Google Updates

Send Gmail attachments while offline

2009-11-24T20:09:00.000-08:00

One of the most requested features for Offline Gmail has been the ability to include attachments in messages composed while offline. Starting today, attachments work just the way you would expect them to whether you are online or offline (with the exception that when you're offline you won't be able to include inline images). Just add the attachment and send your message.

If you have Offline Gmail enabled, you'll notice that all your mail now goes through the outbox, regardless of whether you're online or offline. This allows Gmail to capture all attachments, even if you suddenly get disconnected from network. If you're online, your mail will quickly be sent along to its destination.

If you haven't tried offline access yet, follow these instructions to get started:

1. Select Enable next to Offline Gmail.
2. Click Save Changes.
3. After your browser reloads, you'll see a new "Offline" link in the upper righthand corner of the Gmail page, next to your username. Click this link to start the offline set up process and download Gears if you don't already have it.
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/send-attachments-while-offline.html

Google Chrome OS First Look

2009-11-22T19:20:00.000-08:00

oday we released Chromium OS, the open source project behind Google Chrome OS. Google Chrome OS is an operating system that is intended for people who spend most of their time on the web. It aims to provide a computing experience that is fast, simple and secure. The Chromium OS project as you'll see it today is comprised of the code that has been developed thus far, our early experiments with the user interface, and detailed design docs for many parts that are under active development.

To get a feel for the Google Chrome OS user experience, you can watch the demo from this morning's announcement event

http://chrome.blogspot.com/2009/11/announcing-chromium-os-open-source.html

12 Things to Know About Google's Go Programming Language

2009-11-15T09:13:00.000-08:00

Google's new programming language, called Go, took the application development world by storm when the search giant released it Nov. 10. The ambitious technology's pedigree features programming experts from the Unix world, including Ken Thompson, who teamed with Dennis Ritchie to create Unix. Created as a systems programming language to help speed up development of systems inside Google, Go is now viewed as a general-purpose language for Web development, mobile development, addressing parallelism and a lot more.
Google's new programming language, called Go, took the application development world by storm when the search giant released it Nov. 10.
The ambitious technology comes with a pedigree featuring programming experts from the Unix world, including Ken Thompson, who teamed with Dennis Ritchie to create Unix. Created as a systems programming language to help speed up development of systems inside Google, Go is now viewed as a general-purpose language for Web development, mobile development, addressing parallelism and a lot more.
Ironically, Google launched Go just a week before Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference, which typically dominates the software development landscape while it is running. This time there might be a little Go buzz at the event.
Go is an experimental language that is still in the process of being tweaked and maturing, but it holds huge potential. The Google Go team blogged about Go, saying, "Go combines the development speed of working in a dynamic language like Python with the performance and safety of a compiled language like C or C++. Typical builds feel instantaneous; even large binaries compile in just a few seconds. And the compiled code runs close to the speed of C."
1. Where did the idea for Go come from?
Pike, Thompson and Robert Griesemer of Java HotSpot virtual machine and V8 JavaScript engine fame, decided to make a go of developing a new language out of frustration with the pace of building software. Said Pike:
"In Google we have very large software systems and we spent so long literally waiting for compilations, even though we have distributed compilation and parallelism in all of these tools to help, it can take a very long time to build a program. Even incremental builds can be slow. And we looked at this and realized many of the reasons for that are just fundamental in working in languages like C and C++, and we needed a different approach. We also decided the tools that everybody used were also slow. So we wanted to start from scratch to write the kind of programs we need to write here at Google in a way that the tools could be really efficient and the build cycles could be very short."
2. Go is a multipurpose language
Pike said Go is appropriate for a broad spectrum of uses, including Web programming, mobile programming and systems programming. "We based it on our ideas of what we think systems programming should be like," he said.
Then a Google engineer told the team he wanted to do a port to ARM processors for the Go language because he wanted to do some work in robotics. With the ARM support, "We can now run Go code in Android phones, which is a pretty exciting possibility," Pike said. "Of course, ARMs also run inside a lot of the other phones out there, so maybe it's a mobile language."
He added, "I think people, once they absorb it a little bit more, will see the advantage of having a modern language in some ways that actually runs really fast. And it's an interesting candidate to think of as an alternative for JavaScript in the browser.
"Although getting Go supported inside browsers is going to be a seriously challenging undertaking ... but it is an interesting thing to think about because it has a lot of the advantages of JavaScript as a lightweight, fun language to play with. But it's enormously more efficient. So some of the big, heavy, client-oriented applications out there like Google Wave would be much zippier if they were written in Go, but of course they can't be written in Go because it doesn't run in a browser yet. But I'd like to see some stuff in that direction, too, although how that's going to happen I don't know."
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Application-Development/12-Things-to-Know-About-Googles-Go-Programming-Language-859839/

Google Chrome OS: A Nice Place to Visit, But?

2009-11-15T09:07:00.000-08:00

Google's Chrome operating system could mark a turning point in computing, but many questions remain. Today's rumor is the OS will be released to developers next week, answering some questions but probably raising even more. Google had previously promised Chrome OS, in some form, before the end of this year.
Chrome OS strikes me as being just enough Linux to allow an underpowered computer to run Chrome browser and connect to cloud-based applications. How exciting can that really be?

On a netbook, Chrome OS may be enough to provide mobile functionality. On a desktop, Chrome OS may turn a PC into a glorified terminal, relying on the Internet for nearly everything the user does.

There are many questions about Chrome OS, some of which may be answered when Google releases whatever it decides to make available to make good its promise to release the OS, in some form, before the end of this year.

Among those questions:

Just how limited will Chrome OS be? What will and won't it do?
Will it natively run third-party applications on the hardware where it resides? Or just to connect to applications in the Internet cloud?
Will cloud apps need to be written specifically for Chrome?
Will Chrome create a standard for the look-and-feel for cloud application?
Might Chrome only run applications that Google hosts?
Will Chrome require--or even use--a hard drive? Might Chrome OS netbooks have a small silicon drive and nothing else?
When Google promises an end to security hassles, such a viruses, malware, or updates, what trade-offs are required?
Google has previously said Chrome is intended to be lightweight and get users connected to cloud applications quickly. The company seems to believe that cloud apps will become pervasive and will not require a very powerful machine to run them.

Thus, Google is creating a very lightweight browser (Chrome) to run atop what amounts to an embedded operating system (Chrome OS) running on netbooks (to be released next year).

I also expect the OS to include Gears, Google's technology for offline access to its cloud-based applications.

What will Chrome do beyond that? Maybe nothing. If Google really believes its cloud rhetoric and is really serious that Chrome OS will be virus-free, maybe the new OS won't run applications, just the browser and Gears?

Add a robust security mechanism, to make certain the cloud-based applications and Web sites haven't been tampered with, and Chrome could be a more secure operating system than we're used to. If only by keeping the computer from doing anything besides interacting with Web sites and web-based applications.

I find that idea strangely attractive, though it will certainly result in devices with limited functionality, just like today's netbooks. However, performance may actually be better since netbooks could be freed from laboring to run Windows and heavy Windows applications.

Google Chrome OS introduces a new computing model and may even change how we think about operating systems. Its importance hinges upon how widely and quickly cloud applications take center stage, what trade-offs customers are willing to make, and most importantly, what Chrome OS actually turns out to be.
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/182152/google_chrome_os_a_nice_place_to_visit_but.html

Will Google's Wave Replace E-Mail—and Facebook?

2009-10-11T05:42:00.000-07:00

Google has big plans for Google Wave, its new online communication service—and they won't all come from Google.

The Web search giant is hoping that software developers far and wide will create tools that work in conjunction with Wave, making an already multifaceted service even more useful. Google (GOOG) is even likely to let programmers sell their applications through an online bazaar akin to Apple's App Store, the online marketplace for games and other applications designed for the iPhone. "We'll almost certainly build a store," Lars Rasmussen, the Google software engineering manager who directs the 60-person team in Sydney, Australia, that created Wave, told BusinessWeek.com. "So many developers have asked us to build a marketplace—and we might do a revenue-sharing arrangement."

Combining instant messaging, e-mail, and real-time collaboration, Wave is an early form of so-called real-time communication designed to make it easier for people to work together or interact socially over the Internet. Google started letting
developers tinker with Wave at midyear and then introduced the tool on a trial basis to about 100,000 invited users starting on Sept. 30. Invitations were such a hot commodity that they were being sold on eBay (EBAY). For Google the hope is that Wave, once it's more widely available, will replace competing communications services such as e-mail, instant messaging, and possibly even social networks such as Facebook.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2009/tc2009104_703934.htm

Google Wave first Invitees

2009-10-08T11:05:00.000-07:00

Google Wave is about to open to new users. Starting today, Google will send 100,000 invites to some of those who were eager to use an early version of the service. Google's blog lists three categories of users that will receive invites: Google Wave Sandbox users, those who signed up and offered to give feedback on Google Wave and some Google Apps users. When you receive an invitation to Google Wave, you'll be able to invite other people so you can use Google Wave together.

"Google received more than 1 million requests to participate in the preview, said Lars Rasmussen, engineering manager for Google Wave, and while it won't be able to accommodate all those requests on Wednesday it is at least ready to begin the next phase of the project," writes CNet.

Like Gmail's early version released in April 2004, Google Wave lacks many basic features: you can't remove someone from a wave, you can't configure permissions or write drafts. The interface is not very polished and some of the options are difficult to find, but it's important to keep in mind that Google Wave is just one of the ways to implement an open protocol. Gmail revolutionized email with an interface inspired by discussion boards: messages are grouped in conversations and it's easy to handle a large amount of messages. Google Wave wants to revolutionize real-time communication by extending a protocol mostly used for instant messaging, XMPP.

Combining email, instant messaging and wikis seems like a recipe for confusion, but Google Wave pioneers a new generation of web applications, where everything is instantaneous. As Google explains, each wave is a hosted conversation and users can edit the conversation in real-time.
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/09/new-batch-of-google-wave-invites.html

Personalized YouTube Homepage

2009-08-20T21:30:00.000-07:00

YouTube tests a new homepage that is customizable and centered on your activities. Instead of displaying the same content for all YouTube users, the new homepage looks different, depending on your preferences and your activities. Here's what's new:

* recommended videos, a feature that relies on your previous activity: favorite videos, subscribed channels
* latest from your subscriptions: 12 videos from 3 of your subscribed channels
* friend activity: a list of videos uploaded, favorited or rated by your YouTube contacts. This information is displayed only if your contacts added it to their public profiles.
* inbox: messages, friend invites, received videos.
* statistics about your videos (total views, subscribers) and your activity (subscriptions, comments).
"The goal with all of this is to gauge people's interest in having a YouTube that's tailored to the individual. Ultimately, we want to get you one step closer to the videos you'll enjoy most every time you come to the site," explains YouTube.

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/03/personalized-youtube-homepage.html

Google switches on Apps Script

2009-08-20T21:27:00.000-07:00

Google officially rolled out its Apps Script functionality for enterprise users on Wednesday, following a limited pilot release earlier this year.
Google Apps Script works mainly within the Spreadsheets app to automate various processes. For example, you can automate the sending of e-mails messages based on data held in a spreadsheet, or create scripts that communicate with other Web services.
"Back in May, we announced a pilot release of Google Apps Script, and after thousands of hours of use, and lots of valuable feedback, we're excited to launch Google Apps Script to all Google Apps Premier and Education Edition customers today," Google Apps products manager Evin Levey on Wednesday.
Giving an example of how Apps Script can be used, Levey described an expense approval scenario, where the script automatically converts foreign currency to local currency, pulls historical exchange rates from external Web services, picks up on missing data and flags certain expense categories for review.
"Even more useful, the script can figure out whose approvals are needed and automatically request approval from those people," Levey wrote. "And once approved, the script sends a note to the finance department for payment--all without writing a single e-mail."
Google Apps Premier and Education Edition customers can locate the scripts functionality through the Tools menu in the Spreadsheets app. Levey wrote that the Apps team is seeking feedback on what customers come up with in their use of the tool.
Also on Wednesday, Google's enterprise team announced another tool called Side-by-Side search. The tool allows users to compare the results of two separate searches based on the same body of data, which the team said would allow the evaluation of the Google Search Appliance (GSA) against a company's existing enterprise search product.
The team also announced an upgraded suite of GSA Connectors, including an Enterprise Labs release of a connector for the Salesforce CRM system.

http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/internet/0,39044908,62057072,00.htm?scid=rss_z_nw

Google reveals plans for Chrome cloud synchronization

2009-08-09T08:15:00.000-07:00

Google has revealed plans for a Chrome cloud service that will allow users to synchronize browser data with their Google accounts. The synchronization framework, which is still at an early stage of development, will arrive in Google's open source Chromium project later this week. Google says that a Chrome build with the sync feature enabled could be made available through a dev-channel update this month.

