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New Study Shows Global Warming A Problem For U.S.; Video Games Make A Killing At Cash Register
Aired November 13, 2004 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN ANCHOR, NEXT@CNN: Hi there. I'm Daniel Sieberg. Today on NEXT@CNN new research says global warming is already taking a toll on the United States and the rest of the world. Here is some disturbing predictions.
Also, a program to improve safety for teenage girls when they get behind the wheel.
New video games make a killing at the cash register. All that and more on NEXT.
As soon as the election was over last week, the postmortems began on many fronts. One that we are following closely how well did electronic voting do? Initial reports said it worked pretty well with just a few glitches. Then the reports began to come in, mainly on the Web. Votes lost here, machine malfunctions there. Dan Lothian has an update.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It's all the buzz on the Internet, that the 2004 election was fraught with fraud. M.I.T. political science professor Charles Stewart has been pointing and clicking his way through a cyber onslaught of election conspiracies.
CHARLES STEWART, M.I.T. POLITICAL SCIENCE PROFESSOR: I found this thing that's really outrageous, what do you think?
LOTHIAN: But e-mails to bloggs screaming grand theft American some believe massive fraud cost Senator Kerry a critical number of votes. Here's why. Some small Florida counties like Homes, and Franklin heavily Democrat went overwhelmingly for President Bush. While some view this with suspicious, experts say the reality is so- called Dixie Democrats have consistently gone Republican for president. And voting records back that up. In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, one city recorded thousands of ballots more than the actually number of registered voters. Fraud officials say it was a typo. 18,472 should have read 8,472 the mistake never made it into the official count.
In Columbus, President Bush received 4,000 extra votes because of a mistake by an electronic voting system. Officials say it was an isolated incident but are investigating statewide. And finally, in Carterick County, North Carolina, where 4500 votes were lost when an electronic machine prematurely reached capacity. Officials say it was a glitch that won't impact the presidential race, but could impact a tight state race. ED POND CARTERET CO: The company has admitted now that it was their error and that it was a simple keystroke that should have been applied.
LOTHIAN: All across the south and across the country, a laundry list of problems. Election line.org has documented many of them.
DOUG CHAPIN, ELECTIONLINE.ORG: Machines that didn't work well. There were lines that were way too long in way too many places. There were shortages of provisional ballots.
LOTHIAN: Some are concerned technology may be hiding other secrets.
BRUCE SCHNEIER, E-VOTE CRITIC: Without the audit and paper ballots, we don't know what other problems happened.
LOTHIAN: The question is do all of these problems or perceived problems add up to a conspiracy or is all of this just normal post- election irregularity. That's what Electionline.org and professors over at M.I.T. are hoping to find out. Why they have no reason to believe they'll locate thousands of missing votes or find widespread fraud, they are conducting studies and audits working to locate any cracks in the system.
STEWART: Actually get the reports that will be generated from this election and figure out ways of auditing, as you say, the actual outcomes that occurred.
LOTHIAN: Even as the loud chatter of conspiracy continues in cyberspace.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: All right, well, President Bush's campaign wanted four more years and now he's got them. So what's his second term likely to mean for energy and environment policy? Sean Callebs takes a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): President Bush has made it clear he wants to reduce dependence on overseas oil. Part of his energy plan for his second term calls for exploratory drilling in Alaska's arctic national wildlife refuge. He says the untapped area will produce a million barrels a day for 20 years. The U.S. uses at least 18 million barrels a day now.
ADRIANA RAUDZENE, SIERRA CLUB: They wouldn't provide oil until about 10 years from now. It would take that long to come online. So it certainly not a solution for our short-term gas prices or energy prices.
CALLEBS: Environmental groups also say there is no guarantee that there's that much oil in the Arctic refuge and the drilling would destroy an unspoiled ecosystem. Opening up the Arctic Refuge has been an annual fight on capitol hill. With 55 of the 100 members of the new senate Republicans and the GOP holding a firm majority in the house, the president could very well have the support he needs to begin drilling in the northeast corner of Alaska.
