Google makes a Venture Fund

Official Google Blog: Google's newest venture

In this economic recession it's nice to see that some people are still investing and Google's doing just that. Google has started a venture capital fund called Google Ventures which "encourage[s] promising new technology companies". This makes you wonder though, will this fund just give Google more comtrol over the internet? Already their AdSense product supplies ads to most monetized websites. Not to mention that getting a high Google listing is like digital gold. A fund like this could just give Google more leverage over the internet. However, at the same time this is a good idea because Google is a very innovative company and surely only the best products will sprout from this fund.

The Haunting in Connecticut (4 of 5)

One of the most interesting things I noticed about this movie was that it the supposedly true story that it was based on was well publicized. I saw the same story on the Discovery channel on the show A Haunting. However, I believe the film's story was altered because it was slightly different than the Discovery channel show. The movie is about a family with a sickly 16-year-old with cancer. They live too far away from the hospital where he is being treated so they decide to move closer. They find a seemingly normal house where the only problem seems to be that it "has a history". They later discover that it was a funeral home where necromancy was practiced. The teenager is particularly disturbed and seeks help from a reverend. Eventually, the whole "haunting" is resolved and the movie ends. This movie is scary enough to freak you out for the night but not any longer than that. Overall though, it was a great movie.

Google to introduce new Voice product

Official Google Blog: Here comes Google Voice

Google aquired a company called GrandCentral in 2007 for over $50 million. GrandCentral was a service that allowed you to do a bunch of cool things with your phones. Google froze the service previously and only now is relaunching it under the name of Google Voice. Google Voice uses an interface similar to Gmail that allows you to listen to or read your voicemails, read your texts, and place free calls to anyone in the U.S. Google Voice also has a host of other features like phone routing, phone forwarding, conference calling, and many others. You can see all the features at https://www.google.com/voice/about.

CrunchBase Information

Google

GrandCentral

Information provided by CrunchBase

Why Obama doesn't know what he's doing.

Barack Obama is the first African-American to be elected to the office of president. He's also a moran. Clearly, he doesn't understand that what he says will affect the stock market. If he was smart he would give bad news (like the government taking a 40% stake in Citigroup (C)) on a Friday after the markets closed. If he even gave bad news after the markets closed on ANY day we wouldn't see nearly as many days where the markets are down. Obama needs to realize that what he says will affects millions of peoples college and retirement funds. Then what would you expect from someone who used to be a junior senator and was a previous "community organizer".

Why global warming is a scam.

Here's another article trying to "save the earth". Well, I got something to tell you. There is a great deal of evidence that suggests that they're is no global climate change that is man-made. In fact as far as my knowledge goes, there have been hotter periods of time before cars were even invented. Yeah, believe it or not though, I'm not an expert on this so check out globalclimatescam.com. 

Official Google Blog: Power down for the planet

Why we need social finance.

Mutual funds are a great idea. Multiple people invest their money and a manager invests this money. The only problem is that the fund holders don't get a say in where their money goes. They have to trust that the fund manager knows what they're doing and that the companies the manager invests in won't go down the toilet. That's why I propose a new type of mutual fund. A more social mutual fund. No, not a fund that spreads the wealth. I'm talking about a mutual fund were the fund holders make the calls. The holders could democratically select stocks to invest in, with a website perhaps, and then the manager would execute the trades. I believe this is a good idea because when an individual investor decides he wants to purchase some securities they have the choice to invest in whatever company they want. I think a democratic mutual fund would prevent exposure to market volatility. It would also save money for the fund because the fund wouldn't have to pay for stock research.

Santa, Twitter, and Google

Noradsanta.org let's you track where Santa has and is visiting. This technology uses Google Earth and Google Maps to deliver the location of Santa Claus. It's pretty nifty. Check it out.

And though this technology is interesting the article on the Google Blog says that you can also follow Santa's progress on Twitter. Twitter has also recently integrated Google Friend Connect into it's service. This leads you to wonder if Google and Twitter just have a very close relationship or if there's the possibility of an acquisition. What happens if Google buys Twitter? Clearly, Twitter can be used as a news service and if Google were to aggregate specific user's tweets they could integrate it into Google News. They could also integrate Twitter into their search. Clearly if Google bought Twitter it would be beneficial to it's services.

Official Google Blog: Tracking Santa: the backstory

CrunchBase Information

Google

Twitter

Google Friend Connect

Information provided by CrunchBase