It's a Google world

Database News - Wednesday December 12, 2007

INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

It's a Google world

If you thought Google just meant searching on the Internet, boy have you got a surprise coming; the company started another facet of its plan for world domination with the announcement it was going to both fund and participate in the search for renewable energy technology, such as wind and solar; the bottom line is that it must be cheaper than coal and in true geek fashion Google named it Project RE‹C (Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal, geddit?).

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced a $200,000 contest for entrepreneurs to develop green energy; competitors will be helped by monitors along the way, and the winner will also get help in developing their business plans.

Google's next step in Controlling Everything will be to bid against communications giants in the next big US auction for radio spectrum; Google claims it wants to open up a spectrum spot where consumers could use any hardware they wanted, not just what the owners dictate as with phone companies for example; "It's important to put our money where our principles are," said Eric "I Know Jack" Schmidt, Google's CEO.

The British government said it was only kidding about losing two lousy data CDs with full banking details on 25 million people; it bragged it lost a lot more disks and data than that, at least six CDs, and it had failed so badly to protect citizens it might take months to find out the damage meaning - at last the country had something from the government it could believe.

We know what you've been doing since last summer; online trackers Compete.com were watching, and they saw you increase your surfing time by 24.3 percent, from 100 hours to just about 125 hours a month.

New Zealand police arrested 18-year-old AKILL for alleged involvement in a worldwide cybercrime gang responsible for infecting 1.3 million computers with so-called zombie robots to steal personal information; young master AKILL did most of this while in his so-called "classroom" at the "school" he attended in Hamilton, where he designed an encrypted virus, called "very sophisticated" by the FBI although he got no extra credit from the teacher; other arrests were likely in the US and Holland.

A 33-year-old South Korean quarry worker was found dead with the imprint of his mobile phone on his charred shirt front, and parts of the phone's battery strewn around; clearly a case of an exploding battery figured the eagle-eyed Cheongju Heungdeok police, until they questioned a co-worker Korean style; he folded faster than a cheap accordion, and confessed he accidentally backed into the victim with his backhoe, then rigged the death scene to make it look like the phone did it.

They said if George W. Bush became president the government would soon want to know who was buying used books from Amazon.com, and they were right; the US Justice Department demanded that Amazon hand over a load of records on their used-book customers; Amazon refused, and the judge sided with the book seller; now that you're outraged, the reason the government wanted the records was they were prosecuting a man who pretended to sell used books through Amazon for tax evasion; whatever, the government never got the records, but of course Amazon and all its business partners have them. Another judge ordered the government to turn over records of conversations with telephone companies, which are seeking immunity from possible punishment for turning over call records to the government.

Motorola CEO Ed Zander finally jumped off the roller coaster; chief operating officer Greg Brown will replace him at the top of the company, which has had a lousy year after failing to follow up on its amazing and profitable Razr.

When Windows XP gets Service Pack 3 and Vista sucks up SP 1, tests already show that XP will out-perform Vista by 2-to-1. Microsoft said some computers are supposed to break into Fur Elise or It's a Small, Small World; it's a feature, not a bug, explains the helpful Help Desk at tinyurl.com/23wjev.

Verizon Wireless of America said it was going to do what DTAC of Norway did during the last century in Thailand - unlock the network so that customers can use any phone they want, not just the ones they buy from Verizon. Verizon Communications and Vodafone, joint owners of Verizon Wireless of America, announced they intend to use Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard backed by GSM networks worldwide instead of the ultramobile broadband (UMB) standard backed by their partners; the move will Verizon Wireless smack in the GSM world.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said he will start selling a high-speed, 3G version of the iPhone within a year; tellingly, he said that Apple Inc's Steve "President for Life" Jobs will - great Freudian slip - "dictate" the price.

US media tycoon Barry Diller moved into China with a $100 million plan to launch Ask.com in Chinese, and various other services; he figured he can do much better than big players like eBay and Yahoo, who have had to turn to local partners to help them in the world's second most populous online market.

Greenpeace.org ran an online contest to name a whale, with suggestions such as Amal, Malaya, and Libertad - which came second to the winner, with 72 percent of the vote: Mister Splashy Pants.

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