Google is the first web firm to reveal how much energy it consumes, this information will help researchers understand how the massive explosion of Internet consumption and cloud computing is contributing to global energy consumption.

Google consumes 260 million watts continuously across the world,the company reported on Wednesday. This is equivalent to the power used by all the houses in Richmond, Virginia, or Irvine, California (around 200,000 houses), and nearly a quarter of the output of a standard nuclear power plant.

Until now, the most of Google's energy use is tied up in its data storage centers, according to Jonathan Koomey who is a professor at Stanford University and a researcher who focuses on energy and IT. He says that nearly 220 million of these watts are used only by the company's data centers, based on figures Google showed him . Most of this energy is used in cooling data center systems. Google custom builds many data centers, for example a new one in Finland that uses a seawater cooling system, to cool the system.

This has made Google to be relatively energy efficient, says Koomey, who estimates that the company owns about 3 percent of servers worldwide and uses only 1 percent of electricity for data centers worldwide. "They're operating more efficiently than other data centers," he says.

In its report, Google compares the energy usage of companies' in-house computer systems to the energy used by its cloud servers. It estimates that running Gmail instead of an in-house e-mail system can be almost 80 times more efficient .Google says that 25 percent of its energy was generated by renewable fuels, from wind farm in 2011, and plan to increase that to 30 percent this year.

Sherif Akoush, a researcher at the University of Cambridge who studies IT energy consumption, indicates that Google could be even more energy efficient, and notes that the company's environmental works will continue to rise. "Google tackles this problem mainly by using power purchase agreements from green sources, which offset basically the emissions from its data centers," says Akoush. Instead, "it should just try to apply more radical solutions like green energy and be a zero-carbon company instead of pumping waste then trying to clean it up."

Bruce Nordman who is a researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, notes that most IT-related energy usage occurs from homes and offices, and not major data centers.

Google says that an average search uses .3 watt-hours of electricity. But Nordman points out that cutting back on Google searches is not going to save a significant amount of energy. "Something like having your display go to sleep a little faster would probably save more energy," he says.

He adds, "since there's more consumption [in homes and offices], there's potentially more savings and yet that's not what gets the attention."

technologyreview.com

Streamlined conversations
Conversation view has been completely redesigned to help you read through your email threads. You’ll now see profiles pictures for your contacts, so it’s easier to keep track of who said what. We also stripped out as much as possible so you can focus on communicating with your friends and colleagues.


Elastic density
We know that you use Gmail from a variety of screen sizes and devices, so now the spacing between elements on the screen will automatically change based on the kind of display you’re using. If you prefer a denser view all the time, you can change your density manually in the Settings menu.


New HD themes
Themes have been completely rebuilt to enable us to bring you a new set of beautiful high resolution themes with imagery provided by iStockphoto. We've updated most of the old favorites as well and your theme will be automatically carried over to the new look. Go to the Settings menu to take another look at themes and choose the one that fits you best.


Smarter navigation
The navigation panel on the left keeps your labels and chat contacts in view at all times. It's also more customizable: you can resize the labels and chat areas if you want to see more, or hide the chat area entirely via the chat icon in the lower left. You can also use the arrow keys to navigate around the interface.


Better search
Click the dropdown in the search box to see a new advanced search panel, which makes it easier and faster to find exactly what you're looking for. You can use the same panel to create a filter from any search in just a few clicks.


We’re excited to finally share Gmail’s new look with you. We’ll be bringing these changes to everyone soon, but if you’d like to make the switch right away, we’re rolling out a Switch to the new look link in the bottom-right of Gmail over the next few days.

