Getting a handle on your household energy consumption can save money and the environment. Your heating and cooling usage is …
energy
A Sugar-Powered Smartphone? Sweet!
A more efficient, sugar-powered battery developed by a team at Virginia Tech could help move the technology out of the lab and into your favorite gadget.
The Surprisingly Large Energy Footprint of the Digital Economy
Our computers and smartphones might seem clean, but the digital economy uses a tenth of the world’s electricity — and that share will only increase, with serious consequences for the economy and the environment.
Z Machine Produces Six Times the World’s Energy to Create White Dwarf Star
Calling Tony Stark! The Z Machine at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico is the stuff of comic book legend.
The massive X-ray generator is capable of creating what astronomer Don Winget calls “star stuff,” …
Imagine No Electricity Bills: The Rise of ‘Net-Zero’ Homes
If done properly, a smartly built green home featuring solar power, energy-efficient appliances, and proper insulation can result in the owner facing monthly electricity bills amounting to $0, or thereabouts. Now, one homebuilder is making such “net-zero” features standard in several communities around the U.S.
via No Electricity …
TechnologizerGadgets
‘Nest’ Is the iPod of Thermostats
Many years ago, Tony Fadell took an idea he had for a new gadget to Apple. It was a pocket-sized hard-disk MP3 player. Apple was impressed–and, just over a decade ago, released Fadell’s creation as the iPod. It was, as you may recall, quite popular.
(MORE: The iPod Turns 10: How It Shaped Music History)
Fadell went on to run …
6 Things You’d Never Guess About Google’s Energy Use
Google has ended a long silence about how much energy the company needs to operate, and how much power many of its popular services consume. Thanks to a new website, a pair of blog posts and a story in the New York Times, we’ve now got a treasure trove of data on the amount of energy it takes to run Google.
Here are some fun facts on …
Yell Phone: Using Speech to Recharge Portable Gadgets
Engineers in South Korea are working on a system that converts sound to energy, with one potential real-world application of the technology being cell phones that recharge themselves as people speak into them.
We won’t see a fully functioning solution like this in the near future, but the team demonstrated that “a prototype of the …
What Do Fireflies and Bill Gates Have in Common?
Speaking at TED last week, Bill Gates unveiled his vision for cleaner energy in the future and eliminating CO2 emissions by 2050 with his endorsement of a radically different type of nuclear reactor. He also noted the miracles that occur in nature by bringing out a jar of fireflies. It’s definitely worth the 30 minutes.