As previously reported by us, the Copenhagen wheel is an invention that turns your bike, without much fuss, into an electric bike that regenerates its own power supplies by capturing braking and pedaling energy. It’s also a smart device, with a real-time sense of its environment and user. It only turns on its motor when it senses you might need a boost in pedaling, but its environmental sensors are constantly collecting information about sound and air pollution, traffic and road conditions.

All this data is connected to your smartphone, and you can use it to plan ahead for better bike routes or to update your exercise plan. It’s also crowdsourcing at its best, effortless and providing a real service to everyone participating – as everyone’s the data about pollution and traffic is available to Copenhagen wheel users, it’s like a social network meets real-time mapping system. Everyone benefits, and everyone can plan together.

Your phone can also be used to lock and unlock the bike, to change gears and choose how much the electric engine gets to help you. The Copenhagen wheel is different from other electric bikes because you only mount the components around the back hub of your bike – no wiring along the chassis required, and no external battery packs. The hub carries a motor, a 3-speed internal hub gear, a torque sensor, batteries, GPRS and the sensor kit which keeps an eye on CO, NOx, decibels, relative humidity and temperature.

And the best thing? It’s modular. In the future you’ll be able to add power, battery time and sensors to fit your own location and biking habits.

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Ever feel like picking up your dog’s poop in a little bag had no purpose besides making you look bad? Ever wish your dog could be like those life-saving, criminal stopping dogs that contribute so much to society?

Well now you can lower the city’s electricity bill and keep the world green while feeling like the owner of a hard working blue collar dog, and all you have to do is dump your pooch’s poop into something called the Park Spark.

You pick it up with the same biodegradable bags you always use, turn a crank and eventually the poop becomes methane gas. Farmers would immediately recognize the Park Spank for what it is – a methane tank, something quite common on farms. But in Cambridge, Massachusetts The Park Spark tanks are wired to power the lights in the park.

That’s the basis of Green design, use locally what is produced locally. Poop, in this case.

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We’ve got another water concept today, but this one is for your home, not in the middle of the sea. The Koolhaus faucet features a measuring device for tracking your water consumption rata and an integrated LCD that relays the information back to you, so you can instantly see how much water you’re actually using. All that data is sent to computer, too, so you can see accumulated weekly, monthly, and yearly data. All in an effort to reduce our environmental imprint just a little bit. Hopefully we’ll see this concept become reality soon.

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We here at Gadget Review like gadgets that help the enviroment, ones that cut down a little on the massive imprint humans have placed on this nice green earth. Stuff like solar powered airplanes, or this Energy Efficient Kettle, by Philips. This 1.7 liter electric Kettle saves about 66% of the energy usually used when boiling water on a stove, doing so by through a cup measuring system that keeps your water use efficient. It also boils it faster than on a stove, with less energy thanks to a flat heating system, and allows for easy cleanup and maintenance. Once your water has reached the proper temperature, a light goes off on the device to tell you it’s ready. It’s simple, fast, well-designed, and good for the environment. What more do you need?

The Philips Energy Efficient Kettle is available now for around $40.

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]]> http://www.gadgetreview.com/2010/07/62327.html/feed 4 http://www.gadgetreview.com/2010/06/belkin-conserve-insight-displays-energy-usage-in-real-time-costs-just-30.html http://www.gadgetreview.com/2010/06/belkin-conserve-insight-displays-energy-usage-in-real-time-costs-just-30.html#comments Thu, 17 Jun 2010 21:07:39 +0000 Christen Costa http://www.gadgetreview.com/?p=59743

Early this week we told you about Belkin’s Conserve Valet ($40), a mobile product smart charging stand that shut itself off when the devices had reached a full charge.  Now Belkin has officially unveiled the rest of the Conserve lineup and made them available for preorder starting today with shipping commencing in mid July.

The Conserve Smart AV looks like your standard AV surge protector, but actually detects when your TV is shut off and kills the vampire power to any other devices plugged in, such as your DVD or video game unit. Cost: $30

The Conserve Socket plugs into your standard wall socket and looks like one too, but includes a timer that can be shut off automatically after 30 minutes, 3 hours or 6 hours. Cost: $10

Last, and most certainly not least is the Conserve Insight (pictured up top).  Much like the Conserve Socket it plugs into a standard wall socket yet it includes a display that shows how much energy you’re consuming, the cost and the CO2 output.  The display is tethered to the device by a 6 foot cord, so you could very well plug a fridge into it and still be able to view your consumption.  Cost: $30

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Boasting 90% less materials than your average desktop PC or NetTop, the VOT125 PC Mini from Viewsonic could be exactly what you hook up to your HDTV because of its slim and compact size.  Also using much less energy than what you’d expect from a PC of this small staure, the VOT125 deploys 2GB of RAM with 250GB hard drive, powered by ultra low voltage Intel® ULV processors, four USB 2.0 ports, and DVI / HDMI inputs.  Seems like a pretty tight little device.

