Don't blame the fridge for your steep power bills -- an Australian consumer agency study has found that videogame consoles and plasma flat-screen TVs are major electricity guzzlers, even when left on stand-by.
The recent study by Choice said Sony Corp's Playstation 3, closely followed by Microsoft's Xbox 360 and plasma television sets, consumed the most power out of a list of 16 electronic devices tested, including laptops, stereo systems and DVD players.
"Our tests found that leaving a Playstation 3 on while not in use would cost almost... five times more than it would take to run a refrigerator for the same yearly period," said the study which was published on Choice's Web site
"The plasma TV set was also a power hungry device, consuming over four times more power than a traditional analogue set. The average desktop computer was third on the list." 
clipped from: www.eweek.com