Whoa! Sorry, we may have gotten just a little over excited about Walt’s Personal Technology column this week. He responded to popular demand and submitted a full review of the magicJack. Yes, that magicJack. No one can ever accuse Walt Mossberg of not being a man of the people. So what did he find? Well, the little plastic USB dongle that ranks up there with rotisseries, Chia pets and The Clapper in the pantheon of hard-sell TV adds actually delivered on its promise. MagicJack connects via USB to a computer, and has a standard land-line telephone jack on the other end. Walt started it up, made some calls, and even tried out the customer service center, which turned out to be efficient and helpful. Among the few drawbacks were the need to use the phone number that comes with the device and the fact that it only works when your computer is on and connected to the Internet. Mossberg’s Mailbox was full to the brim this week with some pretty targeted questions about security, the grim future of the dedicated PDA and e-readers for libraries. As it turns out, running a virtual Windows machine on a Mac can lead to a very real virus if you aren’t careful. Katie’s piece at Mossberg Solution made sense of this week’s biggest question mark. What the heck is Google (GOOG) Buzz? She broke the new social network from Google down to its bare bones and explained some of the controversy surrounding how it decides who’s added to you Buzz list. The new social feature is now built into Gmail, but it seems the exact relationship between your Gmail contacts and Buzz is still being worked out. Katie nails it all with an expertly simple explanation of the service and controversies.

BoomTown started the week off with a little insider info about Micheal Dearing, the hottest angel investor you’ve never heard of. Dearing, a former eBay (EBAY) exec and current professor at Stanford’s design school, has been inside early on high-profile start-ups like Aardvark, Xoopit and Mixer Labs. Kara shared a meal with the start-up whisperer and got more out of him than most, even if he still kept pretty tight-lipped. Kara also shared some viral video love featuring some hardcore Avatar fans. We can’t tell if these live action Na’vi role players are kidding. Maybe we’ll ask their king, James Cameron, when he joins Kara on stage at the next D conference. Toward the end of the week, Kara posted about what may be the strangest love triangle of the modern era. The Facebook-Snickers-Betty White trifecta is so strange we can barely even comprehend the letters in it. It seems that Facebook users loved the Betty White Super Bowl ad for Snickers so much that they held a social media gun to Lorne Micheals’s head until he got the Golden Girl to host “Saturday Night Live.” The only thing that could unseat the Betty White triangle from weirdest social media moment of ’10 is the much rumored Barry White-KFC-America’s Next Top Model episode we’ve been hearing about. There: Rumor started.

MediaMemo led off the week with Weekend Update’s favorite sort of post. It was yet another beautiful e-mag concept, this time from Condé Nast’s Wired. The mag looked snappy, beautiful and functional–even if no one, besides maybe Stephen Colbert, has a device that can display it yet. Peter also covered the second instance of an emerging trend in the video rental business. It looks like Redbox, the ever-present rental kiosk company, has agreed to go the way of Netflix (NFLX) and keep recently released DVDs out of the rental pool in exchange for a cash break from Warner. Peter rounded things out with a post about Web TV service Hulu and the likelihood of a Hulu player for the iPad. Peter’s post explores the probability that an iPad Hulu would not be a free Hulu. This situation is pretty bounded and specific, but the deeper question is one facing a great many media companies right now. Will users be willing to pay for convenience of displaying a service on the iPad that they can get for free on there home computer, and by extension, will they pay by the app or pay for the content? Weekend Update can’t wait to see how that one shakes out.

Over at Digital Daily, John started early in the week with a quick peek at Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Phone, the new smartphone operating system from the maker of Windows Mobile and Windows Vista. As it turns out, Windows Phone looks pretty slick. The interface isn’t a shrunken version of the desktop OS, which is a very good thing. Midweek, John scaled a mountain of tweets to report from the very top. It seems that Twitter’s traffic has grown over 1,000 percent since last year, according to comScore’s (SCOR) January report. It may now be impossible to shut the flock up. To button up the week, John covered a decision by the Federal Trade Commission that allows Google to buy and sell power wholesale, just like an energy utility. Google execs insist that the move doesn’t signal their intention to enter the power arena as a utility. They just want to buy power like anyone else. After all, electricity is the raw material of Googling.

