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I went to CES with Engadget for the first time this year and, among the robots, laptops, TVs and more robots, the most exciting products I saw were ones trying to make our homes more eco-friendly in the most low-effort ways possible. I saw an induction stove, a window-mounted heat pump, a battery back-up system and a few other promising appliances these are user installable, work with standard 120V outlets and do their part in lowering a homes carbon footprint. A couple are coming to market this year, while others are still on the road towards wide availability. When I first thought of decarbonizing my home, solar panels on the roof immediately came to mind. So I took out a loan and did exactly that. Well, I didnt do it it took many months of the solar company filing permits on my behalf and two days of skilled technicians crawling all over my roof and installing complicated-looking boxes and tubes on the side of my house to get it done. Last month, my electric bill was $6, but it wasnt a low-effort process. In contrast, these new appliances I checked out dont require calling a contractor for installation and you'll be able to get your hands on some of them later this year. Since theres no installation, people who live in apartments and condos or otherwise can't permanently install appliances where they live can use them. But these products arent cheap. The hope is, as the popularity of accessible, user-installable green tech grows, the prices go down. In the meantime, I will keep daydreaming. Amy Skorheim for Engadget The first thing to really catch my eye at CES was a plug-in backup battery from BioLite, a brand I knew from making camp stoves that can recharge your phone. The Backup by BioLite is the companys first non-outdoor item and comes in either a 1.5kWh size or a dual-unit 3kWh system. The single unit houses an inverter and a battery, while the Complete configuration adds an additional battery bank to the inverter/battery set. It mounts on a wall either vertically or horizontally and sticks out less than three inches so it can live behind a fridge which a BioLite rep told me is a primary place the company sees it being used. To use it, you plug the Backup into your wall and plug the fridge (or any other appliance) into the Backup. The battery steadily fills itself while also passing power to the appliance. If the power goes out, the battery automatically kicks on to power your icebox, sending an alert to the app to tell you about the outage. So far, this probably sounds more like power security as opposed to an eco solution, but because the app allows you to schedule the Backup to come on at a regular time, you can actually take one of your biggest energy hogs off the grid during peak usage times. The Backup should start shipping this summer and its something Im seriously considering. While I have solar panels, I didnt pay the (considerable) upcharge to get batteries. With the Backup, I could schedule the fridge to run on battery power at night, then swap to direct power during the day while the sun feeds the roof panels and refills the battery. The dual-unit, Complete Backup configuration costs $3,000, but currently qualifies for a 30 percent tax credit due to its watt-hour size and the fact that you mount it on the wall (but I dont think anyone is counting on that perk to still be a thing for long). Plus, if you reserve now, you'll get a 10 percent discount. Amy Skorheim for Engadget When I checked out the Backup at CES, I was introduced to two other companies BioLite had invited to share its booth, Copper and Gradient. Copper was showing off the Charlie plug-in induction stove. While researching indoor air quality for our air purifier guide, I learned that natural gas stoves arent just less-than-stellar in terms of ecological impact they can also be pretty bad for our lungs. That prompted me to look into induction cooking, but I was worried my cotton-wrapped, nearly one-hundred-year-old copper wiring would not be up to the task of an upgrade. Yes, all induction stoves are plug-ns but nearly all of them require a 240V outlet, like a dryer uses. If youre replacing a gas stove, chances are theres a 120V outlet behind it. If you want to switch off of gas, you need to call an electrician to run the new wiring. That could be a simple operation Ive seen estimates online for as little as a couple hundred bucks. But if you have older wiring (thats me) or if youre renting or otherwise cant upgrade your electrical, you might just be stuck with gas. But the Copper Charlie can run on a standard outlet thanks to the (big!) 5kWh battery inside. In short, the battery fills itself when youre not cooking. When you fire up a burner or the oven, the battery kicks in to make up the difference between what a standard outlet can supply and what the induction appliance needs. In a power outage, it can cook three to five meals. It also looks swanky, with deep blue enamel inside the oven and reclaimed wood on the knobs and handle. The price tag is swanky too; Like the Backup, the Charlie currently qualifies for a tax credit to bring the cost as low as $4,200, but if you dont count on that, youll pay around $6,000. Thats not unheard of for an induction cooker, but it's not cheap. Still, if its between that and never getting off gas, Id consider it. Amy Skorheim for Engadget Biolites other booth-mate at CES, Gradient, showed off their own plug-in appliance, the Gradient All-Weather window heat pump. Ive been curious about heat pumps after learning that heating represents the biggest energy demand for most homes. Surprisingly, cooling requires significantly less energy (though its often the largest electricity draw as many homes use a gas or fuel oil for heat). Heat pumps work similarly to AC units, running a refrigerant (Gradient uses a more eco-friendly one) that travels through compression coils, absorbing and releasing heat as it moves from indoors to outdoors. To heat a home, the coils draw heat from the outdoor air (yes, even when its cold outside) and release the heat inside. To cool the air, the heat pump performs that process in reverse. Gradient claims a 30 percent higher efficiency over window air units. When it comes to heating, that ratio could go significantly higher, especially if its replacing fossil fuel combustion. Again, no professional installation is required, any standard 120V outlet will work and it