Space Shuttle Endeavour Cleared for Nov. 14 Launch

The space shuttle Endeavour is set for a Nov. 14 launch toward the International Space Station, where astronauts hope to deliver new gear that will prime the orbital outpost for double-sized crews, top NASA officials announced late Thursday.

Endeavour is slated to rocket toward the space station at 7:55 p.m. EST (0055 Nov. 15 GMT) on a

15-day mission to deliver a new crewmember and equipment that will help boost the outpost up to six-person crews. The spaceflight will mark NASA's fourth shuttle flight of the year, the most since 2002.

"We're in very good shape to go fly," said NASA shuttle program manager John Shannon in a status briefing. "We're really looking forward to getting back into orbit."

Earlier today, NASA officials also announced a new delay to a separate shuttle mission, the STS-125 flight of the Atlantis orbiter, to launch a seven-astronaut crew on the last service call to the Hubble Space Telescope. That mission was slated to fly in February after a data relay glitch aboard the telescope thwarted plans for an Oct. 14 blast off.

Hubble engineers successfully switched the space telescope to a backup data relay system and, earlier today, released the first new image from the observatory since the Sept. 27 malfunction. But problems with a spare unit NASA hoped to launch aboard Atlantis to fix the ailing system for good will add months of extra checks and tests, mission managers said.

Meanwhile, Endeavour will launch as planned with its own seven-astronaut crew.

Commanded by veteran astronaut Chris Ferguson, Endeavour's STS-126 crew is slated to blast off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., with a payload bay packed with a second space station kitchen, spare bathroom, new sleeping compartments, extra gym equipment and a water recycling system. The new gear is due to be installed and tested over the next few months to allow the station to double its current three-person crew size in mid-2009.

"This is an extremely complicated mission for us," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's space operations chief.

Ferguson and his crew also plan to perform four spacewalks during the mission, which are primarily aimed at cleaning and greasing up a balky solar array joint on the station's starboard side. The joint, which has been damaged by bits of metal grit, is one of two designed to spin the station's outboard U.S.-built solar arrays like paddlewheels so they always face the Sun as the station orbits the Earth.

Set to launch with Ferguson next month are shuttle pilot Eric Boe and mission specialists Don Petit, Steve Bowen, Heidi Stefanyshyn-Piper, Shane Kimbrough and Sandra Magnus. Boe, Bowen and Kimbrough will make their first trips to space during the mission.

Magnus, however, plans a much longer stay in orbit than her crewmates. She will replace fellow NASA astronaut Gregory Chamitoff, who launched toward the station last June, as a member of the outpost's Expedition 18 crew until her own replacement arrives in March.

"When we get six people up there, I think it's big enough that it still won't feel very crowded," Magnus said of helping to double the station's crew size. "But this will be very exciting."

SPACE.com -- Space Shuttle Endeavour Cleared for Nov. 14 Launch

Netflix watch instantly videos heading to TiVo

It's been about 4 years since TiVo and Netflix announced they were working together to stream video to TiVo set top boxes. Since then, Netflix has developed technology that lets you watch videos on a PC, and more recently a Mac, without waiting for a DVD to arrive in the mail. Heck, even the Xbox 360 got more Netflix love than TiVo this year.

But apparently good things come to those who wait. And wait. And wait. Because today TiVo and Netflix have finally announced plans to begin rolling out the "watch instantly" feature to TiVo set top boxes.

Here's how it works. You'll need to be a paying TiVo and Netflix subscriber to use the service. But if you meet those requirements, you'll be able to browse a library of 12,000 movies and TV episodes from your couch using a TiVo Remote control.

The service will only be available to TiVo Series3 and TiVo HD users. Older TiVo units don't have the hardware to handle the video codecs Netflix is using to encode the video.

Netflix watch instantly videos heading to TiVo - Download Squad

Hands on: Windows Media Player 12's surprising new features

Though many previously bundled applets now will ship separately to Windows 7, Windows Media Player remains part of the core OS. Windows 7 will ship with Windows Media Player 12, which includes some surprising new features.

The UI itself is brighter and lighter than WMP11. Some buttons and toolbar items have been moved around, but the experience should be pretty familiar to users of version 11. What does represent a big change is the removal of the Now Playing button, which in WMP11 switches to a view showing the current playlist.

This is because WMP12 completely separates library management from what's currently playing, with two distinct player modes; Now Playing view, and Library view. Library view contains all the library manipulation features that should be familiar from WMP11. Now Playing view contains the current playlist, visualizations, and videos. 

Library view


Now Playing view with a video


Video playback controls


Now Playing playlist


Now playing visualizations

There's also a new taskbar miniviewer that works with the new Windows 7 taskbar, and WMP12 includes support for Jump Lists.

Taskbar Mini viewer


WMP's Jump List includes WMP-specific actions

Aside from the split between Library and Now Playing, the basic operation of WMP12 is the same as in version 11. There are plenty of small refinements, like automatic previewing (hovering on any song plays a 15-second preview of the song), and the Library view now shows all media types in the tree simultaneously (WMP11 can show audio or video or TV or Pictures; now they're all on display).

Audio previews

A common annoyance with many media players, WMP included, is not having the right codec. WMP will try to detect which codecs are required and provide a location to download them, but this is hit-and-miss and less than convenient if all you want to do is play a video. In recognition of this, WMP12 includes support for H.264 video, AAC audio, and both Xvid and DivX video, in addition to all the formats supported by WMP11 in Vista (MPEG2, WMV, MP3, etc.). With these new codecs, WMP should support the majority of video found on the Internet out of the box.

The area of WMP12 that has seen the most work is how it works with networked resources. WMP11 has the ability to browse the libraries of other users on the local network, as long as they're using WMP, too. WMP12 extends this to allow browsing not only of WMP libraries, but also of iTunes libraries. With the aforementioned H.264 and AAC support, WMP12 can play most iTunes media. It's only "most" because, of course, Apple won't license its FairPlay DRM to third parties, so WMP is unable to play DRM-protected iTunes Store tracks.

It's not just libraries that are improved. WMP12 makes it easier to play back audio or video on remote devices, a feature dubbed "Play To." WMP12 can stream to other computers in your HomeGroup, so, for example, you can browse your library on your laptop but actually play back on the HTPC connected to your sound system.

Remote streaming set-up

As well as streaming to remote PCs, WMP12 also includes support for controlling Digital Living Network Alliance v1.5 devices. These are networked devices with audio and/or video playback capabilities; so, similar to the scenario of streaming to an HTPC, you might be streaming audio to a Sonos box. Each device being Played To has its own playlist and playback settings and is controlled through its own little window.

