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Oh, you mean like all these things?

The Google Geo Challenge was also supposed to announce grants in January or February. They sent an email in March saying they were delayed due to overwhelming response, and nothing since.

Google grants seem quite popular! But better communication would be appreciated.

sorry, direct link
http://www.google.org/flutrends/

forgive me for replying to myself but...

forgot to post this interesting tidbit as well- google is getting into the energy monitoring game as well. they're trying to enlist utilities and "smart" meters to report household power usage.

there are also a slew of start-ups trying the same thing with households as well as larger institutions.

>Google frightens me sometimes. Almost every day now.

Nothing to be afraid, relas, as a matter of fact, you should take it easy in the next few days, because Google tells me you are getting the flu.

Is not a big privacy problem per se, not more than a census, but could be the start of a trend. Would hate to read it as "If you have no privacy, we can help you"

For starters, most people's first reaction to getting sick isn't to google their symptoms.

From the Google.org announcement:

We shared our preliminary results with the Epidemiology and Prevention Branch of the Influenza Division at CDC throughout the 2007-2008 flu season, and together we saw that our search-based flu estimates had a consistently strong correlation with real CDC surveillance data.

So either you're wrong, or you're right, and some yet undiscovered mechanism is allowing Google's search results to have such a consistently strong correlation that allows it to be predictive. Either way, it seems to work, and seems useful.

True - if weren't for the pesky fact that the Google curves and the CDC curves differ significantly, and not just in lag time.

Not according to the graph here

> I see you own a computer. Surely you could have
> sent your money to Africa instead?

You mean do something more like what google.org is doing? Just because they weren't egotistical enough to call it the Larry Page and Sergey Brin Foundation doesn't mean they didn't fund, well, all of it.

Why don't you just fucking fund the projects already and quit with the sleight of hand and weasel words.

I guess you've never heard of google.org?

Hopefully it will bring some education, which is good for the long term. We can't really expect an advertising company to give away food and drugs.

Google.org does the charity stuff.

Depends on when you run it. Coal plants burn more coal at night than they need for electricity to keep the furnaces hot for peak usage periods. If you run F@H between 9PM and 6AM, you're actually not having much impact on fossil fuel use, pollution or carbon footprint.

That's why electric utilities and some companies are developing programs to make the best use of off-peak power. Electric cars, for example, are exciting because they could engage timers that charge them only during off-peak.

F@H could do the same in principle, with a check-box to run only during late hours. I don't know if they have that feature now.

No, the summary is accurate. "Philanthropic" doesn't necessarily mean "non-profit." From the About Us page on Google.org, emphasis added:

Google.org is a hybrid philanthropy that uses a range of approaches to help advance solutions within our five initiatives.

Link: Google.org About Us. Quote: "But we can also invest in for-profit endeavors..."

With Nokia's acquisition of Trolltech (makers of Qt and Qtopia), Google is set to butt heads against a VERY large competitor, who is all-in on re-entering the US cellular industry.

Nokia is roughly the same size as Google (bigger in some ways, smaller in others), but more importantly, it's got more at stake. Qt/Embedded (a.k.a. Qtopia) is a heavyweight competitor to Android which has had far more design time, with a much more solid basis (Qt and Qtopia are both many years old, though Trolltech only recently aimed at cellular technology, which should be quickly rectified by Nokia's massive development teams). Google's dot-com mentality allows them to toss megabucks at an idea, like throwing things against a wall to see what sticks. If Android doesn't stick, whatever; they can afford it. If Qtopia doesn't stick, Nokia is back the drawing board and fighting a losing battle against LG.

Google's only merit is that they've been working on Andriod for longer than Nokia has been working on Qtopia (Nokia only finalized the Trolltech purchase last week). Google's only chance is to bring Andriod to dominance before Nokia manages to release Qt-powered phones. While they appear well-poised for this, the setback of this and other delays hurt the Andriod line more than you might think at a quick glance.

