• A competent software solution designed with contractors in mind can provide an easy and productive way to share historical information on customers with technicians in the field - what work was previously done, the equipment that is installed there, and when it was serviced and needs to be serviced.

• Mobile Field Reporting software that lets construction firms record and transmit labor, equipment and production data from the job site. The software enables communication, saves time, reduces paperwork and creates quicker billing and payroll cycles.

• Details are classified, but depending on the outcome of a 60-day White House review due next month, people familiar with the effort say spending could range from $15 billion to $30 billion in the next five years.
• Foreign firms are also trying to edge into the marketplace. Europe's biggest defense contractor by revenue, BAE Systems PLC, bought information security firm Detica Group PLC for $1.06 billion in July. It also recently hired a top Bush White House cyber-security official, Marie O'Neill Sciarrone.

• Residential Sprinkler Systems

    

  It is the official position of the U.S. Fire Administration that all Americans should be protected against death, injury, and property loss resulting from fire in their residences. All homes should be equipped with smoke alarms and automatic fire sprinklers, and families should prepare and practice emergency escape plans.

• To best serve their customers, HVAC contractors can take advantage of an HVAC load calculation program, such as Chvac, by Elite Software, to assure optimal sizing of heating and cooling equipment for a new building or retrofit.

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  Proper sizing of the equipment avoids oversizing, a common outcome of ballparking the sizing. Oversizing not only carries a more expensive initial cost than necessary, it also results in short cycling. This hurts energy consumption and affects comfort during cooling because the system should run almost continuously during peak loads in order to ensure the air is properly dehumidified.

• The agreement calls for a new variable tolling system that could improve traffic flow on the SR 520 corridor and provide up to $500 million to replace the aging SR 520 Lake Washington
• $86 million to develop new traffic management technology, including and traveler information systems to  support tolling operations on the SR 520 Bridge
• Patty Rubstello , PE,
  Tolling and Systems Development Engineer
  Urban Corridors Office
  401 2nd Ave. S, Suite 400
  Seattle, WA 98104
  Phone: 206-464-1299

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• The International Code Council mandated installation of residential fire sprinklers as part of the International Residential Code during ICC's Annual Business Meeting and Final Action Hearings in Minneapolis in September

• Researchers expect to piggyback data communications capabilities on low-power light emitting diodes, or LEDs, to create "Smart Lighting" that would be faster and more secure than current network technology.
• Imagine if your computer, iPhone, TV, radio and thermostat could all communicate with you when you walked in a room just by flipping the wall light switch and without the usual cluster of wires
• This could be done with an LED-based communications network that also provides light – all over existing power lines with low power consumption, high reliability and no electromagnetic interference. Ultimately, the system is expected to be applicable from existing illumination devices, like swapping light bulbs for LEDs.
• make an LED light the equivalent of a WiFi access point.
• indoor optical wireless communications systems that use white LED lighting within a room – akin to the television remote control device – to provide Internet connections to computers, personal digital assistants, television and radio reception, telephone connections and thermostat temperature control.
• A wireless device within sight of an enabled LED could send and receive data though the air – initially at speeds in the 1 to 10 megabit per second range – with each LED serving as an access point to the network. Such a network would have the potential to offer users greater bandwidth than current RF technology.
• since this white light does not penetrate opaque surfaces such as walls, there is a higher level of security, as eavesdropping is not possible. LED lights also consume far less energy than RF technology, offering the opportunity to build a communication network without added energy costs and reducing carbon emissions over the long term

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• Penn State engineers have shown that a white-LED system for lighting and high data-rate indoor wireless communications, coupled with broadband over either medium- or low-voltage power line grids (BPL), can offer transmission capacities that exceed DSL or cable and are more secure than RF.

• So today’s news that the Obama administration is digging in its heels against any federal gas tax hike – as Fall ‘09 reauthorization of the surface transportation spending bill draws nearer - adds weight to the growing realization that states and regions will have to continue examining and implementing other fiscal strategies to pay for big-ticket projects.

