Tech gifts under £25
GadgetsChristmas is a time for giving. That is, giving up any hope of having any coins left in your piggy bank come Boxing Day. But if you cap your spending, there are some amazing -- and afforfable -- tech gifts to be had for friends, family and the office 'secret Santa' weirdo you want to spend the bare minimum on.
I've rounded up a festive list of great pressie ideas if you're not feeling flush, to save you trawling the web for thrifty gifts. To prove you can buy great gadgets for affordable prices, here are 10 stunningly cool ideas for tech heads that all limbo under the £25 bar. Continue reading...
Apple rejoins EPEAT green list, admits its mistake
Green TechApple has pulled what's known in this game as a reverse ferret -- it's rejoined the EPEAT rating system that it withdrew its products from only last week.
The company posted an open letter on its website explaining the volte-face. "I recognise this was a mistake," wrote Bob Mansfield, senior vice president of hardware engineering. "Starting today, all eligible products are back on EPEAT." Continue reading...
Apple planning America's largest solar panel farm
Green TechApple is planning on building America's largest solar panel farm -- taking up a whopping 100 acres. That's it up there, as seen on Google Maps.
The company aims to use the site in North Carolina to power its online operations, including iTunes, the Evening Standard reports. Once built, the 100-acre, 20-megawatt facility will provide 42 million kWh of clean, renewable energy every year. We knew it was big back when we first heard about the facility, but not quite this big. Continue reading...
Tech-tastic flowerpot makes pro growing a cinch
GadgetsHouseplants don't last long in the average geek household (we spend too much time playing Words With Friends to water a fern) but as with most problems, tech can come to the rescue.
Click and Grow takes the toil out of home horticulture. It's an electronic flowerpot that pretty much does all the hard work for you, leaving you to sit back and think up ridiculous two-letter words that no one's ever heard of. Continue reading...
Land Rover TESSA uses exhaust heat to warm your home 
Car TechBuying a massive Land Rover hasn't historically been the best way to reduce your cost of living -- until now, perhaps.
Engineers at Atmos Heating Systems have teamed up with Land Rover to create a prototype Freelander that can power the central heating and hot water supplies in your house using heat extracted from the car's exhaust. Continue reading...
Robert Llewelyn: If you have to burn stuff to make it, it's not 'green'
GadgetsCall me an old curmudgeon, but I don't like the words 'green' and 'eco' when they're applied to anything that doesn't grow in soil. I sometimes mutter as much as I stomp around my vegetable garden, kicking snails and grumbling about human frailty. Actually most of my human frailty is in the lower back area from digging, but that's off topic.
I know green and eco are journalistic shorthand, I know that some people don't use them as terms of abuse or belittlement, but anything made in a factory out of materials that have been dug out of the ground, processed and shipped around the world is surely not green. It's a manufactured product that uses resources and energy in order to be created. Continue reading...
Meet the £35 lightbulb and the phone charger that drinks alcohol
Green TechToshiba is as keen as mustard to help save this nasty little planet we sneeringly call home. This week the Japanese company introduced us to a couple of products that will help keep those polar bears alive and well and ripping the heads off seals for years to come.
First up is a brand-new LED lightbulb (pictured above). This little beauty uses just 5.5W to produce a very bright light. Unlike traditional energy-saving lightbulbs, they aren't fragile, so klutzes like us can drop them without any worry of them breaking. And because LEDs aren't in a rush to burn out, Toshiba says these new LED bulbs can last 15 years. Continue reading...
Ebook readers greener than books, study says
Green TechClaims that electronic readers such as the Amazon Kindle are more environmentally friendly than paper books do hold up, according to an analysis by the Cleantech Group.
The research and media company drew on existing studies to do a lifecycle analysis and found that the carbon emissions from electronic books are far lower than traditional book publishing. Continue reading...
Sony PS3 Slim uses half the power of old PS3
Games and GearSony heralded the new PlayStation 3 Slim as more energy efficient than previous models, but that's not much of a boast -- the older PS3 'Fat' was one of the most power-hungry home video appliances available, with power consumption similar to that of a 50-inch plasma TV.
To test Sony's claim, we put the PS3 Slim through a battery of power-consumption tests and the results really are impressive: the PS3 Slim generally uses less than half the power of the original PS3, no matter what task it's performing. Check out the comparison after the jump. Continue reading...
Vexia Econav 435 and 355 tested: Saving you petrol, in theory at least
HandheldsIt's been a long time since anything new happened in the world of sat-navs, but finally the day has arrived we can report on something different.
Spanish company Vexia is bringing its range of Econavs to our shores. The twist is that the sat-nav gives you advice on the most economical way to drive, telling you which gear you should be in and whether you're accelerating too quickly. Continue reading...
Sony boosts rechargeable batteries
GadgetsSony on Tuesday announced a new type of rechargeable lithium-ion battery that promises a life span more than four times that of current lithium-ions. Specifically, Sony touts a capacity retention north of 80 per cent after 2,000 charge-discharge cycles.
Without getting too technical, the new battery uses as its cathode material olivine-type lithium iron phosphate, which Sony says is ideal for the job "due to its robust crystal structure and stable performance, even at high temperatures".
The material also apparently contributes to the battery's faster charging time. It can hit 99 per cent of its full capacity in 30 minutes -- approximately half the charge time of Sony's current lithium ion battery line, which mainly use cobalt oxide-based cathodes. Continue reading...
Greenpeace graffitis HP's headquarters
Green TechAfter rating Hewlett-Packard low on its Green Meter did little to convince the company to change its ways, Greenpeace on Tuesday decided to resort to more direct action.
