Global Warming Evidence: 2007 Report Compared to 2013 (Infographic) by Ross Toro, Infographics Artist

Global Warming Evidence: 2007 Report Compared to 2013 (Infographic)

by Ross Toro, Infographics Artist


Observed changes in climate and greenhouse gases could be accounted for by human activity, according to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Observations of the climate system are based on direct measurements and remote sensing from satellites and other platforms.
IPCC's 2007 report compared with 2013's:

TEMPERATURE

2007: 1995-2006 rank among the 12 warmest years in the instrumental record of global surface temperature (since 1850).

2013: Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850. 

 

SEA LEVEL

2007: Global average sea level has risen since 1961 at an average rate of 1.8 millimeters/yr and since 1993 at 3.1mm/yr.

2013: The rate of sea level rise since the mid-19th century has been larger than the mean rate during the previous two millennia.

 

SNOW AND ICE

2007: Observed decreases in snow and ice extent are also consistent with warming.

2013: Over the last two decades, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been losing mass and glaciers have continued to shrink almost worldwide.

 

NORTHERN HEMISPHERE

2007: Average Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the second half of the 20th century were very likely higher than during any other 50-year period in the last 500 years and likely the highest in at least the past 1,300 years.

2013: In the Northern Hemisphere, 1983–2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1,400 years (medium confidence). Northern Hemisphere spring snow covers have continued to decrease.

 

OCEANS

2007: Observational evidence from all continents and most oceans shows that many natural systems are being affected by regional climate changes, particularly temperature increases.

2013: The global ocean will continue to warm during the 21st century. Heat will penetrate from the surface to the deep ocean and affect ocean circulation.

 

ECOSYSTEMS

2007: In terrestrial ecosystems, earlier timing of spring events and poleward and upward shifts in plant and animal ranges are with very high confidence linked to recent warming.

2013: Continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate system.

Guys Build $1.6 Million Batman Tumbler Replica

We are living in an age inspired by the cinema and science. All that which we only saw in animated movies is becoming real thanks to science. You can see superheroes taking off in flight to fight off crime in movies and thanks to the technological advancement it all seems as real as it can get. We all are fans of Christopher Nolan’s Batman; do you remember the Epic’s EV TORQ; The Roadster straight out of Batman’s movie? Yes, we covered that too because like most of the readers we too are huge, die-hard, fans of Batman. Things keep getting better and better for us fans, believe us! Have you all heard about the Gumball 3000 race? Traditionally, the race was about unique cars just out there on the road completing the rally.

However, nowadays it’s more about Ferrari, Lamborghini and expensive cars like that. Amongst all such expensive cars, the international racing crew; Team Galag have introduced one of their unique cars for the Gumball 3000 race set for 2013. What is so surprising about this car? Well, yes it has something to do with the Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight. But this is much more than what you were expecting; this is an exact replica of ‘does this come in black-tank’ driven by our Dark Knight on the streets of Gotham. As mentioned earlier, the Gumball race 3000 is not like the traditional racing competitions. There is neither time record to break nor any prizes to be given to fastest cars. This is more like a road trip through Europe on flashy and expensive cars. An exotic trip if you will. The event was inspired by movies such as The Cannonball Run and The Gumball Rally. The event, traditionally, used to have both types; the expensive sort and the unique ones. However, it has somewhat turned into a ‘let’s see who’s the richest one out there’ rally sort. The members of Team Galag wanted to reignite the old spirit of the rally and therefore commissioned Parker Brothers Concepts, in Florida, to create a replica of Batman Tumbler which was street legal. The other than obvious task was to come up with something that would be able to compete with other cars in the rally during this 3,000 m rally. An investment of $1.6 million was made for this awesome crime fighting ride.


Let’s have a look at some of the specs of this cool ride; it weighs about 2.5 tons and is about 2 ft higher than a Hummer H1. We have a 400lb, 6.2 liter V8 engine which is surrounded by a bespoke tubular chassis. The car is not lightning fast but considering its weight and size, we would say its ability to achieve 100 mph is definitely something worth appreciating. Hats off to the manufacturing team!  One can even track this car during rally by signing onto Team Galag’s website. They have a pretty slick GPS tracking system just for this purpose. Rest assured the car is bound to get quite an appraisal at the rally!

 

Medical Sensors Improve With Holey Gold Nanostructures

Sep. 26, 2013 — A new method that fabricates gold nanostructures quickly and efficiently could lead to highly sensitive, portable medical sensorsRecent advances in nanotechnology are providing new possibilities for medical imaging and sensing. Gold nanostructures, for example, can enhance the fluorescence of marker dyes that are commonly used to detect biomolecules and diagnose specific diseases.

Localized surface plasmon resonance (bright areas) around a gold nanohole enhances the fluorescence of a biomarker dye (Y-shaped molecule) when a specific molecule of interest (purple circle) is present. (Credit: A*STAR Institute of High Performance Computing)

Now, Ping Bai at the A*STAR Institute of High Performance Computing, Singapore, and co-workers have developed a fast and inexpensive way to fabricate arrays of gold nanoholes. The researchers have shown that sensor chips built using these nanostructures can accurately detect cancer-related molecules in blood and are small enough to be used in portable medical devices.
Nanohole arrays are designed so that incident light of certain wavelengths will induce large-scale oscillations of the gold electrons, known as localized surface plasmon resonance (SPR). The localized SPR focuses the absorbed light energy to enhance fluorescence (see image).
"Commercial SPR systems are already used in hospital laboratories, but they are bulky and expensive," says Bai. "We would like to develop small, handheld devices for on-the-spot clinical use. This requires localized SPR, for which we need nanohole arrays."
Previously, nanohole arrays have been created using electron-beam lithography (EBL), which is expensive and time consuming. Bai and co-workers used EBL to create a nickel mold and then used the mold to print nanohole patterns onto a photoresist material. The researchers made the nanostructures by evaporating gold onto the patterned structure before peeling off the photoresist material. Because the nickel mold can be reused many times, this method -- called nano-imprinting -- can produce large numbers of gold nanohole arrays.
"We fabricated arrays of 140 nanometer-square nanoholes with very few defects," says Bai. As a first demonstration, the researchers showed that a sensor chip made with their nanohole arrays could detect prostate cancer antigens in blood, and was ten times more sensitive than an identical device that used a gold film without nanoholes. Optimizing the chip design would further improve the sensitivity, Bai notes.
The team believes that these chips could be incorporated into cheap and portable point-of-care devices for rapid diagnosis of diseases such as dengue fever. "The microfluidic cartridge built using our nanohole arrays is about the size of a credit card," says Bai. "In the future, we hope to build detectors that use very simple light sources, such as LEDs, and simple detectors similar to smartphone cameras. These devices will have widespread applications across medical science and could even be used to detect contaminants in food, water or the air."

 

Accelerator On a Chip: Technology Could Spawn New Generations of Smaller, Less Expensive Devices for Science, Medicine

The key to the accelerator chips is tiny, precisely spaced ridges, which cause the iridescence seen in this close-up photo. (Credit: Matt Beardsley, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)

The achievement was reported today in Nature by a team including scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University.
"We still have a number of challenges before this technology becomes practical for real-world use, but eventually it would substantially reduce the size and cost of future high-energy particle colliders for exploring the world of fundamental particles and forces," said Joel England, the SLAC physicist who led the experiments. "It could also help enable compact accelerators and X-ray devices for security scanning, medical therapy and imaging, and research in biology and materials science."
Because it employs commercial lasers and low-cost, mass-production techniques, the researchers believe it will set the stage for new generations of "tabletop" accelerators.
At its full potential, the new "accelerator on a chip" could match the accelerating power of SLAC's 2-mile-long linear accelerator in just 100 feet, and deliver a million more electron pulses per second.
This initial demonstration achieved an acceleration gradient, or amount of energy gained per length, of 300 million electronvolts per meter. That's roughly 10 times the acceleration provided by the current SLAC linear accelerator.
"Our ultimate goal for this structure is 1 billion electronvolts per meter, and we're already one-third of the way in our first experiment," said Stanford Professor Robert Byer, the principal investigator for this research.
Today's accelerators use microwaves to boost the energy of electrons. Researchers have been looking for more economical alternatives, and this new technique, which uses ultrafast lasers to drive the accelerator, is a leading candidate.
Particles are generally accelerated in two stages. First they are boosted to nearly the speed of light. Then any additional acceleration increases their energy, but not their speed; this is the challenging part.
In the accelerator-on-a-chip experiments, electrons are first accelerated to near light-speed in a conventional accelerator. Then they are focused into a tiny, half-micron-high channel within a fused silica glass chip just half a millimeter long. The channel had been patterned with precisely spaced nanoscale ridges. Infrared laser light shining on the pattern generates electrical fields that interact with the electrons in the channel to boost their energy.
Turning the accelerator on a chip into a full-fledged tabletop accelerator will require a more compact way to get the electrons up to speed before they enter the device.
A collaborating research group in Germany, led by Peter Hommelhoff at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, has been looking for such a solution. It simultaneously reports in Physical Review Letters its success in using a laser to accelerate lower-energy electrons.
Applications for these new particle accelerators would go well beyond particle physics research. Byer said laser accelerators could drive compact X-ray free-electron lasers, comparable to SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source, that are all-purpose tools for a wide range of research.