CALLEBS (on camera): The president's 2003 energy plan was scuttled by Democrats and some Republicans. Who said the measure catered to big oil, gas and coal companies. The president's policies on energy and the environment have him at odds with many environmental organizations.
RAIDZENE: They don't make sense for our economy. They don't make sense in terms of preserving our natural legacy and they certainly aren't reflecting the conservation values of this country.
CALLEBS (voice over): Critics say the president's clear skies initiative weakens standards set in the clean air act. Republicans disagree.
GOV. BILL OWENS, (R) COLORADO: You know, I don't think the president gets a fair shake in terms of clean air, in terms of clean water.
CALLEBS: The president also continues to push his healthy forest restoration act. It calls for thinning and logging national forests. Congressman Scott Mcinnis proposed the forest measure, he says it will combat costly and dangerous western wildfires.
REP. SCOTT MCINNIS (R) COLORADO: You can't say, well, leave the forest alone and let whatever happens, happens. Let nature take its way and let those fires rage. That's not the answer.
CALLEBS: Environmental groups say it's simply a plan that rewards logging companies allowing them to cut down timber deep in national forests.
RAIDZENE: The Bush administration's forest plan has not put money where it's most needed. That's around communities to protect them from wildfire.
MCINNIS: It's an argument designed to dance around the fact that they can't face reality. And reality is we've got to thin these forests whether they are deep in the forest or they are on the urban interface.
CALLEBSS: The president has said he has a mandate to pursue his energy and environmental policies. The Sierra Club has labeled many of his plans reckless. The stage is set for what could be four years of contentious battles over the energy we use and the environment that surround us.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: With President Bush re-elected, oil prices rising and the Three Mile Island episode a distant memory, the nuclear power industry is looking at a revival. The Department of Energy says there could be new nuclear power plants within ten years. Louise Schiavone reports. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LOUISE SCHIAVONE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Far flung power black outs, oil fields turned into war zones. Wells that just aren't gushing the way they used to. The Bush administration believes one prescription for energy independence is nuclear power.
SPENCER ABRAHAM, ENERGY SECRETARY: One way to address it is to make sure that nuclear power remains part of the mix. If nuclear goes away the cost of electricity is going to go up because other electricity fuels are going to be more expensive.
SCHIAVONE: The Department of Energy is prepared to spend half a billion dollars over the next eight years to help two consortiums of energy companies, reactor manufacturers and architect engineering firms clear regulatory hurdles for new nuclear reactors. But the fight over storing spent fuel rods and other nuclear waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain continues. And there's concern about transporting even existing hazardous materials over roads and rails to Nevada. Critics say the administration is jumping the gun.
TYSON SLOCUM, PUBLIC CITIZEN: The nuclear waste needs to be shipped usually by train or by truck across the United States. And that means trucking hundreds of tons of highly radioactive material through the communities of millions of Americans. And in this age of national security concerns with terrorism we think that is a recipe for disaster.
SCHIAVONE: Nonetheless, 20 percent of the nation's electricity is already nuclear powered from 104 plants and fossil fuels seem increasingly unlikely to meet demand.
SCOTT SEGAL, GRACEWEEL & PATTERSON: Diversity within the fuel mix and energy production mix of the United States will be the name of the game. So nuclear power is part of that mix.
SCHIAVONE: The president must put the issue of Yucca Mountain and federal nuclear subsidies to Congress, now dominated by Republicans, which is why the nuclear power industry has some reason for optimism.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: Well protesters greeted a load of nuclear waste arriving at its burial site in Germany on Tuesday. A convoy of trucks brought the material from the train station to the waste dump in Gurlaban (ph). Police removed hundreds of demonstrators who tried to block the street. The activist say the Guley (ph) storage facility is not safe. Germany sends its spent fuel to France and Britain for reprocessing and then it is contrationally (ph) required to take back the end product.
