Here is another amazing feature, being offered by Google Talk, Google's instant messaging service. As explained on the Google Talk blog, wordy messages are hurting the environment. "Here at Google, we're committed to helping build a clean energy future and reducing our carbon footprint. And now Google Talk is part of the solution. We don't know about you, but we were surprised to learn the inconvenient truth that every character (byte) we send in a message results in about 0.000000000000000034 metric tons of CO2 being released into the atmosphere! So if we can reduce the number of characters we send when we chat with all our friends, we can help the environment at the same time."

The message goes on to note that, "Teenagers (and some adults) must be aware of this, because they already reduce their character usage by abbreviating words and dropping vowels when they send IM and SMS (text) messages." An example of how you can reduce character usage, and its accompanying environmental damage, is to replace expressions such as "see you later" with the abbreviated "CUL8R." A quick calculation reveals that this abbreviation will reduce the emissions caused by "see you later" by 62%. Google goes on to provide a tool for those of us not up on the lingo which will automatically convert standard language to "IM-speak."

Sadly, these fantastic new services were of very limited duration. By April 2, Google returned to its commonplace old self, offering instantaneous access to virtually every bit of knowledge from everywhere on the globe, instant communication with people all over the world, satellite images of everyplace on earth, and the like. You know, ordinary boring old stuff.