Another possible application is small, portable X-ray sources to improve medical care for people injured in combat, as well as provide more affordable medical imaging for hospitals and laboratories. That's one of the goals of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Advanced X-Ray Integrated Sources (AXiS) program, which partially funded this research. Primary funding for this research is from the DOE's Office of Science.
 

 

Lernstift – a Pen That Warns for Mistakes

Lernstift is a digital pen  

that recognizes writing errors and points them out with a subtle vibration – like a friend looking you over the shoulder as you write. Lernstift works fully autonomous – without further external devices or special paper.

Two central functions

Learning to write bears two main challenges: writing legibly and writing correctly. Lernstift helps with both – from legibly writing one's very first letters down to the correct spelling of exotic fruits on your shopping list.

Calligraphy mode

In Calligraphy Mode the pen vibrates once if a letter is written wrong or illegibly.

Orthography mode

In Orthography Mode the pen vibrates once for a misspelled word and twice to point out grammatical errors in a sentence.

Lernstift Apps

Lernstift is an innovative learning aid for kids and adults.
The sophisticated electronics recognize all writing movements and points out mistakes as they are being made – with an unmistakeable vibration.

Via Wi-Fi the pen can be connected to computers and smart devices. With the help of apps one can measure the learning progress. A broad range of other apps will be developed – from interactive learning games to digital note-taking and co-writing solutions all the way down to social media sharing and an own Lernstift community.

Learning success measurement

Live monitoring

Document creation

Cowriting

Further Features

Unlike other digital pens Lernstift is truly multifaceted – in both the visual and functional design.

Exchangeable writing tips: pencil, fountain pen, ballpoint

With its exhangeable writing system the pen can be easily turned into a pencil, fountain pen or ballpoint.

Color variants for girls and boys, mothers and fathers

Boys will be boys and most girls do have a feminine style most of the time; that's why Lernstift will be available in respective colors.

Language versions

Upon launch, Lernstift will be available in English and German. Step by step we will then introduce further languages; depending on the demand.

The future of penmanship

A perfectly easy way to learn to write perfectly

For centuries mankind has been learning to write. All this time, we have depended on someone looking over our shoulder as we write, or correcting spelling, grammar and form afterwards.
In the future we can get our feedback another way – and more importantly: instantly! With Lernstift. It combines a time-tested writing utensil with state of the art technology and thereby gives writing by hand new relevance and appeal in the age of the iPad.
The integrated electronics recognize mistakes as they are being made and give the writer feedback by vibrating. In other words:

Lernstift is a great way to learn how to write faster. And what’s more: Lernstift is great fun, too!

Lernstift – a Pen That Warns for Mistakes

Lernstift – a Pen That Warns for Mistakes

Army test next generation nano drone - the Black Hornet

Army test next generation nano drone - the Black Hornet

It may look like a child’s toy - but this tiny remote control helicopter has become massively important to the Army in the fight against the Taliban

High flyer: Sgt Scott Weaver launches a drone

Crown Copyright

It may look like a child’s toy - but this tiny remote control helicopter has become massively important to the Army in the fight against the Taliban.
Troops in Afghanistan program the Black Hornet drone to fly deep into enemy territory and take pictures with three tiny cameras fitted in its nose before returning to base.

The 8in drones are so small that they can fit easily in a soldier’s hand and weigh just over half an ounce including their batteries.
They are being used by soldiers from the Brigade Reconnaissance Force at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan.

Mission: The Black Hornet takes off at Camp Bastion

Crown Copyright

 

Child's play: The remote control helicopter in the air

Crown Copyright

  Commanding officer Major Adam Foden, 53, said: “Black Hornet is a game-changing piece of kit.
"Previously, we would have had to send soldiers forward to see if there were any enemy fighters hiding inside a set of buildings.
"Now we are deploying Black Hornet to look inside compounds and to clear a route through enemy-held spaces.
“It has worked very well and the pictures it delivers back to the monitor are really clear and Black Hornet is so small and quiet that the locals can’t see or hear it.”
The Black Hornet has a rechargeable battery and is controlled by members of the unit using a joystick similar to those on video games .
The drone can fly at speeds of up to 22mph during each 30-minute reconnaissance mission.
As it hovers near enemy positions, high-resolution images are beamed back to Camp Bastion.
One soldier said: “The Black Hornet is really cool. The pictures are amazingly clear and we can see who is a local civilian and who is a Taliban fighter and whether any weapons are being stored there.
“We can then make our plans accordingly. It saves a lot of time and prevents a lot of mistakes.
"It can zoom right up to somebody’s face and hold that frame for as long as is required so we can identify them without them even knowing it’s there.”
 
Hi-tech and deadly
British soldiers operating in Afghanistan are equipped with a variety of hi-tech equipment.
The latest rifle – the SA80 A2 – is fitted with a high-definition sight which helps them to pinpoint targets more quickly.
The A2 has a range of up to 300 metres and has been used to devastating effect.
It is superior to its predecessors because it is fully automatic and sealed so less likely to get sand in it.
Troops are also supplied with state-of-the-art sunglasses which protect them from bomb blasts as well as sunlight.
The glasses are fitted with yellow lenses which enable them to make eye contact with civilians – which is seen as highly important when communicating.

Take A Look At The World That Awaits Us In 2050

Photoshopping The Future: Take A Look At The World That Awaits Us In 2050

By: Hugh Hart

British environmentalist Jonathan Porritt offers a photo-realistic vision of life on Earth in the year 2050. (Spoiler alert: the future does not exactly go smoothly.)

Jonathan Porritt can talk until he's blue in the face about concentrated solar power plants, advanced anaerobic digestion, and aquacycle technology. The British environmentalist has addressed all of that and more as founding director of Forum for the Future. But in his new book The World We Made (October, Phaidon Press), Porritt goes way beyond mere verbiage to offer a photo-realistic vision of life on Earth in the year 2050.
"The underlying philosophy for this book is simple," Porritt tells Co.Create. "I've been trying to do sustainable advocacy for four decades. Even when I'm lucky enough to make a hit with something intellectually, lots of people tell me, 'That's really interesting Jonathan but I still can't see what a sustainable world looks like.' I realized I can't do words any longer because words alone won't cut it. I've got to do words plus visuals."
The World We Made looks back, 37 years from now, on a fitful cavalcade of catastrophes and breakthroughs as seen through the eyes of fictitious professor Alex McHale. He describes how famine, cyber-terrorism, and riots gradually convinced politicians, entrepreneurs, and technologists to innovate their way toward a self-sustaining planet.
While the graphics illustrating Porritt's speculative history share a utopian aesthetic, each visualization finds firm footing in technologies that already exist. "We didn't want to tell a science-fiction story," says Porritt. "It has to look real to people but it also has to look powerful and compelling. The key word for me is aspirational, as in, 'Yeah, 'That looks good. I'd like to live there.'"

