Study says LEDs are about as efficient as compact fluorescents, all things considered

As we've seen with the slight resurgence of new and improved incandescent light bulbs, the amount of energy used to actually light up the bulb isn't necessarily the whole measure of energy efficiency. There's also the small matter of producing the bulb, shipping it around the world, and eventually disposing of it. With that in mind, the Siemens Corporate Technology Centre for Eco Innovations conducted a study that compared regular compact fluorescents to LED lamps -- using one 25,000-hour LED lamp as a constant, compared to 2.5 10,000-hour compact fluorescents (and 25 1,000-hour incandescents). While it's still holding back on some of the finer details, the group did apparently find that LEDs are no more or no less energy efficient than compact flourescents when the entire lifecycle of the bulb is taken into account, although it is quick to point out that LEDs should eventually win out as they become more efficient to produce.

Filed under: Household

Study says LEDs are about as efficient as compact fluorescents, all things considered originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Aug 2009 05:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BFG gifts GTX 285 and GTX 295 cards with self-contained liquid cooling

Believe it or not, this is far from the first time we've heard of a liquid cooled GPU; in fact, NVIDIA was tossing the idea around way back in 2006, when Quake III and Unreal Tournament were still top titles in the FPS realm. BFG Technologies, which currently holds the greatest name for a graphics card company ever, has today introduced its GeForce GTX 285 H2O+ and GeForce GTX 295 H2OC cards, both of which boast ThermoIntelligence Advanced Cooling Solutions (read: self-contained liquid cooling systems). BFG swears that both cards are completely maintenance free, with the GPUs kept around 30°C cooler under load as compared to standard air cooled models. There's no mention of pricing just yet, but both should be available any moment at NewEgg. Good luck resisting the sudden urge to upgrade.

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

BFG gifts GTX 285 and GTX 295 cards with self-contained liquid cooling originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Aug 2009 06:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung's Ion-infused N510 netbook steeply priced across the pond

€499. $717. Or three easy payments of €171 ($246). That's the price folks in Europe are being asked to pony up for Samsung's admittedly svelte 11.6-inch N510 netbook. As one of the largest netbooks in its class, this machine -- which can purportedly last for around 6.5 hours under ideal circumstances -- also packs NVIDIA's Ion technology, but a sluggish Atom N280 is still manning the ship. If you'll recall, we actually heard that this here rig would surface sometime this summer, but it looks as if those orders may end up pushed to September. Anyone care to place a pre-order? Or are you more interested in those "real laptops" for just north of seven Benjamins?

[Via Blogeee]

Filed under: Laptops

Samsung's Ion-infused N510 netbook steeply priced across the pond originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Aug 2009 07:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Unsubscribing made easy

Posted by Brad Taylor, Gmail Spam Czar

We believe you should only get the mail you want to get. Some of you already use the "Report Spam" button on all kinds of unwanted email, and for that we're very thankful: the more spam you mark, the better our system gets at weeding out junk mail.

Unsubscribing from mailing lists and newsletters you subscribed to a while back but no longer want to receive should be just as easy. Searching through individual messages for little unsubscribe links is too big a pain —you should be able to unsubscribe with a single click.

So we just launched something that makes this all work better, both for Gmail users and big email senders. Now, when you report spam on a legitimate newsletter or mailing list, we'll help you unsubscribe. After clicking report spam, you'll see a little dialog like this:


Clicking "Unsubscribe" will automatically send a request back to the sender so they'll stop emailing you.

This only works for some senders right now. We're actively encouraging senders to support auto-unsubscribe — we think 100% should. We won't provide the unsubscribe option on messages from spammers: we can't trust that they'll actually unsubscribe you, and they might even send you more spam. So you'll only see the unsubscribe option for senders that we're pretty sure are not spammers and will actually honor your unsubscr! ibe requ est. We're being pretty conservative about which senders to trust in the beginning; over time, we hope to offer the ability to unsubscribe from more email.

For those of you senders who are interested in this feature, the most basic requirements are including a standard "List-Unsubscribe" header in your email with a "mailto" URL and, of course, honoring requests from users wishing to unsubscribe. You'll also need to follow good sending practices, which in a nutshell means not sending unwanted email (see our bulk sending guidelines for more information).

With an easy way to unsubscribe, everybody wins. Your spam folder is smaller, and senders don't waste time sending you email that you no longer want.

Update (1:50pm): If you want to unsubscribe without reporting the message as spam, click "show details" in the top-right corner of the message, then click "Unsubscribe from this sender."

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Star Trek Meets Golden Eye at Moscow Electricity Control Center [Architecture]

This amazing 320 square meter control room features a two-level, six-workstation podium to oversee the Moscow United electricity network. More after the jump.

Designed by Russian architects, Arch Group, and ABTB, the space includes a wall of 36 Barco video cubes detailing the network's current condition.

(Updated pic, thanks Larissa!)

The project was apparently built in 2008-2009, but it almost looks rendered with all those super clean lines. One thing's for sure: give me 5 minutes in the Captain's chair and my gear's cable clutter will have the whole shop looking more like something from the Matrix. [Arch Group and Dezeen via William Gibson and Unfolding]

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