New ESL Bulbs Combine the Best of CFLs, LEDs and Incandescents

What if you could combine the best qualities of incandescent, CFL and LED light bulbs to create the ultimate bulb? Wouldn't that be great? Well, Vu1 think they have done just that with their new ESL bulb.

The ESL, or Electron Stimulated Luminescence, bulb creates light by accelerating electrons to stimulate phosphor, which in turn makes the surface of the bulb glow. By creating light this way, the ESL bulbs eliminate many problems faced by other types of bulbs.

Here are some of the benefits of the ESL:

• The quality of light produced rivals that of incandescents and avoids the problems faced by owners of CFLs and LEDs

• Energy usage is estimated to be around 70% more efficient than an incandescent

• There is no mercury inside and the bulbs are easily recyclable

• Unlike CFLs, they are fully dimmable and achieve full brightness as soon as they are turned on

• Predicted lifespan around three times that of a incandescent

So, what's the catch? Well, the only strike against the ESL for now is the price. While no where near as expensive as an LED bulb, they are a little more expensive than a CFL at around twenty dollar per bulb.

Vu1 has just secured UL approval for the bulbs and plans to have them on the market early next year.

Image via Vu1.

New Hybrid CFLs Reach Full Brightness Instantly

While millions of Americans have taken the plunge and swapped their traditional light bulbs for compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), there are still a few issues with the bulbs keeping everyone from making the switch.

Two of the most common complaints are aesthetics and the time it takes the green bulbs to reach full brightness. We learned earlier this month that CFLs don't have to be ugly, and now GE has announced a new type of CFL that takes care of the brightness issue.

GE's solution is actually quite familiar to fans of eco-friendly consumer goods; it's a hybrid. There's no easy way to get the fluorescent element to brighten up any quicker, so this new design incorporates a second halogen element. Both elements turn on when you slip the switch, and once the fluorescent element comes up to full brightness, the halogen element shuts off. Quite an elegant solution, really.

There's no cost to energy efficiency for the new "instant on" feature, with the 15 and 20 watt bulbs planned for launch able to replace 60 and 75 watt incandescents, respectively. Product life shouldn't suffer either, with GE claiming the bulbs should be good for 8,000 hours. As a bonus, these new bulbs also have much less mercury than a standard CFL.

The new hybrid bulbs should be available next year, but there is no word on pricing yet.

Image via GE.

Control Any Device's Power Consumption With the Belkin Socket

Over the last year, I've told you about Belkin's cool Conserve series of green products with articles on the Valet charging station and the Insight energy monitor. They're back again with another cool new product that can slay even more energy vampires.

The Conserve Socket is a simple gadget that plug in between your wall socket and a device you want to control. You set a timer and once that timer is up, it will cut off all electricity to whatever you have plugged in. It has three different settings: 30 minutes, three hours and six hours.

The applications are pretty diverse. For traditional energy vampires like a cell phone charger, it functions the same way as the Valet charging station by cutting off the small trickle of power that flows through a charger when it's not charging. But you also can use the Socket with things like lights and fans, leaving them on for a little while without having to leave them on indefinitely.  You can even use it with curling irons and hair straighteners to prevent fires.

The Conserve Socket is available now for $9.99 from the Belkin store.

Image via Belkin.

Turn it Off - Saving Energy When You Leave Work

Over the last couple of years, I've tried to become more energy conscious, both at home and at the office. One of the things that I've made a habit of doing is to turn off my computer and my monitor when I leave work, and hibernate my computer constantly at home.

If you've ever wondered how much energy a little process like this saves, amateur filmmaker Nigel Upchurch has created a video to demonstrate. Turn if Off takes a look at the habits of workers in different countries, and the kind of energy consumption these habits entail. It's actually astounding to consider the effects that all of these computers and their monitors have on the environment.

To see more about how these statistics were put together, or just to see more of his work, visit the video page for Turn it Off. What about you guys? Do you turn your monitor and computer off at home/work when it's not in use?

CFLs Don't Have to Be Ugly

While the traditional incandescent light bulb isn't exactly beautiful, the design does have a certain purposeful charm. One common thing people that switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs tend to miss about their old bulbs is that simple look. CFLs typically have a tightly coiled look that can be a little unsightly.

To address this concern, the folks at Hulger have designed a new CFL with aesthetics in mind. The Plumen untangles the elements of the bulb to create a more organic appearance that looks different from every angle.

All of that style doesn't come at a cost to the benefits of a energy saving bulb though, with Hulger claiming the Plumen uses only 20% of the energy a equivalent incandescent bulb with an eight year operating life. It will come at a bit of a cost to your wallet however, with a price point somewhere around $30.

While it may not be quite to everyone's taste, it's still nice to see someone giving consumers an option. Perhaps this is just the first in a new generation of designer CFLs.

The Plumen bulb is on sale now in Europe and will be available in America soon.

Image via Hulger.

HDTV Prices Dropping This Holiday Season

As any technology rolls out, each successive year tends to bring lower and lower prices. HDTVs have certainly followed this trend, going from incredibly expensive to commonplace in just a decade. With this in mind, you'd expect HDTV prices to be a little lower this holiday season than they were last year.

