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The street light industry has a surprising new player as of Nov. 7: German automaker BMW. The company announced it has created two prototypes for a street light that can also serve as a charging station for electric cars. These “Light and Charge” lamps use ultra-efficient light-emitting diodes (LEDs) along with the charger, in order to provide a two-for-one energy benefit without expensive modifications to underground power lines. "Seamless charging infrastructure is essential if we want to see more electric vehicles on the road in our cities in the future," said Peter Schwarzenbauer, a BMW board member, on why BMW had taken on the development project. A pilot program will be implemented in Munich next year using existing street lights, and BMW says it hopes they will have them complete...

The demand for storage facilities is growing by the day, but businesses are often running into roadblocks when they try to open a new facility or expand an existing one. Cities are notoriously not big fans of storage facilities, for a number of reasons. They're lacking in curb appeal, as they are mostly just bland, garage-like buildings. These facilities also do little to boost tax rolls or generate jobs. City governments are much more likely to welcome businesses that will boost revenue or provide jobs for the community. However, in spite of city disapproval, the storage business is booming across the country. Over the years, storage units have gone from temporary to long-term storage solutions for many people. According to a survey by the Self Storage Association, 30% of storage re...

Electronic health records could protect the United States against the next Ebola-like crisis, Department of Health and Human Services CTO Bryan Sivak told VentureBeat on Oct 28. “Wouldn’t it be great if the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] could be immediately alerted if a patient showed up at a clinic somewhere with a temperature of 104 degrees, and who had recently traveled to West Africa?” he asked, commenting after his appearance at the HealthBeat Conference in San Francisco. Many healthcare providers have already begun EHR adoption under the HITECH (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health) Act of 2009, and clinics and hospital are required to report serious infectious disease cases to state health authorities, who in turn can make a report to the C...

After State Farm Insurance moves two miles down the road in Richardson, Texas, it will leave behind a building that can house thousands of employees. The relocation is one of the biggest office moves the Dallas area has ever seen. The new facility, part of the CityLine project, will serve as a base for almost 8,000 of the insurance company's regional employees. But in a couple of years, the old building will sit empty, leaving more than one million square feet of office space. Gary Stephenson, spokesperson for State Farm, said that the company projects a move throughout 2015 and into 2016 in four new buildings. However, due to State Farm's lease of five buildings south of its new campus, with some leases running until 2018, the entire block of old office space is unlikely to go...

Getting ripped off is a homeowner's nightmare, especially when it comes to home improvements. And that's exactly what happened for residents in Knox and Hancock counties in Illinois, where several individuals say they were the victims of a scheme by fraudulent garage builders. According to investigators in the area, homeowners met with the owners of Sturdy Building, based in Moulton, Iowa. The contractors told the homeowners they would perform work for them, but only after they signed a contract and put down 20% of the costs up front. The Knox County Sheriff's Office released a statement explaining the scheme. "The work is never started or completed," they said, "and the suspects keep the 20% down payment." Sturdy Building, owned by Jeremy and Amanda Lawson, received a Better Business B...