eckersteins.com

The most significant part of the program, in which Microsoft is offering free certification and other technical training, is being done in a phased approach, starting with Washington state. The second component of “Elevate America,” available online immediately, is a Web site designed to help people with the basics such as creating a resume and send e-mail.

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Microsoft)

“At the federal, state and local level, leaders are working together to help start the engine of economic growth. The private sector provides much of the spark needed to jump-start that engine,” Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire said in a statement. “Washington state is pleased to be the first state to partner with Microsoft to provide Elevate America to our residents.”

Passman

It is not clear just how much the program will cost Microsoft. “The total value of the investments will depend on the number of vouchers that will be utilized, and the mix of courses and certifications taken,” a company representative said in an e-mail. “The investment also includes cash grant and software donations to community-based organizations to enhance their technology capacity to deliver these programs.”

As part of the Elevate America program, Microsoft is working with state and local governments and hopes to offer 1 million vouchers for e-learning and certification classes.

Microsoft is announcing on Sunday a job training effort aimed at giving technical skills to as many as 2 million Americans over the next three years.

Microsoft’s move comes as the United States has shed millions of jobs, a small number of which came from Microsoft itself as the company announced its first companywide layoffs last month.

“Millions of individuals don’t have the technology skills needed in today’s economy. Through Elevate America, we want to help workers get the skills they need to succeed,” Pamela Passman, Microsoft’s VP for corporate affairs, said in a statement.

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GE)

Peak shaving

In addition to saving an individual home’s energy consumption, smart-grid technologies are supposed to deliver benefits to the grid at large. For example, better controls over the flow of energy means that more wind and solar power can be used.

But in practice, most utilities only offer a flat rate, not time-of-use pricing. And consumers will need to learn to navigate a variable pricing schedule to get any savings.

The way to address those concerns is to ensure that data sharing and demand-response programs are voluntary, said Bob Gilligan, vice president of transmission and distribution at GE. Even though GM appliances will have a module built in to communicate with a smarter meter, consumers don’t need to establish that connection, according to GE.

In terms of data privacy, Gilligan said at this point consumers elect to send detailed usage data to the utility, but the rules on data collection aren’t fully fleshed out. “There are concerns that still need to be addressed in terms of the regulatory structure,” he said.

In New York, for example, thousands of megawatts of power generation are used only 10 percent of the time to deliver sufficient electricity during times of very high demand, such as the middle of a hot summer day when the air conditioning load shoots up.

At smart-grid conferences, there are often representatives from the AARP who voice concern over whether the elderly will be comfortable with the new technology, noted Juan de Bedout, technology leader for power conversion systems at GE research center.

Olnick said giving consumers more detailed information on their usage, such as which appliances consume the most energy, is useful for consumers because it helps them find ways to conserve. But more smart-grid applications are needed to keep consumers interested and engaged over time, he said.

GE also showed off the Home Energy Manager, a device that gives consumers more details on energy consumption and a way to program their appliance preferences. For example, a person can allow the clothes dryer to go into “conservation” mode when the utility signals through the smart meter that peak prices are in effect.

Consumer control

Some people have also voiced concerns over privacy with smart meters and control in demand-response programs.

Most people will want to take a “set it and forget it” approach to home energy management, where they set up appliances according to few parameters, Gilligan said. For example, a homeowner can allow a utility to adjust the temperature on the hot water heater when nobody is home and allow the thermostat to go up 4 degrees during peak times when people are home.

“There’s a lot of good technology that fits into the smart-grid concept, but the challenge frankly moving forward is getting consumer acceptance, not just today but in the future,” said Bryan Olnick, senior director of the Meter Service department at Florida Power & Light. The city of Miami is hoping to land government stimulus money to install smart meters through its entire city.

For that reason, many smart-grid technologies, including GE’s home appliances, are aimed at ratcheting down the load during peak times. A drier could get a “price signal” about peak rates via the smart meter and shift to conservation mode. The clothes will take longer to dry, but the consumer would get a discounted rate for easing the load on that grid.

Also, feedback systems and in-home energy displays can be daunting to many consumers. Baltimore plans on equipping homes with a small orb that turns from green to red to signal peak times.

Photos: GE’s smart grid kitchen of the future

But industry executives still wonder whether consumers will be drawn to products like energy displays and networked appliances. And tepid acceptance of smart-grid technologies could cut short the benefits of higher grid efficiency, they said.