The Play To controller for a network device

If a device can't handle the format being streamed, WMP12 will detect this automatically and transcode it on-the-fly.

Though WMP12 is very similar to WMP11, it's nonetheless a very compelling advance. Rather than ignoring the success of iTunes and the use of non-Microsoft video formats, Microsoft has acknowledged this reality and decided to make WMP work as well as it can with them. This attitude represents a hugely refreshing change from the software giant's past behavior, and WMP is greatly improved as a result. The situation is similar to that with the Windows Live Essentials, where interoperability is a key long-term objective. This is good for consumers, and it will prove to be good for Microsoft. Long may it continue.

Hands on: Windows Media Player 12's surprising new features

Windows Vista & Server SP2 Beta Released to Testers

Microsoft have made available build v6002-16497 of Service Pack 2 for both Windows Vista and Server 2008 to testers late last night. The bits show a compile date of October 17th and weigh in on average around the 3 Gigabyte mark.

Early reports show that the build has a smaller memory footprint, you can find more discussion here on our forums, we'll update this post when more information becomes available.

So far, x86 & x64 versions of English, German, Japanese, Spanish and French language have been made available for testing. If you were lucky enough to be selected, head on over to Microsoft Connect to pick up your flavor of the test build.

Link: Microsoft Connect (Registration required)

For people without a Connect account, you can register here with your Windows Live ID (required) for consideration to test current and future products on offer from Microsoft.

Windows Vista & Server SP2 Beta Released to Testers

Mirror's Edge PS3 Demo Tomorrow, Xbox 360 Demo On Friday

Originally expected November 6, a playable demo of DICE's Mirror's Edge will be released this week instead. The PlayStation Store will have the demo tomorrow, and the Xbox Live Marketplace will have it up on Friday.

The demo will include a tutorial and part of the single-player story mode, and those who have pre-ordered the game will be able to use a code to unlock a Time Trial mode.

 

Mirror's Edge ships for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 November 11, with a PC release following later this winter.

Mirror's Edge PS3 Demo Tomorrow, Xbox 360 Demo On Friday - Shacknews

Hubble Space Telescope Bounces Back from Glitches

The Hubble Space Telescope appears to be in good health after weeks of troubleshooting following a debilitating glitch that thwarted its ability to beam cosmic images back to Earth, NASA officials said Wednesday.

Engineers reactivated Hubble's science instruments over the last week and are poised to release the first new image from the iconic orbital observatory on Thursday, said Susan Hendrix, a spokesperson for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., where

space telescope operations are based.

"I'm sure they're relieved," Hendrix said of Hubble's engineering team. "They are just probably back to checking and double checking their work."

The Sept. 27 failure of a vital data relay channel left the 18-year-old Hubble telescope unable to transmit the bulk of its science data and imagery. The channel, the Side A relay of Hubble's Science Instrument Control and Data Handling system, had been working properly since the telescope launched in April 1990.

Efforts to switch to a backup Side B channel last week met with challenges of their own, with two separate glitches thwarting the initial attempt. But a second try appears to have been successful, with Hubble engineers reactivating the telescope's main science instruments over the last week.

The remote control fix required engineers to power up and switch to backup systems that had been hibernating since Hubble launched into space.

Hubble's September data relay channel failure prompted NASA to delay a planned Oct. 14 space shuttle launch to send seven astronauts to the orbital observatory on a fifth and final service call to the telescope. That mission is now slated to fly no earlier than February, with Hubble engineers testing a spare data relay channel to see if it can be added to the shuttle's cargo bay and be installed during the flight.

Hubble officials are expected to give an update today at 5:00 p.m. EDT (2000 GMT) on plans for the servicing mission. The service call is expected to include five spacewalks to add a new camera, upgrade guidance equipment, replace aging batteries and gyroscopes, deliver a docking ring and include repairs for systems never designed to be repaired in space.

The final Hubble overhaul is expected to extend the space telescope's mission lifetime through at least 2013, mission managers have said.

SPACE.com -- Hubble Space Telescope Bounces Back from Glitches

Mercury Flyby Reveals New Oddities

Scientists are tackling new oddities at the planet Mercury via images beamed home by a NASA spacecraft that zoomed past the small, rocky world earlier this month.

NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft returned 1,287

new views of Mercury during an Oct. 6 flyby, the second this year, which revealed nearly a third of the planet that had never seen before. The result: visions of Mercury’s western hemisphere showing an area that is 30 percent smoother than the planet’s eastern half.

“We need to think hard about why that’s actually the case,” said Maria Zuber, a MESSENGER co-investigator at MIT in a Wednesday briefing.

During this month’s encounter, MESSENGER’s cameras caught an odd feature on Mercury, a so-called “wrinkle ridge” some 1,968 feet (600 meters) high, about twice the height of similar features seen on Mars, suggesting the planet has contracted in on itself considerably as it cooled, Zuber added.

The new photos show some empty craters on Mercury lying next to others nearby that are filled in by vast, solidified lava flows. One such crater was filled with so much solidified lava that, on Earth it would bury the Baltimore-Washington, D.C., metropolitan area in a layer 12 times the height of the 555-foot (169-meter) Washington Monument.

“That’s an awful lot of volcanic material in one place for such a little planet,” Zuber said. “A lot has been going on inside of it to cause melting that then extruded to the surface.”

Images from MESSENGER’s first swing past Mercury earlier this year yielded evidence that ancient volcanic activity, not space rock impacts, shaped the planet’s smooth plains. Altogether, MESSENGER's two flybys and NASA's earlier Mariner 10 mission have mapped about 95 percent of Mercury's surface, reserachers said.

Other instruments aboard MESSENGER found strong interactions between Mercury’s magnetic field and the sun’s solar wind, which led to supercharged energy exchanges equivalent to the output of about 100 medium-sized power plants on Earth, researchers said.

“That was just a knock-your-socks-off observation,” said Brian Anderson, MESSENGER’s deputy project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. “We weren’t expecting it to be that intense at all.”

The spacecraft also spotted magnesium in Mercury’s wispy, tenuous atmosphere for the first time. Infrared views of the planet’s surface revealed more views of material that currently defies identification, but shows up dark blue in enhanced images.

“We really want to get into orbit so we can get some geochemical measurements of this material so I can stop saying blue material,” said Mark Robinson, a MESSENGER co-investigator at Arizona State University, adding that the odd stuff could be some sort of opaque mineral.

