Dr. Larry Brilliant, the executive director of Google.org said today that he would be stepping down from his position and will become the chief philanthropy evangelist for Google.  Megan Smith, Google executive of engineering and business development will manage Google.org.  Smith will also retain her job as VP of Business Development at Google.

“By aligning Google.org more closely with Google as a whole, Megan will ensure that we’re better able to build innovative, scalable technology and information solutions,” stated Brilliant.  “As a first step, Google has decided to put even more engineers and technical talent to work on these issues and problems, resources which I have found to be extraordinary.”

Google.org made about $100 million investments in renewable energy, global health, and information access.  Google spends about 1% of equity and profits on philanthrophy.

[via Google Blog]

Desirai Labrada (29) and John Henry (27) have been gaming since they were kids.  Desirai remembered how exciting and colorful Super Mario Brothers, the 8-bit version was when she was 5-years old.  Desirai used to wake up an hour early for school so that she could play Super Mario.  Since Halo: Combat Evolved came with the original Xbox, Desirai became addicted to that game.  Since Halo was four player, she always had friends come over and play it.

“I met John totally by chance — he’d let a roommate play on his gamer tag while he was away, and when he came back, there were friends on his list that he didn’t recognize so he sent out messages to them asking where he’d met them. One of them was me, and my gamertag caught his interest,” stated Desirai. “He asked if we could play some time and we ended up playing on a day-to-day basis. He lived in Florida and I was in New York.”

That was in December 2004 and then they started spending a lot of time on the phone in February.  They started dating in mid-March and then met in person in April.  For college, Desirai wanted to attend Full Sail University in Florida to study digital media and John helped her out.  Desirai had to move back to New York after graduation for family reasons, but couldn’t take being so far away from John.  Both of them did not want to give up on each other.

John proposed in a restaurant and they both knew that they wanted a Halo-styled wedding since that is how they met.  There would be subtle Halo touches in the wedding.  The orchestra would play the Halo theme song and tables would be named after Halo maps.  The Master Chief performed the ceremony and John wore a Halo tie.

“After the reception we had a bride-versus-groom Halo tournament in place of the first dance. To keep with the theme, I wanted to find a creative way to give away the bouquet and garter. So the guys and girls fought each other in a slayer match for them. I liked the idea of people having to earn the garter or bouquet instead of just reaching up and catching it. Who won? John did…by two kills.”

[via GreenPixels, Photo via RF Photography]

If you drink as much Mountain Dew as I do, you would be very concerned about your teeth too.  Want to get your dentist to stop dissing your hygiene?  You need to get your hands on this Wireless Dental Camera for a little bit over $100.  The Wireless Dental Camera has a 1.3 megapixel camera that transmits images from inside your mouth to a 2.4GHz wireless receiver.  The receiver is then connected to a TV or PC.  Transmission range from the camera toothbrush-like device to the receiver is about 33 feet.  The device costs about $100.

This device is also handy for dentists themselves.  How cool would it be to show your patients the decay and plaque that they need to clean up?

[via ChinaVision, Oh Gizmo!]

On Saturday I published a blog post about how Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) wanted laid off employees to return part of their severance package.  This led to some highly negative P.R. so the company backtracked.  Lisa Brummel of Microsoft H.R. said that the company “thought it didn’t make sense for us to continue on the path we were on.”  Twenty-five workers were overpaid and twenty were underpaid, added Brummel.

The employees that were overpaid received on average of about $4,000-$5,000 in extra pay.  When a company makes an accounting mistake, it makes sense to recover the money but Brummel admitted that this was an extraordinary case.  One time Brummel was overpaid and she wrote a check to Microsoft.

Home Decorators Outlet is putting up chairs for sales that will make you feel like you are at a movie theater.  The one arm chair costs $99 and the two arm chair costs $119.  Both chairs have cup holders, adjustable reclining back-rests and footrests.  The same chairs are available on Amazon.com for four times the price.  These chairs are part of HDO’s Soho line.  Shipping for these chairs are about $40-$45 and they come in 10 different colors.

[via GearDiary, SlickDeals]

Lenovo has announced that eight of their ThinkPad notebooks.  Eight of Lenovo’s laptops are now built for rugged environments according to the military.  The ThinkPads were blasted with sand and were even heated in an oven.  Other tests include temperature fluctuations, exposure to dust, and jostling.  The laptops that passed the military-grade standards include the ThinkPad X200, X301, X200s, X200 Tablet, T400, T500, R400, and SL300.

The ThinkPads have an Active Protection System encloses the hard drive in an air bag-like system in the event that it is dropped.  The ThinkPads have a spill-resistant keyboard built in and a protective frame called a Roll Cage.  The price of these ThinkPads range from about $1500-$2500 new.  Some of them can be found on Amazon.com for less than $1k.

[via eWeek]

HTC has confirmed that the Touch Pro2 will be coming to the U.S. The HTC Touch Pro2 has a touchscreen and a QWERTY keyboard.  It is uncertain whether it will be 3G and when the release date takes place.  There is a tilting keyboard design with a 3.6″ screen.  The HTC Touch Pro2 has a TouchFLO interface that is built on Windows Mobile.

[via Electronista, Gizmodo]

The Samsung PL10 is a 9 megapixel multimedia camera.  It is also known as the Samsung CL5.  The PL10 has a 2.7″ LCD screen and a PMP (Personal Multimedia Player) with an integrated MP3 player.  The PL10 has Face Recognition, Perfect Portrait System, Smart Auto, and a Frame guide.  The Smart Auto Scene Recognition has 11 optimized picture pre-settings.  The PL10 has a “Blink Detection Mode” that takes a series of shots so that pictures are captured with their eyes are open.

The PL10 has a smile mode and a beauty mode.  “Smile Mode” is when smiles are automatically detected and a picture is taken and  “Beauty Mode” facial skin is retouched and smoothed.  Colors for the PL10 include silver, royal black, red, pink, and purple.  The PL10 retails for £179.

[via Photography Blog]