Researchers one step closer to BOOTLESS computer

Physicists at the University of California at Riverside have made a breakthrough in developing a "spin computer," which would combine logic with nonvolatile memory, bypassing the need for computers to boot up.
The new transistor technology, which one lead scientist believes could become a reality in about five years, would reduce power consumption to the point where eventually computers, mobile phones and other electronic devices could remain on all the time.

The breakthrough came when scientists at UC Riverside successfully injected a spinning electron into a resistor material called graphene, which is essentially a very thin layer of graphite, just like you might find in a pencil. The graphene in this case is one-atom thick.

The process is known as "tunneling spin injection." It involves laying down an electron in the graphene, which then represents a bit of data. By injecting multiple bits into the graphene, they can not only be stored in a nonvolatile state (without the need of electricity), but the data can be used for computations in the graphene itself.

If successful, the researchers will have created a chip that removes the input/output (I/O) bottleneck created by the system bus between a computer's CPU and a mass storage device such as a hard drive or solid state drive (SSD), also known as the Von Neumann Bottleneck.

One of the project's lead scientists, Roland Kawakami, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at UC Riverside, said the clock speeds of chips made using tunneling spin injection would be "thousands of times" faster than today's processors.

One of the major hurdles that remains involves finding a lower-power method to coax electrons into being flipped by a magnetic field, turning them into bits representing zeros or ones. Currently, the graphene spin technology requires more power than DRAM or SRAM to work, Kawakami said.

"If you can lower the energy needed, then you could lower the size of the supporting circuitry," Kawakami said. "What we're working on is a whole new concept. This will essentially give memory some brains."

The researchers also need to build out the circuitry. That will be the job of electrical engineers.

Kawakami's team has used a semi-conductor laser to essentially free-up electrons so they can be polarized and given a directional orientation, called "spin."

The electrons can either "spin up" or "spin down" and allow for more data storage than is possible with current electronics, according to the university. Once the electrons are polarized, they remain in place for the life of the chip, which in the case of graphene is almost practically an eternity.

"So it's the type of memory that can be very fast and it can be very durable. You're moving atoms. There's not a large magnetic field," Kawakami said. "I'm one of those researchers that really cringes at the thought of saying this [new technology] can be useful. I think for us, maybe within five years we can get one device working."

Kawakami's team is working on the electrical spin injection from a ferromagnetic electrode into graphene, which to date has been inefficient, he said. The spin lifetime of the electrons are thousands of times shorter than they should be from a theoretical perspective. "We would like longer spin lifetimes because the longer the lifetime, the more computational operations you can do," Kawakami said.

His team has been able to lengthen the spin lifetime through the use of a nanometer-thick insulating layer, known as a "tunnel barrier," in between the ferromagnetic electrode and the graphene layer. They found that the spin injection efficiency increased dramatically, he said.

"We found a thirtyfold increase in the efficiency of how spins were being injected by quantum tunneling across the insulator and into graphene," Kawakami said.

Kawakami said the research on spin computing is at a stage similar to that of the movement from vacuum tubes to transistors in the 1950s. Once one transistor was created, it opened the door to modern computers. Once a spin computing transistor has been created -- in, say, about five years -- he expects industrial support to ramp up and consumer products to follow in under 10 years.

Kawakami's team of three graduate-student researchers has for the first time joined with electrical engineers at the university, who are designing the circuitry that will carry the electrons through the graphene.

Graphene received broad notoriety earlier this month when the scientists who discovered its properties as the thinnest and strongest material known to mankind received the Nobel Prize in physics. Graphene is made up of carbon atoms and looks like chicken wire or lattice through an electron microscope.

To date, the development of spin electronics has been geared entirely toward memory. Two years ago, another group of researchers at Rice University demonstrated a data storage medium made out of a layer of graphite only 10 atoms thick.

That technology has the potential to provide many times the capacity of current NAND flash memory and can withstand temperatures of 200 degrees Celsius and radiation that would make solid-state disk memory disintegrate. That technology, for example, would be useful in satellites, which are constantly bombarded by the sun's radiation.

