Consumer electronics companies look to more environmentally-friendly products

One of the issues that has been given some attention at CeBIT this year is creating more environmentally-friendly consumer electronics products. With ever-increasing regulations and concerns over spiralling energy usage, both in industry and amongst consumers, it's encouraging to hear large CE companies saying that they are working to develop more energy efficient products.

Traditionally, plasma TVs have been seen as more energy-hungry than LCD ones, but apparently a demonstration between the two (though the models and sizes were unspecified) showed that the plasma used, on average, about two-thirds of the electricity of the LCD.

Microsoft admit Live OneCare should not have been rolled out

ZDNet managed to scoop an interview at CeBIT with a senior manager at Microsoft who admitted that Live OneCare, the consumer security product, should not have been launched when it was, being far from perfect and having pieces missing.

The product has been plagued with problems since it was launched, including the failure to adequately protect Vista:

CeBIT 2007: More video weirdness from Total Immersion

CeBIT 2007: Now that's immersive gaming

CeBIT 2007: World's ... watch

PQI is pitching its Intelligent Stick Interface as not just the smallest USB flash drive, but also lightest and thinnest too. They are pretty dinky too - the Intelligent Stick Pro measures 43x18x2.8mm and weighs 2.7g. If you think that's impressive, the Intelligent Stick Mini comes in at a mere 30x15x5mm and weighs just 2.2g.

CeBIT 2007: Italian I2 robot: - bare, naked Asimo?

CeBIT 2007: Total Immersion overlays 3D effects on live video

CeBIT 2007: Just what is Commodore up to?

Stuart Dredge writes...

We've come a long way since the 8-bit days, that's for sure. One of the key stories from this year's CeBIT show so far has been the fact that Commodore is back with a vengeance. And happily, that doesn't just mean trading on the past glories of its C64 home computer, but is instead based on an entirely new generation of gadgets.

Don't get me wrong. I loved the C64. In fact, in its day I singlehandedly funded a small industry of budget publishers churning out rubbish football management sims, through pocket money alone. There were great games too, of course, with the likes of Turrican, Creatures and Impossible Mission, to name but three.

CeBIT 2007: Windows Vista Sideshow run through

CeBIT 2007: World's largest smallest watch

I-Station is going the other way, claiming its G43 is the Smallest UMPC in the World. Specs were a little thin on the ground, apparently due to an accident with the leaflets. Here's what we do know though: it can run Windows XP or Linux, it has an 800x480 4.3in LCD screen, there's built-in Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and touchpad, the processor is an AMD Geode LX800 or 900, the hard drive can be either 30GB or 60GB and it'll run for up to four hours.