“Consumers want to do something about the environment. They want to do the right thing, but they say they just don’t know what that is,” he said. “And they are looking for ways to save money.”

During a panel on Tuesday, Stan Blazewicz, the vice president of technology at utility National Grid, joked that he was surprised three out of five survey respondents claimed to know what the smart grid was. That said, it is clear that a significant number of consumers are concerned over the environment, primarily climate change.

Images: The many faces of the smart grid

“There’s a big challenge in the human factors, making sure that interfacing with people works,” he said. “It has to be simple.”

Kevin Nolan, vice president of technology for GE's Consumer & Industrial unit, shows off GE's demand response appliances and Home Energy Manager at GE's smart grid symposium at its Global Research Center in upstate New York.

General Electric on Tuesday hosted a symposium of utility industry executives at its research lab here, where the company showed off appliances due next year that communicate with smart meters to take advantage of cheaper electricity rates.

NISKAYUNA, N.Y.–Modernizing the electricity grid to be a more efficient and reliable smart grid will bring a number of societal benefits. That is, if consumers are up for it.

These sorts of goods promise to help consumers cut their utility bills without much added expense–GE forecasts its “demand response” appliances will cost about $10 more.

In its smart meter program announced Tuesday, Baltimore Gas & Electric, proposes giving consumers a rebate when they dial down energy use during peak times, rather than time-of-use rates.

GE said its smart appliances can automatically shift to low-consumption mode based on a price signal from a utility. In other cases, the utility could dial down a thermostat or pool pump directly, something that some people view as intrusive.

Utilities and regulators are particularly keen on shaving their “peak load,” which typically corresponds to the morning hours and the late afternoon to early evening. To supply electricity during high-demand periods, utilities turn to “peaker plants,” which are expensive and polluting.

On Tuesday, GE released results of a survey done by Ipsos that found three out of five consumers in the U.K. and U.S. are interested in the pricing structure behind electricity bills. Half of the respondents in the U.S. and over one-third in the U.K. said they would be willing to pay a higher monthly rate if they were able to cut overall energy costs by 15 percent.

Coda Automotive will introduce its China-manufactured sedan in California next fall. Other planned all-electric sedans include Mitsubishi’s iMiev and Detroit Electric namesake car.

Think, originally formed when Ford sold it to outside investors, hit financial problems in December and had to stop production. It has spent the last months rebuilding and expects to have a court date in August that should allow it to emerge from bankruptcy protection, Andrews said.

“We’re the only one out with a fully integrated E.V. drive system,” Think’s CEO, Richard Canny, told The New York Times. “It’s an opportunity to get further volume and scale on the technology we already have. And it helps us get better pricing on components and further our development of E.V. drivetrain systems.”

Nissan on Monday said the Leaf, an electric sedan with a 100-mile range and a set of online features . will be available for sale next year.

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Think Global)

Norway-based Think is at the forefront of a wave of electric sedans that are expected to come to market in the next few years. Although the range is limited in on these electric cars, automakers expect it’s sufficient for consumers’ daily commuting needs.

The company is also looking at a handful of states in the U.S. where it would produce the Think City, which has a top speed of 65 miles per hour, for sale in the U.S. The Think City is a two-seater hatchback, but the company is also working on a four-seater big enough for two adults and two children, Andrews said.

It also has developed a business to sell its power train to third parties. The Japan Postal Service, in a deal initiated by battery supplier EnerDel, has signed on to test the power train in thousands of its vans.

Think, which plans to make a small all-electric car, expects to secure a fresh round of funding and emerge from bankruptcy next month, according to a company representative.

The Think City: rearing to go.

Settling its debts and boosting its capital will allow Think to start producing its electric city
car by the end of year. If all goes as planned, the company hopes to start shipping the Think City, a highway-capable electric car with a 100-mile range, to European customers by the end the year, company spokesperson James Andrews said Tuesday. Already, 2,500 people have ordered cars.

Google plans to start paying non-employee directors on its board in cash, just after tossing them a hefty restricted stock award.

Google used to merely “reimburse our directors for reasonable expenses in connection with attendance at board of directors and committee meetings,” according to its 2009 proxy statement, but like most companies has also awarded stock to directors who don’t otherwise work for the company. However, with several longtime board members in place who are no longer seeing meteoric rises in Google’s stock, it seems the company decided to sweeten the pot with guaranteed money.

