google/@home

Three-dimensional models are essential if you're in the design field. Google SketchUp gives you the ability to easily create your own 3D models. With an easy-to-use interface and a wide swath of Help features, it's the perfect tool for beginner and intermediate designers alike.

To begin, Google SketchUp puts all of the help options in plain sight, which include video tutorials, tips and tricks, a blog, and a help center. It asks you to select a template from a long list that includes templates for architectural design, woodworking, Google Earth modeling, and basic plans. We started simple with … Read more

Oh, forget all that talk of Google+ and its uncomfortably human concept called "real-life sharing."

Here is something far more startling: Google has launched a new home page today. Yes, today.

In a stealthy little blog post, Google's digital creative director, Chris Wiggins, expounded on this seminal advancement with both enthusiasm and detail.

The new home page has a smaller logo--one can only imagine they must have tried at least 3,042 different sizes--and is supposed to be based on merely three guiding principles: focus, elasticity, and effortlessness.

Elasticity is perhaps the easiest to grasp. The idea … Read more

Are there things you used to do in the 1990s but just don't do any more? I'm thinking admiring Britney Spears. I'm thinking investing in tech stocks. I'm thinking clicking on Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" button.

This is an important question today, as a stunning and, frankly, revolutionary development in search has been spotted in Finland.

The remarkable sleuths at Google Operating System espied a Google home page without the "I'm Feeling Lucky" exhortation.

Naturally, Google, being a company that loves to examine every shade of blue that exists … Read more

High-speed Internet is the technology that's had the greatest impact on society and the one that people say they can't live without, according to survey results from Zogby Interactive.

Released this week, Zogby's study found that 28 percent of those polled tagged broadband Internet as the one technology they can't live without; e-mail came in second at 18 percent. Facebook was lower on the overall list at only 3 percent, but among the younger crowd (18-24), 15 percent said they can't live without Facebook.

Looking at technologies that have had the greatest impact on society … Read more

Google's PowerMeter Web application can now track home electricity from a PC or smartphone using Wi-Fi and a home's broadband connection.

Blue Line Innovations is expected to announce a deal tomorrow to tie its PowerCost Monitor to Google's PowerMeter for monitoring home energy. Combined with a WiFi Gateway sold by Blue Line Innovations, a person can get real-time and historical information on electricity use. PowerMeter also lets people create a home energy budget, share efficiency tips, and predict costs.

Getting more information on energy use is meant to help people find ways to conserve. For example, a … Read more

I was focusing my attentions on deep World Cup meditation when I heard my phone ring and a scream. Yes, it was a friend of mine appalled at the sight of images beneath the type on Google home page.

"How could they do this?" she screamed. "Do they have no idea? "

Might I point out that my friend has some taste? She dresses like Audrey Hepburn. A kind of Audrey Hipburn, to be precise. And you should see her floral designs. Even if she does steal most of the flowers from roadsides and other people's … Read more

Google is ready to start letting users customize its famously spartan home page with photos of their own.

The company announced Wednesday afternoon that over the next few days, U.S. visitors to Google.com will be able to drag photos from their computer or a Picasa library onto the home page, giving it a unique background. Users outside the U.S. will get the feature a little bit later as Google gradually rolls it out around the world, said Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience and the keeper of the Google Look, in a blog post.… Read more

Yahoo has always seemed like such a nice place. The sort of place where, if you happened upon it by chance, the inhabitants would sit you down, give you a cup of tea and a cookie, and ask you what brought you to its parts. They'd even ask you how to pronounce your name.

So how odd and strangely refreshing to see Yahoo roll up a little ball of competitive spit and blow it in the direction of Google.

In a new video described by public-relations firm DKC as "possible creative for Yahoo's upcoming campaign," Yahoo … Read more

A group of consumer technology companies, including Google, General Electric, and Intel, on Monday urged President Obama to create policies that give consumers better access to home energy information.

In a letter, 47 companies and nongovernmental organizations said that making detailed data on electricity and fuel use available to consumers is a key step toward meeting national energy and environmental goals.

Giving people "actionable information" through computers, smart phones, or in-home energy displays could "unleash the forces of innovation in home and business," according to the letter. If all U.S. households cut energy consumption by … Read more