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If you want to “go green” while conducting your searches, then a new search engine is right up your alley. Echocho promises to grow up to 2 trees for every 1000 searches. The search engine allows users to choose whether they wish to conduct searches on Yahoo or Google.

As of this post, Ecocho had planted 2,873 trees which they say offsets 1,436,710 kilos of C2. The trees are purchased using 70 percent of advertising revenue. Echocho also has a toolbar which is available to download for Firefox or IE6 and IE7.

The design of Echocho features a white background, which may prove controversial for some eco-evangelists. Last year, Blackle launched as a Google custom search engine with a black design, which they said would reduce the amount of watts used during searches. As of this post, Blackle claims to have saved the earth 567,579.120 Watt hours.

The “big” search engines are no stranger to green initiatives. Last summer, Yahoo was trying to find the “Greenest City in America” while Google hosted a “Summer of Green” site that listed environmentally-friendly hotels and vacation destinations.

via The Daily Telegraph

Of all the App Engine apps in all the developer joints in all the Google universe, Google walks into a land mine: HuddleChat.

There’s only one problem: HuddleChat is a dead ringer for 37signals Campfire, the leading web-based group chat for business.

Why would Google endorse an app that’s the spitting image of one of the world’s most popular business chat products? Google prides itself on UI design. When we logged into Google’s App Engine poster boy, HuddleChat, we were surprised to find a Campfire carbon copy.

“We’re flattered Google thinks Campfire is a great product,” said Jason Fried, 37signals CEO and co-founder. “We’re just disappointed that they stooped so low to basically copy it feature for feature, layout for layout. We thought that would be beneath Google, but maybe its time to reevaluate what they stand for.”

How important is the Google App Engine product preview launch? Let’s see:

Google’s first-quarter earnings call will be on April 17, after market close.

Wall St. expects Google revenue to disappoint based on comScore CTR data.

App Engine marks the first full-frontal Google assault on Amazon.

The success of Google App Engine depends on developer trust in Google.

So it would seem either Salar Kamangar, Vice President, Product Management had no clue HuddleChat was an “Attack of the Clones” app or he gave the greenlight for a product launch knowing many in the developer community would likely view Google App Engine as a Xerox machine for copycat product developers.

We’ve asked Google and Salar for a statement. We’ll keep you posted.

The reaction in the developer community seems to be astonishment: calling Google’s choice “obviously ethically wrong” and a “straight-up copy.” One blogger wrote, “OMG, the Clone feature in Google App Engine is amazing. Turned Campfire into Huddle, a la peanut butter sandwiches.”

Or in the case of Google’s Campfire One, S’mores.

A search engine company has become involved with wind turbines in India and a hydropower project in Brazil.  Now, want to hear the really surprising part?  It’s Yahoo, not Google, that is behind the environmentally friendly effort.
Even setting aside the environmental impact, this qualifies as a good deed; in a post on the Yodel [...]

Google’s philanthropic arm, Google.org, has issued a call for investment proposals. Specifically, they are looking for entrepreneurs to propose ways to develop plug-in hybrid vehicles. Google.org is prepared to invest $10M in such proposals. They indicated that they were treating this like an RFP process, rather than a typical investment process, because they [...]

A carbon-reducing tree planting initiative backed by Dell and Ask.com will complement the deployment of new energy efficient servers for Ask’s datacenters.Ask.com announced it will be the first corporate customer of Dell’s ‘Plant A Tree For Me’ program. The program aims at creating an environmentally friendly response to electricity usage by planting thousands of trees [...]

Search engine Ask.com and Dell have partnered to protect the environment with custom energy efficient servers.

Ask and Dell’s Data Center Solutions Division (DCS) have created an environmentally friendly plan that includes a combination of hardware and services to make Ask’s data centers more energy efficient. Custom energy-efficient servers made by Dell have decreased Ask’s power [...]

Ask.com has seen brighter days. It’s one thing when nobody thinks you can compete with Google (Yahoo and MSN have yet to accomplish that), but it’s quite another to lose continually despite all efforts. The algorithm may have killed Jeeves, but that may have been a bad idea. (Technically, Jeeves is encased in carbonite. We [...]

A database previously open to government officials only has been made available to the general pulbic, with information on various sustainable development topics.

Climate change and land use are just a couple of the topics listed as part of the SustainLane database. The Resource Shelf website highlighted the opening.
Shirl Kennedy, senior editor as Resource Shelf, [...]

Last week a group of technology companies got together to announce the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. Led by

Web and audio conferencing has become the “in” thing for many businesses. It is cheaper than business trips, which require plane tickets and hotel rooms. It is more spontaneous than sending carbon copies of an e-mail to a small army of co-workers. Additionally, it is more virtual than pressing the s…
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