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SpeedX's Unicorn bike knows how much effort you're putting in
SpeedX is back with another "smart" road bike that promises to track your rides with a sleek, blemish-free design. The Unicorn is a sequel to the Leopard, which I took for a spin last June, and comes with a new, detachable bike computer on the stem. It has a 2.2-inch touchscreen and runs a custom version of Android, clearly indicating your current, average and maximum speed, among other information. Despite its color display, SpeedX says the new "SpeedForce" computer will be visible in direct sunlight and last more than 20 hours on a single charge. There's also a wireless button on the handlebars for convenient screen switching.
Sassor wants to let users know just how much electricity their gadgets are wasting (hands-on)
Everyone knows that their game consoles, appliances and HDTVs are energy vampires, and while Energy Star-certified products tell us which gadgets are more green-friendly than others, we still don't know just how much juice they're actually sucking down in a given day. Enter Sassor, a start-up from Japan that's created a system to monitor the electrical consumption of anything plugged into a wall outlet -- from PCs to refrigerators. It tracks power consumption using current sensors clamped onto power cords, which communicate wirelessly via ZigBee with a module (based on an Arduino design) that uploads the info to the cloud. Through the web portal, users can track energy consumption on a per-device basis in real-time, letting them figure out which gadgets are most responsible for their sky-high utility bill -- and take appropriate steps to correct the problem. Currently, it's aimed solely at businesses, but once Sassor's on its feet, funding-wise, the plan is to also put them in people's homes. The company told us it'll ditch ZigBee in favor of a WiFi solution in such future iterations, and it'll make an SDK and the system APIs available to all so that people can program for the platform and improve it in ways currently not contemplated. Alas, there's neither a timetable nor a price for the consumer version just yet, but you can see some pictures of the hardware's innards below.
Another one bites the dust as Google closes Picnik
Given the spate of closures, abandonments and wound-up projects, we can't help but suspect Google's mantra switching from "don't be evil" to "sic transit gloria mundi." Mountain View's winding up online-image editing site Picnik in preparation for integration with Google+, joining Wave, Knol, Friend Connect, Gears, Health, Powermeter and at least ten other services that have been shuttered as part of Larry Page's "spring clean." In a statement on the site, the guys are moving over to the Google+ team to "focus on even awesomer things," so expect to see live-editing of your photos appear there before the end of summer. In the meantime, you can enjoy Picnik's premium service until the doors close on April 19th and those who previously stumped up (with, you know, cash) for the added features will receive a full refund.[Thanks, Henry]
Scout Observer replaces military SATCOM, is powered by the iPhone 4
If you need to channel your inner MacGyver, there's a tool for that... predictably, it's powered by your smartphone. By connecting an iPhone 4 to the Scout Observer's Toolkit, it's transformed into a spectrum analyzer, power meter, multimeter and Low Noise Block Downconverter (LNB). In English, that means the device lets you locate and verify satellite signals (including other mobile signals), measure their strength, and determine GPS location (amongst other things). The six-pound device replaces the standard 160-pound SATCOM terminal, making it the perfect accessory for covert operations -- if those are the kinds of romps you prefer on the weekend. The company is now accepting pre-orders for shipment sometime in Q4, and hopes to roll out versions for other phones in the near future.
Google 'retires' Health and PowerMeter, lets you save your vitals through 2012
Remember that Withings blood pressure monitor for iOS that we went hands-on with last week? It integrated with Google Health. The search giant's health management portal also paired with dozens of other services (a heaping handful can be seen in the image above) to aggregate and track all of your data, and share it with family members, friends, and doctors. The service didn't have the widespread impact that Google expected, however, so it's taking Health offline after the clock strikes midnight on January 1, 2012. You'll have another year to download your info, or send it directly to competing services. Also on the chopping block is PowerMeter, a free energy monitoring tool that pairs with smart power meters and other energy monitoring devices to help users better understand consumption habits and ultimately reduce costs. That project will get the boot from Mountain View on September 16th, but you'll be able to log in to your account to download a CSV file. We imagine Health and PowerMeter are already plotting their trip down south, to get in a few thousand rounds of golf with Video Store at Pebble Beach. Perhaps to be joined by Buzz and Wave, in the not-so-distant future?
Google PowerMeter comes to Blue Line Innovations' PowerCost Monitor
Energy conservation isn't just good for the environment, it's also good for the family budget. Being aware of your energy consumption can help you cut costs by as much as 5 to 15 percent, according to some estimates. One product that can help with real time power monitoring of your consumption habits is the Power Cost Monitor, a device we got to spend some quality time with over the summer after Blue Line Innovation kicked off a partnership with Microsoft HOHM. The partnerships are expected to widen today when BLI announces support for Google's competing PowerMeter web monitoring solution. As such, owners of the $249ish PowerCost Monitor WiFi Edition kit will have yet another method for measuring their carbon footprint from a PC or smartphone -- and that's a good thing. Update: We have the official PR after the break.
