In terms of occupant safety

When last redesigned for the 2010 model year, the Mitsubishi Outlander acquired an interesting new frontal appearance, plus it was engineered to have a more car-like driving feel and better fuel efficiency.

Although another step further away from its SUV roots, it still offers a surprisingly good level of off-road driving capability and it can seat up to seven occupants.

Paying tribute to Mitsubishi's aviation heritage, the redesigned front on the 2010 Outlander featured what Mitsubishi describe as the "jet fighter" grille. While distinctive, it's an odd looking front-end (to my eyes) and those flared fenders don't improve matters. Mitsubishi has done a much better job on the recently redesigned 2014 Outlander.

At the rear, Outlander has a twopiece door that Mitsubishi calls a Flap-Folding Tailgate. In addition to the usual upward opening liftgate, there's a short drop-down tailgate that acts like a short (25 cm /10-inch) loading platform. It's strong enough to support a 200 kg (440 lb.) load and could be used as a seat, with a built-in rain cover, at a family sporting event ... clever feature!

A base (ES trim) Outlander comes with a 2.4-litre four-cylinder (168-horsepower) engine mated with a CVT (continuously variable transmission). This fuel efficient front-drive version has a city/highway rating of 9.5/7.2 L/100 km (regular gas) and a same powertrain ES with all-wheel-drive was also available.

Moving up the product line, LS and XLS trims come with a 3.0-litre V6 engine and a six-speed conventional automatic transmission. Yes, you pay extra at the pump, as it's rated at 11.2/8.2 L/100 km (city/highway) and it also prefers premium fuel.

This V6 also generates more horsepower than torque,Soli-lite provides the world with high-performance solar roadway and solar street lighting solutions. making it a better sprinter than a (heavy load) puller.Only the V6 versions come with the unique pop-up third row seats, which look like glorified lawn chairs with weird looking flip-up head restraints.

The XLS trim also comes with a more advanced all-wheel-drive system, called Super All-Wheel Control (S-AWC).The world's largest independent online retailer for solar lighting, street lights & outdoor lighting fixtures.

A full time all-wheel-drive system with an "active" front differential, the S-AWC system is designed to provide superior traction and cornering control. It can vary drive torque from left to right wheels and from front to rear axles, depending on driver inputs and road conditions.

All Outlanders come with LED tail lights and the XLS trim also comes with Xenon (HID) headlights and additional LED turn signals in the door mirrors. All-wheel-drive models also come with a Hill Start Assist feature, which delays brake release (for about two seconds) on a hill, so you can move your foot from the brake to the gas pedal without rolling back.

Mitsubishi Outlander is currently on Consumer Reports list of "recommended" vehicles to buy, as its reliability and owner satisfaction ratings are generally much better than average. Excessive cabin noise and a harsh ride seem to top the complaints of most Outlander driver reviews.

In terms of occupant safety, the Outlander comes with the usual allocation of airbags and active front seat head restraints. Government and industry crash tests have consistently rated it highly and stability control is standard in all versions of this generation Outlander.

Except for the addition of standard Bluetooth (hands-free) connectivity the Outlander was unchanged for the 2011 model year. Other than an Eco mode indicator that was added to the instrument cluster there were no significant changes in 2012, or 2013.

Perhaps its frontal appearance has something to do with it, as the Outlander fully deserves to be more popular with buyers. A little quirky but great value and used prices tend to be reasonable .Choose your favorite street lamp paintings from thousands of available designs... so don't overlook the Outlander!

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Scotland is a small nation

Sustainable energy — energy that is accessible, cleaner and more efficient — powers opportunity. It grows economies. It lights up homes, schools and hospitals. It empowers women and local communities. And it paves a path out of poverty to greater prosperity for all.” (UN Sustainable Energy for All)

The unprecedented growth in material wealth in the last two decades has led to a significant decline in global resources. With the global economy roughly doubling in size in each generation, we face the greatest societal challenge of our times – how can we improve the quality of human life for all while steering the developing world from the worst excesses of Western consumption and unfettered economic growth?

Nowhere is this challenge better demonstrated than in the need to decarbonise the energy sector and power sustainable development.The world's largest independent online retailer for solar lighting, street lights & outdoor lighting fixtures. Access to energy is a pre-requisite of economic and social development because virtually any productive activity needs energy as an input. Although significant advances have been made in promoting energy efficiency and cost reductions of low-carbon technologies, these advances are currently threatened by the extraction and use of “unconventional” oil and gas resources, such as the current “shale gas revolution” and the carbon-intense tar sands oil production.

