Inhabitat Earth Day special: seven gadgets that help you save energy and save the earth

The Week in Green is a new item from our friends at Inhabitat, recapping the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us. Today is Earth Day, so we're happy to have Inhabitat contributing this energy saving guide for you.

Each day Engadget dishes the dirt on the latest gadgets that make your life easier, more efficient, and just plain keep you entertained. But all of those high-tech gadgets have the potential to put a serious strain on your electricity bill, not to mention the environment. Fear not - this Earth Day Inhabitat is here to help with a set of energy-saving devices that will save you some green while dialing back your utilities bill and lowering your carbon footprint. From household energy monitors that help you understand your power usage to smart home control systems, to ingenious energy-visualizing gizmos, check out our top energy-saving gadgets after the break!

The Energy Detective The first step to saving energy at home is knowing how much energy you use. This $145 household power monitor comes with a transmitting unit that taps into a circuit breaker, dual current transformers that are attached to power cables, and a receiving unit that plugs into a wall outlet to display real-time power use. All that hardware hacking is worth it, though -- TED displays energy use for your entire house, and it connects to Google PowerMeter, which means you can easily access energy data from your Google account.

Energy Orb Another great way to cut back of energy use and save on your bill is to avoid using energy when the grid is overloaded. The Energy Orb is an ingenious eye-catching energy monitor that changes color to visualize the current grid load, thus displaying the relative price of electricity at any given moment. As creator Mark Martinez says, "It's non-intrusive... it has a relatively benign effect. But when you suddenly see your ball flashing red, you notice."

Visible Energy UFO Powercenter Visible Energy's series of smart powerstrips gather information on energy consumption every 5 minutes for all devices plugged into the outlets. An LED status light on the unit changes color from green to yellow to red depending on how much power is being used, so you don't have to check the numbers every time you want to see how much energy is being sucked up by your computer. Each outlet can also be set to turn devices on or off at specific times. No word yet on pricing for the powerstrips, but they're set to debut later this year.

Kill-A-Watt The Kill-A-Watt is an oldie but goodie in the world of home energy management. The device is simple to use: just plug it into an outlet and connect any gadget to find out its energy consumption by the kWh. Kill-A-Watt can also calculate energy expenses by the day, month, and year. It's easy, cheap ($20), and effective -- what more could you ask from an energy-saving device?

Wiser Home Control If you're really dedicated to saving energy, consider investing in a Wiser Home Control system. The Wiser Home Controller can connect nearly every device in your house -- lighting controls, security, air conditioning, audiovisual equipment, irrigation systems, motorized blinds and curtains, etc -- so that you can control everything via Internet or cell phone. So if you forgot to turn off the air conditioning, for example, you can easily do it from work or on your commute. The system comes with a range of options, so prices will vary.

SunPower iPhone App Say you've already installed a photovoltaic array on your roof and you're looking to glean even greater energy savings. SunPower offers an innovative iPhone app that lets you monitor the energy your solar system produces in real time. The Solar Electric Home Energy Management System allows you monitor energy produced by SunPower solar systems verses your household's net energy use, so you can make smart decisions about when to use electricity.

Wattson This futuristic power-monitoring device features a sensor hooked up to power cables, a wireless receiver and a readout on top of the box that shows energy consumption by the kilowatt or by cash spent. The box glows red, purple, or blue depending on how much energy is being consumed, so you can take a quick glance at Wattson to estimate your power usage. The device costs $280.

Microsoft snags $14.5b revenue, $4.01b net income for Quarter 3

About an hour before the company's analyst call, Microsoft has unloaded its third quarter fiscal results, which to be blunt, are a marked improvement over last year's momentous (but not in a good way) profits downturn. Reported revenue is $14.5 billion for the quarter ending March 31st, beating Wall Street expectations and culminating in a $4.01 billion net income. Those figures exclude a $305 million deferral related to Office 2010 but do include $78 million the folks in Redmond gave to Yahoo! in a search deal. That didn't help the Online Services Division's bottom line -- it reported a $713 million loss this quarter, compared to a $411 million loss this time last year. On the bright side, the Entertainment and Devices division (of which Xbox is a part) recorded $165 million in earnings, up from a $41 million loss year-over-year. Windows and Windows Live continues to be the breadwinner, unsurprisingly, with a $3.061b operating income (versus $2.273b in 2009 -- before Windows 7's debut). We're still sifting through the paperwork and will also be listening in on Microsoft's 5:30PM ET call, so stay tuned!