Pricing is set at $500.

ViewSonic® Leads the Way to Smarter, Greener Computing with New PC Mini

ViewSonic’s VOT125 PC Mini provides compact, energy saving solution for business and home users
WALNUT, Calif. – May 18, 2010

ViewSonic® Corp., a leading global provider of computing, consumer electronics and communications solutions, today announced that the VOT125 PC Mini – the latest compact and energy efficient computing solutions – is now available for order.

Providing an ideal compact and space-saving solution for home and business, the VOT125 provides the ultimate in smarter, greener computing. With a green-centric design, this compact and sleek PC mini uses up to 90% less plastic and consumes up to 90% less energy than traditional tower PCs. With an Intel® ULV processor and 0.6L form factor specifically designed for less power usage, less plastic and less cables, the VOT125 allows green-conscious users to reduce their carbon footprint. And with Windows® 7 installed, the VOT125 presents an ideal product for businesses looking to transition from Windows XP® or Vista®.

With a compact design and trim 1.5″ x 5.1″ x 4.5″ specifications, the VOT125 helps create an efficient and clutter-free workspace. Whether placed on the desktop or mounted to the back of an LCD monitor with the included VESA® mount kit, this petite device is an ideal space-saving solution for an organized home or business space.

Powered by ultra low voltage, Intel® ULV processors, the VOT125 offers high performance and flexible computing in a compact package. Including 2GB internal memory, 250GB hard drive, four USB 2.0 ports, DVI/HDMI outputs and Ethernet/wireless Internet connections, this model provides powerful and adaptable computing solutions with a green conscience.

For further information on ViewSonic products, please visit ViewSonic.com or follow ViewSonic on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

###

Trademark footnote: All corporate names and trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective companies.

This news release contains forward-looking statements that reflect the Company’s expectations with regard to future events. Actual events could differ significantly from those anticipated in this document.

Executive quote

“Saving space and reducing energy spending are key priorities for our customers” said Sally Wang, senior director product marketing, ViewSonic. “We’re proud to help achieve both goals with the VOT125 PC Mini, and truly deliver a smarter, greener solution for your desktop.”

Pricing and availability

The VOT125 PC Mini is available with a choice of Intel® Celeron® M Processor ULV 743, Intel® Celeron® Processor SU2300, Intel® Pentium® Processor SU4100 and Intel® Core 2 Duo Processor SU7300, and is currently available for order at an ESP starting at $499

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The last time you hit a bump in the road you probably cursed and sweared.  But soon, thanks to a technology from Levant Power, you’ll be praising your city’s pot holes.

The GenShock is designed to replace part of  a car or truck’s suspension system.  In addition to providing what Levant claims is a smoother ride and better control, the GenShock can harvest the energy from the bumps in the road and transfer it to battery cells, alternators and other electrical components in the vehicle.  If installed in a hybrid they say it can improve fuel efficiency any where from 1.5-6%.

Road tests with a Humvee have already completed and they plan to expand the device to trucks, buses and other vehicles this summer.  When they will be commercially available is unknown, but Levant says the cost of the power generating shock absorbers can be recouped in as little as 18 months.

Although the above infomercial is a bit hoky – the executives of the company looks like teenagers and the interviews take place in a hallway – they’ve already received accolades from MIT, Pop Sic and the US Department of Energy.

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The day we all go green is the day that I’m a happier man.  Although the Empower chair (or bench) won’t get us there tomorrow, it’s the small stuff that counts, right?

The design is simple: you rock back and forth and the kinetic energy is captured into a battery and transferred to the on board USB outlets.

It won’t reduce the smog plume that sits over LAX, but at least it will lower airports and other transportation center’s electricity bill.

[via Inhabitat]

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So sometimes, you’re out in the middle of nowhere, your car is dead and so is your cell phone.  At times like that you start to wish you were carrying a little lightning in your pocket.  But the next best thing just might be the Power HotSpot from Solis.