In Washington, D.C. Shell and General Motors this week unveiled the first hydrogen fuel pump at a retrial gasoline station. The companies hope to demonstrate the technology to policymakers in their own back yard. Now according to the National Academy of Science is hydrogen technology is decades away from commercial reality. The secretary of energy Spencer Abraham is slightly more optimistic.
ABRAHAM: We want to see mass market penetration in the refueling system in place by the year 2018 to 2020.
SIEBERG: And that's obviously a long way off. Right now only 6 hydrogen vehicles all owned by GM, will use the station.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Coming up new evidence that global warming is real and that it's likely to change the world we live in.
And later in the show are cell phone ring tones stealing business from real music?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: The planet is heating up. And Arctic ice is melting away rapidly. That's according to two studies released this week by the Pew Foundation and the American Meteorological Association at Harvard. Now both reports paint grim pictures that planets environmental future. Sharon Collins has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHARON COLLINS, CNN CORRESPONENT (voice over): You've heard the warnings before. But these latest studies make a stronger connection between pollution and global warming. And a report from the Pew Foundation says rising temperatures are already having a major impact on the U.S. Scientists estimate at least one-half of all wild species have been affected by climate change. In some cases, birds have stopped migrating and there are a number of species beginning to shift north ward. It may not seem like a big deal but exports say these slight fluctuations in nature could have dire consequences.
DR. CAMILLE PAR
COLLINS: Or if for example butterflies begin emerging two weeks before the flowers they feed on. They soon could become extinct. The Artic region is especially sensitive it's warming much faster than other regions. And another study that looked at trends in eight nations says the Artic melt will actually make global warming worse because there will no longer be as much ice to reflect the heat.
DR. ROBERT DORELL, AUTHOR, "ARCTIC REPORT:" For the Arctic, this is particularly important because we know from evidence that there is really historic warming across the Arctic when we look at it over the last say 10,000 or even 40,000 years. We have in Alaska over the last 30 years somewhere between 5 and 10 times the rate of warming of the rest of the planet.
SCHIAVONE: The warmer temperatures have both good and bad ramifications. Some scientists point out that the Arctic thaw could make parts of Russia ice-free for months, instead of weeks. And proving the prospect of oiling gas development there.
But on the other hand, a resulting sea level rise threatens island nations and coastal states like Florida. The question then becomes, what can we do about it. Scientists don't always agree on solutions and when you throw politics into the mix, an already complicated matter becomes even more complex.
JOHN CHRISTY, UNIV. OF ALABAMA HUNTSVILLE: All of the things that I have seen that should be done in terms of regulation or so on will have an effect on the climate so small we'll not even be able to measure it. And so if those regulations are implemented, and we have no effect on the climate, but they do have an effect on the economies and the health and welfare of people, then that's a cost that ought to be weighed.
SCHIAVONE: But many scientists disagree with the wait and see approach. They argue that unlike natural solar warming from past decades, the man-made gasses will continue to stay in the atmosphere and change the climate. Those arguing for immediate reduction of industrial gas say by virtue of doing nothing, we would be conducting a very risky experiment on earth.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: Well now a follow-up to a story we told you about a couple weeks ago. It involves an alligator nick named Elvis who turned up in a Florida pond with a knife stuck in his head. Area residents said the gator never bothered anyone, so they were at a loss as to why he was attacked. Late last week investigators got a tip that led them to arrest Rick Alan Burns. Burns told them he stabbed Elvis in self- defense while he was fishing. He's charged with possession of an alligator without a permit, a misdameter and faces a maximum fine of $500 and up to 60 days in jail if convicted.
