en español: El Innovador de Texas
October 2004
Texas Economy Fights Back
When I sent the cities and counties their sales tax allocations early last December, I promised “This year, the Grinch isn’t going to steal Christmas.” That proved exactly right. And it was just the beginning.
A rebounding Texas economy, a successful tax amnesty program conducted by my office and strong tax collections from oil and gas companies drove the state’s fiscal 2004 general revenues $1.8 billion above those of 2003.
We closed the state’s books August 31, and I can tell you that fiscal 2004 was truly an economic bumper crop of a year for Texans. By year-end, nine of my 10 leading economic indicators were pointing up and we had enjoyed 12 straight months of state sales tax gains.
The Texas economy has fought back, and I predict our state will outpace the nation by increasing strides. This fiscal year, Texas gross product growth will edge that of the nation by a tenth of a percent; this will grow to eight-tenths by fiscal 2006, then to over a full point each year by 2008 and 2009. Texans won’t be stopped in their drive for a greater future.
I am also pleased to announce that our state’s Rainy Day Fund has grown to $878.5 million due to a surge in tax collections that Texas natural gas producers pay to the state. I believe, however, that the Rainy Day Fund balance remains well below where it needs to be. We should build it to at least $3 billion, which would be just 5 percent of our state’s general revenue budget. The money in the Rainy Day Fund should only be used for a true emergency. Texas government needs to budget like any hard-working Texas family—spend wisely, invest wisely and save for a rainy day.
Our fiscal plow horses are pulling strongly for now, but no one should forget the events that struck suddenly in the last budget cycle. I will not make any premature revision to the official revenue. With half the biennial acreage still left to plow, I will continue to monitor the situation and will keep all Texans advised as to our fiscal progress.
Thanks for all that you do for Texas.
Carole Keeton Strayhorn
Texas Comptroller
Cars that pay
One day, owners of electric cars may be able to sell the extra energy their cars produce to a local power company, said Dr. Steven Letendre, a professor of Business and Economics and Environmental Studies at Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vt.
Letendre researched the potential of integrating electric car batteries with the utility grid, which scientific circles refer to as vehicle to grid (V2G). Letendre said that V2G-ready vehicles will be an option for consumers in the near future.
As electric and hybrid cars become more popular, vehicles that often sit idle 90 percent of the time could generate excess power that their owners could sell to a local utility company, Letendre said.
A 2001 study by California-based AC Propulsion estimates 1 million V2G vehicles could generate electricity equivalent to that produced by 20 average-size power plants. The same study estimates an owner of a properly fitted electric car could earn as much as $3,000 annually.
For more information, contact Steven Letendre,
LetendreS@Greenmtn.edu, 802-287-8303High-heeled sneakers
Makers of a new high-heeled dress shoe claim it is as comfortable as a pair of tennis shoes.
Dr. Howard Dananberg, a podiatrist, designed a special shoe lining called Insolia that shoemakers can build into their shoes. New Hampshire-based HBN Shoe markets Insolia to shoemakers all over the world. Unlike padding in regular shoes, Insolia is a contour-based design with a specialty membrane built into the sole of a shoe.
“[We] take out the padding and cup the heel,” said Brian Hughes, chairman of HBN. “Even though there’s more weight on the heel, there’s less pressure, creating the image of lower heels.”
Traditional shoes place pressure on the front and the heel of the foot, without any arch support. Shoes built with Insolia distribute the pressure and weight equally to all parts of the foot, allowing women to walk more comfortably in any size heel, Hughes said.
Italian shoe designer Amalfi offers Insolia shoes in the United States in five different styles, and they are available at Nordstroms.
For more information, contact Brian Hughes
www.insolia.com, 603-622-0272War games
Having soldiers who can speak Arabic and understand the customs of a foreign culture can be a matter of life and death—or it can be a game.
In July 2004, U.S. soldiers at Fort Bragg, N.C., participated in trials of a new computer program, the Tactical Language Project, that teaches soldiers to interact with inhabitants of a Lebanese village. The program, developed by the Center for Advanced Research in Technology for Education at the University of Southern California, is based on a computer game called Unreal Tournament.
“It’s built on top of a commercial computer game where you’re shooting monsters in mazes,” said Research Associate Professor Dr. W. Lewis Johnson. “We designed it to have the sense of being present in an Arab village.”
The game teaches more than vocabulary, Johnson said.
“It’s exposure to the gestures used in the culture and the norms of politeness,” he said. “For example, if you have to arrange a meeting with a local mayor, you will have to understand what is polite in terms of offering or accepting an invitation or going to someone’s house.”
The project has been in development since 2003, Johnson said. When the kinks have been worked out, he’d like to release a commercial version. A version set in Iraq is also in the works.
For more information, contact Dr. W. Lewis Johnson,
johnson@isi.edu, 310-822-1511Don’t fence me in
Scientists at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., are herding ranchers into the 21st century. The researchers are testing new software that could enable ranchers to contain and move their herds with virtual fences.
Virtual fences are electronic boundaries that transmit a sound or electric shock to an animal that gets too close, similar to the kind used by many dog owners to keep their pets within their yards. The fence the Dartmouth researchers are developing would work on a much larger scale than the typical suburban lawn and would be mobile.
