Archive for the ‘Government’ Category

Google Search Will Cease to Exist in China By Friday [Google]

As a result of Google standing up to cafeteria-manager China, demanding they serve pie every day of the week, China’s revoked their Internet Content Provider license, meaning in 24 – 48 hours the Chinese people can’t access Google at all. More »










Google – China – search – search engine – HongKong

US government lays out cash for wall-based, in-home ’smart meters’

Google has its PowerMeter, Microsoft has its Hohm and Obama has his “smart meters.” Got it? Good. Around two years after UK taxpayers began footing the bill for in-home energy monitors, it seems as if America’s current administration is looking to follow suit. While visiting the now-open solar facility in Arcadia, Florida today, the Pres announced that $3.4 billion in cash that the US doesn’t actually have has just been set aside for a number of things, namely an intelligent power grid and a whole bundle of smart power meters. Aside from boring apparatuses like new digital transformers and grid sensors (both of which are designed to modernize the nation’s “dilapidated” electric network), 18 million smart meters and 1 million “other in-home devices” will be installed in select abodes. The idea here is to give individuals a better way to monitor their electricity usage, with the eventual goal set at 40 million installed meters over the next few years. Great idea, guys — or you know, you could just advise people to turn stuff off when they aren’t using it, or not use energy they can’t afford. Just sayin’.

Filed under: Household

US government lays out cash for wall-based, in-home ’smart meters’ originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Maldives Government Meets Underwater to Show Effects of Global Warming [Scuba]

The Maldives, a stretch of islands off the coast of Sri Lanka, are so close to sea level that global warming poses a serious threat. So the government held a cabinet meeting underwater to bring attention to the problem.

Most of the Maldives lie less than three feet above sea level, which puts them much more at risk if global sea levels keep rising. Some scientists have warned that the islands could even be uninhabitable within 100 years (provided a rise of 7-24 inches), and the Maldives government has been vocal in the campaign to battle rising sea levels. Eleven of the 14 cabinet members attended the meeting, conducted with whiteboards and microphones 20 feet underwater, and all signed their wetsuits, to be auctioned off for the cause. [Telegraph, image from AP via CBC]

Arthur Levinson departs Google board amid FTC probe

We kind of doubt the departure of Genentech’s former chief executive from Google’s board of directors will close all of this out in the FTC’s eyes, but if you were curious about the impact of said probe, here’s your answer. Just two months after Google’s Eric Schmidt peaced out from Apple’s board due to a “conflict of interest,” Arthur Levinson has left Google’s board for presumably the same reason. Schmidt is still obviously fond of Sir Levinson, noting that he has “has been a key part of Google’s success these past five years,” and while he’s exiting the board, he’ll “always have a special place at Google.” So, now that all of this is cleared up, can we finally move on without worrying that the aforementioned search giant will buy up the world’s remaining inventory of dark fiber, fuse into Apple and create a telepathic iPod that would rule the world until the dawn of the Robot Apocalypse?

[Via New York Times]

Filed under: Software

Arthur Levinson departs Google board amid FTC probe originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Obama Bans Government Employees From Driving While Texting [Obama]

An executive order from President Obama bans all government employees—including soldiers and postal workers—from texting while driving if they’re working, driving one of Uncle Sam’s cars or using one of his cellphones. Meaning we’re all next. [Ars]