MSI's new GX640 budget gaming laptop packs Core i5 CPU, Powered By Radeon HD 5850

In the wake of Maingear’s eX-L gaming laptop getting revamped with new Intel Core processors and the latest ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 graphics, MSI announces an even cheaper gaming notebook that is also equipped with some new hardware.

Unlike the Maingear, the MSI GX640 comes in a single configuration, but it’s not a bad one for the $1,099 price tag. You get a Core i5-430M processor, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, 500GB hard drive, DVD burner, and a 1,680×1,050 15.4-inch display. Most importantly, however, is that it includes the new ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850 graphics, which won’t be as fast as its more powerful 5870 sibling, but still supports DirectX 11 and comes with 1GB of GDDR5 RAM.

You can grab the GX640 already at Amazon.com, and MSI says the budget gamer will becoming to Newegg later this month (which means in the next few days).

Intel scores first ever green building certification

Technology giant Intel has earned its first Gold level LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council for a new design center set to open in June in Haifa, Israel. echnology played a significant role for Intel in helping earn the designation. Here are some quick specifics: The data center uses Intel Xeon processors (of course), which reduce power consumption potential by roughly $200,000 per year considered against comparable technology. The company has installed automated controls that regulate the use of natural lighting, which is available to about 75 percent of the “populated” areas of the building; it also is using individually controlled lighting for a higher degree of energy efficiency. Intel is using automation to measure carbon dioxide levels in the offices

Apparently, this new Intel Design Center is the first facility in Israel to be blessed with a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. This is Intel’s first high-level LEED blessing. One of its facilities in Kulim, Malaysia, received a more basic LEED nod for a retrofit. The company also has a Gold certification pending for its Octollio campus in Chandler, Ariz.

Dell Mini 3T1 and Mini 3iX 3G phones spotted

If we need another reason to be envious of Chinese residents, it'd be the premium treatment that they're getting from Dell these days. Spotted on Chinese mobile regulator TENAA's website are two 3G phones from seemingly different design departments -- the never-before-seen Mini 3T1 (pictured) is a "TD-SCDMA / GSM dual-mode cellphone" that "supports HSDPA," dons a 2-megapixel camera on the back plus a front-facing one, and we're betting on Ophone for the OS; the second device is the familiar Mini 3iX (an exotic cousin of AT&T's Aero) that will sport the same old WCDMA radio and WAPI (the Chinese equivalent of WiFi). No word on availability of either handsets in China yet.

Nokia teases everyone with connect keep your hands to yourselves until then

No idea what this is but the Twitter verse has an inkling that we'll see Ovi Maps integrated with Nokia Messaging. Jury's still out on hardware like, say, the N8-00 though as the rumored flagship S^3 device we'd expect its reveal to be a bit more formal than a countdown.

Intel, Motorola, Samsung and more join forces to support New WiMAX 2

You probably have yet to experience its original incarnation, but with mere months left before the IEEE finally decides on the standard for the improved 802.16m version of WiMAX, a group of companies has finally stepped forward to support the new protocol, and solidify that nice, marketable "WiMAX 2" name while they're at it. Dubbed the WiMAX 2 Collaboration Initiative (or WCI for short), Alvarion, Beceem, GCT Semiconductor, Intel, Motorola, Samsung, Sequans, XRONet, ZTE and ITRI intend to, well, collaborate to make sure the new protocol can compete with LTE, while our old friends Sprint and Clearwire -- who are keeping their options open in the 4G wars simply cheer them on.