MESSENGER, short for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging, is the first spacecraft to take a close look at Mercury since NASA’s Mariner 10 probe zipped by the planet three times in 1974 and 1975.

But unlike Mariner 10, the $446 million MESSENGER mission is destined to circle Mercury for at least a year once it enters orbit on March 18, 2011. The spacecraft launched in August 2004 and flew by Earth once and Venus twice before zipping past Mercury for the first time on Jan. 14 to use each planet’s gravitational pull to tweak its flight path for the 2011 rendezvous.

SPACE.com -- Mercury Flyby Reveals New Oddities

Xbox 360 Getting HD Netflix Streaming with NXE

We all know that when the New Xbox Experience launches on November 19, one of the cooler features it'll bring is the ability for Netflix subscribers to stream movies through their 360 consoles. Now, it turns out this feature gets even better: As Engadget reports, Netflix will be premiering their high definition video streaming service with the New Xbox Experience.

While details are still scarce, what's most curious about this announcement is that, at least at first, it seems this feature will be exclusive to Microsoft's console. Not only will other Netflix players be left out of HD streaming, even Netflix's "Watch Instantly" feature on their own website won't have the option. We have to figure this will only be a timed exclusive and the service will come to those other portals eventually, but how long Microsoft gets to call it their own isn't yet clear.

Engadget notes that they previewed an episode of Heroes in HD, saying that the quality was "stunning." While this is exciting news for TV junkies and movie buffs, there is a small catch: This will be a "soft launch," and only around 300 titles will be available to stream in HD at first. Furthermore, don't forget that just being a Netflix subscriber isn't enough -- to stream movies through your 360, you'll (oddly) have to be an Xbox Live Gold subscriber as well.

Xbox 360 Getting HD Netflix Streaming with NXE

First look at Windows Media Center in Windows 7

In case you hadn't heard, Microsoft is officially pulling back the curtain on Windows 7 today. And while the Windows taskbar, Window behavior, and gadget/widget engine have been overhauled, so has the Windows Media Center interface.

Windows Media Center is a built-in application for accessing music, movies, photos, and live TV (if your PC has a TV tuner card) using a 10-foot interface rather than the typical 3-foot PC interface. In other words, you can plop down on your couch and watch videos using Windows Media Center and a wireless remote or keyboard without finding yourself squinting at the screen.

The Windows 7 version of Windows Media Center includes a number of changes, including:

• New fonts in the Start Menu make it easy to see a larger number of items without the display looking too cluttered.
• The Now Playing thumbnail window is a bit larger than in Windows Vista.
• If you don't have album artwork available, Windows Media Center will create multi-colored backgrounds for your albums rather than filling you screen with a bunch of blue boxes with white text.
• There's a new details view (shown above) which lets you view information about videos, albums, or photos without launching a whole new window.
• The new "Turbo Scroll" feature lets you scroll through large music libraries much faster by holding down your left or right remote control buttons. Turbo Scroll also works when browsing the TV listing menu.
• H.264 video playback is supported out of the box.
• The TV and video seek bar is now clickable, letting you jump to a particular point in the video.

There's also a new on screen keyboard that makes text entry much easier.

First look at Windows Media Center in Windows 7 - Download Squad

First look at Windows 7's User Interface

At PDC today, Microsoft gave the first public demonstration of Windows 7. Until now, the company has been uncharacteristically secretive about its new OS; over the past few months, Microsoft has let on that the taskbar will undergo a number of changes, and that many bundled applications would be unbundled and shipped with Windows Live instead. There have also been occasional screenshots of some of the new applets like Calculator and Paint. Now that the covers are finally off, the scale of the new OS becomes clear. The user interface has undergone the most radical overhaul and update since the introduction of Windows 95 thirteen years ago.

First, however, it's important to note what Windows 7 isn't. Windows 7 will not contain anything like the kind of far-reaching architectural modifications that Microsoft made with Windows Vista. Vista brought a new display layer and vastly improved security, but that came at a cost: a significant number of (badly-written) applications had difficulty running on Vista. Applications expecting to run with Administrator access were still widespread when Vista was released, and though many software vendors do a great job, there are still those that haven't updated or fixed their software. Similarly, at its launch many hardware vendors did not have drivers that worked with the new sound or video subsystems, leaving many users frustrated.

While windows 7 doesn't undo these architectural changes—they were essential for the long-term health of the platform—it equally hasn't made any more. Any hardware or software that works with Windows Vista should also work correctly with Windows 7, so unlike the transition from XP to Vista, the transition from Vista to 7 won't show any regressions; nothing that used to work will stop working.

So, rather than low-level, largely invisible system changes, the work on Windows 7 has focused much more on the user experience. The way people use computers is changing; for example, it's increasingly the case that new PCs are bought to augment existing home machines rather than replacement, so there are more home networks and shared devices. Business users are switching to laptops, with the result that people expect to seamlessly use their (Domain-joined) office PC on their home network.

As well as these broader industry trends, Microsoft also has extensive data on how people use its software. Through the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP), an optional, off-by-default feature of many Microsoft programs, the company has learned a great deal about the things that users do. For example, from CEIP data Microsoft knows that 70% of users have between 5 and 15 windows open at any one time, and that most of the time they only actively use one or two of those windows. With this kind of data, Microsoft has streamlined and refined the user experience.

The biggest visible result of all this is the taskbar. The taskbar in Windows 7 is worlds apart from the taskbar we've known and loved ever since the days of Chicago.

Text descriptions on the buttons are gone, in favor of big icons. The icons can—finally—be rearranged; no longer will restarting an application put all your taskbar icons in the wrong order. The navigation between windows is now two-level; mousing over an icon shows a set of window thumbnails, and clicking the thumbnail switches windows.

Right clicking the icons shows a new UI device that Microsoft calls "Jump Lists."

They're also found on the Start Menu:

Jump lists provide quick access to application features. Applications that use the system API for their Most Recently Used list (the list of recently-used filenames that many apps have in their File menus) will automatically acquire a Jump List containing their most recently used files. There's also an API to allow applications to add custom entries; Media Player, for example, includes special options to control playback.

This automatic support for new features is a result of deliberate effort on Microsoft's part. The company wants existing applications to benefit from as many of the 7 features as they can without any developer effort. New applications can extend this automatic support through new APIs to further enrich the user experience. The taskbar thumbnails are another example of this approach. All applications get thumbnails, but applications with explicit support for 7 will be able to add thumbnails on a finer-grained basis. IE8, for instance, has a thumbnail per tab (rather than per window).

