At Lunch@Piero’s Press Event, GreentalkTM-Enabled Innergie Concept Systems Will Power Devices from NEC Personal Products, Fabrik, Ricoh, Other CE Leaders
SAN RAMON, Calif.: A year ago, Green Plug burst on to the scene, committed to fixing “the broken power model” – the status quo that sees consumer electronics companies churning out some 2.5 billion incompatible power supplies and burying another 700 million discarded units in landfills annually.
At 2009 International CES, in Las Vegas Jan. 8-11, the fix is in.
Green Plug has announced the lineup of consumer electronics devices that its Greentalk™ technology will power during the Lunch@Piero’s press demonstration, in Las Vegas on Jan. 8 and 9. A private showcase will also be held at the Platinum Hotel from Jan. 8 through Jan. 10.
The other week, Green Plug and Innergie developer of the world’s smallest universal power adapter, jointly announced the Greentalk-enabled Innergie mCube90G – the first implementation of the Green Plug protocol. Green Plug’s Greentalk open system universal power interface enables any consumer electronics product to obtain power from any compliant external power adapter.
The Green Plug/Innergie CES demo will showcase a digital media enthusiast's toolkit, centered on an eco-friendly Fabrik SimpleTech [re]drive storage system, Ricoh R10 and GX200 digital cameras, and NEC Personal Products LaVie laptop.
“We’re proud of those product vendors who are backing up their environmental-sustainability policies with action, by pursuing the open systems power interface they have built with us in these concept systems,” said Frank Paniagua, Jr., CEO and founder, Green Plug.
“President-elect Obama recently told all Americans that they need to shut off the lights and unplug power supplies when they are not needed,” said Paul Panepinto, EVP Sales and Marketing, Green Plug. “With the Greentalk open systems power interface, power adapters automatically stop consuming power when devices don’t need any.”
Greentalk technology will also power an HP TouchSmart PC, Panasonic cordless phone, Canon photo printer and camcorder, Linksys wireless router, Westinghouse digital picture frame, portable Dynex DVD player, cordless power drill, and several 5V devices, including iPhones and iPods.
These devices were equipped with the Green Plug power interface without vendor intervention -- testimony to the ease of implementing the free, open systems power interface. While each of these products has unique power needs, Greentalk enables all to obtain power from a smart, dynamically adaptable power hub instead of having to rely on separate, incompatible power adapters and battery chargers.
At CES, Green Plug will also champion I Want My Green Plug, a new online movement with a clear goal: to let consumer electronics companies hear the voice of the people. At the site, consumers can select the CE product they’d most like to “Green Plug-enable” – and, collectively, let manufacturers know that they’re at the ready, eager to buy compliant brands that deliver convenience and eco-friendliness. Beyond the ability to vote, http://iwantmygreenplug.com includes social tools for sharing with friends, embedding a widget on a blog or web site, bookmarking it on social sites, joining IWMGP groups on social networks, and following the Green Plug blog for updates and news announcements.
Green Plug is the first developer of digital technology enabling real‐time collaboration between electronic devices and their power sources, allowing manufacturers to standardize on one universal power connector and eliminate environmental waste. Consumer electronics, residential and commercial builders, power tools and power supply manufacturers license Green Plug’s embeddable power supply technology to provide universal and safe connections, promote environmentally friendly reuse, make their products more affordable, and generate customer loyalty. For the company’s thoughts on universal power for consumer electronics, please visit http://blog.greenplug.us. Green Plug, headquartered in San Ramon, Calif., is privately held.
Source: Edge Communications, Inc.
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GREEN PLUG AND CONSUMER ELECTRONICS PARTNERS SHOWCASE NEW OPEN SYSTEMS POWER INTERFACE AT CES
Bringing forests and woodlands “back into production”
by Michael Smith
For far too long have woodlands and forests, especially many of the smaller, privately owned ones, been doing nothing and have not been bringing in the money that they, really, should be able to.
Too many small woods have been also left to their own devices, so to speak, simply because no money could be made, often for lack of understanding as to the marketing of woodland and forest products by their owners.
The problem with leaving woods and forest to their own devices, especially woods and forests in our developed countries is that they are not natural forests or ancient forests and woodlands. They have, more often than not, been planted to be used and often there are or have been coppice woodlands. Coppice that is not being worked for anything loner than but a decade or two is in danger of collapsing and disintegrating; meaning that there will, suddenly be nothing but fallen trees and root stocks that are broken apart. Our woods need to be worked and worked for profit as well, if possible. That does not mean that they have to be exploited.