Porritt makes no apologies for his optimistic projections about where the world is headed. He said, "There's no mis-match between my own ambitions for myself, my family, and my community and what's being presented in this book. It's taken me 40 years to learn about the psychology of change, and without aspiration, political systems don't work, individual ambition doesn't kick in."
Check out The World We Made in the slides above for postcards from the future featuring wave-powered generators, solar sailboats, and lushly forested deserts.

 source:www.forumofthefuture.org

 

World Record Solar Cell With 44.7% Efficiency

Sep. 23, 2013 — The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, Soitec, CEA-Leti and the Helmholtz Center Berlin jointly announced today having achieved a new world record for the conversion of sunlight into electricity using a new solar cell structure with four solar subcells. Surpassing competition after only over three years of research, and entering the roadmap at world class level, a new record efficiency of 44.7% was measured at a concentration of 297 suns. This indicates that 44.7% of the solar spectrum's energy, from ultraviolet through to the infrared, is converted into electrical energy. This is a major step towards reducing further the costs of solar electricity and continues to pave the way to the 50% efficiency roadmap.

World record solar cell with 44.7% efficiency, made up of four solar subcells based on III-V compound semiconductors for use in concentrator photovoltaics. (Credit: © Fraunhofer ISE)

Back in May 2013, the German-French team of Fraunhofer ISE, Soitec, CEA-Leti and the Helmholtz Center Berlin had already announced a solar cell with 43.6% efficiency. Building on this result, further intensive research work and optimization steps led to the present efficiency of 44.7%.
These solar cells are used in concentrator photovoltaics (CPV), a technology which achieves more than twice the efficiency of conventional PV power plants in sun-rich locations. The terrestrial use of so-called III-V multi-junction solar cells, which originally came from space technology, has prevailed to realize highest efficiencies for the conversion of sunlight to electricity. In this multi-junction solar cell, several cells made out of different III-V semiconductor materials are stacked on top of each other. The single subcells absorb different wavelength ranges of the solar spectrum.
"We are incredibly proud of our team which has been working now for three years on this four-junction solar cell," says Frank Dimroth, Department Head and Project Leader in charge of this development work at Fraunhofer ISE. "This four-junction solar cell contains our collected expertise in this area over many years. Besides improved materials and optimization of the structure, a new procedure called wafer bonding plays a central role. With this technology, we are able to connect two semiconductor crystals, which otherwise cannot be grown on top of each other with high crystal quality. In this way we can produce the optimal semiconductor combination to create the highest efficiency solar cells."
"This world record increasing our efficiency level by more than 1 point in less than 4 months demonstrates the extreme potential of our four-junction solar cell design which relies on Soitec bonding techniques and expertise," says André-Jacques Auberton-Hervé, Soitec's Chairman and CEO. "It confirms the acceleration of the roadmap towards higher efficiencies which represents a key contributor to competitiveness of our own CPV systems. We are very proud of this achievement, a demonstration of a very successful collaboration."
"This new record value reinforces the credibility of the direct semiconductor bonding approaches that is developed in the frame of our collaboration with Soitec and Fraunhofer ISE. We are very proud of this new result, confirming the broad path that exists in solar technologies for advanced III-V semiconductor processing," said Leti CEO Laurent Malier. Concentrator modules are produced by Soitec (started in 2005 under the name Concentrix Solar, a spin-off of Fraunhofer ISE). This particularly efficient technology is employed in solar power plants located in sun-rich regions with a high percentage of direct radiation. Presently Soitec has CPV installations in 18 different countries including Italy, France, South Africa and California.

Animated videos introduce stem cell science in one-minute bursts

StemCellShorts – created by young Canadian researchers – are narrated by renowned scientists            

Two Canadian researchers with a passion for animation and the communication of science have created a series of one-minute videos to introduce basic concepts in stem cell research.
The first of three – What is a stem cell? – premieres today on Signals, the official blog of the Stem Cell Network, which helped fund the videos, and the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine.

Ben Paylor

Mike Long, PhD

The videos are the brainchild of Ben Paylor , a PhD candidate in Experimental Medicine at the University of British Columbia, and Dr. Mike Long, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, who pitched the idea for the video series through a Public Outreach Award offered by the Stem Cell Network. They channeled the $5,000 in seed funding from the award through their Vancouver-based animation studio, InfoShots, engaging award-winning animator David Murawsky and Emmy-nominated composer James Wallace to create the animations and music for the films.
InfoShots, which they founded in 2011, specializes in explaining complex topics in simple terms. Current projects including animations that explain scientific papers, grants and the research of individual labs.

Narrated by the 'father of stem cell research'

Jim Till, PhD

To give the videos credibility and make an impact in the scientific community, they worked with the Stem Cell Network to enlist world-renowned stem cell scientists to narrate the videos. "Animation is an excellent medium for explaining complex topics in a very simple and engaging manner," said Paylor, an 2012-13 Action Canada fellow. "And being able to secure such prestigious narrators … was the icing on the cake."
The first video features the voice of Dr. Jim Till, who, along with Dr. Ernest McCulloch, first identified stem cells from bone marrow in 1961.Their description of stem cell characteristics became the foundation of the field of stem cellresearch. These concepts that are revealed in the first video which is targeted at youth of high-school age and older.
"I felt that it was important to contribute to What is a stem cell? because of the fortuitous involvement of Dr. Ernest McCulloch and myself in what turned out to be the foundation of a new field of experimental stem cell research," said Dr. Till.
He said he hoped the authenticity of the scientists' voices on the videos would help make the films more appealing to young people.

Communicating Science

Elsevier Connect's Communicating Science feature deals with all aspects of science communication, including creative ways researchers are presenting science to reach a broader audience. If you have a project or story you would like to present on Elsevier Connect, please submit your idea to Editor-in-Chief Alison Bert: ECEditor@elsevier.com.

The remaining two videos are "What is an embryonic stem cell?" narrated by Dr. Janet Rossant, Chief of Research at SickKids Hospital of the University of Toronto, and "What is an induced pluripotent stem cell?" narrated by Dr. Mick Bhatia, Director of the McMaster University Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute in Hamilton, Ontario.
They will be posted on the Signals Blog on October 11 and October 25 respectively.
In addition, the world screening premiere will be held at the 2013 Till & McCulloch Meetings October 24 in Banff, Alberta.
All videos will be hosted on the Stem Cell Network's vimeo channel: vimeo.com/stemcellnetwork.
For Paylor and Long, the work is far from complete. They recently received a second Public Outreach Award and matching funds from the Canadian Stem Cell Foundation to produce five more videos, which will be released in the spring.

The Stem Cell Network and Public Outreach Award

The Stem Cell Network, established in 2001, brings together more than 100 leading cientists, clinicians, engineers and ethicists from universities and hospitals across Canada. The Network supports cutting-edge projects that translate research discoveries into new and better treatments for millions of patients in Canada and around the world.
Hosted by the University of Ottawa, the Stem Cell Network is one of Canada's Networks of Centres of Excellence funded through Industry Canada and its three granting councils.
The Stem Cell Network's Public Outreach Award supports activities that communicate stem cell science, policy or ethics to targeted public audiences in Canada and abroad. The award enables Stem Cell Network members and trainees to gain access to development and production funding for the creation of materials required as part of these activities.

The Author

Lisa Willemse

Lisa Willemse  is Director of Communications for the Stem Cell Network, one of Canada's Networks of Centres of Excellence. In addition to more traditional forms of communications, in which she uses her previous experience as an editor, journalist and photographer, she has a strong interest in new media and online communications. In 2008, she began developing the Signals Blog, the official blog of the Stem Cell Network and the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine. The blog is dedicated to sharing findings and commentary related to stem cell research while serving as a training/mentorship platform for young scientists interested in acquiring science communications skills. She serves as the blog's editor and an occasional contributor. 

source:http://www.elsevier.com/connect/animated-videos-introduce-stem-cell-science-in-one-minute-bursts

Future Laptops Could Be Powered By Typing

Charge your laptop by typing on it — sounds like a perfect idea to one who believes in the ideal world. But this could soon become a reality as Researchers from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) have successfully measured a piezoelectric thin film’s capacity for turning mechanical pressure into electricity — which is said to be a crucial step towards the development of self-powering portable electronics.

