Over the weekend the Cleanweb hackers created applications like NYC BLDGS, a web data base of the energy consumption of buildings in New York that pits the best and worst buildings against each other in friendly competition. Econofy, a web site created over the weekend that enables consumers to compare the energy consumption of appliances, won both the audience choice award and the judges award for best overall hack.

The first Cleanweb Hackathon was held in San Francisco in September of last year, and the New York event this weekend was a slightly more high profile affair. Judges of the hacks included investor Fred Wilson and Rachel Sterne, New York City’s Chief Digital Officer. The United State’s Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra made an appearance as a special guest.

The event is the latest sign that the ecosystem around clean technology is changing. As investors look back at the mistakes that have been made and money lost in capital intensive investments like next-gen solar, biofuels and electric cars, some investors are taking a different route and looking to make cleantech investing look a lot more like web and mobile investing — literally. Paul’s firm Spring Ventures invests in Cleanweb companies like Solar Mosaic.

The Cleanweb is an attractive way to attack the problem of climate change and resource management for the age of 9 billion people. Information technologies are available now — compared to the science experiments in biofuels and parts of clean power — and thanks to Moore’s Law their cheap, and will get increasingly cheaper. Now it’s time to tap into the innovation of the developer community to try to create new ways to leverage IT to solve the world’s problems.

Check out the video of the event below and Paul’s explanation of the Cleanweb at our Green:Net 2011 event:

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Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother) stars as Billy, A.K.A. Dr. Horrible, a budding supervillain whose plans for world domination continually go awry. His two goals: getting accepted into the Evil League of Evil, and working up the guts to speak to his laundromat crush Penny, played by Felicia Day (The Guild). The only thing standing in his way is Captain Hammer, Billy s superhero archnemesis played by Nathan Fillion (Firefly, Castle). With one big score, Billy could get into the E.L.E. and earn the respect of Penny, but only if he can keep her away from the dashing Captain Hammer…Amazon.com
Conceived as an “online miniseries event” during the 2008 writers’ strike, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is a 42-minute musical romp that bears the distinctive stamp of Joss Whedon. Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother) plays the title character, who video-bl… More >>

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

Originally posted at The Cheapskate

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For this week’s installment of the weekly Crave giveaway, we’ve got something for all you folks who would like to upgrade your wireless routers but haven’t yet: the Belkin N+ wireless router, which features 802.11n 2.0 technology and earned a CNET Editors’ Choice award last …

According to VholdR, a waterproof case should be available for the ContourHD before the holidays.

(Credit: VholdR)

It figures that the day after we decide to give the VholdR ContourHD wearable camcorder our coveted Editors’ Choice award, that VholdR would go and announce something better. This, dear readers, is what we like to call a “good problem.”

The cleverly named ContourHD1080p takes the standard ContourHD’s 720p HD resolution and bumps it up to–you guessed it–1080p. All of the features that we loved in the original will still be there in the new unit, including the rotating wide-angle lens assembly, the rechargeable lithium ion battery, and the dual frickin’ laser beams.

What’s new is a plethora of additional recording modes. In addition to the original 720p/30 frames per second HD and 480p/60fps SD modes, the ContourHD1080p adds:

• Full HD – 1080p (1,920×1,080 pixels) at 30fps
• Tall HD – 960p (1,280×960 pixels) at 30fps
• Action HD – 720p (1,280×720 pixels) at 60fps

Additionally, with the use of the included Easy Edit software, you can set the contrast (high, medium, or low), metering (center, average, or spot), and exposure (-4 to +4). Its microphone sensitivity can be adjusted as well, which should help to reduce some of the wind noise that we found when testing the standard ContourHD.

So, should you wait for this new model instead of picking up the current ContourHD?

Well, that depends. According to VholdR, the ContourHD1080p is aimed professional videographers, while the standard HD is for enthusiasts. Yet, the ContourHD1080p weighs in at an MSRP of $329.99, only $40 more than the 720p model. However, introducing more options for exposure and metering could confuse casual users and take away from the simple point and shoot nature that so endeared us to the standard ContourHD. We’ll wait and see how the controls pan out before making final judgment.

In the meantime, check out a video of the ContourHD1080p in action after the jump.

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Originally posted at The Car Tech blog

I think its safe to assume that the new XL 340S Live will look something like the standard 340S.

(Credit: CNET)

Don’t you just love trickle-down? TomTom’s Live connected service–which helped the GO 740 Live to win our coveted Editors’ Choice award–is making its way down the product …

Originally posted at The Car Tech blog

Other niceties include a sizeable island keyboard, good touchpad, bright 13.3-inch HD screen, and a thickness of less than an inch.

Conversely, the four-pound weight seems a bit on the heavy side, the 0.3-megapixel webcam is an afterthought, and subpar 3D video abilities.

On the whole, though, the long battery life in spite of the relatively powerful dual-core CPU, along with the $799 price tag make the UL30A “a compelling value,” according to LAPTOP.

(Credit: Seagate)

We gave an Editors’ Choice award to the first round of Seagate’s FreeAgent Go external hard drives, but as with all things related to storage (and storage only), bigger is better, so we’re very anxious to get our hands on these new FreeAgents with up to …