Green Tech

Honeywell digs in against Nest in thermostat IP case

Honeywell today summarily denied counterclaims in a patent infringement suit it filed against thermostat startup Nest Labs.

In a court filing, Honeywell stood by its claims that Nest infringed on its numerous patents in programmable thermostats. The suit was first filed against Nest in February.

Nest responded to the suit in April, saying that Honeywell's seemingly broad patents are "hopelessly invalid" and said Honeywell is trying to stifle innovation.

In today's filing, Honeywell fired back, saying the thermostat heavyweight intends to vigorously defend its intellectual property. The filing said Nest Labs' counter claims are "irrelevant to Honeywell's more

LED lights seek to uncrown 100-watt bulb

General Electric today introduced a 100-watt equivalent LED bulb which is the clearest example yet of how high-tech lighting has become.

The company's Energy Smart LED bulb consumes 27 watts to give off the same amount of light as a 100-watt incandescent lamp. It will be released in the first half of next year. The price has not yet been set.

GE's announcement, made at the Light Fair industry conference in Las Vegas, shows how lighting manufacturers have finally cracked one of the toughest challenges in LED lighting -- making lamps able to give off a lot of more

Philips LED replaces 100-watt incandescent

Philips this fall will release an LED bulb as bright as a 100-watt incandescent lamp, filling out its existing LED line.

The company will add to its EnduraLED line with a lamp that gives off almost 1,700 lumens, or about the amount of light as a 100-watt incandescent, and consumes 23 watts. The product will be available this fall. Philips did not disclose the price but it is expected to be in the $40 to $50 range.

This latest EnduraLED has a color temperature is a warm yellow at 2,700 Kelvin, is dimmable, and has a color rendering more

Audi to field first diesel hybrid at Le Mans

Audi proved the worth of its diesel engine technology with a win at the 2006 Le Mans, breaking new ground for the legendary endurance race. This year, Audi ups the ante with two cars using hybrid diesel-electric drive systems.

The drive technology, branded by Audi as e-tron, uses a V-6 turbo-diesel engine on the rear axle, and an electric motor on the front axle. Similar to Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) being deployed in F1 racing, the Audi R18 e-tron quattro captures braking energy in a flywheel. The car can then convert the energy of the spinning flywheel into electricity, more

Automakers: Here's how we'll charge EVs in 15-20 minutes

Automakers have endorsed a connector to charge electric vehicles in as little as 15 to 20 minutes, a technology which promises to make public charging stations more compelling.

German and U.S. automakers Audi, BMW, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Porsche, and Volkswagen yesterday issued a statement saying they will support the same charging interface.

Called the Combined Charging System, the standard can charge electric vehicle batteries with alternating current from a home outlet, direct current from a home outlet, or "ultra-fast" direct current from public stations. The system will be demonstrated next week at the International Electric Vehicle Symposium (EVS26) more

Greenpeace raps Apple for lowballing data center energy

Greenpeace has uncovered documents that the group claims indicate Apple has plans to draw more power at its North Carolina data center than it has stated.

The environmental watchdog group yesterday published a permit application and permit for back up diesel-powered generators at Apple's Maiden, N.C., data center that's now under construction.

The documents indicate that Apple requested and was approved to use significantly more than the 20 megawatts of power Apple projects its data center to use at full capacity. The company received environmental permits to install 54 megawatts of diesel back up power, but because more

Got big power bills? Blame dumb electronics

It's time for your DVR to get as smart as your iPad. If designers get it right, energy use from household electronics will stay under control without sacrifices in features.

By necessity, mobile devices, such as tablets and smart phones, need to be clever about power, just like an efficient hybrid car uses many tricks, such as turning the engine off when idle, to sip less gas.

By contrast, always-on electronics devices, such as set-top boxes, DVRs or often game consoles, operate as if they were going top speed at all times. As more devices in the home, such more

For free Wi-Fi, please deposit your dog poop here

What would you do for free Wi-Fi? Mexican Internet provider Terra has teamed up with ad agency DDB to offer free Wi-Fi in public parks to dog owners who clean up after their pets.

As seen in the absurd promo vid below, owners who deposit poop in the special bins in 10 parks in Mexico City will be rewarded with free Wi-Fi, broadcast through routers shaped like doggy bones.

The more you add, the more minutes you and everyone else gets. The bins seem to have a simple scale to weigh the poop, so they would likely still work if people put rocks or trash in them instead.

Toyota RAV4 EV to make public debut next week

Toyota will officially unveil the RAV4 EV next week, an all-electric SUV that could be an important indicator of electric vehicles sales overall.

The company earlier this week sent out a notice that it will debut the RAV4 EV on Monday May 7 at the International Electric Vehicle Symposium (EVS26) in Los Angeles, an important conference for EVs.

Toyota has shown off concept RAV4 EVs already, but important details such as price and availability have not yet been disclosed.

The all-electric SUV is the fruit of a partnership between Toyota and Tesla Motors, which is supplying the electric powertrain for more

Trash-powered cloud: Apple taps landfill biogas for data center

To make its data center greener, Apple will be getting energy from old garbage.

The company plans to power the fuel cells at its Maiden, N.C., data center with biogas from landfills, according to a regulatory filing spotted by Data Center Knowledge.

The filing also indicates that Bloom Energy will supply the 4.8 megawatts worth of fuel cells that will partly power the data center. Yesterday, Bloom Energy CEO K.R. Sridhar told CNET that the company will supply its 200-kilowatt parking space-size Bloom Boxes to Apple.

By using biogas rather than natural gas to power its fuel more