This bring me to a little subject by way of digression: we will be on track again in a second... however, it is often claimed that is we use less paper we will have less trees and forests cut down. The fact is if we did not have the paper industry and the need for wood pulp many woods and forests that we have today in Europe, for instance, would not exist and many areas would not b e having trees at all.
I know that there are many amongst the environmental activists that think they know better and who claim that if woods and forests would be left to their own devices and if we did not use paper from trees our forests and woodlands would be better but this is not the case. In fact it is a lie and most of them know that too. Why they continue to perpetuate such falsehoods I cannot say but they do do that.
If it would not bee for some of the forest product industries we would have less woods and forests, of that we can be sure, and much more of the land that is currently in wood would be either used for this or that crop – today more than likely for bio-fuel crops – or even be built upon.
Wood is also a bio fuel; in fact the most natural of all bio-fuels. Wood has been used to keep us warm, cook our food, heat the metal in our forges, and so on and so on, for centuries, nay millenniums even, well before coal and oil, and it can save us yet again.
The burning of wood, for instance, releases only the amount of carbon dioxide that the tree has absorbed and converted during its lifetime and probably less even. With the right clean burning technology and all that wood can be more efficient today than coal and oil and wood could even be gasified and vehicles run on it. Then again vehicles be best run on the fuel that old Tin Lizzy Ford designed then to run on in the first place, namely methane gas. Yes, gas from sewerage, for instance. Same as the first electrical power plant was run on as well. But, alas, I once again digressed.
Wood has so many uses that it is amazing that so many woodland owners have no idea what resources they have and how to actually make them pay and enable them to increase their forests' productivity by ploughing back resources into it that came from the woods in the first place. Owning and managing a woodland or forest is a two-way affair and not just a one-way affair of taking only and not giving back and any good woodland owner is a husbandman, a steward of the land and will always plant anew and always replenish the trees.
Coppicing has been a system that has been in use in the British Isles – and other places where suitable trees are about and abound – for the managing of woodlands and forests and it is a system that keeps a woodland nigh on indefinitely productive.
Unfortunately much of the skills of proper coppicing is getting lost and in addition to that too many of the misguided environmentalists have been ranting and raving against the rotation coppice operations.
Proper professional woodland and forest management continuously improves those environments and ecosystems in a way that benefits everyone and everything, and it is such a shame that commercial forestry has such a bad image amongst the environmental lobby.
Without commercial forestry and commercially managed woodlands our planet would be far less green, regardless of what some, who, I am afraid to say, have no real knowledge of the subject b but think that they happen to know everything just because they have read this or that book, think and say, often way to vociferously.
While woodlands and forest might still exist in their ancient form had the hand of man not touched them, in most places of the world woods and forests have been worked my man for many thousand years if more more and here is virtually no forest that has not been worked.
The truth is that the management of woods and forests – and the word forests, by the way, means different things to different countries - is what has, in most cases, preserved woods and forests rather than the opposite, as is, so often, being claimed by the misguided ones in the environmental movement.
Without commercial forestry and woodland management for profit there would be none of those woods and forest in the prime condition that they are in presently. Commercial forestry, at least the true kind of commercial forestry not only extracts timer from the woods and forest; nay it also replants and that in a large scale.
Any professional forester knows that he does not work for the immediate gain and for the present or even a year or ten hence; he knows that he works for the future generations. Most foresters will never see the tree they they plant now or the ten year or so old trees they care for now to grow to maturity. This is for others in the future.
Without that kind of woodland and forest management, however, most woods and forests that there are today would not, as I said already, exist.
Urban forestry too can play a great role and here too the woods and forest could and indeed should be manageable for income. Whether or not then the income is wholly or partly used to replenish is another question but the income can be used to do so. Any forester in his or her right mind would also do just that.
Woods and forests are are source that can and must be managed for sustainable use in that the timber must be cut as when when ready – why else would such woods be managed otherwise. At the same time any such managed woods and forests, whether privately owned or publicly owned, in whichever way, need to have replanting schemes in operation at all times and also, as and where possible, should be expanded.
We need more woods and forests and that not only in the United Kingdom though the British Isles definitely need more woodlands. They are one of the less wooded countries in Europe.
Trees are the lungs of the planet and – while some have claimed otherwise – are what can keep the CO2 balanced to some degree.
So let's plant more trees and properly manage them, for the benefit of the planet as well as for income and, dare I mention it, profit. But then, some will say, he would say that seeing that he comes from the commercial forestry sector.