The Dartmouth system consists of software and collars for the rancher’s livestock. The software transmits global positioning system coordinates to the collars, and when an animal nears the coordinates, its collar triggers a sound or electric shock. When the rancher wants to move the herd, he or she enters the coordinates of the new location into the system, and the software herds the animals to the new position.
Researcher Zack Butler said the project is still in the prototype stage. Future versions of the system could include collar sensors that could monitor cows’ health, he said.
For more information, contact Zack Butler,
zjb@cs.rit.edu, 585-475-6155Faster than wind
Australian scientist Stephen Bourn has designed what he hopes will be the fastest sailboat of all time—one so fast, in fact, that it can travel faster than the wind pushing it. It accomplishes this feat by taking to the air.
The design, which Bourn tested in computer simulations and with scale models, relies on a large, wing-like sail that can generate enough lift from 10 to 15 knots of wind (about 11.5 to 17 miles per hour) to lift the craft out of the water. Only struts on the bottom of the craft remain in the water, which enormously reduces water-produced drag on the sailboat, enabling it to reach high speeds with little effort, said Bourn.
Bourn says that the design is stable and poses little risk of capsizing. The absolute speed record for sailing craft of all kinds is 46 knots per hour; Bourn said that a full-sized craft with an eight-meter wingspan (about 26 feet) should be capable of 50 knots or more.
For more information, contact Niall Byrne,
niall@freshinnovations.orgPlant power
Spinach made Popeye big and strong, but scientists have found that the plant actually packs enough power to generate electricity.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., developed a solar-powered cell that turns sunlight into electricity using a protein found in the leafy vegetable.
Marc Baldo, one of the project’s researchers and an MIT professor, says the research aims to produce a more flexible solar cell. Inspired by the process by which plants convert sunlight to energy, his research team found that the proteins in spinach that naturally convert sunlight to plant energy produce a tiny amount of electricity.
In their experiments, researchers took microscopic proteins from spinach and sandwiched them between a thin film attached to a sheet of electrically conductive material and an organic layer of conductive material, Baldo said. They directed sunlight onto the “sandwich,” and the proteins generated electrons that passed through the sandwich—producing an electrical current.
The solar cell converts 12 percent of the sunlight it absorbs into electricity, while conventional solar cells convert 20 to 30 percent. Baldo said researchers could identify better designs that capture light more efficiently. Other plants might work better than spinach, and Baldo said his team next will experiment with generating electricity from peas.
For more information, contact Marc Baldo,
baldo@mit.edu, 617-452-5132Life in the fastlane
Visitors to some Six Flags theme parks, including one in Arlington, can skip the lines. They still have to wait, but they can do other things while waiting, thanks to the Fastlane device, which pages thrill seekers when their reserved ride time is at hand, according to Six Flags Public Relations Coordinator Melissa Pinkerton.
“If the wait time is 45 minutes, you still wait 45 minutes, you’re just not standing in line,” she said. “You can go and do other things—like grab a soda or catch a show—and then come back when it’s your time to ride.”
Fastlane works like a pager. Holders use it to scan in their desired ride time on selected attractions, and they are notified of their ride time when Fastlane vibrates and displays ride information on its small screen.
The Fastlane rental does, however, cost extra.
“It is an [upgrade],” Pinkerton said. “It’s $10 to rent the pager, and then $10 per person to use it. Up to six people can be on a pager system.”
Fastlane has done well in various Six Flags parks, Pinkerton said. She added that there have been no customers unhappy about the reserved ride times of others.
For more information, contact Melissa Pinkerton,
817-640-8900, ext. 4175
TEXASIn May 2004, a Texas pilot program began operating an “early warning” system for detecting pollution. This Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) project will use “real-time” monitoring equipment at 90 sites around the Houston area to detect air pollution as it occurs, allowing regulators and industry officials to react and respond quickly. TCEQ plans to expand the project and institute a similar program to monitor water quality.
For more information, contact Steve Spaw,
TCEQ, 512-239-1700CALIFORNIA
Tombstones equipped with videos could soon allow the dead to speak from the grave. Robert Barrows of Burlingame, Calif., filed a patent for a device that will display a video message on the tombstone of the grave’s occupant. Barrows hopes that when people make out their will, they also will leave a parting video with their lawyer. Barrows expects his patent to be approved by February 2005.
For more information, contact Robert Barrows,
barrows@barrows.com, 650-344-1951GERMANY
Dental patients might not have to make multiple trips to the dentist for single procedures, like crown replacements, thanks to new ceramic replacement teeth. For about $93,000, dentists can purchase equipment to manufacture the ceramic replacement teeth in their offices. The Cerec 3-D system, by Bensheim, Germany-based Sirona Dental Systems, includes 3D imaging software and a processing unit to design the tooth and a milling unit to construct the tooth at the dentist’s office.
For more information, contact Michael Dunn,
Sirona Dental Systems, michael.dunn@sirona.com
Editor: Angela Freeman
Contributing to this issue: Magdalena Hamner, Ann Holdsworth, Karen Hudgins, Greg Mt.Joy, Edd Patton, Clint Shields, Suzanne Staton, Pam Wagner and Bruce Wright