In a message posted to the Chromium developer group, Google engineer Tim Steele described the process through which the feature will be integrated into the browser. Google has also published a design document that provides a high-level overview of the synchronization architecture.

"A bunch of us have been working on a feature to sync user data in Chromium with a Google account," Steele wrote. "We have built a library that implements the client side of our sync protocol as well as the Google server-side infrastructure to serve Google Chrome users and synchronize data to their Google Account."

The Chrome synchronization framework will initially handle bookmarks, but it is designed to support other kinds of browser data in the future. It uses a push messaging model to propagate change notifications, which means that activity in one instance of the browser will be reflected immediately in other instances. This will make it more seamless than other bookmark synchronization services like Weave and XMarks that rely on polling to determine when data needs to be synchronized. Google also plans to provide a Web interface so that users can remotely access their bookmarks from any browser by logging into their Google accounts.

The synchronization framework will use a persistent XMPP connection for change notifications. The Google Talk servers will provide the backend infrastructure for that part of the synchronization process. The actual bookmark data will be transmitted in Google's Protocol Buffer format. The design document suggests that XMPP was adopted instead of a polling model for scalability reasons and to make synchronization more seamless.

Steele says that the sync code represents a major change to the browser's code base and that it will be landing in the Chromium tree incrementally so that it can be properly reviewed. The client-side sync code currently works on Windows and Linux but doesn't work yet on Mac OS X. To enable broader testing, the developers plan to make available an experimental Chrome build for Windows with the synchronization feature enabled; it will be deployed through the developer update channel later this month.

"We're planning to use the syncapi DLL to produce a sync-enabled Google Chrome build for dev-channel users in a week or so, to get the feature into experimentally inclined hands," Steele wrote. "We have a great deal of infrastructure, both in the browser and in the form of production Google services, that needs to start seeing real user traffic and usage. It takes a great deal of testing and confidence inspired by real usage statistics before any complex system like this can be deemed adequate for use by a large user base."

Browser sync will boost the value of Google's browser and advance Google's strategy of converging the desktop with the cloud. It's a particularly intriguing development in light of Google's upcoming Chrome OS. Seamless synchronization of browser data between a desktop and netbook could be a very compelling feature. It's not clear yet if Google will also bring this feature to its Android mobile browser, but it seems like an obvious move.

Google intends to document the protocols and make the client-side source code available under an open license, which means that it could be possible for third-party developers to bring Google synchronization support to other browsers. This will be a welcome development for users who still mourn the loss of Google's Firefox browser sync, which was discontinued last year.
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/08/google-reveals-plans-for-chrome-cloud-synchronization.ars

What Do You Expect from Google Chrome OS?

2009-08-09T08:11:00.000-07:00

I've asked some time ago the readers of this blog what they expect from Google Chrome OS, an open-source operating system built around Google Chrome, that will be released later this year. Here are some of their answers:

Integration with Google Accounts

"I believe Google accounts will be used to login to Chrome OS. Kinda whereever you go, you can use your Google account username/password to login. I hope it will use local disk to store frequently accessed file and sync it to Docs like Dropbox."

It should work offline

"There would have to be some kind of offline credential caching so you can log on even when you are not connected to the network."

Instant boot

"The thing I need with Google Chrome OS is instant bootup. I want something where I open up my laptop and the screen turns on and puts a web browser in my face."

It should be fast

"I just want to get rid of infinite waiting for load up. When I turn on my computer, half the times is just to open a web browser, a media player and an instant messaging program. I don't want to have to wait AGES for all sorts of background programs and services to load up."

Built-in desktop search

"I like the desktop search element of Google Desktop: it's a good way to access my files, e-mails and web history quickly. That should be included in Chrome OS. And there should be an offline cache of everything, so that I can still see read web pages I've visited even when offline."

In sync

"Syncing is important these days. Not just bookmarks, but passwords, and "user states" so you can pick up on another machine almost where you leave off on one. I would be able to start working on a document on my desktop machine and then switch to my laptop and hit the road, confident that when i open the document authoring app I'll be right where I left off."

Invisible

"Google ChromeOS should save screen real estate. On smaller devices like netbooks, you need to conserve as much screen real estate as possible."

Use applications without installing them

"Even if storage memory is cheaper now than ever, mobile phones, netbooks, etc. will benefit of avoiding to install software specific for each use on the physical memory and maintaining it "in the cloud". Sites should have the capability (and maybe a standard protocol) to communicate each other with the browser as a medium (avoiding the download and following upload of the object), user should have the capability to chose the service that he wants to subscribe to (eventually choosing it from an online appstore-like site), the OS should be able to recommend new and interesting service to subscribe to the user based on information collected (with his permission) about his behaviour."

Run Windows applications

"I want to run Windows programs, as well as games. I want Chrome OS to be able to do everything a normal computer can do! That way I can get ditch Windows and get Chrome OS for (hopefully) free!"

Don't forget the hardware!

"Driver support for a wide range of mobile hardware -> platform hardware combination. I'm particularly interested in WiMax support on an ARM processor."

So people want a fast operating system that loads instantly, doesn't use too many resources, saves your data online so you can continue your work from another computer and it keeps the data in sync, works offline, uses applications without installing them, runs Windows applications and it's compatible with many combinations of hardware.

What do you expect from Google Chrome OS?
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/

What the Microsoft-Yahoo-Bing Deal Means for You

2009-07-30T04:20:00.000-07:00

So what's it mean for computer users now that Microsoft and Yahoo today finally are announcing their long-anticipated marriage of Microsoft's Bing search engine and Yahoo's premium search advertising tools? Will this change our lives?

Actually, I think this partnership will mean far more for Microsoft and Yahoo and their corporate balance sheets than it will for those of us who are technology consumers, and here's why.

1) Will search get better due to the deal between the two companies? Now I don't have a crystal ball, but I tried Bing, I played with Bing, I experienced Bing, but Bing, you're no Google search. Yes, it has some cool features, like bringing up found items in new and useful lists that are highly targeted for users, but there's this little problem that no amount of money and advertising can change -- people's habits. And my habit, like the habit of tens of millions of computer users around me, is to call up Google whenever and wherever I have to search, every time. It's like a mother's love -- it's there forever.

2) Will Yahoo go to the dogs now that it's linked itself in a partnership deal with the slow, hard-to-steer, behemoth known as Microsoft? I do think there are more risks for Yahoo here than there are for Microsoft. Remember when the huge cable TV conglomerate Time Warner Inc. merged with the original America Online (AOL) Internet provider back in 2000, thinking it was the wave of the future and all of humanity would follow in a sea of dollar signs and goodwill? And do you know where they are now? Time Warner is spinning off AOL, which has been struggling for years, as it continues to try to figure out just what to do with it. Before teaming with Time Warner, AOL was the king of the Internet, as we all clamored to have slow, software-laden Internet access at $2.99 an hour like the good consumer lemmings we were in those days. But then cheaper, faster access arrived with DSL, cable and all-you-can-use plans, but AOL and stodgy Time Warner couldn't react quickly enough. There's a lesson here. Bigger isn't always better. I read that in a fortune cookie. I could have saved Time Warner and AOL a lot of money if I'd have told them that. Hey, Microsoft and Yahoo, are you listening?

3) Are there privacy concerns we should be worried about from this deal? That depends on the fine print, and that we'll have to have to check carefully to be sure what Microsoft and Yahoo want to do with all the consumer data they'll be able to collect from our searches. This is already an issue with Google and other search engines as we continue to make our way through this still relatively new global Internet adventure. When we use "free" services like search on the Internet, whether through Google or Yahoo or Bing or whatever, there really is no "free." Someone somewhere is using the spoils of the search - our preferences about what we are looking for - for marketing, for potential revenue enhancement and to help them in their businesses. It's an acceptable risk to us as consumers only when we know what the rules are. Somehow, though, we usually don't ask what those rules are ahead of time. Maybe we should get that information up front this time.

4) Will this Microsoft-Yahoo partnership be enough to knock Google from its perch as the king of search for savvy consumers? I doubt it, and here's why - I just don't see Microsoft and Yahoo, even with the new Bing search engine as its mascot, coming anywhere near Google with the kinds of innovations that make us all excited and Googly. There's Google Earth. Could Microsoft or Yahoo have thought of that? And there's Google Voice. OK, it's still a fledgling effort, but it is interesting and innovative, and users are lining up early to try to get a Google invite to test it out and take it for a ride. What always amazes me is how the Google tech folks are always introducing fascinating new technologies that they can bring to users in ways that no one has else has yet imagined. OK, they haven't found an answer for world peace or the vaccine for swine flu yet, but you never know. I'm just not sure that Microsoft still has any of that kind of turn-on-a-dime mentality anymore. And that's why this partnership may not help search-loving consumers or Yahoo as much as the new partners believe it will.
http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/312937/what_microsoft-yahoo-bing_deal_means?fp=4

Yahoo, Microsoft unite against Google

2009-07-30T04:15:00.000-07:00

Yahoo! and Microsoft have reached agreement on a long-awaited web search partnership that would unite the two companies against market leader Google.

Under the no-cash deal, Yahoo! will use Microsoft's new Bing search engine on its own sites, while Yahoo! will act as the exclusive global sales force for the companies' premium search advertisers.

Yahoo!, which last year turned down a $US47.5 billion takeover bid from Microsoft, said it stood to gain about $UD500 million in annual operating income and $US200 million in capital expenditure savings through the agreement with the software giant.

The Sunnyvale California company also estimated the deal would provide it with a $275 million benefit to annual operating cash flow.

"This agreement comes with boatloads of value for Yahoo!, our users, and the industry. And I believe it establishes the foundation for a new era of Internet innovation and development," Yahoo! chief executive Carol Bartz said in a statement.

The partnership, Microsoft said, "will improve the Web search experience for users and advertisers, and deliver sustained innovation to the industry."

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said the deal will enable Bing to better compete against Goggle, as well as attract more users and advertisers.

"Through this agreement with Yahoo!, we will create more innovation in search, better value for advertisers, and real consumer choice in a market currently dominated by a single company," Ballmer said.

"This agreement gives us the scale and resources to create the future of search."

The agreement, which has a 10-year term, will be subject to review by US regulatory authorities, the companies said.

It is restricted to Internet search and related advertising revenue, while the pair would retain full autonomy on other properties and products such as email, instant messaging and display advertising.

Calling the link-up a "significant opportunity," Yahoo! chairman Roy Bostock said the company's board backed it with its "full and unanimous support."

"Microsoft is an industry innovator in search, and it is a great opportunity for us to focus our investments in other areas critical to our future," he said.

According to research firm Comscore, Google has a 65 per cent share of the lucrative search market, followed by Yahoo! with 19.6 per cent and Microsoft with 8.4 per cent
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/29/2640384.htm?section=justin

Google Docs, Slowly Morphing into Google Drive

2009-07-23T07:33:00.000-07:00

The new interface of Google Docs, which is slowly rolled out to all users, brings the service one step closer to an online storage service. The "items by type" menu replaced "PDFs" with "Files", suggesting that Google Docs will allow users to upload any type of files.
Google Docs also added the advanced search options that are available in Gmail:

* exact phrase matching ("todo list")
* negative matching (summer -trip)
* disjunctive matching (budget OR invoice)
* built-in labels (is:starred, is:hidden)
* collaborators: to find the documents shared by Michael Robinson, you need to search for: from:michaelr@gmail.com, assuming that's his email address. The problem is that you need to know the email address, since the operator doesn't support (partial) names.

At some point in the near future, Google Docs will allow you to upload any type of files. Some of the files can be edited, other files can be previewed online, while the rest of them are only stored online. For example, PDF files can't be edited online, but you can view them and share them.
It will be interesting to see how Google Drive integrates with other Google services that store files (Gmail, Picasa Web Albums, YouTube) and to find the free quota limits.