But the researchers, focused on combining the memory aspects with the computational capabilities of tunneling spin injection, are hopeful now that the right material is on hand.

"Things that have been missing are that the right material hasn't been there on one hand, and on the other hand, the circuit computing design concept hasn't been there. It's like the chicken and the egg. One has to develop to give motivation to the other," Kawakami said.

Lets wait for such technologies to come true.

For any kind of communications, you can directly contact me at jasg09@gmail.com.

Kingston announces its first water cooled RAM

Kingston Technology Co. today announced the release of its first water-cooled DDR3 memory kit for PCs, which it said provides longer-term reliability.

Kingston's new HyperX H2O water-cooled DDR3 line features three products: two 4GB dual-channel kits with 2000MHz and 2133MHz frequencies, respectively; and a 6GB triple-channel kit running at 2000MHz.

Kingston's HyperX H2O kits have a starting price of $157 for 4GB modules and move up to $235 for a 6GB kit.

Mark Tekunoff, senior technology manager for Kingston, said the water-cooling feature is desirable for its quiet operation and reliability. Thermo photography tests performed by Kingston showed that the water-cooled DRAM ran consistently 10 degrees to 14 degrees cooler than air-cooled modules, he said.

Kingston is targeting its water-cooled RAM at high-end "extreme" PC enthusiasts who enjoy building their own systems. Tekunoff said those high-end users tend to like water-cooled CPUs and graphics cards, so the RAM was a logical follow-on.

"There's also the cool factor," Tekunoff said. "Some people just like the look of water cooled memory."

Takunoff admitted that no matter how much a user overclocks a CPU, it won't overheat the memory card. "Realistically, the memory doesn't reach its limit of 85 degrees Centigrade. It really wouldn't get beyond 65 degrees," he said.

Kingston also announced it has changed the name of its original HyperX DDR3 module to "Genesis." The company now sells its Genesis air-cooled module, its entry-level Blu DDR3 line and the LoVo, low-voltage memory board.

Kingston HyperX memory is backed by a lifetime warranty and free 24/7 technical support.

Some 'White Hat' Hackers You Should Know

These "White Hat" security researchers are ethical hackers whose discoveries and inventions shake things up — as they try to stay one step ahead of their underground "Black Hat" cousins . . .

Let's know some of them.

Robert Rsanke Hansen

It's not unusual to hear someone say "Rsnake found out.." and Hansen's manic inventiveness includes the "Slowloris" low-bandwidth denial-of-service tool, which ended up being used by anti-Iranian protesters to attack the Iranian leadership Web sites; another called "Fierce" does DNS enumeration to find non-contiguous IP space to make attacking targets easier.

Greg Hoglund

Since 1998 has been investigating rootkits and buffer overflows, founded the Rootkit Web site and also co-authored the books "Rootkits, Subverting the Windows Kernel" and "Exploiting Software." One of his most memorable feats was exposing vulnerabilities associated with the online game World of Warcraft, detailed in a book he co-authored with security expert Gary McGraw, "Exploiting Online Games."



Dan Kaminsky


History may remember Kaminsky as the diplomat and statesman in the "White Hat" because of his work behind the scenes with software and service providers to patch a flaw he discovered in 2008 in the DNS protocol, which if exploited, would have led to mass disruption of the Internet.Though some argued he should have immediately disclosed the flaw, others praised his discretion in quietly working to fix the problem before it was widely publicized.


Zane Lackey

This co-author of "Hacking Exposed: Web 2.0" and contributing editor to "Hacking VoIP" and "Mobile Application Security" digs into flaws in mobile and VoIP systems. In the past, some of his public talks and demos about compromising VoIP System have been so detailed that chief information security officers at major corporations said they couldn't advocate investing in VoIP until the issues raised were addressed by vendors.


Marc Maiffret

Once the bad boy 'Chameleon' in hacking group "'Rhino9," Maiffret luckily realized his hacking skills could be put to use in protecting Windows-based computers when, at age 17, he turned over a new leaf to co-found eEye Digital Security in 1997, working with security researchers Derek Soeder and Barnaby Jack. A demon at discovering Windows-based vulnerabilities, Maiffret also played a role in zeroing in on the infamous "Code Red " worm in 2001, which exploded across the Internet ravaging Microsoft-based computers.


