The New York Times is reporting that on Tuesday, Google will announce a tool called PowerMeter. This tool, as you may assume, is designed to measure power usage within households and businesses, and will be free to anyone, available via the web.Google won't be releasing any devices to take use of this technology, but will count on other companies to build gadgets to feed the data to PowerMeter. Google hopes to have the service ready within a few months, but as the NYT states, has not lined up any companies to build tools for it.
Kirsten Olsen Cahill, program manager at Google, has stated, "We depend on a whole ecosystem of utilities, device makers and policies that would allow consumers to have detailed access to their home energy use and make smarter energy decisions."
This new tool may not sound very exciting, but it really could open up some wonderful possibilities. For example: Rick Sergel, chief executive of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation has said that dishwasher manufacturers have been putting in chips that let you choose the time you run it. This, when paired up with the tool, could analyze your power costs, and then find the optimal time to run it. For example, if power costs are discounted at 3am in the morning, the dishwasher will run then, saving you money. It could also tell the user how much money they saved by doing so. This prospect could go over to many power-dependent devices, such as smart cars. They take a lot of power to charge, and so PowerMeter could choose to run it at also the most cost efficient time.
Check back tomorrow to see what other information Google releases with their announcement of PowerMeter.
Except that it does. Google runs several datacenters that gobble up tons of power. They need to keep track of power consumption. Chances are, this tool is based on some internal one.
agreed
google maps had nothing to do with Google's core business (advertising and indexing) but became super popular.
But it does seems like an internal tool that made it 'public'
src: http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/the-t...n-energy-tie-up
old article, but still relevant
I think Google are onto something here, as it's something I've not seen floating about the web yet. Maybe I'm being very ignorant to other software based solutions out there though. But I owuld use this in my home, use it to try and lower my energy costs per month.
The difference is... they still produce pretty amazing/innovative products while still in beta. I wonder what they could actually accomplish if they focused on a single project :p
Don't like the product? Hey, it's still in Beta. Like the product? Wow, and it's only in Beta!
Label a product as Beta and it becomes criticism-resistant.*
*resistance is limited to deflection of trolls and fanboys. No actual Resistance is implied. Your millage may vary. See Google for details. This disclaimer is still in Beta.
Don't like the product? Hey, it's still in Beta. Like the product? Wow, and it's only in Beta!
Label a product as Beta and it becomes criticism-resistant.*
*resistance is limited to deflection of trolls and fanboys. No actual Resistance is implied. Your millage may vary. See Google for details. This disclaimer is still in Beta.
Love the "This disclaimer is still in Beta." part
Google can't have "ADD/ADHD" though as they generally come back to their products bringing updates to them. Projects or experiments that didn't seem to catch on or gain popularity are those that tend to get canned.
If they focused only on their search engine, we wouldn't have all these great services available to us now. Experimenting is good.
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