Tony Ruscoe found in January an internal Google document about Cosmo, described as an upgrade from GDrive, a service that was only available to Google's employees. "We're in the process of migrating all Google Doc accounts to Cosmo," mentioned the document.

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/

Google building 3D hardware boost into Chrome - Web News

2009-07-23T07:17:00.000-07:00

Google building 3D hardware boost into Chrome - Web News: "Departing significantly from what other browsers offer, Google has begun building its O3D plug-in for hardware-accelerated 3D graphics into its Chrome browser.
“The O3D team is working on getting O3D integrated into the Chromium build, and we’re close to being able to complete our first step towards integration,” said programmer Greg Spencer in a mailing list announcement Wednesday about Chromium, the open-source project that underlies Chrome itself. “I’ll be making the Windows build of Chromium be dependent upon building O3D as part of the build process.”
By helping to pave the way for high-powered Web-based games, the move furthers Google’s ambition to speed the transformation of the Web from a static medium into a foundation for applications. Another piece of the work is Google Native Client, which is designed to let Web applications take advantage of a computer’s native processing power.
The overall effort has taken on new importance with the announcement of Chrome OS, Google’s Chrome-based operating system set to arrive on Netbooks in the second half of 2010. Chrome OS will use Linux under the covers, but the real foundation for Chrome OS applications is the Web, Google has said.
Native Client coming, too
Google plans to build Native Client into Chrome, too.
“We recognize that there is well-justified resistance to installing browser plug-ins. For this reason, we have a strong preference for delivering Native Client pre-installed or built into the browser, and we’ll be focusing on that as our main strategy for delivering Native Client to users,” said Brad Chen, engineering manager of the Google Native Client effort, in June."
http://www.allfeedz.com/3094/google-building-3d-hardware-boost-into-chrome-2

Google wants to know a Google Docs Redesign is coming(I wonder why)

2009-07-17T07:05:00.001-07:00

On the Google Docs blog today, the company took the time to make a non-announcement. Basically, there’s a bunch of words that bury the real story: That Google Docs will soon be launching a “brand new shiny interface.”

Hmmm. I wonder why. Obviously, earlier this week Microsoft laid out its plans for Office 2010, which includes a web-based component meant to take on Google Docs. But once again, there is nothing to actually see right now from Google, instead this is a pre-announcement to let users know that they may be seeing wonky elements over the next few weeks as they tweak things on the fly.

Not surprisingly, the sharing of documents will be a key element to this redesign. Despite it being perhaps the key element of Google Docs, sharing items with others is simply not that intuitive right now. Here’s what Google has in mind for the future:

One thing you’ll probably notice in the next few days is that the “Shared with…” list in the left hand pane will go away. But don’t worry, you can still use Search to do the same thing. Just click on “Search Options” and type the user’s name into the “Shared with:” box. If this is a search you’ll do over and over again, you can click “Save this search” so it will be easily accessible in “Saved Searches”.

Another thing you’ll see is the new Sharing Menu. We feel this is a big improvement over the old one; we’ve moved all the sharing functionality into this one dialog, so now you can completely manage sharing without having to leave the Docs list.

Other than that, Google is adding a bunch of new search operators (which only the hardcore users will care about). And it concludes the post with “They [the new features] will be followed shortly by the new interface and a number of pretty exciting features we have in the pipe.”
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/16/google-wants-you-to-know-a-google-docs-redesign-is-coming-i-wonder-why/

Google Translates documents

2009-07-16T03:34:00.001-07:00

Google Translate added the option to upload the documents you want to translate. Until now, you could copy the text in Google Translate or publish the document online and paste its address.

Unfortunately, Google converts your documents to HTML and then it translates the HTML file, so the translation doesn't preserve the layout or the embedded images. You can upload Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, PDF files, HTML and text files.

Google Chrome suggests popular webpages

2009-07-16T03:29:00.000-07:00

The developer version of Google Chrome has recently enabled the updated new tab page, which is more customizable as it lets you remove, reorder and pin thumbnails.

One of the sections from the new tab page is "Tips and suggestions", but it's empty. A recent Chromium build revealed the mystery of the blank container: Google shows popular web pages from the iGoogle gadget "What's popular". The gadget "uses algorithms to find interesting content from a combination of your submissions and trends in aggregated user activity across a variety of Google services, like YouTube and Google Reader".
Suggesting web pages is not a bad idea for the new tab page, but they should be related to your browsing history. Internet Explorer 8 has a feature called "suggested sites", which can be enabled when you install the software and it monitors your browsing activity to show related web pages. Google has a "web history" service which can use Google Toolbar to track the web pages you visit, while offering a searchable browsing history, stats and recommended web pages. It's hard to find the right balance between privacy and utility, but Google has always pushed the boundaries of what's acceptable, even if it was vilified by the media.
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/07/google-chrome-suggests-popular-web.html

Google Calender Labs

2009-07-16T03:26:00.000-07:00

Moving the innovation from the main product to a gallery of experimental features was a great idea for Gmail. The number of features increased rapidly without cluttering the product because you could select only the features that are useful to you. The downside was that most of the Gmail Labs were in an early phase, some were buggy and had to be temporarily disabled, while others were simply removed.

The first feature that graduated from Gmail Labs and became a standard feature is Google Tasks: you'll find it below the contacts link and this time there's no option to remove it. "The idea was always that the most popular and viable Labs features would graduate and be made more readily available to all users... and that some of the less used, less viable ones would disappear forever," explains Google.

Since Gmail Labs was a success, Google decided to create a similar gallery of experimental features for Google Calendar. "We've been looking for a way to release early features to users in a quick and experimental fashion, but in a way that would let developers and customers outside of Google extend Calendar too. We've seen how successful Gmail Labs has been and decided Calendar deserved Labs too," notes the Google Apps blog.

Google Calendar Labs has only 6 experiments: an option to customize the application using a background image, a clock that shows the current time in multiple time zones, an option that lets you jump to a certain date, a countdown to the next event, schedules for shared calendars and an option to attach Google Docs documents.
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/07/google-calendar-labs.html

Why Chrome OS Now? Because Microsoft Office In The Cloud Comes Monday.

2009-07-09T20:11:00.000-07:00

The timing of Google’s announcement of Chrome OS was curious. I don’t mean the fact that Google moved up the post on it by a day when some details leaked out, I mean the fact that they were announcing it on some seemingly random date in July, well before anything is actually ready to show off. Now, we likely know why.

On Monday, Microsoft is set to unveil its plans to counter the attack Google previously had launched on it with Google Docs. Yes, Microsoft Office is going to the cloud. This is something which we all knew was eventually coming, and there is already some limited functionality, but the full details will pour out Monday at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans. You can expect the new version of Office, that syncs with the cloud, and the ability to use it in the cloud without any software as well.

Almost immediately following the Chrome OS announcement, Robert Scoble took to his favorite home on the web, FriendFeed, to have one of his, I-know-something-you-don’t-know “discussions.” During the course of those “discussions,” Scoble dropped quite a few hints about what Microsoft planned to announce on Monday, including “Diego, no, it’s one of Microsoft’s primary businesses. Did you know Microsoft has 14 billion dollar businesses?” Guess what that is? Microsoft Office.

It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together. And several bloggers already have. And it was especially easy after Scoble ruled out the new browser project Microsoft has code-named “Gazelle.” Scoble also noted that what Microsoft was showing off would run in browsers beyond just IE.

So yes, it’s Office Web that was first talked about at PDC last year.

And it’s possible that Microsoft could unveil that this new web-based Office will reside on the great domain, office.com. That site is clearly going through a transition to new ownership right now, and that would make a lot of sense.

Office is obviously the 900-pound gorilla that Google is attempting to slay with Google Docs, but a 900-pound gorilla with a matching web offering will be a lot tougher. And that’s likely why Google wanted to get its own uppercut in first this week. And it’s a strong one. But now Microsoft is going to have to come up with some answers to how it can counter Chrome OS, rather than focus on talking about the new Office.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/09/why-chrome-os-now-because-microsoft-office-in-the-cloud-comes-monday/

Google gets set to shatter Windows’ dominance Google’s operating system escalates Microsoft duel

2009-07-09T07:03:00.000-07:00

SUN VALLEY, Idaho —- Google Inc. is hoping to gain greater control over how personal computers work by developing a free operating system that will attack Microsoft Corp.’s golden goose —- its long-dominant Windows franchise.

The new operating system will be based on Google’s 9-month-old Web browser, Chrome. Google intends to rely on help from the community of open-source programmers to develop the Chrome operating system, which is expected to begin running computers in the second half of 2010.

The early versions of the Chrome operating system will be tailored for “netbooks,” a breed of low-cost, less powerful laptop computers that are becoming increasingly popular among budget-conscious consumers primarily interested in surfing the Web.

That is a direct challenge to Microsoft, whose next operating system, Windows 7, is being geared for netbooks as well as larger computers.

The vast majority of netbooks already run on Windows, and that is unlikely to change unless Google can demonstrate the Chrome operating system is a significant improvement, said Forrester Research analyst Paul Jackson. He noted that many customers had returned the original netbooks that used open-source alternatives to Windows.

“People wanted Windows because they knew how to use it and knew how applications worked.”

Google struck a confident tone in a blog posting late Tuesday night announcing its operating system. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company believes it can streamline the operating system to improve speed and reduce security threats.

“We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear —- computers need to get better,” wrote Sundar Pichai, Google’s vice president of product management, and Linus Upson, its engineering director.

Microsoft hadn’t responded to requests for comment through Wednesday.

The success of the Chrome operating system will likely hinge on its acceptance among computer manufacturers that have been loyal Windows customers for years, said Matt Rosoff, an analyst for the research group Directions on Microsoft. “Most people, when they get a new operating system, they get it with their PC,” he said. “I don’t think most people think much about their operating systems.”

Getting consumers and businesses to switch to computers powered by a new operating system won’t be easy, as Google has learned from the introduction of Chrome. Google says about 30 million people are using Chrome, a small fraction of the Web surfers who rely on Microsoft’s market-leading Internet Explorer.

Microsoft’s Windows operating system has been even more dominant for a longer period time despite challenges from Apple Inc. and various systems based on Linux, the same type of open-source software that Google plans to use.
http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2009/07/09/google0709.html

Google Drops A Nuclear Bomb On Microsoft. And It’s Made of Chrome.

2009-07-09T06:16:00.000-07:00

Wow. So you know all those whispers about a Google desktop operating system that never seem to go away? You thought they might with the launch of Android, Google’s mobile OS. But they persisted. And for good reason, because it’s real.

In the second half of 2010, Google plans to launch the Google Chrome OS, an operating system designed from the ground up to run the Chrome web browser on netbooks. “It’s our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be,” Google writes tonight on its blog.

But let’s be clear on what this really is. This is Google dropping the mother of bombs on its chief rival, Microsoft. It even says as much in the first paragraph of its post, “However, the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web.” Yeah, who do you think they mean by that?

And it’s a genius play. So many people are buying netbooks right now, but are running WIndows XP on them. Windows XP is 8 years old. It was built to run on Pentium IIIs and Pentium 4s. Google Chrome OS is built to run on both x86 architecture chips and ARM chips, like the ones increasingly found in netbooks. It is also working with multiple OEMs to get the new OS up and running next year.

Obviously, this Chrome OS will be lightweight and fast just like the browser itself. But also just like the browser, it will be open-sourced. Think Microsoft will be open-sourcing Windows anytime soon?

As Google writes, “We have a lot of work to do, and we’re definitely going to need a lot of help from the open source community to accomplish this vision.” They might as well set up enlistment booths on college campuses for their war against Microsoft.

Google says the software architecture will basically be the current Chrome browser running inside “a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.” So in other words, it basically is the web as an OS. And applications developers will develop for it just as they would on the web. This is similar to the approach Palm has taken with its new webOS for the Palm Pre, but Google notes that any app developed for Google Chrome OS will work in any standards-compliant browser on any OS.
What Google is doing is not recreating a new kind of OS, they’re creating the best way to not need one at all.

