New York, U.S.A. — Toyota and the National Audubon Society awarded over $1 million in TogetherGreen Innovation Grants funding to 41 innovative environmental projects nationwide.

This year’s winning projects involve more than 150 conservation, environmental justice and community organizations working collaboratively on habitat, water and energy conservation. Many of the projects focus on engaging audiences that have traditionally been underrepresented in the conservation movement, from landowners to religious communities to inner-city students.

“Groups that won Innovation Grants this year have ingenuity and creativity on full display. And that’s what it takes to tackle the environmental challenges we face today,” said Audubon President and CEO David Yarnold. “I’m proud to partner with these innovators in creative approaches to achieve healthier communities and big conservation results.”

Sample projects that will receive 2012 funding include:

Habitat: In Connecticut, Audubon Connecticut and the Connecticut Student Conservation Association will create Audubon WildLife Guards, a Coastal Stewardship and Youth Conservation Training Program in Bridgeport, Conn. The program will provide green job training, mentoring and employment opportunities for high school students who will work to protect threatened beach nesting birds on Pleasure Beach, the largest intact barrier beach in the state.

Water: In Kansas, Friends of the Kaw, Inc., along with the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, Topeka Audubon Society and Jayhawk Audubon Society will launch the “Save Soldier Creek” campaign to minimize stormwater runoff  in the rural Soldier Creek watershed – reducing pollution and improving water quality and bird habitat).

Energy: In Arizona, Nina Mason Pulliam Rio Salado Audubon Center and Arizona Interfaith Power & Light will broaden its Footprints of Faith campaign to African American and Latino churches in Phoenix and Tucson promoting steps congregations can take to reduce their carbon footprints.

Engaging diverse audiences in conservation: In North Carolina, Wild South and its partners North Carolina Audubon Society, High Country Audubon Society, National Forests of NC and the Western North Carolina Alliance will reach out to military servicemen and women and nearby Asheville residents to involve them in controlling non-native invasive plants, monitoring bird populations, and educating the public on environmental issues. The goal of the project is to preserve the wilderness character and rare species habitat of the Linville Gorge Wilderness, one of the most rugged and scenic areas in the East.

“Toyota and Audubon really share in the belief that environmental change starts at the grassroots level,” said Patricia Salas Pineda, group vice president of national philanthropy and the Toyota USA Foundation. “We’re so proud to support this year’s Innovation Grants, which embody TogetherGreen’s commitment to conservation, innovation and diversity.”

Image Courtesy of   just.Luc

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Gracenote recently announced its technologies and music metadata help make it easier for Toyota drivers to enjoy and manage their digital music collection with Toyota Entune- enabled multimedia systems.

Entune, which in 2011 was given the “CNET Best of CES” award for Car Tech, is a revolutionary new multimedia system that lets Toyota drivers and passengers use voice and touch commands to connect to popular apps and interact with their music on mobile devices.

The Entune-enabled system in select 2012 model year Toyota vehicles features Gracenote licensed Album Cover Art, Playlist Plus and MediaVOCS technologies. When a driver’s iPod, smart phone or USB drive is connected inside the car, the Gracenote Playlist Plus technology jumps into action, identifying artist and album names to help drivers better navigate their music collection through the car audio system.

Gracenote Playlist Plus recognizes inconsistent and conflicting artist spellings in the collection, such as “AC-DC,” “AC/DC” or “AC.DC,” and uses this intelligence to improve music playlisting and voice control.

To help drivers hear more of the music they love, Gracenote Playlist Plus also associates detailed Genre information (e.g. Indie Rock, Punk, Classic R&B and Ska), Origin (e.g. U.S.—New York, England—London), Era (e.g. 1970, 1980s) with the driver’s music collection, letting them automatically create similar music playlists spanning multiple genres.

For instance, if a driver is listening to The Clash, they can simply say “Play More Like This” to hear similar artists and music from the band’s Genre (e.g. Classic Punk), Origin (England—London) and Era (1970s). Many voice recognition and text-to-speech systems struggle with irregular spellings and hard to pronounce artist and album names. Gracenote MediaVOCS technology enhances the accuracy of Toyota’s voice-recognition capabilities for music search.

For instance, Gracenote MediaVOCS helps the voice-recognition system understand “Depeche Mode” and “INXS” are the correct spellings and pronunciations of bands or artists. And drivers can use “Snoop,” “CCR,” “The Fab Four” and thousands of other artist nicknames as voice commands to access music.

