Monday, May 14, 2007

Google v. Yahoo: Who Cares The Most About The Environment?

SouthPark dedicated an entire episode to the smugness of hybrid car drivers and San Francisco residents in general. The episode is funny because its largely true - Silicon Valley is well known for having a left-leaning, environment-loving population that sometimes feels superior to the rest of the country. They cheered when Al Gore won an Oscar for his movie about global warming, and they are cheering again as some of the largest Internet companies in the valley are jumping very publicly on the "green" bandwagon.

Google and Yahoo in particular seem to be in a race to prove who's the greenest.

Google

Google is investing a lot of money in solar technology, saying that they will partially power their huge data centers with solar power. They are also installing 1.6 megawatts of solar photovoltaic panels at their headquarters in Mountain View. The panels will cover the roofs of the buildings, and Google says it is "the largest solar installation on any corporate campus in the U.S."

There are frequent references to the benefits of being carbon neutral on the Google blog as well, and last year Google launched the " Summer of Green" website to help people travel in an environmentally friendly way.

Last week CEO Eric Schmidt said the solar energy policy is not only the right thing to do, but that it will save the company money as well. While it is certainly true that Google's energy costs will decline, the savings will come nowhere near to offsetting the cost and maintenance of the panels themselves. Google is doing this because they think it's right, and because they will get positive press out of it.

Yahoo


Not to be outdone, Yahoo has gone green in a big way, too. Earlier this year, co-founder David Filo pledged that Yahoo would go carbon neutral, basically by purchasing carbon offsets for their massive electricity usage.

Today Yahoo will go one step further, and they are bringing in actor Matt Dillon to help them. They (Yahoo and Dillon) are announcing the "Greenest City in America" challenge, and will search for the most environmentally friendly city in America. The winner gets a whole fleet of hybrid taxis (or the cash equivalent). Another fleet of taxis goes immediately to New York City.

Yahoo will also urge people to become more environmentally friendly via two handy websites -Be a Better Planet and Yahoo Green.

So who's the greenest? No idea. But more hybrid cars and solar panels are popping up around around silicon valley, giving the SouthPark guys plenty of material for a follow up episode or two.

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Swedish Game Site Power Challenge Raises $8 Million From Benchmark Capital

Benchmark Capital put $8 million to work with Swedish game site Power Challenge, the company will announce today. Power Challenge is a rich Internet application - a game that runs in java and plays very much like a video game. Users build and customize their teams and play against others for points and status. The quality of game play is high and is designed to push the boundaries between traditional PC gaming and online gaming.

Power Challenge, along with its sister site Manager Zone (acquired earlier this year), says it is adding 4,000 new players daily. They’ll use the cash from the financing to fund the development of new games titles, which are currently limited to soccer and hockey. The games are currently playable only on Windows PCs.

The company was founded in 2004.

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Friday, May 11, 2007

Infinity Watch Concept : MP3, Video, Curves-A-Plenty

infinitywatch1.jpg When you design a gadget that tries to do everything under the sun, it invariably both sucks and blows. At the very least, this 3D render of the Infinity doesn't hurt our eyes. To the contrary, it soothes them. The wristwatch has a display on the front that you can use to show off digital photos and video clips. That, and it plays MP3s. Since it's still just an artist's rendering, we'll likely never see it in the local Wal-Merde anytime soon. 'tis a shame, since they're so many quality wristwatch review sites out there. – Nicholas Deleon

Swatch Infinity, Mp3/Video/Photo Player Watch [Yanko Design]

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Pixsy multi-repository image search

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Ringtone/Mobile Game Retailer Playphone Does Big Round

playphone.png
PlayPhone strikes us as another startup whose core strength is not technology but deal making. The company has done deals on the content side to bring in famous name brands and then gone out to do the distribution deals.

PlayPhone.com drives traffic to its own destination site and powers mobile destinations for SEGA, ABC, Bandai, Lycos and RealNetworks. Regarding a recent Bandai deal, PlayPhone and Bandai expect to sell 100K units of their pre-paid Tamagotchi phone within 12 months of its July launch in the US.

PlayPhone has secured $18.75M in Series C funding led by Scale Venture Partners and joined by existing investors, Cardinal Venture Partners and Menlo Ventures. The startups says the funding will allow PlayPhone to expand into additional international markets this year.

playphone grab.png

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