So why release this new OS instead of using Android? After all, it has already been successfully ported to netbooks. Google admits that there is some overlap there. But a key difference they don’t mention is the ability to run on the x86 architecture. Android cannot do that (though there are ports), Chrome OS can and will. But more, Google wants to emphasize that Chrome OS is all about the web, whereas Android is about a lot of different things. Including apps that are not standard browser-based web apps.

But Chrome OS will be all about the web apps. And no doubt HTML 5 is going to be a huge part of all of this. A lot of people are still wary about running web apps for when their computer isn’t connected to the web. But HTML 5 has the potential to change that, as you’ll be able to work in the browser even when not connected, and upload when you are again.

We’re starting to see more clearly why Google’s Vic Gundotra was pushing HTML 5 so hard at Google I/O this year. Sure, part of it was about things like Google Wave, but Google Wave is just one of many new-style apps in this new Chrome OS universe.

But there is a wild card in all of this still for Microsoft: Windows 7. While Windows XP is 8 years old, and Windows Vista is just generally considered to be a bad OS for netbooks, Windows 7 could offer a good netbook experience. And Microsoft had better hope so, or its claim that 96% of netbooks run Windows is going to be very different in a year.

Google plans to release the open source code for Chrome OS later this year ahead of the launch next year. Don’t be surprised if this code drops around the same time as Windows 7. Can’t wait to hear what Microsoft will have to say about all of this. Good thing they have a huge conference
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/07/google-drops-a-nuclear-bomb-on-microsoft-and-its-made-of-chrome/

Size limits increased for YouTube, Gmail

2009-07-06T08:14:00.000-07:00

Google Inc. has raised the size limits on its YouTube video-sharing site and on Gmail attachments.

YouTube has increased the size limits on videos uploaded to its site in an apparent move to ease the use of high-definition content.

The popular video-sharing unit of Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) has doubled the size of videos allowed on the site to 2 gigabytes, but non-partner clips are still limited in length to 10 minutes.

The move (noted here on its help pages) comes less than a year after YouTube increased the size limit from 100 megabytes.

Gmail accounts, meanwhile, now have a 25-megabyte limit on attachments, up from 20 megabytes previously.

The company warns, however, that users' attachments may bounce off of other email systems which have smaller attachment limits. This is apparently seen by the company as an entry to getting more Gmail users as it includes this suggestion on its Gmail help page: "If your attachment bounces, you should invite them to Gmail."

Google enhances and open sources its Update software

2009-07-05T05:34:00.000-07:00

Google has both refreshed and open sourced its Google Update software, which is code-named Omaha. By making the software available under the open source Apache license, developers working on an auto-updater can use Google's code, which also enables Google to publish updates and plug security holes.

"Omaha allows us to add features seamlessly and address any bugs or security problems, all without concern that these updates will disrupt our users," wrote Myles Jordan of Google's software engineering team in a blog post on Friday. "Omaha allowed us to ship 12 versions of Chrome beta in 4 months, without requiring Chrome users to work hard to keep their browsers up to date. Such behavior is very useful for new features, but essential for security vulnerabilities."

Jordan explained that Google products, including Chrome and Google Earth, all use Google update as a shared infrastructure for keeping products up to date on users' PCs.

Sharing the source code will also provide transparency and give users more control over the whole process, Jordan wrote, since Google Update runs behind the scenes on a user PC and there is no easy way to stop it.

"Obviously, we understand that not everyone is both willing and able to read through our code, but we hope that those of you who do will confirm for the rest that Google Update's functionality serves well to keep your software up to date," Jordan added.
Source: http://www.techworld.com.au/index.php?q=article/299057/google_enhances_open_sources_its_update_software&fp=4194304&fpid=1

Keeping your passwords Secure

2009-07-03T21:14:00.000-07:00

Many people think it's hard to have a good password because it should be complicated and, as a result, hard to remember. When you create a new Google account, you can read some nice tips that prove you can create a strong yet memorable password.

* Include punctuation marks and/or numbers.
* Mix capital and lowercase letters.
* Include similar looking substitutions, such as the number zero for the letter 'O' or '$' for the letter 'S'.
* Create a unique acronym.
* Include phonetic replacements, such as 'Luv 2 Laf' for 'Love to Laugh'.

And some things to avoid (that could be summarized as: don't use passwords that are easy to guess).

* Don't use a password that is listed as an example of how to pick a good password.
* Don't use a password that contains personal information (name, birth date, etc.)
* Don't use words or acronyms that can be found in a dictionary.
* Don't use keyboard patterns (asdf) or sequential numbers (1234).
* Don't make your password all numbers, uppercase letters or lowercase letters.
* Don't use repeating characters (aa11).

And, of course, the obvious: "never tell your password to anyone (this includes significant others, roommates, parrots, etc.), never write your password down, never send your password by email."

So, the next time when you create a new passwords, think of a quote you like, an old saying (maybe not in English or your native language), use punctuation and replace some letters with similar digits or other characters. You can also use short forms for some of the words.

There are many places where you can test show strong a password is. One of them is available if you go to Google.com, sign out and then click on "sign in". Choose "create an account now" and type your password. Google will indicate you if your password is strong, fair or weak. Then you can use the password wherever you need it.

If you can't come up with a new password for each new site you sign up, at least try not to use the same password you have for your mail account (many people sign up using the email address: myemail@yahoo.com and choose the Yahoo password). If that site has security problems and your account is compromised, your Yahoo account will be compromised as well.

Also, be aware that most browsers offer to store your passwords, so they can auto-complete them. Many times they are not stored securely and anyone who has physical access to your computer can find the passwords (for example, go to Firefox > Tools > Options > Security > Show passwords > Show passwords again). That's why it's a better idea to use password managers like Password Safe, KeePass, RoboForm, that store your passwords securely and can manage any kind of password. In Firefox and Opera you could also use a master password, but there are commercially tools that can recover master passwords.

A small summary and some other tips:
* create strong passwords that mix digits, punctuation, capital and lowercase letters by thinking at a memorable quote and making some replacements or using acronyms
* don't share your passwords with anyone
* don't use the same password for all your accounts
* try not to use the built-in password managers from your browser. Use safer tools, if you really need a password manager.
* change your password from time to time
* try to stay away from sites that don't use secure authentication (look for https in the address bar)
* sign out when you finish a session

Do you have other ways to keep your passwords secure?
Source:http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/03/keeping-your-passwords-secure.html

Google Update Always Running in the Background? Not Anymore

2009-07-03T21:01:00.000-07:00

Google open source blog informs that the google update the software used by Google Chrome and other applications for automatic updates, no longer runs in the background. "Until now, Google Update would always run in the background, functioning primarily as a reliable scheduler performing update checks at periodic time intervals. With today's release, Google Update now uses the Windows Task Scheduler to only run at periodic intervals."

I've checked the Task Scheduler and I've found that Google Update runs every hour. You can change how often it runs and even disable the task, but I'm not sure if other Google applications change your settings. "If this task is disabled or stopped, your Google software will not be kept up to date, meaning security vulnerabilities that may arise cannot be fixed and features may not work. This task uninstalls itself when there is no Google software using it," explains Google.

Since Google Chrome is regularly updated, it's not a good idea to disable the updater, thinking that you'll install the new versions manually.
The first good news is that you'll no longer see googleupdate.exe in the list of processes when you open the Task Manager. The second good news is that Google Update's team listens to users and constantly improves the software: Google Update is now open source and administrators can disable it using the Local Group Policy.

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/07/google-update-always-running-in.html

Google Tool Bars Improved Web Translation

2009-07-01T07:53:00.000-07:00

Google Translate can be used to translate many web pages, but you can't use it for pages that require login and for Ajax-powered web applications. You won't be able to translate a Gmail message, a Google Docs document or a Facebook message without copying the text to Google Translate.

I've mentioned in March that Google Toolbar tests a translation feature that extracts the text from any web page and translates in real-time. The impressive feature is now available in Google Toolbar 6 for Internet Explorer and it works extremely well.
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/

By default, Google detects when a page is not in English (or another preferred language) and it offers the option to translate it. Language detection doesn't send text from the current web page to Google's servers, but you'll need to send the text when you translate the page.

"When you visit a webpage in a different language than your Toolbar, Toolbar will display the translation bar near the top of your browser window and ask you if you'd like to translate the page. Click Translate to translate the page, or click Translate on your Toolbar. Click Show original or the x icon to close the translation bar and view the original webpage. If you change your preferred translation language, Toolbar will remember your language preferences and use them when translating pages in the future," explains Google.

New Google study on speed in search results

2009-06-30T06:13:00.000-07:00

Googler Jake Brutlag recently published a short study, "Speed Matters for Google Web Search"which looked at how important it is to deliver and render search result pages quickly.

Specifically, Jake added very small delays (100-400ms) to the time to serve and render Google search results. He observed that even these tiny delays, which are low enough to be difficult for users to perceive, resulted in measurable drops in searches per user (declines of -0.2% to -0.6%).

Please see also my Nov 2006 post, "Marissa Mayer at Web 2.0", which summarizes a claim by Googler Marissa Mayer that Google saw a 20% drop in revenue from an accidentally introduced 500ms delay.

Update: To add to the Marissa Mayer report above, Drupal's Dries Buytaert summarized the results of a few A/B tests at Amazon, Google, and Yahoo on the impact of speed on user satisfaction. As Dries says, "Long story short: even the smallest delay kills user satisfaction."
http://glinden.blogspot.com/2009/06/new-google-study-on-speed-in-search.html

Google Account Recovery Via SMS

2009-06-28T21:06:00.000-07:00

Google added a new password recovery option: you can now associate a mobile phone number with your Google Account and Google will send a recovery code by SMS.

"Since most people use cell phones these days, we decided text messaging would be an easy, convenient addition to our password recovery options. To set up password recovery via your mobile phone, just sign in to your account and click Change Password Recovery Options. Enter your mobile phone number and current password and then click Save. If you lose access to your account for any reason, you'll be able to regain access by entering a code we'll send in a text message."

For now, the options is only available in the US, so you need to use a us proxy to see it. Google also updated the password recovery settings page to include all the account-recovery options: secondary email addresses, text messages and the security question.

Google increases Maximum attachment size to 25 MB

2009-06-27T18:29:00.000-07:00

Now you can send bigger attachments in Gmail, as Google increased the maximum attachment size from 20 MB to 25 MB.

"With Gmail, you can send and receive messages up to 25 megabytes (MB) in size. Please note that you may not be able to send larger attachments to contacts who use other email services with smaller attachment limits. If your attachment bounces, you should invite them to Gmail, suggests Google.

For some reason, Gmail's Flash uploader doesn't allow me to upload files that are larger than 10 MB. The error message is "attachment failed" and Google's suggestions aren't very helpful. Switching to the basic uploader in the settings solves the problem, but it's more tedious to upload multiple files.

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/

Michael Jacksons Death slows down Google

2009-06-26T22:27:00.000-07:00

The all powerful Google and their impenetrable server farms took a major hit last night, when the news about Michael Jackson suffering a cardiac arrest and ultimately passing away broke. As CNN and News.com shows, Google was displaying one of those Google "We're Sorry" pages to searches trying desperately to find out the fate of Michael Jackson. Even Search Engine Land was suffering from the news, as the tweet confirms.

http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/020291.html

Tips for Making Website run faster

2009-06-25T04:18:00.000-07:00

Installing a fast browser is not always enough to have a good experience when you browse the web: many web pages aren't optimized for performance. To help webmasters improve their sites, Google launched a new section as part of Google Code:

Let's make the web faster" which includes useful articles, videos and downloadable tools.You'll learn how to optimize CSS declarations, how to optimize JavaScript code and avoid memory leaks, how to use the best image format and prefetch resources.

Google also released a Firebug plug-in for Firefox that evaluates web pages and provides suggestions to improve them.

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/

Google Unveils AdSense For iPhone, Android Apps

2009-06-25T02:49:00.000-07:00

Google (GOOG) today announced AdSense for Mobile Applications, a service that allows developers to display text and image ads in applications for the Apple iPhone and Google Android operating systems.

Google says it has been testing the system with a small number of partners for the base few months, and is not ready to open up the beta to a larger number of developers.

“In order to continue growing the mobile application market, developers need to make money to fund their projects,” Google said in a statement. “We hope AdSense for Mobile Applications will encourage iPhone and Android developers to keep making new, innovative mobile applications.”

