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Google rolls out a new design for its campus bike

When it came time to redesign the colorful bikes scattered about Google's massive Mountain View, Calif., campus, the company knew exactly who to turn to for next generation of its GBikes: Googlers themselves.

Last fall, the company launched a competition among employees to replace the 2-year-old fleet of bikes available to workers at the Googleplex to pedal from one building to another. The idea was to come up with a user-friendly, low-maintenance bike.

"We've got an entrepreneurial and innovative culture," said Brendon Harrington, Google's transportation operations manager. "We said, 'You tell us what you think is a cool design.'"

The company listed four design criteria. The bike had to be easy to produce. It needed to be affordable. The bike had to be both comfortable and secure. And, in a nod to its culture, the bike had to be Googley, using novel components, structure, and appearance.… Read more

Drinking in the Vue, Keurig's K-Cup successor

A world without K-Cups? The horror! While a K-Cupless world may not befall the caffeine-addicted anytime soon, single-serve coffee giant Keurig recently debuted a next-gen successor called Vue that could warm the hearts and hands of geeky java lovers.

For those wondering what I'm talking about, these small plastic capsules sell in the billions annually. They contain coffee (or another beverage) and a filter; putting a K-Cup in its specific brewing device creates a single serving of that drink in less than a minute without a mess.

We checked out a Vue test unit at a Bed Bath & Beyond, the first retailer to carry the new V700 brewer (other big retailers will sell it soon). Keurig's pricey $249 Vue roaster looks similar to existing K-Cup machines, and bears many familiar components, but it doesn't take long to spot the differences. … Read more

Parallels update brings Windows 8 and Mountain Lion support

With two new desktop operating systems on the horizon from the big hitters, you might be wondering how best to check them out. Microsoft's Windows 8 was just made available as a public preview, and Apple has released its own developer preview of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion to a select group of testers.

Unfortunately, as with any prerelease software, these previews are likely to be fraught with bugs and other details that must be tested and ironed out, so even if you have the option of installing these operating systems, you might not want to do so … Read more

Windows 8 vs. OS X Mountain Lion: The debate begins

The Mountain Lion Developer Preview came out just a couple of weeks ago, and today's announcement for Windows 8 Consumer Preview now puts both of the major next-generation operating systems on display for all to see. CNET editors Seth Rosenblatt and Jason Parker went through and answered some key questions at this very early stage of the game. While neither operating system is close to finished, we put up some of the known features and examined reasons people might be enticed by one or the other.… Read more

Will your Mac run Mountain Lion?

With the release of the Developer Preview of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion came a list of system requirements that excludes more Intel-based Mac systems from running the new operating system, including a few models such as the first Mac Pro that seem like they should run the new OS just fine.

Given the first Mac Pro's processing capabilities, with its multicore 64-bit-capable CPUs with plenty of RAM and advanced graphics card, it ought to be more than capable of running Mountain Lion. After all, the difference here is not like Apple's switch to a new architecture … Read more

How to get Mountain Lion-style Growl notifications

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Apple is bringing Notification Center to OS X Mountain Lion, looking to replace the need for popular notification app, Growl. While developers are able to get a taste of the overall look and feel of the new OS, who's to say those of us without access to Mountain Lion can't as well?

Well, thanks to a creative individual who took it upon himself to create a Mountain Lion Growl style, you can experience the general look of the upcoming Notification Center alert right now.

You can download the Growl style from this Dribbble page. The link … Read more

Apple confirms plans to build data center in Oregon

A 160-acre parcel of land has been signed over to Apple and will be used to build a data center, an Oregon TV station reported today, confirming a long-standing rumor.

The piece of land in Prineville cost the company $5.6 million and the deal, formerly known as "Project Maverick," has been quietly in the works for months, according to a KTVZ.com report. An Apple representative confirmed to the station that the company purchased the land for a data center but declined to comment further.

Before the deed was signed over last week, no one was allowed … Read more

Mountain Lion features you might have missed

The Mountain Lion Developer Preview was released last week and Apple was particularly excited to show off 10 of the bigger new features in OS X. Check out our First Take of the Mountain Lion Developer Preview here. But what else is under the hood in Apple's latest OS?

Poking around in Mountain Lion, I came across a lot of smaller changes to the UI and some feature fixes that users of earlier Mac operating systems will appreciate.

UI and System tweaks The Dashboard is home to your widgets, and in Mountain Lion Apple has made a slight UI … Read more

Apple to drop in-house X11 support and more in Mountain Lion

When Apple introduced OS X, it was exploring where the new OS would take the Mac platform. In doing so, and to promote development and compatibility for its OS, Apple included support for a number of popular existing technologies that were appealing to developers. A couple of these were its Unix underpinnings and inclusion of a Java runtime, making it compatible with a plethora of existing Unix and Java tools.

Along with the new OS, Apple promoted its native Cocoa development environment, but also included a library of programming tools called Carbon that allowed older code built for the Classic … Read more

Lovins: How to break the fossil fuel deadlock

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--To those who say the world needs dramatic technology breakthroughs to get off of fossil fuels, energy guru Amory Lovins has a succinct answer: integrated design.

Lovins has been working in the trenches of energy and efficiency for more than 30 years, gaining a reputation as a radical thinker able to imagine possibilities others can't. He was here at MIT yesterday giving a presentation on his latest book, "Reinventing Fire" and speaking to entrepreneurs and investors at an event organized by Xconomy.

The book, written by Lovins and colleagues at his "think and do … Read more