Recently, we the opportunity to travel to South America, and one of the highlights was a two day stay in Machu Picchu, Peru. The town of Agua Caliente, at the bottom of the mountain and the end of the rail line, understands the worldwise interest and desire to visit this spectacular site. To see Machu Picchu closeup, you either have to make an arduous climb on foot, or you can take the bus. We recommend the bus trip at the 7000 foot plus altitude, unless you are an afficionado of mountaineering and are in decent physical shape and have the time to burn.

R & D Enterprises is proud to announce our newest endeavor, EnviroPhotonics, a web-site dedicated to understanding and utilizing emerging technologies in the lighting industry. Worldwide, we consume 10-15 percent of our total energy production for lighting our enclosed environments and taking back the night during the daily darkness. Our world would not exist in its present form without the benefits of artificial lighting. Yet, we continue to employ, for example, incandescent lamps in great quantities for lighting. We could save a few percentage points in overall energy usage by requiring newer lighting technologies. Yes, in many instances, the cost of switching to these newer technologies is more expensive. In almost all cases the lifetime costs are lower for both lamp replacement and total energy usage.

We find it significant, for example, that buses, cars, and other road vehicles are begining to be equipped with light emitting diodes (LED’s) as the technology of choice for headlamps, and other indicator lighting. This is an example where the overall increased cost of the newer lighting technology package is easily added to the market cost of the vehicle without major impact to the consumer. The lifespans of these products in this application will almost never require replacement over the life of the vehicle. To find out more, visit EnviroPhotonics.

The prospect of a truly commercial, and likely profitable venture to obtain enough capital and sponsorships to design, build, and operate a hydrogen powered bus or motor coach seems likely to be realized soon. We’re not talking about those recent, somewhat successful wholly or partially government and/or research funded hydrogen bus projects. We’ll leave you to do the Internet searching on terms like “hydrogen powered bus” to see what we’re talking about. London, England and Iceland, and even Southern California in the good old USA, have had notable public transportation projects with hydrogen powered buses. But, are any of the hydrogen bus designers, manufacturers, lease/sales agents, and bus system operators really making good profits as companies? Perhaps, some of them are. We believe there’s an excellent opportunity for profits to be made in the high-end private custom motor coach conversion marketplace for hydrogen powered buses.

We don’t see a lot of evidence that hydrogen powered vehicles of any kind are really in the mainstream consumer marketplace. Sure, hybrid cars are available enough if you can deal with potential backlogs, and hybrid cars are even in the middle class affordability range. True hydrogen power for vehicles though, can barely be described as out of the lab. More will be needed to further mainstream hydrogen powered cars and, yes, buses too. We all know Mother Earth needs us to get our act together with hydrogen power. Her unhappy environmental messages to mankind seem to be getting louder each year. What we need are more profitable business endeavors to promote hydrogen powered vehicles. Here’s our take on the situation. Read the rest of this entry »

R & D Enterprises has just released the first of a number of entertainment and recreational web-sites it plans to operate on the Internet. OddVenue.com will focus on odd, weird, bizarre and strange aspects of people, places and things around the world. At the very least, OddVenue.com will not be ordinary.

The partners of R & D Enterprises refer to this type of web-site as a UFE (i.e. Unreal Fantasy Estate). UFE’s have been around on the Internet for many years, and before, on earlier dial-up online systems. Some online chat rooms have been around for so long, that many affictionado’s of IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and IM (Instant Messaging) literally view these “places” as a real somewhere they go visit for conversation, companionship, and real-world advice. E-mail junkies believe the Internet is a “free” virtual planet-wide Post Office, not-with-standing that they are paying Internet access fees, hopefully. In the past few years, MMORPG’s (Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Games) have begun to blur the lines between the hands-on world and the digital bits world stored on some server that could literally be physically anywhere. People are exchanging real money for “fantasy” intellectual properties.

OddVenue.com will be focusing on these phenomina, and so much more, when it comes to the truly unique ways in which mankind is moving. R & D Enterprises invites you to surf on over to OddVenue.com and join in the merriment. They hope you will have as much fun as they did in creating the web-site, or in this case, a UFE.

One of the many web-sites operated by R & D Enterprises, BUSWORKS.com, will change it’s focus from basic internet services (i.e. web-site hosting and design, e-mail, file-sharing, and networking) to more expanded utilization of existing stable technologies to assist businesses and small companies with home-based employees, greater broadband deployment, wireless technologies, mobile workforces, alternative technologies for employee productivity measurements, and eco/energy friendly organizational structuring. In effect, with known and reliable technologies in the marketplace today, it’s becoming apparent that centralized-office style companies may be passing up huge savings in their capital costs and operational expenses. BUSWORKS.com will emphasize transitional planning to assist businesses making these changes with cost-effective proposals to begin the process without major capital infusions and an eye towards eventual reductions in general operating expenses.

For example, internet telephony (VoIP), is technologically mature enough at this time that businesses should consider it as an option for all, or at least part, of their voice communications systems. This is especially true for businesses that have large costs associated with long distance fees or even intra-state per minute charges. In some instances, VoIP can be employed for cell phone usage as well.

BUSWORKS.com is providing timely articles and reviews of some Online and Internet products and services to our web-site visitors to emphasize the economic advantages in deployment of these products and services. Grow your business wisely, reap the advantages of new technologies, be a friend to the ecology, use energy efficiently, and become a future leader in electronic commerce and the Internet economy. BUSWORKS.com will be there to help.