© M Smith (Veshengro), January 2009
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Make your own year planner and agenda from trash
Well, from paper and card that would end up in the trash otherwise
by Michael Smith
About every turn of the year we get the same kind of little DIY projects in the various green publications and the Green (Living) Review shall not lag behind in that either.
I know I am a couple of days behind as some others have covered this issue already at the turn of the year but we have, in a way, we have dealt with this before with the “hipster PDA” and I am not going to say much more here, really, with the exception that, with a paper trimmer, aka a guillotine, you can make your own 3x5 cards and sheets rather than buying them.
Here you can make use of all those cereal cartons and those from tea and tea bags, etc., as well as envelopes and such like.
The “hipster PDA” is, to a degree, little different to a planner/agenda but can be used in the same way and instead of using bigger pages this collection of, theoretically, 3x5 index cards and index card sized sheets can be used for a lot more.
I use mine, primarily, as a contact list and a collection of notes that I need for this or that project as my DIY planner is a printout from iScrybe and my notebook, so to speak, are folded notelets that come from the same online source. Both of those are printed on previously on side printed paper, often from physical spam letters that are being received here at a regular basis delivered by the mail carrier and no amount of requests not to have that stuff delivered has had any result. Royal Mail, the British postal carrier, in fact gets paid for stuffing those letter addressed to no one bar “The Occupier” through one's letterbox and they will not heed requests not too do so. That, at least, is my experience. But I digressed a little.
So, I just put all that paper, and the paper press releases that are still given out at events and/or that are sent to me b y mail – though rarer and rarer nowadays – to a another use, one that saves me a good deal and, with those calendar planners and such being that small they are, in fact, always with me, unlike my Filofax was or is.
I must say that, and this will be until some manufacturer of such devices can persuade me that they actually work and are worth carrying, I do not carry an electronic PDA and neither a cell phone that can do all them things. Electronic PDAs, from what I have seen so far, are not reliable enough for my liking and certainly not rugged enough to withstand the rigors they would be put through with me. So, it is open/pencil and paper for me.
That is the reason I also have the penchant for recycling paper into notebooks and such. By now I have about a year's supply of 3x5 index cards (and sheets) from a variety of sources and also made a number of larger notebooks from rescued paper.
The design of the “hipster PDA”, the basics to is, is a lot older than people might assume and this GTD system was developed somewhat over a hundred years back and it is still, much like the Filofax, as useful as ever.
While some people like to refer to me as a Luddite when I talk about using pen or even pencil and paper in preference to a pocket PC or similar gadget and when I extol the virtues of pen and paper over such electronic device. Who has ever heard of a paper-based system crashing? Or it needing batteries? The worst that can happen – aside from it catching fire, I mean – is for my pen to run out (so I carry at least one backup). Nothing else, really, can have an impact on that level.
Now that I have extolled the virtues of a paper-based planner/agenda let's have a look at the options open to us on the DIY section, especially as regards to recycling paper for use with such a planner.
The size of the paper is up to you and most paper trimmers will accommodate a number of sizes quite happily. Which size if right for you have to decide yourself.
My favorite size is 3x5 index card size – especially as the “hipster PDA” pocket one was designed around it. Personally I do use the “hipster” a little different to the way some GTD gurus and websites advocate and promote it.
To me it is a loose collection of notes, planner sheets, contact details and such that I need for that week or so and I can change the contents as and how I like, unlike the DIY planner described recently on another green publication.
I must say, though, that I do use the iScribe planner and the notelets printed from iScribe much more than I do use the “hipster”, simply because the way the iScribe planner folds up pocket size and can be carried in the special leather pouch/holster that I made for it and some of the note pages makes it so convenient. Not that the “hipster” is not a convenient size, but... it is a little different and does not always manage to come along.
The “hipster”, on the other hand, tends to come along a lot more often that dos the good ol' Filofax, for example. The latter, as useful as it is, is too bulky and hence too heavy at times.
While some people – and a recent article in a different place by a different author did just that – advocate the making of a DIY Planner in a larger format and then binding it by means of sewing it together or such, the “hipster” - and no, I did not design it, I just improve upon by recycling – is a loose leaf operation and it is as the term suggests loose leaves. However, those loose leaves are just what makes it is that versatile and adaptable for each and every different day.
There are templates for the “hipster” pages available on some place on the Internet and you can find them all by simply putting “hipster PDA” into any search engine. That is why I will not even try to attempt to tell you how to make any of them.
There are planner ones and a number of others that you can produce by downloading them and using your printer to produce. Some will have to be printed on a letter size page or on A4 while some are single sheets that can be printed directly to 3x5 card on your printer.
