It is a known fact that LED bulbs use lesser energy to power up than the conventional bulb and using these help shorten electricity bills substantially. Now, Toshiba has unveiled two new LED lamps, a daylight-running lamp and an incandescent lamp with brightness levels of 600 and 485lm respectively. These LED lamps matchup to the brightness levels of a 40W incandescent light bulb and use just 7.4W of power. These are the first T-type (cylindrical) LED lamps by Toshiba and will be included in the E-core series.

[techon.nikkeibp]

K-TOR has come up with an innovative way to help you workout and create some green juice too. Behold the Power Box! This efficient contraption is portable and can be carried to work or used at home. Essentially a charging device that uses pedals to charge up your gizmos including tablets, smartphones and media players, the K-TOR Power Box sports outlets enabling you to simply plug in your device adapter and have it juice up as you pedal away to glory. This works as a fantastic way to exercise your legs and burn some calories in the bargain too. Measuring 4.5 x 4.5 x 8.75 inches and weighing in at just 4 lbs. (1.8 kg), the Power Box is your answer to an eco-conscious healthy living.

[gizmag]

Hip Hop has been accused of ruining people’s vocabulary before. However, the pumping thumping music that usually lacks the need for great lyrics does have its benefits too. Those deep and heavy bass notes for one could pretty much help power these new implantable sensors being developed at Purdue University. These biomedical sensors uses acoustical waves and particularly those of lower frequencies found in house, hip hop and trance music. The researchers found hip hop to work best however, and these implants could pretty much change the way we live in the near future.

[inhabitat]

Computer peripherals have long since been destined to go green sooner or later. The day’s here, starting from the mouse. The conventional two-buttoned pointer device could soon turn obsolete with designs like the Leaf Wireless Mouse showing up. Designed by Lu Hairong and Zhang Xuehui, the Leaf is a self-powered mouse that converts the kinetic energy generated from its movement into usable electricity that in turn powers this device. Also, this pretty much makes battery-powered wireless mouse devices seem silly, given that the conventional device requires a fresh set of batteries every now and then.

[yankodesign]

Looking for a better way to trash your old Apple device? Well, Apple is now offering gift cards for the value of your old iPads and iPhones if you hand it over back to the manufacturer instead of simply tossing it in a trash can or selling it off elsewhere. On returning iOS devices including old iPhones and iPads, Apple will present users with an Apple gift card of the appropriate value for United States users. In France, Germany and U.K., Apple will directly deposit the amount in users’ bank accounts. Also, these old devices will then be recycled by Apple, reprocessing materials and reusing components for new devices. A great way to retire your old iOS device, Apple seems to have being going pretty green by the day, and this initiative helps the manufacturer further score brownie points

[reviews.cnet]

Trust Samsung to come up with an innovation that completely shocks the world, and yet manages to stay green. Unveiled at CES 2012, the Samsung Smart Window could be the next to-die-for addition to your home. Essentially a large transparent touch screen that doubles up as a full-fledged window, this is the type you wouldn’t want people throwing rocks at to grab you attention when your parents are asleep and your phone line’s dead. Enabling you to check you social network accounts, watch movies, book flight tickets, keep up with presentations and a lot more, this fabulously intelligent window uses solar energy to charge up, keeping your energy footprint minimal. A brilliant innovation that the world is bound to welcome home, the Samsung Smart Window concept could change the very way we peep out of our homes!

[thenextweb]

Why sway towards plastic when it comes to building artificial life-forms when we could probably do the very same in an environment-friendly way! Given the fact that the world will indeed look to robots to fulfill its needs in the future, designer Mike Estee came up with an environment-friendly way to build robots, using cardboard. To start off with, Estee came up with this Hexapod made from servos, servo controllers and laser-cut cardboard limbs. Now this artificial being probably wouldn’t be all that useful as its plastic counterparts, though the fact that it uses an eco-friendly design that partly blends into the environment once retired and is partly bio-degradable makes it a promising development indeed.

[ubergizmo]

China boasts the fastest growing economy in the world. It is also one of the most populous and also considered to be the most resourceful. So when such a country takes a leap into thinking green, the developed side of the world needs to pay attention and follow the lead. The State Grid Corporation of China and BYD have unveiled what they claim to be the world’s largest battery energy storage station. It combines 40 mega-watts of renewable energy generation, 36 mega-watt-hours of energy storage and a smart power transmission system. The project’s aim is to provide a ‘stable solution for transferring vast amounts of renewable electricity safely to the grid on an unprecedented scale’.

