Smarter Charger
Most chargers continue to consume power even when they are not in use, but the Zero Charger eliminates this waste by turning itself off. Intended primarily for use with cell phones, the Zero uses a USB port to deliver electricity and can sense when no device is attached. If that happens, it stops drawing power from the wall socket.

Courtesy of AT&T
Product: Zero Charger
Cost: Around $40
Availability: Summer 2010
Source: www.wireless.att.com
Company: AT&T
Keep Reading
Most Popular
How Rust went from a side project to the world’s most-loved programming language
For decades, coders wrote critical systems in C and C++. Now they turn to Rust.
The inside story of how ChatGPT was built from the people who made it
Exclusive conversations that take us behind the scenes of a cultural phenomenon.
Design thinking was supposed to fix the world. Where did it go wrong?
An approach that promised to democratize design may have done the opposite.
Sam Altman invested $180 million into a company trying to delay death
Can anti-aging breakthroughs add 10 healthy years to the human life span? The CEO of OpenAI is paying to find out.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.