Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Yes, right now, South America is buzzing with trucks delivering goods.  All these trucks are hoping to blow a tire as soon as possible, so they pour on the miles and take the bumpiest route all in an effort to protect your iPhone, laptop and other gadgetry.  OK, so the trucks may be doing nothing of the sort, but at the end of the day, their tubes have been burned releasing toxins into the air.

But not so much now, thanks to Tread.  Tread is currently buying the butyl rubber, no joke, from pit stops in Quibdo, Columbia.  The company’s employees then make cases out of this, relying on the material’s super resistance to scratches, wear, and UV light .  The company offers many styles of cases for phones (such as the iPhone), iPods, and laptops.

The company behind this, Better Energy Systems is the maker of the Solio solar recharger and of course they offer a case for the Solio.  These cases are another great way to keep that green thing going.

You can find these recycled cases at places like Best Buy, Amazon and REI for reasonable prices.  For example, the Sportster featured in the image above sells for $29.99.  Suggest they ship it by truck.

Product page: [tread]

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It is important that we all do our part to help the environment.  Our normal, daily activities are soon becoming more and more energy efficient.  Recently, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has issued a new guideline for all TV manufacturers to follow.  This new guideline is set to reduce the amount of energy each TV uses by 30% in efforts to help save the environment and will save you some money on the monthly electric bill.

With the holiday season approaching quickly, many consumers will be shopping for brand new HDTVs, whether it be for themselves or a gift for a loved one.  These TVs, as you can imagine, use up an enormous amount of electricity - some TVs can use up to 500 kWh annually.  Continued after the break.

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With the number of home-based entertainment and productivity applications that are running over home networks growing by leaps and bounds, some Wireless-G routers just can’t handle users’ demands.

Netgear saw this problem, and as a result, developed a new Wireless-N technology, which they feel is leaps and bounds above anything out there now.  The “Green” crowd will also appreciate Netgear’s new products since they are eco-friendly. 

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Sections: Computers, Desktops, Hardware, Laptops, Networking, Security, Software / Applications, Wireless, Gadgets / Other, Green, Gaming, Miscellaneous, Peripherals, Storage, Web, Websites

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google is a smart man.  I make this assessment not, as one would logically assume, based on Google’s success.  Rather, it is what I heard on NPR yesterday.  Schmidt makes a heck of an argument that is tough to assail.

No R&D spending?
His argument is about electricity.  Google is a big consumer of the stuff and Schmidt believes future wars (if not current ones) will be fought over it.  He asserts there has been almost no investment in our infrastructure in the past 20 or 30 years, leaving us vulnerable and with a system guaranteed to fail.  His solution?  Do something about it.

See Google’s action plan, hit the link…

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Sections: Web, Websites

Imagine being able to power your smoke alarm in your house without ever needing to change your batteries. It would get it’s energy simply from the energy and vibrations from everything around it. That is the goal of Texas Instruments. They call it “energy scavenging”, and they say the reality is not that far away.

Employing the inventor of the original microchip Jack Kilby, Texas Instruments, currently the world’s third largest chip maker, is busy trying to break another electronic frontier.  This time by creating a chip that uses an infinitesimally small amount of energy to operate.  They actually did a demonstration showing a clock being run on…get this…grapes.

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American’s are begging for alternative energy sources as of late, especially in their cars if it’ll save them money over time (see the several months you have to wait for a new Prius).  Hydrogen to many seems to be the next sustainable energy source.  Only one problem: there are only 60 stations for hydrogen across the country, only two of which do not require an appointment.  Thanks to this, the country’s first hydrogen cross country trip required flatbed trucks to carry the car when it ran out of fuel. Part of the point of the trip was apparently to show that in order for hydrogen to become viable more stations are needed, and I guess they accomplished that. Traveling 1,000 miles or more on a flatbed truck severely increases the carbon footprint of hydrogen cars. 

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A study conducted by Australian consumer agency Choice said that video game consoles and plasma flat-screen TVs are the biggest energy users which shoot up consumers power bills.

From among the 16 electronic devices that were tested during the course of the study, both the Sony Playstation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360 were found to consume the most energy. The study also noted that these game consoles still consume energy even if they are on stand-by mode. Following the Playstation 3 and Microsoft Xbox are devices such as laptops, stereo systems, DVD players and plasma TV’s.

In addition, the report also suggested that consumers switch off their electronic devices from the source and not from the remote control. As shutting it off using the remote control does not totally turn off the power. In fact, when left in power mode for a certain period of time, the study found out that the Playstation 3’s consumption is five times more than the energy consumption of a refrigerator.

Now that you know, we think it would be better to lower our console gaming time or better yet, to save more, we might as well stop using our game consoles. But of course this will be hard to do, especially if you are a hard core gamer. So, we guess the best thing to do then is to reduce the number of hours you use these electronic gadgets.

Read [Yahoo! News]

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Mother’s Day is just around the corner, and maybe you’d like to give your mom a digital picture frame.  But here’s something to think about, in the U.S. News & World Report issue for the week ending May 5, 2008, Marianne Lavelle writes,

“Look at just one of the new energy guzzlers: the digital photo frame.  This always-on gadget burns a barely noticeable $9 extra a year into the average household electric bill, says the nonprofit Electric Power Research Institute.  But the impact could be staggering.  EPRI estimates that if every household in America owned one, it would take five medium-sized power plants just to keep those family photo slide shows rolling in the nation’s living rooms.  ‘I call these electronics the sleeping giants in our homes,’ says Thomas Reddoch, EPRI’s director of energy utilization.”

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Dell’s latest move shows us how just religiously they follow their carbon-neutrality commitment. In case you haven’t heard, Dell’s entire Global Headquarters Campus, a 2.1 million square-foot expanse, is now running off wind-power and converted gas energy from a landfill. This is in cooperation with two companies, namely Waste Management and TXU Energy.

President at Dell Americas, Paul Bell, had this to say about Dell’s remarkable switch from conventional power sources to green power: “Powering an entire campus with green power… is an important step in becoming the greenest technology company on the planet and the right thing to do for our shared earth.“ Following it up of course with an answer to a question in everyone’s mind, “How much money does Dell save with this move?“ And Bell’s answer to that question is this: “At the same time we’re using green technology to drive operating expense down.” And how low down have they driven their operating expense, you ask? About $2 million annually is the projected amount to be saved in operating costs in Dell’s central Texas campus, where they are already implementing this scheme for quite some time now.

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As gadget and tech enthusiasts, I’m pretty sure that we all share a common love and respect for an open electrical outlet. We also have the common problem of energy consumption. There have been lots of gadgets released over the last year that have tried to capitalize on the growing green movement, but I personally think this one is one of the more elegant. The Saverclip attaches to your power cables and gives you a visual display of your power consumption. By reading the electromagnetic field around your wires, it can help remind you when to shut things down. It also uses the same electromagnetic field to charge itself; thus preventing the Saverclip from being yet another energy sucker in your house.

Via [Yanko Design]

• South American inner tubes defend your gadgets
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