Get Broadband.. Save Planet

Can the internet save the planet? Solar arrays and wind farms grab all the green technology attention, but the Internet is quietly providing ways to save energy.

Last October, environmentally conscious Netheads everywhere got some excellent news. The pervasive use of Broadband Internet connections and the tools and practices they enable could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by some 1 billion tons over the next decade, according to the American Consumer Institute. Widespread adoption of broadband in the United States alone would cut energy use by the equivalent of 11% of annual oil imports, the group says.

Clearly, though, when it comes to energy use, the Web is both a crusader and a culprit. Server farms and data centers burn mountains of CO₂, much of it to keep machines cool. But now a new crop of companies and thinkers is trying to make the Internet "carbon neutral" and find ways to use Web-based technologies to reduce worldwide energy consumption through "demand-response" schemes that give energy consumers more direct control over their energy use.

Internet-enabled capabilities like telecommuting, e-commerce, teleconferencing, and distance learning that have been around for decades are expected to play an increasing role in cutting energy consumption--reducing air travel and the need for warehouses, trips to the mall, and even malls themselves. The American Consumer Institute projects that telecommuting alone will cut CO₂ emissions by more than a half million tons over the next decade (see table, above). Overall, the Internet economy could help reduce growth in greenhouse gas output by 67% over the next several years, the study says, citing data from the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.

Silicon Valley investors like John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins and Vinod Khosla, who made their fortunes from Internet-based technology, are now focused on slowing global warming, channeling billions of dollars into technologies such as solar power and wind farms. And Google has said it will build a series of renewable-energy plants that will produce a total of 1 gigawatt more cheaply than coal. That's enough to power a city the size of San Francisco, and the project is likely to cost a few billion dollars.

Couple the potential of Internet-related technologies with these investment engines and the optimists among us might foresee a significant dent in the energy crisis. But such pronouncements mask the inconvenient truth that the Internet hogs a great deal of power, particularly for big server farms on Google- and Amazon-like scales.

source: www.informationweek.com


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technorati tags: internet, save planet, save energy

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More TV viewers turn to web

More television viewers are turning to the Internet to watch videos, films and TV episodes, according to a new survey.

Harris Interactive conducted the survey and Joan Barten Kline, a spokeswoman for the company, said in a statement:

"Viewing videos online seems to inspire a sense of adventure, particularly among younger viewers." More than one-third of viewers overall and half of those 18 to 24 said there is something they really enjoy about discovering a cool video online. "They seem to take particular pride in their finds online and share them with friends," Barten Kline added.

More than 42 percent of YouTube viewers said they visit the site frequently, up from 33 percent last year.

Apart from YouTube, which most people favored because they felt it had almost every video they could find, 43 percent said they have watched a video on a TV-network Web site, followed by 35 percent on news sites and less than 30 percent on search engines such as Yahoo and Google.

This is no different here in the Philippines, most pinoys are now turning to web videos to catch up with tv shows, telenovelas, or cartoon series they failed to watch on TV. Looking at Alexa.com you can see that YouTube is currently 3rd most visited site in the Philippines, another popular video site here is Crunchyroll.com which is like a one-stop video shop for all things anime. This site also has a large collection of asian tv dramas that viewers can watch for free.

How about you, any video sites that are eating your precious time lately? How much of your time is spent on watching TV compared to viewing web videos?

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technorati tags: youtube, TV viewers, web videos

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Have you tried googling yourself?

I'm just curious since i read this study on cnn, saying that more americans are googling themselves.. meaning they type their names on Google search engine and find out what the results will be.

About 60 percent of Internet users said they aren't worried about the extent of information about themselves online, despite increasing concern over how that data can be used.
53 percent of adult Internet users admit to looking up information about someone else, celebrities excluded. Often, it's to find someone they've lost touch with. But looking up information about friends, relatives, colleagues and neighbors also was common.

Privacy on the internet has been a serious issue lately. People can learn a lot about a certain person just by searching at their friendster, myspace, or facebook accounts. That's why others are very careful on whatever information they are posting on the net, especially nowadays with companies also doing this online checking to know more about certain job applicant's background.

Last time I checked myself on google, top result pointed to my very old gaming site on geocities. The next were from pc game strategy guides i made for gamefaqs. How about you? Have you tried googling yourself lately? Is it really you that came on the top result or just someone with the exact same name.

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technorati tags: tagname

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