The cellphone platforms of tomorrow will be Apple iPhone, Google Andriod, and Nokia Qtopia. The other players (Motorola, Erickson, LG) will be left in the dust (or they'll adopt one of the above platforms rather than squeezing as much as they can out of standard J2ME). We'll see where Palm fits in with their revamped platform; they could easily go either way.

Can Google really face Microsoft on one front (office apps) and Nokia in the other? What about its bread & butter of web searching (their original front against Yahoo)? What's next, a car to take on Ford and Toyota? :-p

According to google.org Google has donated $33 milion from AdSense adverts to more than 850 nonprofit organisations in 10 countries throught the world.

The Make-A-Wish foundation has received more than 25% of all the online donations from Google.

Google has given more than 30% of all the yearly donations to the Doctors without borders program.

Google has also donated to the Grameen Foundation located in the US and $2 mils to the OLPC project...

http://www.google.org/recharge/

If only there was another billion dollar organisation funding medical research into diseases in the poorer areas of the world... Oh wait: http://google.org/predict.html

Key to Mr. Gates's plan will be for businesses to dedicate their top people to poor issues

Yes, because Google never donates anything to anyone.

How is this different from http://www.google.org/recharge/ which I read a while ago? Seems like it's pretty much the same project.. But maybe there are subtle but important differences that I'm overlooking?

Not quite. This is being funded by Google.org which is a subsidiary with a specific goal of doing stuff like this so it doesn't require a business case. See here. I think the whole "flow of information" thing was something some commentator came up with, not google.org.

if we cannot take a stand on censorship, how can we possibly expect China to?

Fine, take a stand on censorship. But by hounding Google, you're doing it wrong. I can't say this enough, it seems, so I'll bring out the obnoxious bold letters again. Google has no impact whatsoever on whether or not the Chinese government censors its citizens. None. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Goose egg.

Could they take it up as an issue and maybe make an impact using their financial resources? Maybe. But then, they could also take up fighting genocide in Darfur. They could take up preventing AIDS in Africa. They could take up womens' reproductive rights. They could take up building tidal wave detection and alerting systems in southeast Asia. They could spend every dime they have on solving the world's problems. They already spend a lot. Which other ones should they take up? What do they have to do before they're no longer evil? Go bankrupt?

If anything, by hassling Google, you're actually being counterproductive, as there are much more effective means of trying to make positive changes than wasting your time griping about a company that has absolutely no say-so in the matter at all. Do you really feel so strongly that filtering search results in China is so evil that you should boycott Google for doing it? I'm sorry, but that's pretty stupid.

Plus, if this is the standard by which you judge whether a company is or isn't evil, then you're pretty much screwed supporting any company. As I've said, every company that deals with China at all has to abide by Chinese laws. Do you have a television? Did any of its parts come from China? You obviously have a computer, who made all of the components in it?

Oh, and what do you plan on doing about the U.S. government? That's right, our own government. You know that huge national debt that we keep hearing about? Guess who owns $416.2 billion of it? That's right: China. Just to put that in perspective, that's just shy of the amount of money that has been spent on the Iraq War. That's right, put another way, China is indirectly paying for our little experiment in spreading so-called democracy. (You sure as hell didn't think that we were paying for it, did you?) So unless you want to move out to the wilderness and get by on subsistence farming and hunting, I guess you're supporting oppression in various places around the world.

So of all the productive things that could be done to help unfetter the Chinese people from government oppression, and of all the ways in which you depend on China to live a normal life, why are you singling out Google to pick on? I mean, I already know the answer, but I'm interested in seeing what you have to say.

I can't believe nobody simply checked. http://www.google.biz/ redirects, as does http://www.google.info/, but http://www.google.org/ is a page about the philanthropic arm of Google (it's still owned by Google).

Of course a company like Google would take pains to protect their brand name. It'd be stupid to think otherwise.

I don't see the other multibillionares (Google guys, Redhat guys, Ellison, Jobs, etc) stepping up to the plate and making any commitment EVEN CLOSE to the level he has.

