power

I'm gonna file this one in the "Really?!" folder. Marcelo da Luz has been driving his Xof1 (short for "power of one") across North America in an attempt to set the world distance record for a solar-powered car.

When he reached Alaska earlier this week, a concerned citizen apparently thought the invasion had begun. The person spotted Marcelo diving around and promptly called 911 to report a UFO sighting.

Alaskan police quickly chased the Canadian solar pioneer down--the Xof1's max speed of 75 mph should have been their first clue as to what they … Read more

SpeedFan isn't overly complicated, but if you don't understand the information it offers, I strongly recommend you research it before proceeding. If you do know the difference between your Vcore and Vsb, it presents some useful system details. SpeedFan's tabbed interface isn't hard to navigate, but let's face it: most users won't be able to make head or tail of the data this utility provides. The program's system-tray icon tells you the temperature of your PC's hard drive, and you can receive information on voltage and fan speeds.

The utility can display … Read more

Verizon Wireless has earned top marks in another customer satisfaction survey from J.D. Power and Associates. Less than a month after it won the No. 1 ranking in customer service, the nation's second largest carrier won the most accolades in call quality.

Out of the six U.S. regions surveyed, Verizon held the No. 1 spot in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and West regions and tied with Sprint in the Southwest region. To win the top ranking, Verizon Wireless had to have fewer problems with dropped calls, initial connections, static and interference, and voice distortion. Meanwhile, Alltel had the … Read more

Google sees the future of computing at sea.

The search giant has filed a patent for a "floating data center" that uses wave motion to power on-board computers and the ocean's water to cool them.

The patent was submitted in February last year but was spotted in the U.S. Patent & Trademark office's electronic filings and posted at Slashdot on Saturday.

The system Google engineers sketch out is a self-powered data center placed three to seven miles offshore, potentially operating off the grid. Standard shipping containers would house racks of computers that could be transported … Read more

Intel is shipping new server processors that consume as little as 12.5 watts per core.

Cumulatively, the racks and racks of servers in large data centers can require power rivaling that consumed by entire city blocks. So, getting power consumption as low as possible while delivering adequate performance has become a delicate balancing act for Intel and Advanced Micro Devices.

New additions to the Xeon 5000 Series include the L5430 and X5270 processors, the fastest of which boasts a clock speed of 3.5GHz, Intel said.

The low-voltage L5430 uses only 50 watts of power or just 12.5 … Read more

Today at CEDIA, Sharp announced two new lines of flat-panel LCD HDTVs, one with a special energy-saver function and another with the company's first iteration of true 120Hz processing. Full details are available after the jump.… Read more

There is an ungreen revolution taking place in enthusiast game PC circles.

The eye-opening graphics possible on today's game PCs come at a cost: light-dimming power consumption. The trend, rooted in the perennial quest for more speed, bucks the overall greening of the PC industry.

Green PC designs have become more than just practical; they're cool. Power-sipping Netbooks are in, as are small desktops like the Dell Studio Hybrid and Hewlett-Packard Pavilion Slimline.

This is not the case for high-end gaming PCs, where bigger is better. How far this trend can go isn't clear, but a seminal … Read more

Q: I am very interested in a TV's power performance, and would like to double check something I found on the site. I saw that on the specs page for the Panasonic TH-50PZ800U plasma, you guys had that the power consumption is 692 watts. Whereas on your 104 HDTVs' power consumption compared chart, the same television is listed as using only 191.22 watts, and is said to be a "good performer." Can you help me out and let me know which one is the correct one or why they are 400 watts different? -- Joe, via email

A:The short answer is pretty simple, Joe: the 692-watt spec cited on CNET, according to that TV's user manual, corresponds to the maximum power consumption, whereas the 191-watt result of our testing reflects a real-world usage scenario. The long answer is a bit more complex, especially for Panasonic plasmas.… Read more

Need some ideas on how to have a more eco-friendly lifestyle? Take a look at CNET's Living with Technology feature, which is focused on green tech this month.

The top story and photo gallery are about cars. With all the talk about electric cars like the Tesla Roadster and plug-in hybrids, you would think that the dealer lots are full of them. They're not.

But automakers, eager to appeal to consumers looking for more fuel-efficient cars, are pushing to make production plug-in hybrids available within two or three years. The dates are shifting as results from battery tests … Read more