I personally use some templates but in the main just have data – such as individual contacts – printed or written (yes, by hand with open) on the cards that I have recycled from a variety of sources, from letters on above 80gsm paper to thin card from packaging.
Initially when I started using the “hipster PDA” I, in fact, went out and bought some 3x5 blank cards. But as they are so easy to make with the aid of a paper trimmer from this or that paper stock that was used before I would not go down the purchase road again.
The great thing about using such recycling planners is that they are a great conversation piece and a means of broadcasting the message about sustainability.
While you can just use the cards, clipped together, as they should be, by a small Bulldog clip, without any kind of cover you could, obviously, also make a cover for it. I have done so by recycling the plastic cover of a notebook by cutting it to size and using two slabs as front and back of the “hipster”. The front has imprinted the title “hipster PDA” by means of a labeling machine and also my name and email address (in case of loss). This also gives a cover page that is then noticeable to be the front cover.
Material for the making of the 3x5 index cards can be legion – I tend to use anything from strong paper (anything above 90gsm) up to board from tea cartons and those from cereals – as long as one has a paper trimmer about.
Cutting paper and board with just a ruler and an X-acto knife is not a good idea in this case, as one normally lacks the accuracy. Hence I would recommend the investment in a paper trimmer and from the right sources such a tool is not expensive and will repay the outlay soon. Even with a paper trimmer, aka guillotine, the paper is not always 100% equal in size; there will always be some small variations, though not that that matters, in my opinion.
Such a guillotine is also very useful for other projects and I can but recommend highly the purchase of one. Once you have one of them I am sure you will find many other recycling projects to use this for, such as making of rescued paper notebooks and such like.
Rescued paper notebooks can be produced from a variety of paper sources such as envelopes and what-have-you and can then be bound in a variety of ways. Most useful recycling projects to go with the recycled planner, agenda and such like. Why pay for those things when you can make them and do a small part in saving the planet as well. A complete win-win situation.
© M Smith (Veshengro), January 2009
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No more bone-shaking for Colliers Way leisure riders
Cyclists will soon enjoy one of the UK’s most scenic leisure rides without a bone-shaking start when a bumpy and rutted section near Radstock gets smoothed over.
Thousands of leisure riders have savoured the sights along the Colliers Way from Radstock to Frome since it opened in 2004. The National Cycle Network route has also proved popular with hundreds of novice adult cyclists on the Somer Valley Wheels course.
But cyclists have had to clench their teeth along the Colliers Way’s first quarter of a mile which was left with a loose, stone surface in case the Frome to Radstock railway line reopened in the short-term.
Sustainable transport charity Sustrans, which created the National Cycle Network, has now successfully bid for £12,500 from Natural England to tarmac the section under the Countryside Stewardship Agreement.
Sustrans Area Manager Rupert Crosbee said: “This bumpy section can make cyclists feel as though they are shaking their teeth out riding along there. And although it is the only bad bit of the path, it will have been enough to stop some people pedalling the entire route. So by smoothing out this first section we can hopefully encourage thousands more people to enjoy one of the National Cycle Network’s most picturesque routes.”
Eugene Kertzman, of Somer Valley Wheels, which runs four regular rides each week and has over 120 participants, said: “This is great news for our riders because some haven’t cycled for over 40 years and this rough, downhill stretch is the first one they have to tackle. Smoothing the surface will make it much less daunting and will hopefully encourage many more to join in the New Year.”
Chris Westcott, from Natural England’s Land Management Team, said: “We are very pleased to help fund this additional surfacing work, which will see this popular route fully completed and make it more suitable for a wider range of users.”
The Colliers Way stretches 18 miles from Bath to Frome via the Dundas Aqueduct and will eventually form part of a continuous 81 mile-long cycle route from Bath to Southampton.
Sustrans is the UK’s leading sustainable transport charity. Its vision is a world in which people choose to travel in ways that benefit their health and the environment. It is achieving this through innovative but practical solutions to the UK’s transport challenges.
Sustrans’ flagship project, the National Cycle Network, is now around 12,000 miles and runs within one mile of 55 per cent of the UK population. During 2007 over 354 million trips were made on the Network. There are around 2,500 rangers helping to look after the National Cycle Network.
Somer Valley wheels is a part of the Get Active initiative and is run by the Sport & Active Leisure Team at Bath and North East Somerset
Source: Sustrans
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Saving the world through software - Microsoft's green agenda
by Michael Smith
Software and the internet can play a great part in efforts to help the environment - as they did in winning the US Presidential election for Barack Obama.
This was the message of Microsoft's European chairman, Jan Meuhlfeit, when he spoke at a conference bringing together global business leaders in London recently.