Apple MacBook Pro updates almost upon us? Screenshot of new model numbers offers by apple

It seems silly to give up all expectation for a MacBook Pro refresh. After all, isn't a spec bump for Apple's flagship laptops a total inevitability? Still, the arduous wait has begun shake our faith, and we're happy to see even this sliver of evidence to snap us from our stupor. An internal Microcenter system is listing four new laptops with new part numbers, which, if legitimate, almost certainly harbor new Core i5 and Core i7 processors (maybe even those NVIDIA Optimus graphics if we're lucky). According to the Microcenter employee who sent this out, a similar thing happened in November with a correct model number and price for the new MacBook.

World's Largest DVR Records 50 Shows At a Time, Saves 13 Years of Telecasting

You would need 326 TiVo Premiere boxes to match what the Snapstream DVR can do with just one coax plug.This Snapstream DVR is basically just a tech demo—but it's one hell of a tech demo. Loaded with 50 analog tuners, it can pull and record 50 channels, simultaneously, from your cable feed onto 136TB of storage—which is capable of saving 115,200 hours of recorded TV (or 13 years worth of content to watch). Put differently, you could record 50 channels in your cable package for 96 days straight. The system is driven by a 1U dual-processor quad-core Nehalem Xeon server with "a ton of RAM." So what would this beast cost were Snapstream to actually sell it? Well a 4 to 10 tuner system with 3-15TB of storage goes for $12,000. I'm guessing you can scale that cost appropriately, then add plenty of ??? to the price since it'd be a custom job.

A Woodie New Model MacBook Skin Really Classes Up the Joints

Computer skins are nothing new, but there's something different about these offerings from Karvt—namely, they're made of real wood. Bamboo, cherry, maple, pine and walnut—available stained or unstained—pick whichever you'd like. They're all backed with 3M adhesive for easy stick-on; they all sell for $35 a pop (which really isn't bad if you've seen what some companies will charge for plastic.) If you're so inclined, Karvt also offers an "Artists Series" that uses laser etching to add a layer of design to the wood for $50. All models are on pre-order now to ship May 1st. I'm interested to see how pretty, thick and durable these real wood skins prove to be in real life, but for now, I definitely understand the appeal.

Take the New Ford to Work, Leave the Old BMW For the Nanny

I don't know exactly what people are buying novelty spy cameras for these days, but I guess babysitter surveillance is as timeless a concern as any. Brando's newest motion-activated spy gizmo takes the shape of a small luxury automobile.The rechargeable car shoots 29FPS color video at 1280x960 resolution and snaps still shots as well, storing them in the trunk on an SDHC card. You can set it to start recording when triggered by sound or motion. The package comes with a charging kit and a Gorilla Pod-esque suction cup monopod. Don't worry, no one one will wonder why you have a MatchBox car on the end of a monopod. The toy car spy cam is $60, and it might be the only chance you ever have to afford a Beemer.

PS3 Owners May Get Cash Back After Other Operating System Uninstall

Who cares if you've never even heard of the ability to run alternative operating systems on your PS3—you could potentially be in for a small windfall under consumer protection laws. As the story goes, Iapetus at the NeoGAF forums took the issue up with Amazon (who sold him the PS3), quoting a European consumer protection law that states all products bought must be "fit for the purpose which the consumer requires them and which was made known to the seller at the time of purchase," netting him £84 ($130) in the process. He didn't have to return his PS3, nor be within warranty—certainly worth taking up with your retailer, if you've still got the receipt. Though this particular law will only apply to you if you live in Europe—any idea on similar laws in the US, folks? Firmware update 3.21 could prove to be a very costly affair for Sony and retailers.

Microsoft Might Still Make The Halo Xbox Game Movie

Rumors persist that Microsoft hasn't given up on making a film based on its multi-million-selling Halo franchise, with Spielberg tipped as being down for producing it. I'd like to see one made. Once upon a time, Microsoft was going to make a big budget Hollywood version of the Halo franchise. Until it spectacularly fell apart. That doesn't mean it won't ever happen, says the company.

