If you don’t own an iPhone yourself, more than likely you know someone who does. I personally am one of the many people who do, along with some of my friends. As an iPhone user you are constantly going into your “App store” to see what there is for cool new apps to put on your phone. Recently, a good friend of mine mentioned that there are tons of eco-friendly apps to help you go green. After hearing this I went and did some research about these apps.

Applications for your iPhone are broken into two groups, ones you have to pay for and others that are free. Some of the paid for apps I found are called Eco Footprint and GreenTips, they cost .99 cents each. Eco Footprint is a program that allows you to calculate your ecological footprint based on your eating and travel habits. Once you find out your ecological footprint you can then share the results with your friends through email or Facebook.

The GreenTips application gives you easy ways to go green, save money, and save the planet. The tips they give you range from topics about being green at your school or dorm, how to save money on your energy bill, being a green pet owner, helping your community become greener, and many more.

As for the free apps, two I found are ClimateCounts and GreenLocals. ClimateCounts is an app that analyzes companies and based on their ranking scale you can see how well a company is addressing climate change. They rank companies in sectors on food products, apparel, airlines, hotels, toys, furniture, and more. This can help you make many daily purchasing decisions and support companies that are highly ranked when it comes to them addressing the climate change.

GreenLocals is an app that helps you find local green and sustainable businesses easy using your phones GPS to locate certified businesses near you. You can browse by different categories to find a certain business and it will also give you directions on how to get to this location. You can also submit your own business or rate and review one you found.

I only named two from each category but there are many more to choose from, so enjoy and go find an app that helps you go green!

Posted by Megan/ Follow me on Twitter

Annually the Consumer Electronics Association makes a list of the top technology trends to watch. The list, which has proven both accurate and insightful in year’s past, aims to guide CE manufacturers and the electronic system contractors that install their products, towards education, interest and overall awareness of technologies that may be impacting their business in the coming year.  

Not surprisingly, the Smart Grid topped the CEA’s list which also included  the evolution of content, growing the connected home ecosystem, the future of TV, and connected cars.

Though the rest of the list was interesting enough, but it was the Smart Grid data that interested me the most. The CEA research finds that 70 percent of Americans are concerned about the cost of their monthly electricity bill, which is predicted to rise with growing demand.

The report states that “demand for electricity is projected to increase nearly 26 percent from 2007 to 2030, or by an average of one percent per year,” and a need for energy efficiency will rise dramatically. “A growing population and rising disposable incomes increase demand for products, services and floor space – all of which increase electricity consumption.”

The most interesting part of the Smart Grid is not necessarily the Grid itself but the enabling technologies that will lead adoption by making the Smart Grid smarter, more efficient and  more accessible.

Smart grid technologies to watch are:

• Energy monitors that show usage information from a home-based device or web application
• Technology that allows consumers to set their thermostats, automate home lighting and even select what type of power they wish to purchase (i.e., solar, wind, etc.) and pay accordingly
• Grid-tied appliances that can be run according to variable, time-of-day pricing
• Chargers that recharge phones, digital cameras and MP3 players during non-peak times
• Battery-like devices that store larger amounts of electricity for later household use
• Smart-charging plug-in-hybrid electric vehicles 

The CEA’s report also highlights several green innovations, including:

• Buckywires used for photovoltaic systems
• Geobacter microbe that consumes oil-based pollutants and can produce electricity
• Printable batteries
• Organic Free Radical Battery Power
• Self-Charging cell phones
• Kinetic phones – power through shaking
• Photosynthesis as a power source
• Slider notebook
• Solar-powered laptop

The report also recognizes that consumer awareness is a key to smart grid acceptance which means CE manufacturers and integrators need to make educating their customers a top priority in 2010.

posted by Kimberly Lancaster | Twitter

S1Digital, the leader in digital entertainment solutions, announced the launch of the S1Digital Blu-ray Disc Changer. The changer can hold 100 discs and seamlessly integrates with any S1Digiral Entertainment Server or Media Center.

When connected to an S1Digital Media Center or any third party Microsoft Windows 7 or Vista PC that includes media center, customers are able to load up to 100 Blu-ray and/or DVD movies into the S1Digital Bly-ray Disc Changer. Using the included playback software, each disc will be scanned and metadata and cover-art automatically downloaded to the server. Once catalogued, users can view more information about the movie, or watch the movie by selecting the appropriate cover-art, which is all available on the familiar and easy-to-use media center interface. The changer is simple to use and enables almost instant access to movies without having to physically find and load each movie.

“No other solution currently on the market integrates a Blu-ray changer with media center,” said Paul Heitlinger, President of S1Digital. “For customers that want instant and direct access to their movie discs, this is the only solution.”

When connected to an S1Digital Entertainment Server or any third party Windows Home Server, customers can automatically archive their Blu-ray, DVD and CD discs to the server*. With the included software, every movie and audio disc will automatically be stored on the hard drive, catalogued and metadata and cover-art will be downloaded. As each movie or album is stored, it is immediately available on the customer’s home network from any S1Digital Media Center (or other PCs and certain media streaming devices) for playback.

“A typical Blu-ray disc can take an hour or more to archive,” continues Paul Heitlinger. “With our solution, you simply load up the changer and hit go. You don’t have to load each disc one by one. The changer will automatically move from disc to disc so customers don’t have to worry about spending days manually storing movies and music.”