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2009/06/24/google-unveils-adsense-for-iphone-android-apps/

New options for translating webpages

2009-06-24T01:30:00.000-07:00

Google Translation service has more options when you translate web pages. You can now set a different destination language and translate a new web page by entering its address in the persistent input box. There's also a new interface that displays the translation in tooltips, so you can still read the original text.

Bing Translator Microsoft's translation service, has an interesting option that shows the original page and the translation side by side, much like in Google Translator Toolkit. This interface is very useful for those who are familiar with multiple languages and Google should add it as an option.

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/

Google sensors china porn searches

2009-06-23T05:43:00.000-07:00

Google engineers have put in place several measures to remove pornography from search results in China, after the government warned the company its filter was too weak.

Google has temporarily disabled the Google Suggest feature on Google.cn and developed an automated system to remove pornographic links from search results, said Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search and the user experience, at a meeting in Taipei.

The company has also redesigned the Google.cn home page to remove the radio buttons that offer language and locale options, Google said in a statement. The rest of the home page remains the same.

"Google has been working to remove pornography from our search results in China, in accordance with our operating license there," the statement says. "This has been a major engineering effort, and we believe we have addressed many of the problems identified by the government."

China last week ordered Google to suspend its foreign Web site search service over the issue.

One search user in Beijing said the measures had made finding porn much more difficult via Google.cn, mainly from obvious search words such as "porn." However, he could still find some obscene material when searching in English and using slang or other less common words. Pornographic Bittorrent download links were also still available through the results.

Google's main English search page at Google.com continued to offer pornographic search results in China.

China's warning to Google last week comes amid a broad crackdown against online smut in the nation that has seen the shutting of thousands of Web sites and the creation of controversial censoring software, Green Dam Youth Escort, that blocks pornographic and politically sensitive content, and is to be installed on all computers sold in China as of the beginning of July.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/167164/google_censors_china_porn_searches.html

Google updates maps for Android

2009-06-23T03:50:00.000-07:00

Google has launched an updated version of its Maps application for Android smartphones, bringing a number of interesting new features, most importantly voice search.

So, if you’re an English-language speaker with an American, Australian, or British accent, you can now search Google Maps using your voice; how useful that really is, we’ll leave to individual users to decide, but talking into your phone on a crowded street will probably get you nowhere.

There’s a host of other improvements, though. First, Google has added transit and walking directions for over 250 cities, including New York City and San Francisco. A bug that caused background location updates to periodically stop in Google Latitude has been fixed, as long as you have the “Detect your location” option selected in the Latitude privacy menu.

Finally, there’s an interesting experimental feature called Updates which lets you communicate with friends. Start Latitude, click the “Updates” tab, and post messages to your friends. This feature will only work for users who have the latest version of Google Maps for Android.

Bear in mind that this update won’t be automatically downloaded to your phone; you have to download the new version in the Android market.

http://mashable.com/2009/06/16/google-updates-maps-for-android/

Citizentube: Watching video change our world

2009-06-23T02:54:00.000-07:00

As you might have noticed, there's a lot of fascinating stuff that happens on YouTube every day. For example, did you know that a nine-year-old recently used YouTube to successfully campaign to save his local kickball lot? Have you seen the video of a Guatemalan lawyer who predicted his own assassination on YouTube moments before it happened? Or did you know that YouTube and Google have launched a new technology platform for political debates, which allows you to submit and vote on the most important issues you want to discuss with political candidates?

These are the sorts of things you can stay on top of with Citizentube, a special YouTube blog devoted to chronicling the way that people are using video to change the world. If you've followed news and politics on YouTube, you might have noticed that we started Citizentube as a video channel on the site a few years back, but we soon realized that keeping track of all the phenomenal uses of YouTube by posting our own videos just wasn't fast enough — so now we're blogging, too. We generally focus on two types of posts: the compelling political and social uses of YouTube that we see the community bubble up every day, and our own programming initiatives and partnerships in the political, news, and nonprofit arenas.

Our team creates opportunities for you to engage with content that goes beyond the humorous or even the educational — content that changes the way you interact with your communities, institutions, and leaders. The first initiative we launched in this space was the You Choose '08 platform and the CNN/YouTube Debates in 2007. Since then we've expanded our programming to the fields of government, activism, and news & information. On the blog, we'll post an occasional series that gives a bigger picture perspective of what's happening in the worlds of news reporting, government, and social change on YouTube.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/citizentube-watching-video-change-our.html

Google improves Flash search and indexing

2009-06-21T19:28:00.000-07:00

Google has enhanced its search engine's capacity to index Adobe's Flash files, which are very popular on the Web but tricky for search engine spiders.

Google's search engine can now index external content that a Flash file loads, such as text, HTML, XML or Flash content itself, the company said Friday.

The Google search engine will also tie the indexed Flash file to this externally loaded content and the documents from where it comes, Google said.

"This new capability improves search quality by allowing relevant content contained in external resources to appear in response to users' queries," wrote Google software engineer Janis Stipins in an official blog.

Friday's announcement is the latest in Google's multiyear effort to improve its indexing of Flash files and specifically builds on the announcement in June of last year that Google had developed a new algorithm for indexing textual content in Flash files.

At the time, Adobe also announced it was providing optimized Flash Player technology to Google and Yahoo to help with their ongoing efforts to better index Flash files.

Improvements to index Flash by Google, Yahoo and others benefit not only the search engines and their end users but also webmasters and designers, who have struggled to have the Flash portions of their sites indexed and made searchable.

http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/308268/google_improves_flash_search_indexing

References:

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Flash indexing with external resource loading

Official Google Blog: Google learns to crawl Flash

Adobe - Adobe Press Room

Google Street View Bike Does Santa Monica, Universities & More

2009-06-21T19:10:00.000-07:00

View Larger Map

Remember that Google Street View bike that was unveiled in May for use to map footpaths in Britain? Turns out, Google has a number of them, and they’re also operating in Japan, Italy and the US. In fact, imagery from them from three spots in California has recently gone online and more will be coming in the next few months.

In the US, these areas have gotten Street View photography via bike power:

Santa Monica Pier

Monterey Bay Coastal Bike Path

3rd Street Promenade

http://searchengineland.com/google-street-view-bike-21320

Movie Trailers on Youtube

2009-06-21T04:54:00.000-07:00

YouTube has launched a new directory for movie trailers. While YouTube has had movie trailers on its site from distributors in the past, Google’s video-sharing site has launched a new channel where official trailers are organized by “Latest,” “Popular,” “In Theatres,” and “Opening Soon.”

Apple’s movie trailer platform has long been the most comprehensive and popular site in distributing online trailers. Hulu also provides a good amount of trailers on its site. Recently, YouTube launched a premium section with movies and TV shows from Crackle/Sony Pictures, CBS, MGM, Lionsgate, Starz, the BBC, Anime Network, Cinetic Rights Management, Current TV, Discovery, Documentary Channel, First Look Studios, IndieFlix, and National Geographic.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/19/youtube-plays-nice-with-the-movie-industry-puts-trailers-in-their-own-channel/

Import Word 2007 files to Google Docs

2009-06-21T04:40:00.000-07:00

Click the Upload button at the top of the sidebar in your Docs list page.

Click Browse.

To upload a document, spreadsheet, or presentation, follow these steps:

Select the document, spreadsheet, or presentation you'd like to open.

Click Open.

Click Upload File. The uploaded file appears in your Docs list.

When uploading, please keep the following in mind:

You can only upload certain file types:

For spreadsheets: .xls, .xlsx, .ods, .csv, .tsv, .txt, .tsb

For documents: .doc, .docx, .html, plain text (.txt), .rtf

For presentations: .ppt, .pps

You can also upload .pdf files to your Docs list.

Emailing documents in to Google Docs

If you'd prefer, you can email your documents in to Google Docs. This is a quick way to import many documents at once, and you can use this feature as an add-on to how you currently collaborate with others. For example, you can add your unique Email-In address when you pass around documents.

http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=50092&hl=en

There are some file-size limits. See the size requirements for uploading.

Some of your original formatting may not be preserved.

Here Comes Google Voice

2009-06-18T10:02:00.000-07:00

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.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/here-comes-google-voice.html

Google Apps sync for Microsoft outlook

2009-06-18T09:37:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Office Comes to the Browser (Finally)

2009-06-17T07:16:00.000-07:00

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.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/microsoft_office_comes_to_browser.php

Librarians Fighting Google's Book Deal

2009-06-17T03:01:00.000-07:00

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.

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1904495,00.html?imw=Y

Youtube XL Announced for Big screens

2009-06-16T06:15:00.000-07:00

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.

http://www.youtube.com/xl

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/news.phtml/24574/youtube-xl-announced-big-screens.phtml

Google's small business offer to beat the blues

2009-06-16T06:10:00.000-07:00

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.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/small-business/news/article.cfm?c_id=85&objectid=10578628

Lots of New 3D Content Added in Google Earth

2009-06-16T06:01:00.000-07:00

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.

http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2009/06/lots_of_new_3d_content_added_in_goo.html

Google bets on India growth

2009-06-13T05:59:00.000-07:00

New Delhi, June 9 (PTI) World's leading search engine Google sees India becoming one of the 10 most "impactful markets" in the next 3-5 years and is planning to hire locally to drive its brand advertising stream of business.

"Our focus in India is growth. India is going to be one of the 10 most impactful market for Google in three to five years...Minimal impact on India in terms of job cuts announced globally," Google India MD Shailesh Rao told PTI.

The US-based company did not reveal its India revenue or headcount. It has two R&D centres here. Outside the US, India has one of the highest headcounts, Rao said.

"At the moment India does not drive global revenue," Rao said.

The search engine, which has a monopoly position in India, is also looking at hiring here to strengthen its brand advertising revenue stream which is a new growthdriver.

"Hiring is to continue in India. We need a team for brand advertising. India is one of the largest employers outside the US and it is a strategic location with good technical skills and manpower and is among the highest growth markets for Google," he said.

He, however, added that in India the company is hiring at a reduced level and is need based. PTI

http://www.ptinews.com/pti\ptisite.nsf/0/E4429160803781E2652575D00026F07A?OpenDocument

Google to Launch a Microblogging Search Engine

2009-06-13T05:42:00.000-07:00

Google prepares to launch a service that indexes and ranks content from microblogging services like Twitter. Since it's very easy to post updates and the posts are usually very short, micro-blogging services are great for live blogging, posting real-time information about an event.

Twitter's search engine has two important drawbacks: it's limited to Twitter and it sorts the results by date. While there are other search engines like Tweefind that try to sort Twitter posts by relevancy and search engines like Twingly that index multiple microblogging sites, none of them does a great job.

Much like Google Blog Search, Google's microblogging search service will sort the results by relevancy and it also be integrated with Google's web search engine: the keywords that are frequently used in recent posts will trigger a MicroBlogsearch universal search group.

Here's the description used in Google's localization service:

"Recent updates about QUERY. This is the MicroBlogsearch Universal result group header text. A Microblog is a blog with very short entries. Twitter is the popular service associated with this format."

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/

Google’s Android to run laptops, challenge Microsoft

2009-06-12T02:36:00.000-07:00

GOOGLE Inc. is set to offer its free Android mobile phone operating system for computers, opening a new front in its rivalry with Microsoft Corp. by challenging the dominance of the company’s Windows software.

Acer Inc., the world’s second-largest laptop maker, will release a low-cost notebook powered by Android next quarter, Jim Wong, head of information technology products at the Taipei-based company, said yesterday. Asustek Computer Inc., pioneer of the sub-$500 laptops known as netbooks, also has developed a model that runs on Google’s software, chairman Jonney Shih said.

The adoption of Android-based netbooks may eat into Windows’s share of about 90 percent worldwide for personal computer (PC) operating systems. Google’s move escalates pressure on Microsoft as it prepares to introduce Windows 7, said Calvin Huang, an analyst at Daiwa Securities Group Inc.

“This is a negative and may force Microsoft to lower the price of Windows 7,” said Huang, who covers the computer industry from Taipei. “More and more vendors are adopting Android and non-Windows in their products, so this is a very good chance for Android to penetrate the PC market.”

Acer’s Android-based Aspire One netbook will be cheaper than the Windows XP model, though the two products will have the same electronic components, such as Intel Corp.’s Atom processor, Acer’s Wong said.

