A group of U.S. and Japan companies comprising of Hitachi, Mizuho Bank, Hewlett-Packard Japan, JFE Engineering and Cyber Defense Institute have been selected as contractors for joint "Project" collaboration supporting a world-leading Smart Grid project on Maui, a Hawaiian island that will serve as the Project site. The Project will be spearheaded by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization ("NEDO"). Hitachi will take a leading role and coordinate the entire project, serving as the project leader.

Just a week after Google introduced the Android@Home initiative, South Korea’s Conspin has release a new Android 2.1 remote for the connected home enthusiast. The Andi-One allows you to install up to 50 remote controls; smart touch on its 3.5” TFT LCD screen and Wi-Fi, IR and RF communication.

The Andi-One is accompanied by a cradle that allows it to connect to other appliances in your home.  There is a 3W, 2 channel stereo speakers; HDMI output port; DC port and Ethernet port, along with volume controls.

GreenWave has partnered with NXP Semiconductor to develop a new intelligent lighting control and management solution.  The solution is a combination of GreenWave Reality energy management platform with NXP’s GreenChip.  It will allow manufacture of energy-efficient compact fluorescent (CFL) and solid state light to create lights that we can communicate with individually.

DTE Energy, a energy provider to 2.1 million electric customers in Southeastern Michigan, has selected solutions from Itron and Tropos for its $168 million SmartCurrents program. SmartCurrents is DTE Energy’s first smart grid program and is targeted at modernizing the electric grid, improving distribution system reliability and efficiency, as well as empowering electric customers with more information about their power usage.

eMeter Corporation, a leader in Smart Grid management software, announced that Siemens Energy is the recipient of eMeter's 2011 Best Time to Value Award. eMeter announced Siemens' award at the 2011 eMeter Leadership Conference, that took place at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. The conference brings together industry leaders in smart meter data management to discuss current trends and best practices, share ideas and experiences, and connect with like-minded professionals.

Having Android in our home appliances has been in development for some time, by the MIPs Android Community.  However, this week at the Google IO developers conference in San Francisco they announced the Google@Home initiative, which means Google has put its force behind putting the Android platform into our everyday appliances.

Canadians with Samsung’s SMART Televisions, Blu-ray players and Home Theatre systems will soon be able to stream entertainment services from Zip.ca, a provider of on-demand movie and television content.  According to Samsung Electronics Canada, a Zip.ca application is coming soon to Samsung’s home entertainment systems which allows Zip.ca members the ability to instantly watch movies and TV episodes from Zip.ca.

Tropos Networks, the best-of-breed provider of wireless IP broadband networks for the smart grid, today announced new fixed mesh and mobile mesh routers, increasing its line of products that support the 4.9 GHz spectrum.  Tropos products expand the options utilities have for smart grid communications and provides them with an economical choice should they select to use licensed spectrum.

Setting the stage for ibec GLOBAL to help reduce international electricity pilferage, IBEC's GRID2020, a leading Smart Grid, real-time demand response and energy management solutions company, has acquired Kinects Solutions, Inc., a Canadian pioneer of transformer monitoring technologies and products related to detecting energy losses through diversion.