Window management has also undergone changes. In recognition of the fact that people tend only to use one or two windows concurrently, 7 makes organizing windows quicker and easier. Dragging a window to the top of the screen maximizes it automatically; dragging it off the top of the screen restores it. Dragging a window to the left or right edge of the screen resizes the window so that it takes 50% of the screen. With this, a pair of windows can be quickly docked to each screen edge to facilitate interaction between them.

Another common task that 7 improves is "peeking" at windows; switching to a window briefly just to read something within the window but not actually interact with the window. To make this easier, scrubbing the mouse over the taskbar thumbnails will turn every window except the one being pointed at into a glass outline; moving the mouse away will reinstate all the glass windows. As well as being used for peeking at windows, you can also peek at the desktop:

Peeking at the desktop is particularly significant, because the desktop is now where gadgets live. Because people are increasingly using laptops, taking up a big chunk of space for the sidebar isn't really viable; Microsoft has responded by scrapping the sidebar and putting the gadgets onto the desktop itself. Gadgets are supposed to provide at-a-glance information; peeking at the desktop, therefore, becomes essential for using gadgets.

The taskbar's system tray has also been improved. A common complaint about the tray is that it fills with useless icons and annoying notifications. With 7, the tray is now owned entirely by the user. By default, new tray icons are hidden and invisible; the icons are only displayed if explicitly enabled. The icons themselves have also been streamlined to make common tasks (such as switching wireless networks) easier and faster.

The other significant part of the Windows UI is Explorer. Windows 7 introduces a new concept named Libraries. Libraries provide a view onto arbitrary parts of the filesystem with organization optimized for different kinds of files. In use, Libraries feel like a kind of WinFS-lite; they don't have the complex database system underneath, but they do retain the idea of a custom view of your files that's independent of where the files are.

These UI changes represent a brave move by the company. The new UI takes the concepts that Windows users have been using for the last 13 years and extends them in new and exciting ways. Windows 7 may not change much under the hood, but the extent of these interface changes makes it clear that this is very much a major release.

First look at Windows 7's User Interface

Water Your Lawn With Your *ahem* Waste

I've been to a fair share of parties where some folks don't make it from the back yard to the bathroom, but that certainly isn't the ideal method of lawn care. In general, we humans ship our wastewater off to treatment plants, a land and energy intensive process. And to make it all worse, a great deal of America's vital drinking water gets poured onto its lawns...about 15,000 gallons PER HOME!

But what if we could close the loop. What if our wastewater could be processed on-site and then pumped back out to make our gardens grow? Whether it sounds disgusting or exciting to you is, I suppose, a matter of perspective. But it looks like it's right on the horizon.

Biokube, a Danish company, is bringing the BioKube Venus to America. The Venus is a septic tank advanced enough that it can make your waste water clean enough for use in agriculture (i.e. watering your lawn.) The device would produce more than the 15,000 gallons used by most households. The excess would just be released into groundwater like current septic systems. But, I suppose you'd want to limit the amount of frolicking in the sprinklers your kids were doing.

So-called gray water has been used for irrigation for a long time. Simply pumping processed waste-water to nearby land for irrigation is a great way to prevent drinking water being dumped on lawns across the world. But those systems require laying twice as much pipe for water delivery...one for clean water, and one for gray water.

The Venus works by passing the wastewater through membranes tightly packed with cleansing bacteria. The device is about six feet tall and four feet wide and can clean about 7.5 liters of water every 15 minutes.

The Venus will make it's debut in California, where the government is cracking down on dirty old septic systems AND wasted drinking water. It's a perfect storm for the Venus, which could solve both of those problems at the same time.

EcoGeek - Clean Technology

California Utility Signs Up for 909 MW of New Wind Power

One California power company is betting big on wind

California is already leading the nation in solar efforts.  It’s also seeking to revamp its power grid and go green with a number of other power sources including geothermal and clean fission.

Southern California Edison (SCE) is one of California's largest power utilities.  It has already committed to going green in big way, with 7.71B kWh of geothermal, 2.58B kWh of wind power, 667M kWh of solar, 580M kWh of biogas, 556M kWh of small hydro, and 336M kWh of biomass generated power generated for customers in 2007.  This placed SCE as the nation's largest supplier of alternative energy, with over 16 percent of its power from renewable sources.

Now SCE is tackling wind power on a large scale, signing contracts for 909 MW of new capacity.  The new contract is with DCE, an affiliate of Caithness Energy and will be one of the world's largest fully permitted wind farms.  With it, California moves closer to surpassing Texas as wind power capital of the U.S.

The new installation will actually be installed outside California in Gilliam and Morrow Counties in North-Central Oregon between 2011 and 2012.  The installation will consist of 303 3-MW turbines in a 30 mile radius. Shepherd’s Flat will generate around 2B kWh of wind power for SCE, about 10 percent of its total alternative energy portfolio.  The wind-rich region is one of the nation's "bread baskets" of wind power.

Stuart Hemphill, SCE vice president, Renewable and Alternative Power, lauded the latest contract, stating, "This contract is a crown jewel in our renewable energy portfolio.  The project is attractive to SCE because of its size, near-term delivery and its competitive price."

One key to the project's potential is that no new power transmission lines need to be built.  This will allow it to come online much more quickly and starting making returns on the investment sooner.  Wind power is also cheaper per kWh than solar or many other alternative energy sources.

Les Gelber, president and chief operating officer of Caithness Energy sums up the new effort, stating, "Caithness has been successfully partnering with Southern California Edison since the 1980s to bring renewable energy to the region.  The Shepherd’s Flat project is particularly exciting and will bring a significant new renewable energy supply to the western United States."

DailyTech - California Utility Signs Up for 909 MW of New Wind Power

Call of Duty: World at War PC Beta Now on FileShack

Fallout 3 may be today's biggest release in PC gaming, but a free multiplayer beta for Treyarch's Call of Duty: World at War comes in a close second.

Offering the same three levels as the Xbox Live beta, the PC beta is open to everyone. All players need to do is sign up at the Call of Duty website to get a key.

Once that's done, download the 845 MB beta from FileShack.

 

There are no limits to how many players can join the beta; rather, the keys from the Call of Duty website are used to create individual profiles and find friends more easily.

Players are advised that the beta won't last long, as the finished game drops for PC, PS2, PS3, 360, Wii and DS on November 11.