Now following up on a story from last week. Lots of viewers wrote us to ask for more information about the story on Jack Githae, he is a traditional healer in Kenya. That is to answer the main questions. And the dismal plant he was talking about is withania somnifera. Which Githae has found all over the world. If you search on the Web you will find lots of references to it. And Jack Githae doesn't have a Web site yet, but told us that viewers could e-mail him. Here's the e-mail address and if you don't have time to write it down now, you can find the address on our Web site that is at CNN.com/next, along with information on other stories in the show.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Coming up teenage girls are catching up with boys in the car accident statistics. We'll check out a program designed to make them safer drivers.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: The big dig highway project in downtown Boston has resulted in another big headache. Hundreds of leaks are reportedly dumping millions of gallons of water into the tunnel's system. One engineer says it could take 10 years to fix them all. The project has cost nearly $15 billion and replaces parts of Interstate 93 with underground tunnels throughout the city. There are nearly two decades of construction, problems have ranged from ice forming on tunnels to other leaks in the concrete. Investigation into the latest problem is under way.
All right to a transportation glitch above ground now. A computer system being tested at Dallas Fort Worth Airport to navigate departing aircraft has been temporarily grounded. According to the Dallas "Morning News." The program was designed to ease congestion on the nations overburdened air traffic system. But after two planes flew too close together and another two planes turned toward the wrong runway, officials decided to review it more closely. Federal regulators remain optimistic.
Well how safe is the water in the air? The environmental protection agency says it will begin randomly testing the water on dozens of aircraft. At fourteen airports throughout the U.S. It will publish it's results in January. Further inspections were prompted by the discovery this summer of chloroform bacteria in one of every eight planes tested. The EPA advised people with weak immune systems to avoid drinking water in the laboratories or galilees. While the airlines trade group is confident the water is safe, they have agreed to comply.
OK. Who were the most dangerous drivers on the road? Well if you said young male drivers, you are right. Based on statistics. The young female drivers are starting to catch up. Julie Vallese reports on a new program designed to help young women reduce their risk behind the wheel.
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JULIE VALLESE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Annmarie Maravetz is 16, a new driver and has mixed feelings about the independence that comes along with getting the keys to a car.
ANNEMARIE MARAVETZ, 16 YEAR OLD DRIVER: No one is sitting in the passenger seat telling me, you know, slow down, go faster, anything like that. It's all up to me. So that's really -- it worries me sometimes, too.
VALLESE: Recent statistics by the Department of Transportation show over the past 10 years the number of 15 to 20-year-old female drivers killed in car crashes has risen by 42 percent.
KRISTIN BECKSTAM, SAFE SMART WOMEN: Young women need to learn that they are in control of their safety.
VALLESE: That is the core message of a new program, Safe Smart Women. Its course safety just for girls.
BECKSTAM: It's our goal to give them the information they are not getting at home, they are not getting in schools so we can help them be safer and smarter on the road.
VALLESE: The Web site as to W. org is written in teen speak and outlines risks and tips and facts on safety. Hands on training teaches how to properly maintain tires, including how to change one. How to check fluids, fuses and the battery. It also teaches proper positioning behind the wheel.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rather than having your thumbs around the wheel, I'd prefer you have them on the wheel.
VALLESE: Annemarie says she'd rather have friends tease her about her attitude to driving than lose them in a crash.
MARAVETZ: It is better for them to be like oh what is her problem than getting in a crash and then not be able to talk again or anything horrible.
VALLESE (on camera): The program plans to go nationwide adding six cities in six months. It is funded in part by the Carmax Foundation so the class itself is free. The information learned possible priceless.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Coming up in our next half hour what lies ahead for this vast forest that stretches across northern Canada. Environmentalists and industry try to find a compromise.
And hot, new video games are starting to outsell top grossing movies. Those stories and a lot more are coming up right after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN. You know, just south of the Tundra in North America and Eurasia lays the Boreal Forest, Boreal meaning northern. Now the vast woodlands are an important wildlife habitat, but the Canadian Boreal Forest of catching the eye of logging and mineral companies. Gary Strieker reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY STRIEKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's often called the Great North Woods, stretching from Alaska to the Atlantic, Canada's Boreal Forest of 12 times the size of California. Of all the undisturbed forest remaing on the planet, a quarter of it is right here.
