Cody Taylor

Plain old Web searching doesn’t do the trick anymore: It yields too much random data, or not what you need. Here’s how to get what you want when you want it—sometimes before you ask for it. Nobody “surfs” the Web anymore. Some 80 percent of all online sessions now begin with a search. Google proves the point by making over a billion dollars….

theodp writes “Barack Obama has squared up for a major battle with big business, announcing a crackdown on offshore tax avoidance and evasion by US multinationals that’s designed to raise 0B and make it easier for companies to create ‘good jobs here at home’. Obama cited a building in the Cayman Islands where more than 18,000 US companies are housed: ‘Either this is the biggest building in the world or it is the biggest tax scam in the world,’ he said. ‘I think the American people know which it is.’ The administration says that more than a third of US foreign profits in 2003 came from Bermuda, the Netherlands and Ireland, and noted US companies paid an effective tax rate of just 2.3% on the 0bn they earned in foreign profits in 2004. Among tech companies affected by the crackdown, Microsoft joined 200 companies who signed a letter complaining that the proposed tax changes would put them at a disadvantage with their rivals, Cisco moaned that the measures ‘would adversely impact our ability to invest and grow our business in the US,’ and Google declined to comment for the time being.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Kelson writes “Google’s Mountain View headquarters has fields that need to be kept clear of fire hazards. This year instead of mowing them, they took a low-carbon approach: they hired a herd of goats to eat the grass for a week. ‘It costs us about the same as mowing, and goats are a lot cuter to watch than lawn mowers,’ wrote Dan Hoffman.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I certainly hope the next generation of internet search requires less work on my behalf (ala Google).