Plug In Your Google

It's hard to get a defining take on Google. Are they the great digital uniter or the monster data corp out for world domination? The truth is they keep on coming up with not only great ideas, but have the IT resources to make them happen a million times over. Now that their search engine is a verb and they are fast becoming the world's premier online library, they have put their data driven brains towards designing the Google PowerMeter.

Now it's a fact that knowing how much energy you use translates in to more conservative use of it, which amounts to savings for both you and the planet. The Google PowerMeter tackles this issue by taking the information from the new smart meters on route to 40 million American homes and providing the calculations on the customer's IGoogle page. According to Google, this will be a non-propriety application in which the user controls who sees it as well as which services can be employed to understand it.

No doubt Google has the IT architecture and the iGoogle gadget platform to turn this into a ubiquitous device for all on-the-grid future homes, and isn't it nice to see a Corp working for social and planetary good. But where do we draw the line? In the future will it be possible to lead Google free lives or even ask the question why we would want to.