The answer is the Cambridge, MA-based ecoinfotech effort announced today, "Puissance aux Personnes (PAP)*"
The question is
"How can the world overcome the crucial enviromental issue brought to light by Greenpeace recently concerning power consumption by software as a service (SaaS) providers?"
Actually the problem relates to anyone that offers cloud/on-demand/subscription-based type services, for personal computing, mobile computing, entertainment computing, and so forth. (Thank you to Sadagopan for the heads up.) For some reason. Greenpeace, according to Sadagopan, indicts companies such as Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT). Given the pulicity about cloud computing and SaaS, I would have thought that 3Tera, Amazon (AMZN), Rackspace (RAX), and salesforce.com (CRM) would be doing more harm to the environment but I guess not.
Anyways I digress. "Puissance aux Personnes" solves the problem. According to its press release:
"The "Puissance aux Personnes" PAP X-O is a small device with a big ambition. It combines an exercycle and a personal-computer/handheld tablet/telephone. It will eliminate the need for large power plants across the world and reduce obesity.
"The PAP X-O is designed and built especially for adults and teenagers in industrialized countries, spending most of their time in some of the most harmful environments on earth (office buildings and family rooms).
"The PAP X-O has a built-in twisted-pair cable, which recoils into the device when not in use (which the designers believe will be the typcial use case). The cable allows the PAP X-O user to talk orally to other PAP X-O users--as well as the few other humans on earth still somewhere near a landline. The device can only reach telephone exchanges established before 1990.
"The PAP X-O runs the users' choice of Windows or Linux applcations provided they have been ported to CP/M.
"The exercycle is extremely durable, energy-efficient, and fun.
"The "Puissance aux Personnes Foundation" was funded by money provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, initially intended to be used for increased broadband adoption. Vice-president Joe Biden, ARRA czar, allowed the diverted use, saying "Hey, this is a big f****g deal."
[*Puissance aux Personnes, although based in Massachusetts, has named itself in French because open does not mean free in English, and people who speak English don't understand the difference.]
-- Dennis Byron
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