In a filing with the SEC Friday, Google revealed that it will be breaking with tradition by deciding to pay directors not employed by the company $75,000 a year in cash and $350,000 a year in restricted stock grants. In addition, those non-employee board members (John Doerr, John Hennessey, Arthur Levinson, Paul Otellini, Ram Shriram, Ann Mather, and Shirley Tilghman) will also receive a one-time stock award worth $500,000, though Mather and Tilghman will have to wait awhile to participate in the new compensation plan because their previous stock awards have not fully vested.

“Our directors who are fully vested are functionally not being compensated. In order to continue providing them appropriate compensation, we’ve put in place a traditional compensation structure similar to that used by many of our peers,” a Google representative said in a statement.

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, however, was used to working without compensation during his three-year stint on Apple’s board of directors, which ended this week. Schmidt received all kinds of Apple gear and a “commemorative gift” while on the board, according to Business Week, but was not paid for his services at Apple in either cash or stock.

Adams died in 1848, right around the time that people first started flooding the San Francisco Bay Area in search of quick money. Except then it was in the form of gold, not venture dollars from Sand Hill Road.

As an Associated Press article explained, “a high school student touring the sixth U.S. president’s archives recently noticed his bite-sized diary entries looked a lot like tweets.” Most of the entries in question date back to Adams’ days as a U.S. minister to Russia, which makes you wonder if @AKGovSarahPalin (or whatever her post-gubernatorial Twitter username may be) will be tweeting that she can see him from her house.

A sample: “Thick fog. Scanty Wind. On George’s Bank. Lat: 42-34. Read Massillon’s Careme Sermons 2 & 3. Ladies are Sick.” Yup, sounds about right.

Don't worry, John Quincy Adams will not be tricking you into clicking on the Rickroll video.

John Quincy Adams might not be re-tweeting Ashton Kutcher and Shaq anytime soon, but he does have a Twitter account now. The Massachusetts Historical Society has launched a Twitter account, @JQAdams_MHS, and will officially start tweeting Adams’ personal diary entries on Wednesday.

The film studios claimed in a 2008 lawsuit that RealDVD and Facet, Real’s proposed DVD player that copies and stores films, violated copyright law. After hearing arguments from Real and the studios, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Patel agreed.

Her decision to halt sales of RealDVD and Facet after hearing the evidence in the case marked an important victory for Hollywood. Critics say it gives the studios absolute control over the functionality of DVD players. That means, according to groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the studios can and will thwart innovation.

The Motion Picture Association of America, the trade group representing the studios, says it has worked closely with technology companies to legally deliver digital films and shows. The MPAA denies being an enemy of innovation.

Real hasn’t indicated what arguments it will make. Regardless, Real’s chances of getting the decision overturned aren’t good.

There’s not much lost in giving it a try, as the costs of an appeal are relatively a drop in the bucket compared to what Real has already spent, according to legal experts.

RealNetworks, a maker of media software, has said it will file an appeal and ask that a district court decision to ban sales of its DVD-copying software, RealDVD, be overturned.

In August, a federal district judge issued a preliminary injunction to halt sales of the $30 software, which enables users to create digital copies of DVDs and then store them on a hard drive. Real said in court documents that sometime before November 9, the Seattle-based company will file an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Copy of RealNetwork's Notice of Appeal. Click on the image for a PDF.

As far as appellate courts go, the Ninth Circuit has a long record with big technology cases, Howell noted. Probably the most important case was MGM vs. Grokster. In that case, the Ninth Circuit issued a favorable ruling for Grokster but it was later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“What they’re going to argue is that somehow the legal basis for the injunction is wanting,” Howell said. “They will say that there has been an error of law somewhere along the way but they’re going to try and undo the injunction. Real is facing an uphill battle.”

It’s important to remember, Real’s appeal will address only the injunction and the case itself will continue to move toward a jury trial unless it is stayed pending a resolution of the appeal, according to Denise Howell, an appellate and technology lawyer.

The injunction hearing also attracted a lot of attention because the case was supposed to help determine whether consumers possess the Fair Use right to make digital copies of their film discs. But in her injunction ruling Patel left that question for others to answer.

According to Thursday’s Bloomberg story, which cited unspecified “communications” between the two executives, Colligan in August 2007 said that Jobs’ proposal was ill-considered. Jobs was worried about losing key Apple employees to Palm and said “we must do whatever we can to stop this,” reported Bloomberg.