Speaking at Green Strategy 08, Mr Meuhlfeit said that the huge public support - and funding - raised by Obama's campaign via the internet should be a lesson to those involved in the environmental movement.
"This is the first time that the internet and technology have played a key role in the elections," he said.
"Obama has said he collected 86% of the money for his campaign through the internet.
"If we're serious about the environment we should definitely use this way too."
He said the internet, although only 6,000 days old, was already shaping history and had a lot more still to offer.
"This is the first time in human history when the young generation uses current technology much better than the previous generation," Mr Meuhlfeit said.
"And I do believe that this generation is much more environmentally aware, so this will have a positive effect on society."
This can certainly been seen in a lot of the online fundraising in general now, via, say Facebook and such, and the book “Causewired” by Tom Watson (see review) talks about that in great detail.
While the benefits of the net as medium to get the message across were obvious, he said, that was not all the IT industry had to offer.
He spoke of the magic of software, highlighting how virtual meetings, conferences and other communication technologies could massively reduce the need for transport, thus reducing energy use and carbon emissions.
He also recognized the IT industry's need to cut its own energy consumption and gave examples of how Microsoft itself was doing this.
A new data center in Dublin, for example, will use only 50-70% of the energy of equivalent facilities due to investments in energy efficiency technology while Microsoft's base of operations in Reading is run on energy entirely from renewable sources.
The company's latest operating system, Vista, is also more energy efficient than its Windows predecessors, he said, and while that might not make much difference on a computer-by-computer scale, it soon adds up when one considers how many machines around the world are running on an MS platform.
100 million PCs running Vista rather than previous Windows incarnations, he said, was equivalent to taking 8 million cars off the road in terms of CO2 emissions.
Using Linux, such a Ubuntu and others are even better in this and are something that Vista can never ever meet.
Aside from Ubuntu there are other Linux distros and they all have a mu h smaller footprint on the computer and are not as resource hungry as are most of Microsoft's product. With Ubuntu – and other Linux distros – the entire OS with all office software, and other software, including games, comes on a single CD. This means the entire thing is less than 800MB. Some can be even smaller still. I believe the term “no contest” comes to mind here.
Many people are afraid of attempting to use other operating systems than Windows simply because they think that others need coding or do not have an intuitive interface and such. Well, rest assured that most Linux distros now have and many of them are better than Windows and much easier to use.
I have been using Ubuntu on one PC for a considerable while now as a workhorse for my writing work and have now, only in the beginning of December 2008, acquired an ASUS Eee PC 900 NetBook with the 16GB SSD and Linux and, well, it is great and I use it much more than the Vista laptop.
For one it is the speed that I like and then also the size, I guess, for it takes so much less space than that laptop. The other factor, no doubt, is because it is Linux.
Software and the right kind of hardware can do some work in way of saving the planet but this is not primarily Microsoft's domain. All MS is interested in, as w all know, is to keep its market monopoly and they guys at Redmond are rather afraid of Open Source.
© M Smith (Veshengro), January 2009
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The chief of the Environment Agency calls for 'Green New Deal'
The Environment Agency will install up to 80 turbines on its own land to help the UK switch to greener energy sources
by Michael Smith
Britain needs a 'Green New Deal' to stimulate investment in clean energy and move to a low carbon economy, the head of the Environment Agency has said.
Addressing the annual conference of the agency in London recently, its chairman Chris Smith called for Government to draw up a comprehensive, long term strategy to drive the changes.
The strategy, he said, would need to echo the fundamental changes made under President Franklin D Roosevelt's New Deal policies in the 1930s to resurrect the economy following the Great Depression.
"I believe we do have a great potential for a Green New Deal approach in Britain which puts serious investment into a new low-carbon economy in areas where we already have a natural advantage - tidal and wind - or where there's a real social need, such as insulation for older people's homes," Lord Smith said.
"To deal with the financial crisis, Government has been bold. To deal with the energy and climate crises, we need the same boldness."
He outlined the key elements he envisages as part of a Green New Deal, including:
# Development of carbon capture and storage for coal-fired power stations
# More incentives for energy efficiency in homes and businesses
# Greater use of combined heat and power (CHP)
# Removal of disincentives to the development of anaerobic digestion
# Feed-in tariffs and grants to help householders use sustainable energy
# A major national program for power generation from renewable sources
# Continuing development of work to adapt to the effects of climate change
The Environment Agency will be making its own contribution to encouraging greener energy by generating its own renewable energy, chief executive Paul Leinster announced.
