Green Gadgets

It’s hard to believe, but there used to be a world without the internet and the 24-hour news cycle. You got your daily news from a nightly TV broadcast, radio, and more importantly the newspaper. Newspapers are struggling to find their way in this new world with many of them closing due to declining ad revenue like the Rocky Mountain News. Many publishers hope that an iPad based subscription model could boost their bottom line.

It wasn't all that long ago that LED was best known, and in some ways only known, for its Christmas lights; now, it is the way of the future for flat panel, high definition, 3D TVs. Following the LED TV trend, late comers are now evolving into the already established, LED market with new models and new features. Toshiba is the latest to test the LED waters, but the question is, can it stack up against the industry's best?

Toshiba, in preparation for the CEDIA Expo, presented its WX800 line of 3D LED TVs that will utilize Yahoo! Connected TV. The WX800 Cinema Series features a 46-inch and 55-inch display and is the first of its kind from Toshiba.

For Toshiba,the introduction of a 3D LED TV this late in the game requires precise market positioning. Quality, price and/or additional features are a must to draw interest and get consumers excited about the TV.

Apple’s iPad has been wildly successful for two major reasons, namely its functionality and portable nature. Students are using the tablet for interactive textbooks to lessen their load and governments are using the device to cut down on paper costs. What if you could make a tablet computer like the iPad that could be put easily into a purse or pocket and had additional features like a camera? Samsung seems to have done just that with their new Galaxy Tab.

A bike zips down the road, powered by a rear wheel motor and a battery pack secured in the triangle frame. Its rider wears a gray waistcoat and a floppy bow tie. The year is 1895. Electric bikes have been around for longer than a century, but the swift rise of freeways, cheap gasoline and automobiles pushed them to the wayside. Today commuters are rediscovering the benefits of assisted pedal power.

Since the onslaught of 3D LED TVs began hitting the market, Samsung has been at the cutting edge of the 3D trend. In fact, seldom has Samsung not been either the leader or key competitor of the latest LED innovations. Before many knew 3D TVs were even a home theater possibility, Samsung announced its plan to mass produce 3D LED TVs. Now, going into the 2010 IFA trade show, the tides may be turning a bit for a key Samsung competitor.

While other TV manufactures were just beginning to identify the 3D trend, Samsung was making a play at its next generations of 3D TVs. Starting with the Samsung 7000 series, Samsung introduced a 1 inch thick LED 3D panel and has since been able to create a .3 inch thick LED 3D panel that includes all the goodies like single touch access to the internet in the 9000 series.

Consumers are increasingly aware of how products get into their hands. Whether they’re checking to see if their eggs are on a recall list or their handbag was made with sustainable materials, green ideas can certainly influence a purchase. That’s why one of the UK’s biggest cell phone providers, O2, has created an eco-index based on sustainability. The program is volunteer based and caught the attention of Samsung and LG, but Apple did not submit the iPhone for evaluation.

O2 conducted a survey that found 44% percent of customers thought that environmental factors would influence their next cell phone purchase. Like any other business that wants to sell more products, O2 got going on a plan to highlight the environmental aspects of each phone they sell.

An abundance of solar energy bombards the Earth every day and that’s a very good thing because it drives the basic functions of life that sustain our existence. Harnessing solar energy for our electrical needs is a natural fit because the process essentially only requires a capture device, which right now typically means solar panels. The problem? Those solar panels can’t continue to collect solar energy if a layer of dust is barricading sunlight from the photovoltaic cells.

It turns out that dust is a pretty universal problem, at least in the Milky Way galaxy, because NASA ran into a similar challenge with trying to use solar panels on Mars for powering rovers and other vehicles. In that instance no human intervention is possible and so scientists developed a self-cleaning technology that repelled dust with a small burst of electric current.

Government officials in the US and UK are facing a similar problem; they’ve got to find a way to trim their budgets. Many have singled out the cost of printing documents as an expense that can be replaced by new technology. If they relied on gadgets like the iPad they could do away with the cost of paper, copy machine maintenance, and the distribution of documents. While some in the US have found success with the iPad, some spots in the UK are facing an uphill battle.

The iPad was an instant hit in Congress due to its ability to store a lot of paperwork, edit legislation on the fly, and catch up on the latest news. Other lawmakers thought that the same ideas could be applied to areas such as the city of Williamsburg, Virginia.

The popularity of e-readers is due in large part to their speedy content delivery. Instead of waiting for a book be shipped or standing at the cash register in a bookstore, e-readers can download the hottest titles in seconds. That factor led a former Amazon employee to start Worldreader, a non-profit that’s distributing e-readers in order to “put a library of books within reach of every family on the planet.”

Apple has been in the walled garden business for a long time with the Macintosh, iPhone and most recently the iPad. In some ways Amazon seems content to follow with its most recent e-reader, the Kindle 3. Both companies are trying to build walls around their customers by offering them unique features, and device features are great but the real long term cost arrives with purchasing e-books. Unfortunately for consumers, prices on e-books are for the most part flat right now – where is the competition?

Connecticut's Attorney General Richard Blumenthal wants to know the answer to that question and he’s asked lawyers from both Apple and Amazon for information on their deals with e-book publishers. The biggest concern revolves around “most favored nation” clauses which block publishers from offering discounts to other e-book distributors.