The following is an excerpt from the article.  To read the complete article, please click here: How To Integrate PV Monitoring Systems

Selecting the right remote monitoring solution (RMS) - a data acquisition system with a Web-based user interface - is an important step in ensuring that the return on investment for a solar project is maximized.  A properly matched and configured RMS should pay for itself many times over during the life cycle of a typical PV system through improved energy production and reduced operational and maintenance costs.  The wrong choice, however, can lead to increased expenses and frustration, as well as lost revenue due to suboptimal energy production.

*Quirky Gets Coverage on CNN, Inc.com and Reuters

*NativeEnergy Recognized for Travel Awareness and Educational Tools

*GetWellNetwork and EXTENSION, INC. Team Up at Kentucky Hospital

*Vermont Investors Forum Application Due 9/1/10

To read the complete newsletter, please click here: the_freshtracks_flurry_august_2010

The following are excerpts from this piece.  To read the complete original article, please click here: Aspen Institute Enlists NativeEnergy

The Aspen Institute has made big strides in recent years to reduce the carbon footprint of its public forums and other special events once speakers and attendees reach the Meadows campus. But when it comes to the more imposing problem of offsetting carbon emissions produced by travel to and from Aspen, the world-renowned think tank's efforts are just taking flight.

The Institute is no better or worse than a lot of business and organizations starting to craft policies to offset travel-related emissions. The Institute, though, might be held to a higher standard because of its mission — bringing together policymakers, business titans and leading thinkers to ponder the world's problems.

Native Energy has an impressive website that talks about the basic theory of carbon offsets, the projects it invests in and ways for individuals and businesses to calculate the CO2 production they are responsible for through travel, lifestyle and events.

An air traveler can use an application at the website to plug in their point of origin and their destination. The calculator figures the mileage and, from assumptions of the amount of fuel used, comes up with the amount of carbon produced. The emissions amount is doubled to take into account the “overall global warming impact of air travel for all air emissions,” Native Energy's website explained.

*Draker Selected to Monitor 14 Arizona Schools

*Draker Founder Rossman Participates in Renewable Energy World Roundtable

*GWN Wins New Contract & CEO O'Neil Interveiwed on "Daytime Tri Cities"

*VT Teddy Bear Among 2010 "Made in USA Hall of Fame" Inductees

*EatingWell Releases Newest Cookbook

To read the complete newsletter, please click here: the freshtracks flurry july 2010

The following is an excerpt from this piece.  To read the complete article, please click here: NativeEnergy Names New President

Jeff Bernicke has been promoted to President and Chief Operating Officer of NativeEnergy.  In his new position, Mr. Bernicke will oversee all operating and administrative areas of the Company. 

In announcing the appointment, Tom Boucher, NativeEnergy’s Founder and CEO, said, “Jeff is an uncommon talent, bright, energetic, and charismatic.  It became obvious to me and others at the Company that Jeff is the right person to provide us with daily leadership, as we continue to expand NativeEnergy’s overall business operations.

“With this management structure in place, we have ensured that the Company continues to be strongly positioned for growth and success,” Boucher added.

The following is an excerpt from this press release.  To read the complete original article, please click here: GetWell Network Selected by Franklin Woods Community Hospital

GetWellNetwork, Inc., the leader in interactive patient care solutions, today announced it has been selected by Franklin Woods Community Hospital to provide patients with its bedside interactive learning tool. GetWellNetwork will enable real-time information from patients to their caregivers and will be used by nursing to prescribe patients with education content based on patients' health diagnosis. The GetWellNetwork system will also record patients' education completion or progress automatically into the hospital's Siemens Soarian® electronic medical record system to create a more efficient workflow.

"We're very excited to offer the GetWellNetwork interactive patient care system in our new hospital," said David Nicely, CEO of Franklin Woods Community Hospital. "Our goal is to provide exceptional care and empower patients to get involved in the health care process, which we believe will make a lasting impact in our patients' health. GetWellNetwork helps us engage patients from the moment they enter their rooms until the moment they are discharged."

