To Run Solo | Fast Company | Business + Innovation — www.fastcompany.com By collaborating with IBM, Simon Wheatcroft wants to give blind runners the tools to run independently.

German refugees use advertising to target anti-immigration YouTube videos - BBC News — www.bbc.co.uk German YouTube users searching for anti-immigration videos are being shown adverts of refugees talking about the prejudices they encounter.

Climate

The news on the climate front is very mixed this week. Check out the animation on the Bloomberg article about the Earth's temperature. It is a real sit up and take notice moment

A senior researcher at the NOAA, addressing an insurance conference in San Diego told the audience that sea level rise will, according to the latest data, be in the range of 3m (9 ft) by 2050-2060. This is far greater than previous estimates, and if it comes to pass will be catastrophic for most coastal cities, and small islands

But to counter that we have good news on the climate front. Over 170 countries signed the Paris Climate Agreement in the UN today. This is a tremendous validation of the extremely hard work done to forge the agreement

Earth's Temperature Just Shattered the Thermometer - Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com Only three months in, and 2016 will almost certainly be the hottest year on record.

Sea Level Rise Will Be Worse and Come Sooner — www.insurancejournal.com Think sea level rise will be moderate and something we can all plan for? Think again. Sea levels could rise by much more than originally anticipated, and m

Paris climate deal set to be signed by record number of states | Environment | The Guardian — www.theguardian.com About 170 countries are expected to sign today in a move the UN hopes will ensure early ratification of the deal

In conclusion

Thanks for taking the time to read this newsletter. I hope you found it interesting

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