iFixit.com Who’s it for? Gadget lovers, DIY types, green geeks Why should I bookmark this? Because you want to extend the life of your gadgets, hate e-waste and like to save money. OK, Tell me more. Sure thing! While writing about the green virtues of Dell’s touchscreen tablet, I realized that it had been a […]
Archives for August 2010
Dell Streak scores green points for replaceable battery
Inside the hideous packaging that cradles Dell’s Android-powered Streak tablet is a welcome sight: a user-replaceable battery! It wasn’t hard to guess that the panel on the back of the Streak was a battery cover, but iFixit’s teardown shows just how accessible the Streak’s battery truly is (kudos!). This is great news for road warriors […]
eBay’s Project Topaz: Anatomy of a $300 million green data center
Building, let alone operating, a Tier IV data center to support a business that transacts $2,000 per second — that’s over $172 million per day, $60 billion per year folks — sounds like the makings of a huge energy guzzler. But that’s not the case for Dean Nelson, eBay’s senior director of Global Data Center […]
Viewsonic goes all-LED in 2011, mostly
As a consumer, you’ll be hard pressed to find a cold cathode fluorescent lamp CCFL backlit Viewsonic LCD monitor by next year, according to the computer display maker. The company says that it’s equipping its entire display line with LED backlighting. ViewSonic Americas’ vice president and general manager, Jeff Volpe, notes a green-tinged shift in […]
SPG Solar’s CEO: Solar cheaper than fossil fuels by 2015
Video: Last Friday, August 13, SPG Solar’s President and CEO, Thomas Rooney, was interviewed on CSPAN’s Washington Journal as part of a week-long series exploring energy issues. In it, he states that the cost of solar is dropping so fast that even in the face of a “12 to 1 subsidy disadvantage,” the cost of […]
Windy in Louisiana: Blade Dynamics to open plant, American Superconductor and Dow take stake
American Superconductor (AMSC) today announced that it had paid $8 million for a 25 percent stake in U.K.-based Blade Dynamics. Dow Chemical’s VC arm also made a minority equity investment in the wind turbine company, which is expanding into the Southern U.S. Blade Dynamics’ claim to fame is efficient rotor technology that reduces weight and […]
Symantec and VMware: Virtualize those business critical apps
Today, Symantec and VMware say they are removing the last roadblock to completely virtualized server infrastructures with Symantec ApplicationHA and VirtualStore. The two companies worked together on a solution, based on Symantec’s Veritas Cluster Server and Veritas Storage Foundation, for giving IT managers the confidence to place business critical apps on virtual machines. Of course, […]
Enough with the smart grid pessimism, already!
With all the doom and gloom surrounding the smart grid of late, it’s hard not to get concerned about its future. But it’s important to realize that the smart grid is a lot bigger than the device that’s giving it a bad name. I’m talking about the smart meter. Cnet’s Martin LaMonica asks, “Is this […]
Smooth-Stone raises $48M for green, ARM-based servers
Smooth-Stone, an Austin, Texas-based startup that’s looking to improve data center efficiency with computer servers that feature non-traditional chip architectures, announced today that it has raised $48 million to develop ARM-based servers. The funds come from a mix of VCs and technology companies, most notably ARM, which has a vested interest in seeing its low-power […]
A trip to Costco for Clarian plug-n-play solar systems?
Clarian is betting that most homeowners would warm to solar panels if it weren’t for the hefty price of installing them. Starfish, the firm’s micro-inverter tech is designed to help DIY types piece together the building blocks of a solar system at much lower costs, and for some, without the need to hire an electrician. […]
