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Is off really off? When you leave your home, do you leave your TV set on? Do you unplug the ac wall adapter every time you take your cell phone with you?Even if you switch your TV off, most sets continue to draw current. Did you know that US households pay more than $1 billion annually to keep TVs and appliances in standby? Many products waste as much electricity when they're supposedly off -- in a ready-to-go mode -- as when they're on.A few years ago a European study showed that the power dissipated in digital converters for satellite receivers was virtually the same in both active and standby modes (averaging about 20 W). This was wasted energy primarily from inefficient standby operation and excessive no-load power.Some DefinitionsStandby power is dissipated when a product isn't performing its primary function (eg when a TV is ready to be turned on by a remote control). No-load refers to the power used in a power supply even though the product isn't connected to it. A cell phone charger is a good example....

The Net has been abuzz with reports of the smaller-than-expected orders for the first batches of Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) which has suffered nearly a year’s delay and now costs considerably more than its original $100 target price. Yet despite the smug reports of underwhelming orders and accusations of pushing inappropriate, second-rate technology on unassuming third-worlders, the OLPC may have accomplished its primary mission -- to help accelerate the education of kids in developing nations and to help them connect with an increasingly-wired world. While not all of the millions of students Negroponte hoped to serve will be toting his OLPC, the other low-cost units that are jumping in to compete with it would never have existed had this audacious project not been there to define a market that was previously-invisible to narrow-minded corporate knuckleheads.I’ve had a good laugh watching giants like Microsoft and Intel falling all over themselves to get a piece of the...

When I lectured at a college in the UK we did a lot of hands-on broadcast engineering. In my lab I had a couple of high-power TV transmitters -- one VHF and one UHF -- while in another building we had a complete TV studio with associated telecine and recording equipment. I normally had no involvement with the baseband equipment operation but some of the research that went on there fell into my lap for tutoring when it involved mathematics. One of the pieces of work (which I cannot now find online) dealt with the effect of violence in TV content on the mind of the young.For an early 1970s project it was ambitious, and the research and the statistics bogged down the work for quite a while. But the pattern that emerged quite clearly showed that there were links to viewing violence and acting on it later in life. Hundreds of offenders, convicted of violent behavior, indicated that again and again in their answers to questionnaires.That research has been duplicated in different ways thousands of times since and, i...

With the holiday season upon us, for lots of us toys now figure in our thinking. Yes, there's news about those nasty tainted toys from China. But, on an upbeat note, playthings of all sorts let us shower affection on our children, and that's a good thing.Some say that the only difference between men and boys is the cost of their toys (I suspect this maxim applies equally well to women). I admit I subscribe to this adage.My own toys have a decidedly retro aspect to them. My spouse claims that's how I re-live that part of the past that was especially good to me. Judging by the Chrysler Group's success with its PT Cruiser automobile, and GM's Chevy HHR, I know I'm not alone.What my wife doesn't understand is that I like my ancient toys because they speak to me about an era where things were less transitory. I view most of today's toys as momentary diversions; many are electronic widgets that quickly become obsolete.That rubs me the wrong way. I like things that last -- whether it's a relationship with an employe...

There is a TV commercial currently running from Verizon Wireless using the tag “You’re looking at it” to imply that the network is its people. We are led through pithy comments by supposed employees who also give their job titles. One of those titles really gnaws at my brain: Data Engineer.Data is the plural of datum and needs to be treated as a plural noun, such as “data are carried…” It certainly cannot be used as an adjective, so data engineer must be a compound noun for a person that actually does things. But what exactly?I spent a little time with Google (did you know that if you Google "Google" you get an “about 129,000,000” responses?) and came up with all sorts of data engineer information.First I ignored data engineer titles when they had yet another noun, or more, in front of the title. There were Aerodynamic Data Engineers (DEs); HPC DEs; Tick (?) DEs; Market DEs; Satellite System Analyst DEs; Network DEs; Financial DEs; Seismic/Strainmeter...

Back when I wrote my first article on Green PC design for IEEE Computer back in 1998, the idea that your average desktop box would incorporate things like a high-efficiency power supply, a recyclable case, a Pb-free mother board and features that extended its useful service life seemed close to science fiction. It’s taken nearly a decade for these basic concepts to become common wisdom within the chaotic, penny-pinching computer industry but the results are impressive. Although only a relatively small portion of the millions of PCs produced this year are truly Green, nearly all of them meet basic international standards for hazardous waste reduction (RoHS) and energy efficiency (EnergyStar in North America, Europe, and the Pacific Rim, and CECP in China) that would have been considered cumbersome and impractical even a few years ago. Despite these advances, there is much more that must be done before the PC industry can truly be considered to be sustainable. In order to succeed, the industry will rely b...

The world's got a heroin problem, and US cell phone companies are part of it. Thanks in part to top-notch cellular communications, Osama bin Laden is hauling in cash with which to buy expensive and sophisticated (presumably nuclear) weapons.Opium production is skyrocketing. A report released by the Bush administration reveals that Afghanistan's crop is now at a record high, with nearly 6000 tons of opium produced annually. With failed efforts to eradicate growing and production, Taliban-supported Afghani growers are sourcing 90% of the world's heroin.According to former NATO supreme allied commander General James L Jones, it's the drug runners who usually engage in combat with US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. "They make sure the roads stay open, and they get to where they want to go, whether it's through Pakistan, Iran, up through Russia, or all the known trade routes."A recent World Bank report, as well as a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime document, indicates that Afghani heroin traffick...

There’s a brand new laser printer/fax/copier/scanner sitting just next to my work space. Carefully chosen from the specifications of different manufacturers’ machines, the Brother MFC-9440CN was a standout in its performance, capabilities, price, and Mac compatibility.Office Depot delivered the box free of charge (I don’t do 85 lb lifting) and all that remained after setting up the machine itself was to make the computers talk to it. Faxing and copying are independent of the computer, and there’s a nifty walk-up USB printing port (mounted upside down for some bizarre reason). We have a Wi-Fi network but it is never going to be activated for anything but Internet access; even with security I still don’t trust the ruggedness. I had already been directed to a clever 2:1 USB switch from Belkin which would allow me to drive the main two Macs into the one printer but, unlike the USB 2.0 specification itself (5 m maximum), Brother recommend their machine only be used with 6 ft (1.8 m) o...