2Dec

YouTube Gets Its Biggest Makeover Ever, Becomes More Google-Like

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We already knew about YouTube’s redesign, which tech-savvy readers have been enabling for the past 10 days. As of now, however, the new YouTube is available to everyone.

Unlike parent company Google, which tends to roll out redesigns over a period of days, YouTube pressed the button and switched the homepage for every user worldwide at 4:30 p.m. ET Thursday.

So what’s the change all about? One word: channels. The world’s most popular online video service now sees itself as a descendent of cable TV, with millions of channels rather than hundreds — and it’s doing its darndest to encourage you to use it that way.

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1Dec

Google+ Brand Pages: Multi-Admin Capability ‘Coming Soon’

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Google+ Brand Pages Multi-Admin Capability ‘Coming Soon’

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Google+ will allow multiple admins to manage a brand page “before 2012,” Kristoffer Sorensen, a Google marketing strategist, said on in a live Q&A on Wednesday.

Currently, brand pages are tied to one admin account that has total control over the page and profile. This has been a point of frustration for social media managers who have multiple team members updating their company social profiles.

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29Nov

New Google+ Ad Shows Off The Social Network’s Biggest Problem

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Google+

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Google has released yet another TV commercial to help demonstrate the features of its new social network, Google+. Like the other marketing efforts, the ad is slick, polished and even sort of funny. Unfortunately, it also demonstrates everything that’s wrong with Google+ in a just minute’s time. In fact, if the video hadn’t been posted to Google’s own YouTube channel, you may have almost wondered if it was a parody put out by Facebook PR.

The ad, published the day prior to Thanksgiving in the U.S., tells the tale of two Google+ users, Kyle and Lisa. In it, Kyle places Lisa into his “Love of My Life” Circle while Lisa puts Kyle in her own unfortunately named “Creepers” Circle. Oh, poor Kyle! Over time, though, it becomes clear that Lisa and Kyle’s relationship changes, as the ad shows Lisa moving Kyle into a variety of other Circles, including “Book Club,” “Guys With Cars” (shallow much, Lisa?), “Ski House,” “Maybes” and finally, “Keepers.” Cue the awwwwww’s, right?

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28Nov

Google+ wants to usher in the masses. Can it?

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Television doesn’t exactly have a fabulous track record as a vehicle for promoting Web sites.

In fact, when I think about TV ads for Web properties, what springs to mind are all those pricey Super Bowl spots for Web 1.0 sites that flopped, such as Pets.com, LifeMinders.com, and OurBeginning.com.

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28Nov

Google’s Search for More Efficient and Low-cost Solar Thermal Power Plant Designs

Categories: Green Technology & Efficient Solutions
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Google has abandoned its effort to come up with better flat mirrors and power plant designs for producing electricity from the sun’s heat, but it is releasing its research results so that others could perhaps use it to create commercially viable solutions.

It’s interesting to see what Google thought it could contribute to the field of solar thermal power plant engineering. The company’s research has focused on using smaller engines and light-weight mirrors with better controlling software — along with a tower outfitted with equipment to receive the concentrated sunlight and run a turbine and generator — to produce electricity. It ran into some technical challenges with engineering a suitable power tower before it decided to shelve the research project.

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26Nov

Google Drops ‘Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal’ (RE

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Google Makes a Mistake

As you can see from the linked stories on the left of this article, Google is quite a big proponent of renewable energy. They have made all kinds of investments in wind, solar, geothermal, etc. Some are to generate clean energy for their own needs, others are more akin to financing deals to help big wind and solar farms get built. In any case, it is very commendable work and if more big corporations had the long-term vision of Google, the world would definitely be in better shape.

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26Nov

European consortia to build renewable energy farms in Arab deserts

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Europe’s ambitious project to capture solar and wind energy across Arab deserts to power homes in Europe, the Middle East and Africa inched forward Thursday despite technical and political hurdles.

Two international consortiums led by German and French industrial giants joined forces in highly complex drives to deploy solar panels and wind turbines in arid regions, and sink cables across the Mediterranean.

The two groups, Desertec Industry Initiative and Medgrid, signed a cooperation deal in Brussels on the sidelines of an EU energy ministers’ meeting, linking projects aimed at meeting 15 percent of Europe’s electricity demand by 2050.

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25Nov

Infographic: How to Use Google Search More Effectively

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Among certain circles (my family, some of my coworkers, etc.) I’m known for my Googling skills. I can find anything, anywhere, in no time flat. My Google-fu is a helpful skill, but not one that’s shrouded in too much mystery — I’ve just mastered some very helpful search tricks and shortcuts and learned to quickly identify the best info in a list of results.

Sadly, though web searches have become and integral part of the academic research landscape, the art of the Google search is an increasingly lost one. A recent study at Illinois Wesleyan University found that fewer than 25% of students could perform a “reasonably well-executed search.” Wrote researchers, “The majority of students — of all levels — exhibited significant difficulties that ranged across nearly every aspect of the search process.”

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24Nov

Google Pulls Plug on Renewable Energy Project

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Google Pulls Plug on Renewable Energy Project

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Google Inc has abandoned an ambitious project to make renewable energy cheaper than coal, the latest target of Chief Executive Larry Page’s moves to focus the Internet giant on fewer efforts.

Google said on Tuesday that it was pulling the plug on seven projects, including Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal as well as a Wikipedia-like online encyclopedia service known as Knol.

The plans, which Google announced on its corporate blog, represent the third so-called “spring cleaning” announcement that Google has made since Google co-founder Page took the reins in April.

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24Nov

How Tariffs Could Impact Solar Industry

Categories: Green Technology & Efficient Solutions
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Would tariffs placed on Chinese solar panels amount to “protectionism?” Are the companies most critical of the trade complaint “just crying foul?” And what’s more important to American companies, the race to grid parity or the desire to reclaim solar manufacturing from China?

With the creation of competing coalitions, the sides have been clearly labeled, and the opinions have become increasingly entrenched. But there remains a striking lack of clarity about what happens if and when tariffs are placed on solar panels and cells imported into the U.S., and how that could ultimately impact American businesses and American solar capacity.

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