Back in 2005, a film version of Halo was first penned by Alex Garland, writer of The Beach novel and 28 Days Later screenplay, and it was slated to be released by 20th Century Fox. Acting as producer Peter Jackson and his WETA studio began making props for the Halo film. And filmmaker Neill Blomkamp began making Halo short films for Microsoft.

Samsung's New Laptop Webcams Will Shoot 1080p Video Clarity at its Best

To my knowledge the only fullHD webcams available are external ones—so Samsung's CMOS sensors could prove a hit for people not wanting to fork out extra for a webcam. True, you'd have to buy a Samsung laptop though...

The CMOS sensors, by the name of S5K6A1 and S5K5B3, can both record 1080p video at 30fps, with the first model shooting on a 1.3MP sensor and the latter model a 2.1MP sensor. The ability to decrease resolution is included, for moments when your internet speed isn't up to par, and the 2.1MP sensor also has an EDoF, or enhanced depth of field function, for recording business cards so it can be translated into text.

You won't see them in laptops until later this year, however—but if Samsung laptops float your boat, it may be worth jotting those sensor names down and asking when it's time to upgrade if the new shiny model has one of the upgraded webcams in it.

What's Your Choice LCD Vs Plasma in 2010

No two ways about it, 2009 was a bad year for plasma. How else could you describe a year where the so called king of plasmas -- and to many, HDTVs -- exits the market? It was a hard enough hit when Kuro lovers learned that Panasonic would be manufacturing 'em instead of Pioneer, but when at the last minute Pioneer canceled the plan before the first Panasonic-branded-Kuro ever shipped, plasma lovers everywhere died a little inside. But all was not lost and Panasonic, Samsung and LG proudly continued on and didn't miss a beat when Vizio joined the quitters of 2008 -- Panasonic even opened the biggest plasma plant yet in 2009. Panasonic did step up, and by some accounts filled the void left by the Kuro by managing to win most of the best of awards of 2009; only to be tarnished by reports that the black levels were depreciated faster than expected. But the year wasn't all bad, as plasma prices dropped and in the second quarter of last year it actually did pretty well. Then at CES 2010 Panasonic's 3D plasma demo stole the 3D show, and early reports showed that the new line offered even better blacks and a better 3D effect than LCD TVs. So while there are no signs that plasma will ever be the king of flat screen TVs, it has proven for yet another year that although LCDs garner the lion's share of HDTV sales, plasma still owns a piece of the market and offers some advantages over the competition. So while the LCD vs plasma debate has never been as fun or as meaningful as a format war -- after all it isn't like choosing one excludes you from viewing content -- it is an interesting battle to follow. In the coming years we expect LCD to continue to push plasma up in size and plasma to push LCD blacker and faster. So the great news is that in the end it is the consumer that is getting better HD viewing options.

Storage For OCZ bids for solid state throne with new Vertex 2 and Agility 2 SSDs

For the past nine months, Intel's X25-M G2 has been the solid state drive to beat, and manufacture as it might, rival OCZ hasn't been able to mass produce a SSD capable of matching its fantastic all-around performance. The original Vertex 2 Pro might have done the trick, but the company scrapped it after the speedy SandForce SF-1500 controller was found wanting, and only 5,000 of the 270MB / sec, 15,000 IOPS drives were ever produced. But now, OCZ's back with SandForce's cheaper SF-1200 chip, and surprise of surprises, the drives it power are even faster -- at least on paper -- than before. The new Vertex 2 and Agility 2 SSDs boast maximum sequential read speeds of 285MB / sec and 275MB / sec writes, and can perform those all-important 4K random writes at up to 50,000 IOPS on a Vertex, or a very respectable 10,000 IOPS for the budget Agility line. The company expects both drives to ship in the next few weeks in usable capacities of 50GB, 100GB and 200GB (provisioning an extra 14GB of overhead for each 50GB of storage) with 400GB SSDs planned further down the road. Now then, OCZ, how about that price tag?

News Buzz Firefox's worldwide market share hovering near 30%

Mozilla now estimates that its Firefox web browser is now responsible for some 30% of all web browsing.

Yesterday Mozilla released its first quarterly analyst report (PDF), a document which bought together a whole raft of metrics related to the browser.

