When your laptop or phone is low on battery, it's time to cull the herd.

For most people, it's quite a chore to open up system utilities, & find a mix of CPU/RAM/other stats for programs with cryptic names.

So, Browser tabs & apps should have their tops show in hotter (redder) colors if those apps/tabs are consuming more resources. (Flash animations esp. are notorious.)

That would make it far easier for users to ID & kill things to extend life.
-- sophocles, Apr 03 2014

Could be extended to all sorts of other metrics like CPU usage, IO, internet use etc. Much like the "noisy tab" sound indicator that chrome added recently.

Could even mix colors. Red = Battery, Green = CPU, Blue = IO.

Red + Green = Yellow = High CPU and Battery use

Black = Idle in all respects

White = White hot in all respects.
-- ixnaum, Apr 03 2014


[ixnaum] Yep! It was the chrome audio indicator that got me thinking about doing more like this, but for battery!
-- sophocles, Apr 03 2014



random, halfbakery