Want to see technology applied to a real problem?

I have been looking for some time for a software idea that does something to address the energy problem. I haven't found it yet. But I did find a number of companies applying the sharp edge of current technology to solve some of the real problems in power distribution and consumption. One such interesting company is Tantalus Systems. Tantalus - Narrowband Telemetry for Utilities. They basically have a wireless meter reading solution for utilities that saves them having to have people go around to read the meter. Each meter gets a little low power transmitter. Every now and then it wakes up and sends its data to the nearest other transmitter. Each house hands off it's data in bucket brigade fashion until it gets to an uplink point with a real connection to the data center where all data gets rolled up. This saves data uplinks from every house, a major logistical problem. The company is starting to get traction.

look for this coming to your town...