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Sanyo’s Eneloop Rechargeable Battery Powered Bike

1 Comment / Gizmo of the Day, Sports, Health & Fitness, Outdoors / By /

Eneloop Bike SeriesSanyo’s new application for their Eneloop range of rechargeable batteries is their bike series – a fairly standard electric bike where the battery is charged up while you cycle and the power is released by pressing a button on the handlebars.

At this point the bike goes into ‘all-wheel’ mode, i.e. both wheels will be powered instead of just the rear wheel on a standard bicycle. What differentiates this bike from other electric ones is that it manages to charge the battery even whilst you’re slowing down – that extra power does help in the long run too.

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Lemur EconoDriver

1 Comment / Automotive, Gizmo of the Day / By /

Lemur EconoDriver Winner of a 2010 CES Innovations Honors award, the Lemur EconoDriver helps you understand how much you are spending on fuel and how much money you are wasting. You just need to enter the price of fuel and EconoDriver does the rest.

The easy-to-read key fob display provides real-time feedback about vehicle mileage, cost of travel and the driver’s “green” score. Installation of EconoDriver is simple and no tools are required. You simply plug the included sensor into the vehicle’s Data Port (or OBD-II Port) available in all vehicles manufactured in 1996 and later. There’s no need to remove EconoDriver every time you exit your car.

Buy now!
More info from the manufacturer
Price: $89.98
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Google signs a 20-year contract to buy wind power

Miscellaneous, News / By /

I know that in the past few years, Google has received a lot of grief for seemingly acting contrary to their “Don’t Be Evil” motto, but you have to give credit to them when they do something that is genuinely positive, even altruistic.

Take for example, their goal to become carbon neutral and the ensuing action of agreeing to purchase power from a wind farm for the next 20 years. Of course, what this means is that this NextEra wind farm (in Ohio) will be reasonably funded for the next 20 years.  If for no other reason, here’s hoping that Google is a going entity for the next 2 decades.

How to get a new iPhone 4G for ‘free’

1 Comment / News, Phones / By /

Recycle!The latest iPhone 4G is about to be launched any day (remember the brouhaha about the missing prototype?) and we’ll bet you’ll be slobbering over that one too. 😉 Sooo… how can you (potentially) get your mitts on that one. For free? Or with a nice discount?

Pretty simple actually – Recycle your old one for dollars. So you won’t get the new iPhone for free if it’s the $200 model, but if you get about $100 for your old model, then that’s not a discount to sniff at.

Some of the recycling sites that will pay you big bucks for your old iPhone (and lots of other electronics too) include BuyMyTronics, MyBoneYard and Gazelle.

GE announces new LED light bulbs that last 17 years

Home Automation, Miscellaneous, News / By /

GE is continuing to push the technological envelope of light bulbs, announcing their next line of LED bulbs which have an even better eco-footprint than CFLs.

The GE Energy Smart LED bulb is a 40-watt (40w) replacement that will consumer 9 watts, produce just as much light as a 40W incandescent and last 17 years @ 4 hours per day (about 25 times as long).

The GE Energy Smart LEDs don’t contain any mercury and are cooler to the touch than either CFLs or incandescent bulbs.

These should be available in early 2011.

Full press release.

The Green Microgym’s members powers its lights, reduces its CO2 footprint

2 Comments / Miscellaneous, News, Sports, Health & Fitness, Outdoors / By /

the green microgymIf you live in Portland, OR, and want to improve your carbon footprint while getting/staying in shape, then take a look at The Green Microgym. In a nutshell, Green Microgym (TGM) offers an environmentally-conscious gym experience.

The actual neat details include the fact that the exercise machines are hooked up to the building’s energy grid, and your workouts actually help to power the lights and other electricity needs. TGM estimates that their carbon footprint is less than half if they were run as a regular gym.

Another nice benefit is that for every hour you workout, you get a $1 credit towards their store. Workout for 10 hours and you get a 50% off coupon at a local adidas store.

They’re franchising, so you can grab your own TGM for your town.

BuyMyTronics.com pays you for your old Electronics

1 Comment / Miscellaneous, News / By /

It’s always great to see more companies involved in recycling. In the past, we’ve featured electronics recycling sites like YouRenew, MyBoneYard and Gazelle (and even Costco/Gazelle) that pay you to take your old cell phones, computers, MP3 players, etc. off of your hands.

buymytronics.com logo

We’re pleased to tell you about another such site: BuyMyTronics.com (think of it as ‘buy-my-tronics’ or ‘buy-my-electronics’). BuyMyTronics.com touts their free shipping, will take electronics in any condition (excellent!), and get this: their facilities are 100% wind-powered.

How much you get for your electronics depends in large part on how much damage a gadget has. BuyMyTronics.com currently takes iPods, cell phones, game consoles, desktop computers, PDAs, eBook readers and more.

PowerGenix Nickel-Zinc rechargeable batteries are non-toxic, recyclable

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Cameras and Photo, Gizmo of the Day, Miscellaneous / By /

powergenix rechargeable batteriesNeed more power? Sure you do; we all do. But on the other hand, you’d still like to be environmentally conscious and friendly. That means if you need batteries you should opt for rechargeables. PowerGenix has a line of rechargeable batteries that are made of Nickel-Zinc (NiZn) and run at 1.6 volts vs the usual 1.2V that other rechargeables put out.

PowerGenix claims that this is the 1st new battery chemistry in over 20 years, and that they discharge a greater portion of their stored power before reaching the device cutoff limit, so they in effect would have better performance than say a NiMH battery with a higher capacity.

PowerGenix’s batteries are 100% non-toxic and non-combustible and are nearly 100% recyclable.

For a limited time, if you purchase PowerGenix batteries, you can send in your receipt and UPC to get free C or D adapters.

Buy now!
More info from the manufacturer
Price: $23 for 4 AA batteries & charger; $13 for 4 AA cells
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

yourenew.com pays you to recycle your old electronics

1 Comment / Miscellaneous / By /

YouRenew.com logoRecycling your old electronics is really becoming easier, as more services spring up to cash in on the growing industry. Yes, cashing in, because they make money from re-selling the parts and raw materials. But I don’t want to rain on their parade, because it’s a win-win for everyone. You can get some cash for your device and they get to run a profitable business.

Take YouRenew.com – they even pay for the shipping of your old gadget and then pay you depending on what it’s worth. For example, a 1st gen 4GB iPhone will get you $94. Nice. Naturally, the older it is, the faster the price goes down, but hey, you’re recycling and not tossing a bunch of hazardous materials into a landfill, and the price on that is much higher!

Another service that we covered previously is Gazelle.

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