We are all aware of the various energy saving functions that can be set on our PC. While some operating systems and platforms offer more energy-efficiency features than others, the vast majority are based on fixed static time-based criteria. For example, you can set your MacBook to go to sleep after a certain period of it running idle without use.
I Always Feel Like Somebody’s Watchin Me
Though these functionalities help reduce the amount of unnecessary ‘full power’ use of computers, they often times are too limited in their capabilities to really maximize and harmonize the energy-efficiency of the computer with the user’s actual usage. UK software developer VeryPC has just released a new program designed to sense a user’s activity level at a computer and adjust its energy usage accordingly.
The software is called PecoBOO and it essentially is a more detailed power management program that utilizes facial recognition software, in conjunction with your webcam, to determine your activity at your computer and adjust the power according to pre-determined settings specified by the you (the user). For example, PecoBOO can tell when you turn away from your computer display, so turns it off for you. As soon as you return, PecoBOO sees that you are ready to work, and turns the display back on instantly.
How It Works
Though the daily energy savings this software may provide seem trivial, the cumulative savings over the lifetime of the computer may be huge. Just think of all of the times you walk away from your computer meaning to come right back, but then get distracted or roped into a meeting. Even if you have fairly stringent energy settings already defined on your computer, which most people do not, your computer and monitor are still going to be running at full power for several minutes (depending on your settings) until it goes to sleep, turns the monitor off, etc. PecoBOO would shut that unnecessary energy expenditure off.
Some of the details of how PecoBOO works are listed below and are courtesy of their website:
- You can adjust the sensitivity of PecoBOO’s watchful eye by moving the ‘Range’ slider between ‘near’ and ‘far’.
- How often PecoBOO looks for you is controlled with the ‘Sample rate’ slider.
- Tell PecoBOO how long you want it to wait before switching off your monitor by changing ‘Idle time’.
- You can control how deeply you want your system to sleep and just how long you want PecoBOO to wait before applying the sleep or hibernate state.
- Of course, sometimes you’ll have reason to keep your computer awake, and PecoBOO can control that too.
And no, thats not me in the picture.
The Good: This program more effectively manages a computer’s energy consumption based on the activity of its user. The cumulative savings gained by use of PecoBOO over the lifetime of the computer could add up significant energy savings.
The Bad: Many people may not like the idea of their computers ‘watching them’. Though available for use, the software is still in beta mode. Currently only available for Windows Vista and Xp platforms. It’s unclear how much energy saved by the program will be negated by the powering of a webcam that may have otherwise been turned off.
The Bottom-Line: An inventive piece of software that may lead to greater energy management of computers, but still has some hurdles to jump over before being declared significantly beneficial both economically and environmentally speaking.
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