Up to 80 wind turbines could be built on Environment Agency-owned land across England and Wales - enough to power a city the size of York.
The turbines will generate up to £2.4m of revenue every year, which the agency said will be ploughed back into its work protecting and improving the environment, and adapting to climate change.
"We all need to take account rather than just talk about climate change," Dr Leinster said.
"In the Environment Agency, climate change adaptation and mitigation will be increasingly factored into everything we do."
Lord Smith said that the we need to have the same boldness as the government has shown with regards to the financial and economic crisis. We indeed must be bold as regards to the “Green New deal” but as to whether the government did the right thing in the way it has ploughed taxpayer's money into the banking system and the way it is borrowing in order to reduce a few percent of VAT in a false hope to revitalize the economy is still a question.
In my opinion, and I think I made that opinion rather plain in an other article, the gimmicks as regards the reduction in VAT, which, in fact, may be against EU rules even (at least so the German Finance Minister appears to basically suggest), are not going to achieve the intended “spend, spend, spend” rush of the public. Is anyone really going to rush out to buy this or that thing just because, due to the reduction in VAT, it has just gone down by two or three pounds or even a fiver? The answer is a firm and categorical NO! A reduction in income tax on the other hand, especially say for the lower earners, might have made quite a difference, but 2.5% on VAT will not.
Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling got the sums definitely wrong here and all it is going to do is lay up trouble for us in the near future. With for us I mean primarily the British taxpayers and here especially those in the low earnings bracket. It is not going to ease the economy's ails; not one bit.
We will end up not just, of that I am certain, in a recession. Worse is to come. The way it looks to me we are rushing headlong into a depression and no one seems to want to notice it.
© M Smith (Veshengro), January 2009
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Webroot Launches Global "Go Green" Program - Offers Free Security Hardware Recycling
Security SaaS Leader Partners with Guaranteed Recycling Xperts and Centillion to Improve Security While Minimizing the Global Environmental Impact of Obsolete Hardware
Boulder, CO, December 2008: Webroot, a leading provider of security solutions for the consumer, enterprise and SMB markets, today announced the launch of “Go Green,” a global program which offers businesses free, earth-friendly recycling of legacy security hardware. In partnership with Guaranteed Recycling Xperts (GRX), one of the leading recyclers of computers and electronics in the US, and Centillion, a global e-waste recycling leader in Europe and Asia, Webroot will properly dispose of any legacy security hardware replaced by the purchase of a Webroot® Security Software as a Service (SaaS) solution.
“When we realized that the tremendous success of security SaaS solutions would be making hardware-based security obsolete, we took steps to provide a socially responsible alternative for recycling this influx of electronic waste,” said Peter Watkins, CEO, Webroot. “In conjunction with GRX and Centillion, the leading e-waste recyclers in the world, this program is a natural fit with SaaS. The move to the software-as-a-service model will greatly reduce the need for on-premise hardware, which will help lower the amount of electronic waste and conserve energy.”
According to estimates by the US Environmental Protection Agency, 2.25 million tons of TVs, cell phones, and computer products have been discarded in the US over the last two years. Only 18 percent (414,000 tons) was collected for recycling and the remaining 1.84 million tons was sent to landfills in the US and to unregulated third world countries.
“Because electronic waste accounts for 80 percent of Americans’ toxic garbage, and is growing exponentially, we’re excited to be working with Webroot on their ‘Go Green’ initiative,” said Mike Wright, president and CEO of GRX. “GRX collects, disassembles and shreds or crushes material, and then distributes the end product to certified partners for reprocessing and recycling into new products or raw materials. We expect to see a sharp increase in demand for our services as more IT departments convert to the SaaS computing model.”
GRX does not export hazardous waste material, it does not land-fill or incinerate hazardous waste material, it audits its partners and has signed the Basel Action Network’s Pledge of True Stewardship which provides the most rigorous set of environmental business standards for electronics recyclers. After electronic waste material is collected, GRX invests in the labor-intensive process of de-manufacturing to divert greater than 95 percent of materials from landfills and incinerators.
“With only 20 percent of all electronic hardware getting properly recycled, the Webroot Go Green Program allows us to respond to the increased demand for comprehensive security while providing an earth-friendly approach,” added Watkins. “Webroot was an early adopter in the Green movement internally in our business practices and we have always led by example – now we can offer the market better protection for their networks and our planet.”
The Webroot Go Green Program is available to any customer who replaces a security appliance or an on-premise security solution with a Webroot Security SaaS solution. Webroot will send the customer a prepaid shipping label to transport the hardware to the closest GRX facility in the US or Centillion outside the US. Once the hardware has been properly recycled, the customer will receive a certificate of authentication suitable for framing and a Webroot “Go Green” logo which signifies they are a member of our program and have contributed to a cleaner planet.
