Peruse Facebook and you'll find dozens of applications to add to your profile that encourage environmental and energy conservation. Many offer obvious advice ("use LED bulbs"), but a new app offers to green up the PCs Facebook members rely on to access the social networking site.
"Green Your PC," developed by support.com, whose parent company is Redwood City, Calif.-based SupportSoft, Inc., offers to help configure settings including your computer's monitor timeout, disk timeout and standby mode so that they comply with Energy Star and Carbonfund.org recommendations. Users can do this either by downloading a piece of support.com software (an .exe file) that automatically performs the configurations or by following a tutorial written by support.com that instructs users on how to change their PC's configurations themselves.
The app became available earlier this month for Facebook members using PCs (a Mac version is in the works). SupportSoft, a provider of third-party helpdesk services, got the idea for the app from a free service it's been offering its customers since last year. The company offers that service when customers call up with other information technology support needs, but Facebook opens up a much broader audience, which SupportSoft hopes "Green Your PC" will serve. (Previous ScientificAmerican.com coverage of Facebook apps has included one written for Burger King, which Facebook later disabled.)
"We're doing something that the majority of users don't know how to or don't think to do on their own," says Anthony Rodio, support.com's chief operating officer. Rodio says he has no plans to offer the app through MySpace or any other social network.
It's unclear exactly what impact computer energy settings will have on the environment. But Carbonfund.org, a non-profit that advocates for renewable energy, estimates that if 100,000 computers and monitors reduced electricity use to the level set by the "Green Your PC" app, it would save more than 11 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions annually (roughly the same as emissions from burning 13,000 barrels of oil).
Image © Tkgd2007
You Might Also Like
Discuss This Article
Subscription Center
World Changing Ideas
-
Video ContestInnovation is the key to a better future. Enter your own World Changing Ideas videos in our contest.
Most Popular Blog Posts
9,000-year-old brew hitting the shelves this summer
Manipulative meow: Cats learn to vocalize a particular sound to train their human companions
Wylie Coywolf: The coyote-wolf hybrid has made its way to the Northeast
A lizard that swims through sand
Scientists urge EPA to assess potential phthalates risks
Editor's Pick
-
Time to Ban Production of Nuclear Weapons MaterialA new global treaty that cuts off production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons could jump-start nuclear disarmament and help prevent proliferation
Energy & Sustainability Newsletter
Get weekly coverage delivered to your inboxVideo
Podcasts
-
60-Second Science
RSS ·
iTunes
Botoxed Face Impairs Bad Feelings
click to enable
-
60-Second Science
RSS ·
iTunes
Distracted Customers' Wait Times Fly
click to enable
Slideshows
Genetically Modified Forest Planned for U.S. Southeast
Street Smarts: The BioBus Brings a Rolling Science Lab to Resource-Strapped Schools
Defusing the Methane Greenhouse Time Bomb
Is climate change hiding the decline of maple syrup?
Utility to Build First Power Plant with Greenhouse Gas Emissions Limits in California