Charlie Miller

Co-author of the "Mac hacker's handbook," Miller has hacked Safari the last three years at the Pwn2Own contest, found an iPhone exploit that consisted entirely of SMS text messages, and was the first to hack Apple's iPhone in 2007 and the Android phone in 2008. He also is credited with writing the first "virtual world" exploit for Second Life.


HD Moore

The open-source penetration testing platform, the Metasploit Project, founded in 2003 by Moore as chief architect, has become one of the most influential security inventions of the era with its penetration-testing and exploits used to uncover network weaknesses...by the good, the bad and the ugly.



Joanna Rutkowska

This brainy Polish researcher has made it an obsession to figure out how stealth malware, such as rootkits, can be so well hidden in software and hardware that few are ever likely to find it. Her "Blue Pill" attack against Microsoft's Vista kernel protection mechanism, which brought a crowded room of security geeks at Black Hat to a standing ovation in 2006, was just her first revelation publicly to show how easy it is for dangerous code to hide in plain sight.


Sherri Sparks

Like Rutkowska, researcher Sparks has made rootkits and stealth malware her pursuit, and at one Black Hat Conference showed how operating system-independent rootkits, such as the proof-of-concept System Management Mode-based rootkit she built with colleague and co-founder Shawn Embleton, could be used to subvert and compromise computer networks.


Joe Stewart

With expertise in tracking malware and botnets used by cyber-criminals for financial gain, Stewart is often the first to identify dangerous new code specimens and how they work, such as the elusive Clampi Trojan and how the SoBig worm was sending spam. It all gives him an unpleasantly close look at East European and Chinese cyber-gang activity.


Christopher Tarnovsky

Like a surgeon re-tooling a pulsing heart, Tarnovsky makes use of specialized tools in his lab to bypass supposedly tamper-resistant hardware circuitry in semiconductors to gain root control to tap into data. As described in a Black Hat session, he did this recently with the Infineon processor with the Trusted Platform Module used in PCs, smart cards and even Microsoft's Xbox. Others aren't likely to duplicate his feats. Or are they?


Dino Dia Zovi

Co-author of the "Mac Hacker's Handbook" and "The Art of Software Security Testing," Zovi discovered and exploited a multi-platform security vulnerability in Apple's QuickTime for Java in one night in order to hack a fully patched MacBook Pro to win the first Pwn2Own competition. He also was the first to publicly demonstrate VM hyperjacking using Intel VT-x in a live demo at Black Hat 2006. He says he can't discuss "the hardest things" he ever hacked since that gets into non-disclosure agreement territory.



So now you know some big guns in the field of security!! Try to know what have they done in details, it will be very informative and interesting and think how would they have done?

Till the next post, it's goodbye and take care......!!

Concept Phones

When Future will Call

It’s one thing to know what the next iPhone is going to look like. It’s an entirely different matter to know what phones will be like a few years down the road.

This post is a collection of our favorite futuristic phone designs, ranging from realistic to not-so-much. Some come from the desks of design firms. Others come from the minds of folks who know their way around Photoshop and have a little too much free time on their hands. Still others are real prototypes from handset makers.

So let the show began!

Snake Phone

Having a phone that can wrap around your wrist or arm could be useful, especially if you're prone to losing things. But that doesn't mean anyone would want the snake-phone created by Product Visionaries around their entire arm. Imagine unwrapping one of these things if you get a call. Yikes! Shrink the design down to a manageable size, and this phone would probably be a hit with people who frequent the gym.

Kyocera Kinetic OLED Cell Phone

The Kyocera kinetic-energy-powered concept phone unfolds from a wallet-shaped, pocket-friendly device into a widescreen OLED display. The phone sports a physical keyboard that pretty much goes away when not in use. The keys are inset into the frame of the phone. Just start typing, and--like magic--the keyboard emerges from the phone's skin. We don't know what kind of battery this phone is supposed to use, but it's probably epic.