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Let us be honest – a laptop is something that is growing to be a necessity, much more than just a want or luxury. While companies race to develop technologies to meet consumer requirements and comfort, few pay attention to the environment it adversely affects. Non-profit organization One Laptop Per Child has launched its XO 3.0 tablet at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, claimed to be inexpensive, use little energy and brave extreme weather conditions. The tablet can be powered by solar power and the like. Its features include the Marvell ARMADA PXA618 SOC processor, Avastar Wi-Fi SOC, standard or Pixel Qi sunlight-readable display, and supports Android and Linux operating systems. The organization intends to ‘get a low-cost, low-power laptop in the hands of every student on the planet’, especially those in developing countries. By March, they plan to ship more than 75,000 units of the XO 1.75 laptop to students Uruguay and Nicaragua. Source:

Looking for a better way to play your music out loud in the open air? This solar powered portable speaker is bound to do the job just right! Unveiled at CES 2012, the Rukus portable speaker system powers up via a solar panel integrated on the top of the device’s body. Streaming music via Bluetooth, the front instrument panel includes a Bluetooth toggle, and buttons for volume, aux, and bass adjustments. And to top it off, the Rukus sports a display that shows battery levels, solar charge levels and the like. Sporting an internal lithium battery that charges up in six hours with direct sunlight, this one also juices up with an AC adapter or via USB and comes for $149.99.

[theverge]

The Kindle turns greener with this latest launch at eh CES 2012, a solar-powered cover for the beloved e-reader. Called the SolarKindle cover, this one turns the Kindle into a renewable-energy-powered device, enabling you to enjoy your e-books in a greener way. All in all, this is an eco-friendly way to get some reading done, given that the Kindle by itself is an environment-friendly mode to literature, unlike paper-made books that require trees to sacrifice their lives! And powering up a Kindle by solar energy is a cherry on top of a pretty delicious cake after all! Also, the cover sports a built-in 800 lux LED lamp that stays lit for about 50 hours on a fully charged battery. Priced at a pocket pinching $79.99, this cover might cost just as much as a Kindle itself, though it sure makes for a perfectly green accessory!

[cnet]

For all those who’ve been dreaming of phones with solar panels hooked on to their backs, Nokia’s recent study is bound to disappoint. The Finnish manufacturer set out to test the practicality and feasibility of harvesting solar energy to power up phones, and the results weren’t really too charming. Five different test phones were used around the globe in different climatic conditions, and those used closer to the equator performed better than the rest, making this form of juicing-up phones pretty impractical to say the least. Also, smaller phones with equally smaller solar panels, the angle of how the light entered the solar panels and a bunch of other shortcomings that Nokia dug up seem to make solar-powered phones a far-fetched dream for now.

[slashgear]

Has your electricity bill begun gently brushing the floor while you read it lately? It’s time to check on your home’s electricity consumption without further ado! To start off with, you could cut short those energy-sucking exploits of your unused appliances by plugging them off! Or, if you’re just too lazy to deal with it all, use the Bracketron GreenZero mobile charger to juice up your phone instead! The charger cuts of standby electricity use once the phone’s completely juiced and helps save up on energy while hand-in-hand extending your phone’s battery life, keeping away the fruitless phenomenon of over-charges. Priced at $22.56, these chargers are expected to show up at CES 2012 too!

[ubergizmo]

Lugging around a suitcase isn’t the best way to travel. And well, if you aren’t one to settle on travelling light, we’ve stumbled on a trolley suitcase that’s bound to leave you smiling wide. Designed by Jung Inyoung, this trolley suitcase charges up your gadgets too! Generating energy by converting kinetic energy from the movement of its wheels into usable electricity, the suitcase juices up all your little gadgets, including your phone and music-player. Available in attractive colors that are sure to make head turns as you drag this one around airport terminals and train stations, this suitcase sure is a better and cleverer way to travel!

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What better way to celebrate Christmas than by doing the environment a favor and keeping celebrations eco-friendly! This Christmas tree in UK got greener than just about any tree around, thanks to the efforts put into it all by a British company. The tree, set up in a shopping mall, is hooked on to energy-harvesting paving slabs that generate energy from people’s footsteps. The kinetic energy harvested is then converted into electrical energy, which in turn was used to light up this beautiful tree. Turning the Christmas spirit greener than ever, this tree cares along with it the holiday cheer as well as a eco-friendly message to the world at large.

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