French energy minister Jean-Louis Borloo will announce a plan on Thursday for the country to invest 1 billion Euros ($1.46 billion US) in the infrastructure needed to encourage the adoption of electric cars. That investment will buy 4.4 million charging stations, upgrade the power grid, purchase a government fleet of electric cars, and provide subsidies to EV buyers and auto manufacturers.

France hopes that this amount of investment will be enough to get 2 million electric cars on its roads within 10 years.

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When bags go missing, it costs airlines money — to the tune of $3 billion annually, in fact. What’s worse, it exasperates passengers, who are a lot less inclined to take a polite “sorry” now that almost every airline is charging a fee for luggage.

Well, it looks like airlines operating out of certain airports — such as Amsterdam and Las Vegas — will be able to take advantage of more advanced sorting techniques involving modern scanners and RFID luggage tags. Probably the most important is a development of a back-end that can sift through that information, as well, to help predict when a bag may go astray and get on top of it.

For the most part, we currently use barcodes on luggage tags to keep bags tracked, but the computer systems at most airports just aren’t advanced enough to handle the data, and bags get lost. On the other hand, RFID tags are more expensive than the barcode ones, so airlines are only looking to adopt the new system if it indeed saves them money through cutting down on wayward luggage.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Airports generally pay for the installation, which can cost millions of dollars, and then recover the investment in fees to airlines over many years. Airlines generally pay for RFID tags, which today cost around 15 cents apiece, versus a few cents for the traditional bar-code version.

Hong Kong International Airport and McCarran International in Las Vegas were the first to introduce RFID, but aviation industry overall is moving slowly because cash-strapped players can’t yet justify the multimillion-dollar expense of modernizing systems.

Samuel Ingalls, who handles baggage technology at McCarran, says installing and maintaining the airport’s RFID system was less expensive than a common optical system and costs “a fraction” as much to maintain, though he couldn’t give a specific price because RFID was installed starting in 2005 as part of a bigger development project.

Mr. Ingalls says, “the benefits really start to expand exponentially as the world moves” to RFID and all bags get electronic tags.

Via WSJ

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Plenty of gadgets that we use every day claim to be off, yet consider to suck down power in some sort of standby mode. And this costs money! Take back control of your energy bill with Belkin’s new Conserve Surge.

The Conserve Surge has six outlets that automatically cuts the power to connected devices after 11 hours of use. You’ll get plenty of warning beforehand if you want to keep going, and two outlets are there to always be on for devices that you don’t need cut off, but for those devices such as gaming consoles or TVs that suck up energy when “off,” it’ll cut their supply short.

Gizmodo via Slippery Brick

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Just about this time last year I reported on the very promising and innovative Mcgyan® biodiesel process. It was one of the most popular stories gas 2.0 ran that year, and rightly so: the breakthrough seemed to deliver the possibility of making biodiesel in mere seconds from start to finish, reducing costs by half the price of other biodiesel, producing no waste, using no chemical reactants, and using any animal fat or vegetable oil as a feedstock.

At the time the company in charge of the project, Ever Cat fuels, had only succeeded at making a small-scale pilot operation of 50,000 gallons per year. But, as of 2 days ago, the process has been completely commercialized.

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Good on Fujifilm for making good on its promise to launch the Finepix Real 3D W1 point-and-shoot camera in the U.S. this September, albeit barely. The camera, capable of shooting both still pics and video in 3D, is available for purchase starting today for the tidy sum of $600.

So how do you view the 3D pictures? No need for any glasses — the special rear LCD shows the photos in 3D, and you can buy the separate V1 picture viewer with an 8-inch screen for $500. You’ll also be able to order prints through Fujifilm for $6.99 each.

I got to play with the Real 3D for a few minutes during a meeting with Nvidia earlier this month (the graphics-processor maker says Fuji’s system is compatible with its 3D Vision tech, meaning the pics are viewable on regular screens with special glasses and softhardware). The camera is simple to use, and depth really appears to pop out of images on the rear LCD. It looks a bit “shiny,” rather like those hologram comic book covers that used to be everywhere, but it’s unmistakably 3D.

This cam and and the emergence of 3D Blu-ray systems herald a big push for the tech in the coming year. We like the Fuji camera since it doesn’t require glasses, but we’re still skeptical whether people want the tech at all. What say you?

Via Fujifilm

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Those leaked pics of Microsoft’s Courier tablet PC piqued our curiosity. Just when we thought we were going to have to wait and wonder for a while, this newly leaked video showed up, revealing a lot more about Courier’s sexy touchpad interface.

Just look at this twin-screened booklet! It has all of the strengths of writing in an old-fashioned notebook, along with searching, gorgeous graphics, touchscreen goodness, and that whiz-bang look of Apple’s Cover Flow graphics, taken a step further. We gotta have one of these.

Via Gizmodo

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Remember Chumby, that padded Internet-connected 320 x 240-pixel screen that looked like it belonged in a converted van from the ’70s? A lot has happened in the two years since Chumby was introduced. Now it’s updated for the current era, dubbed the Chumby One, and still carefully loading connected widgets that’ll bring you YouTube videos, weather and news, RSS feeds, and our favorite, Pandora music.

A welcome improvement is Chumby One’s faster processor: 454MHz of cool power compared to its slightly slower predecessor. While some might dislike its clean lines and sky-blue highlight, we’re digging it. If you can wait a few weeks until it’s released, it might be worth the $100 to have the alarm clock of the future that shows you so much more.