We’re so confident that you’ve enjoyed this Weekend Update that if you aren’t 100 percent satisfied, you can send it back for a full refund of your purchase price, no questions asked. You can look for all your favorite AllThingsD accessories next week. John, Peter Kara and Walt will be back to ship top-quality content directly to your door at no extra charge. Top quality, easy to use and in a variety of colors, there’s something for everyone at AllThingsD.

And now back to your regularly scheduled program.

Presumably, Google (GOOG) will use it to keep energy costs down by hedging power consumption against market movements. But as I’ve noted here before, the authorization also gives Google the ability to “act as a power marketer, purchasing electricity and reselling it to wholesale customers.” And the company has established a subsidiary called Google Energy. But Google insists its ambitions don’t extend beyond its own energy needs. As spokesperson Niki Fenwick told me in January, “[this] does not signal our intent to operate as a retail provider of electricity.”

I suppose not. After all, while Google doesn’t operate any power generation or transmission facilities. Well, not yet, anyway.

You see, Google (GOOG), through Google Energy LLC, applied last month to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for approval to buy and sell power much as utilities do.

“In addition to engaging in sales of electricity that are unregulated by the commission, applicant proposes to act as a power marketer, purchasing electricity and reselling it to wholesale customers,” Google’s Google Energy LLC subsidiary said in its application.

But according to company spokesperson Niki Fenwick, that’s not the company’s real intent. What Google hopes to do through Google Energy is gain greater access to renewable energy sources to power its increasingly vast operations.

“Google is interested in procuring more renewable energy as part of our carbon neutrality commitment, and the ability to buy and sell energy on the wholesale market could give us more flexibility in doing so,” Fenwick told me.

“We made this filing so we can have more flexibility in procuring power for Google’s own operations, including our data centers,” She added. The FERC authority would improve our ability to hedge our purchases of energy and incorporate renewables into our energy portfolio.”

Really? Even though FERC approval would essentially allow the search giant to become a wholesaler of electricity to other big buyers?

Really.

And this initiative is not in any way related to Google PowerMeter, a Web-based service the company rolled out last year that provides consumers with a way to track energy use?

“This is not connected with the Google PowerMeter project,” Fenwick insisted. “And it does not signal our intent to operate as a retail provider of electricity.”

So we’ll have to take the company at its word then and assume, for the moment anyway, that “this does not signal our intent to operate as a retail provider of electricity” is not simply another variation on “we’re not doing a mobile phone,” “we don’t think it’s a competitor to Microsoft Office,” “we do not intend to offer a person-to-person, stored-value payments system” and, of course, “we have no plans for an IPO.”

I have been testing three of these devices, the Power Monitor from Black & Decker Corp., the very similar PowerCost Monitor from Blue Line Innovations Inc., and the more-sophisticated The Energy Detective 5000 from Energy Inc. In my tests, the Black & Decker model provided the most effortless electricity-tracking service. At $99.99, it is also the least expensive.

The devices provide real-time data about how much power you’re using across the house in terms that are easy to comprehend: cost per hour and cost per month. Turn on the microwave and watch the cost jump from 10 cents to 25 cents an hour. Turn off some lights and see the cost drop a few cents.

The Power Monitor

The firms say their customers have, over time, seen drops of as much as 20% in power bills by being more mindful of electricity use and making informed purchases, such as installing efficient light bulbs. The largest drops are often recorded in households that have (power-hogging) electric water heaters, and where the whole family gets involved in monitoring use. An independent Oxford University study in 2006 found that people getting direct feedback on their power consumption reduced use 5% to 15%.

After I began monitoring, my most-recent electricity bill dropped $10 from the month before—but that could also be due to my living in a city where air conditioning isn’t a summer necessity. I find myself thinking more about electricity, and even running back into the house to make sure the lights are out.

The monitors sold by Blue Line and Black & Decker are almost identical, because they’re both manufactured by Canada-based Blue Line. The Blue Line model costs $109, is a bit larger, and features a slightly longer range for the wireless signal that transmits power use from your electric meter.

