Slay the Vampires!

Boo! In a couple of weeks, ghouls, ghosts, and goblins, among hundreds of candy-ravenous characters, will be haunting the streets. What will provide the biggest scare of all on Halloween, however, is not the costumed creatures. Lurking unnoticed in every house, sucking energy with their deadly fangs, are none other than plugged-in electronic appliances.

Though these devices may not be in use, vampire power – the energy they use while turned off or in stand-by mode – is drawn, wasting some $10 billion per year in the U.S. alone.

Supplying the stake and garlic to help combat the vampires is iGo, Inc., which makes chargers for mobile devices. Their site promoting Vampire Power Awareness Month offers tips and tricks about how to save energy and money, iGo Green “vampire-slaying” products, and a tool to calculate your home's vampire-energy loss. So stop bleeding and start saving.

--Michael Mullaley