“We are still moving forward,” said Rick Needham, in an interview at the company’s office in Washington. “I think that is an important goal and a very aspirational goal, but we are doing what we can.”
The Internet search giant said in late 2007 it would invest hundreds of millions of dollars in solar, wind, and geothermal technologies to help make renewables cost competitive with coal, reviled by environmentalists for its emissions.

Google co-founder Larry Page, now the company’s chief executive, said then that the company was optimistic the goal could be met in years, not decades.

The pledge was made before 2008′s financial crisis depleted the number of players willing to make big investments in renewable energy.

In addition it was made as hopes were on the rise that Congress would pass a comprehensive energy bill that would have put a higher price on burning coal and other fossil fuels, an effort that died in the Senate last year.

Needham said today that there are a lot of opportunities in renewables but it takes time to make an impact. “It takes a long-term view,” he said. “These are not things you spend a year or two on and say you are there.”

“We still have several years to go and these technologies take awhile to develop and then deploy at scale,” he added.

Investments in generating projects
In recent years Google investment in renewable-energy technology companies has tapered off while it has ramped up investment in generating projects, including two this month.

It has made five major investments in renewable-energy generation projects, worth more than a combined $350 million.

On April 18, the company said it would invest about $100 million in the world’s largest wind farm under construction in Oregon, a $2 billion project called Shepherds Flat.

A week earlier it said it was investing $168 million in BrightSource Energy’s $1.7 billion-plus Ivanpah solar thermal complex in the California desert, the company’s largest investment in the clean-energy sector to date.

Both projects will produce power that is far more expensive than that from coal.

But Google believes it can eventually help reduce the costs of renewables by spurring innovation and by showing other companies that renewables can be a good business opportunity.

“We would be very encouraged if other companies, even those involved in this space were willing to do more,” he said.

One reason Google invested in the Shepherds Flat wind farm, for instance, is because the project will deploy 2.5-megawatt wind turbines, a size of equipment not used before in the United States.

Needham said success at the project could help deploy more of the turbines at other U.S. wind farms or lead to more research and development on large turbines, which could eventually make them cheaper.

Google is exploring more opportunities in renewables, including enhanced geothermal, where companies would tap into heat deep underground to produce power, Needham said.

Story Copyright (c) 2011 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

First, the existing Jambool Social Gold product will be discontinued in favor of a new Google in-app payment product in May 2011.

So that ties in with what Tech Crunch are reporting that the new Google in app payment system will be announced in May of this year.

In May, Google revealed that it was considering a native Google Latitude iPhone app for iOS 4.0. It’s been available for some time as an HTML5 app but not natively. The issue of course was Apple’s love of control. Google made it known that it was sure a Google Latitude iPhone app would end up in limbo like Google Voice did for months.

The official release comes roughly a year and a half after Google was forced to release an HTML5 version for the iPhone after Apple rejected the original version for reportedly being too similar to Apple’s own Maps tool. Critics have argued that the initial block was motivated by attempts to punish Google for Android, where Latitude has been a native part of Google Maps itself for most of the platform’s history.

“With Google Latitude, see where your friends are right now. Latitude lets you stay in touch with your friends and family by making it easy to share where you are and see each other on a map.

With Latitude, you can:

* See your friends on a map – find out who’s nearby and meet up.

* Share your location continuously with whomever you choose – help friends and family stay in touch with you, even when you can’t take out your phone.

* Control your privacy – share only city-level location, hide your location, or turn off background updating at any time.

Latitude lets you share your location in the background, even when the app is closed or your device screen is locked. Background updating requires an iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4 with iOS 4 or above.

You can also enjoy Latitude from your computer at google.com/latitude to see where your friends are or turn on optional apps such as Google Location History for a personal history dashboard.”

The product was first announced at the Google I/O conference in May, and subsequently demoed at the IFA show in Germany earlier this month (see photos below). In addition to the Sony TV, there have been persistent rumors of a Google TV-enabled Sony Blu-ray player as well. The Sony products will compete with the Google TV-powered Logitech Revue set-top box, which is also scheduled to be released this fall.

Sony also outed their Internet TV Blu-ray Disc Player, which is basically a Revue with a Blu-ray player. It will set you back $399.99, which ain’t bad considering Logitech’s offering is $299.99 and includes no such hi-def disc drive.

