Probably the most useless and irrelavent article I've read in a while. My drive to work (12 miles) in one day uses more "energy" than my iphone will ever use. Is this trying to make me feel bad that we have iphones?
Geez, talk about a lot of commentors with their heads a few miles up their butts....
consumer electronics, which now represent approximately 13% of U.S. household energy usage
According to my math on the above, every time someone's using an iPhone 5 to access the net they're using
1/68th the energy of a desktop PC and 1/25th that of a notebook. Similarly when one watches a video on a phone instead of on a full-sized HDTV and set top box,
1/123rd, (i.e., a greater than 99% energy saving) or plays a game instead of using an X-Box Console + a TV,
1/198th the amount of energy.
So even if things in the world worked out so that every human owned and used a smartphone or tablet (up from approximately a fifth with computing/internet access today?), the energy savings would be enormous, and likely
the single easiest, most feasible way to cut the world's energy budget significantly - and quickly - and with more positive tradeoffs than negative ones in the content consumption experiences for most tasks done with all these devices most of the time.
Get it?? This isn't the least important or irrelevant article published in Mac Rumors in a while as some have said,
rather one of the most important observations that can be made about the potential of the new emerging shape of computing and content consumption to make life more tolerable on the entire planet.
When
one person in a developing country gets their first car, we've added another large source of energy consumption, but if
10 people who have no digital/TV access get a computer/communicator/theater that fits in their hand and even 3 or 4 who already have it switch much of their use to one, we've still eliminated a lot of energy use (and done more to connect the whole human race).
There are other factors in the infrastructure and backbone of the internet - all those servers and cloud data storage services, e.g., and people having multiple powered up devices, but the trend still points toward much greater energy efficiency in the field of digital device use, and then there are all the physical books not printed and trucked (and the heavier, more resource intensive devices - computers, X-Boxes, etc. - to be assembled and shipped, etc., etc.) And then there are all the cost savings to individuals powering their devices.
Not to mention that many of the best ideas for managing all energy use on the planet more efficiently are significantly aided and abetted - and many to most wouldn't be happening - without the computing and internet tech revolutions.
And I just shake my head at any of you who thinks this has nothing to do with the quality of your future lives and health of the planet's ecosphere in general.