PETER LEE, GLOBAL FOREST WATCH: If you can imagine everything west of Denver, Colorado, in the United States as having no sign of human habitation, not a clear cut, not a road, not a well site that's the size of the ecologically intact Boreal Forest of Canada.
STRIEKER: These Boreal landscapes shelter uncounted numbers of grizzly bears, wolves, moose, and woodland caribou and billions of North American water foul and songbirds that migrate here to breed. But conservationists warn many undisturbed areas of the Canadian Boreal are now seriously threatened by increasing industrial activity, like oil and gas drilling and especially commercial logging. Trees grow very slowly in the Boreal Forest. Most of those felled in this clear cut were well over 100 years old.
TZEPORAH BERMAN, FOREST ETHICS: Five acres of forest are being logged in Canada every minute. These forests are being destroyed to make paper, to make catalogs, newsprint, toilet paper. It's simply an ecological travesty that we're destroying some of the last intact forests on earth to make pulp and paper that's being shipped to the United States.
STRIEKER: But logging companies respond that accusation like that are exaggerated, that they are following forestry standards even higher than required by law.
RICK BONAR, WELDWOOD CANADA: We operate in a working forest, it's not in damger, we have the same objectives as the environmental groups.
(UNINTELLIGIBLE) pinecones closed on the tree and require heat to open. After a forest fire, the pinecones open up. After harvesting, they'll up up in the heat and spill out seeds that will be the basis for the next forest.
STRIEKER: Here in Alberta, the Weldwood company, a subsidiary of International Paper, says it now leaves some trees standing in its cut areas.
BONAR: This will make the forest more like after a forest fire and that'll be good for wildlife.
STRIEKER: But critics are not impressed.
BERMAN: These companies will say they're micking natural disturbances like fire. Buts there no natural disturbance that is as indiscriminate as widespread and destructive as clear cut logging in these old forests.
STRIEKER (on camera): But now a few major petroleum and logging companies have joined together with conservationists and native tribes in a new coalition with a challenging objective, to protect at least half of Canada's Boreal Forest.
(voice-over): Their vision is a balance of economic interests and conservation. A network of interconnected protected areas of undisturbed forest, off limits to industrial activity. And outside those protected areas, sustainable state of the art management of the Boreal's natural wealth.
Meanwhile, some conservationists are campaigning to show U.S. consumers how the catalogs in their mailboxes are driving the destruction of the Canadian Boreal. A leading source of wood pulp for the U.S. paper industry. They say each year the average American household receives 200 mailed catalogs, that more than 97 percent of the catalogs go straight to the trash without being read. The vast majority of them not produced on paper made from recycled fiber, but from virgin wood fiber, much of it from Canada's Boreal Forest.
(END VIDEOTAPE) SIEBERG: Back in the U.S., the battle over snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park rages on. Environmental groups are suing the National Park Service over its plan to allow more than 700 snowmobiles in the park each day for the next three winters. The Park Service says snowmobile trails won't have any significant impact on the park, but the environmentalists disagree and say until the impact on wildlife is clear, the snowmobiles should be kept out.
So, just how big were the biggest dinosaurs? Well, apparently not as big as we thought according to new findings presented this week. When the remains of a seismosaurus were found in New Mexico in 1979, scientists estimated that the living animal was 170 feet long, that's roughly half a football field. But, recently researchers took another look at how the bones might have fit together; they decided the creature was only 110 feet long. Downsized by 40 percent. Now that's still a contender for the longest animal, ever.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Just ahead, how the ancient Romans kept their complexions dewy and youthful looking.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: The interesting thing is I wear more makeup than my wife.
FEME OKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Whether you're a news anchor or an average Jane, makeup provides that little oomph that can transform appearances and experiences and evidently the ancient Romans agreed.
An 1800 year old Roman cosmetic cream was unearthed recently at the site of an ancient Roman temple in London. The tin container came complete with its users fingerprints preserved in a thick white cream. The discovery offers insight into rituals and use of cosmetic by fashionable roman beauties.
