From CNET News: “Apple will allow U.S.-based purchasers of new Macintosh systems to ship their old computer for free to its recycling program.” Here is the link.
Tag Archives: computers
Are energy vampires in your home?
In the April Issue of the UCS Green Tips, standby or phantom energy loss is detailed. From the issue:
“This wasted energy, known as standby or phantom energy loss, represents a relatively small but growing percentage of an individual home’s electricity use (about five percent), but taken across all U.S. households, adds up to an estimated 65 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year. This extra electricity costs consumers more than $5.8 billion annually and sends more than 87 billion pounds of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year.
Some of the biggest energy wasters in most homes are the adapters that come with rechargeable battery-powered cordless phones, cell phones, digital cameras and music players, power tools, and other electronic devices. Most draw power whenever they’re plugged into an outlet, regardless of whether the device battery is fully charged or even connected. Other culprits include appliances or electronic equipment with standby capability (such as televisions and computer monitors), a remote control, and/or a digital clock display (such as microwaves, DVD players, and stereo systems).”
Read the issue (it’s only a page long) to find out what to do to prevent phantom energy loss. Here is the link.
The New iMac G5 Intro
Here is the link to a video introducing the sleek new G5 back in 2005.
Service remotely encrypts or deletes data
A new service called Everdream allows you to encrypt or delete computer data if it’s stolen. The computer will contact the Everdream site the first chance it gets, and it will get its directives from there. It’ll also store the internet connection information for law enforcement purposes. Cool! Unfortunately, if the hard drive is reformatted before it’s connected to the Internet, Everdream is useless. See, this is why flash memory storage should be standard on motherboards, in addition to the hard drive. The OS should be loaded onto the flash memory, and data stored on the drive. There should be permanent storage sections on the flash memory where programs like Everdream could be installed, for just such occasions. Here is the link.
Real world force field
Real World Force Field: Check out this video from Fox News. It depicts a force field which causes rockets and other attacking weapons to explode before they reach its target. It seems that it’s all done with computers. Something like a laser beam shoots onto the tip of an incoming projectile, causing it to explode.
It’s very interesting technology, but I think “force field” is a misnomer when used to describe it. There isn’t really any force field that is passively destroying incoming projectiles. This involves active technology which targets projectiles with laser beams.
Raoul Pop 