This article titled “Google tops Greenpeace IT ranking” was written by James Murray for BusinessGreen, part of the Guardian Environment Network, for guardian.co.uk on Wednesday 8th February 2012 15.47 UTC

Google has today taken top spot in Greenpeace’s annual Cool IT Leaderboard ranking technology firms’ environmental efforts, seizing the crown from networking giant Cisco.

The influential campaign group said Google had climbed to the top of the table on the back of its high profile investment in renewable energy projects and its vocal support for US clean energy policy and EU efforts to increase the ambition of its climate change targets.

However, the group again turned its fire on Apple, refusing to include the firm on the leaderboard on the grounds that it does not meet the ranking’s criteria.

“[Apple] has not demonstrated leadership or elected to pursue market opportunities to drive IT energy solutions that many of its competitors have, despite record profits and large cash reserves,” the campaign group said in a statement.

Facebook was also excluded from the list, but Greenpeace confirmed it would be included in next year’s list after the social networking giant announced late last year that following a high profile campaign against the company’s reliance on coal-fired power it would adopt a new policy to source renewable energy wherever possible.

Greenpeace International IT analyst Gary Cook said that the ranking of 21 global technology firms highlighted the crucial role IT firms can play in cutting global greenhouse gas emissions.

“Technology giants have a real opportunity to use their power and influence to change how we produce and use energy – Google tops the table because it’s putting its money where its mouth is by pumping investment into renewable energy”, he said in a statement.

“The IT sector might like to consider itself forward-thinking, but it is keeping far too quiet while the dirty energy industry continues to exert undue influence on both the political process and financial markets”.

Google was followed in the table by Cisco, which dropped from its previous top spot, and Ericsson and Fujitsu in joint third place.

Dell was also praised for sourcing over a fifth of its energy from renewable sources, while Japanese telecommunications company Softbank was also highlighted for the role it played in demanding a shift towards renewable power following the Fukushima disaster.

Business software giant Oracle received the lowest ranking of the firms listed, primarily due to its refusal to disclose information on renewable or carbon intensive energy use.

Cook urged more IT firms to use their status as innovators to step up investment in greener technologies and business models.

“The IT industry must use its influence, innovative spirit and technological know-how to overcome the dirty energy companies who are holding on to the status quo, and holding us back from a transition to a renewable energy economy”, he said. “What we’re seeing is a lot of talk from companies about moving toward clean energy, but so far, not much of action.”

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

This article titled “Google introduces Chrome for phone” was written by Juliette Garside, for guardian.co.uk on Tuesday 7th February 2012 18.39 UTC

Google is to replace the web browser in Android smartphones with a revamped version named after its Chrome desktop product, as the search giant redoubles its efforts to knock Microsoft off the top perch in the battle of the browsers.

Chrome for phone, which is faster, links to the user’s desktop and allows an unlimited number of pages to remain open simultaneously, begins its public “beta” trial on Tuesday, and may move to a full launch this spring.

The upgrade reinforces Google’s push to eat into Microsoft’s dominance of web browsers. Since Chrome for desktop computers was launched in October 2008, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has dropped from a 67% to 37% market share, according to analysis by StatCounter.

Chrome, which has 200 million users worldwide, overtook Firefox, an independent open source browser funded by a trust, as the second most popular in December 2011 and now has a 29% market share, with Firefox at 25%.

In a move designed to tie users more closely to Google products and services, Chrome desktop users will be able to call up on their phone, at the touch of one button, the last set of web pages opened on their desktop.

The feature should be useful for those leaving the office in a hurry: look up the location of a meeting but forget to print out the map, and the phone can open the map page without having to carry out a new search. Start work on an online document at the office and continue adding to it on the move without having to spend time retrieving it.

Bookmarks saved on Chrome for desktop are also automatically available on the browser of any smartphone, tablet or laptop also using Chrome. A user’s various Chrome browsers will synchronise with each other every two minutes.

Google claims Chrome is faster than many other browsers because of technology that anticipates which page a user is going to click on next so that it can start pre-loading it, and in a demonstration at Google’s London headquarters on Tuesday, Chrome completed the loading of pages containing rich media such as photos and videos more quickly than Apple’s Safari browser on an iPhone.

Chrome for phone will work only on the latest version 4.0 or Ice Cream Sandwich version of Google’s Android phone operating system. The browser will only be available to Android phones during the trial period, but a Google spokesperson said it hoped eventually to release versions for all operating systems including Apple’s iOS for iPhones.

Chrome will come pre-installed on Android phones as the default browser, although users will be free to select a rival such as Firefox, Dolphin and Opera. The advent of an improved browser is likely to slow the adoption on smartphones of independent alternatives, which have attracted praise in comparison with Android’s current offering.

Google calls this seamless link between devices the “personal web”, and it is clearly designed to ensure that it retains control of the gateways to the internet on all devices.

The development is yet another sign that Google is deploying a strategy very similar to Apple’s – tying customers into the brand on whatever screen they happen to be using. Unlike Apple, Google does not manufacture hardware, and wants its software to be available on any device its users choose to buy.

Chrome’s presence as an operating system on desktop computers is also negligible. But with most activities moving off the desktop and on to the internet, a suite of tools such as email, Chrome and Google Docs, plus sharing services like Google+ and YouTube, have given the company a daily visibility on Apple and Microsoft machines that no advertising spend could buy.

So much so that it no longer feels appropriate to refer to Google as a search giant. Although without search dollars, none of these market share building but so far loss-making activities would be possible.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.