VeryPC Fulwood 75% more efficient than Energy Star (and 4x faster than atom)

VeryPC announces the launch of a high performance 16Watt dual- cored media centre PC, aptly named Fulwood (after the prestigious suburb of Sheffield). At over four times faster1 and at almost half the energy consumption Fulwood offers extremely high performance and flexibility while retaining its environmental standing.

Brief specification:
The Fulwood, the size of a mac mini, despite its meagre power draw doesn’t fall short on features, which include an Intel P9500 2.53GHz dual core CPU, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD, Intel x4500HD graphics, DVDRW, remote control Windows Vista Premium, DVI (with DVI-VGA splitter for dual screens and HDMI adaptor), and surround sound audio (with SPIDIF optical interface Gigabit LAN).

Like with all VeryPC machines the Fulwood is fully customisable. Available options include internal WiFi, internal digital/hybrid TV tuner and internal Bluetooth.

VeryPC hopes the Fulwood will become one of the first PCs to be seen on the new European Energy Star List and the Energy Saving Trust’s Recommended List with impressively low power consumption figures of 16Watts idle for the base model, 19Watts idle with all the available upgrade options, and only 2Watts in ‘sleep mode’. These figures are 75% below the threshold of Energy Star 4.0 category B, which requires 65Watts or less at idle in Windows desktop.

Pricing and availability:
The Fulwood is available to pre-order on a deposit basis, and will be available to purchase online at www.very-pc.co.uk from mid October.

Prices start from £868 (inc. VAT) for the standard model and go up to £1104.5 (inc. VAT). All prices are for the PC only, and exclude monitor, keyboards and mice, and delivery.

Once again fish sustainability is top-most of the agenda with the Marine Conservation Society updating the fish to eat and fish to avoid list. And the UK’s most dedicated sustainable canned fish company supports their work but fears that the important messages about which fish to eat are victims of oversimplification.

“There’s been a bit lost in translation here unfortunately” says Tracy Wright, Communications Manager for Fish4Ever, “Journalists have quite rightly pinpointed tuna and anchovy as high risk in terms of sustainability but this is a really complex issues and sometimes suffers from being over-simplified. The Marine Conservation Society says anchovy in the Bay of Biscay need to be avoided and anchovy from elsewhere treated with caution. Tuna in general rates mid-way but there are many specific stocks in dire danger. If you look at both the analysis by Greenpeace on tuna and the MCS advice, you will find that Fish4Ever is choosing the best sustainability options”.

Fish4Ever Buyer, Raffaella Scoretti explains that on every product sourced, the company does a great deal of detailed research: “We avoid all the main dangers, we look at the science on overall stocks, we look at incidence and likelihood of illegal fishing, we look at methods, we look at where it’s fished and whose fishing it and we come up with a best choice. For example our anchovy is from the Mediterranean, we avoided the Bay of Biscay four or five years ago when our anchovy was launched, we use small local boats, we only pack a certain size”.
She adds: “The big anchovy problem in the Mediterranean is the quantities used to feed bluefin tuna in fish farms -anything from 10Kg to 15Kg of anchovy is used up to make 1Kg of bluefin. It’s crazy, somebody else’s madness could kill off our sustainability decision”.
And that is obviously one of the problems that needs to be addressed in fishing, the damage that one type of fishing or fishery can do to others….

Tracy Wright adds that Fish4Ever has worked really hard to make the right decisions with tuna and with the whole range but above all supports a pro-active and very open approach:- “Many companies say it’s too difficult to tell where their fish has come from but we don’t find it all difficult: every single product we have says on the pack both where and how’s it’s fished! Plus we give in depth details on our website through a “trace your fish” option on the front page – for every product we have, all the issues are covered per fish as well as more generally, it’s all mapped out clearly so consumers can make an informed sustainability decision”.

This week two groundbreaking Brits will start their attempt to break a new speed record in the most advanced wind powered vehicle ever produced.

Dale Vince, Ecotricity MD, and engineer, Richard Jenkins, will attempt to break the 116.7mph land speed record for a wind-powered vehicle (WPV), held currently by an American team, on Australia’s Lake Lefroy.

The Greenbird is a highly-evolved vehicle that uses a combination of technology found ordinarily on Aircraft and Formula 1 cars to achieve staggering speeds- with no engine in sight.