Call of Duty: World at War PC Beta Now on FileShack - Shacknews

Single Neuron Un-Paralyzes Monkeys in Test

Research are finding that rerouting nerve signals in primates may be surprisingly easy

DailyTech previously covered how monkeys had been wired with brain probes to a mechanical arm, which they learned to control.  Now another experiment has taken such concepts, much farther, reversing paralysis in monkeys through neuron implantation.

Eberhard Fetz, a professor of physiology and biophysics at the University of Washington, led the research.  The researchers began by paralyzing the nerves leading to the monkeys' arms.  They then placed a single wire on a neuron in the monkeys’ neural cortexes.  From there they routed the signal to a single neuron implanted in the monkeys' arm muscles.  The computer detected a specific firing pattern in the brain neuron and would then signal the neuron in the arm.

The electric "re-routing" working surprisingly well and the monkeys regained control of their wrists.  Their new capability was assessed by a simple video game.  The game was controlled by the monkeys' wrist motions.  By moving their wrists, they could move a cursor onscreen and by moving it to a box on the side, they could earn a reward.  With the incentive of the reward the monkeys soon learned to move their wrists, even though the motor cortex neuron was selected at random.

Chet Moritz, a senior research fellow at the University of Washington and coauthor of the researchers' paper states, "We found, remarkably, that nearly every neuron that we tested in the brain could be used to control this type of stimulation.  Even neurons which were unrelated to the movement of the wrist before the nerve block could be brought under control and co-opted."

The research is published in the latest online version of the journal Nature.

Most previous research had focused on complex firing patterns.  This is because typically even moving one arm muscle results from the firing of multiple neurons in a coordinated pattern.  The success of the single neuron approach raises new questions about how exactly the primate nervous system processes signals.

Regardless of the mechanics, the approach works, and Moritz says that it will be very useful as it requires less computing power.  In order to apply the new research to paralyzed patients, more work remains to be done.  Most importantly, the researchers will have to learn to make multiple rerouted muscles fire coordinately as they would in the body in a complex motion such as walking, or picking up an object.

For this reason, Andrew Schwartz, a professor of neurobiology at the University of Pittsburgh, remains a skeptic of the new efforts.  He states, "If your intention is to generate a movement, you have to somehow calculate the effect of all these forces across the arm.  It's not just, 'Activate a muscle and the arm goes where you want.' There's a lot of math involved."

Still, the University of Washington Researchers have moved forward to where one neuron controls two different wrists motions with different firing patterns mapped to each motion and another scenario in which two rerouted neurons each controlled a single muscle (direction of motion) and worked together.  Also they say one spinal cord cell, rerouted, can activate multiple arm muscles.  Moritz states, "Stimulating a single location in the spinal cord will often activate 10 to 15 different muscles in a precise balance."

The risks are also significant.  The electrodes wear down over time.  Also if they protrude out of the skin, there's major risk of infection and disruption in a normal daily environment.  The ultimate goal, the University of Washington researchers say, is miniaturization.  Says Moritz, "We think we may be one step closer to low-power, fully implantable systems."

DailyTech - Single Neuron Un-Paralyzes Monkeys in Test

Fuel Cells Powered by Hydrogen from Sewage

Researchers at the Oregon State University College of Engineering have discovered an efficient way to produce hydrogen from different types of biowaste, including municipal sewage.

The process uses 75% less energy than the traditional water electrolysis method of producing hydrogen, and can be done at a much lower cost, making it a good candidate for hydrogen fuel production.  In the lab, researchers are already close to the Department of Energy’s goal of $2 to $3 per gasoline gallon equivalent for hydrogen fuel.

The university describes the process like this:

“In these systems, naturally occurring microorganisms from sewage attach to the surface of an anode and degrade the waste in the sewage, in a device that is something like a battery. The waste decomposes, eventually leaving protons that migrate to the cathode, combine with electrons and generate hydrogen.”

In addition to producing hydrogen, this process also cleans the water, so, ideally, treatment plants could be developed to take in sewage and send out hydrogen fuel and clean water.  Imagine sewage becoming a valuable resource.  The system can also be adapted to generate electricity directly instead of producing hydrogen.

Beyond hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, this technology could find practical use in developing countries or remote locations where waste treatment and power production are scarce.

EcoGeek - Clean Technology

The Scarab, a robotic rover that will explore the dark craters of the Moon

Carnegie Mellon University loves robots and, more than that, a challenge: How do you get at possible minerals around the Moon's crater-studded south pole where there's no light for energy, or to see what you're doing? The CMU team's solution is the Scarab, a fully autonomous prospector 'bot, that'll carry out its work using laser scanners to navigate the harsh terrain and a radioactive power source to keep itself going.

It needs to be able to core through a meter of possibly hard, icy soil to get at the pockets of hydrogen concentrations for study — and its wheels are the key. The dynamic platform allows the Scarab to move over slopes and jagged landforms, and acts as a stabilizer when the 'bot goes belly-down to drill. The Scarab will move along slowly, as its radioactive isotope power source only produces about 100 watts — or the power of your average light bulb — to keep the robotic rover moving and thinking. The good news? That source also lasts about 10 years, so it'll have plenty of time to do what it needs to do.

The Scarab is about to undergo field testing at a volcanic range in Hawaii to see if it's up to the task of exploring dark lunar craters. If it does well, it may win a golden ticket from NASA to head to the moon and start its studies. Click Continue for a snippet from the Discovery Channel detailing CMU's Scarab autonomous prospector.

DVICE: The Scarab, a robotic rover that will explore the dark craters of the Moon

First public Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 builds now downloadable

Though official word has yet to come from Mozilla on the subject, a public version of Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 was posted to the organization's servers, and BetaNews has confirmed its authenticity.

One user interface change we noticed almost immediately was a big green "+" button on the right side of the tabs bar, that enables the user to open a new tab. What we are not noticing -- at least not yet -- is any clear indication of Private Browsing mode, a feature that is slated for the final version 3.1 and continues to be the topic of much discussion among Mozilla's community of developers.

A Mozilla spokesperson told BetaNews this afternoon that the organization does not have a specific time for the public announcement of version 3.1 Beta 1. However, if history is any indication, Mozilla typically makes a public proclamation within 48 hours of the installation file's appearance on the organization's servers.

It's been a busy day, so our tests with Beta 1 have only just begun. However, we did have time to check out Beta 1's performance with the Acid3 standards compliance test. Here, Firefox posted its highest rendering score in a very long time: 89%. By comparison, a quick check of Firefox version 3.0.3 showed a score of only 71%.

