How much does it cost to run a computer?

Here's something that has always hung around in my mind, but I never got around to looking up the answer. How much will running PCs add to your power bill?

Anandtech posted an article where they calculated the cost of running a PC per hour.

* For a middle of the line system, they figured one year of use is $93.51 for 8 hours a day.
* If you let your PC sit idle 24 hours a day, it will cost you $128.12 a year.
* For a top of the line system that is at full load all day long (like a server) you could spend $440.85.

These prices are calculated at the price of electricity in North Carolina. California PC users will pay almost double.

Google Book will be up and running again after $125 million settlement

Last October, Google ended up paying a $125 million settlement to the Authors Guild for copyrighted works it had scanned onto its Google Book Search project. The Project seemed like a very great idea, scan every book ever printed so that anyone could view them on the web. Google had scanned over 7 million books before the Author’s Guild said what they were doing was illegal.

Since then the Google has revised their technique and are now offering authors and other copyright holders $60 per scanned book to allow Google to scan their book and add it to their Google Book Search collection. The deal sounds like a terrible one, but there is more to it. Google is only allowed to display snippets in search results, and only 20% of the book will be viewable in preview mode. If a user wants to see the entire book, the user will have the option to buy a digital version of the book. Google has also set up and advertising program on the Google book search results and preview mode. Authors and copyright holders will then receive 63% of all profit that Google has earned on advertising and e-books sold that pertain to the author’s book.

Also worth noting is the settlement is only for the million of out-of-print books that are currently making zero revenues for authors and publishers today. Sounds like a good deal for an author who wants to make some more money off of their book after it has stopped being published and produced.