The program starts October 15, and is a welcome one in my household where the refrigerator and dishwasher are so inefficient they barely clean or work without making such a racket it disturbs the squirrel sleeping by the kitchen door.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, “Energy Star qualified appliance categories eligible for rebates include: central air conditioners, heat pumps (air source and geothermal), boilers, furnaces (oil and gas), room air conditioners, clothes washers, dishwashers, freezers, refrigerators, and water heaters.”

How about a few more product categories, including TVs, VHS tapes, cell phones, cameras and computers. No one ever knows how to dispose of these properly anyway? Some enterprising retailer or association may already be lobbying for such a program. Could be just the thing to keep the industry going after the holiday’s when sales really fall off in CE.

Weekday mornings have long been frenetic, disjointed affairs. Now families that used to fight over the shower or the newspaper tussle over access to the lone household computer — or about whether they should be using gadgets at all, instead of communicating with one another.

“They used to have blankies; now they have phones, which even have their own umbilical cord right to the charger,” said Liz Perle, a mother in San Francisco who laments the early-morning technology immersion of her two teenage children. “If their beds were far from the power outlets, they would probably sleep on the floor.”

For Families Today, Technology Is Morning’s First Priority – NYTimes.com.

And the winner is… the cell phone.

I’m pretty sure this is no big surprise to a lot of women out there. And to those fools who are thinking it’s because women like to talk on the phone all the time, the answer was directed to what is more helpful organizationally. The phone or the husband.

Shoe retailer Zappos.com and Bill Me Later surveyed 600 women and found “the majority of women polled ranked the mobile phone as more important than significant others in managing both their household and professional lives.”

HP just eliminated one more step in the home print process: The computer as middle man.

The new Photojet Premium announced today connects directly to Internet and sports a pretty spiffy touch screen interface. Scroll through application icons, touch to be taken to the Web site, access the information or object then hit print. Initially, this will launch with several set partners, but HP plans to allow open application development like the iPhone. Currently there’s Fandango for direct movie ticket printing, Googlemaps, and Coupons.com to access just the ones you need before heading out the door. Print photos directly from Snapfish or even the morning paper from USA Today.

At $399, it’s not cheap but HP’s Vyomesh Joshi, was practically giddy over the coupon function. Is it just a sign of the times that making it easier to clip coupons is a selling point, or is that really a reason to buy this printer?

One last art inspired post heading into the long weekend. You won’t find these fossils in a field, but artist Christopher Locke has a whole collection of fossilized electronics. Old game controllers, a Walkman, boombox, rotary phone.

And this concludes art week on Tech Bacon. Thanks for viewing…

Was there something in the water?

Design Within Reach sponsored this contest where five students from the Parson’s School of Design were challenged to create skins for Geneva Sound stereo using Gela Skins. The results turn these amazingly versatile audio devices into playful works of art. Although there are some who claim the Geneva’s are museum worthy in their unadorned state, I’d take one of these gussied up versions in a hot second.

Vote before midnight on your favorite design and get a chance to win your very own $799 combination speaker, radio, clock and iPod dock.

A short while ago, I attended Art Chicago and NEXT, the latter being the more experimental of the two showcases. Sure there were a lot of pieces that utilized the obvious — video clips, lighting, photographic elements. There were lots that were commentary on technology, and there were pieces that merged the two.

Like Brian Dettmer’s skeleton of melted and twisted cassette tapes.

And this piece of cardboard speakers painted white in a pile (apologies to the Artist, whose name I couldn’t get thanks to the performance artist who kept getting in the way)…

But even better is this, a collaboration between between Yves Behar and Samsung. An LED light installation at the just opened Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago. It doesn’t look like much in the photo, but it mesmerizes in person.

You can buy these, and other fun bacon themed accessories here…..