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I’m sure that some of you remember Jini, an initiative launched in 1998 by Bill Joy of Sun Microsystems. This software was supposed to turn all the devices we use into ‘network citizens,’ as Joy said. It never really worked. And even if the electronic devices we own are increasingly network compatible, they still are unable to work together intelligently. This is why the European Union has funded a project to allow your fridge or your TV to communicate with your phone or your PC. This project, named Amigo, will end in February 2008 and was granted €13 millions by the EU. This project enrolled powerful partners such as France Telecom, Microsoft or Philips which pay the rest of the bill, expected to reach €23 millions. The researchers think their approach will be successful because it’s an entirely open source project and everyone can participate. But read more…

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the greenest of them all? Well, if you're in the retail sector the obvious answer to that is Wal-Mart. There was much skepticism initially of Wal-Mart's attempts to go green. Many believed its quest to reduce energy consumption, embrace rooftop solar systems and clean up its transport fleet was yet another attempt at feel-good marketing -- a bid to win over consumers who believed Wal-Mart was an evil retail monster aimed at taking over every small town in America. At the recent Cleantech Forum in Toronto, Rand Waddoups, senior director of corporate strategy and sustainability at Wal-Mart, admitted that the retailer's green strategy was initially adopted from a defensive posture. "We started by saying 'this could be a real problem for us, we need to understand how big of a problem this could be.' Over time, we realized this wasn't a problem, it was a real opportunity for us."