Job ads show Google wading deeper in clean energy
June 12, 2011
One of the job openings at Google is to work on heliostats, or sun-tracking mirrors used to concentrate light and produce heat in concentrating solar systems.
(Credit: BrightSource Energy)
Google has invested significant money and employee time in clean-energy technologies over the past few years but recent job openings point to stepped-up efforts to build its own products.
There are currently five renewable-energy engineer job openings listed on Google’s job site, including a top manager position at its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters that hints at Google’s bigger ambitions.
The “head of renewable energy engineering” will lead a research and development team within Google to lower the cost of renewable energy. “As the engineering leader of Google’s clean energy initiative, you will be responsible for building a team of top technologists to develop disruptive new technologies that dramatically lower the cost of renewable electricity - with the goal of making renewable energy cheaper than coal within a few years,” according to the job posting.
The other job openings specify skills in designing and prototyping utility-scale renewable-energy systems. Google is seeking people able to assess and create different renewable-energy technologies with the potential to be cheaper than coal-generated electricity, including solar, wind, enhanced geothermal, and other “breakthrough technologies,” according to a listing. Another job is geared at making Google’s operations more sustainable, such as reducing its energy use and achieving the corporate goal of carbon neutrality.
Google first launched its renewable energy cheaper than coal initiative in 2007. The company invested in a few start-ups and took a number of measures to improve the efficiency of its operations. In the past several months, though, Google has sped up its activity in renewable energy.
In April, its Google Energy subsidiary invested directly in a wind farm in Oklahoma located near a planned Google data center. Altogether, Google has also invested more than $400 million in renewable energy, including a large wind farm in Oregon and a large solar project in California earlier this year.
Yesterday, it announced that it is expanding to 450 electric-vehicle charging stations on its campuses, acting as a corporate customer to advance electric-vehicle technology.
Through its philanthropy Google.org, Google invested in start-ups, including high-wind company Makani Power, enhanced geothermal companies, and solar company BrightSource Energy, which filed to go public earlier this year. The company also developed PowerMeter, a home energy monitoring Web application, the only energy-related product Google has released.
In 2010, Google’s green-energy czar Bill Weihl said that engineers had built a prototype of a sun-tracking mirror called a heliostat which could lower the cost of solar energy. Weihl also told Reuters that Google was discouraged in the amount of money going into early-stage renewable-energy technologies.
By expanding its internal research and development around clean energy, Google appears to be stepping up its commitment to develop more technologies internally.
Reports: International Monetary Fund suffers network break-in
June 12, 2011
The International Monetary Fund has become the latest high-profile organization to fall victim to a network intrusion, according to various media reports, suffering a substantial breach, the full extent of which is not yet known.
Reporting the incident earlier today, The New York Times quoted an unnamed official as saying the breach was a “very major” one and that it had been taking place over the last several months.
The Times said the actual dimensions of the attack were unknown and that the IMF would say only that the Fund was “fully functional” and that the organization was investigating the incident. The IMF declined to say who might be behind the intrusion, the Times reported.
A Bloomberg story, on the other hand, cited an unidentified security expert as saying that the attackers were believed to be connected to an unspecified foreign government and that e-mails and other documents had been taken.
In its efforts to handle global financial crises, facilitate international trade, and address other monetary matters, the IMF is privy to sensitive economic information regarding a number of countries–data that could be extremely valuable to investors and of great interest to governments. The organization has also been criticized for its policies, which some say have, themselves, been responsible for crises.
The breach is the latest in a series of headline grabbing hacks that have involved the likes of computer security company RSA, several U.S. military contractors, search giant and Web-based e-mail purveyor Google, and entertainment behemoth Sony. Cyberespionage and cyberwarfare have also been in the news consistently.
Bloomberg quoted what it said was a memo sent to IMF employees on Wednesday by the organization’s chief information officer warning staff to be vigilant:
“Last week we detected some suspicious file transfers, and the subsequent investigation established that a Fund desktop computer had been compromised and used to access some Fund systems. At this point, we have no reason to believe that any personal information was sought for fraud purposes.”
The memo, Bloomberg reported, also said the IMF’s network connection to the World Bank, which is headquartered across the street from the Fund, had been shut down “as a precautionary measure.”
According to Bloomberg, an earlier memo to employees had issued cautions typically associated with the prevention of phishing attacks: “Staff are strongly requested NOT TO OPEN emails and video links without authenticating the source.”
Bloomberg reported that the Wednesday memo said the breach was not associated with the group Anonymous, which had earlier threatened an attack on the Fund in association with IMF activities involving the economically hobbled country of Greece. Yesterday, law enforcement officials in Spain said they had arrested several members of Anonymous in connection with attacks on entertainment giant Sony, as well as on governments and financial institutions.
Recent Comments