Several other posters have already pointed out Google.org.

Not to take away from the goals and achievements of the Gates Foundation, but unless you have access to the personal financial data of Ellison, Jobs et al, you're only speculating that they aren't "stepping up to the plate." Also keep in mind that they can't make a commitment "EVEN CLOSE" to Gates' commitment in absolute terms simply because they don't have as much money.

I would like to hope that these guys are giving back to society, but just because they don't shout it from the rooftops doesn't mean that they aren't doing anything. Heck, are you gonna assume that I'm not making any charitable donations because I haven't announced it in a press release?

Have you forgotten about Google.org ?

http://www.google.org/

You think google are doing this to be altruistic?

I don't know. Do you? Sure, they'll make money with ads as they do it, but I wouldn't put it past Google to do things for altruistic reasons as well. I mean, they did make the billion dollar Google.org. I'm sure they're going to make a killing off of it by advertising, though.

I'll take you seriously -- here's what: http://www.google.org/

They offer a pretty decent deal to employees. They encourage their employees to work on non-assigned projects. Granted, the caliber of people Google has makes this deal work for them quite well, but I'd like to see it trickle down.

From what I know of them, they're quite the idealists, and they don't seem to be corrupted by money just yet. They tend to handle themselves well (not providing search info to DoJ). Even with the Chinese-censored Google, they did the overall best thing. They censor their results, but they TELL people when results are removed. They also haven't bothered to try and block alternate routes to real Google. So far, they seem to do a good job of weighing factors and not screwing people over too badly.

They seem more like scientists than businessmen, and even though society can't practically achieve the type of purity scientists tend to believe in, why not at least try to be the best? Something about aiming for the moon and landing among the stars. Cheesy, but there's something to it.

It's obvious from many replies that very few are familiar with what Google.org has already done. Mainly they've worked with non-profits who do very much what you folks suggest. They've been posting about it in the Google Blog and it reads like a book of how to do philanthropy in a sustainable, sensible, and empowering manner.

For instance, one of their partners is the Acumen Fund which invests in local start-ups making goods and services for the developing world (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/12/acumen-vis its-google.html). Another partner does produces subtitled television from local content as a means to increase literacy in India (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/12/same-langu age-subtitling.html). Others are detailed on Google.org itself. One such example is TechnoServe which is promoting business developement in Ghana (http://www.technoserve.org/). And they're not just throwing money at the problem, they're donating Google services (AdSense) and plan on supplying logistical and technical aid as well.

In short, all the whiny comments about what the developing world needs (parent post isn't one of them, but nearing that way) are pretty well misplaced. Google has shown a good degree of competence in their technical endeavours, that seems to be translating wonderfully to their philanthropic wing.

It may not be directly related to things like the code they are taking but they are giving things back to the world as a whole: www.google.org They give to projects like the Acumen Fund and PlanetRead.
And FYI, this site has been around for a looong time but they have been slow to put stuff on the page.

http://google.org/ does resolve and it just might mention cancer one day

Well, they did donate 1% of GOOG shares to a charity, http://google.org/ , in the form of a foundation. What furthur foundations and charities will be funded by a that is TBD. But 1% of the market cap of Google is a lot. I should tell you exactly how much but I would rather leave the task of dividing by 100 to the reader.

It was all in the IPO paperwork, in case you wererent paying attention.

1% of GOOG is a lot more than donating 1% of their personal stock, by the way.

Apparently Google thinks otherwise.
http://google.org/
Philanthropic = humanitarian.
Humanatarian = "[devotion] to the promotion of human welfare and the advancement of social reforms" (Thanks dictionary.com)

Another way to beat the DMCA:

Use NAFTA, chapter 11, which entitles any single investor in a business from one member nation to sue the government of another member nation for, pretty much anything which harms that business, including passing legislation, as I understand it. (from watching a TV show, I am not a lawyer.)

