Now why didn't I think of this!

The Interactive Institute, Kista, Sweden, is an experimental media research institute that combines expertise in art, design and technology to conduct world-class applied research and innovation. One of its innovations is the “Power-Aware Cord,” which ...
Nov. 13, 2010
The Interactive Institute, Kista, Sweden, is an experimental media research institute that combines expertise in art, design and technology to conduct world-class applied research and innovation. One of its innovations is the “Power-Aware Cord,” which the Institute says is a “re-designed electrical power strip in which the cord is designed to visualize the energy rather than hiding it.”

In describing the Power-Award Cord on its website, the Interactive Institute says, “The current use of electricity is represented through glowing pulses, flow, and intensity of light. Expressing the presence of energy through light can inspire people to explore and reflect upon the energy consumption of electrical devices in their home.” The product won Time magazine's The 50 Best Inventions of 2010.

About the Author

Jim Lucy Blog

Chief Editor

Jim Lucy has been wandering through the electrical market for more than 30 years, most of the time as an editor for Electrical Wholesaling, Electrical Marketing newsletter and CEE News. During that time he and the editorial team for the publications have won numerous national awards for their coverage of the electrical business. He showed an early interest in electricity, when as a youth he had an idea for a hot dog cooker. Unfortunately, the first crude prototype malfunctioned and the arc nearly blew him out of his parents' basement. Before becoming an editor for Electrical Wholesaling magazine and Electrical Marketing, he earned a BA degree in journalism and a MA in communications from Glassboro State College, Glassboro, NJ., which is formerly best known as the site of the 1967 summit meeting between President Lyndon Johnson and Russian Premier Aleksei Nikolayevich Kosygin, and now best known as the New Jersey state college that changed its name in 1992 to Rowan University because of a generous $100 million donation by N.J. zillionaire industrialist Henry Rowan. Jim is a Brooklyn-born Jersey Guy happily transplanted in the fertile plains of Kansas for the past 20 years.