Daily Archives: June 13, 2007

Climate Savers Computing Initiative

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In the last two decades, the computing industry was obsessed with computing power. In the next two decades it will be obsessed with power — or more specifically, the colossal inefficiencies of conventional PC-based networking. It looks as thought, at last, the penny has dropped…

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Intel Corporation and Google Inc. joined with Dell, EDS, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), HP, IBM, Lenovo, Microsoft, PG&E, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and more than 25 additional organizations today announced the Climate Savers Computing Initiative (www.climatesaverscomputing.org). The goal of the new broad-based environmental effort is to save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by setting aggressive new targets for energy-efficient computers and components, and promoting the adoption of energy-efficient computers and power management tools worldwide.

“Today, the average desktop PC wastes nearly half of its power, and the average server wastes one-third of its power,” said Urs Hölzle, senior vice president, Operations & Google Fellow. “The Climate Savers Computing Initiative is setting a new 90 percent efficiency target for power supplies, which if achieved, will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 54 million tons per year — and save more than $5.5 billion in energy costs.

“We are asking businesses and individuals throughout the world to join with us to institute better power management of their computing equipment and purchase energy-efficient computers,” Hölzle added.

iPhone frenzy gathers momentum

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John Markoff has an odd non-article in today’s NYT. He appears to be obsessed with the iPhone’s lack of a mechanical keyboard.

The keyboard, however, is the biggest worry. At worst, customers will return the products. Currently AT&T gives customers 30 days to return handsets, but it is not clear whether it will maintain that policy for the iPhone. Any significant number of returns of the iPhone could conceivably undermine what until now has been a remarkable promotional blitzkrieg that culminates in the phone’s release June 29…

He’s way off beam. The biggest deficiency of the iPhone, to my mind, is the fact that you can’t replace the battery. In that sense, it’s an iPod clone. Will people pay $500 for a device they have to return to base when its battery gives up the ghost? We’ll see.

Shareholder democracy

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Well, well. What a surprise. Yahoo! shareholders reject call for greater internet freedom

Yahoo! shareholders have rejected a plan that called for greater freedom of access on the internet in countries such as China.

At the search engine’s annual general meeting in California, just 15.2pc of shareholders supported the motion to oppose restrictions on access to websites. A second resolution to create a corporate board committee on human rights was also rebuffed, winning just 4pc of the vote.

Public companies don’t do ethics for the same reason that my cats pay no attention to exhortations to be nice to mice and fledglings. At best, companies obey the (local) law. Everything else is posturing for PR purposes. That’s why it was naive to expect Google to do the right thing in China.