Webroot Security SaaS Solutions
Webroot Security SaaS solutions give IT departments the ability to outsource their security applications to centralized data centers for better manageability, better value and better protection than hardware appliances and server-based solutions.
Webroot E-Mail Security SaaS protects against spam, viruses and data leakage, along with additional compliance, archiving and business continuity features.
Webroot Web Security SaaS provides protection against Web-based malware threats for corporate and mobile users while ensuring appropriate employee Web usage and data leak protection.
Webroot Security SaaS solutions are backed by free US-based support that includes 24x7x365 access to a robust knowledge base, toll-free telephone support and free product and defense updates for the duration of a subscription.
Centillion Environment and Recycling Limited (“Centillion”) is a fully integrated provider of recycling and processing services for electronic waste with presence across North America, Asia and Europe. The Group provides services for recycling and processing electronic components and products in order to extract ferrous and non-ferrous metals and plastics.
Guaranteed Recycling Xperts is based in Denver, CO and has been the leading electronic waste recycler since 1999. The company also maintains facilities in Colorado Springs, CO, Omaha, NE and Clearfield, UT. The company recycles all electronic devices and offers pick-up services for businesses and organizations. GRX provides complete data security processing and documentation. http://www.grxrecycles.com
Webroot, a Boulder, Colorado-based company provides industry-leading security solutions to consumers, enterprises and small to medium-sized businesses worldwide. For more information visit http://www.webroot.com/
Source: Webroot
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Milwaukee neighborhoods could print own money
2 neighborhoods consider printing own currency for exclusive use in local stores
They may be talking funny money, but it's not funny business.
Residents from the Milwaukee neighborhoods of Riverwest and East Side are discussing the printing their own money. The idea is that the local cash could be used at neighborhood stores and businesses, thus encouraging local spending. The result, supporters hope, would be a bustling local economy, even as the rest of the nation deals with a recession.
"You have all these people who have local currency, and they're going to spend it at local stores," said Sura Faraj, a community organizer who is helping spearhead the plan. "They can't spend it at the Wal-Mart or the Home Depot, but they can spend it at their local hardware store or their local grocery store."
Incentives could be used to entice consumers into using the new money. For example, perhaps they could trade $100 U.S. for $110 local, essentially netting them a 10 percent discount at participating stores.
It's not a new concept - experts estimate there are at least 2,000 local currencies all over the world - but it is a practice that tends to burgeon during economic downturns. During the Great Depression, scores of communities relied on their own currencies.
And it's completely legal.
As long as communities don't create coins, or print bills that resemble federal dollars, organizations are free to produce their own greenbacks - and they'd don't even have to be green. Anything else, whether paper or coins, goes.
Local currencies are a more or less common occurrence in many localities in Britain, for instance, where they can be used in local participating businesses. In some instances it is a kind of barter system in other s it is a more or less fully fledged paper currency.
I do know that there are some that claim that it is illegal in the USA to mint coins and that only Congress may do so, this is not, as far as I know, the case. There are many “trade rounds” in circulation which are, after all, .999 pure silver (or even gold) and which could be used thus by someone accepting silver or gold in payment – and there are indeed some places that do accept those “trade rounds” in the USA.
In all cases of such local currencies we are talking about the equivalent of “vouchers” and “coupons”, though they may be called something else, to the point of having a currency name and such, that are only accepted by businesses and individual that are participants of such a scheme. It is, basically, barter by another name.
The local currencies of this nature in the UK are not something you exchange your ordinary cash for but if you do a job on a barter kind of system you take those “notes” in exchange for money which you can then spend at another business or such in the same way. This is, in a way, a way of getting around paying taxes, as well, and in some instances it is a kind of tax protest.
There are schemes like this also in Canada and in other parts of the world and this could even become something that could be used in a virtual world.
© M Smith (Veshengro), January 2009
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AT CES, INNERGIE TEAMS WITH GREEN PLUG TO DEMONSTRATE FIRST GREENTALK(TM)-ENABLED UNIVERSAL POWER HUB
Stylish Innergie mCube90G Points Way Toward Fixing the ‘Broken Power Model’ In Consumer Electronics with Convenient, Green Alternative
FREMONT, Calif. and SAN RAMON, Calif. (December 2008) – The end of the wall wart is near.