Hidden Displays

In another take on the flexibility of OLED, some concepts point toward using rollable displays to create small phones with large screen sizes. This one, designed by Tao Ma , was apparently inspired by one of humankind's finer creations: the D battery.

Nokia Morph

When Nokia conceptualized the Morph cell phone, it wanted to show how nanotechnology could radically change portable electronics. The Morph is made of transparent and flexible material, is self-cleaning, and includes nano-sensors that can learn from the environment. In one example, Nokia suggests that the nano-sensors would be able to detect airborne threats and alert users to them.

The Morph, as its name suggests, would also change form, the company says: "Using the same principle behind spider silk, this elasticity enables the device to literally change shapes and configure itself to adapt to the task at hand."

Bend in Touch

Inside this touchscreen phone called Bend in Touch, Ukrainian designer Andy Kurovets places a pop-out display that nearly doubles the screen real estate of the device. While one screen handles Internet tasks, the second can display a video. The Bend in Touch also features a pop-out camera and flash.

Maybe instead of calling it the Bend in Touch, Kurovets should call his creation the Pop-Out Phone.

Transformer Phone

There are Android phones and then there are alien phones, like this one modeled after a Transformer. This concept phone, created by Parkoz Hardware, is a must see in action . Put it this way: You wouldn't want this phone ringing on your bedside table in the middle of the night.

That’s One Glassy Phone

Semitransparent screens aren't new--but a glass phone, like the one here dreamed up by Yanko Design , would offer more to see than just the wall behind your desk. Then again, such designs look as if they would attract more smudges and fingerprints than a fish tank in a preschool.

Window Phone

This Window Phone concept, from designer Seunghan Song, constantly illustrate the weather via the phone's user interface. Seems a bit too weather-centric for my tastes, but it's definitely a perfect gift for Al Roker.

The Camera-Projector-Printer Phone

Talk about multitasking phones. Meet designer Hideo Kanbara's phone, game controller, photo printer, and projector. When it comes to full-featured phones, this handset is tops.

Separating Handset

This concept touchscreen phone, developed by NTT Docomo and Fujistu, is called Separate Keitai. It features a separate screen and keypad linked together via Bluetooth. Magnets keep the two sides of the Separate Keitai together when they need to be. Assuming that the microphone and speaker are connected to the keypad, a product like this could finally make it easy to look up a contact number for a friend while speaking with someone else. The creators say the benefit of the phone is that it allows you to make a phone call and write an e-mail at the same time.

Pebble Phone: Blobby and Mysterious

This device, dubbed the Pebble phone, first appeared at the tech trade show CEATEC 2009. The Fujitsu concept features a black blob encased in round glass. Dragging the blob to different areas on the phone causes it to morph into different screens, including a keypad, a media player, and a Web browser. It isn't clear what technology would power a phone like this, but Apple already has a patent on it.

Master Chief’s Phone of the Future

This concept phone, dubbed Radia, is a gorgeous, polished piece of--dare I say--art. The only problem is that it doesn't have much to offer in the phone department. The circular display is pretty small for Web browsing or watching videos. The Radia looks as if it would work fine as a dialing device or as something to impress your fancy-pants friends with--but not much else.

Melding Phones With Humans

With these concept phones that turn your hand or arm into a phone, you can forget about hands-free devices. At left is a concept by Yanko Design's Sunman Kwon. It's a wearable phone in which the keys are projected onto the user's fingers; to place a call, you must make the international symbol for the telephone. The middle images are from industrial designer Jim Mielke and are of his Digital Tattoo Interface phones; these devices are implanted into your forearm and fueled by the circulation of your blood. And the phone on the right, designed by Biodomotica's Massimo Marrazzo, is always handy no matter what you're doing.

Hopefully Not This

This monstrosity, known as the , was inspired by the "molecule esthetics" of the oxygen molecule and created by Tjep Design. Other than the fact that it has a screen and a keypad, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this phone in no way resembles any phones of the future.

