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NEC Launches "PowerMate Eco" Green PC
jdstahl writes "NEC has just released the PowerMate Eco, billed as the world's first environmentally-friendly PC. Based on a 900 MHz Transmeta Crusoe (thanks Linus!), it is ultra-compact, ultra low power, and nearly silent. Its motherboard contains no lead, and the case is made from recycled plastic. Its expandability is limited, so this is probably not a geek-box, but it seems like an appealing choice for Joe Desktop."
Is it biodegradable?
Ok so the motherboard is lead free as is the tft boron free. So what about all the nasty chemicals used to build components? what about when the machine reaches end of life? where will it go? Sounds like marketing FUD to me, although hopefully this is a step in the right direction I doubt it really is a "green" pc.
Does anyone know how to recycle a used and discarded CDRW? Seriously. How many of these get thrown out yearly now and are they just sitting in landfills taking up space or are they recyclable?
Also applies to all those AOL CDs.
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
1. Create enviro friendly PC.
2. Pray to god, rich Green Peace Loving geeks didn't all buy MACs.
At $1600*, I don't see this being for "Joe Desktop" either. Maybe corporations will buy them for energy and space savings or your average home user will like the "green" aspect, but there a lot of other, cheaper options. Hopefully it does well, but it's the old "too expensive for the non-enthusiast, too limited for the power freak" problem.
* Price from PCConnection here.
"When it rains, it pours." --Morton's Salt
Q:Will an average American pay more money to be environmentally sound?
A:Rarely. Sales of SUV's greatly outnumber sales of hybrid vehicles.
This item will experience low sales volume.
Dr. Joseph Hairston
Superintendent, CCBC
You engineer software for Transmeta, but what the hell, we'll just give you credit for creating their processors too!
(Saying thanks Linus is about as absurd as thanking your local mechanic for the sleek body styling on your new BMW.)
Why are you thanking Linus? Does he actually have anything to do with designing the processor? I thought he was just helping on the OS side of things from Transmeta. There are probably other Transmeta engineers who deserve more thanks for that hardware, eh?
:)
Not that Linux doesn't deserve help for starting Linux!
Cheers,
Vic
sure. my dual proc setup is full of nasties, but i'll sell it someone after two years who will use it for another five at a quarter of the price of a green pc which will be outdated quicker and wont be able to be expanded.
price will always make or break just how "Enviromentaly friendly" something is. atleast how seriously people will take it
-- botsex is {grep;touch;strip;unzip;head;mount}
They don't even bother to mention the other waste by products that are created from the manufacture of PCB's.
Flux wash cycle comes to mind. Sometimes some really nasty chemicals are used after a PCB or a fully assembled board goes through.
THere's some companies like culligan that provide negatively ionicly charged microbead epoxy balls to clean the flux wash of the flux and any other impurities that come out. What happens to those?
Another item to consider is the ventalation stacks coming from these pcb wash machines, most of the time they are just there for "ventilation" and do not have filtering systems on them.
I know these things because I have worked around the Dixon Landing road exit off of the 880 in Fremont CA in a number of consulting positions to these companies. Whenever you're sitting at the desk of some salesguy trying to fix his "insert windows issue here" they cannot resist telling you in great detail about the process and how wonderfully enviromentally friendly their shop is.
This is how bad it is in USA, I don't even want to think about what my wife saw in Malasia and the phillipines where these things are probably manufactured(shudders)
And the Scarecrow Labor Unions are sure to protest these 'high tech solutions' putting honest, hard-working American Scarecrows out of work! ;-)
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
Marketing anything as "eco-friendly" doesn't make it all that more enticing. That's why most "eco-friendly" items that find any wide use at all are there because it is regulated to be that way.
A press release with a lot more details than the product page is here.
