efficient

Fujitsu will cut its power usage by 15 percent this summer in parts of Japan suffering from power shortages caused by the massive March earthquake, the company said today.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) has been struggling to deal with nuclear power reactors severely damaged by the quake and resulting tsunami, leading to efforts in Japan to encourage lower electrical power use. Fujitsu said it will cut its own power usage in areas serviced by Tepco and Tohoku Electric Power through a variety of programs, and it's an interesting list for any company worried about power cost and supply … Read more

Ford's been taking advantage of its EcoBoost forced-induction technology to downsize engines across its line. V-8s give way to turbocharged V-6s. V-6s give way to turbo four-bangers. Continuing the trend, Ford has just announced the smallest engine it's ever built: a 1.0-liter EcoBoost three-cylinder engine.

Besides the obvious fuel savings from its lower displacement, Ford's new tiny terror packs in all sorts of economy-boosting technologies. For example, Ford's split cooling system helps the cylinder block to warm faster which helps to save fuel during the least efficient warm-up phase, especially in cold weather. The three-cylinder'… Read more

Swiss scientists have broken an energy conversion efficiency record for flexible thin-film CIGS solar cells, Empa, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, announced last week.

In collaboration with the Swiss solar start-up Flisom, Empa has achieved an 18.7 percent efficiency for CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide) flexible solar cells, which the lab says was made possible by mounting them on a polymer substrate. This breaks Empa's record of 17.6 percent when mounting the CIGS on steel foil substrates, according to the Swiss lab.

Solar efficiency is the amount of electricity per square inch that … Read more

Efficient Software's personal organizer comes in several versions, including freeware editions that offer most of the functionality but fewer features than the full versions. There are also versions optimized for men and women, Efficient Lady's Organizer Free and Efficient Man's Organizer Free. It's the same program, except that the ladies' version is decorated with pink hearts while the men's version is skinned in bolder, starker tones. Sure, it'd be easy to joke about gendered software, but at least there's a choice that doesn't involve a default theme that looks more like a … Read more

Scuderi Group is one of a handful of companies seeking to break with the traditional design of the internal combustion engine in the name of fuel efficiency.

The company today announced results from a simulation using its namesake engine with a Nissan Sentra sedan that showed a 36 percent reduction in fuel consumption, the equivalent of a 54 percent improvement in miles per gallon. That same level of performance jump can be achieved with other cars, according to president Sal Scuderi.

The efficiency test, done in conjunction with applied research lab Southwest Research Institute, is a step in convincing major … Read more

Efficient Address Book Free Portable is a name that nicely sums up this application, a portable freeware version of an efficient standalone e-mail contacts manager. It's a full-featured address book that you can carry around with you on a USB keychain drive or other portable storage media or device and access from any Windows PC. It can also run at start-up and in multiple instances, too.

We extracted the compressed download and saved it to our portable apps folder. Efficient Address Book Free Portable will run from anywhere in Windows and from pretty much anything Windows can access, too, … Read more

Efficient Lady's Organizer Free is a free program that manages your contacts, appointments, schedules, and other important parts of your personal life like birthdays and holidays. It includes a Calendar, Notes, Diary, and other features common to personal organizers, as well as some less common ones like password protection and a password generator. It has the same basic interface as virtually identical editions, with the exception of a pink-hued interface and the liberal application of hearts and bubbles to the program's skin. While it's not for everyone, plenty of ladies (and gentlemen) will find it a refreshing … Read more

Normally, car shows are all about flashy concepts, high horsepower, and displays of grandeur. And while there was plenty of that to be found at and around the 2011 New York auto show this year--we're looking at your Scion FR-S concept and your Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8--the overarching theme of this year's New York show was smaller, lighter, and more efficient.

Ford, Subaru, and Chevrolet all had more efficient versions of their midsize sedans. Meanwhile, in the smaller compact and subcompact segments, automakers raced to reach the magic 40-mpg mark utilizing a variety of technologies from direct … Read more

Efficient Man's Organizer Free Portable breaks down this way: it's an efficient personal organizer designed for men that's totally portable and totally free. Portability is a key asset in a personal manager since a tool that's chained to your desktop obviously can't keep up with you when you're not at your desk. Efficient Man's Organizer is compact enough to run from a wide range of storage media and portable devices, yet it still offers a full set of features.

We extracted the compressed download of Efficient Man's Organizer and saved it to … Read more