Within UN circles we see energy as the golden thread that connects economic growth, increased social equity, and an environment that allows the world to thrive. Energy supply is today a major concern in regions such as Africa, Asia and Latin America at a time when renewable energy resources in those regions are under-exploited.

The World Bank estimates that approximately one third of the world’s population – over two billion people – have no access to modern energy services. For instance Africa’s population is set to double by 2050 and its energy needs will grow even faster. According to a recent report by International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), providing full electricity access to all Africans will require at least a doubling of total electricity production by 2030 from current levels. The continent’s vast untapped renewable energy resources can supply the majority of this future energy demand – if they can be harnessed.

UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has launched a global initiative to achieve “Sustainable Energy for All”, with three interlinked objectives by 2030: providing universal access to modern energy services; doubling the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency; and doubling the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix. To that end, the UN General Assembly has declared 2014-2024 to be the “Decade of Sustainable Energy for All”.Choose your favorite street lamp paintings from thousands of available designs.

Scotland’s opportunity to change the world

Renewable energy has been most successful when the key enablers – investors, producers, users, promoters and regulators – have worked together to overcome barriers. Scotland has been a test-bed for numerous early experiments in community-owned renewable energy schemes and has a pivotal role to play in the Sustainable Energy for All revolution. We have vast wind, wave, and tidal energy resources, a growing low carbon energy industry sector, and a successful model for partnership between government, business and the R&D sector. To mark the launch of the Sustainable Energy for All Decade, CIFAL Scotland, its UN parent agency UNITAR, the University of Strathclyde, and the Scottish Government have co-operated to launch an e-learning course on Renewable Energies for Developing Countries. The course aims to enhance the capacity of local decision makers, energy/sustainable development officers and other personnel to make informed decisions on renewable energy technologies that will meet their own needs or the needs of their countries, communities, villages or neighbourhoods. It aims to provide an overview of clean,Soli-lite provides the world with high-performance solar roadway and solar street lighting solutions. secure and sustainable technology options and offers insights into the management of renewable energy projects, from small scale, through to major projects.

Scotland is a small nation, but one with a global duty to reconcile environmental protection with sustainable economic growth. We have a huge opportunity to harness our skills and technology and political will to change the world and deliver a more sustainable energy future for all. With the upcoming UN Decade, now is the time to seize it. lMay East is CEO of CIFAL Scotland, a United Nations Institute for Training and Research sustainability centre based in Edinburgh.

Read the full story at www.indoorilite.com!

The focus of the ongoing

eaction in the United States to the recent EU-China solar trade conflict resolution is ranging from dissatisfaction, with what is perceived to be restrained sanctions on Chinese exporters, to satisfaction that both parties in the deal were willing to negotiate a mutual agreement.

