Archive for category Green Electronics

The Story of Send: Google’s Own Way of Saying “Hi, I’m Green!”

Posted by Ovidiu Sandru in Green Electronics on May 16, 2012

You probably found this while googling, so the search giant Google is no stranger to you. Well, they may be giant and all, but as far as I know they’re the greenest Internet service provider out there. That’s why Google decided today that it’s important to let people know what chain is actually involved when [...]

Revolutionary Butane-Powered Backup Charger to Hit Market This Year

Posted by Mihai Sandru in Green Electronics on May 11, 2012

A 10-year-old MIT spinoff, Lilliputian Systems is now ready to commercialize a portable charger that, if priced correctly, will revolutionize batteries and backup charging for mobile devices. It runs on butane and contains a revolutionary fuel cell that transforms the liquid into electricity. The device will be retailed through Brookstone and will probably hit the market [...]

NGK Discovers 90% Efficient Gallium Nitride LED Source

Posted by Ovidiu Sandru in Green Electronics on May 7, 2012

A new gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor developed by NGK Insulators will hugely increase the luminous efficiency of LEDs from 30-40% to about 90%, reports TechOn. The transparent wafer created by NGK has a very low defect density and has been made by using a proprietary liquid phase growth method for a single-crystal growth process. (if [...]

Ikea Unveils Chic Cardboard Digital Camera

Posted by Ovidiu Sandru in Green Electronics on April 25, 2012

Digital cameras have had such tremendous success since their invention that anyone with a cellphone (even the cheapest ones) or a laptop has them embedded – they’re like the buttons on a shirt. Ikea is now celebrating digital cameras in a greener fashion with a cardboard model. To commemorate the 2012 Fuorisalone held in Milan [...]

Cheap, Green and Paper-Thin TVs From Georgia Institute of Technology

Posted by Mihai Sandru in Green Electronics on April 24, 2012

Maybe you thought that with OLED TVs we went as far as we could go in terms of electronic thinness. Or maybe you think that the thinner they are, the more expensive they become. Wrong! The Georgia Institute of Technology reinvented the notion of thin Tvs by bringing to the market a paper-thin but viable [...]

Copper-Graphene Alloy Cools Electronics Better, Improves Efficiency

Posted by Ovidiu Sandru in Green Electronics on April 12, 2012

A new copper-graphene composite has been found to be the best solution so far for cooling electronic devices. It’s known that, once they pass a temperature threshold, electronics don’t behave efficiently, and that is the #1 reason for them eating more power than they should. The material developed at North Carolina State University (NCSU) is [...]

New Supermarket Scanner Scans Objects Instead of Barcodes, Saves Paper, Time and Energy

Posted by Ovidiu Sandru in Green Electronics, Power Saving on April 3, 2012

Now here’s something that some may consider has nothing to do with the green purpose of our website, but I think it actually has a lot. It’s Toshiba’s new scanner that recognizes objects (fruits and vegetables, in this example) and instead of using paper-wasting barcodes, knows which is which and puts them on your supermarket [...]

Reinventing The Transistor: TFET Technology Reaches New Efficiency Heights

Posted by Ovidiu Sandru in Green Electronics on March 27, 2012

Tunneling Field Effect transistors (TFETs) have been worked on for many years as an alternative to today’s FETs, which are the transistors used in power electronics including electric cars. The main advantage of TFETs over simple FETs is efficiency by the fact that it produces less heat. Now, researchers from University of Notre Dame, ID [...]

German Institute Integrates Highly-Efficient Solar Cells on Ski Helmets

Posted by Mihai Sandru in Green Electronics, Solar Power on March 7, 2012

Look at the picture. What do you see? A helmet, you’ll say. However, for the more experienced, this is not just any kind of helmet, but one that integrates solar cells as well. This application is one of the many solar cells are expected to endorse by the end of this year. The progress has [...]

Smart Thermostat Startup Nest Sued by Honeywell for Patent Infringements

Posted by Ovidiu Sandru in Green Electronics on February 9, 2012

Remember when, last October, we’ve been telling you about Nest, the company founded by ex-Apple Chief Architect Tony Fadell, who wanted to enter the market with a revolutionary smart thermostat? Yes, the thermostat has been innovative, but its conception is now contested by none other than Honeywell, who filed a lawsuit against Nest for more [...]

Toshiba's New Cylindrical LED Bulbs Could Successfully Replace Incandescents and CFLs

Posted by Ovidiu Sandru in Green Electronics on February 6, 2012

Slowly but surely, LED lamps begin to replace standard incandescent light bulbs and even fluorescent ones (CFLs), once considered best at saving power. Toshiba just announced two cylindrical LED light bulbs (I prefer calling them “lighting devices,” rather than “bulbs”) that offer the same brightness of a 40W incandescent bulb. The two LED devices will [...]

Philips & BASF to Develop OLED Lighting Concept for Car Roofs

Posted by Mihai Sandru in Green Electronics on January 24, 2012

Often enough, Philips is the synonym to light. And they keep proving this by teaming up with BASF – “The Chemical Company” and releasing the OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) technology for car roofs. Just as Dr. Dietrich Bertram, General Manager of OLED Lighting at Philips says, the technology is innovative in every way. First [...]

New Photovoltaic Device Recovers Smartphones' Lost Screen Light

Posted by Ovidiu Sandru in Green Electronics on January 24, 2012

Do you own a smartphone? I do. And I charge it every day, in the evening. I even have a friend who charges his iPhone two or three times a day, but he’s an extreme talker. However, great efforts are being made by scientists at the University of Cambridge toward making batteries last longer by [...]

How New Self-Healing Circuit Restores Electricity in 20 Seconds

Posted by Mircea Sandru in Green Electronics on January 16, 2012

As many of you know, a broken and then repaired thing won’t ever be as it was before, no matter how much we try. This truth applies as well to electronic circuits, that once broken are not very easy to fix. Despite these, a team of engineers at the University of Illinois managed to create [...]

The LED Market to See Considerable Increase by 2021

Posted by Mihai Sandru in Green Electronics, Power Saving on November 30, 2011

The latest report from Pike Research shows that LED lighting will capture 52% of the Commercial Building Market by 2021. The price for these light-emitting diodes has already begun to decline. The researchers believe that the lighting industry will change significantly during the next five years than it has in the previous 50. Currently, the [...]