By Sam Aola Ooko •
September 11, 2008
This week, Ecoworldly celebrates the Water Week, and between September 8 - 14, readers of the blog will be reflecting on a lot of water issues here. But isn’t it exciting that this is also the week that word finally leaked out that Google was patenting a retrofitted floating water and wind energy data center.
What does that mean? According to documents filed at the US Patent and Trademark Office August 28, the Google water-powered data center will be - a system that includes a floating platform-mounted computer data center comprising a plurality of computing units, a sea-based electrical generator in electrical connection with the plurality of computing units, and one or more sea-water cooling units for providing cooling to the plurality of computing units.
By Chris Milton •
September 9, 2008
Bosch, Du Pont and Xerox have joined the Eco Patent Commons, an international effort to speed up the progress of sustainable development.
Their paticipation brings the number of free patents available for use by anyone in the world to 69, more than doubling the original number.
Hosted by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) the Commons was established in January this year by IBM, Nokia, Pitney Bowes and Sony in response to a growing dilemma among large businesses.
Some ideas for greening the planet are so-spot on yet so ground-breaking, they make you say, “Of course! Why didn’t anybody think of that sooner?”
That pretty much sums up my reaction upon discovering Eco-Patent Commons.
Launched at the beginning of 2008, Eco-Patent Commons makes available royalty-free, patented technologies for reducing pollution and waste, curbing greenhouse gases and meeting demand for clean, renewable energy. It’s the green-invention equivalent of Wikipedia.
This week, Ecoworldly celebrates the Water Week, and between September 8 - 14, readers of the blog will be reflecting on a lot of water issues here. But isn’t it exciting that this is also the week that word finally leaked out that Google was patenting a retrofitted floating water and wind energy data center.