“Competition in the marketplace is good and people have the right to choose software that is best for them,” Amelia Agrawal, a Singapore-based spokesman for Microsoft, said in an e-mailed statement. “Microsoft remains confident that people will keep buying Windows, as evidenced by the robust Windows growth on small notebook PCs.”

Google introduced Android in 2007 as a software system for mobile phones. Android is based on Linux, an open-source operating system that’s free and developed by hundreds of engineers worldwide. Asustek said in February its engineers were trying to develop an Android-based netbook this year.

“Anyone can take the Android platform and add code or download it to create a mobile device without restrictions,” Google said in an e-mail. “We look forward to seeing what contributions are made and how an open platform spurs innovation.”

Microsoft also is challenging Google’s main business. Last week, the Redmond, Washington-based company unveiled Bing, an Internet search engine designed to compete against Google’s.

Asustek released the Eee PC netbook in October 2007, initially only offering Linux software. Microsoft jumped into the market and was able to grab 85 percent of mini-notebook sales by the fourth quarter of 2008, according to estimates at research firm Gartner Inc. Linux accounted for the rest.

“Google really does have the brand name and the financial resources to be able to be a rival to Microsoft,” Warren East, chief executive officer of chip designer ARM Holdings Plc., said in an interview. “The whole Linux community is a bit fragmented when you compare it with Microsoft.”

ARM, based in Cambridge, England, is a potential beneficiary of Android’s success because Microsoft’s Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 don’t run on ARM-based computers.

“Microsoft going forward may have to work on an ARM-based solution,” said Daiwa’s Huang. “If Microsoft doesn’t want to see Google Android get into the PC market, they will have to support ARM; otherwise, ARM will go perfectly with Android.”

Qualcomm Inc. and Freescale Semiconductor Inc., which make chips based on ARM’s technology, said they expect to release products this year for netbooks that run Google’s operating system.

Google’s cachet will help get the computers into retailers such as Best Buy Inc. or France’s Fnac electronics chain, said Henri Richard, chief sales and marketing officer for Freescale.

“It’s important to be able to convince Fnac or Best Buy to put a product on their shelf, and that’s where I think Android is going to be more helpful,” Richard said in an interview. (Bloomberg)

http://businessmirror.com.ph/component/content/article/52-technology/11615-googles-android-to-run-laptops-challenge-microsoft.html

5 Things I Want to Know about Bing

2009-06-11T01:46:00.000-07:00

Ian Paul, PC World

1) Will Bing's related search categories work as advertised?

Related search categories are a great idea and are likely the result of Microsoft's acquisition of the semantic search engine Powerset. But in the two examples of search results we've seen -- a search for Taylor Swift and another for Bose speakers -- the queries were product-oriented. However, not all searches are for products like movie times, albums, and A/V equipment. What about non-product-oriented searches for information on historical figures, health issues, or current events? If related categories can't measure up equally across all search topics, how useful will it really be?

2) Will Bing integrate with other Microsoft services?

One of the great things about Google is that you can find direct links to all of Google's most popular services right from the search page. One-click access to Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Reader from Google.com is a great feature, and shows that Google understands how integrated all aspects of your digital life are. Yahoo is also a fan of one-click access to other Yahoo services, but have you ever tried to find a link to Hotmail on Live Search? You can't, because the link to Hotmail doesn't exist.

If Microsoft wants to pull people away from Google and Yahoo, Bing needs to be integrated with all other Microsoft services and not just the ones directly related to search. For example, did you know that Microsoft offers 25GB of free online photo storage? Without a Hotmail account you wouldn't, because a link to the photo service cannot be found on Microsoft's two primary portals: MSN and Live Search. Note to Microsoft: integrate, integrate, integrate.

3) Will Bing go beyond the 10 Blue Links?

Google and Yahoo have spent considerable time making sure their search results go beyond a boring list of URLs. Google and Yahoo have integrated thumbnails of videos, images, and maps within search results for both popular and niche topics. Google is way ahead of Yahoo in delivering more than just links, but Live Search is pathetically behind both of the two search leaders. The majority of Live Search's results are a pure list of URLs; Bing has to do better.

4) Can I trust Bing to work properly?

I'm not sure if this was due to Microsoft's impending search transition or not, but while looking at Live Search for this article the link from the U.S. edition of Live.com to MSN.com was broken, and clicking on Live Search's Rank feature crashed my Web browser. If Bing causes heartache like that, Microsoft might as well forget about becoming a search leader.

5) Is Bing the end of Microsoft's serial rebranding?

For six years Microsoft's search brand was called MSN Search and delivered third-party search results. By 2004, however, Microsoft realized the potential profits in online search, and unveiled its own search engine under the MSN Search brand. It's been an uphill battle since then, with a rebranding in 2006 to Windows Live Search and by 2007 Microsoft dumped the name Windows, opting for the simpler Live Search. That makes Bing the third rebranding in five years, and the fourth moniker overall, for Microsoft's search service. Instead of focusing on constant renaming, Microsoft would benefit from picking a name for its search brand and sticking with it.

Bing's Debut

While nothing is for certain yet, tomorrow Microsoft should grant us a peek at Bing, and the company could even announce a launch date for the search engine. Whether Bing is available tomorrow, next week or next month, you can bet that once the search engine is live, Bing will be judged against the search's gold standard: Google. So what do you think? Will you be Binging by the end of the summer or is Microsoft's search effort doomed to failure?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/165586/5_things_i_want_to_know_about_bing.html

Google Chrome for Mac and Linux, Dev Preview

2009-06-09T03:09:00.000-07:00

In the past 9 months, Google Chrome's developers have been hard at work to post the Windows version of the browser to Mac and Linux. Even if the Mac and Linux versions aren't ready for the general public, Google decided to release a developer preview for those who want to use an early version of the browser.

"In order to get more feedback from developers, we have early developer channel versions of Google Chrome for Mac OS X and Linux, but whatever you do, please DON'T DOWNLOAD THEM! Unless of course you are a developer or take great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software. How incomplete? So incomplete that, among other things , you won't yet be able to view YouTube videos, change your privacy settings, set your default search provider, or even print," explains the Chromium blog.

The Mac version requires Intel CPU and Mac OS X 10.5.6, while the Linux version requires Intel Pentium 4 / Athlon 64 or later CPU, and Ubuntu 8.04 or Debian 5 or later.

I installed Google Chrome 3.0.183.1 in Ubuntu 8.10 and the process was painless. Most web pages are rendered properly, with the notable exception of the pages that require Flash or Google Gears. The settings dialog lacks many of the options that are available in the Windows version, the bookmark manager doesn't work, you can't change the default search engine, but these are just missing features that will be added in the near future.

Google Chrome for Mac:

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/06/google-chrome-for-mac-and-linux-dev.html

Rajeev Motwani, Google founder's mentor, dead

2009-06-08T03:24:00.000-07:00

The celebrated Stanford professor, Rajeev Motwani, known worldwide for mentoring and advising founders of the companies like Google and PayPal, has died in a freak drowning incident.

The news of his death has sent shock waves throughout the Silicon Valley and the tech world globally, as he was known to be the master brain behind several of the key advancement in the world of internet including Google and PayPal.

The 47-year-old Motwani's body was found in the backyard swimming pool of his Palo Alto [ Images ] home in California on Friday. There was no official word about the cause of his death.

Paramedics were summoned when his body was found in the pool.

Describing Motwani as his friend and teacher, Google founder Sergey Brin wrote on his blog: "Today, whenever you use a piece of technology, there is a good chance a little bit of Rajeev Motwani is behind it."

As Google emerged from Stanford, Brin wrote: "Rajeev remained a friend and advisor as he has with many people and startups since. Of all the faculty at Stanford, it is with Rajeev that I have stayed the closest and I will miss him dearly. Yet his legacy and personality lives on in the students, projects, and companies he has touched."

A student of the prestigious St Coloumba's School in New Delhi [ Images ], Motwani was born in Jammu and Kashmir [ Images ] on March 26, 1962. After earning his Bachelors in Computer Science from IIT Kanpur [ Images ] in 1983, he came to the US to get his PhD in Computer Science from University of Berkeley in 1988. Soon thereafter he joined Stanford.

Ron Conway, a long time friend of Motwani, told a group of techies at a San Francisco event that he influenced hundreds of entrepreneurs and students, and never refused a meeting.

"For those of you who didn't know Rajeev, you might get the impression that he was your typical Silicon Valley insider -- loud, brash, full of bravado."

"Rajeev was soft spoken and gentle. He was self-confident but didn't feel the need to prove anything. He didn't speak to hear his own voice. And he didn't need to be the centre of attention.

Rajeev just wanted to be helpful. And he was. To so many of us," wrote Dave Hornik of August Capital, where Motwani regularly attended Monday meetings.

As founder of the Mining Data at Stanford Project (MIDAS) he helped developing innovative data and management concepts.

He was well known for his research in theoretical computer science, Motwani was a winner of the Godel Prize in 2001 for his work on the PCP theorem and its applications to hardness of approximation.

Motwani was one of the co-authors of an influential early paper on the PageRank algorithm, which became the basis for Google's search techniques. He also co-authored another seminal search paper What Can You Do With A Web In Your Pocket with Sergey Brin, Larry Page [ Images ] and Terry WinogradHe.

He wrote two books -- Randomized Algorithms and an undergraduate textbook published in 2001.

"Success never came in the way of Rajeev's quest for knowledge and innate desire to help others. There wasn't a startup he didn't love. Like his chosen specialization of search, Rajeev was searching for the unknown. He was still active as a professor and was teaching a couple of classes as recently as the last semester," wrote his close friend Om Malik on his blog.

"He helped us improve our algorithms and ideas and introduced us to Ron Conway and to other folks which led to the acquisition of our startup. I ran into him several times since and he was always both kind and brilliant. I had hoped to work with him on a future project. While that's not to be, I imagine dozens of other computer scientists-turned-entrepreneurs can tell the same story," wrote Dan Gould, co-founder of Newroo.

http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/jun/08/google-founder-mentor-rajeev-motwani-dead.htm

Bing Is Now Your Default Search Engine On IE6, Whether You Like It Or Not

2009-06-03T03:33:00.000-07:00

For years, Microsoft has tried to shrug off its reputation as a monopolistic tyrant. Today comes news that seems to undermine those efforts pretty badly.

The Next Web reports that users of Internet Explorer 6 are being forced to use Bing as their default search engine — even if they’ve manually switched their preference to another search provider, like Google. Attempts to switch the browser to something other than Bing result in an error message.

Now, let’s set aside the fact that IE6 is a scourge on the web that opens users up to a wide array of critical security issues and forces developers to implement ugly hacks because the browser doesn’t support many web standards. The fact of the matter is that a sizable number of users are still using IE6 (over 5% of TechCrunch readers still use it, and the global marketshare is closer to 20%). We’re talking millions of users who are potentially affected by this issue.

http://www.techcrunch.com/

Google Launches A Location-Based Android App

2009-06-03T03:28:00.000-07:00

Google has just launched a new Android app that lists the places around

Places Directory is a straight-forward app created by some Googlers as their 20% time project. When you launch it, it looks up your location and gives you a directory of the types of establishments around. If I click on “Bars” for example, I’ll then get a list of the bars around me complete with a thumbnail image, the location’s distance from me and a star rating. Clicking on any of the listings will take you to a page with an overview of the place, including its address and phone number. You can also read reviews of the place by Google local users and see more pictures of the place.

While there are no shortage of apps on the iPhone that do basically the same task, there are less available on Android. And while some of the apps that do exist focus mostly on restaurants, Places Directly can also find things like ATMs or museums. And even the best apps out there that do these place listing suffer from a lack of information in smaller towns. That won’t be an issue in NYC, but could be in my hometown of Pepper Pike, Ohio. But Places Directory has Google’s huge database of information at its disposal, which means that even in remote towns, you’ll likely have some information about local places.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/02/google-launches-a-location-based-android-app-to-save-tourists/

Google upgrades custom search box on Blogger

2009-06-02T03:57:00.000-07:00

Google’s blog publishing platform, Blogger, is bringing its Custom Search Box gadget out of its beta version, also known as Blogger in Draft. The search gadget a blog’s readers search posts, web pages linked from the blog, other blogs on the blog roll, as well as pages on the shared links list.