also looks far more attractive than window AC units. Instead of replacing your view with a grille and some vents, the saddle bag design hangs down on either side of a window and creates a nice shelf for plants or other bric-a-brac. But heres the bad news: Despite being at the Consumer Electronics Show, these window units arent yet available to consumers. Gradient told me theyre currently focusing on business-to-business sales to help grow the company and have a bigger impact on greenhouse emissions. But theres still hope that a direct-to-consumer, plug-and-play heat pump will one day come to be. Zoltux Of course, all of this electrification is less beneficial if your area relies on non-renewable resources for grid power, so I was curious to see if any solar generation products at CES had the same user-instalable ease. One company, Zoltux, is working on a plug-in solar kit for US homes based on the balcony solar technology thats popular in parts of the EU, particularly Germany. Basically, you clamp a solar panel on a balcony, or any other sun-facing spot outside your home, and plug it into a microinverter which syncs the PV energy to the grid, allowing a standard outlet to feed power to your home. Zoltux is only in the launch phase and the company will have plenty of regulatory and technical issues to overcome in bringing plug-and-play solar kits to homes in the US, but Im wishing them all the luck. Jackery As for what currently exists, companies like Jackery, Anker and
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Meta has notched an early victory in its attempt to halt a surprise tell-all memoir from a former policy executive turned whistleblower. An arbitrator has sided with the social media company, saying that the books author should stop selling and publicizing the book, which went on sale earlier this week. The drama stems from Careless People, a new book by Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former policy official at Facebook who Meta says was fired in 2017. Described by its publisher as an explosive insider account, Wynn-Williams reveals some new details about Mark Zuckerbergs push to bring Facebook to China a decade ago. She also alleges that Meta's current policy chief, Joel Kaplan, acted inappropriately, and reveals embarrassing details about Zuckerbergs awkward encounters with world leaders The book was only announced last week, and Meta has waged a forceful PR campaign against it, calling it a new book of old news. Numerous former employees have publicly disputed Wynn-Williams account of events that transpired while she worked at Facebook. Meta also filed an emergency motion with an arbitrator in an attempt to block the book, arguing that Wynn-Williams had violated a non-disparagement agreement with the company. In a decision, the arbitrator said that she should immediately stop making disparaging comments about Meta and stop further publishing or distributing the book. Its unclear what exactly this means for the book, which is already on sale. The publisher, Flatiron Books, which was also named in Metas complaint, didnt immediately respond to a request for comment. This ruling affirms that Sarah Wynn Williams false and defamatory book should never have been published, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement. This urgent legal action was made necessary by Williams, who more than eight years after being terminated by the company, deliberately concealed the existence of her book project and avoided the industrys standard fact-checking process in order to rush it to shelves after waiting for eight years.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-is-trying-to-stop-a-former-employee-from-promoting-her-book-about-facebook-004938899.html?src=rss
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Google is pushing back on a bill that would make Utah the first state in the US to have a law requiring app stores to conduct age verification of their users. The company has formally requested the state's governor to veto the bill, passed by the state legislature last week, as it urges states to consider a different approach to app safety. In a blog post from Google public policy director Kareem Ghanem, the company said the Utah law poses real privacy and safety risks and that states shouldnt rush to pass laws pushed by Meta and other social media companies. Instead, Ghanethe says that Google has proposed an alternative legislative framework that would allow the developers of potentially risky apps to request age signals from app store owners like Google. The statement is the first time Google has publicly opposed the bill, which would make Apple and Google responsible for age verification and parental permission features for children under 18. A spokesperson also confirmed that the company requested that Utah Governor Spencer Cox veto the bill. Cox has previously signed off on laws that imposed age verification and parental permission requirements on social media companies, though the measures were revised and later blocked by a judge. A spokesperson for Cox didnt immediately respond to a request for comment. While its not surprising that Google is opposing the law and others like it (there are at least eight other states considering similar measures), its notable that the company is proposing its own parameters for a law that would take into account what kind of content is available in a given app, which would place more of a burden on social media companies. Ghanem argues that not all apps should be subject to age verification. This level of data sharing isnt necessary a weather app doesnt need to know if a user is a kid, he writes. By contrast, a social media app does need to make significant decisions about age-appropriate content and features. He also argues that app store safety proposals should come with a ban on all personalized ads to anyone under 18, pointedly noting that "other companies" should follow Google's lead on the issue. Google obviously has a vested interest in not being responsible for age verification of its users, which would impose significant logistical and legal risks for the company. But many other privacy and digital rights groups have also opposed age verification laws.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/google-asks-utahs-governor-to-veto-the-states-app-store-age-verification-bill-233733280.html?src=rss
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