June 19, 2007
Google gets eyeful - power problems in Paris
Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, the FT media editor, sends this bulletin from Google’s press day in Paris:
Google’s efforts to "go local" with YouTube ran into some little local difficulties in Paris today. The unassuming venue in the Rue de Richelieu looked all very Googly, with eager staff wandering round in white lab coats and Liberté Egalité Fraternité T-shirts, but the infrastructure was not quite what they are used to in Mountain View.
First, the crowd of reporters and bloggers overloaded the venue’s wi-fi network, leaving many unable to get an internet connection. Then a vase was overturned upstairs, sending water pouring through the ceiling above the stage, cutting the power in the middle of a presentation by Marissa Meyer, VP of search and user experience.
The elderly air conditioning unit also packed up - an unfortunate irony as Google boasted of the "evaporative cooling" systems it is installing to save energy in its data centres.
It was left to a guest, environmental photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand, to suggest that the environmental cause might be better served next year by Google’s US team staying home and doing the event by video conference.
Of course, that might prevent the European press from learning all sorts of fascinating Google trivia. some highlights:
- Google staff in Europe have consumed 20,000 bottles of water this year and 3,500kg of oranges - well over a kilo each.
- Belgium is a great place to put a data centre. Like Oregon, it is not too hot and not too cold - an important consideration if you want to cut power consumption with evaporation-based air conditioning.
- Google Maps is working on a street map of Kiev (Eric Schmidt is either a master of the detail or simply wanted to keep a Ukrainian journalist quiet).
- The Venezuelan TV channel closed down by Hugo Chavez has popped back up on YouTube.
- If we all upgraded to energy-efficient PCs we could save 25,000 square miles of trees - one and a half times the acreage of Switzerland.
- Just one per cent of the books in the library of Alexandria have been translated, and just one per cent of the pages on the web are in Arabic.
