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D-Link thinks green for new wireless routers

D-Link claimed today to be the first company to offer green Wi-Fi home networking. While the "first" notion of the claim is debatable--I've seen routers from other vendors with an eco-friendly design--the green aspect is more than welcome.

The company said its green initiative that adds eco-friendly features to the Xtreme NT line of wireless routers could reduce the devices' power consumption by 40 percent without sacrificing performance.

These new features cut down the power usage by automatically detecting link status and network cable length then adjusting the power accordingly. The new routers also feature Wi-Fi … Read more

E-waste returns with a ready-to-wear vengeance

Castoff computer parts can make for quirky jewelry, if you feel like flashing keyboard button earrings or circuitboard cufflinks.

Unlike these models of creative recycling, some costume jewelry imported from China contains heavy metals from discarded electronics and could make you sick, as the Wall Street Journal reported last week.

Some novelty necklaces and earrings are laced with lead and antimony that likely came from e-waste thrown away by consumers in the United States and other developed nations, then shipped to China for unsafe recycling. "Best Friends Forever" necklaces from Claire's mall shops and stud earrings from … Read more

Dell selling laptop as world's greenest

It may not come in a sustainably-harvested bamboo case, but if you're shopping for an eco-friendly computer, the Dell Latitude D630 is in a league of its own. This model is the first laptop on the market worldwide to win the highest, gold rating from EPEAT, which measures energy-efficiency and green design elements in electronics.

EPEAT ratings, run by the nonprofit Green Electronics Council, take into consideration low-toxic materials as well as the energy conservation and ease of recycling of computers, printers and monitors. The acronym stands for Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool. When that program launched last year, … Read more

Craving a greener Apple

During his Macworld keynote speech, Steve Jobs played a congratulatory voice message from friend Al Gore on the droolworthy new iPhone, then used that device to locate the DVD of An Inconvenient Truth at the top of Amazon's bestseller list.

Outside the convention center's doors, however, Greenpeace activists handed out flyers painting Apple as less than hip to ecological problems, urging the company to remove toxicants from its products and set up free hardware recycling. Several blocks away, members of the environmental group also projected pictures of Asian electronics waste scrap yards onto a wall of the downtown … Read more