The new government of Yoshihiko Noda wants to reduce Japan's reliance on nuclear power in the medium term, but hopes to restart idle reactors in the meantime.

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They discovered that, depending on the amount of traffic in the network, devices in power-saving modes spend 60 to 80 percent of their time in idle listening.

ENGADGET: New 'subconscious mode' could improve smartphone battery life, supress your WiFi id

In previous work, they demonstrated that phones in idle listening mode expend roughly the same amount of power as they do when they're fully awake.

ENGADGET: New 'subconscious mode' could improve smartphone battery life, supress your WiFi id

In each case, the idle server continues to chew up power.

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In keeping with Toshiba's leadership in power efficiency design, the AL13SE Series uses Supported Enhanced Power Condition State technology to lower RPM idle speed.

ENGADGET: Toshiba's new 2.5-inch AL13SE hard drives: up to 900GB of 10,500RPM storage

The researchers have found that this kind of energy-taxing "idle listening" is occurring during a large portion of the time phones spend in power-saving mode---as much as 80 percent on busy networks.

ENGADGET: New 'subconscious mode' could improve smartphone battery life, supress your WiFi id

Boeing said in a statement that the fire was traced to a battery unit that helps power electrical systems when the engines are idle -- typically while a plane is being serviced or cleaned.

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