Google initially launched the gadget on its Blogger in Draft platform, which offers users a version of Blogger where Google tests out features and new interfaces. Google says it has upgraded the search gadget to provide simpler defaults as well as the ability for the box to integrate with the aesthetics and color of your blog. The Search Box gadget uses AJAX Search APIs to power the feature and also automatically updates the custom linked search engine when you update your blog, blog lists, or link lists.

http://www.techcrunch.com/

Search Smackdown: Bing Vs. Google

2009-06-02T03:02:00.000-07:00

That was fast. Irish programmer and SEO specialist Paul Savage has made this very basic web service, which lists all results for search queries on Google and Bing side by side so you can compare which one produces the best results for the keywords you enter on one single page. We've played around with it a bit and found that the tool proves that the user experience for both search engines really is very different:

- searching for 'Google'

Google will show news results about themselves first, and a link to their homepage later, which makes sense since people are probably already on there. The rest of the results consists of Google products and local versions of the search service. Noteworthy difference is the presence of a button that lets you drop down a widget displaying information about Google's stock without the need to leave the page.

Bing, on the other hand, provides a list of possible extended search queries on the left sidebar, and a list of useful direct links to Google services below the first result. It also lists 'similar' searches on the right sidebar (not visible in this screenshot) with alternative services - Bing being the first one they recommend. It also displays a box that you can use to jump to Google search, and it keeps track of your search history right on the page, unless you turn that feature off.

- searching for 'Linux'

Using Google, you get much better results for this query, period. Google lists at least five very relevant links (Kernel.org, Debian.org, RedHat.com, LinuxJournal.com and LI.org) that you will not find in the first 15 search results on Bing. No nifty sidebars, nor any amount of spot-on similar results will help Microsoft here.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/02/AR2009060200550.html

Google's Android seen gaining support

2009-05-31T21:24:00.000-07:00

HELSINKI (Reuters) -

Google's Android operating system is gaining support in the mobile industry, with 8 million Android phones to be sold in 2009, up 10-fold from a year ago, research firm Strategy Analytics said on Monday.

With the overall handset market shrinking as economies slow globally, the mobile industry is focusing investment on more advanced smartphones and their software.

Google's Android was introduced in the United States in the second half of 2008, and now all top cell phone vendors except Nokia have said they would use Android. "Android is now in a good position to become a top-tier player in smartphones over the next two to three years," said Neil Mawston, a director at Strategy Analytics.

Mawston said handset vendors and operators like T-Mobile and Vodafone are attracted to Android's relatively low-cost licensing model, its semi-open-source structure and Google's support for services.

Despite the 10-fold growth forecast for 2009, with 8 million phones sold Android would lag far behind market leader Symbian, andResearch in Motion, Microsoft, or Apple.

On average, the smartphone market is expected to grow 10-20 percent this year from 152 million phones sold last year.

Roughly half of these used Symbian operating system, while RIM sold 23.5 million, Microsoft 20 million and Apple 13.7 million phones, Strategy Analytics said.

Nokia bought out other shareholders of Symbian last year and gave all its software to an independent foundation, which now develops it on an open-source basis.

Nokia uses only Symbian software in its smartphones, while Symbian is also the key platform for Sony Ericsson, which has said it will also use Windows and Android as complementary offerings.

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/20090511/tc_nm/us_mobiles_google

Google wave is a killer application watch out

2009-05-31T05:08:00.001-07:00

A new service which–well, it’s one of the most ambitious services that Google or anyone else has cooked up? How ambitious? Project leader Lars Rasmussen says that it began with the question “What might e-mail look like if it were invented today?” ... It:

Is a service that looks like a rich piece of client software;

Behaves like sophisticated threaded e-mail;

Acts like IM when multiple collaborators are online at once.

Is one of the most real-time collaborative tools I’ve ever seen.

Has revision marking and versioning for workgroup editing.

Has instant photo sharing.

Allows its functionality to be embedded into blogs and social networks;

Can serve as a container for OpenSocial applications;

Has what Google says is a revolutionary spell checker;

Comes in mobile flavors for Android and iPhone;

Is an open-source project that lets developers write both Wave extensions ... and their own servers.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/google_wave_who_what_where_why_when

Microsoft revamps search engine, "Bing"

2009-05-29T06:40:00.000-07:00

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp is revamping its search engine to counter the dominance of Google Inc in the Web search and related advertising business.

The world's largest software company, which is still in talks with Yahoo Inc over a potential partnership, has long been determined to play a major role in the lucrative Web search market after watching upstart Google take a stranglehold.

Microsoft, which has been testing the search engine internally under the name Kumo for several months, plans to introduce the new service, re-christened "Bing," over the next few days, with a full launch next Wednesday. The service will be available at www.bing.com.

Advertising Age reported earlier this week that Microsoft was planning a $80 million to $100 million ad campaign to promote Bing. Microsoft declined to comment on the report.

"We'll have what I would call a big budget -- big enough that I had to gulp when I approved the budget," said Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, who unveiled Bing at a technology conference in Carlsbad, California, run by the All Things Digital tech blog.

The Redmond, Washington-based firm has lots of ground to make up. Last month Google took 64.2 percent of U.S. Internet searches -- up half a percentage point from the month before -- handling 9.5 billion out of a total of 14.8 billion searches.

Yahoo was a distant second with 20.4 percent of searches and Microsoft third with 8.2 percent, both down slightly from the month before, according to data firm comScore.

Ballmer offered no quick turnaround in those numbers. "My timeframe is lots of years," he said at the conference. "I don't have a specific forecast, but this is lots of years."

The new name, Bing, is short, universal and can be "verbed-up," said Ballmer, a clear reference to the fact that 'to Google' has become the generic verb for searching the Internet for information.

http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSTRE54Q0GE20090528?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

Microsoft Aims at Google

2009-05-26T20:07:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Microsoft has used attack ads to go after Apple, and now it has Google in its sights.

The software giant is set to launch an $80 million to $100 million campaign for Bing, the search engine it hopes will help it grab a bigger slice of the online ad market. That's a big campaign -- big compared with consumer-product launches ($50 million is considered a sizable budget for a national rollout) and very big when you consider that Google spent about $25 million on all its advertising last year, according to TNS Media Intelligence, with about $11.6 million of that focused on recruiting. Microsoft, by comparison, spent $361 million. Certainly Google has never faced an ad assault of anything like this magnitude.

JWT has been tapped for the push, which will include online, TV, print and radio. Another sign of the campaign's size: At a time when most agencies are laying people off, JWT added creatives on the Microsoft business last week.

People with knowledge of the planned push said the ads won't go after Google, or Yahoo for that matter, by name. Instead, they'll focus on planting the idea that today's search engines don't work as well as consumers previously thought by asking them whether search (aka Google) really solves their problems. That, Microsoft is hoping, will give consumers a reason to consider switching search engines, which, of course, is one of Bing's biggest challenges.

http://digg.com/d1s3T3

Symbian: 'Why does Google need Android?

2009-05-26T19:56:00.000-07:00

Symbian Foundation leadership team member Tim Holbrow has questioned Google's purpose behind pursuing its own Android mobile platform, calling its strategy "weird."

In an exclusive interview with TechRadar before his speech at Wireless and Mobile 09 in London yesterday, Holbrow questioned whether Google's bullish attitude to Android could be an issue of control.

"Android's a very interesting one," he said. "A question I've asked lots of people – and not had a good answer to yet – is, I can understand the Android strategy for Google when they launched it a couple of years ago but following the creation of Symbian Foundation...and given that Google have done a lot a lot of work on Symbian, why does Google need Android now Symbian's open source?

"It seems like a bit of a weird strategy," he continued. "I mean, you could see a way forward for them contributing Dalvik (Android's virtual machine) into Symbian, it would be almost job done for them and they can start really engaging with [Symbian].

"I haven't heard a good answer to that – why does Google need Android? My concern is it's a control issue, because that's not healthy for an open source platform."

Holbrow is also surprised that iPhone and Android gets quite so much coverage as it does, even if the rise in profile of mobile apps and open source is good for Symbian, too.

"We've always seen that Symbian is this large portion of lots of devices shipping, then there's this little Apple and Google slice that gets all the attention. I'm always a bit surprised at the column inches that Android gets given the number of phones they've got and units that they've shipped. [But] if they're promoting open source [it's good for the industry].

"You've seen the benefit of the iPhone throughout the whole industry. App Store gets the whole idea of applications into people's mindsets. It's allowed us to get our message across more easily."

Getting more apps onto Symbian

Holbrow, who is on Symbian's leadership team, was at the show to talk up the benefits of Symbian's new open source status. The not-for-profit Symbian Foundation is now in full control of the platform.

So how have the beta developers received things so far? The developers aren't feeling the newness of it yet, but I think over the course of the next six months we'll start to engage quite heavily with developers bringing their applications across to Symbian," he says.

"The key thing for developers as I see it is, they can almost get past the tools, they can almost get past the support but what they really want to see is 'how can I convert [the innovation in my head] into something that's going to make me money?'

And Holbrow is complementary about Apple's model. "I guess as open source I should be talking in more religious terms but...what [developers] like about the Apple Store is that 'I can understand if I create a [popular] application I can make lots of money out of it.'"

Holbrow also believes the massive market penetration of Symbian handsets will help persuade developers that the platform should be a priority in terms of development. "It's this route to market that we really need to...sell. There is an enormous volume out there.

http://digg.com/d1s5EW

Gmail inbox Preview

2009-05-22T07:25:00.000-07:00

Whenever I open up my inbox at work, I'm never surprised to find several new messages waiting to be read. The same thing can't always be said about my personal Gmail account. Sometimes I end up checking my mail only to find nothing new there.

No big deal, really. But now imagine that you access Gmail on a super slow connection from a remote place in Ethopia where it might take minutes to completely load your inbox. The disappointment is larger when you find out that there is nothing new to read and you could have saved all that time.

To ease this pain a bit, we created a new feature in Gmail Labs called Inbox Preview. While Gmail is loading, a simple, static preview of your inbox with your ten most recent messages is displayed. Turn it on from the Labs tab under Settings, and if you're on a slow connection you'll know from the start if it's worth the wait.

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/new-in-labs-inbox-preview.html

New in Labs: Automatic message translation

2009-05-20T00:06:00.000-07:00

Back in the early days of human existence, before language had fully developed, our caveman ancestors probably did a lot of grunting. Language, and thus life, were pretty simple: watch out for that saber-toothed tiger ("Blorg! AIYA!!!"); stop riding the wooly mammoth and help me pick some berries ("Argh. Zagle zorg!"); man, it's cold in this Ice Age ("Brrrr.").

Somewhere along the line, all those grunts diverged into thousands of distinct languages, and life became both richer and more complicated. And for the last few eons or so, we've struggled to communicate in a multilingual world. Which brings us to today. Since the heart and soul of Gmail is about helping people communicate, I'm proud to announce the integration of Google's automatic translation technology directly into Gmail.

Simply enable "Message Translation" from the Labs tab under Settings, and when you receive an email in a language other than your own, Gmail will help you translate it into a language you can understand. In one click.

If all parties are using Gmail, you can have entire conversations in multiple languages with each participant reading the messages in whatever language is most comfortable for them. It's not quite the universal translators we're so fond of from science fiction, but thanks to Google Translate, it's an exciting step in the right direction. I use this feature everyday to help me work with teammates around the globe (they think my Japanese is much better than it really is...shhhh!).

Whether you're reading a family update from inlaws on the other side of the world, working with a multinational team, or just trying to bring about world peace, don't worry, Gmail's got your back.

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/new-in-labs-automatic-message.html

Google challenged by new rival - WolframAlpha

2009-05-18T06:50:00.000-07:00

A revolutionary new search engine that computes answers rather than pointing to websites will be launched officially today amid heated talk that it could challenge the might of Google.

WolframAlpha, named after Stephen Wolfram, the British-born computer scientist and inventor behind the project, takes a query and uses computational power to crunch through huge databases.

The service can compute the distance between two cities, the population of a country at a specific date and the position of the Space Shuttle at a given moment. The user does not have to search through links provided by the engine; the answer comes immediately and, if appropriate, is accompanied by charts or graphs. What it does that Google, at the moment, cannot do is provide answers to questions that have not been answered already.