Micro four-thirds cameras are slowly but surely flooding the market and Olympus has refreshed its PEN line of mirrorless DSLRs with the new E-P3. This is a continuation of the PEN line of compact system cameras, but Olympus has made some major additions to the EP3 over the EP2.
This model has the same 12.3MP Live MOS sensor found on its predecessor, the E-P2. The E-P3 houses a new TruePic VI image processor which is dual core. That effectively means that you can continue using the Live view mode while the image is being processed. It also works wonders when you are using the Creative Art filters and applying them to a single image, as we will see later. It also checks the focus about 120 times a second which brings us to one of its top features. That of having a extremely fast auto-focus.
Build and Design
The Olympus EP3 has an all-metal body with three types of hand grips to choose from. An addition over the previous generation EP2 is the presence of a flash unit onboard. The flash unit is assembled as a pop-up type unit, so that it merges with the top portion of the camera. The jog dial is located on the right hand side of the hot-shoe section. Shutter is located just beside the jog dial.
On the rear side you have the 610k dot OLED screen which has a capacitive touch response. You can select the focus points from over 35 AF points by touch as well. Not just that, you can also fire the shutter by tapping on the touchscreen.
Button layout around the screen is quite intuitive and all of them are located on the right hand side. There is a record button for video recording followed by magnifier button which comes handy while manual focussing. Fn1 and Fn2 buttons can be programmed with specific tasks such as exposure lock among others.
A Zuiko Digital ED 14-42mm R (f/3.5 - f/5.6) kit lens is bundled with the EP3. It has a metallic manual focus rim which complements the metal body of the EP3.
Features
The user interface of the EP3 has improved from the previous generation and is quite easy to navigate through. Though it can get a bit too exhaustive for a beginner as there are many sub-menus within each menu. Also the menus change according to the mode of shooting selected.
Creative Art filters go beyond your traditional sepia mode, vivid mode, etc. You have some fascinating filters such as Grainy film (noisy BW filter), Dramatic Tone (adding mood to the sky), Diorama (simulates tilt-shift lens photography), among others. Each of these Art filters has options to further add tweaks.
There are as many as 23 SCN modes with options to even select individual eyes in a portrait shot or even take a 3D shot. It can shoot in both RAW as well as JPEG. The video recording can shoot upto 1080i at 60fps in AVCHD format.
Performance
We shot using the kit lens - 14-42mm (f3.5 - f5.6). Image quality is quite good with crisp colours and high level of detailing. While shooting outdoors the finer details start deteriorating only after ISO 1600. We did notice a slight amount of colour cast around the sharper edges while shooting in the macro mode. Indoor shots started showing noise even on lower ISOs.
Single shot auto focus is blazing fast and is one of the major plus points for street photography enthusiasts as it is pertinent to get the decisive moment right. You can also activate the touch-focus-shoot function, whereby you can select the point you want to focus on and take a shot by just touching that point. Although the response was quick, we noticed a slight loss in accuracy of the focus on the desired spot. It is best to use the shutter to click photographs and there are enough focussing points to choose from. Movie mode supports continuous AF and we did not notice any jerks even on the highest resolution which is quite common on most compact cameras, specially whilst panning.

Click to enlarge

Grainy Creative ART filter output

Diorama mode of the Creative ART filter

Dramatic Tone mode of Creative ART filter

Creative Art Filters are a great accessory for amateurs who want on-the-spot editing. But we noticed that the Grainy filter tends to blow out the highlights by quite a bit. The Dramatic mode looks great only if you have a cloudy sky, otherwise if you try using it on a flat sky, you will get black blotches which does not really add to the appeal of the photograph.
Art Filter bracketing is a lovely way to apply many filters to one image at a time. Obviously, it will take some time to apply the filters, but at the end you will get multiple filters applied to the same image rather than having to select each filter individually.
Rating
Features: 8
Performance: 7
Build Quality: 6.5
Value for money: 6.5
Overall: 7
Price Olympus EP3: Rs. 39,999
Verdict
At Rs. 39,900 this is certainly priced higher than most entry level DSLRs but with the kind of features provided, options to add on accessories and the image quality, we feel it makes for a great buy for someone looking at DSLR-like quality in a compact form factor. For street photography, we have yet to come across a more feature-rich mirrorless compact.
Contact
Olympus Imaging India Pvt. Ltd
Phone: +91 22 6142 0400
Email: inquiry@olympus.in
Website: www.olympus-imaging.co.in