I came across this link about a Virginia Tech professor that wrote a program to reduce energy wasted by computers. On the face of it, it sounds a bit smarter than the usual power management techniques that shut off parts or all of a computer when its not being used. It claims up to 30% reduction in power, which I expect translates into noticeably longer times between batter charges, if you use it on a laptop.

He also likens his software to cruise control in cars. But while cruise control will ease up on the accelerator as a car gathers speed when descending, it “doesn’t look ahead and say, ‘Hey, there’s a hill coming,’” Cameron says. “It just reacts.” In contrast, his program seeks out patterns to determine when a computer will need more power. He says users report electricity savings of 30 percent.

I expected the program, named Granola and distributed by miserware, to be a Windows only affair. However, its available for both Windows and various distributions of Linux. The latter likely a result of wanting to reduce server power usage, an area where Linux has a sizeable presence.  There is even a community supported, AUR package of Granola for ArchLinux. Joy!