“With digital music collections on smart phones and other connected devices now reaching into hundreds and even thousands of songs, it is critical to provide drivers a safe and easy way to interact with their music,” said Vadim Brenner, vice president of product at Gracenote. “The pairing of Gracenote’s technology and data intelligence with the innovative Entune multimedia system provides Toyota drivers a powerful in-car entertainment experience, where they can access and manage all of their music while keeping their attention on the road.”

The Gracenote Global Media Database, which provides the backbone for some of the world’s most popular entertainment products, is the largest and most comprehensive music database in the world featuring music and video metadata and licensed cover art images.

With 130 million tracks and eight million albums, the database processes more than 10 billion queries per month and powers a billion devices, including smart phones, PCs, automotive systems and HDTVs, from leading brands.

Philip Lange / Shutterstock.com

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Since Japan saw March’s devastating earthquake hit, the island nation has been focusing on securing its energy supply with a focus on electric vehicles. With the Fukushima nuclear plant knocked out and many other plants affected by what has been called the worst earthquake in 300 years, widespread blackouts became common throughout the country. In response, off-the-grid electricity sources have become increasingly favored to prevent future failures.

According to the National Police Agency of Japan, the 8.9 Richter scale earthquake and tsunami that hit the Pacific coast of Tohoku severely affected five of the country’s top companies. Toyota Motor Corp., Sony Corp., Honda Motor Co.,  Nissan Motor Co. and Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. were the top five which suffered setbacks.

Nissan, the creator of the all-electric Leaf, has taken action by developing a solar charging system which stores its power in the Leaf’s lithium-ion battery. The automaker has installed 488 solar panels so far at its Japan headquarters which will provide enough power for 1,800 Leafs for a year.

Nissan suspended its operations at six plants immediately following the earthquake. Due to damages and small fires which broke out at the Tochigi and Iwaki Plant, restorations took place lasting longer only at the Iwaki engine plant which was in the quake zone. Production restarted March 24 with almost 1,300 Infiniti models lost due to damages during the quake.

While the company’s shares lost 10.1% following the wake of the earthquake, it has regained strength in shares as well as in the development. In a joint venture with Sumitomo Corp, Nissan plans to reconstruct its electric car batteries when they are traded then resold as power storage units. Plans to implement this project are estimated to begin in 2016.

“These batteries can be useful as back-up power for homes when there’s an outage,” said Takashi Sakagami, head of the joint venture, 4R Energy Corp.

In addition to helping household energy security, a second life for old car batteries is also made possible. The batteries are high capacity and composed of various heavy, precious and rare metals which would be problematic to dispose.

Increasing technology of electric cars provides an advantage that is not only beneficial to the environment but also to Japan’s energy security. With electric vehicles, each household could potentially have its own mobile power source in the event of another disaster which disables access to mass produced power.

Big power consumers on the eastern side of the island are now required to cut power use by 15 percent and households have been directed to do the same.

Other automakers in Japan are developing their own methods of bringing energy security from the car to the home. Mitsubishi Motors is developing a portable converter which will allow electric vehicles to power household electronics. Toyota is developing batteries for direct home use to power a project known as the “Toyota Home.”

These model homes will manage power usage, tap into solar power and store excess power in the batteries for night-time use. It is estimated by Toyota’s project manager, Hiroshi Okajima, to be available by the end of 2013.

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The 24 Hours of Le Mans is probably one of the most unpredictable sporting events of the year. In 2010 Peugeot  filled the first two rows of the starting grid with four cars which looked formidably fast, however at the end of the day (literally) not a single Peugeot crossed the line, handing victory to the slower but more reliable Audis.

The main contenders this year will again be Audi and Peugeot; they will be the fastest cars on the grid with their super-efficient turbo diesel models. Filling the rest of LMP1 (the fastest class at Le Mans) will be Aston Martin’s controversial open-cockpit AMR-One and a clutch of smaller racing teams who will be running petrol driven machines.

The new ACO regulations have sought to increase the lap times around the Circuit de la Sarthe to around 3 minutes and 30 seconds, this means that the diesel cars have been limited to 3.7-litre engines this year (down from 5.5) and the petrol cars have been limited to 2.0 for turbo and 3.4 for naturally aspirated engines.

Efficiency is therefore the name of the game. Both manufacturers have reduced the number of cylinders from what they ran last year, Audi will be running a V6 and Peugeot a V8. As the differences in engines suggest, the cars have been constructed from difference approaches, it will be interesting to see whether the lighter Audi can overcome the straight-line pace of the Peugeots.