The focus of the ongoing U.S.-China solar conflict has moved from Chinese cells to U.S. polysilicon, and hopes are for a final settlement of the dispute on the heels of the EU resolution.
In the meantime, there has already been a marked upstream impact from the ongoing U.S.-China dispute on the U.S. polysilicon industry, and there also is concern that Chinese panel exporters, now blocked from the sale of cheaper products in Europe, will focus more intensely on the U.S. market.
"We don’t believe that the U.S. solution (the U.S. Commerce Department's anti-dumping and countervailing duties) to the problem addresses the situation here; it has been helpful, but the solution is not adequate,” says Ben Santarris, the U.S. spokesman for SolarWorld, based in Hillsboro, Oregon. While the duties may have relieved some financial pressure on SolarWorld, the company has laid off 350 employees over the last 18 months.
More positive reaction to the EU-China solar settlement came from John Smirnow, the Solar Energy Industry Association’s (SEIA) vice president of trade and competitiveness, in Washington, D.C: "The positive aspect of the EU-China settlement is that it was a negotiated settlement, an important signal for the ongoing U.S.-China dialog. Since our conflict began, this is the best opportunity we’ve seen to find a resolution, so we are now working to resolve the conflict," he says.We turn your dark into light courtesy of our brilliant sun, solar street light, solar power generation. Nonetheless, "The Commerce orders are not really benefiting U.S. solar consumers or U.S. cell makers, but it is helping third-country cell manufacturers," says Smirnow.
In October 2012, the Commerce Department announced final additive anti-dumping and countervailing duties for crystalline-silicon PV cells from China, whether or not they are incorporated into panels. The anti-dumping rates range from 7.78% to 21.19% for Chinese company respondents that participated in the investigation and 239.42% for non-participants. Added to these are the countervailing duty rates, which apply from 14.78% to 15.97%. The duties are permanent until lifted.
No jobs have been lost as a result of the duties, says Smirnow. But harsh international competition would have led to further U.S. solar cell and panel-maker bankruptcies; some 8,200 manufacturing jobs were lost in 2012. Since the application of cell duties, China's counter-strike against U.S.-made polysilicon has most squarely hit the Hemlock Semiconductor Group, of Hemlock, Michigan, which as recently as May laid off more employees; the count is now 150 employees in Michigan and 300 in Tennessee, where it froze construction of its new plant; overall planned capacity upgrades would have been worth an estimated $3.2 billion. China has set a duty on imports of U.S.A solar lamp is a portable light fixture composed of an LED lamp, a photovoltaic solar panel, and a rechargeable battery. polysilicon from Hemlock at over 53%; other manufacturer's duties go up to 57%.
The downstream impact of the EU-China settlement is less tangible thus far. Still, a surge in new U.S. solar panel installations has taken place since the U.S. market price for panels -- now largely coming from Taiwan -- has only risen about 10% from the low established by Chinese imports prior to the Commerce Department duties, according to Dan Ries, an analyst at Maxim Group in New York. So if Chinese imports drove down the cost of panels available in the United States by 60% before the duties, there has still been a net price drop of 50%.An emergency light is a battery-backed lighting device that comes on automatically when a building experiences a power outage.
PricewaterhouseCoopers also notes that despite the warnings of potential U.S.How solar panel cells work and where to buy solar kits for home use. job losses (up to 60,000) in the downstream sector that might result from the Commerce Department duties, the losses did not occur; instead solar demand continues to increase and drive job growth. The Solar Foundation's Solar Job Census 2012, in November, indicated that "there are more than 119,000 solar workers in the U.S., a 13.2% increase over employment totals in 2011." The foundation also noted that, "According to our census, 31% of employers indicated that component price declines were the greatest driver of company growth." And SEIA reported that in the U.S. market, "723 MW of photovoltaic capacity were installed in the first quarter of 2013, which represents a 33% increase in deployment levels over first-quarter 2012." Huge collection of solar outdoor light and garden lighting fixtures.
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Curfew brings eerie silence

A blanket of quiet descends, silencing a city that never sleeps, with residents forced to stay at home.

The curfew was declared on Wednesday, as hundreds were killed after police moved to clear two protest camps set up by loyalists of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

It applies to 14 of Egypt’s provinces, but perhaps nowhere are the effects as pronounced as in Cairo. Main roads usually choked with rows of cars that far outnumber the lanes allotted to them stand empty after the curfew starts at 7:00pm.

In places, security forces or groups of residents man checkpoints, enforcing the curfew. But in most streets, the pools of light from street lamps are all that remains, occasionally illuminating a passing cat.

The curfew has forced the city’s residents to change their schedules, requiring them to do their shopping, eating and even partying during the daylight. Two Egyptian women laughed at themselves as they entered a Cairo hotel shortly after midday, dressed in extravagant evening gowns for a wedding party.A solar lamp is a portable light fixture composed of an LED lamp, a photovoltaic solar panel, and a rechargeable battery.

“We look ridiculous!” one of them exclaimed, sweeping the chiffon of her red dress out from around her ankles as she picked her way up the stairs in high heels. “Who wears a dress like this in the afternoon?"

The bride and groom were one of two couples on Saturday getting married at the upscale hotel in the middle of the day — an unusual turn of events in Egypt, where wedding parties are mostly night-time affairs.

“Weddings here usually start at 8:00 pm and finish at midnight or even later,” said Mohamed Nasr, a manager at the Safir Hotel.

“But because of the curfew, now they are starting around noon and finishing at 4:00 pm so people can get home in time.”