Franklin Woods Community Hospital will focus initially on using the bedside solution for patient education, service recovery, and patient satisfaction initiatives. Each patient room will be equipped with a flat screen TV and the GetWellNetwork system, which patients can also use to surf the Web, watch recent Hollywood movies, stay connected to friends on Facebook, or listen to Pandora radio.

On June 3, InventVermont hosted a panel on Intellectual Property that featured Senator Patrick Leahy and the Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, David Kappos.  The event was held at the Main St. Landing Building in downtown Burlington, VT and was sponsored by local law firm Merritt, Merritt & Moulton. Sen. Leahy is currently the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and earlier this year announced that he is working on a bill to address patent reform for the first time since 1952.

The bill recognizes that the USPTO is currently facing a backlog of 700,000 patent applications which the agency would like to reduce by 50%, and ultimately offer first office action to patent filers within 10 months. During his speech, Senator Leahy bluntly offered that the USPTO is underfunded and currently has an “unacceptable backlog”. Leahy suggested that current Director Kappos inherited a lot of difficult issues to deal with when he joined in 2009, and has been making progress, but needs help from this new bill to be able to move forward more rapidly.  The new legislation has a few key goals:

1)     Harmonize US patent law with international patent law, so that “first to file” is the standard here in the States, instead of the current “first to invent” status.  Senator Leahy believes this will ultimately increase American competitiveness overseas.

2)      Provides fee setting authority to the USPTO.  This includes mandating lower fees for smaller inventors, and would also offer a “fast track” service for a premium price, or alternatively a “slow track” option for filers who weren’t yet ready to commercialize their inventions.

3)      Increase the quality of patents awarded by allowing 3^rd parties to comment on the patent as it is being reviewed

4)      Improve the challenges process for existing patents

There was some concern from those in attendance that the bill is “big company” friendly, and doesn’t provide enough protection for smaller inventors.  Ken Puzey of Quantaspec believes the “bar will be raised too high for a patent owner to prove willful infringement”.  The proposed reforms will also reduce infringement damages, so Ken’s concern is that many large companies may just decide to infringe first, then if they get sued, later decide to license a patent if needed.

Senator Leahy’s rebuttal was that this bill will reduce filing backlog, reduce filing fees, and improve the administrative process for review, which will all be good for small businesses.  In addition, he noted that the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) supported this bill, which in his estimation is a thumbs up from the small business community.

There was also a question from Stuart Meyer of Fenwick & West about the proposed Patent Reform and how an impending Supreme Court decision regarding Business Method Patents will affect the proposed legislation.  It was clear that all eyes were on the Supreme Court awaiting this decision, and while the ultimate outcome was still unclear, whatever rule that came down from the Supreme Court, it would then fall on the USPTO to determine how to interpret and implement that ruling. 

For his part, Senator Leahy believes that “Intellectual Property is the centerpiece of our country’s job creation”, and that this new bill will offer a step forward towards securing the U.S.’ status in promoting innovation and therefore strengthening our economy. 

The following are excerpts from the press release.  To read the entire article, click here: Draker Labs Selected to Monitor 14 Arizona Schools

Draker Labs, a leading provider of monitoring solutions for institutional and commercial solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, has been selected by Photovoltaic Systems Manufacturing (PSM) to monitor PV systems that will be installed at 14 Arizona-based schools. Phoenix-based Salt River Project (SRP), one of the nation’s largest public power providers, is funding the installation and maintenance of the rooftop-mounted PV systems. SRP will provide teachers with training and classroom materials related to renewable energy education. Data collected from Draker’s monitoring solutions will be available to students and faculty, allowing them to apply real-world data in a variety of classroom applications.

Each of the Arizona schools will be equipped with Draker’s Sentalis™ 1000PV platform, an end-to-end monitoring solution that includes both hardware and a web interface for data management and reporting. The Sentalis hardware includes a base station that aggregates data collected from instrumentation attached to solar panels and other PV equipment as well as a variety of environmental sensors that measure solar irradiance, wind conditions and ambient temperature, all of which impact energy production. The base station includes a ruggedized datalogger from Campbell Scientific®, one of the most trusted names in field instrumentation, which collects data before transmitting it to Draker’s secure, remote servers for processing. 

