Connectivity changes everything. That’s the credo driving just about every corner of our day-to-day lives. As human beings, we are now connected to one another through not just our social networks but also our cars, the books we read, the albums we download and even our own health and wellness habits (to name just a few areas). With that in mind, GigaOM Pro has singled out certain areas in the technology industry where we see this shift to constant connectivity taking place most drastically. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Peddling home energy management gear and software successfully is harder than it seems, and big companies such as Microsoft and Cisco are ditching this market. EnergyHub is staying and on Thursday announced a $14.5 million round to help it sell products and services to consumers. Read more »
Throughout 2009 and 2010, Internet companies like Microsoft, Google and even router giant Cisco launched experimental software and hardware to help building managers and home owners monitor and control their energy consumption. But now these firms are abandoning those plans. Why? Read more »
Google just announced it is ending its Labs program in an effort to focus more on its existing products, and a collective gasp went up around the Internet. My first thought was, “Oh my God, what will happen to my multiple inboxes and Auto-advance features?” Read more »
Internet giants Google and Microsoft have officially given their web-based energy management tools the Donald Trump (as in You’re Fired!), and lannounced that they would be closing them down. But there are still over a dozen options trying to tackle this difficult market. Read more »
In the wake of Google pulling the plug on its energy tool PowerMeter, Microsoft says it has now killed its energy service, Hohm, too. Microsoft writes on its blog that it will discontinue its Hohm service starting on May 31, 2012. Read more »
Google officially shuttered its web energy tool PowerMeter on Friday after the application failed to bring in enough users. Here are five reasons why I think PowerMeter didn’t take off. Read more »
Google has officially pulled the plug on its web energy management tool PowerMeter. The project, which Google launched two years ago, just “didn’t catch on the way we would have hoped,” said Google. Read more »
The California Public Utility Commission is the first major regulator to issue such sweeping guidance on how data privacy should shape the smart grid. Here is how the ruling will affect the three big California utilities, as well as tech companies, startups and telcos. Read more »
OPower, the startup that gets homeowners to cut energy use with out in-home dashboards and gateways, is looking at home energy automation devices. What are the pros and cons of high-tech automation versus smart behavioral science? Read more »
Even with smart meters and home energy portals, customers want opt-out options for home energy management rather than plans that ask them to monitor energy use every day. Here’s how the opt-out concept can guide startups and IT giants in the home energy management ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Regular readers will know that I’m a fan of the note-taking combo of Notational Velocity on my Mac and Simplenote on my iPhone. But if you’re a Windows user, you should check out CintaNotes, which provides a similarly fast, lightweight access-anywhere note-taking experience for the PC. Read more »
Consumer electronics bigwig Belkin has just launched a $30 device that can measure household power use by watts, dollars and carbon footprint from any appliance or device that plugs into a wall socket. But will consumers pay for DIY home energy management? That’s still unclear. Read more »
The smart grid may indeed become an opportunity that’s bigger than the Internet, but like the Internet, it won’t be without its stumbling blocks. Fortunately for us, some web pioneers are unwittingly providing utilities and energy management firms with an education on privacy, one of the ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Google’s web-based energy management tool PowerMeter could gain access to up to a million new users through a new gadget partnership with Current Cost. Read more »
With Microsoft’s work with Ford and GM’s recent partnership with Google on the Chevy Volt, it’s looking like automakers are teaming up with various Internet giants. How will the unions play out? Read more »
Despite the build out of smart grid infrastructure, there’s still a variety questions that remain unanswered when it comes to just what will a next-generation smart grid network look like? Here’s 5 points of debate that we’ll be addressing at our Green:Net conference on April 29: Read more »
Will Google one day monitor and manage the energy consumption of your washer and dryer? The company has partnered with chip maker Microchip to work with developers in order to create embedded devices that are compatible with PowerMeter. Read more »
When it comes to smart grid data, how much is enough — and how much is too much? That question could pit the IT industry’s hopes to use smart grid data to help people save energy — and make money — against customer privacy and data […] Read more »
OpenADR — the Berkeley Labs open source system for automating the way utilities do demand response — is already being used to control some 70 megawatts of capacity for big industrial and commercial customers of California’s biggest utilities. Could it expand its reach into homes and […] Read more »
It was bound to happen, sooner or later. Steve Jobs is simply too important, too impressive, too easy a target not to base a character on him and turn it into a sitcom. And that’s what might very well be happening, if the pilot currently in […] Read more »
