PecoBOO watches you

You know you should be saving energy, and that every little bit helps. But sometimes you just plain forget to turn things off.

If only there was something to remind you…

Very PC understands and has developed software that will do the remembering for you. The program is called PecoBOO (that’s p-ECO-boo, get it?) and it’s designed to save energy every time you get up from your computer.

Using face detection software in combination with your webcam, PecoBOO will actually turn off your computer monitor when you’re not using it. You can set it to sleep or hibernate whenever you get a coffee, go to the bathroom, or chat with co-workers down the hall.

When you return, PecoBOO can tell you’re ready to get back to work, and will turn the monitor back on for you. You could call it a no-brainer. You could also call it lazy – but be realistic: who turns off their monitor every time they step away?

This simple and automatic way to save energy comes from Very PC, a computer company known for manufacturing low-energy desktop computers. They understand that computers are just a fact of life, but they have a huge environmental impact, especially with everybody using them.

Very PC does their bit to reduce the energy requirements in as many ways as possible. The developers at the company came up with PecoBOO when they began to think of the lights in their refrigerators – it’s only ever turned on when you need it.

You certainly don’t need to remember to turn that off.