Decide what to buy: the Reevoo.com blog

For those of you that find it difficult to remember to turn your TVs and other electrical items off at the switch, this could be the product for you.

According to the Energy Saving Trust, we waste around £37 a year by leaving appliances on standby. If we just look at all of the TVs left on standby in the UK every year, we waste a whopping £88m worth of energy and 480,000 tonnes of CO2. What makes it worse is that they also estimate that the average household has up to 12 gadgets left on standby or left charging at any one time. That’s a whole lot of waste!

So, if that hasn’t shocked you into making sure that all of your appliances are switched off properly, you might need to invest in the Bye Bye Standby kit. The starter pack comes with three plugs or ‘modules’ and one remote control. You just plug your appliances into the modules and then plug the modules into your plug sockets as normal.

You can give each appliance a code so that you can control them separately with the remote. You can now switch your appliances off wirelessly. Even if you forget to switch things off before you go to bed, the remote works from up to 30m away and through walls and ceilings so there’s no excuse!

The Bye Bye Standby Starter Kit is £19.94 at the moment on EcoHamster.

Ever heard of Near Field Communications? Well, it might be about to make your life a little easier in the form of moneyless wallets, receptionless hotels and ticketless turnstiles.

We could soon be paying for things from coffee to football and tickets on our mobiles. What’s more, your mobile will then be able to act as a ticket which, by waving it in front of a sensor at the stadium or station turnstiles, would let you in. No more need for tickets – nice and green, we like that.

Checking-in at hotels could also be a thing of the past, with your phone not only receiving GPS coordinates to the hotel, but also then acting as your room key.

Always one to worry about security, I am a little worried about what would happen if a mobile - napper were to swipe your phone, find your hotel’s GPS coordinates and then enter your room to relieve you of your belongings. And as you had never even had to set eyes on the person at reception, they would have no idea of knowing which people belonged to which room. Hmmm, not too convinced about that one.

There is one thing that I do like though - this nifty Near Field Communications business can also be used on the pistes. To help in the fight against snow crime, NFC technology could be used to tag your boots and skis so that if someone else tries to take your skis for a ride, they’ll set off an alarm.

The people in the know are also looking into using this technology to create a virtual shopping basket so that you can order all your vital groceries on your mobile.

It all sounds promising but handset manufacturers are playing it safe by not integrating the technology into handsets before there are enough applications to support it, so it may be a while before we see all this in action - Paula Berger from the Near Field Communication Forum says “We would expect them to be rolling out handsets some time in 2009, at the latest 2010”.

So it’s a case of ‘watch this space’. We’ll keep you posted.

[BBC]