Universally Accessible Demands Accessibility for All of…

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Google Tech Talks
September 20, 2006

A technology entrepreneur and engineer, Jim Fruchterman has been a rocket scientist, founded two of the foremost optical character recognition companies, and developed a successful line of reading machines for the blind. He is now a leading social entrepreneur through his deliberately nonprofit technology company, Benetech. Benetech concentrates on applying technology to human rights, literacy for people with disabilities and the environment. Jim likes bridging the technical world to the parts of humanity that have never heard of Foo Camp.

ABSTRACT
Google serves a minority of humanity reasonably well today. How is Google going to fulfill its mission to…

One Planet Budgeting: making sustainability real with the…

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Google Tech Talks
December 6, 2006

ABSTRACT

Are we running out of planet? Was Malthus wrong? Do economies self-correct or self-destruct when operating as if resources are limitless? Can everyone on this planet live like a Chinese? A Costa Rican? A Canadian? Mathis Wackernagel, co-creator of the Ecological Footprint, explores these questions, and showcases applications from around the world with government agencies, NGOs, businesses, cities, highlighting how this tool helps make development sustainable.

Since the 1980s, humanity’s demand on ecological resources has exceeded what the Earth can renew. We are in a state of ecological overshoot, on an unsustainable path. We can reverse this trend…

Climate Change and Health

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Google Tech Talks
October 30, 2006

Paul Epstein

ABSTRACT
Climate change has multiple direct and indirect consequences for human health. Heat waves affect health directly and are projected to take an increasing toll in developed and underdeveloped nations. The 2003 summer heatwave in Europe — an event six standard deviations from the mean — led to 21-35,000 excess deaths in five nations, extensive wildfires, crop failures, nuclear plant shutdowns and melted 10% of the Alpine glacial mass. This event and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 demonstrate that climate change and its impacts may be surprisingly non-linear. Credits: Speaker:Paul Epstein

Ocean Wave Energy

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Google Tech Talks
November 8, 2006

ABSTRACT
The World Energy Council has estimated the ‘useful’ global ocean wave energy resource as 2TW (17,500TWh/year). From this it has been estimated (Thorpe 1999) that the practical economic contribution from wave energy converters could be 2,000TWh/year (similar to current installed nuclear or hydroelectric generation capacity). Such generating capacity could result in up to 2 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions being displaced from fossil fuel generation per year – similar to current emissions from electricity generation in the US.

Formed in 1998, based in Edinburgh, Scotland, Ocean Power Delivery Ltd has developed the ‘Pelamis’ wave energy converter…

Tactile Maps Automated Production (TMAP)

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Google Tech Talks
October 12, 2006

Dr. Miele is an alumnus of the University of California at Berkeley where he received his BA in Physics and his Ph.D. in Psychoacoustics. He is currently a Research Associate at The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute’s Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center where he is conducting research in the areas of tactile maps and auditory displays. In the early 1990’s, Dr. Miele was on the development team for Berkeley Systems’ outSPOKEN — the first screen reader that provided a significant level of accessibility for a GUI environment — and has consulted extensively within the access technology industry on a range of issues related to non-visual user…