Going green with iGo by eliminating 'vampire power'
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published January 7, 2009, 12:41 AM
LAS VEGAS - At CES this week, iGo will introduce a surge protector, a laptop charger, and an electrical outlet, all designed to conserve on power by temporarily stopping the flow of electricity to plugged-in devices once they've been fully recharged.
The company's new "green" products thereby eliminate "vampire" or wasted power, said Alison Copeland, senior direct marketing manager, talking with BetaNews tonight at the CES Unveiled press preview Tuesday night.
In a demo, Copeland showed BetaNews the new "iGo Surge Protector with iGo Green Technology."
The new surge protector has eight outlets, in all. Four of the outlets are capable of automatic shut-off and recovery, Copeland said. The other four are designed for devices where automatic shut-off doesn't make sense, such as digital alarm clocks.

green wise it's not going to be about personal savings is it, but saving a little accross millions of homes (well, they'll hope they sell that many)
lots of chargers & transformers stay very hot when the device they charge isn't plugged in even,. If this really works, and isn't a rip off, I'd know lots of people interested.
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...Then plug ALL of your wall warts into a strip for $5 and turn the damned thing off when you leave, Mr. I Care So Much About the Environment!
I love listening to so many who claim so profusely to "care"! I wonder, just how many of them have their big screen TV on a strip and use it, not only as a fusable fire prevention device, but as a power switch to turn it off and on? Or on any of their much more robust appliances throughout their house (or, in this case, their bedroom or dorm room)?
But such expensive and ridiculously BIG conspicuous consumption!?
I am surprised the IGo folks missed the opportunity to label their gadgets "ICare" and thus both capitalize on, and capture, all of the pent up 14 year old idealism.
"Green" is about YOU being responsible! Not simply about some device functioning as your mother and doing for you what you should have done yourself!
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Ever since California passed a law banning sale of charging devices that drain power when not charging, it's almost impossible to find anything that this would be useful with (and I don't live in CA). I've had a Kill A Watt P3 device for a little over a year now, and test everything I can get my hands on. I have yet to find any chargers that will register any power consumption (minimum measurement of 0.01 kwh) over a 24 hour period of being plugged in, and not in use.
At second glance this serves a slightly different purpose that I originally though, although I'm pretty sure I tested power consumption on a few chargers when charged and still plugged in, and they didn't register anything.
http://www.efficientproducts.org/bchargers/
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so they released power products that use 1kwh less when idle? REVOLUTIONARY.
thank god for this green movement, my electricity bill might have stayed $.25 to high!
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