general electric

American conglomerate General Electric believes machine-to-machine, or "M2M" for short, advances will fundamentally alter the way business operates.

This morning at its "Minds and Machines" conference in San Francisco GE took the wraps off a new suite of "Industrial Internet" (PDF) technologies and services that it says will help airline, railroad, healthcare, manufacturing and energy companies increase productivity and reduce costs -- $150 billion in waste, it claims.

All this, just by connecting industrial machinery to the Internet (and the people that use it).

The quick and dirty of the announcement:

We all know the feeling of opening up the fridge and grabbing the milk, only to discover that the white liquid has a horrible sour smell indicating it's gone bad. Wouldn't it be great to be alerted about that while at the office so you can stop at the store on the way home?

Now there's an app for that, along with what the developers of a new technology are calling the "milk jug of the future": the Milkmaid. … Read more

First Solar today said a test cell using its cadmium telluride solar technology set a new world record of 17.3 percent efficiency.

The world's most valuable solar company said the cell's performance, confirmed by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Lab, topped the previous world record of 16.7 percent set in 2001.

A solar cell's efficiency is the percentage of sunlight that ends up being converted to electricity.

The announcement by First Solar, which rarely trumpets the performance of its test cells, comes a few months after rising competitor General Electric … Read more

General Electric Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt defended the nuclear industry's safety record today during a trip to Tokyo to show support to the operator of a stricken nuclear plant using reactors designed by the U.S. conglomerate.

Immelt met with executives at Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), operator of the Fukushima power plant that was crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and is leaking radiation in the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986.

GE and its nuclear business partner Hitachi have sent over 1,000 workers to help with the so far unsuccessful efforts to get the … Read more

General Electric today unveiled a halogen compact fluorescent light bulb that promises the efficiency of a CFL without the annoying warm-up period.

Unlike typical compact fluorescents (CFLs), the new GE Reveal and GE Energy Smart Soft White hybrid light bulbs will not take time to heat up in order to reach full luminescence.

The bulb is actually two bulbs in one. A halogen light nestled within the bulb turns on almost instantly (half a second), then shuts off once the CFL has reached its full brightness, according to GE.

GE says its new hybrid bulb only contains 1 milligram of … Read more

GE is launching a new residential electric-car charger that promises to be faster and more user-friendly than traditional charging stations.

The new GE WattStation unveiled today is a residential version of the public charger announced in July. The home WattStation will lower the time it takes to charge from 12 to 18 hours for a standard charger to as few as 4 to 8 hours, assuming a full-cycle charge for a 24 kWh battery.

Created by industrial designer Yves Behar, the residential WattStation joins its public counterpart with controls that should be easy to use, according to the company.

"… Read more

Body scans may be controversial, but visitors to the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai seem to be having great fun stepping up to them--at least the ones being displayed by General Electric.

GE's "Visible You" installation offers digital simulations of the body's nerves, muscles, and cardiovascular systems--all while mimicking your every move in real time.

When a visitor steps up to the interactive booth in the USA Pavilion, the image on the life-size vertical display scales to his or her general height. It then mirrors participants' gestures (lifting arms and legs, jumping, running in place) in … Read more

NISKAYUNA, N.Y.--When you're listening to someone explain a new scientific method and just about the only thing that goes through your head is "This is going to win a Nobel Prize," you know you're in good company.

That was my experience recently while I was listening to Fiona Ginty, a project leader in computational biology in General Electric Global Research's biosciences group, explain her work. Ginty's project is all about finding new and better ways to spot cancer in a patient's body, ideally as early as possible. And as a member … Read more

Power company Caithness Energy has given General Electric a $1.4 billion contract to supply wind turbines and 10 years' worth of maintenance for an Oregon wind farm, GE announced Thursday.

The massive 845-megawatt wind farm, Shepherds Flat, will be located near Arlington, Oregon, but span approximately 30 square miles and cover parts of Oregon's Gilliam and Morrow Counties.

GE estimates that it will supply 338 of its 2.5-megawatt wind turbine models to be installed between 2011 and 2012. Although they have been used in Europe and Asia, the company says the Shepherds Flat project will include the … Read more