OMG! Teens still talk with friends face to face

Phones and social-networking sites are also important, study finds
From: www.msnbc.msn.com
By Anick Jesdanun
updated 5:39 p.m. ET Dec. 19, 2007

NEW YORK - Teenagers still value phone calls and face-to-face meetings with friends even as they frequent online hangouts like Facebook and MySpace, a new study finds.

Nearly 40 percent of teens say they talk to friends on a traditional wired phone every day, and 35 percent say they do so on cell phones, the Pew Internet and American Life Project said Wednesday, analyzing its phone surveys from late 2006. Thirty-one percent of teens say they spend time in person with friends every day.

Fewer teens say they communicate daily using instant messaging, text messages or internal messaging systems at Facebook, MySpace or another social-networking site.

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Power-hungry Google launches green energy scheme

From www.smh.com.au

US technology giant Google is expanding into alternative energy in its most ambitious effort yet to ease the environmental strain caused by the company's voracious appetite for power to run its massive computing centres.

As part of a project announced today, the internet search leader and its philanthropic arm will pour hundreds of millions of dollars into a quest to lower the cost of producing electricity from renewable energy sources such as wind and the sun.

If Google realises its goal, the cost of solar power should fall by 25 to 50 per cent, co-founder Larry Page said in an interview. more ...