Piezoelectricity, a phenomenon that was used in electric cigarette lighters was discovered in the 19th century. Similar to the way electric cigarette lighters use piezoelectric crystals to produce a high voltage electric current, laptops could also generate electric energy to self-charge themselves when buttons are pressed.
According to Dr. Madhu Bhaskaran:

The power of piezoelectrics could be integrated into running shoes to charge mobile phones, enable laptops to be powered through typing or even used to convert blood pressure into a power source for pacemakers – essentially creating an everlasting battery.
With the drive for alternative energy solutions, we need to find more efficient ways to power microchips, which are the building blocks of everyday technology like the smarter phone or faster computer.
The next key challenge will be amplifying the electrical energy generated by the piezoelectric materials to enable them to be integrated into low-cost, compact structures.

This study has been co-authored by Dr Bhaskaran with Dr Sharath Sriram, who is part of the Microplatforms Research Group, led by Professor Arnan Mitchell. Australian National University’s Dr Simon Ruffell also collaborated on the research. The study was published in Volume 21, Issue 12 of Advanced Functional Materials.
The drawback of this is that the piezelectric film is still not cost-effective to manufacture, but experts believe this dream will come true sooner rather than later.

Solar Tunnel To Power 4,000 Trains Annually

Europe’s first “solar tunnel” is providing power to high-speed trains running between Paris and Amsterdam.
The 3.6-kilometer (2.2-mile) tunnel, built to protect trains from falling trees as they pass through an ancient forest near Antwerp, is covered with solar cells and could generate 3.3 MWh of electricity annually. Enfinity, the company behind the project, says that’s equivalent to the average annual consumption of nearly 1,000 homes. It also claims that the tunnel will decrease CO2 emissions by 2,400 tons per year.

“For train operators, it is the perfect way to cut their carbon footprints because you can use spaces that have no other economic value and the projects can be delivered within a year because they don’t attract the protests that wind power does,” Bart Van Renterghem, the UK head of Enfinity, told the Guardian.

The $22.9 million project uses 16,000 solar panels covering 50,000 square meters (roughly 538,000 square feet), which is about the size of eight football pitches. They will provide enough electricity to power 4,000 trains a year. The first of those trains left Antwerp on Monday, filled with commuters and students. The trains tap into the solar energy as they pass through the tunnel at 186 mph. The electricity also provides power for lighting, signals and other infrastructure.
“By using electricity generated on-site, we eliminate energy losses and transport costs,” Enfinity chief executive Steven De Tollenaere, told AFP.
Enfinity has said there had been plans afoot to introduce similar solar infrastructure in the UK but recent cuts to financial incentives would make the projects “unviable.”
“Apparently the UK Government is more concerned about the Treasury than the mid and long-term carbon reduction objectives that we have,” van Renerghem said. “Personally, I think it is short-sighted.”

Energy minister Greg Barker MP said in response: “We want to create a long-term platform for growth. Now that does mean that, in the short term, large-scale schemes aren’t going to get the sort of funding that we see in Belgium currently. There are a lot of exciting things in solar but we have got to think it through so that we get good value for the bill-payers as well as a great deal for the solar pioneers.”

 

How to Make Ceramics That Bend Without Breaking: Self-Deploying Medical Devices?

Sep. 26, 2013 — Ceramics are not known for their flexibility: they tend to crack under stress. But researchers from MIT and Singapore have just found a way around that problem -- for very tiny objects, at least.

When subjected to a load, the molecular structure of the ceramic material studied by the MIT-Singapore team deforms rather than cracking. When heated, it then returns to its original shape. Though they have the same chemical composition, the two molecular configurations correspond to different natural minerals, called austenite and martensite. (Credit: Graphic: Lai et al)

The team has developed a way of making minuscule ceramic objects that are not only flexible, but also have a "memory" for shape: When bent and then heated, they return to their original shapes. The surprising discovery is reported this week in the journal Science, in a paper by MIT graduate student Alan Lai, professor Christopher Schuh, and two collaborators in Singapore.
Shape-memory materials, which can bend and then snap back to their original configurations in response to a temperature change, have been known since the 1950s, explains Schuh, the Danae and Vasilis Salapatas Professor of Metallurgy and head of MIT's Department of Materials Science and Engineering. "It's been known in metals, and some polymers," he says, "but not in ceramics."
In principle, the molecular structure of ceramics should make shape memory possible, he says -- but the materials' brittleness and propensity for cracking has been a hurdle. "The concept has been there, but it's never been realized," Schuh says. "That's why we were so excited."
The key to shape-memory ceramics, it turns out, was thinking small.
The team accomplished this in two key ways. First, they created tiny ceramic objects, invisible to the naked eye: "When you make things small, they are more resistant to cracking," Schuh says. Then, the researchers concentrated on making the individual crystal grains span the entire small-scale structure, removing the crystal-grain boundaries where cracks are most likely to occur.
Those tactics resulted in tiny samples of ceramic material -- samples with deformability equivalent to about 7 percent of their size. "Most things can only deform about 1 percent," Lai says, adding that normal ceramics can't even bend that much without cracking.
"Usually if you bend a ceramic by 1 percent, it will shatter," Schuh says. But these tiny filaments, with a diameter of just 1 micrometer -- one millionth of a meter -- can be bent by 7 to 8 percent repeatedly without any cracking, he says.
While a micrometer is pretty tiny by most standards, it's actually not so small in the world of nanotechnology. "It's large compared to a lot of what nanotech people work on," Lai says. As such, these materials could be important tools for those developing micro- and nanodevices, such as for biomedical applications. For example, shape-memory ceramics could be used as microactuators to trigger actions within such devices -- such as the release of drugs from tiny implants.
Compared to the materials currently used in microactuators, Schuh says, the strength of the ceramic would allow it to exert a stronger push in a microdevice. "Microactuation is something we think this might be very good for," he says, because the ceramic material has "the ability to push things with a lot of force -- the highest on record" for its size.
The ceramics used in this research were made of zirconia, but the same techniques should apply to other ceramic materials. Zirconia is "one of the most well-studied ceramics," Lai says, and is already widely used in engineering. It is also used in fuel cells, considered a promising means of providing power for cars, homes and even for the electric grid. While there would be no need for elasticity in such applications, the material's flexibility could make it more resistant to damage.
The material combines some of the best attributes of metals and ceramics, the researchers say: Metals have lower strength but are very deformable, while ceramics have much greater strength, but almost no ductility -- the ability to bend or stretch without breaking. The newly developed ceramics, Schuh says, have "ceramiclike strength, but metallike ductility."
In addition to Schuh and Lai, the work was carried out by Zehui Du and Chee Lip Gan of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

 

Nanoparticle Vaccine: Particles That Deliver Vaccines Directly to Mucosal Surfaces Could Defend Against Many Infectious Diseases

Sep. 25, 2013 — Many viruses and bacteria infect humans through mucosal surfaces, such as those in the lungs, gastrointestinal tract and reproductive tract. To help fight these pathogens, scientists are working on vaccines that can establish a front line of defense at mucosal surfaces.