Touch Wood--No, Seriously

The Touch Wood project was developed as a partnership of NTT Docomo, Sharp, and Olympus, and is part of a reforestation effort. Built of surplus wood from forest-thinning operations, this phone promises to be waterproof and bug-resistant while maintaining the texture and aroma of natural wood. Phones like this would be great for tech-loving tree huggers who need to stay connected with friends and tweet about nature's splendor while protesting the latest logging operation. Watch out for splinters.

Cool Design, No Frills

Here's another hockey-puck concept phone. This one was designed by Jamie Lawrence for folks who don't care about anything besides using a phone as a phone. This slider's two glossy halves separate to reveal a small touchscreen. A nice-looking, no-frills concept.

Buzz Lightyear, Eat Your Heart Out

This mammoth wearable phone looks as if it might be the cell phone of choice for Iron Man. It has a lot of buttons--including a directional pad, a camera button, a keypad, and what looks like digital music controls--and a lot of screen real estate. According to Akihabara News, the phone is called a "Kora Bracelet Phone" and was reportedly made by Fujitsu.

F-Circle

This phone, designed by Yuji Ito and called the F-Circle, was made by Fujitsu and appeared at CEATAC Japan in 2009. It obviously borrows from the rotary-phone aesthetic and melds that with a touchscreen. It's nice to look at, but what about practicality and ergonomics?

Just Say 'Hello' or 'Cheese'

I hope Sony Ericsson someday makes this concept phone, which comes with the imaginary specs of an OLED display, a 3.2-megapixel camera, 2GB of storage, and an integrated FM tuner. I love the ultrasleek handset, and it offers a flip-down camera. It has been three years since Sony Ericsson showed off the phone, so it's time to bring this product to market--or at least to update the make-believe specs and give the device a 10-megapixel camera.

Fan-Made PSP Takes the Gaming Cake

This concept phone, based on the popular Sony PlayStation Portable gaming system,appeared on Flickr courtesy of user BluezPS. This fictitious device, dubbed PSP Redesign, melds a gamepad with a touchscreen phone. Though this phone may be a Photoshop fantasy, I like it. I hope Sony can learn a thing or two from this design when working on future phones and mobile gaming devices.



No matter that many of these models may not be able to leave the labs or may fail in market, but the point is, this is how people think out of box. This is what makes some of them diffrent from others.
So think differently and success will automatically come your way. Till the next post, it's good bye from and hope that all of us will start Innovating some day.

Do post your comments and queries

Coolest New Systems on Four Wheels

Automakers big and small are building computer systems into their cars to make driving safer, smarter, and greener.Consumer technology companies continually churn out new ideas, cool innovations, and mesmerizing high-tech gizmos for our homes and everyday lives; and after a short interval, many of those same ideas follow us into the vehicles we drive. In this photo gallery, we've brought together some of the coolest high-tech features showing up on the road today, as well as several outrageous concept innovations that may grace the cars and trucks of tomorrow.Let's see what's new in this field.

2011 Tesla Model S

Innovation and high-tech crop up everywhere in the upcoming 2011 Tesla Model S, an electric vehicle that can travel 300 miles on a single charge, and is priced at just under $50,000. This image shows the incredible driver's cockpit in a preproduction Model S; the huge, bright, center-mounted 17-inch LED "infotainment" touchscreen display integrates a Web browser, Google maps, a rearview camera, and much more. Many of the car's operating controls, such as those for heating and air conditioning, are adjustable via the touchscreen rather than with traditional knobs and buttons.

Tesla Model S LED Display

This image shows the Tesla Model S’s vertically mounted 17-inch LED display in its radio, heating, and air conditioning controls mode. At the top of the split screen is the on-board Web browser (with always-on connectivity), including a row of touchscreen buttons for fingertip control of the various features. The radio controls are in the center, and the climate controls are accessible in the screen below. All of these options rely on digital controls, not mechanical switches. And we haven't even looked at the on-board GPS yet.

Say Goodbye to Cramped GPS

You get incredible map and GPS data in the 2011 Tesla Model S all-electric vehicle. The car's 17-inch LED monitor delivers spectacularly large maps that you (or your passengers) can view as you drive to your destination. No more squinting at a tiny GPS screen. In addition to satellite views of the data, plans call for topographical, street, and combined-data images, all perfectly illuminated on the automatic brightness-controlled monitor.