4Home, Marvell partner for energy monitoring plug computer
If you asked Intel what this is, the company would tell you it's an experimental power sensor; if you asked a storage guru, they'd ID it as the PogoPlug. Truth be told, it's a miniature Linux computer designed by Marvell -- who's apparently decided to beat Intel at the former function. Through a partnership with 4Home, Marvell's latest 2GHz SheevaPlug will become a smart meter that measures power consumption right from the outlet, ostensibly allowing you to figure out which blasted light the kids left on this time without shoving a pricey home automation kit into your walls. No word on how much it'll cost to keep tabs on your energy bill or when you'll be able to do it, but we'll ask those important questions and more when we see the device for ourselves later this week. PR after the break.
Intel's experimental sensor analyzes appliance power consumption from single outlet
It's pretty much set in silicon -- in the future, you will monitor your home power consumption, and perhaps even enjoy doing so. Futuristic touchscreen panels and free monitoring software abound, each designed to reward you with a warm, fuzzy Captain Planet feeling and a reduced energy bill when you finally turn off that blasted light. Thing is, unless you've got a home automation system, you won't know which switch to flip. Intel wants to change that with a new wireless sensor that can identify each individual appliance in your house by their unique electrical signal, just by plugging into a single outlet in your house. The reportedly low-cost sensor works by simply recognizing voltage drop patterns when devices are turned on and off, and doesn't require special appliances to function; Intel demonstrated it on a standard toaster, microwave and fridge in Beijing this week. Demonstrate your supreme demand for this "why didn't I think of that" idea by directing traffic to our source link -- you can jump to 20:10 to see the sensor in action. Update: Come to think of it, that looks just like a wireless version of Marvell's SheevaPlug.
Powering Google's PowerMeter: testing TED 5000 and AlertMe Energy
There are plenty of ways to be green these days, but without some sort of feedback it's hard to know just what shade you are. Enter Google's PowerMeter, a service that tells you how much current you're responsible for consuming. Why, it even shades its bar graphs in green, getting more pale the greedier you become. Google has partnerships with some utility companies in the US, Canada, and India, meaning a select few of you can do this sort of tracking by default. The rest of us were left out -- until now. Two devices on the market let you track your usage in PowerMeter regardless of just how backwards your utility company is: The Energy Detective's TED 5000 and the AlertMe Energy. We've been experimenting with these two for about a month now, finding that they serve the same purpose in very different ways and at very different costs. Click on through to see which one can best help you get greener.
Google signs PowerMeter partnership with The Energy Detective, lets everyone play along
It's hard to lose weight without a scale. That's more or less the idea behind Google's PowerMeter program, enabling users to view real-time power usage and unplug things accordingly to both reduce their demand and increase their feeling of eco-cockiness. Before today you needed to be getting your juice from one of a very few utility companies to audit your infos, but now you can break free thanks to a partnership with The Energy Detective. That company makes a line of straightforward power monitors that simply plug into a power outlet then connect to the internet via Ethernet to dump your kilowatt gluttony online. The TED 5000-series devices start at $200 and go up from there with optional displays and packages that allow the detection of solar or wind generation, and while they previously allowed online monitoring of power usage, this Google partnership ups their hipness by a factor of at least 10. And, if you were so cool you already bought one of these trackers before they went mainstream, you're just a firmware update away from tracking it with the Googs.
Google announces first PowerMeter partners, we beg for more
At last, we have the first partners in Google's quest to make your personal power consumption visible on your home computer. As the thinking goes, if you can't measure it, you can't improve it. So Google wants to give consumers near real-time visibility to their consumption and usage patterns via Google's PowerMeter software and utility-supplied "smart meters." The hope here, is that those aware of their energy consumption habits will change them to save money, and in turn, the planet. The initial list of partner utilities represent millions of homes spread across cities and country-sides in the US, Canada, and India: San Diego Gas & Electric® (California) TXU Energy (Texas) JEA (Florida) Reliance Energy (India) Wisconsin Public Service Corporation (Wisconsin) White River Valley Electric Cooperative (Missouri) Toronto Hydro–Electric System Limited (Canada) Glasgow EPB (Kentucky) Google has also partnered with Itron to embed its PowerMeter software into Itron smart meters. While we applaud the effort, seeing energy consumption for the entire house, only, is far too macro (though a good first step). What we're waiting for is the marriage of this with home automation and monitoring solutions based on Z-Wave and ZigbBee, for example, so we can gain visibility and control down to the device level. Imagine a single software view that lets you drill all the way down to see how much energy your computer, lights, or home theater projector is consuming and then shut 'em down when not in use or to avoid vampire drain. Hey Nokia, you're working on a Home Control Center... you reading this? Google's looking for partners.
NYT: Google's PowerMeter to let users track electricity usage
The New York Times is reporting Google will announce a free web service tomorrow called PowerMeter that'll let users track energy consumption in their homes or business, provided there's a means to upload the data. That part of the equation's gonna be up to other companies to create compatible devices, and while no manufacturing partners have been named, we'd suspect strange bedfellow GE will probably jump aboard pretty quickly. The service is expected to roll out in the next few months. Ready to give the boys in Mountain View even more access to your life?Update: The official site has launched. According to the FAQ, PowerMeter is currently in closed beta. There's also a video about the program, which you can peep after the break.
