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Neuwing Energy Ventures, a New York-based marketer of energy-efficiency certificates, would perform an initial assessment of IBM customers' sprawling data centers -- the massive, air-conditioned facilities that store information and route anything from eBay purchases to e-mail. IBM would identify potential energy savings areas for its clients, and Neuwing would grant the IT firms certificates for the total megawatt-hours no longer needed to cool or operate the data center equipment. Each certificate would equal 1 megawatt-hour (MWh) per annum, said Rich Lechner, IBM's vice president for IT optimization. Clients could sell the certificates to utilities subject to state renewable portfolio standards, as well as sell to other companies that aim to reduce their carbon footprint through energy savings. The value of the energy efficiency certificates, historically in the $2-$10 range, is determined by the supply and demand for those certificates in each trading market.

The idea is to create a common set of communication protocols and data formats that utilities and smart-grid start-ups can adhere to.

The benefit of a more intelligent infrastructure is that load can be curtailed as needed and problems spotted more quickly. By flattening out spikes in demand, utilities may not need to build new power plants, which are expensive and opposed in some places for environmental and health reasons.

A technology that would allow a computer chip to change the electrical resistance of some of its own wiring could lead to more-powerful reconfigurable microchips that can quickly adapt themselves to new tasks, researchers at IBM say.

IBM calls the research initiative collaborative driving, and the company says it's designed to prevent accidents and reduce traffic congestion.

"More than a million people die on the roads every year around the world, and people waste a lot of time and money sitting in traffic jams," says IBM researcher Oleg Goldshmidt. "You would like to help with both problems in any way possible."

MAGINE having to call an IT help desk to fix your central heating when it breaks down. That's not such a bizarre notion if a plan by engineers at IBM in Switzerland goes ahead. A cooling system they have developed allows the waste heat from computer chips to be put to use for domestic heating.

IBM is focusing on Lithium-Air batteries, which the company said has the potential to pack up to 10 times the power stored in Lithium-Ion batteries commonly found in cell phones and laptops.