BetaNews | First public Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 builds now downloadable

Microsoft undercuts Wii value with $20 Xbox 360 HDD promo

As we head into the holiday season, Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft will try every trick in the book in order to maximize sales. One of the best weapons Microsoft has is its price point; after the September price drop, the least expensive 360 model is selling for $200, $50 less than even the Wii. While the Arcade unit doesn't come with a hard drive, Microsoft is seeking to fix that: the company has launched a promotion giving Arcade users the choice of a free 512MB memory card or a $20 refurbished 20GB hard drive. 

Gamers need only to go an official Microsoft page and enter their serial number and console ID to see if they quality; it appears that only Core or Arcade units can take advantage of this promotion. This is Microsoft's answer to their promise of a "storage solution" in order to allow all gamers to take advantage of the new UI and Avatar functionality launching on November 19. That update will require 128MB of storage space, which would leave precious little space on the Arcade's included 256MB stick.

This move catapults the Arcade model from the gimped choice for hardcore gamers to the most affordable option for any gamer: $220 gets you the system, a 20GB hard drive, the Arcade games, and the 256MB memory card. Newer bundles will also include a copy of Sega Superstars Tennis and a Netflix trial. That's a hard deal to refuse, and absolutely creams Nintendo in the value department. Right now GameStop is selling its refurbished 20GB drives for $59.99, and the cheapest model that comes with a hard drive is the 360 Pro that retails for $299.99 and comes with a 60GB hard drive. This new deal makes the Arcade unit the best value for most gamers, one that could possibility get a batch of fence-sitters to make a choice.

If gamers sign up for this promotion in droves, and 360s without hard drives become more of an exception, it could give developers and publishers the confidence to use the hard drive more heavily. (The new firmware will allow gamers to load the entire game into the hard drive to cut down on loading times, something that Arcade owners will now be able to enjoy along with their Pro and Elite friends.) While you do have to fill out a form and wait for the drive to be mailed, it's clear that Microsoft has patched a major hole in its product line, and a full-featured Xbox 360 for $220 is an incredible deal.

Microsoft undercuts Wii value with $20 Xbox 360 HDD promo

"Windows 7" graduates from codename to real name

Microsoft has unveiled the official name for the next version of the Windows operating system. Up until now Microsoft officials had been referring to the project as "Windows 7." And now they're going to keep on doing that. But it's not a codename anymore. It's the final name of the upcoming operating system.

While other software makers have named their operating systems after the version number (Mac OS 9, or OS X), or the release date (Ubuntu 8.10 will come out in October, 2008), Microsoft has taken an all of the above approach. Think Windows 3.11 or Windows 2000. And Windows XP ad Vista weren't really named after anything.

So what's the deal with Windows 7? This will be the seventh major Windows release build number. Windows Vista was the 6th.

Microsoft will be making a developer preview of Windows 7 available to attendees of the upcoming PDC and WinHEC conferences.

"Windows 7" graduates from codename to real name - Download Squad

Volt Battery May See Performance Boost from Carbon Nanofibers

Thanks to battery tech the Chevy Volt could see an all-electric driving range of up to 80 miles

GM is readying its extended range electric vehicle called the Volt for production in 2010. The car promises to give the average driver a vehicle capable of at least 40 miles on electric power alone with a gasoline engine to recharge the battery when driving for longer distances is required.

The key component to the Volt and its ability to meet the promises GM has made is the lithium-ion battery the car uses. Applied Sciences Inc. is currently working with carbon nanofibers which could stretch the Volt's all-electric driving range to 80 miles.

Working along with GM and Applied Sciences to make the Volt a reality is another firm called Pyrograf Products. Pyrograf and Applied Sciences share a common owner, but separate investors according to Dayton Daily News.

Developing the technology to design a battery for the Volt using carbon nanofibers isn't cheap. The two Ohio-based firms received investments of $1 million from the Ohio Third Frontier program and $500,000 from GM.

Pyrograf says that its output of carbon nanofibers currently accounts for 25% of the global carbon nanofiber production. The reason the carbon nanofiber is such an important part of the Volt equation is twofold. First, the nanofibers allow for more efficiency form the battery. Second, due to performance that is more efficient the amount of overall carbon in the battery can be reduced. The total effect being less weight for the electric drive train to propel, equating to longer driving distances being attainable compared to other battery systems.

With any vehicle, reducing weight is a key component to improving performance. The original electric car from GM, the EV1, had a lead acid battery that weighed about 800 pounds. The Volt's current lithium-ion battery is about 400 pounds according to John Mackay, a spokesman for Applied Sciences.

Mackay said, "By making the carbon perform better, you can reduce the weight of that component in the battery. GM researchers say they have not seen any carbon materials that have performed as well as ours."

DailyTech - Volt Battery May See Performance Boost from Carbon Nanofibers

Automakers Could be Rattled by Dropping Fuel Prices

"If we suddenly went to $1 or $1.50 a gallon, that would be really bad" -- GM vice chairman Bob Lutz

It seems as though automakers just can't catch a break these days. The rocky economy and credit crunch resulted in a horrible month for auto sales in September. Every single automaker posted sales losses for the month. Even perennial overachiever Toyota witnessed a sales decline of 31.8% while Chevrolet and Ford witnessed drops of 11.2% and 33.8% respectively.

Compounding the dreadful state of the auto market were the record high fuel prices witnessed over the past six months. In May, we saw the Honda Civic, Honda Accord, Toyota Corolla, and Toyota Camry surpass the Ford F-150 in sales as Americans scrambled for more fuel efficient vehicles.

In late June, General Motors suspended the development of its next generation full-size pickups and SUVs. The company also announced plans to close four of its truck plants by the end of 2010 in order to focus on small vehicles like the upcoming Chevrolet Cruze.

Ford also felt pressure from lagging truck sales and idled its Dearborn truck plant and announced plans to convert its Cuautitlan Assembly Plant in Mexico -- which currently builds full-size trucks -- to build the sub-compact Fiesta.

So one would think that all is well now -- the automakers saw the changing trend in consumer demand, so they pivoted. Well, it's not quite that easy according to the Los Angeles Times.

With fuel prices now dropping at record levels -- 35 cents in two weeks -- auto manufacturers are wondering if they made the right move to make drastic changes to the lineups/production levels. "Do you hope for gas prices to go down so you can sell a lot of trucks again, or do you hope for them to remain high so you can justify your investment in fuel economy," questioned auto industry analyst Aaaron Bragman.

Outspoken GM vice chairman Bob Lutz seemed quite worried about the sudden change of events. "We may hate high fuel prices, but they've been driving us in the right direction when it comes to fuel economy. If we suddenly went to $1 or $1.50 a gallon, that would be really bad."