MEDEA WHOSENDORFE, CNN MAKEUP ARTIST: That's where we get a lot of our beauty products is from the past and then they just upgrade them for new ingredients. But I think that's where a lot of the best products come from.
OKE: The University of Bristol analyzed the cream and the results were published in "Nature." It's most fat and starch with a touch of tin oxide. The museum even whipped up a batch of it themselves and put it on display. We asked CNN's own makeup artists what they thought of the discovery.
WHOSENDORFE: I would like to try it, because we're into beauty here, so if it works for dry skin, helps fine lines, wrinkle, we would definitely use it, and it would sell. OKE: Don't expect to see this on the market anytime soon, but still it appears there is a striking resemblance between the ancient cream and modern face creams.
O'BRIEN: Well, if it's good enough for the Romans, it's good enough for me.
OKE: As they say in the fashion world, stick with the basics, they are timeless.
O'BRIEN: I really should moisturize a little more. But I don't.
OKE: I'm Feme Oke, and that's "Cool Science."
O'BRIEN: And I'm going to have wrinkles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: If you haven't heard of VIOP or V-O-I-P yet, listen up. A decision this week may bring it to your ears sooner than later, at least that's what federal regulators say.
VOIP involves sending phone calls over the internet and the FCC unanimously ruled Tuesday it will oversee regulatory controls, not individual states. The VOIP companies say that'll streamline the process and reduce any digital red tape, i.e., some costs. But some critics say the ruling didn't go far enough. It didn't address things like 911 calls and access to rural areas.
Now, from setting prices online to inflating the, illegally. Eight people who used the eBay auction site to artificially jack up prices on their own items have been order ordered by the New York attorney general to pay $90,000 in restitution fines, and there's no negotiating that price.
Here's how the scam works: Sellers use false identities to bid on their own auctions in an effort to get buyers to buy extra. These cases involved vehicles, artwork, and sports memorabilia. Some items even sold for thousands more than the actual value.
For some, they are an exciting hobby, for others, a mild distraction when nothing's on TV. For outsiders, they're a waste of time. And for parents they can be a never-ending source of frustration. Whatever your take, videogames are here to stay. As Mary Snow reports, they're giving other forms of entertainment a run for their money.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's been promoted like a box office blockbuster. It's a science fiction sequel, but you won't find it on the silver screen. It's Halo 2, Microsoft's latest videogame release. Opening day sales more than last weekend's top grossing film "The Incredibles" pulled in. Some fans says its sales may even rival some of the top grossing motion pictures ever. VIKTOR LUNDBERG, VIDEO GAMER: I don't know if it's on the scale of "Star Wars," but it's -- as far as gaming goes, it's as big as anything.
SNOW: 27-year-old Viktor Lundberg defies the stereotype of pimply adolescent teens being videogame fans. A classical guitarist by day, he's among an estimated one-and-a-half million people who pre- ordered the 49 dollar game from Microsoft. Gamers like Lundberg will help push videogame sales above $11 billion in North America this year and analysts say the market has a lot of room to grow.
PJ MCNEALY, SR. ANALYST AMERICAN TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH: One of the other trends here is that you are seeing media companies, companies that make movies, for example, or TV programs really getting involved in the videogame industry. You're seeing more movie-based games this holiday than we've ever seen.
SNOW: Playstation 2's Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas, made its debut in October. Analysts say the game may have pulled in upwards of $125 million in the first week alone.
ROB SMITH, "XBOX" EDITOR: If you compare that to any other entertainment media form and it really categorizes videogames now as reaching a point of critical mass, of real sort of mainstream awareness that's generated them into -- you know, the business that I think everybody in the videogame industry has always thought they could become.
SNOW: An industry that made a splash with Pac Man is now going mobile with Nintendo releasing a new handheld game player with Sony next to follow. And it's gearing up for the hot new videogame frontier: the cell phone.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: OK, so you've decided to buy a new computer, maybe to play some of those new videogames coming out on the market. What do you do with the old one? Well, Austin, Texas, has made it easier than ever to get rid of old digital equipment: Curbside computer recycling. Christina Chavez from CNN affiliate News 8 Austin reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMIE WHITE, GOODWILL: Now, where are y'all putting good stuff, in here?