Tensions often run high between tech companies over executives moving between potential competitors. Apple last year got into a high-profile scrape with IBM over its hiring of Mark Papermaster from Big Blue.

A number of top figures at Palm once worked at Apple. Two months before the August 2007 communications cited by Bloomberg, Palm had announced that former Apple CFO Fred Anderson would be joining its board of directors and that Jon Rubenstein, who retired as head of Apple’s iPod division in 2005, would join as executive chairman of the board.

Two years ago, Palm’s then CEO, Ed Colligan, rejected a proposal from Apple chief Steve Jobs to promise not to hire each other’s employees, according to Bloomberg News.

In June of this year, Palm named Rubenstein as its CEO, replacing Colligan.

“Your proposal that we agree that neither company will hire the other’s employees, regardless of the individual’s desires, is not only wrong, it is likely illegal,” Colligan told Jobs, according to the communications reviewed by Bloomberg.

There’s no love lost of late between the companies, with the Palm Pre a new up-and-comer for smartphone market share against the Apple iPhone. The two have most recently been squabbling over the Pre’s compatibility with iTunes.

The Bloomberg story comes as the Justice Department is reportedly checking into possible hiring collusion among leading technology companies.

In August, former Apple staffer Jeff Zwerner became Palm’s brand design chief. Other Apple execs who have jumped ship to Palm in recent months include Senior VP of Product Development Mike Bell and PR head Lynn Fox.

Fireside chat with Google's Andy Rubin, left; Jha, center; and Om Malik, right.

(Credit:
Josh Miller/CNET)

One of the halls at Mobilize '09 in San Francisco, where Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha will soon speak.

10:44 a.m.: Now he’s getting into the other aspects of the phone, the ability to link calls with mapping software, remote wipe capabilities, and such. All your contacts and social-networking profiles are stored in the cloud, so that if your phone gets stolen you don’t really lose any data when you remote-wipe the phone. Cole Brodman, CTO of T-Mobile, comes up on stage.

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Josh Miller/CNET)

10:49 a.m.: Streamlining the flood of social-networking information is an interesting way to look at a mobile phone, Brodman says, and he praises Motorola for the idea. People want a single device with a single service that can blend business and personal networks and uses. He puts the Cliq as a fourth-quarter introduction, and it will come in two colors, winter white and titanium. T-Mobile plans to give it a lot of play, he says.

10:36 a.m.: He’s going to talk about two devices, one that he’s going to demonstrate today and another that will be shown off in a few weeks, with a launch in time for the holiday season.

10:31 a.m.: This is shaping up as your garden-variety mobile-is-the-future keynote so far, as Jha points to the huge gains in mobile subscribers in the U.S. while noting that emerging markets provide an even bigger opportunity. That mobile adoption is changing the way people communicate, he says, leading to the rise of things like Facebook and Twitter where you’re always connected and always broadcasting.

(Credit:
Josh Miller/CNET)

10:54 a.m.: Jha’s winding down, urging attendees to follow Motorola on Twitter. So there you go: Motorola announced two phones, the Cliq and the Dext, both of which will come with the Motoblur social-networking aggregation service. They’re setting up for the next part of this talk, a panel discussion involving Jha, Google’s Andy Rubin, and GigaOm’s Om Malik. (Clarification: During the presentation, Motorola presented the new device as two phones, one called the Cliq and one called the Dext. In reality, there is just one device, but it will be sold under different names. The phone will be known as the Cliq in the U.S., and it will be sold under the Dext name worldwide beginning in 2010.)

10:47 a.m.: Brodman’s company has been one of the highest-profile backers of Google’s Android, and he spends a few minutes reviewing the accomplishments of Google and Android’s developers. Brodman is going back and forth between calling the Blur a phone and a service, further confusing the issue.

Motorola's new Cliq, photographed after the keynote and panel discussion.

Jha introduces Motoblur, which syncs multimedia from all your favorite social-networking apps.

The Motorola Dext.

10:59 a.m.: Om asks Andy Rubin how the smartphone has the potential to disrupt everything, not just the tech industry but other industries, like trucking. Rubin notes that phones benefit from Moore’s Law just like PCs and are starting to approach the performance of PCs from five years ago. It’s about connecting to the Internet, really, and phones are just the new and interesting way of getting there, he says.

10:42 a.m.: Jha has yet to discuss the phone’s browser or other capabilities, devoting the entire discussion so far to the social-networking applications of this phone. It’s still not clear whether this is an actual phone or a mega-application that Motorola has developed for its Android phones.