The Power HotSpot is, basically, what it says it is, like a WiFi hotspot, only for power.  It’s a portable solar panel attached to a base unit that comprises a twelve volt power supply.  Anything with a car cigarette lighter–from a cell phone charger to a portable car fridge–can draw power from the unit.

Anyone calling this a portable unit is clearly stretching the definition of the term “portable”–it’s portable in the same way a car’s spare tire is.  That is, it fits in your trunk and can actually be carried for a while, but I wouldn’t try a mile walk with one.

Anything that generates solar power is pricey, of course, but this one isn’t too bad at $375.

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If you’ve ever found yourself out hiking in the back end of beyond and come up against an emergency–a broken leg, a lost map, a witch chasing you and your friends, a family of inbred mountain people who think your girlfriend looks tastier than a twelve-course buffet, you know what I’m getting at–without a charged cell phone, then you’re going to love what I’ve got here.

It’s called the Solio Emergency Charger, and for $60, it’ll give you a little extra punch of power that fits in a backpack.  It’s a slightly downsized for travel version of the Solio charger, and though it takes twenty hours in direct sunlight to achieve maximum charge, it still offers that little extra spark of juice when you need it most.  It comes with USB adapter, charging cable, 12v adapter and universal tip cable to make sure all your gadgets get their bump.

It’s a pretty smart idea, even if twenty hours is a pretty long time and represents almost two full days you’d have to spend in the woods waiting for it to get full charge.  By then, the inbred mountain people will have already finished your girlfriend and have started wondering if you served with mint would make a better dessert or appetizer.

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Nowadays, saving energy is quickly becoming common sense as opposed to forward thinking.  More and more tech consumers are aware of vampire power and and there are plenty of products out there to combat this unnecessary use of energy.

Having recently been introduced to the TrickleStar products, I have found them to be easy to use as well as being relatively easy on the wallet.  What I can say right away is that you are not going to see a noticeable difference in your electric bill.  Not unless you are using a ton of them.  You’d really have to have your whole residence outfitted in order to see your bill go down.

Now that’s not to say that every little bit doesn’t count for something.  I’m sure it does work to prevent vampire power, you just have to have faith and believe in the product.  To help with that faith, the TrickleStar PC Energy Saver and Switch look very consumer friendly using a brilliant white glossy plastic and an attractive logo.

To explain what the TrickleStar PC Energy Saver and switch does is quite basic.  It limits the amount of stand-by power your computer and peripherals draw from the wall outlet when not in use.  When you power down or put to sleep your Mac or PC, the energy saver is activated.  Without the switch, the energy saver is automatically set into use upon shut-down, whereas you have manual control when you have the switch integrated with in the set-up.  I really have no idea why this wasn’t one product, but I’ll save that for gripe time.

The set-up process is really easy as well.  All you do is plug the energy saver into the wall and then plug the power strip containing your PC/Mac and all its peripherals (Scanner, Printer, USB Hubs) into the female end.  From there you plug the USB end into any port that reaches your computer.  The switch is the middle man between you computer and the energy saver and uses female and male USB plugs to make that connections.  Super easy.

I have a MacBook laptop so I am often using my computer away from my hard drives, USB hubs, and iPhone dock.  The TrickleStar PC Energy Saver and Switch worked perfect for this.  All I had to do was flip the switch and my whole surge protector  and hard drives were shut down.  The switch itself denotes power through a bright green LED.  For more permanent set-ups, the Energy Save plug is mountable and the Switch has a peel adhesive.

Simple as that, my only problem with these products is that they are not one product.  There’s really no need for this and it is much more practical to power your gear down manually, especially when using several chained hard drives.

Beyond that, the TrickleStar products work as advertised and will cost under $30 for the pair.  If you are looking for a way to assure yourself that your computer set-up is not wasting energy I strongly suggest you give these products a try.

Pros:

• Easy Set-Up
• Attractive Aesthetic
• Saves Energy

Cons:

• Products should be combined as one package
• No real way to prove it works without the help of MythBusters

Buy the TrickleStar PC Energy Saver Plug Here For $17!

Buy the Trickle Star PC Switch Here For $10!

LG is coming out with an amazing new gadget that’ll quite possibly change the way you think about summer: the solar-powered e-reader.

This is actually a whole lot of amazing in one sentence, so I’ll try and break it down into more manageable chunklets for you.  One, an e-reader that runs entirely on solar power is an exciting development.  Reading a book outside in the spring–or in some cases, summer–sun has long been a popular activity, but now you can take a library outside with you and have your choice when you finally settle in under that tree and set out to read.

