efficiency

You heard of Cash for Clunkers. Get ready for Cash for Caulkers, a proposed multibillion program designed to create jobs and give homeowners lower energy bills.

Representatives from building efficiency advocacy groups on Friday held a "Webinar" to outline the Home Star program--nicknamed Cash for Caulkers--and said that its prospects for becoming a law should be known within several weeks. A Home Star Coalition has been formed, which includes large retailers Home Depot and Lowes, equipment suppliers such as Dow and GE appliances, along with energy-efficiency contractors, labor groups, and environmental advocacy groups.

For homeowners, the proposed … Read more

The Obama administration is announcing on Monday the selection of nine projects totaling $187 million aimed at improving the fuel efficiency of cars and trucks.

The funding includes more than $100 million from the $787 billion economic stimulus plan President Barack Obama pushed through Congress last February. An additional 50 percent will come from the private sector, according to the announcement to be made by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu in Columbus, Ind.

The Obama administration is under pressure to show it is working to create jobs with the U.S. unemployment rate stuck at 10 percent.

The administration … Read more

In a nod to efficiency, YouTube on Thursday began testing a more lightweight version of its video player pages called "feather."

Feather pages do a number of things to speed up the video-playing process, from defaulting to the standard quality version (instead of high quality or high definition), to removing various on-page features such as being able to control the size and coloring of an embed. The idea is to get the video playing as soon as possible with fewer on-page distractions.

Other efficiencies include limiting the number of loaded comments to just 10, which users are now … Read more

Efficient Calendar Free is an attractive scheduling application that lets users to keep track of events, appointments, holidays, and more. If you're looking for a stand-alone calendar that's not integrated with your e-mail or other online activities, Efficient Calendar Free is a great option.

The program's interface is sleek and highly reminiscent of more recent versions of Microsoft Outlook. In fact, we'd be hard pressed to identify any ways that Efficient Calendar Free differs significantly from the calendar functions of Outlook, aside from the fact that it doesn't appear that this program can be used … Read more

A while back, a Personal Information Manager, or "PIM," was a handheld gadget that did what cell phones and BlackBerrys now do better. PIMs live on in the form of their software, which refined and combined the daily diary, planner, Rolodex, address book, and other wads of paper that once shackled busy people to cluttered desks, thus helping spark the transformation of the workplace. For busy people, they are essential, period. EfficientPIM is simply one of the best we've seen.

It's organized around a familiar and attention-getting subject: today. Tabs manage your calendar, contacts, events, tasks, … Read more

SAN MATEO, Calif.--Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore hopes that America's next-generation power grid will be a lot like the Internet. Or at least that's the plan.

How close we get to that goal depends on what happens in the next five years, Gore said in a speech here on Thursday evening at blog VentureBeat's GreenBeat conference, where he outlined many of the challenges the United States faces in upgrading its power grid. Along the way, he made comparisons to how the advent of the so-called smart grid will enable the kind of solutions and business innovation that the Internet brought during the 1990s.

"The analogy to the Internet is quite an exact one. Not completely exact, but it's very relevant for lots of reasons. We are moving inexorably toward a widely distributed energy generation and storage model. We are still locked into the old centralized energy generation model," Gore said. "The rapid development of new generations of new smart storage systems are going to make a tremendous difference in connection with the smart grids." Those systems are designed to enable easier storage of unused electricity for peak times, when supplying it to large groups of customers can be difficult and more expensive.

Gore also foresees an entirely new set of devices and instruments to help utilities and consumers control and monitor usage--technology and business models that may not yet have been imagined. "(It's) much the same way the Internet made it possible to see this generation of Internet-ready devices that did not even exist before the Internet began to build out," Gore said.… Read more

Many companies are investing in the green market by creating energy efficient appliances, but those new devices tend to be pricey. Besides, why replace something that still works? Tenrehte Technologies, a start-up located in Rochester, NY and Austin, TX, would like to help people reduce the power consumption of products they already own.

PICOwatt, Tenrehte's first product, allows consumers to turn off any appliance with just a few clicks. Appliances plugged into the device are controlled by the consumer via Wi-Fi. Energy usage, timers, and power are all controlled with a smartphone or computer. For example, instead of using … Read more

After 19 months of consulting--in Silicon Valley, we prefer that term to "unemployment"--I've accepted a job.

Once I start, I'll have to stop blogging. But while I'm still independent, I'd like to wrap up here by offering a short series of articles addressing several key topics in the area of personal computing.

Today, the topic is energy efficiency.

Energy efficiency has become a major selling point of today's personal computers, especially laptops, because power consumption determines battery life.

Unfortunately, laptops are being optimized for energy efficiency in a way that isn't … Read more

The winter months are on their way. Soon, we'll be continually running our heaters and leaving the lights on longer. During these months, energy bills soar.

But there are online resources that can ease the pain. They probably won't chop your bills in half, but they do offer suggestions that will help.

Energy Savers The U.S. government's Energy Savers Web site provides some of the finest resources on energy efficiency of any tool in this roundup.

When you go to Energy Savers, you can learn all about energy conservation. The site has content on renewable energy, ways to reduce your energy consumption, and more. It also has information on how to perform home-energy audits to see what you could do to reduce your energy bill. All in all, Energy Savers is an extremely useful site if you plan to reduce your energy bill.

Energy Star Energy Star has quickly become a buzzword in the home-energy space, but its Web site is one of the most useful in this roundup.

When you get to Energy Star, you can do quite a bit. I used the site to find information on energy-efficient appliances. The content it provided was outstanding. Aside from that, Energy Star features tips on how to address some inefficient energy issues in your home. One of the site's best resources is its list of potential tax credits that you can get by acquiring Energy Star products. The page provides several links for you to find the products that help you qualify for the credit. I really liked Energy Star. If you're looking to find appliances that match your financial goals, this site is for you.… Read more