germany

Google plans to invest 3.5 million euros, or about $5 million, in a solar photovoltaic power plant in Germany, according to an announcement today.

The power plant has a capacity of 18.65MWp and is located on a 116-acre site--previously used as a Russian military training ground--in Brandenburg an der Havel, approximately 50 miles from Berlin.

Google said it will provide clean energy to more than 5,000 homes in the surrounding area. The proposal still requires the formal approval of the German competition authorities.

Read more of "Google to invest 3.5m euros in German solar plant&… Read more

Perhaps no Google product has spawned a better blend of quirkiness and scandal than Google Street View--cameras pranked with staged sword battles, naked men emerging from car trunks, unsavory snapshots of dead bodies, and the ire of multiple governments, primarily in Europe, who believe that it's an invasion of privacy.

But in one of those countries, Germany, Google Street View has had a victory of sorts. A Berlin court has ruled, according to Deutsche Welle, that it's legal for Google to take the street-level pictures, striking down a lawsuit brought on by a German woman who sued Google … Read more

Germany will shut down all seven of its nuclear power plants that began operation before 1980 and it is unclear whether they will start up again, the government said today.

Chancellor Angela Merkel announced the closures under a nuclear policy moratorium imposed following Japan's crisis, and said they would be carried out by government decree as no agreement with the plants' operators had been reached.

"Power plants that went into operation before the end of 1980 will...be shut down for the period of the moratorium," Merkel told a news conference. The nuclear issue should be addressed … Read more

The German antitrust authority said today that it is unable to investigate the establishment of a consortium set up to buy hundreds of open-source patents from Novell due to the consortium members withdrawing their application in that country.

Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, and EMC filed a notification with the Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartel Office) on December 6, telling the competition authority that they intended to unify under the name of CPTN Holdings to buy 882 patents from Novell (not including the company's Unix copyrights). The filing was the first public identification of Microsoft's partners in the venture, which was announced … Read more

Germany is a remarkably underrated country. Not only has it largely avoided the financial arthritis brought on by the most greedy banks, it also offers a unique sense of playful optimism in a world gone sour.

You might, therefore, wonder why Germany's transport minister, Peter Ramsauer, rammed through a rather difficult diktat against laptops.

Oh, he didn't ban his no doubt assiduous employees from staring into screens and rectifying traffic problems. No, he banned the use of the word "laptop" as it is not German but Denglish--that difficult mixture of Deutsch and English.

The Independent reports … Read more

If you want to know how to get a bunch of Germans riled up in 2010, try putting out a video game that depicts the shooting by East German border guards of refugees trying to flee into the West.

That's certainly been the experience of Jens Stober, the creator of 1378 (km), a new game that according to Reuters, has been "condemned as 'utterly inappropriate' and 'insensitive' by a victims' group."

Yet, despite the public outcry, 1378 (km) has apparently become a big hit in Germany. As Reuters reported, "Demand for the game brought down servers … Read more

Porsche yesterday announced it plans to invest $200 million in its research and development center in Weissach, Germany.

The investment will include building an advanced wind tunnel, a state-of-the-art design center, and an innovative electronics integration center. Porsche is also planning to add about 100 new jobs once the renovation is completed. The center currently employs about 3,000 people.

"The new system will help us to maintain Porsche's top position in the fields of aerodynamics and design and to further extend our lead. Outstanding design with optimal aerodynamic efficiency have always been classic Porsche strongholds," says … Read more

The launch of Google Street View in Germany seems to be causing civil unrest. Which has now reportedly mutated into uncivil unrest.

Should your mind still be blurred by the conundrum of the apparently naked man on Street View in Mannheim, Germany, you might not be aware that almost 3 percent of Germans requested that their buildings be made fuzzy beyond recognition on Google's photographic street record.

Now, Search Engine Land has brought my attention to an apparent protest about the blurrings.

It seems that a group of passionate, if stunningly misguided, individuals has gone around the Bergerhausen district … Read more

Sometimes, even those companies that are supposedly open turn out to operate under a cloud of deep, dark secrecy.

Google, it turns out, has become one of those--at least in Germany, and not of its own volition.

I am indebted to loyal reader Ingo Klein, who directed me to the news that Google's office at Dienerstrasse 12 in Munich seems to have enjoyed the attentions of the "German Street View Shroud."

Should you, yourself, have been operating in the clouds lately, you may be unaware of Germany's slight discomfort with Street View.

Almost 3 percent of German property owners decided … Read more