Engineers have developed a new type of nanoparticle that protects the vaccine long enough to generate a strong immune response -- not only in the lungs, but also in mucosal surfaces far from the vaccination site, such as the gastrointestinal and reproductive tracts. (Credit: © ancroft / Fotolia)

Vaccines can be delivered to the lungs via an aerosol spray, but the lungs often clear away the vaccine before it can provoke an immune response. To overcome that, MIT engineers have developed a new type of nanoparticle that protects the vaccine long enough to generate a strong immune response -- not only in the lungs, but also in mucosal surfaces far from the vaccination site, such as the gastrointestinal and reproductive tracts.
Such vaccines could help protect against influenza and other respiratory viruses, or prevent sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV, herpes simplex virus and human papilloma virus, says Darrell Irvine, an MIT professor of materials science and engineering and biological engineering and the leader of the research team. He is also exploring use of the particles to deliver cancer vaccines.
"This is a good example of a project where the same technology can be applied in cancer and in infectious disease. It's a platform technology to deliver a vaccine of interest," says Irvine, who is a member of MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT and Harvard University.
Irvine and colleagues describe the nanoparticle vaccine in the Sept. 25 issue of Science Translational Medicine. Lead authors of the paper are recent PhD recipient Adrienne Li and former MIT postdoc James Moon.
Sturdier vaccines
Only a handful of mucosal vaccines have been approved for human use; the best-known example is the Sabin polio vaccine, which is given orally and absorbed in the digestive tract. There is also a flu vaccine delivered by nasal spray, and mucosal vaccines against cholera, rotavirus and typhoid fever.
To create better ways of delivering such vaccines, Irvine and his colleagues built upon a nanoparticle they developed two years ago. The protein fragments that make up the vaccine are encased in a sphere made of several layers of lipids that are chemically "stapled" to one another, making the particles more durable inside the body.
"It's like going from a soap bubble to a rubber tire. You have something that's chemically much more resistant to disassembly," Irvine says.
This allows the particles to resist disintegration once they reach the lungs. With this sturdier packaging, the protein vaccine remains in the lungs long enough for immune cells lining the surface of the lungs to grab them and deliver them to T cells. Activating T cells is a critical step for the immune system to form a memory of the vaccine particles so it will be primed to respond again during an infection.
Stopping the spread of infection
In studies of mice, the researchers found that HIV or cancer antigens encapsulated in nanoparticles were taken up by immune cells much more successfully than vaccine delivered to the lungs or under the skin without being trapped in nanoparticles.
HIV does not infect mice, so to test the immune response generated by the vaccines, the researchers infected the mice with a version of the vaccinia virus that was engineered to produce the HIV protein delivered by the vaccine.
Mice vaccinated with nanoparticles were able to quickly contain the virus and prevent it from escaping the lungs. Vaccinia virus usually spreads to the ovaries soon after infection, but the researchers found that the vaccinia virus in the ovaries of mice vaccinated with nanoparticles was undetectable, while substantial viral concentrations were found in mice that received other forms of the vaccine.
Mice that received the nanoparticle vaccine lost a small amount of weight after infection but then fully recovered, whereas the viral challenge was 100 percent lethal to mice who received the non-nanoparticle vaccine.
"Giving the vaccine at the mucosal surface in the nanocapsule form allowed us to completely block that systemic infection," Irvine says.
The researchers also found a strong memory T cell presence at distant mucosal surfaces, including in the digestive and reproductive tracts. "An important caveat is that although immunity at distant mucus membranes following vaccination at one mucosal surface has been seen in humans as well, it's still being worked out whether the patterns seen in mice are fully reproduced in humans," Irvine says. "It might be that it's a different mucosal surface that gets stimulated from the lungs or from oral delivery in humans."
Tumor defense
The particles also hold promise for delivering cancer vaccines, which stimulate the body's own immune system to destroy tumors.
To test this, the researchers first implanted the mice with melanoma tumors that were engineered to express ovalbumin, a protein found in egg whites. Three days later, they vaccinated the mice with ovalbumin. They found that mice given the nanoparticle form of the vaccine completely rejected the tumors, while mice given the uncoated vaccine did not.
Further studies need to be done with more challenging tumor models, Irvine says. In the future, tests with vaccines targeted to proteins expressed by cancer cells would be necessary.

Google history in depth 

source:http://www.google.com/about/company/history/

Get the details, year by year, on Google's growth as a company over more than a decade.

1995-1997 · 1998 · 1999 · 2000 · 2001 · 2002 · 2003 · 2004 · 2005 · 2006 · 2007 · 2008 · 2009 · 2010 · 2011 · 2012 · 2013

 

1995-1997

1995

• Larry Page and Sergey Brin meet at Stanford. Larry, 22, a U Michigan grad, is considering the school; Sergey, 21, is assigned to show him around.

1996

• Larry and Sergey begin collaborating on a search engine called BackRub. BackRub operates on Stanford servers for more than a year—eventually taking up too much bandwidth.

1997

• Google.com is registered as a domain on September 15. The name—a play on the word "googol," a mathematical term for the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros—reflects Larry and Sergey's mission to organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web.

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 1998

April

• Larry launches a monthly "Google Friends Newsletter" to inform fans about company news. (We've since shut down Google Friends Newsletter in favor of blogs, Google+ and other methods of sharing news.)

August

• Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim writes a check for $100,000 to an entity that doesn't exist yet—a company called Google Inc.
• Before heading to the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert, Larry and Sergey incorporate the iconic Man into the logo to keep people informed about where the Google crew would be for a few days—our first doodle.

September

• On September 4, Google files for incorporation in California. Larry and Sergey open a bank account in the newly-established company's name and deposit Andy Bechtolsheim's check.
• Google sets up workspace in Susan Wojcicki's garage on Santa Margarita Ave., Menlo Park, Calif.
• Larry and Sergey hire their first employee. Craig Silverstein is a fellow CS grad student at Stanford who works at Google for 10+ years before joining education startup Khan Academy.

December

• "PC Magazine" reports that Google "has an uncanny knack for returning extremely relevant results" and recognizes us as the search engine of choice in the Top 100 Web Sites for 1998.

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1999

February

• We outgrow our garage office and move to new digs at 165 University Avenue in Palo Alto with just eight employees.

April

• Yoshka, our first "company" dog, comes to work with our senior vice president of operations, Urs Hölzle.

May

• Omid Kordestani joins to run sales—employee #11. Ten years later, Omid steps down from his active role in the company, becoming a senior advisor.

June

• Our first press release announces a $25 million round from Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins; John Doerr and Michael Moritz join the board.

August

• We move to our first Mountain View location: 2400 Bayshore. Mountain View is a few miles south of Stanford University, and north of the older towns of Silicon Valley: Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, San Jose.

November

• We hire our first chef, Charlie Ayers (his previous claim to fame was catering for the Grateful Dead; he now owns a cafe in Palo Alto). Today Google's food programs focus on providing healthy, sustainably sourced food to fuel Googlers around the world.

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2000

April

• We announce the MentalPlex: Google's ability to read your mind as you visualize the search results you want. Thus begins our annual foray in the Silicon Valley tradition of April 1 hoaxes.

May

• We win our first Webby Awards: Technical Achievement (voted by judges) and Peoples' Voice (voted by users).
• We run a series of doodles featuring a little alien—our first doodle series and the first doodle not associated with any particular event.
• The first 10 language versions of Google.com are released: French, German, Italian, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Norwegian and Danish. Today, search is available in 150+ languages.

July

• Our first international doodle celebrates Bastille Day in France.

September

• Google New York starts in a Starbucks on 86th Street with a one-person sales "team." Today, more than 2,000 Googlers work in our New York office, a former Port Authority building at 111 Eighth Avenue.
• We start offering search in Chinese, Japanese and Korean—bringing our total number of supported languages to 15.

October

• Google AdWords launches with 350 customers. The self-service ad program promises online activation with a credit card, keyword targeting and performance feedback.
• The first doodle by a guest artist, Lorie Loeb, goes live. Since then, many artists have lent their talents to the Google homepage, from Wayne Thiebaud to Christoph Niemann to Eric Carle.

December

• Google Toolbar is released—a browser plug-in that makes it possible to search without visiting the Google homepage.

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2001

February

• In our first public acquisition, we acquire Deja.com's Usenet Discussion Service, an archive of 500 million Usenet discussions dating back to 1995. We add search and browse features and launch it as Google Groups.

March

• Eric Schmidt is named chairman of the board of directors.

April

• Swedish Chef becomes a language preference in search. We offer several "joke" languages, including Klingon.

July

• Google Images launches, initially offering access to 250 million images.

August

• We open our first international office, in Tokyo, Japan.
• Eric Schmidt becomes our CEO. Larry and Sergey are named presidents of products and technology, respectively.

December

• We release our first annual Google Zeitgeist, a visual look at what millions of people searched for over the year just ending. It's a revealing look at the year that was, from "Harry Potter" to "Osama Bin Laden." We continue to release Zeitgeist every year.

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2002

February

• The first Google product for enterprises is released: the Google Search Appliance is a yellow box that businesses can plug into their computer network to enable search capabilities for their own documents.
• We release a major overhaul for AdWords, including new cost-per-click pricing.

April

• We release the first set of Google APIs, enabling developers to query more than 2 billion web documents and program in their favorite environment, including Java, Perl and Visual Studio.

