Thursday, June 18, 2009

Here Comes Google Voice

We've just started to release a preview of Google Voice, an application that helps you better manage your voice communications. Google Voice will be available initially to existing users of GrandCentral, a service we acquired in July of 2007.

The new application improves the way you use your phone. You can get transcripts of your voicemail (see the video below) and archive and search all of the SMS text messages you send and receive. You can also use the service to make low-priced international calls and easily access Goog-411 directory assistance.
As you may know, GrandCentral offers many great features, including a single number to ring your home, work, and mobile phones, a central voicemail inbox that you could access on the web, and the ability to screen calls by listening in live as callers leave a voicemail. You'll find these features, and more, in the Google Voice preview. Check out the features page for videos and more information on how these features work.



If you're already using GrandCentral, over the next couple days, you will receive instructions in your GrandCentral inbox on how to start using Google Voice. We'll be opening it up to others soon, so if you'd like to be notified when that happens, please send us your email address.

Google Apps sync for Microsoft outlook



Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Microsoft Office Comes to the Browser (Finally)



Microsoft announced this morning at its PDC conference that the next release of Microsoft Office will include browser-based versions of some of its main office software products - Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. These will be "lightweight versions", but Microsoft told us yesterday that they'll still have rich functionality and will be comparable to Google's suite of online office applications. The apps will enable users to create, edit and collaborate on Microsoft Office documents through the browser. The apps will work in IE, Firefox and Safari browsers (no word on whether Google Chrome will be supported). Update: Microsoft clarified in an email that these apps will use HTML and AJAX, but also Silverlight components.The online versions will share the same names as their desktop counterparts (Word, Excel, etc), although unfortunately they don't fully escape the awkward and confusing branding that Microsoft gives to most of its Internet apps. The collective name for these apps is "Office Web Applications". To remind you, there is also an Office Online (a separate Microsoft site where users can download templates) and an Office Live Workspace (for sharing office files between desktop and Web - our coverage).

The "Office Web applications" will be available to consumers through Office Live, a service which has both ad-funded and subscription options. Business users will be offered Office Web applications as a hosted subscription service and through existing "volume licensing agreements". There will be a private technology preview of the Office Web applications later this year.
Last month we ran a poll asking which word processing tool you primarily use. We got over 2,600 separate votes and a resounding 49% of people still use Microsoft Word as their main word processing tool. Its open source desktop equivalent OpenOffice got 16%. Google Docs was the best placed Web Office app, with 15%.

The results showed that there is still a big place for desktop Office apps. Nevertheless, with the announcement yesterday of Microsoft Azure - a so-called cloud computing OS - Microsoft is clearly serving a growing demand for browser-based office software. We expect these apps to become more full featured over time.

Librarians Fighting Google's Book Deal



Critics of Google's book-searching agreement with publishers and authors were cheered last week when antitrust regulators in the Justice Department set their sights on the search giant's publishing deal, demanding more information."This isGoliath Google facing off against a legion of librarians and, possibly, the U.S. Justice Department — now there's a fight.

Indeed, a deal that once appeared a sure bet for rubber-stamp approval is now the target of angry opposition and intense regulatory interest, which throw its future into question.

At issue is a $125 million settlement agreement reached last October that gives Google the right to make millions of books available for reading — and purchase — on the Internet. Under the pact, a Book Rights Registry will be set up that will allow publishers and authors to register their work and get paid for their titles through institutional subscriptions, ad fees and book sales. Google will retain 37% of the revenue, with the remainder going to the registry to be distributed to authors and publishers. The deal effectively gives authors and publishers control over their work in the digital world and pays them for it. For the public, it means easy click-of-the-mouse access to millions of books that sit on dusty shelves in university libraries across the country.
(See the 100 best novels of all time.)

The agreement, which must still get federal court approval, was aimed at ending two lawsuits filed in 2005 against Google by the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers. Basically, authors and publishers had complained that the Web-searching king had broken copyright laws when it scanned millions of books from university and research libraries and made snippets of their content available online.

In a complex settlement agreement, which took three years to hammer out and spans 135 pages excluding attachments, Google will be allowed to show up to 20% of the books' text online at no charge to Web surfers. But the part of the settlement that deals with so-called orphan books — which refers to out-of-print books whose authors and publishers are unknown — is what's ruffling the most feathers in the literary henhouse. The deal gives Google an exclusive license to publish and profit from these orphans, which means it won't face legal action if an author or owner comes forward later. This, critics contend, gives it a competitive edge over any rival that wants to set up a competing digital library. And without competition, opponents fear Google will start charging exorbitant fees to academic libraries and others who want full access to its digital library.