Connecting these two devices to my electric meter was simple. First, loop a metal belt around the glass dome covering the meter. Then align a sensor attached to the belt on top of the glass to read the data collected by your meter. On my old-style meter, the Power Monitor’s sensor keeps track of how fast a dial rotates. The companies say their products work with about 90% of meters in North America. On a newer meter, the sensor would read a digital port on the front

The sensor you attach to the electric meter wirelessly sends raw data to a digital monitor that is kept inside the house. Before using the monitor, you have to enter data from your electric bill, but finding the right data can be tricky. Black & Decker’s instructions on this are relatively clear, and entering the data into the digital monitor involves a process similar to setting an alarm clock.

The digital monitors, about the size of a large remote control, can sit in one room or travel about the house. A button labeled “tare” on the Black & Decker model helps you calculate how much electricity is being used by any single appliance that you can turn off and on. Press the button and it zeros out the reading.Turn on an appliance and the device calculates its usage alone. I found surprises: My LCD TV uses just $0.02 an hour, while an electric water kettle uses more than $0.20 an hour.

The Black & Decker model features a rudimentary display that only reports the aggregate power use for your house at any given time. It can’t go back and show you changes over time.

But the latest model from The Energy Detective, known as TED, connects directly to a house’s power supply for a more-precise read than the Black & Decker. It comes with software that graphs how use patterns change over time. The TED 5000 costs $199.

But installing TED requires turning off your home’s main power line and inserting a sensor into your circuit breaker—a process that the company says should be done “by qualified personnel only.” I sought help from a friend who has a lot of wiring experience, but after several hours, we were unable to make TED work. My issue was likely a decades-old circuit breaker. The company said my configuration is atypical and that problems like this are rare. A colleague has been using TED for several weeks after hiring an electrician to install it.

While TED 5000 offers many more advanced tools for sleuthing your home’s electricity waste than the other models, all of its sophistication won’t necessarily help the average user do much of a better job remembering to turn off the lights. For most of us, the large cost-an-hour sign on the Black & Decker Power Monitor offers the only feedback we really need.

If you’re just looking to target power-hogging appliances in your house, there are even less expensive solutions. For example, the $24.99 Kill-a-Watt, which I haven’t tested, sits between one appliance and the outlet, and tells you exactly how much power that appliance is using.

And before buying any of these devices, keep in mind that many utility companies are installing a new generation of so-called “smart” meters, which not only measure real-time power use, but also offer two-way communication with the power company to help cut costs. Some will also offer software to help you monitor your power use, and Google Inc.’s nonprofit foundation is already working with power companies on a free service that connects data about your power use into an online widget. Appliance makers are also working on products that can communicate with a central controller to turn themselves up or down, on or off, according to changing prices or conditions.

All three of the monitors I tested should continue to work with most new power meters. While these devices seem downright rudimentary compared to what’s on the horizon, they certainly suffice in the meanwhile to make electricity use more visible.

Walt Mossberg is on vacation.

Write to
Geoffrey A. Fowler at geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com

Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal did a special Technology Report section, made up of excerpts of selected interviews from the seventh D: All Things Digital conference.

It includes sessions with Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer ringing in Bing; Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz trying to find a reason to curse at BoomTown; Roger McNamee and Jon Rubinstein of Palm (PALM) introing the Pre; Twitter Co-Founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams saying “we do not know” was the microblogging service’s mantra; entrepreneur Mark Cuban talking smack about the Internet; cable legend and Liberty Media (LMDIA) Chairman John Malone cracking wise; and NBC Universal (GE) head Jeff Zucker doing the Hulu.

As the event’s hosts and interviewers, Walt Mossberg and I also did a mini-essay about the event, in which we continued to jest about various goofy names that digital eras had been given.

As we wrote:

“Before the seventh D: All Things Digital conference, which took place last week in Carlsbad, Calif., we declared—with our tongues firmly planted in our cheeks—that Web 2.0 was over and Web 3.0 had begun.

While we were poking fun at Silicon Valley’s incessant need to stick a hyped-up catchphrase on each and every development, the use of such jargon was actually important, because we think that the digital sector is now moving full bore into an entirely new cycle of profound change.”

We decided to focus in on smart phones and the mobile platform as critically important in the next era, although what we were talking about was the complete integration of computing into every part of our lives in a way that is seamless, ubiquitous and, ideally, dead simple.