May

• We release Google Labs, which let people try out beta technologies and was the proving ground for many Google features, such as Google Transit, Google Scholar and Google Trends. Nearly 10 years later, we wind down Google Labs in order to prioritize our product efforts.

September

• Google News launches with 4,000 news sources. Today Google News includes 50,000+ news sources, with 70 regional editions in different languages. All told, Google News and other services send publishers 6 billion clicks per month as of 2012.

October

• A few months after our first employee in Australia starts selling AdWords from her lounge room, we open our office in Sydney—the second office after Japan in APAC. Our first local AdWords client is eBay Australia.

December

• With the launch of Froogle (which became Google Shopping in 2012), people can search for stuff to buy.

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2003

February

• We acquire Pyra Labs, the creators of Blogger. Nearly as old as Google itself (Blogger started in 1999), today more than 300 million people visit Blogger every month.

March

• We announce Google AdSense, a new content-targeted advertising service that enables publishers large and small to access Google's vast network of advertisers. (The following month, we acquire Applied Semantics, whose technology bolsters the service named AdSense.)

April

• We launch Google Grants—the nonprofit edition of AdWords, which provides nonprofit organizations with $10,000 per month in in-kind AdWords advertising to promote their iniatives.

October

• Registration opens for programmers to compete for cash prizes and recognition at the first ever Code Jam. Today, Google Code Jam attracts tens of thousands of contestants each year, and the finals have traveled to Tokyo, Dublin, London and New York City.

December

• We launch Google Print (now known as Google Books), indexing small excerpts from books to appear in search results. In 2004, the program expands through digital scanning partnerships with libraries. To date, we've scanned more than 20 million books.

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2004

January

• We launch Orkut, in its heyday the most important social network in several countries.

March

• We move to the new "Googleplex" at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View with 800+ employees.
• We introduce Google Local, offering relevant neighborhood business listings, maps, and directions. (Eventually, Local is combined with Google Maps.)

April

• We launch Gmail on April Fools' Day. At first invite-only, today it boasts more than 425 million users. Fun fact: our internal code name for Gmail was "Caribou," inspired by a Dilbert cartoon.
• The Official Google Blog goes live. Today, we offer a wide variety of ways—including Google+ pages and Twitter accounts—for people to get news from Google, in many different languages.

May

• We announce the first winners of the Google Anita Borg Scholarship, awarded to outstanding women studying computer science. Today these scholarships are open to students in Africa, Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe, India, Middle East, New Zealand, and the United States.

July

• We acquire Picasa, which helps people organize and display photos online.

August

• Our Initial Public Offering of 19,605,052 shares of Class A common stock takes place on Wall Street. Opening price: $85 per share.

September

• Our Hong Kong office is the first Google office to open in the Greater China region.

October

• We acquire Keyhole, a digital mapping company whose technology will later become Google Earth.
• We launch Google Scholar in beta. This free service helps people search scholarly literature such as peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports.
• Google SMS launches. This service enabled users to send text search queries to GOOGL or 466453 on mobile devices.
• We formally open our European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, with 150 multilingual Googlers, a visit from Sergey and Larry, and recognition from the Deputy Prime Minister of Ireland, Mary Harney.
• We open our new offices in Bangalore and Hyderabad, India. Googlers in India have worked on products ranging from Map Maker to ads to Chrome.

December

• We establish Google.org, dedicated to the idea that technology can help make the world a better place.

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2005

February

• Google Maps goes live. Just two months later, we add satellite views and directions to the product.

April

• Google Maps comes to mobile phones in the U.S., offering driving directions and local information to people on the go.
• Our first Google Maps release in Europe is geared to U.K. users. France, Germany, Italy and Spain follow in 2006. Today, we offer driving directions in 190+ countries around the world.
• The first video goes up on YouTube (not yet part of Google). Today, 100+ hours of video are uploaded every minute and people watch 6 billion hours of video per month!

May

• Personalized Homepage (later iGoogle and no longer available as of November 2013) was designed for people to customize their own Google homepage with content modules.

June

• Google Mobile Web Search is released, specially formulated for viewing search results on mobile phones.
• We unveil Google Earth, a satellite imagery-based mapping service that lets you take a virtual journey to any location in the world. Google Earth has since been downloaded more than 1 billion times.
• The Google Maps API is released; developers can embed Google Maps on many kinds of mapping services and sites. Today there are 1 million active websites and apps using the API, reaching 1 billion people every week.

August

• We launch Google Talk, a downloadable application that lets Gmail users to talk or instant message with friends quickly and easily; Chat comes to Gmail the following year. In 2013, we announce that Talk will be rolled into Hangouts, Google's new single communications system.

October

• Googlers volunteer to produce an author event with Malcolm Gladwell in Mountain View. Since then, the Talks at Google program has hosted 1,500+ authors and other thought leaders in 18 offices.

November

• We release Google Analytics for measuring the impact of websites and marketing campaigns. Analytics is based on Urchin, a company we acquired in March 2005.
• We announce the opening of our offices in São Paulo and Mexico City—our first in Latin America.
• The first Doodle 4 Google contest takes place in the United Kingdom. Since then, we've run Doodle 4 Google contests in countries across six continents, with more than 1 million doodles submitted by students eager for the chance to see their artwork on the Google homepage.

December

• Google Transit launches in the Portland, Ore. metro area. Today, Transit has schedules for more than 1 million public transit stops worldwide.
• Gmail for mobile launches in the United States.

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2006

March

• Google Finance launches—complete with interactive charts and related headlines from Google News—to help people to find financial information more easily.

April

• We launch Google Calendar to help you keep track of events, special occasions and appointments, and to share schedules with others.
• Google Translate launches, offering translations between Arabic and English. Today our machine translation service provides translations between 70+ different languages.

May

• We release Google Trends, a way to visualize the popularity of searches over time.
• Gmail launches in Arabic and Hebrew, bringing the number of interfaces up to 40.

June

• We announce Google Checkout, a fast and easy way to pay for online purchases which paved the way for broader payments with Google Wallet.
• Picasa Web Albums enables Picasa users to upload and share their photos online.
• The Oxford English Dictionary adds the word "Google" (as a verb).

August

• Google Apps for Your Domain is released. This suite of applications, including Gmail and Calendar, is the precursor to Google Apps Premier Edition, which launched later in the year and brings cloud computing to businesses. Today, more than 5 million businesses are using Google Apps.

October

• We launch Apps for Education; our first deployment is to Arizona State University. Today Apps for EDU has more than 25 million users, and is being used by 74 of the top 100 universities.
• We release web-based applications Docs & Spreadsheets (now called Docs and Sheets). Docs is a reworking of Writely (acquired in March).
• We announce our acquisition of YouTube.

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2007

January

• "Fortune" announces its annual list of Best Companies to Work For and Google is #1 (we've been on top of the list three other years since). We're proud we've been able to create a company culture where employees are empowered to do cool things that matter.

February

• This year’s Valentine's Day doodle causes a stir. Many people think we left out the "l" and linked it to a 17th century poet named Googe; others think it's homage to a band called My Bloody Valentine (the bassist's last name is Googe).
• Many of the 2008 Presidential candidates—including then-Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain—visit the Googleplex throughout the campaign.
• We add traffic information to Google Maps for 30+ cities around the U.S. Today, live traffic data is available in 50+ countries, covering highways, streets and more in 600+ major cities.

March

• The first "gBikes" appear on campus, giving Googlers an efficient, convenient and healthy way to get to and from meetings. Today around 700 bikes are on campus at any given moment—just one sign of Google's cycling-friendly culture.

April

• This April Fools' Day is extra busy: not only do we introduce the Gmail Paper Archive and TiSP (Toilet Internet Service Provider)—we lose (and find) a real snake in our New York office!
• GOOG-411 enabled people to dial a phone number and speak a search for local information.

