Making Smartphones Power-Smarter New Android app highlights a
trend toward power-aware programming 28 January 2010—Power
drains on smartphones are becoming a bigger problem as users
want their mobile devices to work faster and do more. Now
researchers at the University of Michigan have come up with an
application called PowerTutor, which lets you monitor your
phone's power usage and compare the efficiency of one app to
that of another. Released late last year, the app, currently
available only for Google's Android phones, also gives mobile-
app developers a chance to streamline their programs. "Power has
always been an issue," says Kirk Cameron, an associate professor
in the computer science department at Virginia Tech, who edits
the Green IT column for IEEE's Computer magazine. But now the
problem is more mainstream than ever before, he says. "It's
become a mobile world, and there's been an insatiable demand for
performance." But performance costs power. With the PowerTutor
app, users can now track how much p