GM and Ford announced their production changes when gasoline was forecasted to top $5 a gallon in the near future.

Toyota too has cut production of its full-size Tundra pickup in response to sharply lower demand and dropped plans to introduce a diesel variant of the truck. However, Toyota spokesman John Hanson said that the company would be able to adjust to customer demand should the need arise, "If consumers start demanding trucks, we think we can still make as many Tundra pickups as they need."

This is most definitely a turbulent time in the auto industry. Plunging profits and falling sales sometimes call for desperate measures. Just over the weekend, it was announced that GM and Chrysler are in talks to merge, while Ford is considering selling its 33.4% stake in Mazda. One thing is certain, however, this is just the beginning of a huge shakeup in the automotive landscape.

DailyTech - Automakers Could be Rattled by Dropping Fuel Prices

NASA Draws Plan to Revive Hubble Space Telescope

NASA engineers are finalizing plans to resuscitate the ailing Hubble Space Telescope, which has been unable to beam home its trademark iconic images of the universe for weeks due to equipment failure.

Hubble engineers at the telescope's mission control center in Greenbelt, Md., have spent the last few weeks since

the Sept. 27 failure of the orbital observatory's main data transmission channel reviewing procedures to switch to a backup system, with a final center meeting set for today. Mission engineers also met Thursday discuss the plan, with top NASA officials expected to give a final review on Tuesday.

"We are still marching forward in our process," said Ed Campion, a spokesperson at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, which oversees Hubble operations. "Right now, I would characterize the things that came out of that meeting yesterday as positive and we're planning on moving forward."

Hubble's science silence stems from the loss of the Side A channel in a device called a Control Unit/Science Data Formatter, which failed for good last month after 18 years of service since the space telescope's launch in 1990. There is a backup, Side B, but switching to that channel is an arduous process that includes moving five separate systems to the same string as well.

The failure forced NASA to delay plans to launch seven astronauts to Hubble aboard the space shuttle Atlantis on one last service call on the orbital observatory. The shuttle was slated to launch on Oct. 14, but will now lift off no earlier than early 2009.

"They are taking a very detailed look at everything that is involved in making this switchover to Side B," Campion said.

If top NASA officials sign off on the systems switch on Tuesday, engineers could begin the Side B activation as early as Wednesday morning, he added.

"It's a pretty lengthy process," Campion said. "They've described this as being like a 40-some-hour process."

Meanwhile, a separate team of engineers is continuing work to study a spare for the failed data formatter that has been in storage at Goddard for the last two decades.

NASA wants to ensure the spare unit is spaceworthy and in working order before including it aboard the space shuttle Atlantis to be added among the other upgrades planned for Hubble's last overhaul. The agency is expected to brief the public on its Hubble repair plan in a televised briefing on Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. EDT (1630 GMT).

Commanded by veteran astronaut Scott Altman, Atlantis' astronaut crew plans to perform five back-to-back spacewalks to install new cameras, replace aging batteries and broken gyroscopes, upgrade Hubble's guidance system and add a docking ring to the space telescope. The astronauts also plan to attempt to fix instruments never designed for in-space repairs and hope to extend Hubble's mission through at least 2013.

With Atlantis' launch to Hubble delayed to next year, NASA has turned its attention to the next shuttle flight - STS-126 aboard Endeavour. That mission is due to launch toward the International Space Station on Nov. 14 to deliver new life support equipment and supplies designed to allow the orbiting laboratory to expand to larger, six-person crews.

SPACE.com -- NASA Draws Plan to Revive Hubble Space Telescope

New Xbox Experience coming Nov. 19

Finally on Nov. 19, you can kiss that old Xbox experience goodbye as you welcome the shiny New Xbox Experience, and all the Avatars, group chatting and other new features it brings in tow. That's worldwide, by the way.

We're hearing this and a lot more in our TGS 2008 Microsoft press briefing liveblog. Come join us.

New Xbox Experience coming Nov. 19 - Joystiq

Terrafugia Transition, world's first flying car, to ship late next year

Flying cars are all hat, no cattle. But wait. What's this? A flying car that will actually exist, roll on real streets and highways and then take off into the wild blue? You betcha. Pony up your $194,000, and by the end of next year you'll be cruising skyward in a 1300-pound Terrafugia Transition and then parking it in your garage when you're done. It's more like a drivable airplane, but we'd rather call it a flying car.

Out back is a push prop, and the front canard does double duty as a wing and bumper. Its gas engine will push it over a range of 460 miles through the air. Look at the cool way the wings fold up into a compact package, making the cute flying machine a street-legal road rocket.

We've been hearing about this Terrafugia Transition for ages, so this is great news that it's actually going to be shipping to paying customers. The first flying prototype is scheduled to take off next month. Nice. Covert that prop to a jet engine and give it vertical takeoff capabilities, and we'll be living in the future.

DVICE: Terrafugia Transition, world's first flying car, to ship late next year

Opera Releases 9.6 Browser

The latest offering from Opera stacks up nicely against Firefox, IE

Opera made waves earlier this year, releasing its 9.5 "Kestrel" version of its desktop browser.  The Norwegian company has grown a small but loyal contingent of users over the years and continues to provide a solid alternative to an Internet Explorer versus Firefox world.

Also known for its Wii and Nintendo DS browsers, Opera today unleashed the 9.6 iteration of its desktop browser on the world.  The browser is available for Linux, Mac, and Windows computers.  It comes in 38 languages, including for the first time Indonesian, Ukrainian, Estonian, Hindi, Telugu, and Tamil, and, like its competitors, is free of cost.

The new browser offers up many new features as well as some older popular ones.  Among the most anticipated new features is the Opera Link tool, which allows you to synchronize your browser's bookmarks and preferences from any location.

Other more subtle improvements are also welcome, such as new visual previews of RSS feeds, which will let you see what you're subscribing too.  For users who work on older machines, Opera's newly optimized "low bandwidth mode" for its mail utility will offer superior performance.  The email client also has new message prioritizing features.

Overall the speed has also been turned up from version 9.5.  The speed loading pages with scripts is very competitive compared to Firefox 3, Google's new Chrome browser, and the beta of Internet Explorer 8.

Opera Software's CEO Jon von Tetzchner was enthusiastic about the new release, stating, "We believe in making the Web available for people everywhere. The people who use Opera need it to adapt to their needs and we’re proud to continue that tradition today. Our improved e-mail client is now the ideal communication tool. Opera Link gives you more flexibility to take your personal browsing identity with you to any computer. The new Opera 9.6 gives more people around the world new reasons to choose Opera."