May

• Street View debuts in Google Maps in five U.S. cities: New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Miami, and Denver. Today, Street View is available in more than 50 countries.
• We kick off an effort to help protect people from malicious content on the Internet. Today, approximately 1 billion people use Google Safe Browsing, which extends not only to Google’s search results and ads, but also to popular web browsers such as Chrome, Firefox and Safari, on mobile and desktop.
• We expand the YouTube Partnership Program to include some of the most popular and prolific original content creators from the YouTube community. Today more than 1 million channels earn revenue from the program.
• We announce new strides taken towards universal search. Now video, news, books, image and local results are all integrated together in one search result.

June

• We install solar panels on our Mountain View campus—the largest corporate solar panel installation of its kind at the time. Today the solar panels power 30 percent of the buildings they sit on.
• We unveil a new green initiative aimed at accelerating the adoption of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. We later retire the RechargeIT initiative, though we continue to offer electric vehicles as part of our employee car sharing service.

September

• AdSense for Mobile is introduced, giving sites optimized for mobile browsers the ability to host the same ads as standard websites.
• We add a new application for making slide presentations to Google Docs.

November

• We announce Android—the first open platform for mobile devices—and a collaboration with other companies in the Open Handset Alliance.
• Renewable Energy Less Than Coal (RE was an initiative designed to create electricity from renewable sources that are cheaper than coal. The program has been retired, but we continue to apply what we learned to other renewable energy projects.

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2008

January

• The BOLD Internship program launches, providing opportunities to students historically underrepresented in tech. Combined with our other internships, over the years thousands of students have had the chance have an impact at Google, on projects from engineering to sales.

March

• We complete the acquisition of DoubleClick, a digital marketing company that provides ad management technology for agencies, marketers and publishers.

May

• We host the first Google I/O, our annual developer conference, in San Francisco. I/O has grown since then; in addition to the thousands of developers who join us in person every year, millions of people tune in via live stream to hear the latest news on products.

June

• The first GoogleServe—our global week of service—takes place. Every year, Googlers leave their inboxes behind to participate in projects that give back to the community.
• Google Map Maker launches, enabling people to directly update geographic information in Google Maps and Google Earth—helping ensure that the map accurately reflects the world. Today Map Maker is available in 200+ countries and territories across the globe.

July

• We provide Street View for the entire 2008 Tour de France route—the first launch of Street View imagery in Europe.
• Our first downloadable iPhone app, enabling quicker mobile searching, debuts with the launch of the Apple 3G iPhone.

August

• We launch a site dedicated to the 2008 U.S. elections. In 2012, we take this effort to the next level with Google.com/elections, providing news and online tools for elections worldwide.
• Google Suggest (later called Autocomplete) arrives on Google.com, helping formulate queries, reduce spelling errors and reducing keystrokes.
• Street View is available in several cities in Japan and Australia—the first time it's appeared outside of North America or Europe.

September

• T-Mobile announces the G1, the first phone built on the Android operating system.
• Google Chrome becomes available for download, one day after a comic book announcing our new browser leaks onto the web. Five years later, Chrome boasts more than 750 million users.

November

• The updated Google Mobile App for iPhone makes it possible for you to do a Google web search using only your voice.
• After we discover a correlation between certain search queries and CDC data on flu symptoms, we release Google Flu Trends, an indicator of flu activity around the U.S. as much as two weeks earlier than traditional flu surveillance systems.

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2009

February

• Our first message on Twitter gets back to binary: I'm 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101100 01110101 01100011 01101011 01111001 00001010. (Hint: it's a button on our homepage.)
• We launch Voice Search on Android. Android users can start searching by voice with the touch of a button, making mobile web surfing easy and fast.

March

• We release Google Voice, which improves the way you use your phone, with features like voicemail transcription. In 2013, we announce that Voice will be integrated into Google+ Hangouts.
• We announce Google Ventures, a venture capital fund aimed at using our resources to support innovation and encourage promising new technology companies. In 2013, Google Ventures added its 200th portfolio company.
• We launch a beta test of interest-based advertising on partner sites and on YouTube. This kind of tailored advertising lets us show ads more closely related to users' interests, and it gives advertisers an efficient way to reach those most likely to be interested in their products or services.

April

• Our April Fools' Day prank this year is CADIE, our "Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity" who spends the day taking over various Google products before self-destructing.

May

• To clear brush and reduce fire hazard in the fields near our Mountain View headquarters, we rent some goats from a local company. They help us trim the grass the low-carbon way.

July

• We (literally) take the beta label off both the enterprise and consumer versions of Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Talk.
• We announce that we're developing Google Chrome OS, an open source, lightweight operating system initially targeted at laptops.

September

• We introduce the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, a real-time marketplace that helps large online publishers on one side; and ad networks and agency networks on the other, buy and sell display advertising space.
• On the birthday of the "father of science fiction," we unveil the truth behind a mysterious series of doodles in tribute to H.G. Wells.

October

• Google Maps Navigation is a turn-by-turn GPS navigation system with 3D views, voice guidance and live traffic data.

November

• We release an international series of doodles for the 40th anniversary of "Sesame Street."

December

• Just in time for the holidays we roll out Mac and Linux versions of Google Chrome, as well as extensions for Chrome in Windows and Linux (all in beta).

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2010

January

• We introduce the Nexus One to show what's possible on Android devices. The Nexus line of devices has since grown and now includes tablets as well as phones.
• In response to the Haiti earthquake, engineers build Person Finder to connect loved ones in the wake of disasters. We've since launched Person Finder for other crises—including the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan—and formed Google Crisis Response, a team that responds to global disasters.
• After detecting a sophisticated cyberattack from China, we announce we are no longer willing to continue censoring our services on Google.cn, our local domain. Today, users in mainland China can access search via Google.com.hk.

February

• The first-ever Google Super Bowl ad tells a love story through search terms. This is one of many videos made to celebrate the human side of search.
• We announce a plan to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks, delivering Internet speeds up to 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today. More than 1,000 communities submit proposals in response.

March

• Bike directions and bike trail data come to Google Maps. Today, there are more than 330,000 miles (530,000 kilometers) of biking trails and paths in Google Maps to help you get around on your two wheels.

April

• We change our name to Topeka for April Fools' Day—a tribute to Topeka, Kansas, which changed its name to Google as part of an effort to bring Fiber to that city.
• We're the first company to launch a website publishing the number of requests we get from governments to provide information about our users or to remove content from Google products. Later in the year, we add visualizations showing disruptions in visitor traffic to our products, such as a government blocking access or a cable being cut.

May

• As part of our efforts to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy, we make our first direct investment in a utility-scale renewable energy project.
• Google TV is built on Android and Chrome and gives you an easy and fast way to navigate to television channels, websites, apps, shows and movies.
• In celebration of PAC-MAN’s 30th birthday, we release our first-ever playable doodle, complete with all 256 levels and Ms. PAC-MAN.
• We acquire AdMob, a mobile display advertising company.

July

• As part of our long-term goal to power our operations with 100% renewable energy, we announce an agreement to purchase the clean energy from 114 megawatts of wind generation in Iowa.
• “Life in a Day” is a cinematic experiment to document one day as seen through the eyes of people around the world—created with thousands of submissions from YouTube users.

August

• Priority Inbox helps you handle information overload in Gmail by automatically sorting your email by importance, using a variety of signals.
• “The Wilderness Downtown” is a musical experience created by writer/director Chris Milk with the band Arcade Fire and Google, built with Google Chrome in mind using HTML5 and other technologies.

September

• Google Instant shows you search results as you type so you can quickly get to the information you’re looking for.
• Three years after we first launched Street View in five U.S. cities, you can explore all seven continents at eye level with the addition of Brazil, Ireland and Antarctica imagery.

October

• We announce we've developed technology for cars that can drive themselves; we think self-driving cars can help prevent traffic accidents, free up people’s time and reduce carbon emissions. Our automated cars have since logged more than 500,000 miles on the road.

December

• YouTube introduces TrueView, a new kind of ad—after 5 seconds, if an ad doesn't seem relevant or interesting to you, you can skip it. TrueView is part of our effort to ensure viewers watch ads that are most relevant to them, and advertisers reach the right audience.

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2011

February

• The Google Art Project lets you virtually tour some of of the world’s best museums and explore high resolution images of tens of thousands of works of art from 40 countries.
• We introduce an advanced opt-in security feature called 2-step verification to help people keep their Google Accounts secure. 2-step verification is now available in 40 languages and 150+ countries.

