THE MAGAZINE OF TECHNOLOGY INSIDERS 08.08 BATTERY CZAR THE FUTURE OF THE CHEVY VOLT— AND MAYBE EVEN GM— IS IN DENISE GRAY’S HANDS volume 45 number 8 north american 08.08 UPDATE 11 THE SKY NEED NOT BE THE LIMIT Supercomputers customized for just one big job, like modeling clouds, could save energy and money. By Philip E. Ross 12 A GUIDED CAMERA PILL 14 WI-FI TAKES ON BLUETOOTH 15 EARTH-SIZE RADIO TELESCOPE OPENS ITS EYE 16 A CONNECTICUT FUEL CELL IN SOUTH KOREA’S GRID 17 NASA TESTS RADIATION-PROOF TRANSISTORS IN SPACE 18 THE BIG PICTURE 32 44 Multistory graffiti, without the pain and the aerosols. OPINION 9 SPECTRAL LINES Have the airlines’ cost-saving efforts gone too far? Tekla Perry thinks so. 10 FORUM Skeptics of all stripes weigh in this month. 20 TECHNICALLY SPEAKING 26 It’s 2008, and finally, the network is the computer. By Paul McFedries EARTH AND COVER STORY BEYOND: Denise DEPARTMENTS Gray is helping reenergize GM; 32 BATTERY CZAR 4 BACK STORY the Brazilian The Chevy Volt is the key to General Motors’ green-car future. 6 CONTRIBUTORS sci-fi game And GM’s Denise Gray holds that key in her hands. By John Voelcker Taikodom runs CAREERS on a mainframe; 21 The EE job market just keeps First Solar’s 26 FIRST SOLAR: QUEST FOR THE $1 WATT getting better. By Prachi Patel-Predd photovoltaics are bigger and An Arizona firm shakes up the photovoltaic sector by scaling up 22 Qatar University’s EE program cheaper. the size and cutting the cost of thin-film solar panels. opens its doors to women. By Richard Stevenson By Susan Karlin 23 INVENTION 38 RAM FOR FREE Patenting on the cheap: you get what A software add-on allows embedded systems to get by with less than you pay for. By Kirk Teska COVER: JOSHUA half the RAM they would otherwise need. By Lei Yang, Robert P. Dick, 24 HANDS-ON DALSIMER Haris Lekatsas & Srimat Chakradhar A child’s laptop can be a great work THIS PAGE: CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: JOSHUA DALSIMER; machine too. By James Turner HOPLON INFOTAINMENT; BLITZSTROM/BECK ENERGY 44 THE GAMEFRAME GUILD 25 BOOKS IBM has teamed up with a Brazilian start-up to create a powerful Patents can be dry, but a new book about them isn’t. By Steven Cherry game server—and it’s a mainframe. By Erico Guizzo 64 THE DATA Engineering salaries in just one word: “plastics.” By Prachi Patel-Predd WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG AUGUST 2008 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA volume 45 number 8 north american 08.08 WWW.IEEE.ORG/ THEINSTITUTE AVAILABLE 8 AUGUST ON THE INSTITUTE ONLINE IEEE-SUPPORTED GENETIC ACT IS NOW U.S. LAW Read about a new law—supported by IEEE-USA—that prevents employers and health insurers from discriminating against people based on their genetic information. LEFT: SHAUN CURRY/AFP/ GETTY IMAGES; RIGHT: ROZ WOODWARD/GETTY IMAGES WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG AVAILABLE 1 AUGUST ON SPECTRUM ONLINE MOTORHEADS INVADE LONDON When’s the last time you bought a car based on how low its CO2 was? At this year’s London Motor Show, that statistic led the launches of TUTORIAL ON several new, ultralow-consumption vehicles from major European MENTORING carmakers. Practically every automaker touted its commitment to PROGRAM reducing vehicular carbon emissions, using approaches as varied as If you’ve flirted with the idea of idle-stop equipment and tiny, high-powered diesels. Automotive editor participating in the IEEE Mentoring John Voelcker takes us on a photographic tour of the good, the bad, and Connection program but weren’t sure the breathtakingly bizarre at the UK’s major new-car show. what it was all about, check out an online archive of a recent orientation session. 