    

  These can include politically-charged strategies such as raising state gas taxes, county sales taxes, or regional vehicle excise taxes. Another more sustainable category of strategies to pay for ongoing costs of surface transportation to serve a growing population, is sometimes called “the user pays.” It's more direct than a fuel tax can ever be. That menu includes:

    
  • electronic tolling of new highway express lanes in major metro regions with higher charges at peak hours and lower charges off-peak (transit and ride-share vehicles go free);
    
  • creating a network of such electronic, variably-tolled express lanes on all major highways in populous regions, which would exist side-by-side with more congested free lanes;
    
  • Electronic time-variable tolling of all lanes of all major highways in a metro region;
    
  • Carefully-designed regional or state plans to charge vehicles by the mile for travel on all streets and highways, with discounts for off-peak travel, travel on less-congested routes, vehicle weight and fuel efficiency.

• Smart meters are small computers that provide real-time information on how much electricity is being used by each customer and when, and can relay information back to the head office over the very same power lines they feed from. Smart meters can bill different rates depending overall grid usage, to encourage conservation. Users can program them to control appliances, for example running the dishwasher during off-peak hours, when rates are lower.
• "This utilizes a technology called 'Powerline Carrier.' So it puts the signal back on the lines that actually feed the Meter, back through the power lines, to the transformer, back all the way to the head office," Vahlstrom says.
• Everything is done remotely. You can turn your air conditioning, heating and lights on at home -- even when you're on vacation.

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• It's called mesh technology; a system where the more users there are the better it works.
• Gonzalez says mesh wireless technology is faster, cuts down on congestion and interference, has better coverage, and has one more special perk. "What the mesh technology does is increase our ability to provide service more efficiently for a lower cost
• Here's how it works: Once you subscribe to the network, wireless PCs in the network "talk" with each other. They connect through wireless routers installed throughout a business, home or car -- an ideal network for Maddrey and the millions of other people who log on to the Internet every day. And overcrowding is never a problem. If too many people are using part of the mesh network, users move through each other to reach an unused signal.
• • perfect for hospitals who need to communicate no matter what, military bases and basically any infrastructure who needs constant wi-fi could be included in this needed list.
• The mesh network is also ideal if local communication resources are destroyed during a disaster because the network seamlessly picks up where one left off. The first mesh networks are being tested in Philadelphia, New York and Las Vegas.
• Mesh network models are more decentralized than the hub-and-spoke approach currently used. Mesh networks promise several key advantages over traditional wireless technologies like cell phones or Wi-Fi. These include higher speeds, less radio interference, less network congestion, better geographic coverage, and tighter security.
• It's also cheaper to build a mesh network, since it can be set up using poles already in place for streetlights, traffic signals and road signs.
• • We coulkd incorporate mesh networks into our street lighting
• Routers are simply bolted to the posts and plugged into the photocell power adapter already atop most streetlights. The routers are then automatically assimilated into the mesh network. If a cellphone tower stops working because of a power failure or terrorist attack, users will be cut off entirely from access in that cell. With a mesh network, any piece of mesh hardware -- a wireless router, for instance, or a laptop's interface card -- is fully assimilated into the network and can act as a relay. If one relay goes down, there are lots of alternate routes available.

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• 5--Go Cloud. Nothing works if you don't have the right IT platform. You can't go social, global, anthro, medical or anything else if you don't have the right technology. But if you do invest in the right kind of technology, the gains can be huge. Productivity growth has been incredibly strong in recent years (contributing to strong corporate profits even as the economy slows) because of smart spending on IT.

    

  And we're not talking bureaucratic systems integration but cloud computing, agile, apps-focused IT. If corporations really want to save money in this recession, they might consider leaving the top-down, centralized, Microsoft-driven PC world of the office which is very costly and shift to the distributed, agile, Web 2.0 just-download-what-you-need IT world of Google.

• Enter SOA and Cloud computing. SOA represents the archetype for delivery of everything as a service: software, hardware, telecommunications, call center, marketing, etc. If something can be compartmentalized with a formalized input and result, and can be measured, then it can be delivered as a service. Services working together to provide a more comprehensive offering is SOA. Cloud computing is the extension of this archetype for delivery of computing services, typically over the public Internet.