Understanding Chinese Energy - Infographic

The information is a bit outdated, 2007, but still interesting nevertheless...

Understanding Chinese Energy 

Infographic

by Charlie Hilton on February 23, 2011

As the world looks to a more energy efficient future, it is economic and population powerhouses such as China that will come under the most intense scrutiny. By carefully examining the Chinese energy policy (in fields such as wind and solar), and conjoining this with surveys on popular opinion, WellHome have managed to compile this interesting infographic.
However, the source of energy use are left largely unexplored yet a brilliant piece on Chinese energy gives us a clearer indication of the forces at play (the PDF is worthy of downloading): 

What’s driving demand: An explanation of the internal dynamics fueling China’s energy needs. Our key point: It’s not air conditioners and automobiles that are driving China’s current energy demand but rather heavy industry, and the mix of what China makes for itself and what it buys abroad. Consumption-led demand is China’s future energy challenge. [Source: China Energy: A Guide for the Perplexed (PDF)]

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PayPal Announces It Will No Longer Handle Wikileaks Donations

By Audrey Watters / December 4, 2010 11:16 AM / 355 Comments

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In the latest in a series of blows to Wikileaks, PayPal says it will no longer support money transfers to the whistleblower site.
PayPal has posted a (late-night) statement to its website, saying: "PayPal has permanently restricted the account used by WikiLeaks due to a violation of the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy, which states that our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity. We've notified the account holder of this action."

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PayPal's announcement follows Wikileaks' loss of its DNS server today and its ousting from Amazon Web Services earlier this week. This comes on the heels of the recent release by Wikileaks of another round of leaked documents - 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables.
PayPal isn't the only way to donate to Wikileaks. You can make a bank transfer or send money directly by mail. But certainly sending money online via PayPal has become one of the easiest and most routine ways for folks to make all sorts of online donations.
It's not the first time Wikileaks has run into trouble with PayPal either, as the organization had its account temporarily frozen earlier this year.
PayPal's announcement will certainly result in a loss of donation dollars for Wikileaks. But it also marks an important symbolic loss for the organization as well, as it represents yet another major private tech company that has closed its doors to Wikileaks. In addition to those who've refused to provide Wikileaks with hosting and financial services, the visualization company Tableau Software also expunged all Wikileaks content from its site.
Although these companies have said that their terms of service forbid the support or facilitation of illegal activity, such pronouncements about Wikileaks are debatable. While it is a crime to leak classified information, receiving and publishing it is not.
PayPal Announces It Will No Longer Handle Wikileaks Donations

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Twitter: On-Track for 200 Million Users by Year's End | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

.... It's reported that Twitter's now up to 175 million users, which is itself 30 million users greater than the numbers that Williams was reporting in September—145 million. If you do the math, that's a growth rate of roughly 15 million users per month, or about half a million users per day. Back in April of this month, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said that Twitter only had a 300,000-per-day user growth rate. As well, Stone was reporting back then that Twitter had around 105 million users. We won't crunch the numbers again, but it's clear to see that Twitter's been undergoing some phenomenal growth rates lately. That's especially if you compare today's numbers to the kinds of figures that the company was touting last year—58 million users in 2009—or the meager 503,000 users that Twitter enjoyed three years ago.
So what does this mean, long-term? If its current growth rate continues, Twitter's sure to hit 200 million users before the year's end.
There's been no update as to how Twitter's users access the service or where they come from, however. In April, Stone was running with the figure that 75 percent of all Twitter's traffic comes from outside the site—external, third-party applications that tap into Twitter's service in various fashions. New updates like a redesign of Twitter.com and the addition of new interactive features alongside popular, real-world events likely account for a bit of Twitter's overall growth, but there's been no indication of just how much Twitter's lifeblood of third-party apps have contributed to the surge.

Twitter: On-Track for 200 Million Users by Year's End | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

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AUGUST 30, 2010, 5:46 PM

Does Google’s Free Phone Service Work in Other Countries?

By PAUL BOUTIN

Google’s Call Phones from Gmail lets Gmail users turn their computers into telephones by talking into a built-in microphone or by attaching a headset. The service, Google said when it announced Call Phones last week, is restricted to callers in the United States. Calls within the United States and to Canada are free, and most international calls are around 2 cents a minute. If you also sign up for Google’s free Google Voice service, available only within the United States, you can also receive calls free through Google’s servers.

What if you’re not a lucky resident of the United States? Over the weekend, word spread on the Internet that at least some people outside the United States had made free calls to the United States and Canada from Gmail. According to several excited updates on Twitter, Gmail lets at least some users outside the country make calls as if they are dialing from inside the country. All they need do is make sure their Gmail account settings specify English (U.S.) rather than English (U.K.).

They can’t use Google Voice to take calls, but they can make them free, or cheaply. (To change the settings, log in to Gmail and click Settings in the upper right corner of the Gmail interface. Language is the first option at the top. Google will also prompt you to install a small voice and video chat browser add-on before you can make calls.)

A Google spokesman, Randall Sarafa, explained that for users outside the United States, or for Americans traveling abroad, Google’s free services might work, but they had not been officially introduced to other countries. To quote Google, “We launched the Call Phones from Gmail feature to U.S. users as our first step and will be rolling out additional localized versions in the future. Depending on local laws and regulations, if your account is set to U.S.-English, you might be able to access the feature in some other countries as well.”

Does it work for you, or did you get an error message? Let us know in the comments below.

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