Two, this is one of the first e-readers to be powered by the sun, thus every other e-reader is now going to have a significant bit of competition on its hands.  None of the other e-readers are powered by free sunlight, you know.  And buying batteries over and over, or paying the power company to recharge batteries, will always lose out to free recharge.  Every time.

Three, a solar panel capable of powering a gadget by itself, and still be portable?  This might be the start of something new and different in the whole solar panel industry.  It might take an entire roof’s worth of solar panels to make a five thousand watt generator, but one panel running an e-reader?  That’s interesting.

The LG solar e-reader represents several significant strides forward, and hopefully, we can get our hands on them fairly soon.

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For those of you survivalists out there compiling your “apocalypse gear” collection, this may be the flashlight you have been dreaming about.  Harnessing an appropriately titled Flashpoint Power Technology, the flashlight uses environmentally friendly ultracapacitors to help manage the the flow of energy in terms of performance and run time.  So without the help of actual conventional batteries this 5.11 tactical flashlight can be fully charged in 90 seconds.

With that full charge you get 23.5 hours of continuous light.  Sounds freaking amazing to me and if there is any downside to this awesome technology it would have to be the $170 price tag.  Even so, check out the specs below if you’re still not sold.

• Recharges in 90 seconds
• No batteries – uses ultra-capacitors, no memory loss
• Made of a firearm-grade high-strength polymer
• Impact, abrasion, and water resistant
• Contains 3 LEDs rated for more than 50,000 hours
• Will charge and hold its charge 50,000 times
• 4 output options: Standard (90 lumens), Peak (270 lumens), Strobe and Standby
• 12 Volt DC Charger, Plastic Belt Ring with Nylon Strap, and a mounting bracket
• Size: 11.5″ x 1.75″ diameter

[via TheGreenHead]

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It might sound hard to believe, but one of the best sources on earth for solar power is located right in your backyard.  Or possibly your front yard.

It sounds outlandish, but the more you think about it, the more you realize it has more truth than you think.  The object in question? A tree.

Trees, as it turns out, generate as much as 200 mV of power and do so reliably.  This is, of course, orders of magnitude less than your standard double AA battery, meaning you’d need the equivalent of an entire old-growth forest to power up a small flashlight.

However, there is a device called a boost converter that collects these ultra small voltages, and converts them into usable power.  This isn’t a very efficient process, and it won’t run a household current anytime soon.  A few hundred trees might be able to continuously pump juice into, say, a battery while you sleep for use in the morning.  But it does represent significant possibilities, and maybe even a really good reason to cut back on some logging operations.

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If you’ve shelled out the several thousand dollars required these days to get a solar array installed at your house, then you know that it’s all about the light level that lets you figure out just how much power you’re generating.  But the old Mark One Eyeball isn’t exactly the best candidate for figuring out how much sun is shining at any given time.

Enter the Lightgauge, from Lighthouse Solar in Boulder, Colorado.  The Lightgauge is a wall-mounted device that tracks energy produced and energy used in real-time, showing if there’s a surplus or a deficit created at any time.  Lighthouse has recently started including the Lightgauge in all of its solar panel systems.

When they say real-time, they mean it, too–shutting off a light causes the graph to dip towards equilibrium, on screen.

This is a pretty cool idea, frankly, and hopefully, Lightgauges will be part of everybody’s solar system these days.

[via Daily-camera.com]

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It’s pretty few and far between that I hammer out a conference call while basking in the sun, but relaxing to some tunes poolside, that’s a whole different story.  Devotec’s solar powered Bluetooth speaker, the Solar Sound, houses a pair of 2 watt speakers, a rechargeable battery, a retractable 3.5mm headphone cord, a touch like display, a mic for calls and of course Bluetooth connectivity.  In the sun it takes about 12 hours or more to charge the battery, while an AC plug cuts that number into a third.  You can grab one now for $79.

What, no iPod dock?

[via ElectricPig]

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Talk about a fire hazard!  This would be a sweet scene for an action movie where a limp body gets thrown against it and catches on fire.  But seriously now, this concept comes to us from Ironic Sans and while it would be totally useful, is totally insane.  Would be a cool T-shirt as well.  What else can I think of…a cool DIY dartboard, good for teaching kids and midgets how to safely scale down walls, etc.  As I like to say, only in America!

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