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(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET)

In Japan, for one week a year the spotlight of this gadget-obsessed country is shifted from the urban neon oasis of Tokyo's Akihabara neighborhood and trained on an expansive convention hall an hour's commute outside of the city.

On Tuesday the purveyors of TVs thinner than a credit card, cell phones pressed with 3D screens, humanoid robots, and the latest in electric car technology descend, along with media, analysts, retail buyers, and industry executives for the opening of the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies, known by the acronym Ceatec.

Photos: Early peek inside Ceatec show in Tokyo

It's the Japanese equivalent of Las Vegas' CES and Berlin's IFA, and like those two shows earlier this year, attendance is expected to be good, if slightly contracted as companies have cut back on expenses in light of the current economy.

At Ceatec 2008, 804 exhibitors and 196,630 attendees flooded the floor of the Makuhari Messe, a dip from the 895 exhibitors and 206,000 attendees in 2007. The tenor of this year's show should be a bit less gloomy than last year's--which took place the same week banks were failing right and left and Wall Street seemed on the brink of collapse. We'll keep our fingers crossed for less economic drama during this year's show.

Murata Girl shows off her unicycling talents at Ceatec 2008.

(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET)

Things we are hoping for: more cute robots! Ceatec is unlikely to disappoint in this respect. Last year's expo saw the debut of automatons that did everything from perform front-office reception tasks to helping the elderly. But based on the crowds she drew, the star was undoubtedly Murata Girl, a unicycle-riding robot. This year, we hear she'll be back with even more tricks up her sleeve.

Like those robots, there's also an amazing array of stuff shown at Ceatec we'll never see in stores on this side of the Pacific--see our gallery of cool concept cell phones. But while Ceatec offers a glimpse into the future of gadgetry, the convention hall is also packed to the skylights with practical products.

Last year was the first time Ceatec established a separate pavilion for green technology, and it's back this year. Nissan, which takes its electric cars very seriously, will be there, as will Toshiba. Though not thought of traditionally as a car company, it believes its Supercharge ion battery (SCiB) is perfectly suited for electric cars and scooters. Besides green car technology, we'll also see electronic parts that make ordinary gadgets like TVs and digital signs greener.

(Credit: VeryPC)

Look up above this article. A little higher, above the screen. Chances are that if you're on a laptop or even one of many desktops made in the last five years you'll see a Webcam built in. And that Webcam might end up saving you--and the environment--a little bit of power.

British inventor and self-described "ecogeek" Peter Hopton and his company VeryPC have come up with a piece of software, called PecoBOO, that uses open-source face detection to detect when you're looking at you screen and, more importantly, when you're not.

When you look away for more than a few seconds, get up, or generally ignore your screen, it'll turn off. Then, when you face it again, it turns on. This reduces backlight power consumption and thus overall energy consumption of your device. That saves energy for your battery and your wallet.

The general idea isn't new; other devices have similar technology, like the iPhone. Its optic sensor disables the touch screen and backlight when you put the phone up to your ear. This is just a natural progression of the same idea, though the end effect is different.

I'll cop to being one of the people who disables the power-saving features of my laptop most of the time. Sometimes, as a writer, I have to sit and think for a few moments about how a paragraph should be put together. For some reason if my screen goes blank I find it very distracting, but if I had this built into my MacBook Pro, I wouldn't really have to worry about it.

Unfortunately, PecoBOO is currently available for Windows Vista and XP platforms only.

(Via New Scientist)

Scroll down to the bottom of our last six all-in-one desktop reviews and you'll find CNET Labs' latest addition to the desktop testing regimen. With the help of the Environmental Protection Agency's EnergyStar program, some impressive-looking power meters, and not a little trial and error, we're happy to report that we've finally published the first batch of power consumption results.

Our power results come courtesty of Chroma ATE's EnergyStar-certified 66202 Digital Power Meter.