10:57 a.m.: Om asks Sanjay to clarify the definition of “smartphone,” a word that has been bandied about ever since Apple launched the
iPhone. A rich browser is key, Jha says, although different companies have different definitions. Om wonders if a smartphone is a communications device first and a phone second, and Jha says priorities differ but voice is still very important.

Editor’s note: What follows is our live coverage of Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha’s speech at Mobilize ‘09 in San Francisco Thursday, where Jha introduced Motorola’s first phone running Google’s Android operating system. Jha’s speech was followed by a panel discussion with Google’s Andy Rubin and conference host Om Malik of GigaOm. During the presentation, Motorola presented the new device as two phones, one called the Cliq and one called the Dext. In reality, there is just one device, but it will be sold under different names. The phone will be known as the Cliq in the U.S., and it will be sold under the Dext name worldwide beginning in 2010.

11:11 a.m.: What will the mobile Internet look like in 2011? Context-awareness is important, Jha says, and things like health care and fitness will be just as important as multimedia, which will get a huge boost from faster 4G networks. Rubin says the Web needs to move forward as a platform, hewing to Google’s company line about the browser becoming the future development platform for application.

11:02 a.m.: Om asks Rubin how Motorola became interested in Android, and Rubin politely avoids pointing out that Motorola had little choice, having failed to get traction for its Linux phones and watching Windows Mobile development fall behind that of other operating systems. Jha describes the partnership between Google and Motorola as “two drunks in a bar” who needed each other and found each other, which is up there with the most eyebrow-raising things I’ve heard a CEO say on stage.

(Credit:
Josh Miller/CNET)

10:46 a.m.: Brodman calls Motoblur a service, so we’re finally getting a clear picture. The other phone is the Motorola Cliq, and it will be available in time for the holidays, Brodman says.

11:09 a.m.: Om asks Rubin and Jha how they would improve the iPhone. Jha says he’s been focused on improving Motorola’s phones, which pretty much everyone would agree needed some work.

Rubin and Jha, holding Motorola's new Cliq.

11:11 a.m.: That’s going to be all from UCSF Mission Bay. We’re going to get a much closer look at the Cliq phone and Blur service later today, with CNET Reviews’ Kent German and Bonnie Cha sharing their thoughts over the course of the day. Thanks for hanging out with us this morning.

Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha takes the stage.

10:51 a.m.: Jha comes back on stage to praise T-Mobile, and share additional details about the phone. It’s got Wi-Fi, a 5-megapixel camera and video recording at 24 frames per second, a standard headphone jack, an HTML browser from Google that sounds like the standard mobile Chrome browser, turn-by-turn directions, and access to Android Market apps.

Motoblur

(Credit:
Josh Miller/CNET)

The Cliq has social skills and comes in two colors…'for all you fashionistas.'

10:53 a.m.: Motorola plans to take Motoblur global next year, introducing the service across phone lines. The Dext will be the other phone, and it will be available next year on certain carriers that flashed by quickly, we’ll get confirmation on that later.

(Credit:
Josh Miller/CNET)

(Credit:
Josh Miller)

10:24 a.m. PDT: We’re in place here at the UCSF Mission Bay Conference Center for Mobilize 2009, where Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha is about to take the podium. There are about 250 people crammed into one of those college-style amphitheater lecture halls awaiting the expected debut of Motorola’s first Android phones. Let this serve as your two-minute warning.

11:04 a.m.: Om asks Jha about Palm, and Jha wisely decides not to take the bait. He calls the development of the mobile world “the biggest technology opportunity” at present and says that there’s plenty of room for a lot of different types of companies to do well in this market.

10:33 a.m.: It’s not just phones that are going mobile, Jha says, but smartphones are the “backbone” of the mobile industry. He rightly points out that nobody knows exactly how to define the term “smartphone,” although you need basic things like big screens, anytime wireless, and a multithreaded multitasking operating system. That operating system, Jha says, is Android.

(Credit:
Josh Miller/CNET)

(Credit:
Josh Miller/CNET)

(Credit:
Josh Miller/CNET)

(Credit:
Josh Miller/CNET)

11:08 a.m.: Om asks Rubin which came first: the Android OS or iPhone OS? Rubin says he doesn’t know, but notes that people who work on operating systems tend to bounce around doing that kind of work. Om jokingly dings Rubin for avoiding the question, although Rubin points out that Apple is sort of secretive about its work.

