Nearly One-third of Workers Holiday Shop Online While at Work
from The Earth Times
It's the time of year again for eggnog, good cheer and of course, a bit of online holiday shopping in the office. Nearly one-third (29 percent) of workers, in line with last year's findings, plan to holiday shop online while at work this year, but it may be best saved for lunch hours or break times; half of employers report they monitor the Internet use of employees. This is according to a new survey from CareerBuilder.com conducted between Aug. 21 and Sept. 9, 2008, among more than 5,600 U.S. workers and more than 3,000 hiring managers and HR professionals. More

Los Angeles Plans to Power 10 Percent of City with Solar Energy by 2020
from The New York Times
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa unveiled a proposal to meet 10 percent of the city’s energy needs with solar power by 2020. The announcement was made at Solar Integrated Technologies, an LA-based company contracted last month to supply thin-film solar panels for a 1.1 megawatt project by Oregon utility Portland General Electric. More

Report: Green Building Could Triple in Five Years
from GreenerBuilding
A new study from McGraw-Hill Construction says the potential for continued growth in the green building market is huge and projects a possible tripling in the value of eco-friendly construction starts to reach as much as US$140 billion. More

Moscow Record-breaking Skyscraper Project to be Frozen
from RIA Novosti
The construction of what would be the tallest building in Europe, currently being built in the Russian capital, is to be frozen due to the global financial crisis, the owners said. The Federation complex, located in the Moscow City business center, is divided into two skyscrapers—the smaller West Tower at 243 meters tall (61 floors) and the East Tower, designed to be 360 meters (120 floors). More

London's New Look: Outward, Upward, Modern
from Kansas City Star
When Charles Dickens wrote "A Tale of Two Cities" in the 19th century, he was trying to capture the spirit of two history-soaked European capitals, London and Paris, in the days before and during the French Revolution. If Dickens were alive today, though, he could write a book of the same title without ever leaving London. The city is in the midst of a physical transformation greater than any it's seen since the post-World War II era. The museums, monuments, cathedrals and palaces that have lured foreign tourists for centuries are still there, but new developments are changing London's character in significant and controversial ways. More

Empire State (RE)Building
from Real Estate BisNow
There’s never a dull moment at the W&H Properties-owned Empire State Building, which has been undergoing perhaps the largest upgrade program in Manhattan—the US$500 million top-to-bottom, inside-and-out renovation of the landmark space. More

Solar-paneled Mausoleums Power Spanish Town Near Barcelona
from CNN
Santa Coloma de Gramenet, a gritty, working-class town outside Barcelona, has placed a sea of solar panels atop mausoleums at its cemetery, transforming a place of perpetual rest into one buzzing with renewable energy. Flat, open and sun-drenched land is so scarce in Santa Coloma that the graveyard was just about the only viable spot to move ahead with its solar energy program. The power the 462 panels produces -- equivalent to the yearly use by 60 homes—flows into the local energy grid for normal consumption and is one community's odd nod to the fight against global warming. More

What Germs Lurk Inside Your Keyboard?
from North County Times
The average office has hundreds of times more bacteria than a toilet seat. The "enter" button on your office fax machine is probably a rank stew of vile bacteria. And here's a controversial bit—women spread more germs in the workplace than men. Those are some of the findings of America's leading expert on work and home hygiene, Charles Gerba, a professor of microbiology at the University of Arizona. More

Video Surveillance is Becoming a Sought-after Technology to Provide Security
from Automated Buildings
The issue of security in industrial buildings was often a secondary issue—on the radar screen, but not the front burner. Safety was always paramount and generally addressed through instrumentation, fail-safe design, documented procedures, training and good management. Today, the world is very different, and security has become the new, high-priority issue. Protecting the operating integrity of a plant, a system, and personnel is now a strategic imperative. More