As we also noted in the essay:

“From using easy gestures to grab any piece of information from the Web to having powerful computers in the palm of your hand to being able to quickly dip into complex social networks to getting real-time information from across the globe as it happens, this is an era when computing could become as integrated and invisible as electricity and just as important.”

So read all about online and in print (if you saved a copy) and you can also watch video highlights on this site too.

But, best of all, All Things Digital be posting the full video of all the sessions on this site soon.

Communication gadgets and other consumer electronics burn up 15 percent of all the electricity consumed in households around the world, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency. If the use of electronics continues to spread at the current pace, their energy draw could double by 2022 and triple by 2030. At that point, they would absorb as much electricity as all houses in the U.S. and Japan today.

But are electric gadgets vampires or saviors? Telecommuters who would otherwise burn gasoline to get to work, or drivers who get to their destination quicker by using a GPS device are actually saving energy, argues the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

According to a telephone survey of 1002 U.S. adults in March that was commissioned by Sharp Electronics, it appears they are. It found that Americans are three times more likely to pay more up front for a product that saves on their electricity bills in the long run than they are to purchase the less expensive product now.

That’s not to say their budgets are unlimited as far as spending on green products. Some 72 percent of respondents said they are much more inclined to choose an energy-saving product if cost is not an issue.

Bob Scaglione, a senior vice president at Sharp, says the results surprised him. “We had our own feelings that consumers generally were not willing to pay extra when they are standing in front of the product ready to buy. That is why we haven’t charged more,” he says.

Read the rest of this post on the original site on the original site

Velcroed together, stacked in racks, and lined up in back-to-back rows, the servers require a half-watt in cooling for every watt they use in processing, and Google leads the field in squeezing more servers into less space. Based on projected industry standard of 500 watts per square foot in 2011, the Dalles plant can be expected to demand about 103 megawatts of electricity–enough to power 82,000 homes, or a city the size of Tacoma, Washington.”

– Keyword: Evil, Harper’s Magazine, March 2008

You can make money without doing evil. You can also make it without using so much fossil fuel. That’s the word from Google, which today unveiled a $4.4 trillion plan it says will reduce the nation’s dependence on coal and oil.

Google’s “Clean Energy 2030” plan as its described by Jeffery Greenblatt, Google.org’s climate and energy-technology manager, proposes to wean the U.S. off of coal and oil for electricity generation by 2030 by relying on power from wind, nuclear and geothermal sources instead. It also calls for raising the standard car fuel efficiency from 31 mpg to 45 mpg and increasing usage of plug-in hybrids and pure electric cars.

It’s an ambitious plan, to say the least. Expensive too–a jaw-dropping $4.4 trillion dollars. But Google (GOOG) believes it could generate net savings of $1 trillion over its 22-year span. It might even save our children’s grandchildren from a world in which they rove post-apocalyptic desert wastelands scavenging for food and gasoline, terrorized by marauding biker gangs. And who could place a monetary value on that, eh?

“We see a huge opportunity for the nation to confront our energy challenges,” Greenblatt explained. “In the process we will stimulate investment, create jobs, empower consumers and, by the way, help address climate change.”

And lest we think Google is hiding its own self interest (Read: Lower data center electric bills) behind a $4.4 trillion dollar mask of altruism, consider this remark from Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who spoke at an event in San Francisco Wednesday evening: “We’re going to likely consume more energy,” he said. “We’d like the prices to go down … We save a lot of money when prices go down. It’s good for shareholders, good for earnings.”

And in the end, what’s wrong with approaching clean energy from a capitalist position? We certainly approach dirty energy in that way.

The reason it seems as if I haven’t had to charge my phone is because of a new device I’ve been using called WildCharge. This is a small, thin pad covered in panels that conduct electricity. It plugs into the wall and lies flat on a desk or nightstand, serving as a place where devices in need of a charge can be dropped, casually and effortlessly, to start juicing up.

The $59.99 WildCharge pad currently charges Motorola RAZR phones using a $34.99 adapter.

