[Chris Gohlke]

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/ne..._bathroom_break

"There's been a major push this past year in being more energy conscious when it comes to computing, and one way Philips plans to do that is by making sure your LCD monitor doesn't consume more power than it needs to. Called the Brilliance LCD, the upcoming display will feature a built-in sensor capable of detecting whether or not you're sitting in front of your monitor."

I'm all for features that allow you to automate your energy conservation.  Hopefully this implementation is cheap enough so that they'll implement it across their entire line without a material increase in prices.  If there is a significant premium, it will be difficult to earn back the cost in energy savings and those that are willing to pay a premium are probably already knowledgeable enough to just set their computer to shut off their monitor after a few minutes of inactivity.

[Chris Gohlke]

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/ne..._bathroom_break

"There's been a major push this past year in being more energy conscious when it comes to computing, and one way Philips plans to do that is by making sure your LCD monitor doesn't consume more power than it needs to. Called the Brilliance LCD, the upcoming display will feature a built-in sensor capable of detecting whether or not you're sitting in front of your monitor."

I'm all for features that allow you to automate your energy conservation.  Hopefully this implementation is cheap enough so that they'll implement it across their entire line without a material increase in prices.  If there is a significant premium, it will be difficult to earn back the cost in energy savings and those that are willing to pay a premium are probably already knowledgeable enough to just set their computer to shut off their monitor after a few minutes of inactivity.

[Hooch Tan]

Originally Posted by Chris Gohlke

If there is a significant premium, it will be difficult to earn back the cost in energy savings and those that are willing to pay a premium are probably already knowledgeable enough to just set their computer to shut off their monitor after a few minutes of inactivity.

Most systems I know already have a default of 10-20 minutes, so I can't honestly say that I find this particular feature useful. If it is security, then the timeout or a quick keyboard shortcut will do the trick, and lock the terminal. I've even seen, but not tried, software that will lock the terminal if a bluetooth device goes out of range, or if a webcam doesn't recognize your face.