Consumer products are definitely getting more and more connected, with everything from thermostats to car starters being controlled by smartphones. The Spark is a light socket that connects to the internet, letting you control your home’s lights via your smartphone, tablet, laptop or desktop computer.

Spark is a small device that screws into your light socket. The bulb in turn screws into the Spark. The device connects to your home’s wi-fi network just like another computer. The associated Spark app or website then lets you do a bunch of very cool things with your lights.

The obvious benefit to the system is that you can turn your lights off from work if you forget to do so before you leave in the morning, or turn them on before you get home so you don’t go into a dark home. But the system can also be programmed to gradually light up your bedroom so that you wake naturally, or to flash when you get a new email.

As cool as Spark is, there are, of course, some drawbacks. The light socket itself has to be switched on at the wall in order to allow the app to control it – a detail that will make serial light-turner-offers cringe. It’s also very expensive – at $59 each, most people could pay their entire electric bill for the cost of one or two of these babies.

The post Bright Idea: Wi-Fi Light Socket Connects Bulbs + Mobile Phones first appeared on Gajitz.

In the last century of automobiles and associated innovations, few things have stayed the same, but a few major themes have remained: (1) someone sitting focused at the steering wheel of their four-wheeled vehicle at all times, and (2) the primacy of internal combustion as the driver of most consumer vehicles. Both of these paradigms are being radically rethought through vehicle automation, on the one hand, and new forms of energy conversion on the other. In turn, these are the two main topics of this second Lincoln-sponsored Gajitz article on cutting-edge vehicular innovations past and (now) present.

Driverless Vehicles: the mental image conjured by fully-automatic (no, not just your shifting!) cars is perhaps jarring enough to keep these concepts and prototypes at the top of most peoples’ minds when they think of vehicular innovation. Or perhaps it is the near-reality of it all, with successful tests already being run in California, and Nevada giving the go ahead for real street-legal applications (having licensed its first autonomous vehicle – with Google driving technology – mere months ago). There are still questions to be answered – who is at fault, for instance, if your driverless car crashes? As yet, though, the only crash of such a test vehicle came when it was being manually driven.

Road Trains: vehicular platoons, in convoys, may be the bridge we need between fully-manual and totally-automated car technology. Fuel efficiency is increased, wind drag decreased, and time freed up for other things – all while drivers remain passive riders for much of their journey, jumping into and out of queue when signaled by the hub truck. SARTRE (Safe Road Trains for the Environment), featured in the video above, is already testing these on the open highway.

Kinetic Asphalt: cars give off more energy than we give them credit for – everything from their weight and motion to minor vibration and temperature differentials can be used by the very roads they drive on to generate power. Companies like Innowattech are already testing these on a limited scale, on freeways that can generate 1 MWh – enough to power 2,500 homes, or roadside amenities from traffic lights and street lamps and lighted billboards. Of course, municipalities can also use them to fuel other non-fan-favorites, like radar guns and traffic cameras.

Energy Recycling: when the internal combustion engine first came into mass production, it was an amazing and powerful thing. The story since then has, to some extent, been one of iterative refinements – figuring out how to preserve all of that precious energy being generated by vehicles using its technology. Regenerative breaking, for instance, has long been used (primarily in trains) to recoup energy lost to heat in the breaking process, but a new variant is on the boards now as well: regenerative shock absorbing, turning bounces back into power. Other recent and pending innovations of internal-system recycling revolve around the reuse of waste gasses to power steam generators.

The post Reinventing Wheels: 4 Cutting-Edge Automotive Innovations first appeared on Gajitz.

If you have ever lived with roommates, battles over the electricity bill are probably old hat to you by now. After all, why should everyone have to pay the same amount if only one person has a hundred different devices constantly plugged in? Sony is about to settle those arguments once and for all with a neat new outlet that will be able to identify what device is plugged into it…and to whom it belongs.

The system uses a proprietary no-contact RFID chip called FeliCa Lite that will be built into a device’s plug and communicate with a reader/writer unit built into the outlet. The reader/writer unit identifies the device and keeps track of its power consumption. In the case of an emergency or electricity shortage, the outlets will be able to turn off power to non-essential things while keeping more important devices (like healthcare equipment and food storage appliances) powered.

The system will also include personal RFID-enabled cards that will be waved over outlets to grant power for a certain amount of time (and presumably for a set amount of money). Administrators of public buildings will utilize the technology to charge people for charging their cars, laptops and phones. Uptight roomies will use it to punish you for leaving every appliance you own plugged in all day and night. There’s no word yet from Sony on when the system will hit the market since appliance and power supply manufacturers would have to be on board first.

The post Sony’s Smart Outlet Will Recognize You + Your Appliances first appeared on Gajitz.

Most of us realize on some abstract level that our energy consumption has an effect on the environment. But it’s hard to connect the two in any tangible way. Natural Fuse is a network of plants and circuit breakers that help to display in a very real, very noticeable way just how much impact our gadgets have on the world and everyone in it. It’s rolling out in select cities, and with any luck this experiment will make its way into even more homes in the future.

Created by London design studio Haque Design, the Natural Fuse system connects a city full of people via plants that act as circuit breakers. Every participant has a plant in a pot and a power socket. The unit doesn’t provide much power; only the amount equal to the amount of carbon offset by the plant. But a single plant would be far too weak to provide enough power for even one light bulb, so the system relies on the carbon offset from the entire network. The plants in the network are all connected via the internet, letting every unit communicate with all of the others to determine how much power is available.

Each participant decides if they want to be selfish or selfless in their energy consumption. She turns a switch that determines whether her outlet should take as much power as it needs from the network or use only the amount that can be readily offset. This all sounds like an interesting social experiment, but there’s a more sinister side: if the network is too greedy, random plants will be killed with doses of vinegar. They are watered automatically as long as there is enough offset energy on the network. When a user over-consumes, another random user’s plant is killed and an email notification is sent to both. Natural Fuse is a fascinating tangible example of how we all depend on one another to be responsible, and how we depend on nature just as much as nature depends on us.

The post Carbon Offset System Kills Houseplants for Electricity Greed first appeared on Gajitz.

Energy conservation is an important subject, and one that kids should be aware of. While previous generations had to learn good habits later in life, we know enough about the effects of energy over-consumption now that we can teach today’s children to save energy from a young age. That’s the goal of this design from Tim Holley. He calls it Tio, and it’s a ghost-shaped light switch that gives kids a visual reminder of how much energy they’ve  used by leaving lights on.

Tio starts out green and smiling. If the light is left on for more than four hours, he turns yellow and looks shocked. And if you dare to leave that light on for more than eight hours, sweet little Tio turns into a raging red hulk, complete with frowny mouth and angry eyes. But he won’t just visually remind your kids about their energy habits; information from the light switch is sent to Tio’s computer program so the entire family can see how they’re doing. In a brilliant piece of visual positive reinforcement, Holley’s program lets kids grow a “virtual tree” which gets bigger and healthier the more energy they save.

Holley’s design runs with the idea that conserving energy is a family affair. Parents who demonstrate care for the environment are likely to have children who also care for the environment. Using positive reinforcement like Tio could be just the personal-responsibility angle that gets kids interested in conserving energy. There is, of course, a target age group for Tio, but we can imagine even some adults would love to see this glowy green ghost on their walls.

The post Who You Gonna Call? Ghost Busts You On Energy Usage first appeared on Gajitz.