You've heard of Granola, we all have.   But is it a green technology?   Yes and no.   It turns out the name is no longer trademarked so when Virginia Tech computer science faculty member Kirk Cameron and co-founder Joseph Turner decided to create intelligent software power management green software for use in servers, personal computers, and laptops, they named it Granola.

Though with academics it's hard to know whether they knew about trademark status or not.   Once every six months we someone in academia get funding for a "Science 2.0" tool despite it being a registered trademark everywhere it counts (not in Russia - after our building up the concept to 80 million Google hits, they decided to poach it and are evening naming a TV show Science 2.0 - good luck getting a trademark, copyright or IP honored in Russia, though) but Granola is completely legal everywhere except in Australia, where it is still registered.

Time Magazine had named it a Top 20 Green Tech Idea.

Their company, MiserWare,  gives away the product because “it puts the personal computer or your laptop on an energy diet, ensuring you only use what you need,” Cameron explained.   They charge for the Enterprise edition.    And it's been successful, being named to TIME magazine's Top 20 Green Tech Ideas.

Bryan Walsh wrote, “Granola, for example, can run in the background of your operating system and tune up your computer's own energy-saving hardware, ensuring you're not wasting volts unnecessarily.” Green information technology provides a way “to tune up your computer’s own energy-saving hardware, ensuring you’re not wasting volts unnecessarily,” Walsh added.

“It was awesome to read this. You can imagine how surprised I was, and pleased,” said Cameron.   "We set out to save the world.   We wanted to spread the impact of the technologies we developed to reduce energy waste in computers by creating software for use by the masses.”

Turner, now vice president of engineering , said the technology is intelligent. “Our software adapts to the user’s needs. It’s like having a car that is as fast as a Ferrari when you need it, yet as efficient as a Prius.”

The intelligent software tracks and predicts a system’s power usage and reports on the energy saved. Cameron said, “Projected reductions in system energy costs of up to 35 percent ensure no loss of productivity.”

The original 'Granola' was invented in the late nineteenth century by a health spa doctor and was baked.  It was also called Granula.   When Kellogg's decided to make its own they named it Granola to avoid trademark problems.    The better-known Granola of today became popular with hippies in the 1960s and various companies began offering it in myriad forms in the 1970s and 80s.