By number-crunching data from four metrics providers that Mozilla called “reliable sources” - StatCounter, Quantcast, Net Applications, and Gemius - to pull together a worldwide usage figure of 30% for the plucky browser.

On a more granular level, the company also pulled apart the stats on a continental level: Strongest adoption is in Europe, with usage up at 39.2%. The browser usage for north America stands at 26%.

What's next in Microsoft's cloud-hosted business suite?

Before delving into the particulars, it’s important to understand the distinctions between the two primary SKUs of BPOS. (There’s a third,recently introduced Federal BPOS SKU, but that’s not part of this discussion.) THe “Standard” BPOS offering is a multi-tenant (multiple customers sharing the same hardware platform). The “Dedicated” BPOS offering, targeted at larger customers — typically those with more than 20,000 seats — is built on a set of hardware dedicated for a single customer. Standard BPOS is updated with new features every six to eight weeks. Dedicated BPOS is updated every six to eight months.

The biggest change coming for both Standard and Dedicated BPOS customers is a refresh of services that are part of the “Wave 14″ release of products. In other words, Microsoft will be making available to BPOS cloud customers a number of the features that it is rolling out first in its on-premises products, like Exchange Server 2010 (which released to manufacturing at the end of last year), SharePoint Server 2010 (which is due to RTM in April); and Office Communications Server 2007 R2 (which RTM’d late last year) and Office Communications Server 2010, which is expected to RTM at the end of calendar 2010.

The Microsoft-hosted Exchange and SharePoint services will be updated first — in beta form in the next month or so for BPOS Standard users, and then in final form in the second half of this year. Communications Online users will get only the OC Voice technology from the on-premises OCS 2010 product in this calendar year. The rest of the OCS 2010 features will find their way into the cloud-hosted version of Communications Server in the first half of 2011, according to my source.

What else is coming for Microsoft’s growing cadre of cloud customers in calendar 2010? There’s a “Lite” version of BPOS coming, that will be targeted at SMB customers with 25 seats or less, as I’ve reported previously. (I am hearing BPOS Lite is a second half 2010 deliverable.) My source says there’s another new SKU, known as BPOS E (Enterprise) coming, as well, that will include Enterprise Client Access License (CAL) features. I don’t know any feature specifics about either of these products.

Additionally, Microsoft is telling customers and partners that it is trying to establish a new platform that its BPOS services will run on. I don’t think they’re talking about the rehosting of BPOS on Windows Azure here, which company officials have said is a long-term goal for Microsoft’s Online/managed services unit. Instead, this is more of a developer platform: Something that will provide developers and customers with a more programmable layer, allowing them to interact directly with Microsoft’s hosted services via a set of application programming interfaces that bypass the BPOS user interface.

I’ve heard Microsoft will likely highlight at its Office 2010 launch in New York on May 12 some of the enterprise “three screens and a cloud” scenario that BPOS and the individual, Microsoft-hosted services that comprise that product, will enable. I’ve also heard that Microsoft is pitching BPOS hard to its customers and its partners in its current and next fiscal years.

Anyone out there gotten the BPOS pitch? What do you think Microsoft is doing right and wrong with BPOS, vis-a-vis its business productivity competitors like Google with Google Apps?

eBay's Online PayPal beefs up Asia Pacific operations; Aims for global high growth

EBay’s PayPal said it will double the number of employees in Asia Pacific to 2,000 by the end of the year as it chases more growth in the region.

PayPal said it would ad jobsin Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan. PayPal’s international headquarters will be in Suntec City, Singapore and focus on technology, product development, infrastructure, risk and engineering.

In 2009, PayPal processed $6 billion in total payment volume in Asia Pacific, up 38 percent from a year ago. PayPal will also launch its mobile payment software development kit (SDK) for Asia Pacific developers.

PayPal, the growth engine of eBay, also forged partnerships with China UnionPay and DBS Bank.

EBay CEO John Donahoe is betting that PayPal can grow on a global scale. Among the key slides from Donahoe’s February presentation in the UK: