gore

Next week, the RSA 2008 security conference gets under way in San Francisco. But for members of the media, it has already started, with a barrage of phone calls from vendors (more and more each year) eager to get their products mentioned. Look for full coverage starting Monday on CNET News.com.

Unlike last year, when Bill Gates said good-bye, there are few "big" moments anticipated in the week ahead, which means there could more surprises. Last year, it was Larry Ellison having to cancel his keynote speech due to illness.

Themes and topics at RSA 2008 will … Read more

Remember, folks, it's Al Gore's Internet. We're just using it.

Gore is scheduled to give a keynote speech on April 11 at the RSA Conference in San Francisco. RSA says as many as 17,000 people showed up at last year's conference, and it's reasonable to assume a large chunk of this year's crowd will try to squeeze into Gore's keynote speech. These are security types, engineers, marketers, PR flacks, and so on--many of whom have their own blogs, Flickr accounts, and Twitter feeds where they'll share details about Gore's speech (… Read more

Can Web 2.0-style collaboration halt climate change? Well, not entirely, but it can certainly help.

Former Vice President and Nobel laureate Al Gore and Cisco CEO John Chambers spoke on a virtual panel on Wednesday to discuss the role of business technology in environmental matters, most notably climate change.

The event was organized to showcase Cisco's videoconferencing technology and, overall, it performed very well.

Gore spoke from a location near his home in Nashville, Tenn., while Chambers was in San Jose, Calif., and the moderator of the event--ITN science editor Lawrence McGinty--spoke from outside London. People could watch … Read more

Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers is joining the virtual stage with Nobel laureate and former Vice President Al Gore on Wednesday morning to talk about climate change and technology innovation.

Chambers and Gore will use Cisco's telepresence system to communicate with a live audience at the VoiceCon trade show in in Orlando, Fla. They will discuss how unified communications technology, like the telepresence platform, can play a role in reducing carbon emissions, which are impacting climate change.

They'll also discuss other ideas for how businesses can reduce greenhouse gas emissions through innovative technologies and how the technology industry … Read more

Current Media, the youth-oriented cable channel founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, has filed for a $100 million initial public offering.

The company aims to trade under the Nasdaq symbol CRTM; neither share prices nor number of shares have been disclosed.

Acknowledging that it has "a history of losses," relies on an "unproven media model," and had an accumulated deficit of $31.9 million at the end of 2007, Current Media is nevertheless pushing forward in the hopes that it will be able to better cover expenses as a public … Read more

As has become my custom, with the year drawing to a close, I now look in the rear-view mirror and try to distill what I see. In no particular order, here are my top ten reflections on 2007:

1. Popping of the ethanol bubble. Not long ago, it seemed like anyone could get an ethanol plant financed. Now, no-one will touch them. Why? Corn prices have roughly doubled, and producers can't make money selling ethanol into the fuel markets when having to pay so much for feedstock. Along with the increasing realization that public policies so far to build … Read more

The New York Times reported last week that led by robots, roaches abandon [their] instincts. Specifically, when left to their own devices, groups of cockroaches followed their instincts and natually preferred a darker hiding place to a lighter hiding place virtually all the time. And when a minority group of robotic cockroaches replaced some of the bugs in the cohort and followed natual cockroach rules, again virtually all cockroaches sought the darker hiding place. But when the robots were programmed to seek the lighter, rather than a darker hiding place, fully 60 percent of the wild cockroaches teamed with the robots rather than obeying their instincts, thus demonstrating that even cockroaches are susceptible to bug peer pressure.… Read more

Former Vice President and Nobel Prize winner Al Gore has joined venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as a partner to concentrate on green technology investments.

To date, Kleiner Perkins has had something of a mixed record when it comes to clean tech. The firm has invested in Miasole, which recently swapped CEOs and has had to delay products. It is also an investor in EEStor, a mysterious supercapacitor company that has delayed its product and is going through some management changes. The firm has also not been part of some of the early, successful IPOs in clean tech … Read more

One of my closest friends in the entire world is convinced Al Gore is full of it.

Like a lot of News.com readers who have reacted to the Nobel Prize announcement, he doesn't believe Gore deserves the award. I should add that my super-skeptical buddy--no names here or he'll come after me with a rolling pin--also dismisses the arguments seeking to prove the existence of global warming as warmed-over pseudo-science. He just doesn't believe the available evidence makes for a strong case.

Perhaps it's only circumstance that he hails from the computer industry. Then again, … Read more