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IEEE Spectrum is a member of American Business Media, the Magazine Publishers of America, and the Society of National Association Publications. WWW.SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG AUGUST 2008 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 3 back story EDITORIAL EDITOR IN CHIEF Susan Hassler, [email protected] puzzling one: why the company EXECUTIVE EDITOR Glenn Zorpette, [email protected] absolutely refused to talk. “I was MANAGING EDITOR Elizabeth A. Bretz, [email protected] really shocked that they were so SENIOR EDITORS Harry Goldstein (Online), [email protected]; Jean Kumagai, [email protected]; Samuel K. Moore (News), incommunicative,” he says. [email protected]; Tekla S. Perry, [email protected]; Philip E. The reticence only heightened Ross (Resources), [email protected]; David Schneider, his curiosity—and his determi-­ [email protected]; William Sweet, [email protected] nation to tell the story. So he SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR Steven Cherry, [email protected] ASSOCIATE EDITORS Sally Adee, [email protected]; Erico Guizzo, studied a handful of published [email protected]; Joshua J. Romero (Online), papers, interviewed experts outside [email protected]; Sandra Upson, [email protected] the company, and pieced together ASSISTANT EDITOR Willie D. Jones, [email protected] how First Solar had cracked at least SENIOR COPY EDITOR Joseph N. Levine, [email protected] part of the manufacturing problem COPY EDITOR Michele Kogon, [email protected] that blocks the industry’s way to its EDITORIAL RESEARCHER Alan Gardner, [email protected] EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, SPECTRUM RADIO Sharon Basco ultimate goal—selling photovoltaic ASSISTANT PRODUCER, SPECTRUM RADIO Francesco Ferorelli, electricity at a rate comparable to [email protected] that of fossil-­fueled generation. ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANTS Ramona Gordon, [email protected]; Stevenson’s sleuthing called Nancy T. Hantman, [email protected] on both his journalistic and his INTERN Monica Heger, [email protected] CONTRIBUTING EDITORS John Blau, Robert N. Charette, technical expertise. He got a Ph.D. Peter Fairley, Alexander Hellemans, David Kushner, from the University of Cambridge Robert W. Lucky, Paul McFedries, Kieron B. Murphy, Something by designing an optical scanning Carl Selinger, Seema Singh, John Voelcker microscope and using it to study ART & PRODUCTION conductive polymers. The degree SENIOR ART DIRECTOR Mark Montgomery New Under was in physics, he says, “but in ASSISTANT ART DIRECTORS Laura H. Azran, Brandon Palacio the United States, this work would PHOTO EDITOR Randi Silberman be done in a materials-­science DIRECTOR, PERIODICALS PRODUCTION SERVICES Peter Tuohy The Sun EDITORIAL & WEB PRODUCTION MANAGER Roy Carubia or an electrical engineering SENIOR ELECTRONIC LAYOUT SPECIALIST Bonnie Nani hat firstcaught Richard department.” That argument— WEB PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Jacqueline L. Parker Stevenson’s eye was the together with his love of vinyl WEB PRODUCTION SPECIALIST Michael Spector sheer scale of production. records and contract bridge— W EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD First Solar, a maker of solar cells makes him okay in our book. Susan Hassler, Chair; Marc T. Apter, Francine D. Berman, Jan based in Tempe, Ariz., had just Stevenson found his calling as a Brown, Raffaello D’Andrea, Stephen L. Diamond, Hiromichi announced it was “going to open journalist after leaving Cambridge Fujisawa, Kenneth Y. Goldberg, Susan Hackwood, Erik Heijne, Charles H. House, David H. Jacobson, Christopher J. James, four more factories in Malaysia— in 2001 and spending three years Ronald G. Jensen, Mary Y. Lanzerotti, Ruby B. Lee, Tak Ming substantial numbers, really,” he says. working as a process engineer for a Mak, David A. Mindell, C. Mohan, Fritz Morgan, Andrew M. That was a year ago. Stevenson supplier of semiconductor wafers. Odlyzko, Leslie D. Owens, Barry L. Shoop, Larry L. Smarr, Harry L. “Nick” Tredennick III, William Weihl, Bas¸ak Yüksel wrote it up as a news item for The company was buffeted by the EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE Compound Semiconductor, the dot-­com bust, a lot of the fun had IEEE Spectrum, 3 Park Ave., 17th Floor, New York, NY 10016-5997 industry magazine he works for in gone, and he decided he’d rather Attn: Editorial Dept. Tel: +1 212 419 7555 Fax: +1 212 419 7570 Bristol, England. But when IEEE explain engineering than actually Bureau: Palo Alto, Calif.; Tekla S.