![\"attcharger\"](\"http:\/\/a323.yahoofs.com\/ymg\/ecogeek\/ecogeek-98275462-1268956568.jpg?ymYGF2CD90OUhigj\")
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AT&T has just announced a USB-based telephone charger that does not pull electricity from the wall when it’s not charging a phone. I don’t know about you, but my charger is plugged in 100% of the time. That charger pulls a tiny amount of energy from the wall 24 hours a day 365 days a year. Multiply that by 100 million chargers in America, and there’s probably at least one coal-fired power plant in America dedicated entirely to that wasted power.<\/p>\n
AT&T’s new charger, however, is a standardized USB charger that does not pull any power from the wall when there’s nothing plugged into it. You wouldn’t think this was a particularly complicated thing to do (especially since chargers routinely cost thirty FREAKING dollars.) But high-markup chargers are a big part of cell phone company’s profit models, so they aren’t generally interested in pulling R&D dollars from that big tasty pie.<\/p>\n
But it works, and it will charge a variety of devices, even non-AT&T devices. It’s great news for us all, and at the same cost as a regular (dramatically overpriced) cell phone charger.<\/p>\n