The pad, from WildCharge Inc. in Scottsdale, Ariz. (www.wildcharge.com), eliminates the messy tangle of wires that many people struggle with each time they want to charge their portable devices. But more to the point, it turns charging a gadget into something that happens in the background rather than an active task. And it spares you from that nagging question: Did I remember to plug my phone or iPod or BlackBerry in before going to sleep?

Effortless Charging

I must confess that of the hundreds of products we receive, this was one that I took home to test on a whim, thinking I’d use it once before returning it. Once I started using the WildCharge pad, I realized how much effort I put into charging all of my devices each week, and often each night. Three weeks later, this charging pad has me completely spoiled.

WildCharge isn’t for everyone. It’s a bit pricey — costing $60 for the charging pad and $35 for an adapter — especially when almost all gadgets already come with individual AC adapters. For now, WildCharge works only with Motorola Inc.’s RAZR cellphone, though in January the company will release adapters for Apple Inc.’s iPhone, iPod touch and iPod nano, as well as Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry Pearl and BlackBerry 8800.

For the WildCharge pad to work, the device you’d like to charge must be equipped with a special adapter. In the case of my pink Moto RAZR, this adapter was a black plastic piece that replaced the phone’s battery-cover panel and plugged into its charging port. I liked using the pad enough to not mind carrying a slightly thicker, two-toned phone around every day.

The idea behind WildCharge’s creation isn’t unique. For example, a company in the United Kingdom called Splashpower Ltd. (www.splashpower.com) has a charging mat in the works, according to its Web site, though the company won’t give specifics about its products.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology takes the concept a step further with its idea of “WiTricity” or wireless electricity, which transmits power without using wires or requiring the charging object to touch anything as it refuels. Instead, this concept works by coupling two objects with the same frequency to exchange energy through the air. But this isn’t a product — yet. WildCharge is.

Thin and Lightweight

The current WildCharge weighs six ounces and its surface measures about the size of a hardcover book, though its 0.2-centimeter thickness would make it a quick read. One pad delivers 15 watts of power, allowing three to five small devices to charge simultaneously at the same speed as they would when plugged into individual wall chargers. I’d guess that about four devices, depending on their sizes, could comfortably fit on one pad.

Different Shapes and Sizes

When additional adapters are introduced in January for prices ranging from $30 to $40, these will also work with the WildCharge pad. The company also plans to sell its charging pad in various sizes and shapes next year, including a version that will deliver 90 watts, enough to power to a laptop.

Since the iPhone and iPod touch don’t have removable battery panels, they will use special adapters that look like rubber, protective sleeves. The second generation iPod nano will use an adapter that looks like a small aluminum extension of the device.

I set my WildCharge pad up on my nightstand. After a phone chat, I tossed my RAZR cellphone over to the charging pad; four magnetic contact points on the phone’s adapter helped it stick to the pad. A chime indicated my phone made electrical contact and started charging (the same sound I normally hear when I plug it into its AC adapter cord). A tiny blue light on the pad indicated a device was charging. I really grew fond of not hunting for the correct cord to charge my phone. Instead, I’d finish conversations, reach over and simply drop my phone down as if I was laying it on the table.

Likewise, if I walked in the room after a chat, I’d set it down for a few minutes before leaving and taking the phone with me. Charging didn’t have to be an event; it wasn’t even a conscious effort.

Once in a while when I’m running out of battery in the middle of a phone chat, I’ll plug my phone into its power cord and continue talking. This isn’t possible using the WildCharge because the phone must lie on the pad, face up. However, you could use a BlueTooth headset or switch to speakerphone. (I tried the latter without a problem.)

Easy to Pack

I imagine that WildCharge made its pad for stationary usage rather than for portability. But after becoming so accustomed to WildCharge, I couldn’t resist taking it home with me over Thanksgiving, and its flat panel and AC adapter were easy to pack.

WildCharge Inc. says its charging pad won’t be damaged if most liquids are spilled on it. I wiped water off with a cloth and it was fine. Other electronics won’t be affected if they’re placed on the device, and it doesn’t use radiation or magnetic fields to charge devices.

Right now, no matter how slick your portable media player, smart phone, laptop or digital camera, it’s still enslaved to its power cord. The WildCharge pad cuts out the cord and lets forgetful, busy people stop worrying about plugging in each of their devices. WildCharge would be improved if its adapters were built into phones.