11:04 a.m.: Om asks if this is Motorola’s comeback play, and Jha calls it “a start.” The Motoblur service will be a huge part of Motorola’s strategy over the next 18-20 months.

10:37 a.m.: Social networking is a key app for mobile phones. Jha makes the dubious claim that the “vast majority” of social-network users have a presence on the Holy Trinity of social: Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. Still, there’s no denying that mobile and social networking go together, with large numbers of people accessing their social networks on phones.

Motorola Cliq up close.

10:34 a.m.: Motorola likes Android because it was designed for smartphones from the beginning, Jha says. The company was a founding member of Google’s Open Handset Alliance and has contributed engineers to the project. That being said, there are an awful lot of choices in the mobile market right now, and people want choices in their phones, Jha says. That’s why Motorola plans to develop a range of smartphones tailored to different needs.

Jha talks about what makes a smartphone, with emphasis on the last item.

(Credit:
Josh Miller)

Jha and Cole Brodman from T Mobile after introducing the new phone.

10:40 a.m.: First announcement: Motoblur. It’s seems to be a phone designed around one of those river-like streams that brings together all your different social-networking profiles, at least according to the video we’re watching. It has a special user interface designed to bring those social-networking applications to the forefront, a screen that can show off tweets, status updates, and let you update your own status from the phone. A social-networking phone?

10:29 a.m.: Kevin Tofel of GigaOm’s jkOnTheRun takes the stage for the cell phone warnings, and to introduce Sanjay Jha. Jha says he’s going to focus on broadband wireless, with a nod to the “tremendous change” in the last year or so as high-speed wireless becomes widespread. He’s defining that as 500Kbps.

CEO Glenn Britt told investors during Time Warner Cable’s second-quarter earnings call on Wednesday that the company will begin reselling wireless service through Clearwire starting this fall in Dallas and Charlotte, N.C.

Comcast has already begun reselling the Clearwire WiMax service, which it calls High-Speed 2go, in Portland and Atlanta. Comcast is offering the service at the promotional price of $49.99 per month for a year.

“We see wireless as complementing wireline,” he said.

Clearwire uses a technology called WiMax, which offers faster speeds than current 3G wireless technologies, but offers wider coverage than other high-speed wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi. Clearwire claims that it can provide up to 4 megabits per second for downloads and 500 kilobits per second for uploading, which is more than double what consumers can expect using a 3G wireless connection.

Clearwire also sells service in every market where it’s launched. The service called Clear starts at $20 per month for in-home wireless broadband. And its mobile Internet plans start at $40 per month. Customers can also get a day pass for $10. The company also allows customers to add voice service to their in-home package for $25 per month.

Sprint Nextel is also reselling the Clearwire WiMax service in certain markets, such as Baltimore. The Sprint service offers laptop users the option of using the 4G WiMax network where it’s available and Sprint’s 3G wireless network where it’s not available.

Britt didn’t disclose product offerings or pricing, but he said that investors will hear more details about the new service later. But it’s likely that Time Warner will bundle the 4G wireless service into its cable modem broadband services.

Clearwire’s service is up and running in a few cities, including Atlanta, Baltimore, Las Vegas, and Portland, Ore. And the company has plans to roll it out in more markets this year and into 2010.

Time Warner Cable will soon be offering a 4G wireless broadband service using Clearwire’s WiMax network.

Time Warner Cable invested in Clearwire in 2008 joining fellow cable company Comcast, as well as tech giants, Google and Intel. The companies contributed a total of $3.2 billion to the new company. Sprint Nextel also invested in the new Clearwire and is allowing it to use its 2.5 GHz wireless spectrum to build the nationwide network.

(Credit:
Giulio Sbarigia)

So it should come as no surprise that the next-gen device, introduced by Italian product developer Giulio Sbarigia, is even smaller and faster, and bears some resemblance to the
iPhone.

Designed by Pelikan, Sbarigia describes his device as ergonomic, with 50 tiny needles that are easy to load, supposedly painless, and leave no lesions behind.

Blood glucose monitoring has improved greatly in recent years, with devices getting smaller, cheaper, and faster–a good thing, since almost 8 percent of Americans are diabetic, according to some estimates, and are encouraged to monitor their blood glucose levels anywhere from one to a dozen times a day.

The Glucogrip measures blood glucose levels in style.

Sbarigia was not immediately available for comment as to the pricing and availability of Glucogrip.