...AND CHEAPER...:

If you've ever felt a charger when it's doing its job you know how warm they get. That's because they're inefficient: wasting electricity as heat as well as feeding the battery. But new standards recently adopted in California aim to change all that.

Earlier this month, the California Energy Commission voted to adopt minimum energy efficiency standards for these ubiquitous devices. The Golden State alone boasts 170 million such chargers (pdf)--not including the team in San Diego--or more than four for each resident of the state.

The new energy efficient chargers will save Californians an estimated $306 million a year in electricity costs, as well as enough electricity to power 350,000 homes for a year.

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