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This object may look like a bit of light sculpture you'd pick up at Ikea, but it's actually an energy-saving device. According to Inhabitat, "Southern California Edison power station manager Mark Martinez was looking for a way to get his customers to use less energy, and repeated automated text messages, emails and phone calls were not doing the trick. Then he hit upon the Ambient Orb, a glowing globe that changes color to represents changes in streaming data (weather, stock prices, etc). With a simple hack, Mark hooked the Ambient Orb up to his local grid, and created the Energy Orb, a device to visualize current grid load, and the relative price of electricity at any given moment."

We love the combination of artistry, ingenuity and economy here. Martinex apparently tried and discarded the use of text to alert customers, as verbal reminders quickly became intrusive. The orb, by contrast, is both subliminal and highly effective: customers who use it reduced their peak energy usage by 40%.

Alas, we see no way for you to buy the Energy Orb directly, though you could certainly hack an Ambient Orb the way Martinez did if you have mad DIY skills. You can, however, pick up the Energy Joule, which plugs into a wall socket and displays helpful information (including a color-coded usage indicator) to help you accomplish the same thing, albeit with less artistic elan.