Don’t Blame All These Rains and Floods on El Niño | WIRED

HEY, 2016: PACE yourself, huh? It’s raining in Los Angeles, freezing in Florida, tornado-ing in Texas. And then there’s the floods: houses in Illinois and Missouri up to their roofs in muddy Missouri River water. El Niño is finally here.

Or is it? Or wasn’t it already? No and yes, and yes and no. Scientists have had a pretty good idea since September that El Niño was going to be a monster (they even nicknamed it “Godzilla”). They knew what that meant in general—wet Southwest, warm Northeast. But picking out El Niño’s effect on any particular event is tricky.

Read More

New York’s Old Payphones Are About To Pump Out Free Public Wi-Fi | Co.Exist

New Yorkers, say goodbye to dirty unused pay phones and hello to super-fast, free Wi-Fi.

Today is the long-awaited unveiling of the city’s first Link stations, the kiosks that will replace the old phones with not only free one gigabit Wi-Fi, but also free domestic calling, Internet browsing, and USB charging. The first two will be located on Manhattan’s Third Avenue in the East Village.

Read More

6 Silicon Valley Fads That Will Fade in 2016 | Inc.com

Silicon Valley has its own unique culture that could be described as whimsical and nerdy, but also prone to excess. It’s that last feature we may see dialing back in 2016 as tech startups begin to feel the reality of shifting investing habits among venture capitalists, and more people start to accept the word “bubble” as a household term. Here are six trends that could be on their way out in the new year.

Read More

FAA Requires Drone Regulation — Whether Used for Commercial Purposes or Not | Small Biz Trends

Whether you are using your new drone for business or any other purpose, all drones within a certain weight range must now be registered with the federal government.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has announced its strategic drone registration site that’s now up and running. The initiative has put into place to protect the rights of the owners as well as those of the public, the FAA claims.

Read More

Weekly Economic Update | LAEDC

v.19 n. 52 – Released December 29, 2015

This Week’s Headlines:

What Just Happened to Solar and Wind is a Really Big Deal | Bloomberg Business

The clean-energy boom is about to be transformed. In a surprise move, U.S. lawmakers agreed to extend tax credits for solar and wind for another five years.

This will give an unprecedented boost to the industry and change the course of deployment in the U.S.  The extension will add an extra 20 gigawatts of solar power—more than every panel ever installed in the U.S. prior to 2015, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). The U.S. was already one of the world’s biggest clean-energy investors. This deal is like adding another America of solar power into the mix.

The wind credit will contribute another 19 gigawatts over five years. Combined, the extensions will spur more than $73 billion of investment and supply enough electricity to power 8 million U.S. homes, according to BNEF.

“This is massive,” said Ethan Zindler, head of U.S. policy analysis at BNEF. In the short term, the deal will speed up the shift from fossil fuels more than the global climate deal struck this month in Paris and more than Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan that regulates coal plants, Zindler said.

Read More

Operator! Operator! The UberRush Logistics Layer Has Arrived | TechCrunch

The real goldmine for Uber is in becoming the transportation backend for tons of other services, not just its own apps. Now this logistics layer strategy is coming to fruition through a partnership with Operator, the chat-based shopping assistant backed by Uber co-founder Garret Camp.

Together, Uber and Operator they could compete with Amazon’s massive warehouses by aggregating inventory for instant delivery from local shops that are closer nearby.

Today, UberRush begins powering 1-hour delivery for Operator in San Francisco. At first, over 100 of the most popular gifts from the Westfield San Francisco Centre mall and Saks Fifth Avenue will be available for immediate arrival.

Read More