June 28th, 2010
78 
0 Gadgets often get a bad rap for harming the environment, but Toshiba is rolling out technologies to reduce carbon footprints everywhere. Read on, and we’ll spell out the steps being taken to make the latest technology as green as possible.
1. AutoView
Tucked away inside many Toshiba TVs, AutoView uses a smart light sensor in the television’s frame to tell how much light is flooding into the room around it. AutoView can then adjust the TV’s brightness, and tune its picture to provide the best possible viewing experience, and in low light, cut the amount of power gobbled up by the screen too.
2. Fuel cell chargers
Still regarded as futuristic in the UK, Toshiba’s fuel cell chargers are already on sale in Japan, letting owners juice up their gadgets with ultra-efficient methanol. The principle is simple: methanol reacts with air and water in the atmosphere to produce electricity to power your favourite portable kit. Since the charger runs on a liquid fuel source it’s easy to fill up with a few squirts, even while away from a mains socket, and they’re environmentally clean too. For example fuel cells can be reused over and over and methanol is a renewable and sustainable energy source.
3. LED lighting
Longer-lasting, brighter and less power hungry than traditional, or even energy-saving light bulbs, our LED lighting systems will soon appear in a building near you. They light up instantly, with none of the slow increase in light found in other energy-saving lights, and are cool to the touch too, even after hours of use.
4. SCIB battery technology
SCiB batteries, or Super Charged ion Batteries, use new Toshiba technology to reach a 90% charge in as little as ten minutes, meaning your laptop can cut the cord and stay away from the mains socket longer between charges. The technology is so fresh, it’s yet to find its way onto shelves, but Toshiba engineers are hard at work bringing SCiB to a laptop near you.
5. LED backlighting
Toshiba laptops with LED backlighting feature thinner screens that also use less power from the computer’s battery. That’s not the only benefit though, since LED lighting switches on instantly, and at full brightness, the image on your laptop’s screen looks pristine from the moment you open it up.
6. Eco Utility
Eco Utility is a smart piece of software included on our laptops. Some laptops even have an Eco button to fire up the software, which lets you trim your computer’s power usage to prolong the time between charges. When running in eco mode, the laptop’s display is automatically dimmed, along with keyboard backlighting and LED indicators. Hard drives are set to shut down sooner too, assuming they’re not in use, and the standby time for the PC’s display and operating system also reduce. It’s all designed to eke out the maximum power from each charge, so your laptop is much less wasteful.
7. Dedicated power switches
Peer around the side of many Toshiba TVs and you’ll see something rare: a dedicated power switch. It might seem simple, but by adding this switch in addition to a standby mode we have made it easy to switch the television off completely, rather than leaving it for long periods sipping on power while you’re on holiday or away for the weekend.
8. Recyclable design
Designing electronic equipment to be easily recyclable isn’t easy, but Toshiba’s engineers frequently manage to make their latest kit as kind to Mother Earth as possible. Take the award-winning Portégé R600: it’s an ultra-light laptop, with a highly recyclable aluminium shell also restructs the use of lead, mercury and other hazardous substances. Inside there’s a power-efficient processor, solid state drive and LED backlighting too.
9. Eco Panel
AutoView, LED backlighting and dedicated power switches aren’t the only eco-friendly enhancements to its TV range. A selection of our screens also feature Eco Panel displays, designed to use as little power as possible, without compromising picture quality. The REGZA SL Series and REGZA WL Series both feature Eco Panel technology.
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