Innergie, developer of the world’s smallest and most versatile universal power adapter, today announced that it has teamed up with Green Plug, inventor of Greentalk™ -- a secure, digital protocol between power supplies and electronic products – on the first implementation of Green Plug’s open systems intelligent power interface.
At 2009 International CES, in Las Vegas Jan. 8-11, Innergie and Green Plug will demonstrate the Greentalk-enabled mCube90G powering a variety of consumer electronic devices, each with unique power requirements.
The Innergie mCube90G features an innovative two-piece design, in which the smaller Auto/Air adapter can be detached, enabling use of an even more compact adapter when getting power from DC power sources, such as automobiles and airplanes. The Green Plug-enabled Innergie mCube90G universal power adapter simultaneously powers or charges multiple devices, each with its own voltage need and energy demand. The Innergie adapter can power virtually any electronic product, dynamically matching each device’s power need.
”Innergie was attracted to Green Plug because the open systems power interface provides for connectivity to an unlimited range of consumer electronics products,” said P.S. Tang, Senior Director, Innergie. “In the future, when more CE products adopt the royalty-free open systems power interface, powering these devices will be much more convenient thanks to Greentalk, the digital collaboration power protocol. Greentalk also enables innovative power companies like Innergie to build new power applications that are not possible without the ability of CE products to collaborate with power adapters. We’re delighted to offer this inaugural implementation of Greentalk technology and to showcase the mCube90 powering a full range of CE devices.”
“Of all the universal power supplies on the market, the Innergie mCube90G is by far the most stylish and versatile,” said Frank Paniagua, Jr., CEO and founder, Green Plug. “All of us at Green Plug were thrilled with Innergie’s decision to incorporate the Green Plug Universal Power ProtocolTM into its next generation product. The availability of the mCube90G is another reason for CE device makers to migrate to the free, open systems power interface for their products.”
Charging Consumer Devices Everywhere
More than 2.5 billion devices -- including laptops, printers, speakers, routers, modems, cell phones, entertainment devices, power tools, cameras and other portable electronic gear -- require a power source that converts 65V - 240V wall power to device-specific DC power. All such devices currently provide individual, device-specific interfaces to transform the power as delivered to the home or office into the DC voltage and current levels they need. Manufacturing separate interfaces is both costly and inconvenient to the consumer, and is a significant source of solid waste. Every year, in the U.S. alone, hundreds of millions of discarded, incompatible power supplies end up in landfills.
“Consumers have had enough,” Paniagua said. “They want fewer chargers and they want them to shut off power automatically when power is not needed. They do not want to think about whether they brought the right charger for the device they have. And they want green devices.”
According to Forrester Research, some 25 million U.S. adults are willing to spend more for gadgets that use less energy or employ environmentally conscious design. These ”bright green” buyers represent the vanguard of an emerging consumer electronics segment and are expected to attract innovative green products from manufacturers like Innergie in the coming years.
In that vein, at CES Green Plug will promote I Want My Green Plug, a new online movement with a clear goal: to let consumer electronics companies hear the voice of the people. At the site, consumers can select the CE product they’d most like to “Green Plug-enable” – and, collectively, let manufacturers know that they’re at the ready, eager to buy compliant brands that deliver convenience and eco-friendliness. Beyond the ability to vote, http://iwantmygreenplug.com includes social tools for sharing with friends, embedding a widget on a blog or web site, bookmarking it on social sites, joining IWMGP groups on social networks, and following the Green Plug blog for updates and news announcements.
Innergie, founded in 2008, is the world’s leading power product company. Innergie’s technological superiority is backed by a team of professionals with over 20 years in the power supply industry. With its expertise in slim and compact power technology, Innergie introduced the mCube90, the world’s smallest, most efficient universal power adapter. Innergie’s vision is to create innovative lifestyle energy products to power your life. In response to the great demand for mobility and green products, Innergie is dedicated to providing “Mobile, Accessible, and Green,” three major types of accessories products. Innergie’s US headquarters are located in Fremont, Calif. For more information on the mCube90 and mCube90G, please visit www.myinnergie.com.
Green Plug is the first developer of digital technology enabling real‐time collaboration between electronic devices and their power sources. The company’s innovative green power components allow manufacturers to standardize on one universal power connector and eliminate environmental waste. Consumer electronics, residential and commercial builders, power tools and power supply manufacturers license Green Plug’s embeddable power supply technology to provide universal and safe connections, promote environmentally friendly reuse, make their products more affordable, and generate customer loyalty. For the company’s thoughts on universal power for consumer electronics, please visit http://www.greenplug.us/blog/. Green Plug, headquartered in San Ramon, Calif., is privately held.
Source: Edge Communications, Inc.
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