However, due to a large oversupply of HDTV panels, prices are foretasted to plummet by the end of the year. According to CNN Money, prices are already roughly five percent lower than they were this time last year. With the glut of panels on the market beginning to take effect, they predict prices may get as low as 12 percent lower than they were just a year ago.

If you've been biding your time waiting to make a TV purchase, it looks like your time is coming. There are already some great buys to be found on the market, but I'd recommend watching the big box store ads and deal sites (like SlickDeals) in late November and December to find the absolute best possible deals.

Looking for more information about HDTVs and TV service? Check out these articles:

• Which HDTV is Right for You?
• What to Watch for When Choosing a TV Plan
• Everything You Wanted to Know About Satellite and Cable TV

3DTV Without the Goofy Glasses?

Though the idea of watching 3D movies at home has left me cold, the idea of watching sports in 3D intrigued me. I remember when we made the leap to HDTV watching sports changed forever. I can see 3D doing the same thing for sports this time, but I just can't see myself wearing those goofy battery-powered 3D glasses at home. Plus, the glasses themselves are expensive, which is a problem if you don't plan on watching your 3DTV alone.

That's why I was so excited last when HDGuru reported that RealD, a 3D technology company, has announced a new type of 3DTV display that works with the lightweight and cheap glasses used in movie theaters. RealD actually makes a lot of those theater glasses, so they know what they're doing.

Their new ZScreen technology uses polarized passive glasses instead of the $200 battery-powered active shutter glasses. By cutting cost, weight and the need to charge new way of doing 3D at home glasses could totally change the 3DTV game and bring in a lot of skeptical consumers like yours truly.

The new screens should make their debut at CES in January and come to market shortly thereafter.

Chattanooga, Tennessee to Get the Fastest Internet Service in the US

Looking for the ultimate in high-speed Internet? Move to Chattanooga. By the end of the year EPB, a local utility company in the city of 170,000 will be offering an Internet plan with a download speed of one gigabit per second.

To put that number is perspective, a broadband speed of 10 megabits per seconds considered pretty speedy today. This new plan is 100 times faster than that. It's fast enough that you could download an entire HD movie in a matter of a few minutes. You'd never have to deal with buffering ever again!

We told you earlier this year about Google's plan to bring 1 Gbps fiber Internet to reality, but it looks like a this small Chattanooga-owned utility company, could end up beating them to market. They're not expecting much demand any time soon for the plan, though. When asked why they were bringing to market anyway, EPB CEO Harold DePriest said "because we can." Which is a pretty awesome reason.

So, what's the catch? Well, speed never comes cheap and there's certainly no exception here. The one gigabit service will run you $350 per month. Hey, it's still cheaper than a Ferrari.

The Pros and Cons of CFL Lighting

Over the last few weeks, we've been trying to find new ways to save money around the household. For some reason, the spending has gradually gotten out of hand, so now we want to take a step back and make a better budget.

One of the areas that we want to cut back on in particular is our home energy bill, and perhaps one of the easiest starting steps is to switch over to using compact fluorescent lights, or CFLs. However, as much as I want to save money, I do have some concerns about the process of switching over.

While doing some research about the pros and cons of CFL lighting, I actually came across this video by the guys over at Microsoft Hohm, which talks about this very subject. It's got some great information, and will probably teach you a new thing or two about traditional lightbulbs versus CFLs.

So, who else out there has made this switch or is thinking about making the switch? Tell us in the comments!

New Green Window Stickers on the Way

A while back, I told you about new lighting facts labels that will start showing up on light bulb packaging in 2011. They will make it easier for consumers to understand the specifics on each bulb and help them be able to easily determine which is the most eco-friendly option. Now, the EPA is considering similar labels for new cars.

This is still very much in the proposal phase, with the EPA considering two basic layouts. One layout would be a redesign of the horizontal stickers we've had for years with additional information about fuel costs and energy efficiency along with some tweaks to make each car easy to compare. The other layout being considered is radically different, with a vertical shape, much more information and new letter grades.

Back when every car used to to run on gasoline, simple MPG ratings were enough for consumers to compare cars. However, now that hybrid, electric and other types of green cars are showing up on dealer's lots, things are a little more complicated. The vertical concept label seeks to make it easy for consumers to make easy comparisons no matter what cars they're considering.

In addition to the big grade at the top, there's an estimate of how much the average driver would save over five years over five years compared to the "average car." The labels also aim to show technical details for the new cars such as all-electric range and kilowatt-hours per 100 miles.

However, citing that they have no standard to measure them by, the EPA is not including charging times for EVs and plug-ins on the proposals. There's also no mention of "upstream" carbon emissions, which are emissions related to manufacture and transport of the vehicle.

So, how do you feel about letter grades showing up in car windows? Do you think it will make it easier for you to choose your next car? What about letter grades showing up on other devices such as appliances or computers? Let us know in the comments.

To see more examples and let the EPA know your thoughts on the proposals, check out the official EPA fuel economy label page.