Gadgeteer, via CrunchGear

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An industrious Swede spent 20,000 hours putting together this full-sized Batmobile replica. Built on a 1973 Lincoln Continental chassis, it’s loaded with gadgetry, including machine guns, video cameras to see behind you, height-adjustable bodywork, and there’s even a plasma TV stuffed in there somewhere.

Want one? If you crave this piece of bat-tech today, you’ll have to build it yourself, and you’ll need to be rich as Bruce Wayne. The 700-horsepower techno-sportster is a one-of-a-kind creation, three-and-a-half years in the making. Oh yeah, and it cost over $1 million to construct. Let’s watch a video of this badass machine, looking fast even when standing still:

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With the attention on first generation corn ethanol fading, the next big thing on the sustainable fuel horizon is nonfood biofuel crops. Within that category, inedible weeds are taking a front-row seat due to their relatively low demands on water, pesticides, and herbicides, and their reduced need for tilling and other mechanized soil prep. Some weeds with biofuel potential can also thrive on contaminated soils, absorbing and cleaning pollutants in a process called phytoremediation.

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Much has been written about the launch of the Hyundai i10 concept, the company’s first foray into the electric car market. It’s an impressive car and the underlying technology trumps many other competitors.

For example, there’s the Li-Poly battery which Hyundai claim will charge almost twice as fast as the Li-Ion battery championed by Renault and other manufacturers. Of course, this assumes you have an industrial outlet with enough amps to provide the power fast enough.

However, the Hyundai i10 is more than a standalone electric car. It is part of a range which the company has obviously thought about long and hard before bringing it to market.

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The Wii sensor bar is designed to be small and unnoticeable as it sits either above or below your TV, telling the Wii where in space your controllers are. But if you want to turn it into a big, noticeable ode to your favorite movie villain, this is for you.

Sure, it means you’ll have to have a big Darth Vader statue next to your TV, but for a certain subsection of the population, that’s a positive rather than a negative. And for those people, $50 is a small price to pay for such an item.

Star Wars Shop via Gizmodo

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HDTVs are fragile, especially if you play the Nintendo Wii. One sweaty palm and overeager pitch, and you’ve got some shattered dreams on your hands. If you’re really paranoid about protecting your precious purchase, maybe you should take some extreme measures.

TV armor is designed for klutzy worrywarts such as yourself. It’s a durable acrylic shield that fits over your screen, allowing you to see the screen through it while protecting it from flying debris. Finally, you can play Wii Tennis with relative peace of mind!

TV Armor via Technabob

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When Polaroid announced that digital cameras had caused the demise of the instant camera and film, there was much gnashing of teeth and shaking of whatevers. Despite the company’s replacement PoGo, a digicam-Zink printer combo, and the fact that there’s even an iPhone app for Polaroid fundamentalists, the retro camera is still missed.

And none more so than by designer Jung Hwa Jin, whose Polaroid Flower Vase is a tiny little planter with the iconic polaroid-sized frame around it and a little spotlight. Whether the vase turns the flowers a weird milky-blue wash remains to be seen.

Via Core 77

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Although disgusting at first sight, the recently unveiled Mechanical Tumor may in fact be a forecast of future bio-mechanically engineered computers. Created by Japanese artist Mio Lizawa, the artificial tumor (which looks disturbingly like a brain) shrinks and expands depending on the PC’s CPU use.

Controlled by a simple air compressor and actuator motor, the contraption looks incredibly realistic and will probably fool most of your non-geek friends into thinking you’ve taken your digital obsession a little too far. You can see video of the horrid little PC tumor that could here.

Via Register Hardware

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The Soyuz TMA-16 launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2009, carrying Expedition 21 Flight Engineer Jeffrey N. Williams, Flight Engineer Maxim Suraev and Spaceflight Participant Guy Laliberté to the International Space Station. Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

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At a breakfast meeting for Nashville business executives, Carlos Tavares, Chairman of Nissan America, said he fully expects the company to have 20,000 reservations for the Nissan LEAF by the time the car goes on sale late next year.

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As far as Windows-allied computer companies go, it seems Dell is trying the hardest to answer Apple’s design-heavy approach tit-for-tat. The Adamo took on the Air, and now the Latitude Z600 is looking to be the laptop for business users thanks to what’s going on inside and out.

We’ll let the pictures speak for the design. As for the meat of the machine, Dell’s got a few tricks. The most impressive? No wires. You can buy a $200 inductive charging pad that’ll juice up the Z while it’s resting atop it. It’s also got built-in support for wireless connectivity, and, after spending another $200 on a wireless hub, the Z will be able to talk to USB, video and sound devices without having to plug them in. It’s got a couple of other bells and whistles, too, such as a quick boot environment where you can check your email without having to boot into Windows, and a FaceAware system that uses your webcam to know when you leave and locks your laptop.

It’s a high-end laptop that’s priced as such, starting at $2,000. For that, you get 16″ inches of screen and 4.5 pounds of laptop.

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Google Earth Application Maps Carbon’s Course

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New Generation Energy Offers Micro-Loans For Energy Projects

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This tote bag is designed to look like a sweet retro boom box, which is great. But what elevates it to the next level is the fact that the speakers actually work, and it’s got a jack for your iPod or other MP3 player built right in. Just unzip the cassette compartment, pop in your player of choice, and you’ve got a boom box that can also hold your workout clothes. Amazing.

Kitch U Like via The Daily What

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The demise of retail giant Filene’s Basement may have a positive effect on proponents of vertical urban farming and algae biofuels alike. Since 2007, the developers of a Filene’s site in downtown Boston have been unable to find funding to move the project forward. But now Höweler + Yoon Architecture and their partner Squared have put forth a proposal to erect a temporary vertical, modular, algae bioreactor high-rise in its place.

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