Draker CEO Chach Curtis added that, “we are very pleased to have been selected by PSM and look forward to supporting the project’s educational and environmental goals. Draker has deep experience in academic settings and has already been deployed at a number of institutions, including the largest solar PV array installed at a North American university.”

The following is an excerpt from the Vermont Teddy Bear piece.  To read the complete article, please click here: VTB Named to Made in USA Hall of Fame

It was announced today that Simon Pearce, Vermont Flannel and Vermont Teddy Bear are among the Made in the USA Foundation's inaugural recipients of its Hall of Fame Awards. Awards are presented to companies whose ongoing commitment to manufacturing goods in the United States reflects their support of creating local jobs and upholding fair trade standards throughout the world.

"The Foundation is proud to announce the creation of the Made in the USA Hall of Fame," says Foundation Chairman Joel D.Joseph. "All of the companies that we have named to the Hall of Fame are exemplary American companies that produce very high quality products.   All of these companies also export their products around the world."

*Vermont Teddy Bear PajamaJeans Going Global

*VTB Completes Another Busy Mothers Day

*Solais Celebrates Earth Day with Incandescent Bulb Burial

*GetWell Boosts Patient Safety at Cook Children's Medical Center

*SolarOne Surpasses 500 Customer Installations

To read the complete newsletter, please click here: the freshtracks flurry june 2010

The following is an excerpt from this piece.  To read the entire press release, please click here: GetWell & Cook Children's Medical Center.

"We have a big focus on engaging patients and families in the care process, and GetWell Town fits perfectly with that philosophy,” said Jill Koss, director of family support services, Cook Children’s. “The quality and depth of health information offered through GetWell Town is unmatched and we’re thrilled to provide our patients and families with such a complete solution for innovative patient care at the bedside.”

By offering educational materials in a new compelling, multi-media format, patients and families are better engaged and better informed. Early results show patients and/or family members are viewing education materials more than once.  Cook Children’s is also using a “lock-out” feature that runs through a mandatory patient safety video on GetWell Town before enabling entertainment features. This ensures that all patients receive consistent information.

Following is an excerpt from this piece.  To read the complete original press release, please click here: Conergy Selects Draker Sentalis 1000

Conergy, a global leader in the development and deployment of photovoltaic (PV) solar power systems, has selected Draker Labs to provide monitoring services for a 1.1 MW solar system that Conergy designed and installed at Aqua America's water treatment plant in West Chester, PA.  

Draker's monitoring system provides the plant's owners and operators with real time performance indicators to ensure that energy production is at peak efficiency and to alert maintenacne crews should the system experience an unexpected decline in energy oputput.

According to Richard Holz, Conergy's Director of Engineering, "the Draker Sentalis 1000 system was a great fit for this utility-scale PV project.  The Draker monitoring platform provides everything we need in terms of remote monitoring for properly operating and maintaining the Aqua PV plant.  We are very pleased with the support we received and the professionalism of the Draker staff."

The following is the article from WCAX.com: VT Teddy Bear Takes PajamaJeans Global

Two Vermont-based companies are teaming up to market PajamaJeans. PajamaJeans were invented by the people at Vermont Teddy Bear. They're made to look like real jeans so they can be worn in public. But they're soft like pajamas, to be comfy around the house.

They were originally made for Teddy Bear's Pajama-Gram mail-order company. But PajamaJeans sold so well during the 2009 holiday season that the company started looking for new ways to market them, both in stores and on TV.

"We thought we had something special when we first started talking about the product and as we started to introduce it to consumers we saw a terrific response in our current business," says John Gilbert of Vermont Teddy Bear. "And so felt that this is something really big that we needed to partner with somebody else with."

They chose Williston-based Hampton Direct.  That marketing company is responsible for selling popular products like the Wonder Hanger.

Quirky's recently designed product, the Cloak, is expected to launch in mid-July.  Cloak can be positioned to sit on a flat surface in portrait, landscape, and typing stand positions. To read more about the Cloak and order instructions, please click here: Quirky's Cloak Undercover