Updated with comments from Google: There’s a battle looming in California over smart meters and energy prices. Google says the state should require its big utilities to give near real-time pricing information to every smart meter-enabled customer by the end of next year. California’s big three […] Read more »
Another small step for empowered and open access to energy data. Search engine giant Google announced on Wednesday that it has released the API (application programming interface) for its energy tool PowerMeter. Opening up the API means that gadget makers can now freely integrate with PowerMeter […] Read more »
Another small step for empowered and open access to energy data. Search engine giant Google announced on Wednesday that it has released the API (application programming interface) for its energy tool PowerMeter. Opening up the API means that gadget makers can now freely integrate with PowerMeter […] Read more »
If I had a dollar for every phone rumor I’ve seen, I could buy several of these Verizon Nexus Ones that have hit the FCC. Detective work indicates the phone is a CDMA version of the Nexus One, due to hit Verizon at some point. Read more »
Smart meters have been undergoing a bit of a consumer backlash lately — and that could open the door for alternative ways to bring energy data to homeowners. Certainly the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the federal entity setting smart grid standards, seems to want […] Read more »
Google pushed the hype machine into overdrive on two fronts this week. First it sprinkled some social networking features on Gmail and released Google Buzz. It quickly followed up with an announcement revealing plans to test a high-speed fiber-to-the-home network encompassing up to 500,000 households. The ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Updated: Looks like this is the weekend for some unusual firms to dabble in the increasingly hot home energy management (my take on how Apple could jolt the energy management space here). Minnesota-based manufacturer 3M, which makes such disparate products as post-it notes and medical supplies, […] Read more »
Samsung announced that its 32 GB microSD memory cards are now sampling to OEMs, so if your handset can handle the capacity, there’s a memory card for it. The new storage units don’t hit mass production until next month though, so you still have time to […] Read more »
We’ve seen smartphones for years but it seems that only recently is the software piece of the equation fitting into the puzzle. Useful mobile apps are surely helping drive sales of smartphones, and in turn, more smartphone sales deliver larger captive audiences to mobile app developers. […] Read more »
Sure, buying stuff isn’t exactly good for the environment — all products take energy to make and ship and, thus, contribute to carbon emissions — but Black Friday is upon us, and we’ve decided to put together an Earth2Tech slant on the annual holiday gift guide. […] Read more »
Updated: The Obama administration has just funded the rollout of 18 million meters with stimulus funds, but here’s another way to get access to energy data without one of those new digital meters: This morning UK energy management startup AlertMe says it has joined up with […] Read more »
This is looking like a packed week for climate change regulation and government spending meant to remake the energy industry — the Department of Energy just announced new funding for very early stage energy projects, and there will be major debates in the Senate over the […] Read more »
Sounds like the smart grid partnership between search engine Google and conglomerate General Electric could still deliver some real products, according to remarks from GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt at the Web 2.0 Summit on Tuesday evening. “We will see more collaboration between GE and Google around […] Read more »
Time to stop procrastinating and reserve your ticket to NewTeeVee Live! Today, Oct. 16th, is your final chance to buy a discounted pass to the conference. For just $395 (a sliver of other industry conferences, and $200 less than our walk-in ticket), you’ll get a jam-packed […] Read more »
This week Google announced its first device partner for its energy management tool PowerMeter, which will enable PowerMeter to bypass the smart meter and the utility. Part of the benefit of cutting out the utility is that the device can use an Internet connection to feed […] Read more »
[qi:_earth2tech] With Google’s endless projects — from book search to a browser killer to Blogger — you’re probably wondering why I’m so excited about a new partnership deal for the company’s PowerMeter energy management tool. Well, here’s why: For the first time, consumers can now access […] Read more »
When Google started talking about its energy management web tool PowerMeter earlier this year, a big hurdle quickly became apparent: The search engine giant’s market for the device would be limited to consumers whose utilities are deploying smart meters (meters that have two-digital communication). That’s a […] Read more »
By some accounts, the build-out of the smart grid could be the biggest driver of wealth within the decade and create an even larger market than the emergence of the Internet. And now, in the early rollout phase, thousands of startups and large tech vendors are […] Read more »
Over its 3-year lifetime, Cambridge, UK-based home energy management startup AlertMe has managed to develop a slick hardware design and become one of the first startups to sell its gear to customers. In the past several months since the company decided to focus predominantly on utility […] Read more »