As one Canadian official put it (paraphrasing) if an American company sold breakfast cereal in Canada which contained plutonium, and we (Canada) passed a law prohibiting putting plutonium in food products, the Americans could sue us.

The scary part of this is that the arbitration is conducted behind closed doors by a committee. It basically undermines member nations soveriegnty, their power to make and enforce laws, and is a pretty terrible thing (according to the TV show I watched on PBS.)

On the bright side, maybe someone can use it to destroy the DMCA.

Here is NAFTA.

Enjoy.

Another way to beat the DMCA:

Use NAFTA, chapter 11, which entitles any single investor in a business from one member nation to sue the government of another member nation for, pretty much anything which harms that business, including passing legislation, as I understand it. (from watching a TV show, I am not a lawyer.)

As one Canadian official put it (paraphrasing) if an American company sold breakfast cereal in Canada which contained plutonium, and we (Canada) passed a law prohibiting putting plutonium in food products, the Americans could sue us.

The scary part of this is that the arbitration is conducted behind closed doors by a committee. It basically undermines member nations soveriegnty, their power to make and enforce laws, and is a pretty terrible thing (according to the TV show I watched on PBS.)

On the bright side, maybe someone can use it to destroy the DMCA.

Here is NAFTA.

Enjoy.

Plastic just ran a thread regarding an article on the subscription side of Inside.com. It was about an as yet unpublished book by UK physicist Sir Martin Rees titled "Our Final Century?" as of the date I checked, there was nothing to be found on that book on the three search engines that combined have never let me down before: GOOGLE (Web & groups), RAGING (secondary web search) & DOGPILE (Print news). Part of the the problem is likely to be how current the story was, so my back up was to hit the big UK media sites BBC.co.uk, thetimes.co.uk, etc. but these also drew blanks.

These people believed that, due to the few available options, they would gain some marketshare. Well.. The truth is that people seem to dislike ads. and this whole concept turned out to be a failure. Remember; here we are only talking 2 parties; one big (expensive) monopoly and one (cheap) firm who finances a lot with ads.

The Internet is a totally different story. When I go to Google and search for something chances are that I get a "zillion" results (esp. with the more popular items which will function as a magnet for ads). In other words; much more competition. If one site would start this webspam and another won't then I think I know the outcome. So its either all or nothing, and I truly do not see that happening. Unless they completely band together but... on the Internet? I don't think so Tim ;-)

Basically QT is an interface to the windowing system and as such highly platform dependent so "porting" the free linux version would basically involve writing the whole thing from scratch.. not an option..

All of the questions presented in this are available on trolltechs website in faq. Sometimes I wonder if people submitting questions even try to do their own research.. I mean how hard is it to point your web browser from slashdot to say Google or www.trolltech.com .

I am elated to finally find a paper that so clearly elucidates my position and observations. I am also saddened to realise that people who would benefit the most from it are also the least likely to read it and understand it.

3) That subjective experience either doesn't exist, or is unimportant because it is some sort of ambient or peripheral effect.

Item 3 in particular hit home; I have had the exact same conversation and thought process ("Perhaps the person I'm talking with doesn't have a subjective experience?"), for the last five years. The last time I had it was a few days ago while talking with a fellow engineer here at LithTech.

Subjective experience is not an easy problem; in fact, it is a very hard problem, but there is something in too many scientist's minds that makes them want to treat the subject as a superstitious topic, and treat those who find subjective experience difficult to fit within a computational framework as religious or spiritual zealots. Larson has correctly identified the currently popular model of the world, "Cybernetic Totalism."

By the way; Not understanding his paper is not something to be proud of. Ignorance about *anything* is not something to be proud of. Use a dictionary or a search engine, whatever it takes, and understand these words.

And there are other days when I think it's only a matter of time before the domain squatting starts to wind down as more gTLDs are opened up

NOT. Witness Google.net and Google.org . Microsoft.com is the same site as Microsoft..net . Squatters will squat on every available TLD. Even Slashdot.org has its own .com.

Isn't this what Google does?