One possible improvement that still remains to be implemented is support for Firefox add-ons.  One perpetual reader comment about the Opera browser is that they love the browser and its features, but could not go without Firefox's valuable add-ons such as NoScript and AdBlock.
Still, for a basic browsing experience Opera offers a solid alternative to the bigger names in the browser business.  To check it out for yourself, go here.

DailyTech - Opera Releases 9.6 Browser

RockBand.com updated, custom merch now available

The Rock Band website has received a rather massive overhaul. Navigation has been streamlined, a catalog of every RB song has been added (each with a written description) and the long-awaited Merch Booth section has opened up, allowing you to take pictures of virtual band and purchase merchandise -- buttons, stickers, posters and shirts.

Perhaps the coolest addition is the ability to order 6" figures of your Rock Band 2 characters. As of this writing, the servers are being hammered, so we've unfortunately been unable to even preview what The Blueberry Muffintops look like in miniature, plastic form. Let us know if you've had any luck and, please, feel free to show off your band photos in the comments below.

RockBand.com updated, custom merch now available - Joystiq

Spacecraft Reveals Stunning New Views of Mercury

A NASA probe has begun beaming back stunning new images from its successful second flyby of Mercury, the planet closest to the sun.

NASA's MESSENGER probe captured never-before-seen views of the Mercury during its

encounter on Monday. The spacecraft zipped past Mercury for the second time this year and used the planet's gravity to adjust its path as it continues en route to become the first probe to orbit the planet in March 2011.

One new image shows large patterns of ray-like lines extending southward across much of the planet surface from a young, newly-imaged crater. The previously-imaged Kuiper crater and others craters also have similar webs of lines radiating outward.

Another raw picture represents the highest-resolution color image ever taken of Mercury's surface, and came just 9 minutes after the spacecraft's closest approach to Mercury at 4:43 a.m. EDT (0845 GMT). Details include a large impact basin with an 83-mile (133-km) diameter, named Polygnotus for a Greek painter from the 5th century B.C.

Yet a third first-time image came from MESSENGER's approach to the crescent-shaped Mercury, and is one of 44 pictures taken as part of a mosaic. Scientists hoped to collect nine image mosaics total in order to add up to 30 percent of never-before-seen regions of the planet's surface.

The second Mercury flyby of Oct. 6 comes after a first flyby on Jan. 14, which looked at a different side of the planet.

"When these data have been digested and compared, we will have a global perspective of Mercury for the first time," said Sean Solomon, MESSENGER's principal investigator at the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Launched in August 2004, MESSENGER — short for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging — is the first spacecraft in 33 years to greet Mercury up close since NASA's earlier Mariner 10 mission of the 1970s. The new probe is slated for a third Mercury flyby in 2009 before finally settling into orbit on March 18, 2011. MESSENGER's $446 million mission is expected to spend about a year studying Mercury.

SPACE.com -- Spacecraft Reveals Stunning New Views of Mercury

AMD Releases Fusion for Gaming RC1

AMD's Fusion for Gaming tool is finally out of beta, and ready for download. So what's it all about?

Well, for starters, it's no doubt intended to create a little buzz for a platform that has taken a bit of a beating in the recent past.

Beyond that, Fusion is designed to boost performance by shutting down background processes and applications automatically before you settle in for a gaming session. While most power users already know how to do this using services.msc and other tools that ship with the OS, the average user or lazy efficiency-minded geek will find Fusion a very handy way to get the job done.

There really aren't any other tools out there right now that offer Fusion's one-click simplicity.
Overclocking features are built-in as well, though they'll only be available if you happen to be running a pure AMD platform (Athlon CPU and ATI video card). If you do, Fusion will automatically tweak your CPU and GPU to squeeze out a few extra ounces of gaming muscle.

Is it worth it? Try it yourself and see, you may get a few extra frames for your trouble.

AMD Releases Fusion for Gaming RC1 - Download Squad

Google's Data Centers Illustrate How Going Green Can Save Big Bucks

Google is more than happy to be the posterchild of the green computing movement

Google is all about environmental protection and encouraging people to go green.  From plans for tidal powered floating data centers, to massive investment in creative alternative energy startups, Google is leading the way when it comes to environmental efforts in corporate America.

The search engine firm says that going green wasn't just a moral decision; it was a wise financial one as well.  While Google remains tight-lipped on details of where its servers are and how many it has, it’s not afraid to spill the beans about its green server initiatives, which it says are saving it a great deal of money yearly.  In fact, Google just launched a new site which does exactly this, proclaiming Google's green merits on high.

On the new site, Google brags, "in the time it takes to do a Google search, your own personal computer will use more energy than we will use to answer your query."

Google provides no hard numbers to back up its claims.  However, it does provide an easy to follow common-sense five-step plan to transform your data center to be more efficient.  It’s believable that by implementing these steps, the kind of results Google is claiming could indeed be achieved.

Among the upgrades Google is using is a water cooling system which implements an evaporative cooling process to cool the hot wastewater.  Google also tries to be green by using partly dirty sewage water.  It claims that by the end of this year, two of its data centers will be cooled entirely by waste water.  It says that by 2010, 80 percent of its water needs will be met by waste water.

Google also claims to recycle all of its servers when it retires them, rather than contribute to tech trash.  It says that 68 percent of the servers end up being repurposed, providing cost savings over new manufacturing.

Among the other steps Google takes is the use of better voltage regulators, wise placement of cooling fans, and avoiding the use of graphics chips.  Google measures its total gains with the PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) metric.  This measure compares the total power used by the data center to the power used by the servers and other computer parts inside of it.

A typical PUE might be 2.0, meaning for every watt used by the servers another watt goes to cooling and other purposes.  In an ideal fantasy world, a PUE of 1.0 would be perfect, but in the real world this is unlikely to ever be attained.  However, Google claims to have a PUE of 1.2, which seems almost too good to be true.  Some, such as Tech Hermit, have called Google out claiming it is duping people with its PUE figures.

In the end, Google claims to save $30 per server/per year versus its competitors by adopting green technology.  It also claims to save 500 kWh of electricity, 300 kg of CO₂, and 1000 gallons of water per server over the course of the year.

While Google's big claims may leave some skeptical, it’s still interesting to see Google starting to reveal how its data centers operate.  For the extremely secretive company, even these minor disclosures are a big deal for those curious.

 

DailyTech - Google's Data Centers Illustrate How Going Green Can Save Big Bucks