Mercedes-Benz SplitView

The innovative SplitView system in Mercedes-Benz S-Class and CL-Class automobiles provides personalized visual content to the car's driver and front-seat passenger. While the driver adjusts the radio, navigation system, or other controls on the left side of the SplitView screen, passengers can watch a DVD video on the right side of the screen; a special filter permits each screen to be viewed only from certain angles so the driver is not distracted by the passengers' movie or show. SplitView's 8-inch active-matrix color display is integrated into the vehicle's navigation, audio, and entertainment system.

GM Pause and Play Radio

Are you disappointed when you receive a cell phone call in your car while a favorite song is playing (or favorite ranter is blathering) on the radio? The Pause and Play radio system from General Motors ensures that you'll never have to miss that song (or fulmination) again. Just hit the Pause button on the High Navigation Radio in your new Chevrolet Equinox, Buick LaCrosse, GMC Terrain, or Cadillac SRX vehicle, and you'll be free to take your call without missing a minute of the broadcast. The Pause and Play system stores the radio content on an embedded hard drive, so you can catch up right where you left off.

Chrysler FLO TV

The FLO TV Auto Entertainment system--available in various Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, and Ram vehicles from Chrysler Group LLC--supports live television broadcasts from up to 20 channels, as shown in this image of a ceiling-mounted entertainment system in a Dodge Grand Caravan minivan. Among the bundled broadcast options are college and professional sports, breaking news, children’s shows, primetime sitcoms, reality TV, and daytime dramas, from such networks as CBS Mobile, CNBC, Comedy Central, Fox News, MSNBC, MTV, NBC 2Go, and Nickelodeon.

Future Car Connectivity by Chrysler

Chrysler plans to unveil additional high-tech vehicle innovations in the future. This image shows some cool ideas that are in the works, including capabilities for communication between your vehicle and your home (so that, for example, you can instruct your home to turn on the lights as you approach, as depicted in the center of the illustration). The features shown in the foreground--from GPS to video to TV broadcasts and weather reports--are already available in many Chrysler vehicles.

F800 Style Research Vehicle

New ideas are everywhere in the F800 Style Research Vehicle concept sedan from Mercedes-Benz. Here, a multifunction display on the dashboard works in concert with a human-machine interface (HMI) touchpad in the center console so that the driver can operate controls for in-car temperature, wireless phone, stereo, navigation system, and Internet access--all by touch.

Nissan Leaf

Nissan's Leaf Concept electric car includes an intriguing system that connects the vehicle to a global data center that offers support, information, and entertainment for drivers 24 hours a day from the on-dash system shown here. The display inside the steering wheel includes a battery temperature gauge on the left, a Power Usage/Regenerative Braking Meter across the top, and a State of Charge meter and a range meter on the right.

Subaru Hybrid Tour

In this image from the Subaru Hybrid Tour Concept, the company has jettisoned traditional automotive dashboard design in favor of fresh ideas and layouts. Here, the center console offers tire pressure readings and the upper left dash display depicts cell phone communications laid out on a map. Very cool.



So vastness of IT is re-declared by such gadgets. The point is, who gets the idea, gets going. Start thinking and you will be on the way too !!

If you don't like the post, please do mention the reason for the same so that I can make necessary modifications in the future.

I will be back with new concepts and ideas soon. Till then its goodbye and take care!

Green Tech and Gadgets for Earth Day

Every Day Is Earth Day

Every day is Earth Day, hard-core environmentalists will tell you, but on the calendar it's April 22. And if you want to show some support for Mother Earth, you might as well do so without abandoning your techie principles. There's no shortage of energy-efficient, Eco friendly, or generally "green" gadgets available, but here are some of the coolest, weirdest, and most practical, in no particular order.

Voltaic Generator Solar-Energy Laptop Bag

Packing up to 15 watts in its included battery pack, the $499 Voltaic Generator can juice a laptop for roughly 5 hours. Plus, it's made almost entirely of recycled soda bottles. Looking for a more mainstream solar bag? Samsonite plans to release its own line of solar products this summer.