Even more exciting is the thought of public places using WildCharge or similar technology so that when you can walk into a restaurant, you can rest your cellphone on a table and have it powering up in the background. Now that’s something we can all get a charge out of.

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com.

To keep you abreast of tech news while he’s away, we’re compiling a daily digest of 10 must-read tech stories. Our Tech 10 appears below.

1. Google U-Store-It: The online search leader is prepping a service enabling users to store on the company’s computers any files (text, music, video) kept on personal-computer hard drives, reports The Wall Street Journal. The password-protected system would allow Internet access to the files from any computer or mobile device.
2. Verizon Opens Wide and Says ‘Yah’: In a sign that “U.S. phone carriers’ iron grip on the wireless industry may finally be loosening,” (according to The Wall Street Journal) Verizon Wireless will open its network to wireless devices, software and applications not offered by the company. Verizon plans a conference to detail “the standards and get input from the development community” about how so-called “BYO phones” will be allowed on its network early in 2008.
3. MySpace Feeds You and Your Friends: The social-networking giant will unveil on Thursday “Friend Updates,” its news-feed feature. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch explains it all for you.
4. InterActiveCorp to Activate China Web Site: IAC/InterActiveCorp plans to invest $100 million on an Internet start-up in China, shipping its Ask.com search engine to that hot market as well, according to The Wall Street Journal.
5. Intuit Grabs Homestead: The financial software firm has paid $170 million for the small-business Web service provider, a move Eric Eldon of VentureBeat posits will help the aging Intuit “stay relevant to the growing number of businesses that rely on Web-based services.”
6. Reduce the Price, and They Will Buy: Deep discounts in its PlayStation 3 video-game console reaped high sales for Sony post-Thanksgiving. The 245% jump in North American PS3 units sold, according to Bloomberg, reflects price cuts Sony initiated to boost the console’s competitive edge against Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Nintendo’s Wii.
7. NBC Universal Sees the TiVo Light: The broadcaster announced today that it had signed a deal to become the first of the major TV networks to use TiVo’s viewership research and interactive ad products, according to The Wall Street Journal.
8. Yahoo Flubs Cyber Monday: Outages plagued the online company yesterday during heavy holiday traffic on Cyber Monday, the first Monday after Thanksgiving when many online merchants offer discounts to woo consumers. Tech Check’s Jim Goldman says Yahoo scrambled throughout the day to fix the problem, but thousands of merchants were adversely affected.
9. An End to Coal in Our Lifetime? Google is mobilizing its considerable resources to eliminate one resource: coal-generated electricity. The initiative, known as RE<C, will focus on solar, wind, geothermal and other potential breakthrough technologies. But there’s no guarantee Google’s push to develop electricity from renewable energy resources, says Doug Caverly of WebProNews“will have more luck than however many corporations and inventors have already tried their hands at this sort of thing.”
10. Tiffany Miffed at eBay: The renowned retailer of fine jewelry has accused the online auctioneer of abetting the sales of counterfeits, reports the New York Times. Tiffany’s lawsuit seeks to force eBay to change its auction procedures, which, if successful, could jeopardize eBay’s business model.

–posted by Associate Editor John Sullivan

While refining a radio-frequency cancer therapy he’d developed, Kanzius noticed that the treatment, which uses high-energy radio waves to destroy cancer cells that have been “tagged” with nano particles, had another unexpected application as an alternative energy source. Turns out if you point the Kanzius “Non-Invasive Radio Wave Treatment” at a bit of saltwater, it will burst into flame–one whose temperature reportedly exceeds 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Apparently, Kanzius’s invention–which uses just 200 watts of directed radio waves, not quite enough electricity to light three 75-watt light bulbs–breaks down the hydrogen-oxygen bond in the water, igniting the hydrogen.

“This was an experiment to see if I could heat saltwater, and instead of heat, I got fire,” Kanzius told WPBF. “You could take plain saltwater out of the sea, put it in containers and produce a violent flame that could heat generators that make electricity, or provide other forms of energy. If I were to be bold enough, I think one day you could power an automobile with this, eventually.”