EnergyEfficiency
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EnergyStar program certifies 'gasoline-powered alarm,' other imaginary abominations
It'd be pretty difficult for you to reach Engadget without having seen the EnergyStar logo on something along your way here. Whether it was as part of your motherboard's bootup sequence or on the box of your new TFT monitor, EnergyStar certification has become a de facto standard for most electronics being manufactured nowadays. What you might not have known -- but probably could have guessed -- is that the process for obtaining that sticker is far from bulletproof. The American Government Accountability Office has recently done a bit of spy work by putting forward imaginary products and false claims to the validating authority, and regrettably found its bogus items "mostly approved without a challenge." The auditors' conclusion was that the program is "highly vulnerable to fraud," and the stuff they've had certified would seem to corroborate that verdict. Hit up the Times article for the full story of governmental incompetence while the Department of Energy -- the body responsible for running the program -- tries to get its act straightened out. [Thanks, Adam]
UMich gurus greatly reduce gadget energy consumption (at the expense of awesomeness)
Mama always told us that there'd be trade-offs in life, but we aren't so sure we're kosher with this one. As the story goes, a team of Wolverines from the University of Michigan figured out a solution to an age-old problem: effectively lowering power consumption by a significant amount in electronic devices. Anyone with a smartphone yearns for better battery life, and while Stevie J may argue that no one reads for ten hours straight, we'd still rather have the option than not. The development revolves around "near-threshold computing" (NTC), which allows electronic wares to operate at lower voltages than normal, in turn lowering energy consumption. Researchers estimate that power energy requirements could be lowered by "10 to 100 times or more," but unfortunately, that low-voltage operation would lead to "performance loss, performance variation, and memory and logic failures." We appreciate the hard work, folks, but could you hit us back when the side effects are somewhat less daunting?
California mandates TV energy efficiency improvements by 2011
That new HDTV of yours? It may be thin and light and lovely, but it ain't saving you any money. The state of California knows this and has created new energy efficiency standards applying to any sets sold after January of 2011. The initial regs state a maximum of 1 watt of consumption when "off" and, when on, a maximum of .2 watts per inch of screen area plus an arbitrary 32 watts. Two years later, in 2013, things get even tougher, that formula dropping to .12 per inch with a 25 watt base modifier. There are plenty of TVs that already meet the 2013 criteria, most of them smallish LCDs, so it's not an impossible dream. The bad news? An inability to sell non-compliant sets in CA could result in lost tax revenue. The good news? Reduced energy bills and a smaller hit to our fragile environment. The really good news? Any set greater than 58-inches is exempt, so go big, broheim.
Windows 7 bested by XP in netbook battery life tests
The venerable 2001 classic of an OS, Windows XP, strikes again. The scribes over at Laptop have put together a rather damning battery life comparison between old greybeard and the fresh Windows 7, which finds that on average netbooks get 47 minutes less battery life with the upgraded software. In the case of the ASUS 1008HA, that deficit was a meaty 57 minutes, or 16.7%. Liliputing and jkOnTheRun have run their own tests which invariably reached the same conclusion. Adding these data to an earlier comparison with Snow Leopard, where Windows 7 was again markedly worse than its competitor, leads us to the conclusion that perhaps Microsoft's 7th heaven hasn't quite been optimized for the mobile mavens out there... yet. Read - Stick with XP? Windows 7 Battery Life Worse on Netbooks Read - Windows 7 + netbooks = lower battery life? Read - Netbook Battery Tests: Windows XP vs Windows 7
This just in: California 'cool car' law may hose your iPhone reception
Whenever I visit California, I'm always amazed with the number of state laws that have been enacted for one reason or another. For example, you're warned about alcohol's effect on pregnant women (duh!) when you go into bars and restaurants, and many buildings have mandated warning signs outside telling you if there are materials inside that might be cancer-causing. Well, the latest California state law that will affect almost everyone in the Golden State is the new "cool car" regulation, set to take effect in the next decade. The idea here is that by reducing solar heat in cars by mandating reflective metal oxide additives in window glass, car air conditioners won't have to work as hard and gas mileage will be improved. The law calls for the coatings to prevent 45% of the sun's thermal energy from entering vehicles by 2014, raising the limit to 60% by 2016. While this is a noble and worthy goal, there's one major issue -- these materials, according to a post on our sister blog Autoblog, seriously degrade the transmission of radio frequency energy as well. That means that just about any electronic device that depends on signals from the outside world, including iPhones, GPS receivers, and wireless broadband cards for laptops, will be "adversely affected by the metallic reflective standard." You think AT&T's service is bad now? Just wait until you're sitting in a car that is shielding you from any wireless signal! Most likely, California vehicles will also need to be equipped with a group of (hopefully) aerodynamic external antennae to ensure continued wireless and GPS service as the law goes into effect.
Cake havers and eaters unite as Sharp promises better LCD contrast and efficiency
Ah, the wonders of technology. Sharp's lab rats have come up with "UV²A" technology that should allow for tighter control of the liquid crystal shutters in LCDs; that's geek speak for "higher contrast and lower energy consumption." We know that simply calibrating your set can net you benefits in the same two areas, but this is the kind of incremental gain that will help push LCDs past plasmas in the long run -- a 60-percent increase in contrast with 20-percent less juice from the wall. We'll be ready to apply some salt to the 5,000:1 contrast ratio figure and leave it to the marketing department to handle the use of "UV radiation" to twist the crystals (a healthy suntan from your Sharp TV?). We're just excited to see some tech that's production ready, as in UV²A could be rolled out next month.
Sony and Idemitsu announce luminous efficiency breakthrough in OLEDs
Although Sony's mesmerizing XEL-1 has been picked apart (and not entirely in a good way), the firm has just announced a breakthrough in OLED technology in conjunction with Idemitsu Kosan. The two have teamed up to achieve 28.5-percent internal quantum efficiency (IQE) in deep blue fluorescent OLED devices, the "world's highest level of luminous efficiency for this technology." Though there's quite a bit of technobabble behind all of this, the gist is this: blue OLEDs are the most energy-intensive of the three primary RGB colors, and the development is expected to "significantly reduce the power consumption of OLED panels." Granted, most of the release is just bragging, but we ought to find out what this really means for consumers in the not-too-distant future.[Via FarEastGizmos]
