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World renewable energy and its necessary complimentary power storage focus is
showing signs of hybridising and morphing towards new approaches for raising
efficiencies, with a mix o better and different design, better modelling, simulation and weather prediction; changing attitudes ranging from the benefit of renewable variety, usually by historical accidental development or as in the case of Finland, an announced national focus on renewable emerging to centre on bio-hydrogen as its dominant power source.

As ABB wins an order of around $150m to supply converter transformers, direct current (DC) filter capacitors and key components for converter valves for the world's highest capacity power link in China, an $800m comprehensive and large scale smart grid is now operating in Florida, claiming to reduce power outages and help customers save money. In the UK, pilots are still only moving to a 2020 vision.

Dave Anderson, senior marketing director for Voltage Security was one some 12,500 or so visitors to April’s Infosecurity Europe show held at Earl’s Court, London housing some 350 exhibitors. The show has seen a steady flood of security news ranging from Adobe’s creation of a first chief security officer, promoting Brad Arkin to the new post, to arguments over 2-factor authentication.

The European Commission has presented the first Soil Atlas of Africa, that high-lights a vital natural resource which provides food, fodder, fuel wood, reduces flood risk and protects water supplies. With full colour maps and illustrations, the atlas explains in a simple and clear manner the diversity of soil across Africa's continent and emphasises the importance of this non-renewable resource.

The new UK headquarters for Europe’s largest contract research organisation officially opened at the University of Strathclyde. CAP (Centre for Applied Photonics) a jointly funded venture by Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, Fraunhofer IAF, Frieburg, and the University of Strathclyde will provide laser R&D and associated spectrum technologies, including optical sensors – for healthcare, energy and transport for a pervasive growth sector.

The Royal Yacht Britannia, the Queen’s former water taxi and home, celebrates a 60th Anniversary this month. Echoing the glamour of the era, Britannia is inviting visitors to come dressed in vintage 50s fashion on Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 April, launching a week of celebrations to mark the anniversary of this iconic ship. And there will be prizes of Britannia pink fizz for the best dressed visitors.

IDTech Ex holding its Energy Harvesting agenda in Berlin this month, conducts a Q&A with two protagonists in the sector, covering the biggest obstacle standing in the way of further adoption of (EH) energy harvesting and (WSN) wireless sensor networks technologies; what technologies serve best today, and where the market will develop in future.

Allrecipes surveys digital food trends from its 18 global websites to discover the shopping and eating behaviour of more than 7,000 home cooks in its new 2013 Global Food Trends report. It could be of use to the EU where 86% of deaths and 77% of the disease burden are related to diets and lifestyles initiating project EuroDish. In the UK the food focus is on improved quality control software, both completing in 2015.

While the Northern Isles look to the potential for oil revenues and renewable energy generation from wind, rather disdaining solar, it seems that wave and tidal energy generation is under some disenchantment from rising development costs. But to the south of the UK in the MeriFIC developments, finds Cornwall teamed with Finistere and Sicilly with Brittany while Plymouth and Exeter University work on developing wave and tidal devices. If Scotland is disenchanted with its ocean power, others believe it of value.

In the call for papers for the November symposium, the organisers are building on the success of last year’s event and the many positive and encouraging comments from participants, this year’s interdisciplinary symposium is convened in order to further build capacity as well as consolidate existing scholarship on perspectives on the human body and identity in the face of new advances in emerging technologies.

As more and more companies line up to enter Africa, the world’s second most populous continent with a rising middle class of more than 300 million, companies with language localisation strategies will enjoy early-mover advantage, writes Ian Henderson, CTO of the global language service provider, Rubric.

Personally identifiable information or PII is pretty intuitive, writes Andy Green, Varonis technical content specialist (below). If you know someone’s phone, social security number, or credit card number, you have a direct link to their identity. Hackers use these identifiers, along with a few more personal details, as keys to unlock data, steal identities, and ultimately take your money. T

Finland is moving things along a progressive road with the use of playing and games. Perhaps we should consider this route too! Researchers at Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) and Stanford University have jointly authored a playbook for the creation and realisation of radical innovations. At the same time a smartphone application brings gaming dimensions to energy-awareness and helped Finish, Swedish and Italian households reduce electricity consumption by up to 19%.

As the USA maps that three-pound universe, the brain with a proposed Brain Activity Map (BAM) project; Europe's avowed goal is that neuro scientists can connecting the dots that lead from genes, molecules and cells to human cognition and behaviour; but "Think" IBM opts to look at brain neurone powering and cooling by blood and come up with the future for the cognitive computers that will be needed in the Square Kilometer Array challenge.

As EU funded research project FILOSE has researchers from five Universities work to develop robots with lateral line sense, while at University of Twente researchers find hairs on crickets' cerci measure flow patterns which could provide sensing for robots. A cloud-computing platform is developed by researchers of another five EU universities for robots, which would seem a fitting meeting place for robotics to interface, perhaps even MIT's efficient running robot cheetah would find the cloud of use.

Today’s IT and business leaders recognise that technology disrupts the market (although sadly none of the top 50 MIT selected disrupters are based in the UK) and creates new opportunities. They know it is the time to seize the opportunity … as if they don’t do it, someone else will. But to realise this they must bridge the impasse between maintaining current systems which preserve the status quo, and seek IT approaches that enable innovation, greater productivity and facilitate new ways of working.

Research by Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft has found that the sea weed Posidonia oceanic is a material capable of keeping buildings well insulated. Regarded often as a waste product, they argue it is too valuable as an insulator to fling away. But the Posidonia Festival has been created to help preserve this endemic Mediterranean plant, which is not a seaweed; plays an essential rule in the ecological equilibrium of the sea: and its dead leaves in the shore act as a natural dock, reducing wave energy, and minimising erosion.

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