Researchers and businesses are advancing innovative ideas with potential for mainstream Green ICT. These range from products and services available today to futuristic concepts for tomorrow. The latest is Dell's gold recycling program, including the creation of jewelry from motherboard gold.

A full update of this survey is planned for later in the year. In the meantime, we are noting an achievement by USA carrier Sprint.

The January 2019 Consumer Electronic Show (CES) gave a Sustainability and Eco-design award to the LG 55E9 55-inch E9 OLED 4K TV. CES noted the model was "...made of eco-friendly and recyclable materials including natural glass."

The LG 55E9 is not listed in the EPEAT Televisions Registry, but the listed LG models are all registered as 'Silver' or 'Bronze'.

In fact, the entire EPEAT Televisions Registry is still disappointing. There are no Gold units for the United States and only 158 Silver, mostly from Samsung.

Scandinavia's Nordic Ecolabel (Svanen) registry lists 88 models, up a little from last year. Samsung makes 78 models; the others are from Philips.

No televisions were recognized in the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Champion Award category of the 2018 Sustainable Materials Management (SMM) Electronics Challenge.

Dockless electric scooters and bicycles are emerging as the flexible urban transportation alternative. Electric personal transporters (EPTs) offer advantages in cost, urban congestion and environmental footprint, but contain lithium batteries and other electronic components. Do abandoned EPTs pose an e-waste threat?

The US ENERGY STAR program looks only at energy efficiency and not other sustainability factors. The program uses a metric called Total Energy Consumption (TEC).

There were only four models rated at 50 TEC or less this year, less than half as many as a year ago. Apple TV, with two of the four models, is by far and away the most efficient, helped by its very low stand-by power consumption.

The European Union has a program for STB energy efficiency and we've listed the manufacturers that signed its Code of Conduct. There are also three European STB models that received the German Ecolabel.

Digital signage is now deployed everywhere, but large digital billboards can consume up to 30X the electricity of a typical American home. Despite the grow of digital signage and its environmental footprint, only one organization rates digital signage and only one company gets top marks.

The number of Green ICT conferences and workshops to decline, now to only half as many as in 2013. They have almost disappeared from North America and Asia/Pacific, with Europe hosting over half. The good news is that we listed one in Africa and one in the Middle East.

Quebrando chaves de Bitcoin por força bruta [#CRIPTOLOGIA - 16] cites "Average Power Use Per Server".

Top 143 Comprehensive Performance Management Suites Criteria for Ready Action cites "Data Center Infrastructure Efficiency".

Much Green ICT focuses on computers: servers in the data center and desktops in the office. Don't forget that disk-based data storage, which can cost an organization $25/GB/month, also offers opportunities. It's for an update on the progress manufacturers and users have been making in recent years to manage data storage's energy consumption.

The 2019 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) awarded a Sustainability and Eco-design award to an internal storage device. This is unusual recognition for a component described by CES as "...storage for supercomputing targeted at AI analysis, big data and IoT applications..." Hardly 'consumer' electronics. Recognition for the Samsung 3.84TB NVMe Z-SSD (SZ1733) was "...based on its having the highest performance and density for an NVMe SSD, as well as extremely high reliability and ultra-low latency." Samsung cites the product's "...extremely low-power consumption (15 watts at 1.2V). "

Updates from the Americas (ex-USA). Click here for regional Green ICT updates from around the globe. Click on 'Americas' tag above for all news about the region.

The Global E-waste Monitor 2017 reports, "In Latin America, 4.2 Mt of e-waste was estimated to be generated in 2016, with an average of 7.1 kg/ inh. The Latin American countries with the highest e-waste generation are: Brazil 1.5 Mt, Mexico 1 Mt, and Argentina 0.4 Mt. The top three countries in Latin America with the highest e-waste generation in relative quantities in 2016 were Uruguay (10.8 kg/ inh), Chile (8.7 kg/ inh), and Argentina (8.4 kg/ inh)." Mexico has the best record of e-waste collection. "Mexico collects most of the e-waste in Latin America (358 kt), which leads to a collection rate of approximately 36% compared to the e-waste generated. The collection rate in the rest of Latin America is lower than 3%." Mexico's rate of 36% is superior to the United States (22%) and Canada (20%). (A collection rate is not necessarily a measure of how much e-waste is disposed of in an environmentaly-responsible way.) The Monitor cites two regional barriers to better performance. "The main challenge with sustainable e-waste management in Latin America is the acceleration of all legislation processes." "The lack of a historical environmental culture in Latin America fuels the thought that the final user of EEE is not responsible for proper disposal and treatment."