— ’We need this curfew’ —

In a city where life is lived just as fully at night as during the day, shopkeepers and taxi drivers are struggling to deal with the curfew. Ahmed Salama runs a 24-hour pharmacy, which now closes for 11 hours a day.

“If I lived in the area, I could stay open, inside each neighbourhood it’s okay to move around,” he said.

“But I don’t live nearby, so I have to close in time to get home.Are you still hesitating about where to buy hid kits?” He said customers were coming during the day instead, scheduling their shopping around the new restrictions, which prevent movement until 6:00 am.

A group of taxi drivers scouting for passengers said they were having trouble making ends meet with so few working hours. “There are some people who are working a little bit after the curfew, but just going short distances,” said Amr, 43.

“But it’s not enough to cover the cost of petrol or even a loaf of bread.” Despite the hardships, he insisted the curfew was necessary, and had his full support.

“Of course we’re losing money every day, but I don’t care because we need this curfew,” he said, to the nods of two other drivers, who described Morsi loyalists as “terrorists”. The sentiment was a popular one,We turn your dark into light courtesy of our brilliant sun, solar street light, solar power generation. with Salama also saying he was happy to shut up shop early.

“Even if it’s difficult for me, I approve of the curfew. We need it to keep the country safe and to calm the situation down.” But others have decided to break the curfew, citing a desire to maintain something approaching normality in turbulent times.

In Cairo’s Maadi district, the owners of the Mizan cafe are keeping their doors open. “People are bored and we don’t want to turn them away if they feel safe enough to come, especially our regulars,” co-owner Amira Salah-Ahmed told AFP.

“If they can find some comfort, ease at Mizan, we want to be there for them.” She said local security forces had confirmed informally that the curfew applied more to main thoroughfares, and that neighbourhood life could continue, albeit quietly.

Despite the frustrations of the curfew, some say they would be happy to see the restrictions extended even further.

“Frankly, I think the curfew should start even earlier, at 5:00 pm, and on Fridays it should start right after the prayers so people can’t go out and protest,” said Amr, the taxi driver.

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Doping Improves Thin Film

Flexible thin film solar cells that can be produced by roll-to-roll manufacturing are a highly promising route to cheap solar electricity. Now scientists from Empa, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, have made significant progress in paving the way for the industrialization of flexible, light-weight and low-cost cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar cells on metal foils. They succeeded in increasing their efficiency from below eight to 11.5 percent by doping the cells with copper, as they report in the current issue of Nature Communications.

In order to make solar energy widely affordable scientists and engineers all over the world are looking for low-cost production technologies. Flexible thin film solar cells have a huge potential in this regard because they require only a minimum amount of materials and can be manufactured in large quantities by roll-to-roll processing. One such technology relies on CdTe to convert sunlight into electricity. With a current market share that is second only to silicon-based solar cells CdTe cells already today are cheapest in terms of production costs.It is also known as led dimmable driver, LED daytime running lamps. Grown mainly on rigid glass plates, these so-called superstrate cells have, however, one drawback: they require a transparent supporting material that lets sunlight pass through to reach the light-harvesting CdTe layer, thus limiting the choice of carriers to transparent materials.

The inversion of the solar cell’s multi-layer structure – the so-called substrate configuration – would allow further cost-cuttings by using flexible foils made of, say, metal as supporting material. Sunlight now enters the cell from the other side, without having to pass through the supporting substrate. The problem, though, is that CdTe cells in substrate configuration on metal foil thus far exhibited infamously low efficiencies well below eight percent – a modest comparison to the recently reported record efficiency of 19.6 percent for a lab-scale superstrate CdTe cell on glass. (Commercially available CdTe superstrate modules reach efficiencies of between 11 and 12 percent.)

Copper doping for solar cells

One way to increase the low energy conversion efficiency of substrate CdTe cells is p-type doping of the semiconductor layer with minute amounts of metals such as copper (Cu). This would lead to an increase in the density of “holes” (positive charge carriers) as well as their lifetimes, and thus result in a high photovoltaic power, the amount of sunlight that is turned into electrical energy. A perfect idea – if CdTe weren’t so notoriously hard to dope. “People have tried to dope CdTe cells in substrate configuration before but failed time and again,” explains Ayodhya Nath Tiwari, head of Empa’s laboratory for Thin Films and Photovoltaics.