CHRISTINA CHAVEZ, NEWS 8 AUSTIN (voice-over): Jamie White takes your high-tech donations at Goodwill's Computer Works.
WHITE: Usually two trucks a day.
CHAVEZ: printers, monitors, keyboards, you name it.
WHITE: Like Christmas time, because every day something new comes in. You don't know what it is and so you're like, "wow, Santa's brought more toys." CHAVEZ: But now donors don't have to drop off those toys. Goodwill, the city of Austin, and Dell computers have announced a new partnership and a new program. It's called the Austin Computer Recycling Project. The program will offer curbside service.
WILLIE RHODES, AUSTIN SOLID WASTE SERVICES: It's easy to do it, but a lot of people don't know that. It's easy for them to go out and buy a new machine but then they don't think about the existing one they have at their home.
CHAVEZ: The city is getting help from Dell's know-how.
PAT NATHAN, DELL SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS DIR.: We have a background in recycling and understand the importance of responsible recycling. So, if a system can't be rebushished and reused, then it has to be torn down into its part.
CHAVEZ (on camera): Here's how it works: Just make a call to the Austin Recycling Project and workers will schedule a pick-up date. Take your donation and leave it by the curb by 7:30 in the morning. Convenience at a cost, though. It will cost you $10 for them to pick it up.
JERRY DAVIS, GOODWILL INDUSTRIES: That really gets to what the heart of what Goodwill is about. We do all this stuff so we can help people get jobs or employ them ourselves.
CHAVEZ (voice-over): Austin is the starting point for a project that could go nationwide, turning one person's trash into another person's treasure.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: When we come back, we'll meet an inventor who's found some new ways to get clean water flowing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: Well, while most Americans take clean running water for granted, people in many parts of the world can't. An entrepreneur in Singapore who grew up without running water has developed new technology so other people will have what she didn't. James McDonald has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMES MCDONALD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Her background is science. But Olivia Lum always knew she was best suited for business. While working as a chemist, she was charged with treating waste water, which led to the genesis of an idea.
OLIVIA LUM, FOUNDER & CEO HYFLUX: One day, people will have no fresh water to drink, and so I tell myself, "this must be a sunrise business for me."
MCDONALD: Fifteen years later, the water treatment company she founded, Singapore-based Hyflux, is worth $280 million. Quite a change for someone who grew up, ironically, in a house without running water.
LUM: Every day was a struggle for all the peoples living around my neighborhood. So that probably set me thinking that one day, I want to do it better.
MCDONALD: In 1989, she quit her job and poured savings into the venture, starting off with just two employees.
LUM: You have to overcome, not just money matter, you have to overcome the fact that you have no track record, your company was very small, and all you heard every day was discouragement.
MCDONALD: But she was able to tap into the growing demand for safe, clean water across Asia.
LUM: I just had the feeling that the environment in Asia is getting worse and worse. It's not going to get better.
MCDONALD: Following this vision, her company developed an advanced technology that filters water through a membrane of tiny fibers. The system was a hit with industries looking for new sources of fresh water. Especially in a city state where water is scarce.
(on camera): Singapore lacks this precious resource and for years has had to buy large quanties of water from its neighbor at the end of the bridge behind me, Malaysia.
(voice-over): With the Singapore government determined to set to its own water course, Hyflux's building and maintaining plants that recycle sewage, even ocean water. The company runs plants in China and soon Dubai.
Lum also built her success through small businesses and attractions. Singapore's (UNINTELLIGIBLE) bird park uses Hyflux technology to clean water for its sensitive ecosystem. Recently, Olivia Lum, made a bold move into household products. The Dragonfly is a miniature version of a Hyflux plant that pulls water out of the air and actually makes it drinkable.
LUM: Every day when you wake up, it'll be a fresh new day and they'll be fresh new opportunity.