(Credit: Rich Brown/CNET)

We have a few goals in mind with our new power tests. We want to help you make more informed buying decisions, for one thing. You'll see an annual energy cost chart in each review that compares the yearly estimated cost to operate a variety of systems. We don't expect the actual dollar amount will influence most of you one way or another (we're only talking about a range from $15 to $30 in this first round), but an annual cost figure also distills the relative efficiency between systems down to straightforward terms. You can also refer to our newly official Juice Box, located above the cost chart, for the individual power ratings across a variety of usage states for each system.

Apple does exceptionally well on our annual energy cost chart.

(Credit: CNET)

Monday, we told you about a breakthrough in robotics that allows killer machines to be powered by compressed air. Now we've got this amazing video of a motorcycle that uses the same power source. The so-called Air Bike was created by engineering students in India as a prototype for a solution to the country's prevalent smog problem.

Sure, it only goes 11 mph now, but as a proof-of-concept vehicle it's pretty cool. I could imagine a smaller vehicle (bike? moped?) with the same gear that could go much faster as a final product, if it gets that far.

The only problem I see is that compressing air takes energy, and often air compressors are powered by the same gasoline that this cycle is meant to eliminate the need for. If they can find a way to use electric compressors only, then this concept is definitely worth pursuing.

(Via Newlaunches.com)

WARNING: This was my first attempt at working the sound board, using the software, and editing the podcast, so be forgiving. We tried...

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Episode 29

We've given a lot of pixels to electric cars recently, especially the hot Tesla Roadster. But there's one electric car that can dust the Tesla and all the others off the line. It's a 1972 Datsun.

Meet the White Zombie from Plasma Boy Racing. John Wayland of Portland, Ore., made the unassuming small car in his garage as a project, and now the custom-made electric powerhouse is taking the drag strips by storm. In the video above, it toasts a bad-ass-looking Corvette, much to the 'vette owner's chagrin.

We're not sure how practical a car like this would be, as it has to be recharged after each heat, but man it looks like it'd be fun to drive.

Assembling a Tweet-a-Watt kit: the weekend project to assuage carbon gluttons' guilt.

(Credit: Adafruit Industries)

Like many of you, I'm addicted to Twitter. It's not just that I like knowing the real-time minutia of my friends' lives (sorry friends, you're all boring), but I like the idea of what Twitter can become. It's evolving in a free-form way, and there's no telling what it will be in the future. But right now people are learning to utilize it in very interesting ways.

The Tweet-a-Watt is one such example. Using a modified version of a $20 off-the-shelf wattage meter, the Tweet-a-Watt kit, now available online for $90, tracks daily power usage for an outlet. It then reports that information back to your followers via your Twitter account, including the daily average and your daily goal.

The kit includes the wireless transmitters and receivers needed to report the data, plus cables and various components needed to get it all wired up. It's the product of an open-source hardware project that had the main goal of wirelessly tracking power usage for a household. The Twitter aspect is a fun byproduct of this idea.

For DIY'ers, there are instructions for making your own kit and links to download the software for your project.

So what kind of car are you going to get next? Perhaps, I might tempt your credulity by asking you to consider a new eco-car called the LEKO.

A Toyota? No, an IKEA.

A strange Web site has appeared, roulez-leko.com, on which a very relaxed, modern, eco-friendly chap, allegedly the great car designer Christophe Grozs, stands next to an apparent car draped with the word LEKO and the tagline "la voiture selon IKEA."

Yes, the car according to IKEA.

Looks like a perfect car dealership, no?

(Credit: Flickr/OiMax)

The LEKO (L'eco, get it?), allegedly has the backing of the World Wildlife Fund in France. Which might mean the fund has put money into the creation or that the car will have plastic panda-skin seats.

It also will save you untold (because unspecified) amounts of money on your expenditure. And it is humongously eco-friendly.

This is an ad, right?

If IKEA made a car, the doors might not fit quite perfectly into the body. Then you'd really have to work hard to use those tiny screwdrivers to make sure the engine didn't wobble. And just imagine the number of screws it would take to put in the cup holder.

There's the name too. Real IKEA product names never make sense. They always seem to resemble a fair to middling Scrabble hand--for example, KLIPPAN or LYCKSELE. LEKO is far too meaningful.