The chosen name is a nod to Donald Campbell’s all-conquering Bluebird, The Bluebird achieved incredible speeds in a golden age of fossil fuels – when oil was cheap and no one had thought that one day it would run out. Fast forward to today and we are coming to the end of the age of fossil fuels and the dawn of the age of Renewables. The Greenbird symbolises this historical watershed better than anything else.

“Cars of the future won’t be running on fossil fuels they will be running on Renewable sources of energy like the Wind. And with today’s technology we can achieve incredible speeds, using only wind power” said Dale Vince.  

Vince became involved in the Greenbird project as a result of his dedication to wind-generated technology – his pioneering power company Ecotricity introduced the concept of green electricity to the world, and has been building wind turbines and selling green electricity across the country since 1996. Ecotricity now supplies 35,000 homes across the UK.

The company also directly reinvests money that customers spend into new forms of clean power. Over the last four years Ecotricity has spent an average of £460 per customer, per year, on building and developing new renewable energy sources.

The Greenbird craft is a culmination of 10 years hard work, thousands of man hours and 5 prototype vehicles. For any powered speed record, the basic principles are pretty straightforward: more power means more speed and it is really only a factor of budget, engine size and guts to raise the record.

The Greenbird team saw no challenge in that. “We wanted to develop a purely technical solution that would deliver ultimate performance from a free and available resource – the wind. After 10 years I now have the right vehicle, in the right part of the world with the right team in support. We now just need the weather to cooperate!” said Richard Jenkins.

Dale Vince and Richard Jenkins will be blogging from the outback in the run up to the attempt. Sign up to RRS feeds and follow the team’s progress at the Greenbird website

Fishing Experts Fish4Ever and Marine Connection Join Call for Supermarkets to Add Sustainable Fish to Canned Range

Fish4Ever, the UK’s leading sustainability experts for canned fish, welcomes Greenpeace’s ranking of the major canned tuna brands and urges supermarkets to now address the issue comprehensively.

Fish4Ever has banned FAD’s and all other damaging fishing methods from all its fish from the very beginning and welcomes the recent increased interest in this issue.

Fish4Ever Founder Charles Redfern says: "Up until recently it’s as if the supermarkets commitment to sustainability didn’t stretch to the canned fish counter. We were the only ones to address the issue and we’ve been a voice in the wilderness for a long time so we’re really happy that Greenpeace and others have pushed this issue onto the agenda.

Marine Connection fisheries officer, Lissa Goodwin adds: "Eating fish can be a minefield for many people – dolphin friendly stickers are not necessarily helpful as there are many other sea creatures under threat. The only way to be sure that you are not going to be destroying the ocean habitat or risking the lives of sea creatures is to buy sustainable and ethical options. While some supermarkets are becoming proactive on the fresh fish counter it is time they considered the sustainability and ethical practices in their canned fish aisles!"

Fish4Ever’s approach is as comprehensive as possible: Land, Sea and People.  All land ingredients are organically grown. This has important sea consequences too as pollution and run-off of artificial fertilisers causes major problems to sea life. At sea, Fish4Ever supports better-managed seas, avoids the very serious and widespread issue of illegal fishing and only supports highly selective methods and equipment.  

But it’s the "people angle" which really sets the company apart. The fish resource is abused by foreign industrial boats responding to a global industrial demand system that does not take into account the planet or the producer. Fish4Ever wants to see this trend reversed, to link good consumers with good producers and above all to send a message through to everyone in the producing chain saying it’s not just about price, it’s about what you do and how you do it too.

The company has a comprehensive range of canned fish all sourced ethically and sustainably. The new Fish4Ever Fair Fish Skipjack tuna from the Maldives provides a 10% premium to ensure local communities are not exploited. Skipjack is the biggest fish consumption in the UK, it’s more than 50% of the canned fish market and accounts for a massive 20% in weight terms of all fish consumed! See attached brochure for further information about the hidden cost of tuna!

A hard copy of The Hidden Cost of Tuna is available from the company – contact Marketing Manager Tracy Wright on 01189238763 or email tracy@organico.co.uk and on www.fish4ever.co.uk

Fish4Ever is currently applying for accreditation from the Fair Trade Association.

Marine Connection is a British charity supporting dolphins, porpoises and other sea creatures. See www.marineconnection.org