The TVs and Blu-ray player will come with built-in WiFi, Video On Demand powered by Qriocity, as well as pre-installed apps including CNBC, Napster, NBA, Netflix, Pandora, Twitter, and YouTube. They’ll also include Sony’s RF QWERTY keypad remote, which incorporates an optical mouse.

All the sets will be available at SonyStyle as of October 16th, and retail sales at Best Buy will follow shortly. How short we don’t know.

Sony Internet TV Line:
Featuring four LCD HDTVs with Google TV built-in, the Sony Internet TV line includes the 24-inch class NSX-24GT1 ($599.99), the 32-inch class NSX-32GT1 ($799.99), the 40-inch NSX-40GT1 ($999.99), and the 46-inch NSX-46GT1 ($1,399.99).

Sony Internet TV Blu-ray Disc Player:
The Sony Internet TV Blu-ray Disc™ player with Google TV built-in, NSZ-GT1 ($399.99), also allows users to enjoy all of the powerful features of Google TV on their existing HDTV.

Product specifications include:

Sony Internet TV NSX-46GT1
Available in October for $1,399.99
* 46-inch Full HD 1080p display with Edge LED backlight
* Google TV built-in
* Seamlessly search across your television & Internet for content
* Surf the web while watching TV using Dual View
* Upgradeable Google TV platform
* Download apps from Android Market (*coming in early 2011)
* Superior processing power with Intel Inside
* Easy-to-use RF QWERTY keypad remote with integrated optical mouse
* Link to select mobile phones (coming this fall)
* Built-in Wi-Fi
* Four HDMI inputs and four USB inputs

Sony Internet TV NSX-40GT1
Available in October for about $999.99
* 40-inch Full HD 1080p display with Edge LED backlight
* Google TV built-in
* Seamlessly search across your television & Internet for content
* Surf the web while watching TV using Dual View
* Upgradeable Google TV platform
* Download apps from Android Market (*coming in early 2011)
* Superior processing power with Intel Inside
* Easy-to-use RF QWERTY keypad remote with integrated optical mouse
* Link to select mobile phones (coming this fall)
* Built-in Wi-Fi
* Four HDMI inputs and four USB inputs

Sony Internet TV NSX-32GT1
Available in October for about $799.99
* 32-inch Full HD 1080p display with Edge LED backlight
* Google TV built-in
* Seamlessly search across your television & Internet for content
* Surf the web while watching TV using Dual View
* Upgradeable Google TV platform
* Download apps from Android Market (*coming in early 2011)
* Superior processing power with Intel Inside
* Easy-to-use RF QWERTY keypad remote with integrated optical mouse
* Link to select mobile phones (coming this fall)
* Built-in Wi-Fi
* Four HDMI inputs and four USB inputs

Sony Internet TV NSX-24GT1
Available in October for about $599.99
* 24-inch Full HD 1080p display with CCFL backlight
* Google TV built-in
* Seamlessly search across your television & Internet for content
* Surf the web while watching TV using Dual View
* Upgradeable Google TV platform
* Download apps from Android Market (*coming in early 2011)
* Superior processing power with Intel Inside
* Easy-to-use RF QWERTY keypad remote with integrated optical mouse
* Link to select mobile phones (coming this fall)
* Built-in Wi-Fi
* Four HDMI inputs and four USB inputs

Sony Internet TV Blu-ray Disc Player NSZ-GT1
Available in October for about $399.99
* Google TV built-in
* Seamlessly search across your television & Internet for content
* Surf the web while watching TV using Dual View
* Upgradeable Google TV platform
* Blu-ray Disc playback capability
* Download apps from Android Market (*coming in early 2011)
* Superior processing power with Intel Inside
* Easy-to-use RF QWERTY keypad remote with integrated optical mouse
* Link to select mobile phones (coming this fall)
* Built-in Wi-Fi
* One HDMI input, one HDMI output and four USB input

Google, however, added that the self-driving cars are never unmanned and a human sits in the driver seat to control the car at anytime. The NYT reported that the California Department of Motor Vehicles has deemed the cars legal. But a staff counsel for the department said that the robo cars are “ahead of the law” in many areas. ““If you look at the vehicle code, there are dozens of laws pertaining to the driver of a vehicle, and they all presume to have a human being operating the vehicle,” he told The Times.

On its part, Google said that it has briefed the local police about the cars. “We always have a trained safety driver behind the wheel who can take over as easily as one disengages cruise control,” the company said on its blog post. The company added that the car has been developed to improve car safety and efficiency. “Our goal is to help prevent traffic accidents, free up people’s time and reduce carbon emissions by fundamentally changing car use,” the post reads.

