Hasta La Gadget!

With gases prices steadily rising, many drivers are no longer able to keep their tanks full.

AAA has revealed an increase of drivers who are being left stranded due to empty tanks, and increase of 18 percent since the beginning of March. And it’s not simply a matter of people misjudging how much gas they need to get to a particular destination. Many simply can’t afford the ever increasing price of gas.

“Before it was more absentminded than anything else,” Jim Krebs, a AAA worker in Pittsburgh, said. “But now, I believe that’s what it is. I believe people are like, ‘Man, I got to buy something else so I’m not going to put gas in the car. I should be able to make it,’ and they don’t.”

Via Treehugger

Amazon’s Kindle has paper books beat in most respects, especially when it comes to not being made of paper. Having a Kindle also means you don’t need to go to the bookstore anymore, and soon enough you won’t need to go to the library either.

At some point in the not-too-distant future Amazon will be introducing a new library lending feature, which works just as it sounds. You can electronically borrow books from the library, using either your Kindle or any of the free Kindle apps for smartphones or tablets.

The service will only be available in the US, at least initially, and will feature support for over 11,000 different libraries. Your device even keeps track of your annotations and bookmarks, so if you decide to purchase the book or borrow it again, the information will still be there.

There’s no specific date for when the new feature will be implemented, but expect to see it later this year.

The Denny’s restaurant chain is testing out a new technology that could mean big savings and less energy use.

Called Cool-N-Save, the tech comes from Greenway Design and is a system that’s mechanically added to existing air conditioners to help reduce energy consumption. Each system is custom made and Greenway claims it can reduce energy use by up to 30 percent.

And for a company like Denny’s, that means financial savings as well. One Phoenix-area restaurant will be receiving an installation that’s expected to save around $10,000 in energy bills per year. As for the environmental impact, Greenway says that the restaurant will be able to reduce its carbon emissions by around 60 tons a year.

“This is a first in what we hope will be many installations for the chain,” Greenway VP Darius Jakubik said.

While electric cars are all the rage, analysts are suggesting that a different type of e-vehicle will become pretty popular too: electric bikes.

Pike Research has released a new report that suggests that the number of electric bikes and scooters on the road could grow from 11 million this year all the way to 138 million in 2017. While the report says that scooters will likely outsell bikes by around six to one worldwide, those numbers will be quite different in North America where electric motorcycles could represent around 60 percent of all electric two-wheel vehicle sales.

“Electric motorcycles and scooters have strong appeal for many consumers,” senior analyst Dave Hurst said. “They are relatively low cost to own, do not take a lot of space, and are easy to maintain, therefore making them attractive for city dwellers. Governments also like these vehicles because they can utilize existing transportation and electricity infrastructure without the congestion problems and emissions impacts of conventional automobiles.”

Via GOOD

Such a deal: By year’s end, you can lease an electric BMW 1 Series, the ActiveE, for $499 a month if you’re part of a trial that kicks off in six major urban areas: San Diego, LA, San Franciso, Sacramento, Boston, and New York. Range should be about 100 miles using lithium-ion batteries. You’ll be able to impress neighbors with the usual electric car party tricks such as showing everyone the state of charge of your smartphone (photo below), and a couple new-with-BMW tricks such as pre-heating or pre-cooling the car while it’s still plugged in (to extend range). And of course it’s going to handle like a BMW, something the Nissan Leaf can’t claim.