"It will make Google virtually invulnerable to competition," says Robert Darnton, head of the Harvard University library system.

Although competitors could scan orphans, they would not be protected from copyright suits as Google is under the agreement. "They'd face lawsuits all over the place," making the risk too big, said Darnton.

Without competition, pricing could go wild, critics claim. The registry, which oversees pricing, is comprised of authors and publishers who stand to benefit from high subscription fees. "There will be no incentive to keep prices moderate," Darnton says.

The library community recalls with horror the pricing fiasco that occurred when industry consolidation left academic journals in the hands of five publishing companies. The firms hiked subscription prices 227% over a 14-year period, between 1986 and 2002, forcing cash-strapped libraries to drop many subscriptions, according to Van Orsdel. "The chance of the price being driven up in a similar way (in the Google deal) is really very real," he says. a monumental settlement that's at stake, and for the government to show this kind of attention is heartening," says Lee Van Orsdel, dean of university libraries at Grand Valley State University. "The increased scrutiny on the part of the DOJ tells us that our concerns are resonating far beyond the library community," concurs Corey Williams, associate director in the office of government relations at the American Library Association.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Youtube XL Announced for Big screens


recent launch from YouTube sees the video on demand site now catering to those with the smallest screens available, right up to the biggest.

Just as there is a version of YouTube optimised for watching on mobile phones, the company has now launched a version optimised for watching on large screens.


YouTube "XL" gets a new design that sees larger text, simplified navigation and a continuous play feature, which lets you search for a topic on YouTube and then press play once to watch all of the videos sequentially on that topic.

Getting from one video to the next takes just a few clicks, claims YouTube, and the action can be controlled via a Bluetooth-enabled remote control, or in some cases, your mobile phone.

With YouTube's high definition content increasing by day, and internet-enabled televisions and other home cinema devices more and more common, the world's most popular video website wanting to move onto your telly seems a logical step.

Google's small business offer to beat the blues

Google is offering free online marketing to thousands of small and medium sized business to help them beat the economic blues.

Google said there were about 350,000 small to medium sized enterprises in the country but any company that had not tried its AdWords service could sign up for a $75 search marketing campaign.

Google general manager Australia & New Zealand Karim Temsamani said an online search result displayed a mixture of free and sponsored links, which when clicked on would generally cost a company no more than a few cents.

"A few dollars can go a very long way," Temsamani said. "We've got a number of examples of small businesses in New Zealand that have started very small with AdWords campaign and got enormous return investment and therefore we want to make sure that all businesses in New Zealand have the opportunity to really be able to trial search marketing."

Google globally generated more than US$20 billion of revenue, with the vast majority coming from its search products, including AdWords and AdSense, which partners with website owners to place adverts on their sites.
Google did not have set expectations for the response to its marketing campaign giveaway, Temsamani said.

"Essentially our view is that we need the eco system to continue growing and as we are helping small businesses grow their business we can see that if they are getting the right results from their search campaigns they will continue to use search as a means to dialogue and reach customers in the future."

Google has seen strong growth in search queries in the past year, he said.

"Kiwis are going online to research their purchases more carefully, whether it's a hotel or flights, a restaurant booking, a new credit card or a new consumer electronics gadget."

Google said travel searches were up nearly 30 per cent year on year since May, 2008, while automotive, finance/insurance and computer/ electronics were up 27 per cent, 20 per cent and 20 per cent respectively.

Lots of New 3D Content Added in Google Earth

Google has added thousands of new buildings to the 3D Buildings layer including 4 cities in Japan with dozens of city blocks where all the buildings are rendered in 3D, more Disney content for Orlando, nearly 4000 new 3D Warehouse models all over the planet, and more! The new coverage in Japan include: Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto. The new 3D buildings are covered in photorealistic textures using some automated method. (NOTE: most Japan cities were already rendered with gray non-photo-textured buildings, the new buildings replace those in the areas where they have coverage.) You can see samples of the new cities here (I recomment watching it in HD)

oogle has been slowly adding cities using an unpublished methodology where vast numbers of buildings for large areas of cities are being rendered in 3D with photorealistic textures. The photos appear to be aerial in some cases, in others they seem to be from the ground. But, they are using an at least semi-automated process judging from the cases where some buildings are not properly "dressed" with the photo textures. In December Google added New York City in 3D. Here's a round up of cities which have the photorealistic 3D treatment, with the exception of these two which were added later.