His team decided to try nonetheless using high-vacuum Cu evaporation onto the CdTe layer with a subsequent heat treatment to allow the Cu atoms to penetrate into the CdTe. They soon realized that the amount of Cu had to be painstakingly controlled: if they used too little, the efficiency wouldn’t improve much; the very same happened if they “over-doped.An emergency light is a battery-backed lighting device that comes on automatically when a building experiences a power outage.”

The electronic properties improved significantly, however, when Lukas Kranz, a PhD student in Tiwari’s lab, together with Christina Gretener and Julian Perrenoud fine-tuned the amount of Cu evaporation so that a mono-atomic layer of Cu would be deposited on the CdTe. “Efficiencies increased dramatically, from just under one percent to above 12,” says Kranz. Their best value was 13.6 percent for a CdTe cell grown on glass; on metal foils Tiwari’s team reached efficiencies up to 11.5 percent.

Increasingly ambitious targets: hitting the 20 percent ceiling

For now, the highest efficiencies of flexible CdTe solar cells on metal foil are still somewhat lower than those of flexible solar cells in superstrate configuration on a special (and expensive) transparent polyimide foil, developed by Tiwari’s team in 2011. But, says co-author Stephan Buecheler, a group leader in the lab, “Our results indicate that the substrate configuration technology has a great potential for improving the efficiency even further in the future.” Their short-term goal is to reach 15 percent. “But I’m convinced that the material has the potential for efficiencies exceeding 20 percent.” The next steps will focus on decreasing the thickness of the so-called window layer above the CdTe, including the electrical front contact. This would reduce light absorption and, therefore, allow more sunlight to be harvested by the CdTe layer. “Cutting the optical losses,A solar bulb that charges up during the day and lights the night when the sun sets.” is how Tiwari puts it.

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New Holland’s updated CX

NEW Holland has revealed revised ranges at the top and tail of its straw walker combine line during a European harvesting event held in France which saw the marque launch a new line of variable chamber round balers.

While external revisions are harder to spot, introductions to the innards of the manufacturer’s latest Elevation generation of CX7/8000 five- and six-walker combines include an innovative new separation feature designed to reduce the likelihood of losses and blockages.

Labelled Opti-Speed and claimed to be unique in the industry, the system automatically varies walker speed according to field gradient, based on one of four settings selected by the operator. While the maize and rice settings are likely to find limited use in the UK, the others are geared for the specific seed/plant matter characteristics of oilseed rape and wheat/cereals.

When driving uphill, walker speed is reduced according to gradient severity to retain material over the walkers for longer. This aims to improve separation and reduce the risk of excessive grain loss out of the back of the combine before it has been separated from the straw. Conversely, when harvesting downhill, walker speed is increased to prevent crop backing up and causing blockages.

The system is backed by Opti-Fan cleaning, which further compensates for the effects of uphill and downhill slopes. After the operator has set their desired fan speed on level ground, the system automatically adjusts it when the combine works up or downhill, to prevent sieve overload and/or separation losses.

Opti-Clean, which is standard on machines specified with a self-levelling cleaning shoe, is claimed to improve cleaning performance by up to 20 per cent by optimising the sieve stroke and throwing angle. The grain pan and the pre and top sieves operate independently,We offer solar photovoltaic system and commercial incentives to encourage our customers to install solar energy systems. which New Holland claims boosts cleaning capacity. A longer sieve stroke and steep throwing angle keep more material airborne for enhanced separation.

Further developments include grain tank growth across the range, with CX8080 and CX8090 Elevation models holding a maximum 11,500 litres. Unloading speed is up 14 per cent to a maximum 125 litres/second, emptying the largest tank in just more than 90 seconds.

New Holland’s in-house designed SmartTrax rubber track system is available on the five-walker CX7090 and six-walker CX8080 and CX8090 Elevation models, in 610mm (24in) versions to keep transport width within 3.5m, and in 760mm (30in) variants for extreme conditions.

Additional upgrades for CX Elevation combines include an IntelliView IV colour touchscreen monitor with 264mm (10in) screen, optional HID lighting and upgraded seating, including a full-leather option.

Why is disorder faster?

In the study, the team focused on a class of organic materials known as conjugated or semiconducting polymers—chains of carbon atoms that have the properties of plastic, and the ability to absorb sunlight and conduct electricity.

