Software utilities

I publish an email received from Ecocho, visit this post and spread the word!

Hi guys!

Most of you have expressed great enthusiasm for the Ecocho project and have asked if you can help – well, today Ecocho needs your help!!

Google chose today – Earth Day, of all days – to pull their feed from Ecocho. They claim that Ecocho has broken the adsense rules, but Ecocho has never directed users to click on ads (as Google suggests) and Ecocho has not only always respected the adsense rules but also believes strongly in them for Ecocho to succeed. We need genuine Ecocho users to make the project work!

If you love Ecocho and enjoy searching using Google on Ecocho, please go either here:
http://ecocho.wordpress.com
or here:
http://www.ecocho.com/blog.php
and post a comment in support of Ecocho!

Please email Google from the email address on those pages (there are petition letters on the page also) to voice your concerns. Please tell your family and friends also if you think they would care about the Ecocho cause.

We really hope that the Google people change their minds and come round to the idea that Ecocho can be good for everyone. We have been as transparent and as above board as we could be with our actions (enlisting KPMG to audit us and buying only government-issued credits) so we hope this will shine through.

If you love Ecocho, we’d love to hear from you!! Thank you!!
We hope you can help!

Alex and all the team @ Ecocho

Ecocho is a Sydney-based company which runs a zero emission search engine. Yes, it’s true! They plant 2 trees for every thousand searches performed on their website (which uses data from Yahoo and Google). The international website seems down now, their servers couldn’t support the traffic (they planted more then 2700 trees by now!)

From the Ecocho website(www.ecocho.com):

What’s Ecocho?

Ecocho is a new search engine trying to make a difference for climate change.
For every 1000 searches users make on Ecocho we’ll counter balances or “offset” up to a ton of greenhouse gases. We do this by sponsoring two trees via advertising on the site.

See below for more details.

Key Facts about Ecocho
Supporting the growth of trees is an effective form of carbon offsetting

Imagine searching the web and saving the planet at the same time. How does that work? Glad you asked.

Ecocho is a free service, and it’s one of the easiest ways people can change everyday behaviour to make a positive impact on the environment.

It allows you to search the web using your favourite search engine technology (Yahoo or Google) and reduce greenhouse gases as you do it.

* Each time you use ecocho as your search engine, you’ll be helping to slow climate change.

* How? For every 1000 searches that users make on ecocho.com, up to two trees will be grown to offset carbon pollution emissions

* Switching to ecocho.com doesn’t alter or slow your search. Search results are displayed via technology you already know and trust – Yahoo and Google

* ecocho.com is the world’s first known search engine that enables users to offset their own carbon emissions for free

* ecocho.com is an international initiative to reduce global warming. The service is multi-lingual and is being rolled out globally.

* Trees are grown via official Government-accredited projects.

* KPMG will run quarterly and final year-end audits on the amount of carbon credits purchased and “retired” by ecocho

* Yahoo and Google have both given their support to the project, contributing the search results for the site

* ecocho.com aims to contribute 70 per cent of revenue back into carbon offset credits, for the growth of trees

* Now everyone can help reduce global warming by switching to ecocho.com as their internet search engine

Sowing the seeds of ecological change

A thousand searches on Ecocho allow us to buy enough carbon offset credits to remove 1 ton of CO2 from the atmosphere. This works out at two trees spending a year sucking CO2 from the atmosphere as they grow, which makes us very happy.

So what about you? We understand it can be hard to make significant lifestyle changes to help the environment. This is why we’ve made it totally easy to make a difference:

Make Ecocho your Internet search engine

Get the usual Yahoo and Google results

Offset your carbon emissions for free

We know that much more must be done long term than just planting trees. But if we can make the way people search the Internet not only help the environment but also take no significant initial adjustment on their part, Ecocho can gently increase participation whilst sowing the seed of ecological thinking for greater change to follow. Ecocho could start the ball rolling.
Eco-searching: You search. We grow trees.

Professor Min Gu and his team at Centre for Micro-Photonics of University of Swinburne recently announced a research project to insert 200.000 DVD on the sam physical support. They claim that while a DVD is 1.2 mm thick, less then a micron is used to store data, so more then 99,9 % is wasted. They managed to use 52 layers on the same DVD, but they think they can get to 200 layers, maybe 300, placing a whole petabyte on the same disk!! Two main research issue are being investigated:

1. Spectral aspects: different particles on the same layer can be read/written using different wave lenght ( = colors of light beam)
2. Polarization: Using two light beam with 90° polarization difference the same layer can contain double data

A deal with Samsung has already been signed, granting the university a research funding of 1 million dollar.

Correct specifications of Youtube high-res fmt url parameter

Link to Source

With the latest update of the iTunes software for Windows, Apple suggests users to update Safari (even if they didn’t previously installed it!). This move has been criticized by many, as Mozilla CEO, since they compare Apple to Microsoft, when it added Internet Explorer pre-installed to Windows systems. Updated statistics say that Safari has a share of 5.7 % in the Internet, just after IE and Firefox. With this move maybe Apple wants to gain a bigger share in the browser war, and it does this claiming that Safari is

“fastest and easiest-to-use browser for the PC. It displays web pages faster than any other browser and is filled with innovative features — all delivered in an efficient and elegant user interface”

as states by the updater program in a pop-up screen. Some report that Safari is really a more standard compliant and faster browser, maybe with this move Apple will significantly increase the Safari market share over the main two competitors.