hohm

The PowerCost Monitor, one of the few energy-tracking gadgets sold directly to consumers, will now be available at Lowe's hardware stores.

The monitor's maker, BlueLine Innovations, said today that the PowerCost Monitor and WiFi Gateway will be available at 319 Lowe's stores in California, Washington, Florida, Massachusetts, New York, and Maryland. The product has been available for sale online but this is its first big-box retail distributor.

There are dozens of companies making electricity monitors, with many being trialed through utilities' smart-grid programs geared at reducing energy use during peak time or reducing customers' overall power consumption. … Read more

Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded:

Republicans in the House of Representatives are working to stop Net neutrality regulations

President Obama will take to Facebook for a town-hall meeting on April 20

Facebook wants to compete with sites like FlackList and ProfNet to connect journalists with sources and stories

Twitter may launch branded pages

Sprint launches a 3G/4G Mi-Fi for $79

Dish Network plans to scoop up beleaguered Blockbuster for just $228 million

Microsoft shifts the focus of Hohm from the home to the car

LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif.--Disappointed with the uptake of its Hohm Web application for home energy efficiency, Microsoft is shifting the product focus to emphasize electric-vehicle charging, according to a company executive.

Microsoft launched Hohm almost two years ago as a free application for consumers to monitor energy use and get tips on how to improve efficiency. It has signed on fewer than 10 utilities which use Hohm to provide consumers with electricity data online and it has partnered to provide electricity monitoring using a home's Wi-Fi connection.

But despite those efforts, the reception from utilities and consumers has not … Read more

If you're cranking the air conditioner a lot this summer, a product bundle using Microsoft Hohm will tell you a lot about your upcoming energy bills--maybe even more than you want to know.

Microsoft on Tuesday announced that it has tied its Hohm Web home energy-efficiency application to an electricity monitor called PowerCost Monitor. The combination, which uses a home broadband connection, lets people view home electricity from the Web or from the tabletop electricity monitor.

Whole-home electricity monitors show you how much electricity a house is using at a given moment and how much it's costing you--sort … Read more

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced new privacy features for the site on Wednesday. The controls are simpler but not private by default. You still have to seek out privacy settings and change them if you care about controlling who sees what.

But this does seem to be an improvement.  Here is a short

You can now control who can see and interact with each and every thing that you post on a day-to-day basis. Facebook is calling this Granular Data Permission. There is also just one setting that turns off access to your information by third party sites … Read more

Updated at 10:30 a.m. PDT with comments from Microsoft.

Microsoft is trying to garner more interest in its Hohm home energy app through neighborly competition.

The software giant released on Wednesday the Hohm Score, a free Web application that judges a home's estimated energy efficiency based on its general size and location. With estimations already in place, Hohm has determined that homes with the worst scores are in Texas and Tennessee while the best are in Hawaii and Delaware.

The score is "calculated by comparing a home's actual and potential energy efficiency," Microsoft said … Read more

Ford Motor and Microsoft are collaborating on software for consumers to manage how and when to charge electric vehicles.

Executives from both companies at the New York Auto Show on Wednesday announced that drivers of Ford's electric cars will use Microsoft Hohm, a Web-based home energy management application.

The 2011 electric Ford Focus will be the first car to use Hohm, which company executives said will let consumers take advantage of cheaper electricity rates. That will also help utilities manage the added load of electric vehicles which can be substantial if many people in a neighborhood charge up at … Read more

Microsoft, angling for a bigger piece of the utility business, said Tuesday that it has developed an architecture tailored for utility smart-grid programs.

The Smart Energy Reference Architecture (SERA) is meant to give utilities a blueprint for integrating and modernizing their IT systems. Microsoft said that its software will work with devices specific to the power industry and help utilities better handle an anticipated wave of real-time data.

Governments around the world are offering billions of dollars to entice utilities to upgrade their electricity distribution networks. These smart-grid programs can take many forms: smart meters that transmit information every few … Read more

Just like the LG Watch, we are a 21st century product for the 21st century consumer. Which means we exist now for people who exist now. Sigh. Ryan Block of Gdgt joins us to talk about an algorithm to steal your Social Security number and how Gmail finally came outta beta! Yay! Bad times and good times all in one. Now if only we could get those implants for cell phones. In our neck people, in our neck!

Gdgt http://www.gdgt.com/… Read more