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>> Hey everyone, I'm Mark Licea, and this week we test-drive the new Mini Cooper E. We have software that will track your computer's energy usage and find out why it literally pays to recycle. The Green Show starts now.
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You won't have to worry about backseat drivers in Mini's new electric car. Our senior editor of Green Tech, Martin LaMonica got to test-drive a special Mini Cooper.
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>> Last month I got to test-drive the Mini Cooper E, an all-electric version of the Mini.
>> There's no back seat. Take a look inside. Basically, we used the back seat area to house all of our battery modules. To start, you want to slide it in and push. Put your foot on the break. Push that little start/stop button next to you. Car's turned on.
>> Here we go.
>> And enjoy the drive.
>> Now, this is my first all electric driving experience here.
>> Experience.
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>> It can go 100 miles on a charge.
>> This car is only 300 pounds heavier than the standard gasoline-powered Mini. And the location of the batteries over the rear wheels actually help handling characteristics.
>> And has top speed of 95 miles per hour. And it has great acceleration.
>> Let's floor it this time. Woo-hoo. Whoa. That was, like, 0 to 50 in nothing.
>> The company will start leasing the car to 500 consumers this month as part of a test program. This is Martin LaMonica from CNET News.
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>> For more information on this and other articles focused on green technology, head over to CNET.com/greentech.
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You don't need a laboratory to track your computer's energy usage. There's a software called "Edison for Windows," and it's ideal for work and home. Jessica Dolcourt has more.
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>> This attractive program shows you how much money and energy you save when you regulate your computer's sleep and shutdown cycles. There's a slider to help you choose a preset program, or you could manually program Edison yourself -- you know, if you need to ease yourself into greener computing.
>> Right now, I just installed Edison on my work PC. I'm gonna go in and customize the settings. So I open it up. I click on work time, and you can see there's a dial where you can either customize it or leave the default settings. I'm gonna leave the default settings because it's a little bit easier. So if you move the dial all the way to the right, you'll see that you're estimated annual savings go up. I'm gonna go ahead and move them all the way to "save more" because I'm the green guy. After that, you go into the schedule tab. You enter the hours and days that you work, and that's it. It's really quick and easy to use. You're saving the planet. And you can find it yourself at Download.com.
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>> Amazon released a new addition to the Kindle family. Of course, any e-reader reduces paper consumption, but does that really make it green? David Carnoy has more.
>> Well, Mark, it's unclear exactly how green the new Kindle DX is. Obviously, a lot of the talk of the green component centers on saving paper, and apparently, if you get a year's subscription to a newspaper on the Kindle, you can save one tree. And if you stop printing out your documents and store them here on the Kindle, you'll also save some trees. However, we don't know exactly what the components are that go into this device, so if it breaks down and you have to dispose of it, if there's any harm done to the environment. Also, in producing the device, we're not sure whether any harm is done to the environment. And finally, you do have to charge the DX, so you are using some electricity. It is a fairly efficient device, so you don't have to charge it that often.
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>> When the time comes to dispose of your Kindle, or any retired gadget, do not throw them away. They can be reused or recycled. Obviously, you may know some people that could care less about generating e-waste, but if you tell them they can get paid to recycle their gadgets, they might stop thinking about themselves and start thinking green -- you know, as in money. Giselle's a site where you can sell or get paid to recycle your gadgets. They pay for your shipping. They send you a box. And if you're the generous type, they let you donate your payment to charity. Of course, some people will take the money and run, but too late. They're already saving the planet. So ha, joke's on them.
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And that's it for this week. Send in your feedback. Greenshow@cnet.com. I'm Mark Licea, thanks for watching.
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