Google introduced the concept of Google TV about five months ago at Google I/O. Google TV is a platform that combines traditional TV programming and web content through one interface. One of Google’s goals with Google TV is to open up the living room to new innovation from content creators, programmers and advertisers.

Google’s initial partner list includes Turner Broadcasting (which includes TBS, TNT, CNN, Cartoon Network, and Adult Swim), NBC Universal, HBO and the NBA. Google signed on Amazon Video on Demand and Netflix. Kenghe said Google is also working with news sites like The New York Times and USA Today; music sites like VEVO, Pandora and Napster; Twitter; blip.tv; and, of course, Google-owned YouTube.

HBO will bring access to hundreds of hours of programming with HBOGO. Subscribers will be able to access HBO content on-demand via an enhanced website. NBA has built NBA Game Time, an application that lets viewers follow game scores in real-time and catch up on highlights.

With consumers spending more time watching videos on devices other than televisions — but with web videos still lacking the user-friendly features TV offers — Google smells opportunity.

The first Google TV devices will become available this month, including a set-top device from Logitech and Blu-ray players from Sony.

Apple has its own Apple TV, of course, a US$99 device that allows users to download movies and shows to their TVs from Apple’s iTunes. Google has of an off-the-line advantage in casting its TV net across the entire internet, while Apple’s offering is limited by comparison.

Google Chrome is Google TV’s secret sauce. With the browser built into the TV experience, viewers can move between television and the web at will. That opens up the TV from a few hundred channels to millions of channels across both television and the web. As Leigh noted, Google is also leveraging its search prowess in the new product.

One of the possibilities of Web TV is the ability to turn off the ever-growing cable and satellite bills. Young people are early adopters. They’ve been driving the digital music business, so they’re likely to embrace Web TV quickly.

There is a certain inevitability to Web TV. Viewers always respond to expanded content. The ability to check Internet apps while watching TV is a convenience. Already a large portion of viewers have the TV on while they’re using the computer or the smartphone.

Google Adsense is an invaluable tool for Webmasters and bloggers looking to make the highest level of income possible from their Internet creations. They simply apply for an account and assuming it is approved, they will conduct a one-off exercise of incorporating codes provided them by Google upon their site. Thereafter, Google will populate their blog or website with ads appropriate to their content and revenue generation will be possible on an ongoing basis, free of further administration. Article writers, however, are not always able to take advantage of Google Adsense quite so effectively and may have to be a little more imaginative in order to generate revenue in this respect.

When an article is written for and published on the Web and ongoing revenue generation applies, it is likely to be the case that the writer will earn based upon pooled revenue from the site which hosts their article. This is by no means necessarily a bad thing but it does to a certain extent limit both the control which the writer has over their earnings and often their ability to monitor those earnings on a day to day basis. As it is always desirable that article writers be looking to achieve as many views for their articles as possible, finding sites upon which links can be placed and which also generate some form of Google Adsense revenue is extremely desirable.

While the majority of social networking and social bookmarking sites afford excellent opportunities to article writers for achieving page views for their work, the majority of these sites do not pay the writer in a direct fashion. One site which is different in this respect is Xomba. By signing up for Xomba, the writer is invited to include their Google Adsense publisher ID on their profile and Xomba will split the revenue generated on a 50/50 basis. This means that as well as generating page views for articles, the writer can earn very respectable levels of revenue almost as a sundry benefit with Google Adsense.

In a less direct fashion, article writers can earn with Google Adsense by creating and using websites or blogs as an effective means of promoting their articles. This would only be effective, however, where the article writer writes on a very defined subject and has sufficient material to create a blog or website to supplement the content already published in their articles. Duplicate content is of course never a sensible option but by including hyperlinks in the text of a blog or creating a dedicated, “Useful Links,” panel in the sidebar, page views can be obtained and Google Adsense revenue can also be generated. If the writer has two or more subjects upon which they write authoritatively and regularly, two or more blogs of this type should be created, where of course time permits.

There are article writers who approach the concept of generating Google Adsense revenue from their articles by either deliberately or inadvertently breaching the conditions of the site upon which they publish their articles, or those of Google Adsense. One example of this would be by trying to incorporate a Google Adsense ID or coding in to the body of an article. Not only is this practice extremely unlikely to prove successful, it may well result in permanent exclusion from either the publishing platform, Google Adsense, or both and put the writer’s entire article writing career in significant jeopardy.