Google: Good or Evil When It Comes to the Environment? | Environment. July 2, 2008 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. Now that it has unseated Microsoft as Earth's most recognizable and influential technology behemoth, Google has gone from a crowd-favorite upstart to an octopus multinational beneath the bull's-eye. As such, its innovations in search, advertising, video, open sourcing, communications, computing and beyond have taken a backseat to legitimate concerns over everything from its impossible motto, "Don't Be Evil," to its carbon footprint.
And while the former is a terminological chimera, the latter is an increasing problem for a planet that is practically warming by the day, due to a lethal combination of explosive global growth, rampant carbon dioxide emissions and lackluster world policy. To mangle the cliche, the evil is in the details. According to a recent Harper's annotation on Google's expansion, "In 2006, American data centers consumed more power than American televisions. " On Google's license renewal and principled engagement. After a week of mixed signals and speculation (see previous blog post), the Chinese government has decided to renew Google's web license. While a number of commentators are interpreting this as a "climbdown" or "wimp out" by Google, I don't understand how they have reached that conclusion.
As I pointed out last week, the only thing that has changed since March is that after typing "google.cn" into the browser's address bar and hitting "return," users have to make one extra click before reaching the uncensored google.com.hk. While the google.cn page now includes links to music, translation, and shopping services, the search box you see there on the page is just a static image that takes you immediately to google.com.hk as soon as you click on it. If you have grade school literacy in Chinese it's extremely obvious from looking at that page that if you want to search anything other than music or shopping you can simply click through to google.com.hk.
You ask: who is the winner? Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network. Google puts its foot down. This is a picture of people laying flowers and making a traditional bow of mourning in front of the Google sign outside Google's Beijing headquarters. Google's announcement that it will "review" its business operations in China and is no longer willing to censor its Chinese search engine, Google.cn, is generating a range of reaction in China. Conversation over at the #googlecn hashtag on Twitter - created shortly after the announcement - has been raging fast and furious.
The Chinese Twittersphere - comprised exclusively of people who are tech savvy enough to know how to get around censorship or they wouldn't be there - is generally cheering the news. Some need no translation, like this one which says: "Google's Do No Evil vs. CPC's Do No.1 Evil"(CPC means "Communist Party of China"). Another flag-waving constituency is thumbing its nose and saying good riddance. Google's decision was tough and is going to have a great deal of of difficult fallout. Doubting the sincerity of Google's threat. Unlike many other honorable members of the technology blogosphere, I am not too excited about Google's ultimatum to the Chinese government (if you have been living in a cave or are not on Twitter: Google wants to either stop censoring search results on Google.cn or shut down their Chinese shop altogether).
Of course, all companies make mistakes, and Google's executives may have discovered that they blundered when they decided to offer a censored version of Google.cn. I grant them the right to to fix the situation. But to wrap their decision in the melodramatic rhetoric of cyberattacks on Chinese human rights activists? Give me a break. Their supposed naivete about whom they were dealing with just doesn't sound very convincing. I won't be surprised if it turns out that cybercriminals in virtually every country wage cyberattacks on Gmail and other Google services. Google justified its limited presence in China by saying that the company provides some kind of a public service.
Google pulls out of China: what the bloggers are saying | Technology. People use computers in an internet cafe in Shanghai. Most Chinese bloggers have supported Google. Photograph: Nir Elias/Reuters Chinese bulletin boards and microblogs have been buzzing all day with chatter about Google's announcement. The vast majority either supported Google's decision to challenge the censors or expressed regret at the possible loss of a cherished search engine, but there was also criticism of the US firm's business tactics. Here is a translation of selected posts on the Sina microblog, which is inside the Great Fire Wall: "Just heard Google may quit China. I couldn't believe it. "Google quitting China is a case of survival of the fittest.
"Do Chinese people really need Google so much? "Google can't leave China! "China is a country governed by the rule of law. Did Google just sneakily launch a Facebook killer? - By Farhad Manjoo. For years, Google has had me all wrong. Type my name into the search engine and, amid a catalog of my many amazing achievements, you'll find the most scurrilous stuff: This guy thinks I'm an idiot, someone else says I'm misguided, and Wikipedia calls me"an avid Facebook enthusiast," which is a crude exaggeration.
I'm not alone; for many people, vanity searching can be an irresistible but crushing exercise, like asking a plastic surgeon to scrutinize your face. Is that really how the world sees me? You're shattered if Google says something nasty about you, but you're also shattered if Google says nothing about you. Farhad Manjoo is a technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal and the author of True Enough. Follow Now Google itself is offering some solace. In a blog post, Brian Stoler, a Google software engineer, wrote that the company is adding profiles to search results in order to "give you greater control over what people find when they search for your name. " Google philanthropy chief steps down in strategy shift - San Francisco Business Times: The executive director of Google Inc. said late Monday he will no longer manage the search giant's philanthropic efforts. Larry Brilliant said he will now become "chief philanthropy evangelist" for Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), and the company's vice president of business development, Megan Smith, will take over managing Google.org.
Brilliant said the unit will now work more closely to align what it does with the technologies that Google as a whole develops. He cited as examples of success under his leadership projects such as Flu Trends, which uses search data to track outbreaks of flu, and PowerMeter, which is developed to help homeowners track their energy use. “During our review it became clear that while we have been able to support some remarkable nonprofit organizations over the past three years, our greatest impact has come when we’ve attacked problems in ways that make the most of Google’s strengths in technology and information,” Brilliant wrote.
Google's Pursuit of Green Energy - National Business News. Power meter - Energy Information. We launched Google PowerMeter as a free energy monitoring tool to raise awareness about the importance of giving people access to their energy information. PowerMeter included key features like visualizations of your energy usage, the ability share information with others, and personalized recommendations to save energy. We partnered with device manufacturers and utilities around the world. Many of our partners now have new options available for accessing energy information. We are pleased that PowerMeter helped demonstrate the importance of access to energy information, and created a model for others. We retired the service on September 16, 2011.
We continue to see encouraging results about the importance of access to energy data. Momentum is building toward making energy information more readily accessible, and it’s exciting to see others drive innovation and pursue opportunities in this important new market. TG Daily - Throw your hard drive away, Google's Gdrive arriving in 2009. David Victor at Google: Examining the C in RE < C - PESD. Is Google Making Us Stupid? "Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave?” So the supercomputer HAL pleads with the implacable astronaut Dave Bowman in a famous and weirdly poignant scene toward the end of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Bowman, having nearly been sent to a deep-space death by the malfunctioning machine, is calmly, coldly disconnecting the memory circuits that control its artificial “ brain. I can feel it, too. I think I know what’s going on.
For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind. I’m not the only one. Bruce Friedman, who blogs regularly about the use of computers in medicine, also has described how the Internet has altered his mental habits. Anecdotes alone don’t prove much. Reading, explains Wolf, is not an instinctive skill for human beings. Sometime in 1882, Friedrich Nietzsche bought a typewriter—a Malling-Hansen Writing Ball, to be precise.