power

When you pedal a bicycle, the kinetic energy is channeled into propulsion, but what if it could be used in other ways? Architect Michael Strain isn't the first to think of using pedal power to charge your gadgets -- in fact, there are products on the market that already allow you to harness that excess energy -- but his concept bike, has a few other tricks up its suspension.

The bike, called Levitation and designed for the 2013 Hi-Macs Annual Design Contest, looks like a more low-tech Tron Cycle. It features an on-board generator and battery that stores the power collected while cycling. The power can then be used in two ways: charging small gadgets via the USB port on the bike's handlebars, or sending it into your home's power supply via a drain cable to alleviate grid usage. … Read more

Following a bicycle down the runway at Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif., a solar-powered airplane took off on a coast-to-coast voyage across the U.S. this morning to promote the message of clean technology.

Piloted by Swiss aviator Bertrand Piccard, the Solar Impulse HB-SIA set off for Phoenix, Ariz., on the first leg of its Across America journey that will also take the slender craft to Dallas, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and finally New York in early July.

The goal is to go from one end of the country to the other without using a drop of fuel. … Read more

Have you found yourself wishing that your Android's battery would last longer? Don't answer that, I already know. Be it poor app design, ever-larger display sizes, or our constant desire to play mobile games, we're eating up battery life faster than we'd like.

As a platform, Android has improved with each iteration and task management, and multitasking keeps getting smarter.

With that said, one of the first complaints from new smartphone users is that the battery doesn't seem to live up to expectations. Sure, the 2013 crop of flagship phones seems promising, but not everyone … Read more

With all of the 10 hottest years on record having come since 1998, it's hard to deny that things are getting hotter. And as the temperature rises, so too does society's power usage.

With that in mind, Nest, the maker of the Learning Thermostat, has just issued its latest software update aimed at increasing people's comfort, while at the same time reducing their energy bills.

Last week, the company unveiled Nest Energy Services, a set of initiatives available to customers of certain utility companies that has a similar goal. But the new software update works for anyone … Read more

If your phone is your go-to business gadget, you absolutely need a way to view PowerPoint presentations. PowerPoint Reader lets you read them, but you won't be able to watch them as a slideshow. You can't make any edits or changes to them either.

Before you can actually read documents with PowerPoint Reader, the app has to convert them to PDF. That means you can't view the animated slideshow, transitions, or annotations. PDFs are usually larger than the original documents, as well. Make sure you have space on your phone before you convert. Annoyingly, the app drops … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which I answer Mac-related questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week, readers wrote in asking about the inability to format a drive due to "partition map" errors, how to determine what is using up space rapidly on the hard drive, how to restore a missing Safari program, and the options for tackling an iMac that continually shuts off in the middle of use. I welcome contributions from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: Unable to format a … Read more

The iPhone is fragile.

Oh, I don't mean in the marketplace. Necessarily. No, it seems that if a stripper sits on it, Apple's fine machine might break.

I say this not from personal experience, but from the evidence apparently presented by Kenny Powers on Twitter.

In what seemed like a nifty piece of ribald marketing, Powers -- star of HBO's "Eastbound and Down" -- used Twitter to declare his iPhone only marginally operable after being crumpled by a stripper's behind.… Read more

Welcome to the start of a new franchise here at CNET -- the first episode of Hooked Up! It's the only show where the world of celebrity and technology collide.

This week, Kevin Frazier checks out Cee Lo Green's Las Vegas show "Loberace" and the technology that's involved in creating a massive production that only Las Vegas can do. Cee Lo also talks about his personal health goals, Goodie Mob's comeback, and their search for the next big music artist.

I'll also break down some of the best ways to bring the biggest … Read more

After succeeding at the once inconceivable task of making thermostats sexy, Nest is now out to change peoples' relationships with their utility companies, and make the energy industry more efficient in the process.

Today, Nest, the company founded by Tony Fadell -- the "godfather" of the iPod and fellow former top Apple employee Matt Rogers -- rolled out its next big effort.

While many had speculated that the company's follow-up to its Learning Thermostat would be another smart home appliance, the company instead unveiled Nest Energy Services, a broad initiative aimed at attacking the problems of general … Read more