March

• The new +1 button lets you publicly give something a “thumbs up,” helping your friends and contacts find the best stuff online.

April

• Larry Page takes over as CEO—10 years after he last held the title. Eric Schmidt becomes executive chairman.
• Charlie Chaplin’s 122nd birthday is the occasion for our first-ever live-action doodle.

May

• Google Wallet makes it convenient to shop in-store, online or on the go, and helps merchants simplify the checkout experience.
• Google Offers kicks off in beta in Portland, Ore.
• We announce the first Chromebooks from partners Samsung and Acer. Chromebooks are designed to be fast, simple, secure and easy to keep updated.

June

• Our playable doodle in honor of guitar inventor Les Paul becomes the most popular Google doodle of all time. in just 48 hours in the U.S., you recorded 5.1 years worth of music—40 million songs—using our doodle guitar. And those songs were played back 870,000 times!
• We install a corporate electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Today it's the largest in the country, with charging at 750+ parking spaces.
• We add speech recognition into search on desktop for Chrome users. Simply click the microphone in the Google search box, and you can speak your search.
• The Google+ project—real-life sharing, rethought for the web—launches.
• All our products start getting a design makeover, beginning with our homepage.

July

• Talented young scientists wow the judges at the inaugural Google Science Fair, an online science competition open to students aged 13-18 from around the world.
• AdWords Express is a faster and simpler way for small businesses to start advertising online in under five minutes.

August

• We bring offline access to Gmail, Calendar and Docs for people using Chrome.

September

• We acquire Zagat to help you find the very best places.

October

• Android 4.0, a.k.a. Ice Cream Sandwich, is designed to work on both phones and tablets, and to make the power of Android enticing and intuitive.

November

• We launch Google+ Pages to connect you with the businesses, organizations and other things you care about. We have a few of our own sharing updates about the company.
• Google Maps now helps you to figure out where you are and get directions when you're inside a building like an airport or mall.

December

• Android Market exceeds 10 billion app downloads—with a growth rate of one billion app downloads per month.
• We open a new office in Paris, a symbol of our commitment to one of Europe’s fastest-growing Internet economies. The new office is also home to the Google Cultural Institute.

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2012

January

• We join thousands of other sites to encourage users to stand up against two legislative proposals in the U.S. (SOPA and PIPA) which would have censored the Internet and impeded innovation. The next day, the bills are set aside. More than 7 million Internet users sign the petition hosted at google.com/takeaction.

February

• Chrome launches on Android, so you can take the same simple, fast and secure web browsing experience with you wherever you go, across devices. Three months later we launch Chrome on iOS.

March

• Android Market becomes Google Play, a digital content store offering apps, games, books, movies, music and more.

April

• Project Glass is unveiled.
• Google Drive launches, enabling you to create, share, collaborate and keep your files—including videos, photos, Google Docs and PDFs—all in one place.
• It's our busiest April Fools’ Day ever, launching Google Maps 8-bit for NES, our Canine Staffing Team, NASCAR’s race car of the future (hint: it drives itself) and more.

May

• Hangouts On Air become available worldwide. Many public figures and organizations have hosted Hangouts to connect directly with the public, including U.S. President Barack Obama, NASA, David Beckham, Taylor Swift and U.N. Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon.
• We introduce the Knowledge Graph in Search, which makes it easier for you to discover information about real-world things—landmarks, celebrities, cities, sports teams, movies, works of art and more. This launch is built on our acquisition in 2010 of Metaweb.
• We acquire Motorola Mobility.
• Our doodle in honor of Dr. Robert Moog, the inventor of the electronic analog Synthesizer, is an interactive, playable logo that allows you to record, play back and share songs.
• We expand our Transparency Report with a new section on copyright, providing information on the number of requests we get from copyright owners to remove Google Search results because they allegedly link to infringing content.
• We transition Google Product Search to Google Shopping to help people research products and connect directly with merchants to make purchases.

June

• We unveil DoubleClick Digital Marketing, our new platform that enables seamless ad campaign management for agencies and advertisers.
• We announce Google Now, which brings you the information you need, before you even ask, like what today’s weather will be like, how much traffic to expect on your way to work or your favorite team's score while they’re playing.
• We release the first Nexus 7—a powerful 7" tablet designed to bring Google Play content to life and bring you the best of Google in the palm of your hand. Later in the year, the Nexus family expands to include a 10" tablet and the Nexus 4 phone.
• Trekker is a way to capture Street View imagery of beautiful places that are only accessible by foot (like the Grand Canyon or the Galapagos).

July

• The world sees the Olympics live on YouTube for the first time. Viewers watched a total of 230 million video streams, and our partnership with NBC makes it the most live-streamed Olympics to date.

October

• We provide an unprecedented look inside our data centers.
• The Samsung Chromebook becomes available for just $249.
• Google Crisis Response launches Public Alerts—warnings for natural disasters and emergency situations—the same day we publish resources to respond to Superstorm Sandy.

November

• We begin installing Google Fiber—ultra-high speed Internet access that is up to 100 times faster than today’s average broadband—for our first customers in Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City Missouri. The next year, we announce Fiber in Austin, Texas and Provo, Utah.

December

• Lady Ada Lovelace, mathematician and writer known to many people as the world’s first computer programmer, gets a doodle.
• Google Maps for the iPhone is now available.
• Psy’s Gangnam Style becomes the most-watched video of all time—the first and only YouTube video to reach 1 billion views.
• We launch the Global Impact Awards to support entrepreneurial nonprofits using technology to tackle tough human challenges. We later launch country-specific Global Impact Challenges, starting first in the United Kingdom and then in India.
• YouTube Space LA is a new facility run by the Next Lab and designed to help creators access the tools and the guidance they need to become even more successful on the platform. We later open Spaces in London and Tokyo.

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2013

January

• We commit to invest $200 million in a wind farm in west Texas. This brings our total clean energy commitments to more than $1 billion, which can generate over 2 GW—enough to power all the public elementary schools in New York, Wyoming and Oregon for a year.

February

• We introduce enhanced campaigns, which updates AdWords for the multi-screen world.
• In 50 words, tomorrow’s Glass Explorers tell us what they would do if they had Glass. The first Explorers get Glass later in the year.
• Our newest laptop—the Chromebook Pixel—is designed from the ground up for power users who have embraced the cloud.

April

• Get just the information you need right when you need it with the release of Google Now for iPhone and iPad.
• Plan your digital afterlife with Inactive Account Manager, which enables you to tell us what to do with your data from Google services if your account becomes inactive for any reason.

May

• A video doodle for graphic designer and filmmaker Saul Bass celebrates his classic film credits and posters.
• We release imagery of the Earth taken from space over a quarter-century, providing a stunning historical perspective on the changes to the Earth’s surface over time.
• Google Play Music All Access, a new monthly music subscription service, lets you listen to millions of songs across your devices.
• We introduce a new Google+ Photos experience that helps your photos look their best, as well as Hangouts, which will be Google’s single communications system, replacing Google Talk, Google+ Hangouts and Messenger.
• Gmail gets a brand new inbox that helps you see what’s new at a glance and decide which emails you want to read when.

June

• We unveil our latest Google[x] project: balloon-powered Internet access. We hope Project Loon can become an option for connecting rural, remote and underserved areas, and for crisis response communications.
• We acquire Waze to help you outsmart traffic.
• Funded by Google, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory investigates the energy impact of cloud computing. Their research indicates that moving all office workers in the United States to the cloud could reduce the energy used by information technology by up to 87 percent.

July

• Just months after we preview the new Maps for desktop at Google I/O, we release the updated Google Maps app for smartphones and tablets—part of our redesign of Maps across devices.
• Chromecast is a small and affordable device that makes it easy to use your phone, tablet or laptop to bring your favorite online entertainment to your TV screen.
• We team up with Starbucks to bring faster, free WiFi connections to all 7,000 company-operated Starbucks stores in the U.S.

September

• Android passes 1 billion device activations—reflecting the work of the entire Android ecosystem and thanks to the enthusiasm of users all around the world.
• We announce Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being, with Arthur D. Levinson as CEO.