On the road, Sergey Brin and Larry Page have owned environmentally friendly hybrid vehicles such as the Toyota Prius. In the air, they apparently prefer something roomier.

Google Inc.’s two billionaire founders, both 32 years old, will soon be cruising the skies in a Boeing 767 wide-body airliner. They bought the used plane earlier this year, Mr. Page says.
…
Mr. Page says his plane will hold about 50 passengers when its refurbishment is complete. A top Gulfstream business jet typically carries 15 or fewer. He declines to give other details. People in the aviation industry familiar with the planned interior say it will have a sitting area, two staterooms with adjoining lavatories and a shower. Farther aft will be a large sitting-and-dining area. At the rear will be 12 to 16 first-class seats for guests or employees and a large galley.

via dominicantoday

In his Oct. 31 online commentary, “My View: The Google Future,” Forrester Research Inc. Chairman and CEO George Colony said his Cambridge, Mass., company is predicting that Web pages will be replaced by a new software model known as the executable Internet, or X Internet, that will allow users to do much more than is possible with old, static Web pages.

“Google will be the company that leads this revolution,” Colony said. “It is already writing programs like Google Toolbar and Google Desktop Search that run on your computer but blur the divide between your desktop and the Internet.” Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s chief technology officer and the person tasked with executing a software services strategy across the Redmond, Wash., company’s three new business divisions, last week admitted that Microsoft has learned much from Google, especially around online advertising.

via eweek

Santa Cruz Networks has launched a Festoon update, ‘Eye Candy’, enabling Google Talk users to see who they are talking to.

Continuing its success as a popular video plug-in for Skype, with more than 2.75 million downloads and more than 40 million video call user minutes, Festoon allows Google Talk users to talk to and see each other, share applications, and engage in immersive video experiences.

via techtree

Technology workers in Silicon Valley complain that Google steals top engineers from other companies and has become too arrogant.

“Google is the new evil empire, because they’re in such a powerful position in terms of control. They have potential monopolistic control over access to information,” said Brian Lent, the president of a start-up in Seattle, who was friends with Brin and Page at Stanford, in the New York Times.

“I like and respect the Google guys, but let’s just say that their ultimate aim seems to me to be, ‘One Google under Google, for which it stands.’”

via pbs