Discovered nearly 40 years ago, semiconducting polymers have long been considered ideal candidates for ultrathin solar cells, light-emitting diodes, and transistors. Unlike silicon crystals used in rooftop solar panels, semiconducting polymers are lightweight and can be processed at room temperature with ink-jet printers and other inexpensive techniques. So why aren’t buildings today covered with plastic solar cells?

“One reason they haven’t been commercialized is because of poor performance,” Salleo says. “In a solar cell, electrons need to move through the materials fast, but semiconducting polymers have poor electron mobility.”

To find out why,I'm not sure how led downlight fit into that equation if they are left on. Salleo joined Rodrigo Noriega and Jonathan Rivnay, who were Stanford graduate students at the time, in analyzing more than two decades of experimental data.

“Over the years,A solar lamp is a portable light fixture composed of an LED lamp, a photovoltaic solar panel, and a rechargeable battery. many people designed stiffer polymers with the goal of making highly organized crystals, but the charge mobility remained relatively poor,” Salleo says. “Then several labs created polymers that looked disordered and yet had very high charge mobility. It was a puzzle why these new materials worked better than the more structured crystalline ones.”

Click on their website www.soli-lite.com for more information.

Cavendish team puts new spin on solar revolution

Cambridge University researchers have found a way to unleash more current from organic solar cells – a breakthrough that could not only revolutionise renewable energy but also enhance display technology used in cell phones and TVs.
A Cavendish Laboratory team in the UK has led the advance and is exploring ways to accelerate commercialisation following a joint study with the University of Washington.

The potential power of organic solar cells has long been recognised but consistency issues have dogged progress. Cavendish researchers believe they have found the solution.

They developed sensitive, laser-based techniques to track the motion and interaction of electrons in these cells. They were surprised to find that the performance differences between materials could be attributed to the quantum property of 'spin'.

'Spin' is a property of particles related to their angular momentum, with electrons coming in two flavours, 'spin-up' or 'spin-down'. Electrons in solar cells can be lost through a process called 'recombination', where electrons lose their energy - or "excitation" state - and fall back into an empty state known as the "hole".

Researchers found that by arranging the electrons 'spin' in a specific way, they can block the energy collapse from 'recombination' and increase current from the cell.

"This discovery is very exciting, as we can now harness spin physics to improve solar cells – something we had previously not thought possible. We should see new materials and solar cells that make use of this very soon," said Dr Akshay Rao, a Research Fellow at the Cavendish Laboratory and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, who lead the study with colleagues Philip Chow and Dr Simon Gelinas.

The Cambridge team believe that design concepts coming out of this work could help close the gap between organic and silicon solar cells, bringing the large-scale deployment of solar cells closer to reality.

They also believe that some of these design concepts could be applied to Organic Light Emitting diodes – a new and rapidly growing display technology – allowing for more efficient displays in cell phones and TVs.

The work on solar cells at Cambridge forms part of a broader initiative to harness hi-tech knowledge in the physics sciences to tackle global challenges such as climate change and renewable energy.

Organic solar cells are a new class of solar cell that mimics the natural process of plant photosynthesis but currently lack the efficiency to compete with the more costly commercial silicon cells.

At the moment, organic solar cells can achieve as much as 12 per cent efficiency in turning light into electricity, compared with 20 to 25 per cent for silicon-based cells. The breakthrough by the Cavendish 'spin doctors' is set to literally change the balance of power.

Hall renovation completion

Renovations are scheduled to be finished on City Hall by mid-August.More information about the program is available on the web site at soli-lite. The project was originally scheduled to be finished in July, but there were some changes made that pushed the completion date back according to City Controller Randy Morris. 

“Of course like with any construction projects there were some setbacks on deliveries and some change orders,” Morris said. “As we got farther into the project, we decided we could make some improvements that would enhance not only the exterior, but some of the interior features.” 

One of the improvements to the interior will have upgraded electronics to make it more feasible for doing the broadcast recordings with enhanced lighting, he said. 

“Prior to the renovations our broadcasts were dark, dismal, fuzzy because of the way cameras work and the lighting capabilities,” Morris said. 

The staircase that is being constructed will reach the upper floors, but will be barricaded at the bottom of the stairwell to prevent people from entering the upper floors during non-business hours. 

