T-Mobile wants to celebrate Earth Day with environmental — and customer — friendliness. This week, the self-styled “Un-carrier” inked a long-term partnership with a renewable energy company that it says will reduce power consumption across its U.S. operations. And it’s doling out Earth Day benefits to customers who take advantage of its weekly T-Mobile Tuesday giveaways.
T-Mobile is teaming up with Enel Green Power North America on its 300 MW Red Dirt wind project. The investment, which T-Mobile said is the largest wind power investment by a U.S. wireless company, is expected to generate approximately 1,200 GWh of renewable energy annually — equivalent to the energy consumption needs of more than 97,000 U.S. households. T-Mobile said it will “increase efficiencies” and “power the company’s operations” across the U.S., including retail stores, call centers, and network operations.
T-Mobile is no stranger to green projects. In 2010, it launched its first solar-powered cell tower in Chalfont, Pennsylvania. Cellular base stations comprise as much as 80 percent of all energy consumption from cellular networks, T-Mobile estimated.
That’s not the only way T-Mobile is commemorating the holiday. It’s partnering with Treecycler to sponsor tree planting in over 30 restoration projects across four continents. Existing customers will be able to assist by opening the T-Mobile Tuesdays app and selecting the project of their choice from the Treecycler website.
“For Earth Day 2017, we’re thanking customers with green gifts and making it easy for everyone to do their part for the planet” John Legere, president and CEO of T-Mobile, said in a statement. “On top of that — this week’s T-Mobile Tuesday gifts make it easy for our customers to help with reforestation projects around the world — all it takes is a few taps on your smartphone.”
Finally, T-Mobile is hosting an Earth Day contest. Subscribers will have the opportunity to win Earth Day-themed prizes including solar-powered backpacks, $50 gift certificates to outdoor gear shops, and a grand prize of a COBI Plus biking system and a new bicycle.
T-Mobile’s other T-Mobile Tuesday benefits include a $25 Restaurant.com gift card, a free Vudu movie rental, $5 off eco-friendly Lyft Line ridesharing, and 50 percent off premium Paper Culture recycled paper cards.
T-Mobile joins its carrier competition in promoting sustainability. AT&T releases annual details about its carbon emissions and reduction plans. And Sprint is promoting “green handsets,” “green buildings” and “green information technology,” and has further pledged to improve its device recycling rate to 90 percent by 2020.
Motorola has built some of my favorite foldables and flagship phones. I had a great time with both the Razr Fold and last year's Signature. So when the company began teasing the Signature 27, I couldn't help be excited. The new model comes with Qualcomm's blazing-fast Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, and better still, it is finally getting a proper global release.
One of the reasons I was obsessed with the last-gen Signature was its amazing price tag. But it seems like that budget flagship dream might be officially dead. Portuguese retailer MegaPC has prematurely listed a 12GB RAM and 512GB storage Signature 27 in Pantone Coal Smoke for €1,594.90 (approx. $1,775).
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.