Greener Gadgets Part II - Less Is More

How much Power do you need? If you're talking about computers, the answer is probably less than you already have. Do you just use the internet, do word processing, listen to music, and watch videos or DVDs on your computer? My mom has an eight year old laptop (formerly my own) that can do all of these things.

One of VIA's tiny motherboards

Manufacturers are starting to realize that we have enough power for most of what we use our computers for and they are starting to focus more on the benefits that efficiency can bring. VIA is a company that has over the last several years carved out a niche innovating and making smaller and less power hungry processors and motherboards. These can be used to build computers that use as little as a standard incandescent light bulb including the monitor. That is a huge deal for someone using on-site power generation. These computers can be tiny and fanless, so the make almost no noise. VIA makes a few other initiatives including selling "carbon neutral" processors that they guarantee to plant a number of trees equal to the expected carbon output a the coal plant creates to power your computer.

The Nokia N810 Internet Tablet

Another type of computing that is even lower power has begun to take off, UMPCs and internet tablets are hand-held computers that can do all of the things I mentioned in the top of this post, except play DVDs, because they have no space for a disc drive. Nokia, the cellphone company, really opened up this category a couple of years ago, by making a sub $400 internet tablet. Many other companies now realize that price is very important for these devices. Sadly, Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch are not quite able to do all of these things, including browsing the internet like on a computer (they lack Flash support) and they lack support for an external keyboard.

The Asus Eee PC

If either of these options seems a little nerdy for you, remember that laptops generally use less power than desktops, and most people who think that the above options are too nerdy you probably don't need more expandability than laptops provide either, so you should go that route when getting your next computer. If you want a very limited but very small and inexpensive laptop, many people like the Asus Eee PC: It runs linux, has a tiny hard drive, and no optical (DVD) drive.

Greener Gadgets Pt. 1: Solar Backpack

If you follow gadget or environmental blogs, you might know that there was recently a conference recently in New York about greener gadgets. Gadgets are big polluters on the grand scale of things. Harvesting and disposing of the raw materials for the ultra-refined components of every technological item is a big pollution ditch to climb out of. Efficiency is one way to make gadgets greener, but some products rethink the equation.

Some products generate their own power using solar panels, some are made of materials that are better for the environment, and some are made to be recycled more easily. This backpack made by Reware generates power for your gadgets, newer versions are even made in the USA from recycled soda bottles. It charges your cell phone, iPod, GPS unit, rechargeable batteries, etc. using a standard car charger outlet. 

There are other solar backpacks on the market, but the Reware ones use thin film solar so the panels won't break (most others are made out of hard glass panels), are made in the USA of recycled bottles, and have removable solar panels so that the packs can be washed.

I use the iGo car adapter and tips from Radio Shack to make all my gadgets work with the backpack.

Even if you're not out hiking, you can always leave your backpack in the window to charge your stuff.

The bags run from $200-400, so this is a perfect use for your refund check.