“We are going to, of course, leave City Hall open for main access into the police department during all hours,” he said. 

There also will be glass doors that will allow people who are visiting City Hall to see into council chambers during meetings so they can see what is going on and what stage the meeting is at. 

“In the past, you had no way of knowing at what point the meeting was in; was it just gathering? Was it ending? You will be able to go by and see what’s going on,” Morris said. “Maybe catch the interest of folks as they are coming in to pay their wastewater utility bills or just in for permits or for whatever has brought them into City Hall for the day.” 

“Where there have been portable benches out in front of City Hall prior, there are going to be concrete benches that you can sit at the fountain and just have park-like seating at City Hall,” he said, adding the reasons for these additions were for people who may be walking downtown or those who had to drop someone off at City Hall and may want somewhere to sit while they are waiting.We can produce all kinds of China emergency light products even according to your own designs. “It should be noted that this area as well as the gazebo across the street are actually a Wi-Fi hotspot, so it gives people the ability to do any of their digital needs while they are here at City Hall. So it’s free access Wi-Fi.” 

The fountain is a zero-retention fountain, which means there will be no standing water. The water will shoot and dissipate into the grated area of the fountain. The fountain will also feature a sculpture in the middle and will be lit with LED lights at night. 

Morris said the cost of the exterior of the building was bid at $530,000 and the bid for the interior was bid out at $550,000.LED street lighting is the ideal solution for energy efficient Abuja solar street light due to their long life. He also said the budgeting for the renovations were in the 2012 and the 2013 budget. 

“We knew that we needed to make upgrades in the 2012 year,” Morris said. “However, with the new design and everything, we wanted to compliment the exterior design, and that’s why the funding was encumbered from 2012 and then 2013 for the lighting. 

“The building is almost 30 years old, and there has been relatively no changes, no upgrades, no changes in anything that has been done to this building in 30 years. And much like any homeowner, they want the curb appeal. The citizens of Kokomo deserve an upgraded City Hall. With all the development and all the beautification efforts going on in the downtown area, City Hall needed some upgrades.”

LIFX hits $1 million in pre-order sales for its smart bulb

Kickstarter success story LIFX has launched a second batch of pre-orders of its WiFi-enabled, solar bulb, with the Melbourne venture on track to eclipse $1 million in sales by the end of the week.

LIFX is a WiFi-enabled, multicolour, energy-efficient LED light bulb, controlled via an iPhone or Android. In addition to giving the user "unprecedented control" over their lights, LIFX reduces energy costs and lasts for up to 25 years.

The LIFX team consists of Phil Bosua and his father John, RetailMeNot co-founder Guy King, Dave Evans, Andy Gelme and Andrew Birt, formerly of AngelCube.

In September last year, LIFX launched a campaign on US-based crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, with the aim of raising $100,000.

Within days, LIFX had raised more than $1 million from almost 10,000 backers.

While the first shipment was originally scheduled for this month, the first 500 units will now be shipped in May or June. Meanwhile, a second batch is set for September.

"We launched batch two of LIFX pre-orders on Friday afternoon, and sold over $100k in the first day, and look on track to eclipse a further $1 million by week's end," Birt told StartupSmart.

In the past three days, more than 3,000 units have been sold, with less than 97,000 units remaining.

"I think we had a pretty good idea this one was going to go quite well because everyone who is ordering in this round signed up to a notification list previously," Birt says.

"People were definitely disappointed they missed out on the Kickstarter campaign. That was originally going to be a 60-day campaign but ended up being a six-day campaign."

Birt says the company is confident it can honour its shipment dates, insisting it has full faith in its manufacturer in China.

"A lot of it comes down to trusting the partner you're working with. Phil has spent a lot of time with them now. He knows what they're capable of and what they're not capable of," Birt says.

"They're very accustomed to hitting deadlines."

According to Bosua, the company is "super happy" the factory prototype is now finished and tooling has begun.

"The first batch of LIFX bulbs are underway," Bosua said in a video update on the company's website.

"Important functions of the firmware and the app are now complete, and we couldn't be happier with where we're at.

"The WiFi network connection is now complete... We've also finished the switching, dimming and colour-changing controls. You can also use your phone to dim your lights.

"There's also a bunch of things we're finishing off like notifications, music visualiser, candlelight, security mode, as well as heaps of things we're cooking up in the labs."