Energy-Efficient Automation, Miley Quits Twitter And Sidekick Woes

In this week's All Tech Considered, we begin with a discussion of a Solar Decathlon and ways to monitor energy efficiency in the home.

We talked about "Building Dashboard," a piece of software by Lucid Design Group that can monitor energy use in buildings. You can see a videos that explain their product on the company's Web site.

More from the segment:

• CEDIA, the trade group for custom home installers, says that there's been a 17 percent drop in revenue in the industry since 2007. Installers are turning to green tech and "Retrofit" installations in existing homes.
  
• Savant Systems uses Apple Mac OS as the operating system for its home automation products, including its new "Protege." Cali Lewis of GeekBrief.TV featured the company in a recent video shot at CEDIA's last expo.
  
• HomeToys, another Web site dealing with home automation.
  
• T-Mobile Sidekick users had a bad weekend: they were told that data from their phones stored on a server might be irretrievably lost. Hiptop3.com has today's Sidekick news updates.
  
• Miley Cyrus quits Twitter, composes a video rap to explain her decision (and, strangely, protect her privacy). Hey, it's more inspired than anything I could have come up with if I were to quit Twitter.
  
• A list of other celebrities who've quit Twitter. Some barely got started.