Researchers at an Australian university are working on powering electronic devices by the action of typing or walking thanks to the electrical generation capability of piezoelectrics.

Researchers at the RMIT University in Melbourne explored the combination of piezeoelectrics, materials capable of converting pressure into electricity energy, with thin film technology from microchip manufacturing.

The results published in the Advanced Functional Materials journal assessed a number of different mechanisms for ‘microscale energy scavenging systems’ to generate electrical current through a variety of mechanisms including typing on a keyboard or walking.

It wont be a lot of power but with advances in power consumption the research suggests a possible array of future devices capable of being powered without ever needing to be recharged.

“The power of piezoelectrics could be integrated into running shoes to charge mobile phones, enable laptops to be powered through typing or even used to convert blood pressure into a power source for pacemakers – essentially creating an everlasting battery,” said report co-author Dr Madhu Bhaskaran.

“The next key challenge will be amplifying the electrical energy generated by the piezoelectric materials to enable them to be integrated into low-cost, compact structures,” they said.

 

 

Mark has added another notch on our belt by passing the certification exam this morning. Well done Mark.

 

Proven cost savings

Google’s web-based messaging and collaboration apps require no hardware or software and need minimal administration, creating tremendous time and cost savings for businesses.

End users can use the familiar Microsoft Outlook interface for email, contacts and calendar as they transition to Gmail and Google Calendar.

A leading research firm found that Google Apps is as little as 1/3 the total cost of competing solutions.

Want to see how much you could save with Google Apps compared to Microsoft Exchange 2007?

50 times more storage than the industry average

Each employee gets 25 GB for email storage, so they can keep important messages and find them instantly with built-in Google search.

Gmail is designed so employees can spend less time managing their inboxes, and more time being productive. Time-saving features like message threading, message labels, fast message search and powerful spam filtering help employees work efficiently with high volumes of email.

Mobile email, calendar and IM access

With several options for accessing their information while on the go, employees can be productive with Google Apps even when they’re not at their desks.

At no extra charge, Google Apps supports over-the-air mobile access on BlackBerry devices, the iPhone, Windows Mobile, Android and many less powerful phones.

99.9% uptime reliability guarantee with synchronous replication

We guarantee that Google Apps will be available at least 99.9% of the time, so your employees are more productive and so you can worry less about system downtime.**

With synchronous replication, your data and activity in Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Sites is simultaneously preserved in multiple secure data centers. If one data center is unable to serve your requests, the system is designed to instantly fall back to another data center that can serve your account with no interruption in service.

The Radicati Group found that Microsoft Exchange typically has 60 minutes of unplanned downtime per month. Google Apps customers typically experience less than 15 minutes of downtime per month.

Information security and compliance

When you trust your company’s information to Google, you can be confident that your critical information is safe and secure.

Google’s information security team, including some of the world’s foremost experts in information, application and network security, are focused on keeping your information safe. Google and many other customers trust this system with highly sensitive corporate data.

Businesses get these customizable security features with Google Apps:

  • Custom spam and inbound mail filtering tools, powered by Postini, to complement powerful spam filters that automatically work with no up-front configuration.
  • Custom outbound mail filtering tools to prevent sensitive information from being distributed, powered by Postini.
  • Custom information sharing rules to determine how broadly employees are allowed to share with Google Docs, Google Calendar and Google Sites.
  • Custom password length requirements and visual strength indicators to help employees pick secure passwords.
  • Enforced SSL connections with Google Apps to ensure secure HTTPS access.
  • Optional email archiving, up to 10 years of retention.

Full administrative and data control

Administrators can deeply customize Google Apps to meet their technical, branding and business requirements.

Integration options let you connect Google Apps to your existing IT infrastructure.

  • Single sign-on API connects Google Apps to your existing authentication system.
  • User provisioning utility and API connect Google Apps to your existing user directory system.
  • Email routing and email gateway support let you run Google Apps alongside an existing email solution.
  • Email migration utility and API let you bring mail from your existing email solution into Google Apps.

System branding and data ownership give Google Apps your look and feel, and ensures customer ownership of employee data.

  • Custom user accounts on your compay’s internet domain.
  • Custom logo and colors in the applications.
  • Contractual customer ownership of employee data.

Helpful 24/7 customer support

Google Apps is highly reliable and easy to operate, but support is available for administrators should you need it.

Support options include:

  • Phone support for critical issues
  • Email support
  • Self-service online support

Google Apps also has a deep network of partners ready to help businesses with deployment, data migration, user training, system integration and custom application development.

* You will be asked to provide a credit card number to sign up for the free Google Apps for Business trial. However, you can cancel at any time before the end of your free trial and your card will not be charged.

** The 99.9% uptime SLA for Google Apps is offered to organizations using Google Apps for Business, as described in the Google Apps for Business Terms of Service.

 

Google PartnerCloud Assist is an Australian company that is focused on delivering the highest level in IT services to its customers, and help them adapt. Our team is focused and committed to providing knowledge, technical expertise and exceptional support to organisations and their IT environment.

Cloud Assist’s specialist capabilities in Cloud Computing Technologies demonstrate the breadth of experience we have in cloud computing implementations on enterprise platforms like Google.

Website

 

 

Tagged with:
 

Google Message Continuity

A hosted continuity solution for your on-premise email server. Ensure rapid email failover in the event of a server outage with complete and constant email replication – all accessible at any time through Gmail.

Maximize email availability

Continuous and automatic synchronization with Gmail means that if your on-premise server is down, you can still send and receive up-to-date emails, schedule meetings through Calendar, and stay in touch with all of your contacts.

Back up your data

With 25 GB of storage for each Gmail account, there’s no limit on how long your data is backed-up. If your server experiences an outage, your data remains protected and accessible in the cloud.

Make your email more secure

Google Message Continuity includes all the security features of Google Message Security, including anti-spam and anti-virus filters, content policies, and encryption.

Rapid deployment, easy maintenance

Google Message Continuity doesn’t require any hardware installation and is managed through a simple web interface. Services are SAS 70 Type II audited and monitored by Google around the clock.

We can help you deploy this as a DR solution. Contact Cloud Assist for more info

Dell investing $1Bn in Cloud.Adapt for users

cloudassist:

Dell is planning to invest $1 billion to build 10 new data centers as a part of its long term goal of joining the cloud services bandwagon.
 
The money that Dell is going to pour in making these new cloud computing centres, is specially aimed at providing solutions, services and cloud based…



9-bits:

rocketboom:

 Behold The Brand New HTML5 Logo

I actually quite like the branding effort, especially the generator which builds a custom badge depending on what technologies you’ve used. Also very proud of Sencha Touch being featured on the homepage, day one.

 

QLD Floods – Recovering from Disasters

cloudassist:

Firstly, we would like to offer our thoughts to all Queenslanders affected by the terrible floods, and hope your families and friends are safe. Our thoughts and well wishes go out to you all.
We also encourage donations to the Premiers Disaster Relief Appeal to help those in need.
 

Tagged with:
 

CLOUD MIGRATION: Strategies for Business & IT Executives

cloudassist:

 

a post by John Furrier posted December 15, 2010

Cloud computing is taking hold in the enterprise. Cloud computing was pioneered by the leading web Internet companies like Google, Amazon, Yahoo, Facebook, and others (also called public cloud) to create efficiencies around the scale of…

Google Apps For Education – Restrict Emails to the School only.

cloudassist:

Google Apps for Business and Education, now support the ability to prevent domains users from emailing outside the domain. This is a big positive for Schools, who do not want to allow their students from emailing people outside the school.

While most organizations using Google Apps provide…