Reducing Greenhouse Gases....The Google Way

Google is well known for taking initiatives for a greener planet now they released a patent application for a "water-based data center." Basically, it would sit on a ship in the ocean and use tidal power for electricity and actual water for cooling, neat hey?

Floating Data Center Schematic

The main purpose of these data centers would be to provide computing or telecommunications in times of emergency, but I kinda think it could be a more permanent thing. Data centers are expensive to build and maintain, and this low cost (environmentally and economically, no property taxes!!!) electricity would save Google tons of money. Google, you have such great ideas. Does Microsoft have anything to offer like this? Doubtful.

The Greenhouse Effect

Google Roundup for August 31st to September 7th

Most of the news has already been covered so far this week. The biggest item was the release of Google Chrome which is a super fast stable browser and this was followed by the release of Picasa 3.0 beta  which is a big improvement over previous versions. The rest of the news is rather limited but here it goes:

• New imagery has been released in Google Earth.
• There is a new sublayer in Google Earth called "Hurricane Season 2008", and what a season it has been so far. This has forecasted paths along with current positions of active Atlantic Hurricanes. 
• Check out this KML file showing all the satellites . All I can say is super cool, there are about 13000 of them up there. 
  

Since the release of Google Chrome, I have been using it a lot. Things I love about it are its speed, management of downloads (FF3 has this annoying blinking window), ability to add shortcuts to web applications (Google Docs) which has caused me to use them more often, and the layout. It looks like Google has another winner. 

Seinfeld and Gates

The new Bill Gates-Jerry Seinfeld ad was aired last night during the NFL game, it is 90s in length, check it out below and let me know what ya think. Personally, I find it brutal. Gates is an awful actor, Seinfeld gives a sub par performance, and Microsoft isn't mentioned until second 90 in this 90 second commercial. Microsoft, you just can't do anything right these days. 

Picasa 3.0: What an Update!!!

What a week for Google, on Tuesday they released their own browser, Google Chrome, which has already passed Opera in number of users (Microsoft, you better be worried), and on Wednesday an impressive update was provided to Picasa. Beta version 3.0 has a ton of new features, here they are:

1. The new Blemish Tool which is similar to the clone tool in Photoshop and Eyedropper in Corel Photopaint allows the removal of unwanted areas in a photo. Unlike Photoshop or Photopaint, a preview is given before the effect is applied.
   
   
2.  Red-Eye removal is improved to provide better color matching of pupils.
   
   
3. Picasa now has Video editing, although basic, you can do such things as add soundtracks, title cards, and place photos together with various transition effects.
   
   
4. Picasa now has its own Photo Viewer, and is much better than the Windows Photo and Fax viewer. 
   
   
5. Collages can be automatically produced from a picture folder and has a bunch of options. 
   
   
6. Cropping is made a lot easier. Picasa provides 3 automatic cropping selections, along with preview thumbnails, manual mode and other ratios are also provided.
   
   
7. The coolest feature is Face Recognition. Within the program Picasa 3, photos can be filtered by those having faces. In Picasa Web Albums, name tags are possible, a face in a photo is tagged and pictures with that same face are found. So unlike Facebook which requires tagging every person in a photo, Web Albums can automatically do it for you. 
   
   
8. There is a new sync to web feature that automatically updates online albums when photos are added/edited on the computer.
   
   
9. The program is much faster.
   
   
10. A new text tool has been added to easily add text to any photo. 
    
    
11. There is a new Explore page that allows viewing of public photos all around the world. 

As you can tell, this is a massive update. Unless your into some heavy photo editing, save your money and go with Google Picasa. 

Picasa 3.0: Impressive Update

Google Chrome is Now Available for Download

I've been trying all day, but Google Chrome is now available for download here. Enjoy this new product and let me know your opinion of it.

Update: Chrome is super easy  to install, one of the easiest programs ever. I've only been playing with it for 15 mins but it is so fast, blazing fast. I'm trying to get use to the tab above the address bar view, its different but I kind of like it. Also, it recognizes previously viewed pages very well. I always had a problem with FireFox recognizing Google Docs, I would have to type in http://docs and it would pop up. With Chrome I just type in Do and I can easily select docs. Have fun playing with this new browser. 

Google Is Going to Have it's Own Browser: CHROME

I just got this breaking news from CNET news. Rumors have been floating around about a Google Browser, but today some European writers and developers received a 38 page comic of what the new browser will be like. Visit this site to see all 38 pages, I took a quick glance and it seems pretty awesome (increased stability, speed, and security). Let me know what you think. Note that the comic was drawn by cartoonist Scott McCloud, I love Google.

UPDATE!! Tomorrow a beta version of Chrome will be available in 100 countries.

Google Roundup for August 26th - September 1st

This summer has gone by so fast, I cannot believe that it is Labour Day, and back to work tomorrow followed by teaching. It has been a busy summer on the Google front, now its time for some more news:

• If your a blogger like myself, you'll notice a new feature over the next few weeks. The new feature is called Following and it allows you to know who is following your blog. When the followers icon is clicked on, followers can be browsed, along with the blogs they write and you can read any other blogs they are following. Also, a new tab has been added to the Blogger dashboard called Blogs I'm Following, this will show automatically the latest posts from blogs that you follow. I love social networking.

Blogger + Social Networking

• Related to the above bullet, for any Google Reader users, you will now see a special folder called Blogs I'm Following, which allows you to see all of the blogs that your following. In the future, Google Reader will become more social by adding the Google Friend Connect.
• Hurricane Gustav is all over the news, and if you want to check out its current track, click off the weather layer to see satellite photos, radar, storm tracks etc. Check out many of the weather tools available in Google Earth by clicking on this file created by the Google Earth people.
• For all of you GPS people (I think I may be one soon),WikiLoc is a site that allows users to upload and share GPS tracks. This is now available in Google Earth as its own layer.
• Here is some more good news for Google Earth and Maps users, a new satellite which will be launched on Sept. 4th, will provide imagery for both of these programs, and it does this super fast, an area the size of New Mexico can be done in 1 day!! The name of the satellite is the GeoEye-1 adn has the highest ground resolution color imagery commercially available.
• Google Sites had just received a nice improvement. In the past, if you wanted to add a Google Spreadsheet to your site, it would have to be published to the world (shared with everyone), but no more, the requirement has been dropped.
• Some new features have been introduced to Google Calendar, adding a friend's calendar, creating new events for those busy schedules, and reminder times have been improved, check out this blog for more details.
• IES (Integrated Environmental Solutions) has released a free plugin for Google Sketchup that calculates a building's energy use and carbon dioxide emissions. It looks like the environmental movement is here to stay!!
• YouTube has introduced a new caption feature to videos. Check out this page for more information.

Enjoy the rest of Labour Day, and remember to fill up with an extra dose of coffee in the morning. See you all next week.