It sent activists to HP's global headquarters in Palo Alto, California, where they climbed on top of the building and painted a gigantic message -- 'Hazardous Products' -- using nontoxic children's finger paint. The message covered more than 1,000 metres squared, which is about the size of two and a half basketball courts. Continue reading...
PecoBOO: Eco-friendly webcam software turns off unwatched screens
Green TechBritish inventor and self-described 'eco geek' Pete Hopton and his company, VeryPC, have come up with a piece of eco-friendly software, PecoBOO, that uses an open-source face-detection program and your PC's webcam to tell when you're looking at your screen and, more importantly, when you're not.
When you look away for more than a few seconds, get up or generally ignore your screen, it'll turn off. Then, when you face it again, it turns on. This reduces backlight power consumption and, thus, overall energy consumption. As a result, you should not only get longer battery life from your laptop but could also save money. Continue reading...
AlertMe links up with British Gas for home energy management trial
Green TechUK home-monitoring maker AlertMe has announced a trial service that will allow British Gas New Energy customers to control their central heating from the Web or mobile phone.
AlertMe makes a home energy-monitoring system built around a Zigbee home-area network. A cube-shaped hub acts as a central control point and separate devices, including smart plugs, communicate with the hub. Continue reading...
Don't forget to feed the 'leccy meter: Tesla opening European showrooms
Car TechElectric-speedster manufacturer Tesla is heading for Europe this summer. The company is planning a batch of new showrooms, three of which will be in Europe.
Tesla's three existing Californian showrooms will be joined by ones in New York, Seattle, Chicago and Miami, with Washington DC and Toronto also on the cards. This side of the Atlantic, millionaire's playground Monaco and autobahn heaven Munich will be getting showrooms. And here's the good news: you'll be able to surf the Web, take a test drive and see the Roadster in the flesh in London, home of CNET Towers, the Queen and the congestion charge.
Hang on -- what congestion charge? Snap yourself up a Tesla and you'll be able to hit 60mph in less than 4 seconds, without paying Boris a penny. Actually, the only way you'll hit 60mph on a London street is if you're dropped from a plane, but you know what we mean.
CNET UK's award-winning Car Tech series goes way back with the Tesla Roadster: we test drove it in Geneva, and this could be our chance to get gearhead-in-chief Rory 'Roadhog' Reid behind the wheel of the new Tesla S sedan. Continue reading...
Eco-documentary Home is first simultaneous cinema, TV and YouTube premiere
Green TechEnvironmental documentary Home today became the first feature-length film to premiere on YouTube at the same time as in cinemas and on TV.
The non-profit film, backed by retail group PPR, is directed by French photographer and environmentalist Yann Arthus-Bertrand, and produced by Luc Besson, the chap behind Léon and The Fifth Element. It's been released in French cinemas and will be shown on France 2 and for free at an open-air screening beneath the Eiffel Tower at 10pm. It's even out on DVD today. Continue reading...
Pixel Qi 3qi hybrid LCD/e-paper display
LaptopsPixel Qi was at Computex in Taiwan this week, demonstrating its 3qi display technology, which integrates e-paper attributes with LCD to create a versatile and potentially very energy-efficient screen.
The idea is that with a flip of a button you can go from a traditional high-resolution colour LCD experience to a low-power black and white mode to an even more energy-efficient e-paper mode, which allows you to easily view text in bright sunlight. Check out the demo video after the jump. Continue reading...
Sony Ericsson goes green with Ling and C901 GreenHeart
Mobile PhonesSony Ericsson is going green with two new phones announced this week: the C901 GreenHeart and the Ling concept. The GreenHeart is the eco-friendly version of the C902, which has a carbon footprint of 25kg of CO2, while the GreenHeart punts out an admirable 5kg less. It's a mid-range Cyber-shot phone with a 5-megapixel camera, boxed in smaller-than-usual packaging, while the Ling concept will be a no-frills entry-level model responsible for a scant 18kg of CO2.
The idea behind GreenHeart is not to add one eco phone to the line-up, but to green up all Ericsson's phones. Starting with the GreenHeart and the recent Satio, Sony Ericsson is removing paper manuals from all its phones, instead building the instructions into the phone itself. Apparently the manual alone is responsible for 3kg of CO2 -- that's 15 per cent of a phone's carbon footprint, according to Ericsson, a third of which is printing and the rest transport. Continue reading...
Air-fuelled battery could store 10 times more power
GadgetsA new type of air-fuelled battery being studied could provide up to 10 times the energy storage of designs currently available, and someday be used to power electric cars, mobile phones, and laptops, say researchers. "Our results so far are very encouraging and have far exceeded our expectations," said professor Peter Bruce, of the University of St Andrews' chemistry department.
The new idea the researchers are examining is to replace the lithium cobalt oxide electrode in today's rechargeable lithium batteries with a porous carbon electrode. This allows lithium ions and electrons in the cell to react instead with oxygen in the ambient air, according to a press release from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, which finances the research conducted at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. The project has received about £1.6 million from the EPSRC. Continue reading...
Nissan may launch hybrid 370Z sports car
Car TechInternet rumours suggest that Nissan will offer a hybrid version of its 370Z sports car by around 2012. Currently, Nissan's only hybrid is the Altima sedan, with a power train licensed from Toyota. But Nissan has long promised a car with a hybrid system developed in-house, and showed off a concept car that would use this system, the Essence, at the Geneva International Motor Show.
The first production car featuring Nissan's own hybrid system should be based on the Infiniti M45 (Infiniti is Nissan's luxury-car division), expected to come out in 2010. Nissan has been working on lithium-ion battery development in partnership with NEC. Continue reading...
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