Tag: ECO

Home appliances generally haven't been at the forefront of the green movement. While the Energy Star rating on some household gadgets has helped eco-warriors reduce their carbon footprint (and saved homeowners some money), it doesn't hold a candle to the devices that are designed to be green from the get-go. Switched.com decided to dig a little deeper – and found a dozen products that ...

This past July, Bill Gates announced his intention to do battle with one of nature's most destructive forces -- the hurricane. Thankfully, Gates has no intention of donning a wrestling singlet and cape, and defending the Gulf Coast. Instead, the Microsoft founder is putting the power of human ingenuity to perhaps its greatest test in the protracted war between science and nature. Of course, ...

Samsung's Blue Earth handset might just be taking the green thing to a whole new extreme. Made from PCM, a recycled plastic from water bottles, the phone boast an "eco" mode for efficiently adjusting screen brightness, backlight duration and Bluetooth usage, and an "eco walk" app / built-in pedometer to tell you how much CO2 emission you've saved by walking instead of driving. The best part? ...

Freeplay, creators of a large line of self-sufficient hand-cranked radios and flashlights, is entering the rechargables market with its Zipcharge rechargeable power stick, available in March. Co-opting tech developed for hybrid cars, the device pairs intelligent circuitry with a nano-phosphate lithium cell to achieve a swift charge time of only ten minutes, with enough juice to bring to life your ...

Everyone's looking for ways to be more efficient, which for many entails coming up with new and alternative ways to generate electricity. But, for others it means capturing something that typically goes to waste and putting it to good use. That's the case in a Swedish town, where a new crematorium is enabling those who don't want to be buried with their cell phones to help heat the town. The ...

In these green times, companies are looking everywhere to make a buck -- er, save the planet. Philips Simplicity didn't go much further than the sidewalk to find inspiration for its latest eco-friendly innovation, the Light Blossom, a self-sustainable street lamp that has triple-duty petals. They're peppered with energy-efficient LEDs to illuminate the street, naturally, but also have solar ...

In-home power consumption monitors are trendy pieces of kit lately, with a new one popping up every few months. But, while they're all happy to just kick back and tell you what a wasteful pig you're being, a new service from UK security company AlertMe could actually make you more efficient. Subscribers to the company's monitoring plans, which start at about $260 plus another $17.50/month, will ...

We got a look at one of those new Philips Eco LCDs today, along with some other miscellaneous gadgetry from Philips and its DLO subsidiary. Of note was the DLO HomeDock HD, which will be released in August for $250, and has a bit of an updated look from when we saw it last -- and some pretty snazzy menus for its type of product. That DLO iBoom JukeBox is also getting an August release for $200, ...

Yesterday, the New York Times Magazine ran a fairly comprehensive piece on the life cycle and environmental impact of mobile phones. The story detailed how many phones are reused, how many others are broken down and "mined" for useful metals such as silver and gold, and how still others – most others, in fact – end up in heaps of discarded electronics, left to leach often dangerous ...