Japan disaster sparks social media innovation

As Japan grapples with an unprecedented triple disaster — earthquake, tsunami, nuclear crisis - the Web has spawned creativity and innovation online amid a collective desire to ease suffering.


Once the magnitude of the March 11 disaster became clear, the online world began asking, "How can we help?"

And for that, social media offered the ideal platform for good ideas to spread quickly, supplementing efforts launched by giants like Google and Facebook.

A British teacher living in Abiko city, just east of Tokyo, is leading a volunteer team of bloggers, writers and editors producing a collection of reflections and images of the earthquake that will be sold in the coming days as a digital publication.

All proceeds from the "Quakebook" project will go to the Japanese Red Cross, said the 40-year-old, who goes by the pseudonym "Our Man in Abiko."

The entirely Twitter-sourced project started with a single tweet exactly a week after the earthquake. Within an hour, he had received two submissions, which soon grew to the 87 that now comprise the 98-page book.

Google plays April Fool's prank with 'Gmail Motion'

Google joined in the April Fool's pranks on Friday with the release of a new product called " Gmail Motion" that supposedly lets users send and receive emails using only gestures.


Gmail product manager Paul McDonald, in a deadpan explanatory video, said Gmail Motion uses a "language of movements that replaces type entirely" and ends reliance on "outdated technologies" like the keyboard and mouse.

"Using your computer's camera and a spacial tracking algorithm, Gmail Motion interprets physical movement and turns it into actionable commands," McDonald said. "The movements are designed to be intuitive, ergonomic and easy to do."

In the video, a "Googler" demonstrates how Gmail Motion works, pointing backwards with one thumb, for example, to reply to an email message and using two thumbs to "reply all."

The video also includes an interview with a "Lorraine Klayman," presented as an "environmental movement specialist at Nevada Polytechnic College."

"Gmail Motion will free the regular user from the constraints that modern society and our interfaces with our machines have put on the human body," she says.

A link on Google's home page directs a user to the blog post explaining Gmail Motion, which promises to "turn your email into a true body of work."

Google is renowned for its April Fool's jokes, which over the years have included job applications for positions on the Moon and the revelation that its Internet search rankings are compiled by pigeons.

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From geek to Google Boss: Larry Page readies for the CEO throne

Larry Page has the vision, passion and intelligence that Google Inc. needs in its next leader. Yet as he becomes CEO Monday, the Google co-founder must prove that his aloofness, rebellious streak and affinity for pursuing wacky ideas won't alienate investors and lead the company astray. He's taking over amid emerging threats from rapidly growing rivals and more vigilant regulators alike.


Investors used to Google's consistency in exceeding financial targets worry that new leadership will bring more emphasis on long-term projects that take years to pay off. And many people still aren't sure he has enough management skills to steer the Internet's most powerful company. Page already has learned that smarts alone won't make him a great leader. Although Page impressed Google's early investors with his ingenuity, they still insisted that he step down in 2001 as Google's first CEO. He turned over the job to Eric Schmidt , a veteran executive who began working in Silicon Valley in the early 1980s while Page was still in grammar school.

Page's admirers say that at 38, he is more mature and less apt to be chronically late to meetings or tune out of conversations that don't stimulate his intellect _ habits that he fell into during his first stint as CEO. ``There are parts of being CEO that don't fit Larry's personality,'' said Craig Silverstein, the first employee that Page and Google's other founder, Sergey Brin, hired when they started the company in 1998. ``You wear a lot of different hats when you're CEO. Some of them are very interesting to Larry and some of them, presumably, are less interesting.'' True to his taciturn form, Page hasn't said much publicly since Google made its stunning announcement in January that he will replace Schmidt as CEO. Google said Page wasn't available for an interview.

Page, though, has left little doubt about his top priority: to dissolve the bureaucracy and complacency that accompanied the company's rapid transformation into a 21st-century empire. Google is expected to end the year with more than 30,000 employees and $35 billion in annual revenue. In Page's mind, the 13-year-old company needs to return to thinking and acting like a feisty startup. Rising Internet stars such as Facebook , Twitter and Groupon, all less than 8 years old, are developing products that could challenge Google and make its dominance of Internet search less lucrative.