Solar-Powered Camcorder

A search for green tech on Amazon turned up this 720p, 10X-optical-zoom camcoder fitted with two solar panels . Not a bad deal for $250, but fair warning: It's a no-name brand, and the product has no customer reviews on the site. It's a nice concept, at least.

Coffee-Ground Printer Concept

Jeon Hwan Ju's RITI Printer, which uses old coffee grounds or tea leaves instead of ink, is one of those gadget concepts that really ought to be actual products.

Water-Powered Alarm Clock

It doesn't offer a fancy radio or iPod integration, but the $20 water powered alarm clock should wake you up and wash away a bit of guilt. Just dump in some H₂O, and you're good to go for three months, as the evaporation process powers the clock. Oddly enough, it isn't waterproof on the outside.

Bits Limited Smart Strip

Some gadgets quietly draw energy even in standby mode, but who can be bothered to unplug everything or to trigger-flip the surge protector just to save a few watts? Bits Limited's Smart Strips, starting at $30, automatically shut off several devices, like Blu-ray players or game consoles, when you turn off a master device, such as a television.

nPower Kinetic Gadget Charger

Enough with the solar-powered gadgets already. The nPower Personal Energy Generator builds up charge as you move--just throw it in a bag or hold it in your hand. It's compatible with plenty of gadgets, including iPhones and BlackBerry handsets. The maker, Tremont Electric, is taking preorders now.

HYmini Wind Charger

Here's another gadget charger that doesn't rely on solar power. The $50 HYmini stores energy to its internal battery, which can charge MP3 players, digital cameras, and other 5V devices. Particularly cool are the optional arm band and bicycle holder; you may look a little silly wearing one of these chargers, but think of all the juice you'll generate.

PowerPlus Leopard Solar Remote

If you're the kind of couch potato who would rather stick with one channel than get up to change the remote's dead batteries, you'll appreciate the PowerPlus Leopard. Its small solar charger can even absorb ambient light, so you needn't place it in direct sunlight to juice up. The price is roughly $15.

EcoCube Cardboard Speakers

You won't find a fancy power source for the $15 EcoCube speakers--they actually draw charge from whatever device you connect to them--but they are made entirely of recycled materials. Best of all, they fold completely flat for maximum portability.

HydroRight Toilet Water Saver

A single flush of the toilet uses up to 1.6 gallons of water , but installing the HydroRight Toilet Water Saver lets you flush away less. Two buttons on the device allow you to perform either a small flush for regular business or a full send-off for, um, big jobs.

SoyPrint Soy-Ink Cartridge

So your office printer is out of toner. Now's the time to push for some soy ink as a replacement for regular, oil-based toner. SoyPrint, which sells the "green" (but actually black) ink, will even send you sustainability reports so that you can feel good about the purchase.

Battery Wizard for Alkalines

It's common knowledge that if you try recharging alkaline batteries, they'll leak corrosive material or explode. The Battery Wizard instead reconditions such batteries to make full use of the chemicals inside. Using the contraption for AAA, AA, C, or D batteries reportedly extends their life by ten times or more.

NovoThink Surge Solar iPhone Case

It seems as if every iPhone owner has a case to protect their precious device, but NovoThink Surge cases actually put the extra layer to use, gathering charge with a solar panel. You even get an app that lets you plan your solar needs based on how you use the phone.

Cyber-Rain Sprinkler Controller

Cyber-Rain may sound like a sweet name for a video game, but it's actually a way for automatic-sprinkler owners to save water. The controller coordinates with a networked PC to check local forecasts, and adjusts sprinkler schedules based on precipitation, humidity, and temperature. How long the $400 device will take to pay for itself probably depends on the size of your yard.

TED: The Energy Detective

What good is all this energy-saving gear if you can't measure how much of a difference it makes? The Energy Detective connects to your breaker panel and transfers data to a wireless transmitter connected to a wall outlet, which then sends the information to the gadgets pictured here. TED also connects with Google PowerMeter, a free Web app for tracking home energy use.

So, now you can think of going green.....!!