MCDONALD: An entrepreneur who's never doubted the glass is half full.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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ANNOUNCER: When we come back, we'll check out a new watercraft that could leave jet skis in its wake. (END VIDEOTAPE)
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SIEBERG: Expired milk being poured into your cereal, expired cold medication that doesn't stop your runny nose. All situations were more information could have saved you from unfortunate experiences.
Now a new wireless technology call RFID is aiming to provide that information and more. You can think of RFID or Radio Frequency Identification as the barcode of the future. It's being designed to help businesses like Wal-Mart better manage their inventory, but also transmit other useful information about products you buy at places like the grocery store. So in the future an RFID equipped milk carton could alert your refrigerator that the expiration date has passed before the milk ever makes it to your cereal bowl.
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SIEBERG: Consider it the tiniest stage for an artist. Cell phones are increasingly becoming a place to hear your favorite tone in the form of a ring tone. And as Malica Capu (PH) reports, buying into this trend is making cash registers ring around the world.
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MALICA CAPU, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's easy to tell who's top of the pops. Now you can find out who is lord of the rings. Whether it's a theme from a sitcom, the latest chart topper, or a movie track, ring tones are a huge hit with cell phone users.
STEVE MAYALL, MOBILE MUSIC ANNALIST: Kids want to personalize their phones and personalize it with something that obviously reflects the kind of stuff that they're into it, and pop music fits that exactly.
CAPU: "Billboard" magazine is jumping on the bandwagon introducing a weekly jot ring tones chart.
Ring tones are also big business, costing as much as $7 for a download. Last year worldwide sales were estimated at $3 billion.
MARTIN TALBOT, "MUSICWEEK": Ring tones are being seen, along with a number of other things, as a really valuable revenue stream for music companies, for artists to generate income, through avenues, where they haven't had income before.
CAPU: Some critic argue a massive growth in the ring tone business could lead to a decline in the sale of music singles. Martin Talbot says ring tones are the rebirth of singles and it's only a matter of time before mobile phone users can download entire songs to their phones.
(on camera): What ring tone do you have on your phone?
TALBOT: I just have anything too cool or trendy, actually, I just have a -- the theme to one of my favorite TV programs.
CAPU (voice-over): with more than a billion people around the world owning cell phones, it's potentially a huge market. But, some users resist the ring tones.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't like to pay for the ring tones. I think that's just rubbish.
CAPU: For a good number of cell phone users, a ring tone that sounds -- well, like a phone ringing, is good enough.
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SIEBERG: All right, well you might have to call your friends if you saw the subject of our next story. It's called the "Bionic Dolphin." It's enough to make flipper a little nervous. It was built with cast-off military parts (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and they say it flips, spins, and rolls with all the energy and movement of a real dolphin. The pilot sits underneath the fighter jet canopy, hold on while it reaches speeds of up 30 miles-per-hour. It took five years and $100,000 to make it. Now aren't dolphins almost as smart as humans? Somehow, I just couldn't see them building a bionic human.
Well, our last story also involves a dolphin. This time a game of dolphin hide and seek. You see, after a typhoon early last month two dolphins escape their pen at a research facility in Japan. They'd lost their bearings in the huge waves and wound up at a port about 100 miles away. Because they were so friendly, locals knew they must have belonged to someone. It turns out the two mammals are part of a center that uses dolphins to treat children with autism and downs syndrome and other neurological disorders. They were all reunited.
Well, it's time for us to swim off. That's all the time we have for now, but here's what's coming up next week:
What's left of the largest pyramid in the world hides beneath the forest canopy in Guatemala. We'll tell you how these Mayan ruins could be the key to a win-win plan to boost the economy while preserving the environment.
That's coming up on NEXT. Until then, let's hear from you. You can send us an e-mail at next@cnn.com. And don't forget to check out our website, that's at cnn.com/next.
Thanks so much for joining us, for all of us, I'm Daniel Sieberg, we'll see you next time.
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