Peugeot’s car looks very similar to the 908 HDI FAP from last year but the designers have built the car from the ground up to make a brand new design for 2011 and despite the new regulations, the new 908 has clocked speeds even faster than its predecessor. The question remains whether Peugeot will avoid the technical problems that ruined their chances in 2010.

Audi have abandoned the open-cockpit design and have put a lid on the R18. The change comes in response to new pit lane rules which only allow two mechanics to change the tyres.  The fewer mechanics mean that putting on new tyres will take longer than the driver change; it will no longer be advantageous to have an open-cockpit which made driver changing easier.

Despite the rule change, Aston Martin have moved to an open-cockpit design, which has baffled many. Their engine choice as well, a 2-litre turbo straight six, has raised many eyebrows in the pits of other teams too – the AMR-One will be a very interesting entrant in this year’s race.

The perceived weaknesses in Aston Martin’s car has led to talk of the privateers in LMP1 being in contention to claim the title of fastest petrol team. Pescarolo return this year with a restricted 5.0-litre Judd chassis and Rebellion Racing will be running a new set of Toyota V8s in their Lola LMP1 cars. Hope Racing will be trying to emulate the Oreca 01’s excellent 4^th place behind the 3 Audis last year with a modified version of the same car.

GT1 and GT2 become GTE Pro and GTE Am, with a few new models present for 2011. The Ferrari 458 Italia will make a debut appearance, so will Lotus’ Evora alongside the stalwart Porsche 997s and Ferrari F430s.

This year is also the first year that the Le Mans 24 Hours will be part of a race series. It is the third meeting in the 2011 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup – not only is this one of the most prestigious races in the world but now it shall carry championship points.

Image Courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davehamster/

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March 31 ends the fiscal year for Japan and the pressure is building on Prime Minster Naoto Kan and the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) as they prepare to press their budget plan for the next year through the Diet – the Japanese parliament.

Japan is facing multiple economic challenges that each threatens to hamper the countries national economy as well as trade. Politically, the situation is equally unsettling as the government is up against a phenomenon known as a ‘twisted Diet’ – a term describing the situation where the Upper and Lower houses are controlled by opposing sides. The ruling coalition headed by PM Kan lost its Upper House majority in July’s election and since the Upper House cannot be dissolved, Mr. Kan will have a difficult time passing bills for the upcoming budgetary plan.

Among the financial concerns of the nation is trade. After a surprisingly stable trading market during the last two years, the Japanese Ministry of Finance revealed a gloomy trade deficit this February. Paradoxically, large cooperations such as Toyota, Honda and Nintendo were actually recovering quickly on top of the global financial crises but what threatens to derail the process is now the unusually strong yen. Toyota reported a drop of 39% in profits from the last quarter, Honda had an equal drop of 40% while Nintendo, which generates up to 80% of its revenue abroad, claim to have a 75% decrease in profits between April and December 2010. Much of the blame is directed at the record high exchange rate for the Yen, currently at its highest in fifteen years.

This has put a damper on the country’s export as the expensive yen on one hand stifle the price-competitiveness of Japanese product and on the other, eats up the profit in the process of converting from foreign currency into Japan’s national monetary standard. Larger cooperations are responding to the situation by moving capital and production out of Japan – Toyota has already started to produce their popular hybrid car Prius in Thailand.

Another grave concern is the public debt burden which is estimated to be about twice the size of gross domestic product. Mr. Kan is planning to reduce the debt by reorganizing the national finances, raise taxes and scrap the DPJ’s pledge of doubling childcare handouts to household. But the Kan administration’s budget is being met with strong opposition by economists. “The government barely scraped by getting revenue to match spending” said Hiroshi Miyazaki, chief economist at Tokyo-based Shinkin Asset Management, to Bloomberg. The budget “doesn’t work to improve the state of public finances but it doesn’t do anything to spur the economy either.” A strategist at Sumitomo Trust & Banking Co. also said to Bloomberg “What’s most problematic is that there is almost no visible clue to how Japan will consolidate its finances”.

Several commentators predict that the biggest focus in the coming time will be not on the content of the budget, but how the DPJ expect to get it through the Diet. PM Kan has seen his popularity dwindle in the last six months but is resisting claims that he will join his four predecessors of the last four years in what is called the ‘revolving door’ of Japanese politics. He wants to bring reform but it is uncertain if his goals will be fulfilled – and if so, if it will be on the expense of Mr. Kan’s position. The end of the fiscal year will show if this is the beginning of the end for the DPJ or the start of a fundamental restructuring of the Japanese market and political climate.

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