Chicago utility company ComEd announced earlier this week it will launch a pilot program for 100 of its customers to test out the power of the sun . The program will include the installation of solar panels into 100 homes, and further devices — such as smarter thermostats which do things like lower during the day when no one’s at home, and give out hourly pricing information — in fifty of those homes. The meters will also have the ability to reward customers who generate excess solar power that can be pumped back into the grid — because everybody loves being rewarded, right? ComEd will choose the pilot families by mail-in survey, and by factors such as their roofs, and the amount of shading trees there are in their yards. ComEd launches pilot solar energy program for 100 customers in Chicago originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds

The ribbon was cut on Nokia’s New York and Chicago flagship stores in 2006 , but just three years later the shelves are coming down and staff are having to make alternative employment arrangements from early 2010 when doors will close. Joining the flagship London store on Regent Street which announced its closure two days ago , Nokia was hit with criticisms by analysts, including this stinging remark from John Strand, chief executive of Strand Consult: “Flagship stores are important in fashion industry: Apple is fashion. Nokia is consumer electronics” Double ouch. [ Reuters ]

Chicago’s 820-feet-tall Aqua Tower is one of those buildings that make me dizzy. It looks like a vertical version of the stunning Lençóis Maranhenses, the sterile desert in the north of Brazil, full of turquoise fresh water ponds: The architects, however, say that the Aqua Tower is inspired by the limestone outcroppings in the Great Lakes. Whatever the inspiration was, the building is pretty. Not as pretty as the lençóis, but pretty enough.

Think LTE is the future? How’s about the present? Clearwire is expanding its national footprint in a big, big way today by announcing WiMAX services in a slew of regions in a smattering of states. Starting today, 4G access can be found in both Honolulu and Maui, Hawaii, which effectively removes the last sane reason to not visit and / or relocate there.

We’ve already given you a glimpse at the N900 , but as of today, you Yanks in the crowd can wrap your own limber paws around Nokia’s hero device . Admittedly tailored for enthusiasts and developers to use while the company maneuvers Maemo into its product line, the N900 is now available through Nokia Flagship stores in New York and Chicago, the firm’s website and “various independent retailers and e-tailers.” A tidy sum of $649 (or $510 if you’re smart enough to check Amazon) nabs you an unlocked version with a 5 megapixel camera, 32GB of internal storage and a bombastic, Flash-lovin’ web browser. Ain’t no shame in lusting after one, but tell us earnestly — are you forking out nearly seven bills to bring one home? Filed under: Cellphones Nokia’s Maemo 5-equipped N900 on sale in America for $649 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds

We’ve heard of Apple spending money on minor restorations and renovations of the areas surrounding their stores, but $4 million to refurbish an adjacent subway station seems a bit excessive. Especially since they’re barely getting anything out of it. The pictured subway station is located on Halsted Street in Chicago, next to a future Apple store location. While Apple’s stipulation that the subway station renovations be completed by September 30, 2010 gives us a bit of a hunch as to when the store might open, it still remains a mystery exactly why the company is pouring so much money into prettying up a corner of Chicago. According to the agreement they’re not getting very much out of it: [I]n exchange for the improvements the CTA will lease the bus turnaround to Apple at no cost for 10 years, with options on four, five-year extensions. The CTA will also give Apple “first rights of refusal” for naming the station and placing advertising within the station, if the CTA later decides to offer those rights

Part centipede, part flamingo, Nunnmps is a research studio designed by Cheunvogl and to be located in Chicago. It looks like the perfect place to scheme a coup d’état or work on whatever mysterious projects it is intended for. Supposedly Nunnmps is elevated on stilt-like construction in order to preserve the secrecy of the research it will house and it’s hard to believe that anything of evil nature would occur in such a peaceful-looking place. But maybe that’s the brilliance of the design. Frankly, I don’t even want to know what’ll go on in there, I just want to know how to pronounce it

A recently dug-up Time Magazine article from 1951 applauds Zenith’s “Phonevision,” a way-ahead-of-its-time invention that allowed movies ordered over the phone to be watched on a set-top box , no physical media required. Phonevision wasn’t exactly a home theater PC or a Roku box, and actually had more in common with something like Pay Per View: It had three scheduled showings each evening, and you called and ordered one of the few options offered at a cost of one dollar per film. The set-top box would unscramble the picture and allow the movie to be watched on your TV. It was also limited to about 300 test subjects in the Chicago area, but they apparently loved it and Zenith was very excited about the prospects of moving “the theater into the living room.” But what, you might ask, were the choices on this very early service?

Thanks to all our Chicago readers who sent in their speed test data from their iPhone 3G and 3GS. Here’s our conclusion: the 7.2Mbps AT&T’s testing in Chicago doesn’t really make any difference right now in speeds. The 3GS turned out to be slightly faster in downloads (1202kbps vs. 1161kbps), but just about the same in uploads.

There’s been talk the last couple days about the fact that there really isn’t anywhere in the States to take advantage of the blazing 7.2Mbps downlink connection supported by the iPhone 3G S — except for one great hope, one diamond in the rough that could become a shining destination for 3G S owners the world over. That destination would be Chicago, where AT&T fired up 7.2Mbps trials late last year , and the hope was that they might be letting lay folk (like us) in on the action in time for the 3G S release. Well, we’ve been running side-by-side tests today, and the short answer is that we’re clearly not accessing 7.2 — granted, the 3G S is getting marginally faster speeds both up and down, but we figure this can easily be attributed to the new model’s faster processor because a doubling of the downlink pipe simply doesn’t account for a 100kbps bump in speed (latency was all over the map on both phones, for the record). If you’re holding out on upgrading from a 3G to a 3G S, go ahead and crack a smile — because for now, anyway, this is one spec bump that means precisely zilch in the real world. Filed under: Cellphones , Handhelds iPhone 3G S data isn’t really faster than the 3G’s in Chicago originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 20 Jun 2009 10:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds .