Google, the online search engine that aspires to be the world's information clearinghouse, wants to help you manage your household energy use.

The company is now beating many power companies in smart grid development by offering a Google application that lets homeowners monitor daily energy use. Some electric utilities are responding to consumer demand and are cooperating with Google to offer the service, but many are reluctant to let the online search giant provide a service the utilities aren't capable of offering themselves.

Harry Wingo, Google's policy counsel, outlined the company's energy strategy in Raleigh this morning as the keynote speaker at an energy conference sponsored by the N.C. Energy Office. He spoke to some 800 people at N.C. State University's McKimmon Conference and Training Center at the meeting that runs through tomorrow and is titled "Sustainability: Moving Beyond the Federal Stimulus."

"Our mission is to organize the world's information," Wingo said, "and make it universally accessible and useful."

Google ups its game for its market share of users.

So what is next after communities across the nation fawned over Google's proposed super high speed fiber network? Our very own Sarah Ovaska tells us here.

Google isn't ready to reveal which community it will wire with super-fast Internet access, but it did release a map showing where it got submissions before the March 26 deadline.

See the map and full report over on our WakeWatch blog.

Cary, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Durham, Greensboro and Raleigh all asked Google for consideration.

The new Internet would send data at speeds of one gigabit per second, more than 100 times faster than most residential services.

Google is keeping pretty mum about where it'll choose to put down fiber-optic cables as part of an experiment to wire up an entire community with really, really fast Internet access.

But it did offer a glimpse here of where they got submissions before the March 26 cut-off date. The small circles show where governments applied, while the larger circles are spots where more than 1,000 individuals contacted Google on their own.

So just how fast would this Internet be? Data could get sent at speeds
of one gigabit per second, more than 100 times faster than most
residential services.

Cary, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Durham, Greensboro and Raleigh all asked Google for consideration. Durham probably took the cake locally for gathering the most community input, with an aggressive online campaign led by interested citizenry as well as offering a photo snapped from above the Durham Bulls Athletic Park with people on the field using their bodies to spell out "We Want Google."

Raleigh, oddly enough, probably ended up with the most extreme offer to come out locally when councilman Bonner Gaylord anted up at the last-minute and said he'd name his unborn twins after Google's co-founders if Google chooses the Oak City.

Google promises to make its decision by the end of the year. 

Today Google announced it stopped censoring Google Search, Google News, and Google Images in China. Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where uncensored search results appear in simplified Chinese.

Sports fans, it does not get much easier than this. I subscribed to schedules for four ACC basketball teams and an NHL team in under 5 minutes.