Google Invests $168m In World’s Biggest Solar Energy Plant
Google has invested $168 million in one of the world’s biggest solar energy plants in the Mojave Desert in California.
BrightSource Energy is developing the Ivanpah Solar Electric generating System and Google’s investment will help to complete the project. Once it’s finished in 2013, the plant should generate 392MW of renewable electricity and supply 85,000 homes and businesses.
Utility Exchange reported in February 2010 that BrightSource Energy was scaling back the solar project to protect the endangered desert tortoise.
The director of green business operations for Google, Rick Needham, said the power plant was “the equivalent of taking more than 90,000 cars off the road over the lifetime of the plant, projected to be more than 25 years”.
The U.S. government is also providing funds for the solar plant. The U.S. Department of Energy announced it is providing $1.6 billion in loan guarantees in support of the Ivanpah Solar Energy Generating System.
In a statement the U.S. Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, said “Today’s announcement is creating over 1,000 jobs in California while laying the foundation for thousands more clean energy jobs across the country in the future”.
The California solar project is a different kind of solar scheme. It uses mirrors to focus the sun’s rays onto a solar receiver on top of a tower. The solar receiver generates steam which in turn spins a turbine and generator to create electricity. The tower will stand 137 metres high and will use over 173,000 dual-mirror heliostats. Work on the project began in 2010 and while it was originally due to be operational by 2012 it should now be completed by 2013.
This is just one of several renewable energy schemes that Google has got involved with. Recently the internet search engine giant announced it would invest $5 million in a solar power plant in Germany.
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Join The Google Wave
A new tool from Google will be introduced to the public today as it goes on trial, reports BBC News Online. Google Wave combines email, instant messaging and wiki-style editing.
Google describes the tool as “how email would look if it were invented today”. They say it will revolutionise how people communicate online.
From 1600 BST today 100,000 invited users will be able to nominate 5 other people to “join the Wave”. Among the functions of the tool include real time typing meaning that people can see a comment being written and have an answer or comment ready before the other person has even finished their comment.
The conversations, unlike instant messenger, can continue even once everyone is logged out and anyone involved in the conversation can read the whole strand in full at a later date. The messages can even be edited at any point by those taking part in the conversation. In fact, Google now writes all its design documents in Wave.
It’s also easy to share photos in Wave. They can just be dragged from the desktop into the Wave platform.
Google Wave will run in most browsers but it doesn’t run in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Google says that anyone using internet explorer will have to download a plug-in called Chrome Frame. However Microsoft does not recommend using this as they say it will compromise security.
However, Google say they have tried hard to make Wave work with internet explorer but with internet explorer still being the main browser everyone uses, it may affect the take up of the Wave.
Google report that over a million people have expressed an interest in the Wave platform and it will get a full launch next year.
Source and further information: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8280864.stm
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Vodafone Joins The Social Networking Party
Vodafone is trying to join the party currently being dominated by Apple, Google and Nokia. They have launched a suite of net services for mobiles and PCs, reports BBC News Online.
The service is called Vodafone 360 and it unites customer’s contacts with information from social networking sites such as Facebook. The service replaces Vodafone Live!
Vodafone 360 will be initially launched in eight countries in Europe and has been designed to work best with two new handsets from Samsung. A further four handsets from Nokia will be preloaded with the service.
An analyst said Vodafone’s service was similar to other products from Apple and Palm which also build social networking into the handset.
The service will be able to be used on other networks meaning that if a Vodafone customer moved to another provider they could still use Vodafone 360. Users of the service will also be able to access over 1,000 applications. In comparison the Apple iPhone offers over 65,000 applications.
Source and further details: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8272841.stm
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Microsoft’s Bing Closes In On Google
The new search engine from Microsoft, Bing, is beginning to challenge Google, reports Timesonline.co.uk. Research statistics suggest that in the 3 months since it went live, Bing is the fastest growing internet search engine in the U.S. and it has now has an 11% share of the market.
Google still has a huge share of the market with 65% but it is increasing at a slower rate than Bing.
This week Bing introduced Visual Search allowing users to search images rather than text links. This is only in the Beta stage at the moment and will concentrate on travel, health, leisure and shopping.
In 2010, Bing will benefit from the deal Microsoft struck with Yahoo! this year and searches on Yahoo!’s websites will be generated by Bing.
Source: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article6837577.ece
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Microsoft Bing Goes Visual
In an attempt to add something to make it different from Google, Microsoft has added a “visual search” to its Bing search engine, reports BBC News Online. It means users will be able to look at the results of searches using pictures instead of text.
Microsoft says the ability to search visually will concentrate on four main areas for a start: travel, health, leisure and shopping. Microsoft added that the world of searching is set to change.
Investors say that the competition between Google and Microsoft is good news for consumers as “competition breeds innovation” (Ron Conway – investor).
Microsoft launched the beta version of the visual search tool at TechCrunch 50 in San Francisco and claims it allows users to carry out some searches quicker than a traditional image search, which is the search offered by Google. Microsoft claims results are processed 20% faster than text only results.
As the search facility is still in the test stage only a few topics will be available to search visually and these will include entertainment, shopping and sports.
Source and further details: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8256046.stm
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BT and Google’s Boost for Small Business
BT Business and internet giant Google have today announced an agreement where they will jointly offer digital marketing services to small businesses, and will see BT Business becoming a Google AdWords™ Authorised Reseller.
According to an issued BT press release, small businesses now have access to Google’s base of millions of UK users and receive professional, full-service AdWords account management, including account setup, activation and ongoing campaign monitoring and optimisation, serviced by BT Business.
BT Business currently serves over a million businesses, which includes 350,000 members of BT Tradespace – an online community designed to bring businesses and their customers together to do business trading and build long lasting, relevant relationships, whose members will also benefit from the deal.
Bill Murphy, managing director of BT Business said:
“Small businesses are looking to the internet to compete and grow in these tough economic times…
… Our own research across 700,000 small business websites shows that the majority need help to optimise search and effectively use search engine marketing. They don’t often have the skills internally to manage this and need affordable services and support. Working with Google AdWords will enable us to help smaller companies promote themselves and engage with customers, partners and suppliers online as well as larger businesses.”
Today’s announcement also claims that the addition of the Google AdWords online advertising platform will mean that BT Business can now offer its customers a complete range of digital marketing services which will help them to promote their businesses effectively on the Web – from setting up a website and managing an online marketing campaign, to ensuring they can effectively extend their business relationships through dedicated customer management tools and business social networking profiles like BT Tradespace and other business applications.
www.btplc.com (BT Business to work with Google to get small businesses noticed)
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Google Increases Pressure On Microsoft
Google and Sony have reached a deal for the Google Chrome browser to be pre-installed on some Sony computers, reports telegraph.co.uk. The move will mean Google is in direct competition with Microsoft as their Internet Explorer browser is the standard browser on many computers.
It’s not clear which computers will be affected by the deal or whether the browser will only be pre-installed on computers in the U.S.
It’s thought that the browser will be installed alongside Internet Explorer as Microsoft’s Windows operating system is used by Sony computers.
Google says that all those who use the Chrome browser react positively towards it although it only accounts for around 3% of the global browser market. In contrast Internet Explorer has 67% of the market with Firefox accounting for around 22.5%.
Microsoft initially said that it would sell the new operating system, Windows 7, in the UK and Europe without Internet Explorer being pre-installed but it has now said it will sell European customers Windows 7 with the option to chose which browser they would like to install on their system.
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/sony/6120851/Sony-to-install-Google-Chrome-browser-on-PCs.html