From the press release:
In addition, the PowerMate eco is also made of NuCycle(TM) plastic - an NEC patented plastic that is 100% recyclable. NuCycle is made of polycarbonate resin mixed with a special, flame-retardant silicone compound. Other computer plastics have flame retardant brominated coatings applied, which do retard flames, but produce harmful gases in the process. NuCycle's flame retardant is non-toxic and built-in, requiring no toxic coating.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
I've been using a Fujitsu laptop now for about 3 months and I've decided that I will probably not buy another machine with a Crusoe chip in it. The function is fine and the clock speeds are reasonable.
The problem is, it "feels" slow. There's just this little bit of latency, particularly as something starts up for the first time, i.e. as the morphing is doing its bit. The more you are exposed to it the more annoying it becomes.
Its little things like this that are what ruin companies. Transmeta needs to do something about this or they will never make it as a mainstream desktop processor.
Frank W. Miller
The harmful chemicals are integral to the manufacture process...Unless technology changes, PCB substrate will always be created out of harmful chemicals.
However, this is a major step in the right direction, to reducing the amount of technological waste in the environmental facilities in addition to conserving power.
He also said that maybe, that's the whole reason we're here. The earth couldn't make plastic on it's own, so it created us to do it. Now that we've created plastic for the earth, we're expendable, and the earth can now move on to the next great stage in it's evolution.
Yeah, it's the classic situation; those scarecrows wouldn't be out a job if they only had a brain.
Tired of those self righteous earth freaks and their santimonious love for the "environment?" If you are, buy one of our EcoHostile (TM) PCs.
1) Comes pre-installed with our special Cartmania! Linux distro. Whenever you open an xterm window, it hacks into that network of things they put on spermwhales to track them, and causes the tracking device to emit a lethal shock, killing the damned stupid animal and notifying the japanese of the animal's position so that you can collect your bounty. If you provide it with a list of god damn dirty hippies, it will notify them of each of the oversized fish you kill so that you can call them up and listen to them cry.
2) Uses silicon doped with enriched uranium, which has no desirable semiconductor properties, for no reason.
3) Onboard gasoline powered generator serves as an uninteruptable power supply, and runs constantly, even when machine is off.
4) Using our patented "bassmaster" technology, fan produces constant, 110 decibel throb (roughly as loud as a car horn,) at a frequency of only 175 Hz, to maximally penetrate floors, walls and ceilings. This places you in handy violation of most of those intrusive noise ordinances that red meat eating, tree hating Americans despise so much. For a small extra fee, we can supply you with special "superscreech" hard drives to supply treble.
5) Special catalytic circuitry produces extra ozone - with the fan running at full capacity, and a constant supply of ozone-free air, the mother board alone produces 25 mg of ozone per minute; that's enough to sustainably exceed the OSHA safe limit of 5 ppm in a 5,000 square foot room. Don't worry! At ground level, ozone is a deadly pollutant - it won't rise into the upper atmosphere and can't do anything to screen out the sun's deadly ultraviolet rays.
So, if you're a real american, and if you hate the earth, you should definitely try our EcoHostile PC. Building a more dystopic tomorrow!
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Media Access Control, the second layer of Ethernet. 48 Bit adressing system dealing on small scales.
01101001 01100001 01101101 01101110 01101111 01110100 01100001 01101100 01100001 01110111 01111001 01100101 01110010
mercury in their backlights
1) LCD's do not need to use fluorescent lamps, they can use LED's. Even with fluorescent lamp it's a step in the right direction.
2) The power savings of using an LCD is significant.
So when are we gonna get some Crusoe mobos?
I have a couple labs where I'd love to stick some inexpensive, quiet, low-power systems that have decent speed.
I've talked to at least a dozen people with Crusoe laptops and they really like how long the battery lasts, how cool the system runs, and how surprisingly quick it is.
I want that on the desktop, damnit.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
And most impressive: it's got a solid-metal case that's much more recyclable than any plastic, and costs one-eighth ($200) what the "Green PC" does ($1600).