At one end of the spectrum the archly alternative, quintessentially Berlin venue of Kater Holzig played host to the Tech Open Air festival.
Five years ago, the promise of getting superrich from clean tech was in the air.
It also underscores a little-remembered fact: Even in an era of high-tech drones, the Air Force still relies on manned spy planes such as modern versions of the U-2, five decades after the famous exchange.
WSJ: Cold War U-2 Pilot Francis Gary Powers to Receive Silver Star
At Cassatt, Bill Coleman, a former Air Force captain who has worked in tech for 35 years, saw the cheap wave coming more than a decade ago, when he was still at Sun.
Global revenues from clean tech businesses--including air and water purification, advanced materials, distributed power generation, renewable energy, and process controls, such as sensors to monitor air and water--now surpass 85 billion pounds, according to the Cleantech Venture Network, a for-profit membership group that connects venture and institutional investors with entrepreneurs.
The strength of the high-tech material allows airlines to raise cabin air pressure and increase humidity, which should make passengers more comfortable on long flights.
There are other programs besides MobileMe for doing this, including BackBlaze, which helped a young tech entrepreneur track down his stolen MacBook Air a few months ago.
Now reports suggest that the high-tech jets may have made it into the air in the first place over deliberately lowered safety standards.
And naturally the Tech City chief, Eric Van Der Kleij, is punching the air, welcoming the arrival of such an illustrious name in the technology industry as a real boost for the community.
Until Bravo comes out with some episodes on air, and we see what the angle is, a lot of people in the tech circles are going to be very wary of this show.
FORBES: Bravo's 'Silicon Valley' Reality Show Leaves Me With One Question
As a benign example of how transatlantic teams can stimulate competition in high-tech weapons making, defence analysts cite the fierce competition to supply Britain with an air-to-ground surveillance system.
The broader benefit of all that science: "Having the technical product helps Air Products also sell the commodity gases" to those same customers, says Alain Harrus, former tech chief at chip-equipment maker Novellus.
The Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory (AKA the RoMeLa Project) at the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech has designed and built a prototype robotic hand that is controlled and operated by compressed air.
ENGADGET: Robotic hand controlled by compressed air grasps the concept of delicacy
应用推荐