The new service, available at wolframalpha.com, was previewed several months ago amid industry speculation that it could be a “Google killer”. Dr Wolfram, however, is at pains to point out that his brainchild is a “computational knowledge engine”, not a traditional search engine.

A physics prodigy who earned a PhD aged 20, Dr Wolfram, 49, founded Wolfram Research, in Illinois, which develops advanced software called Mathematica, used mainly by scientists. Mathematica has built up a number of databases and Wolfram Alpha is an attempt to bring them to a wider audience.

The service is free but the company plans to include advertising eventually and to offer paid versions with extra features. Dr Wolfram said that WolframAlpha was a “long-term project” and he hoped to broaden the databases that it uses.

Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, the website, said: “They're saying they're not trying to wipe out Google, but they feel they do the kinds of searches that Google doesn't handle. If you're trying to get facts, this might be a handy kind of encyclopedia for you.”

Last week Google previewed a new experimental service called Google Squared, which will automatically produce spreadsheets of information from search terms.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article6307744.ece

Google launches enhanced options

2009-05-15T07:33:00.000-07:00

TECHNOLOGY: INTERNET GIANT Google this week revealed a host of new features of its online search which add a limited amount of intelligence to results rather than simply the standard list of text-based answers.

At its Mountain View headquarters in California, engineers showed enhanced features at an event called Google Searchology.

Udi Manber, Google’s vice president of search engineering, showed how simply putting a flight number into the search engine yields a link to real-time information on the flight’s progress; or how searching for “plumber” will present results relevant to the area you are searching from.

According to Mr Manber, the company has now cleared many of the practical hurdles that dogged search in its early days, such as how to store and access mind-bending volumes of digital information reliably.

“We’re now in a position where these problems are much easier for us, so we can concentrate on starting to understand,” Mr Manber said during the event.

With the new features, Google will pay closer attention to the way that users would like to view their information, offering more control over the type and flavour of search results.

There’s even a visual search option called Wonder Wheel that generates a kind of visual concept map, pointing to similar topics.

The Wonder Wheel and other search power tools can be found by clicking on the link that says “Show options” after executing a Google search.

With Google Squared, a service launching later this month, users can order up an instant spreadsheet on any topic – composed of neatly tabulated information Google plucks from across the web at light speed.

If you try a search for “small dogs”, for instance, Squared will pop out a grid organised by breed, including photos, descriptions and statistical data on each type of pooch.

“It’s a very, very hard computer science problem to try to take the unstructured web and build it into this type of structured information,” said Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search products.

Attempting to impress its audience with a final search-related tool, Google showed off a new mobile phone application called Sky Map.

Using a smartphone’s global positioning system capability, as well as its compass and accelerometer, Sky Map can draw a real-time map of the stars so accurate that it knows exactly where users are standing – and even which direction they are facing.

John Taylor, a Google engineer who worked on the app, demonstrated by attempting to locate Ms Mayer’s star sign (Gemini). He rotated the phone gingerly until a red target circle on the screen showed it had locked on to the distant constellation.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2009/0515/1224246559604.html

Google wants to know if you are sick

2009-05-14T02:52:00.000-07:00

Google is attempting to find out how much of a role Internet searches play in the self-diagnosis process.

The company plans later Wednesday to start rolling out a subtle question at the bottom of pages with search results for a few common ailments, such as "Did you search because you or someone you know may have an ear infection?" That question will only appear for a very small number of users who search for terms such as "ear infection," but it will help Google start to understand how many people are searching on such terms looking for treatment remedies or options as opposed to doing research, said Dr. Roni Ziegler, a product manage.

n a way, this is an extension of the work Google has done tracking the flu with Google Flu Trends. The company noticed that search activity related to the flu tends to rise about two weeks before a similar rise is reported to the Centers for Disease Control by doctors, but years of data on flu patterns validates those trends, Ziegler said. Similar data does not exist for more common health issues.

Google is not exactly sure what it wants to do with that data, or how much useful data will be produced by the experiment. Ultimately, however, everything at Google goes back into the search process, so it's possible that the data could be used to offer searchers more options, such as "Did you mean to search for treatment options for X?" at the top of the search page.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10240076-2.html

How to Protect your Privacy on Google

2009-05-12T05:58:00.000-07:00

Concerned that Google knows too much about you? The company provides many ways to protect your privacy online -- you just need to find them. Here are six good ones.

1. Know your privacy rights: Use the Google Privacy Center. This site includes all of Google's privacy policies, as well as privacy best practices for each of its products and services. Although the "legalese" of privacy policies can be difficult to understand, Google's Privacy Channel offers a library of short YouTube videos with practical tips on protecting your data when using Google products and services. Try the "Google Search Privacy" and "Google Privacy Tips" series.

2. Protect your content on the services you use. Some content that Google stores for you, such as photos uploaded in Picasa Web Albums, are public by default. You can protect your privacy when you upload photos by choosing the appropriate checkbox.

Choices include "unlisted" (accessible only if you have the Web link, and not indexed by Web search engines) or private (viewable only by named users who must sign in).

Another example: You can take a Google Chat "off the record" if you don't want the instant messaging transcript stored.

In contrast, Google Latitude, which tracks your whereabouts by way of GPS-enabled cell phones, does not share your location data by default. You must authorize others to see it. Latitude stores your last known location, but not your history.

3. Turn off the suggestion feature in the Chrome browser. By default, Chrome retains a history of Web sites you've visited -- and the full text of those pages -- so it can try to guess which Web address you want as you type in the "Omnibox."

You can turn the feature off by going to "Under the Hood" under Options and unchecking the "Use a suggestion service" box. You can also select other privacy options, including surfing in Chrome's "incognito" mode.

4. Turn off Web History. You may have turned on the Web History option, also called Personalized Search, when you first created your Google account. If so, Google may be maintaining a "personalized" search history for your use.

Google does not use this data to target ads. It uses a separate search history, stored in Google's server logs and associated with a browser cookie, for that purpose. That data is "anonymized" after nine months. But your Web History is retained forever, unless you turn it off or delete the contents.

5. Opt out of interest-based ad serving. As of March 11, Google and third parties in its AdSense network are using not just contextual information (what you're searching for) but a history of previously viewed Web pages to serve up targeted advertising. The idea is to serve up ads that are more relevant to your interests.

You can remove interest categories Google has attributed to you or add others by visiting its Ad Preferences page. You can also opt out. To make the opt-out setting permanent, however, you'll need to install a plug-in for each browser you use. It's available for IE, Firefox, Chrome and Safari.

6. Add SSL to Gmail. You can encrypt e-mails you read and create in Gmail. Your log-in data is encrypted by default by SSL encryption, but SSL is turned off when you interact with your e-mail, because it can slow performance.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/164667/how_to_protect_your_privacy_on_google.html?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a41:g26:r13:c0.006691:b24437850

Google launches first TV ads

2009-05-11T06:36:00.000-07:00

Chrome launched last September in a direct bid to lure users away from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Google has famously avoided traditional marketing routes in the past, however it is now desperate to promote Chrome.

Since the initial burst of publicity, Chrome has failed to provide serious competition to rival browsers, such as Internet Explorer or Mozilla’s Firefox.

Chrome is used by just 1.4% of internet users compared to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, used by 66% of users, according to Net Applications market share statistics. Mozilla’s Firefox comes in second place, as the browser choice of 22% of web users and Apple’s Safari program comes in third, with 8%.

On the official Google blog, the company explained that the video was originally made by a team from Google Japan as a YouTube clip, but had proved so effective, that it had decided to take it onto traditional TV.

“We designed a Google TV Ads campaign which we hope will raise awareness of our browser, and also help us better understand how television can supplement our other online media campaigns,” said Mike Steib, director, Google TV Ads.

The Google TV Ads system allows Google to act as a broker to sell advertising time on the US TV networks. By using its to book its own TV ad, it is thought the company is trying to promote the service – which has enjoyed limited success since launch two years ago.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/google/5307663/Google-launches-first-TV-ads.html

Twitter like functionality could be added to search

2009-05-10T18:19:00.000-07:00

While taking questions yesterday about alleged violation of anti-trust laws, Google execs including CEO Eric Schmidt reportedly told press that the company is, in the words of Reuters scribe Alexei Oreskovic, "looking at ... ways of integrating microblogging capabilities, such as those popularized by Twitter, into its search product."

That's news to us. Everything these days is about Twitter, though. Go to a party--talk about Twitter. Have a blog? Talk about Twitter. Use Twitter? Talk about Twitter. Apparently we can add to that: facing legal pressure over allegedly anti-competitive business practices? Talk about Twitter. There's absolutely no more information available about this - but below are three possible scenarios we can imagine for Google integrating microblogging into its search product.

The fact that Schmidt said what he did is just one reason to believe Google is going to do something with microblogging. There are several - most important is the fact that status sharing and activity streams are really useful, compelling and potentially valuable for both users and companies that dabble in them. Here's how it might go down.

Real Time Search

The most logical integration of microblogging and search would be microblogging search. Google already indexes Twitter messages, in some ways better than Twitter does. We can imagine "real time" being an option just like web, news, images and blogs on Google search. Here at ReadWriteWeb we use this tool to have that experience already. There is a whole lot that can be done with something like Twitter search if the user accounts tweeting the twits and twats are taken into account. Check out the nascent awesomeness at Twazzup, for example.

This probably isn't going to happen, though, as long as Twitter is the only microblogging game in town. There just isn't a meaningful data set of publicly available status updates elsewhere. Facebook status messages would be great to search but that would contradict the fundamental nature of the site - and Microsoft has a lot of skin in the game there.

We're hoping that open source microblogging technology from Laconi.ca will spread throughout the land and give engines something other than Twitter to search.

Source:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_ceo_says_microblogging_coming_to_google_sea.php

Google Mothers day Logo

2009-05-10T00:11:00.000-07:00

But for their first year, Google has been changing its home page logo every Mother's Day in a tribute to mothers everywhere. And although the images for the years 2000 and 2001 don't look very different, take a closer look (images below) and you'll find a small but interesting distinction.

We took this years image from Google Australia, but you should see it on all of Google's sites very soon.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/

Create your Google profile

2009-05-09T08:44:00.000-07:00

We recently announced that Google profile results now appear at the bottom of U.S. name-query search pages. Creating a profile gives you greater control over what people find when they search for your name on Google. Your profile can include online photos, links to your blog or other online profiles, and ways for people to contact you -- and you can restrict contact information like your address and phone number to only the people and groups you choose.

When creating a profile, you have the option to use your Gmail username as a your profile URL (profiles.google.com/yourusername), so it's easier to remember and share. Some examples:

http://profiles.google.com/mattcutts

If you want people to be able to contact you, but don't want to reveal your email address to the world, you can hide your username and use a 24 digit number instead. Turn on the 'Send a message' feature, and anyone with a Google Account can send you a message through your profile, without having your email address revealed to them.

Don't have a profile? Go to www.google.com/profiles to get started.

source courtesy:

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/

Gmail Suffers Yet Another Outage

2009-05-08T18:36:00.000-07:00

Gmail users were greeted with a "Temporary Error (500)" message today, making the service temporarily unavailable.

Calling the outage another Gfail, Twitter buzzed with complaints from all over the world, with some complaining that Google Apps too was down. The Google Apps page confirmed with a red cross against Google Mail, that there was downtime on Friday.

http://tech2.in.com/india/news/internet/gmail-suffers-yet-another-outage/67052/0

Google search right in Gmail

2009-05-03T20:07:00.000-07:00

I used to have a problem. People would ask me questions, over chat or email, and I'd have to leave Gmail to search Google for an answer. Then I'd have to select the answer, copy it, go back to Gmail and paste the answer into the chat window or my reply. Sometimes I'd get distracted and forget to go back to Gmail, and I'd have to go through it all again when I remembered what I'd been doing.

With the new Google Search experiment in Gmail Labs, my problem is solved. When you turn this feature on from the Labs tab under Settings, you'll see a new search box on the left side of your inbox, like this:

ype your search in, and a window (like a chat window, but a bit bigger) appears at the bottom of your screen with the first few search results.

You can click on a search result and it'll open up in another window (or another tab) so you can make sure it's what you're looking for. Once you're sure it's a result you need, moving your mouse over the result back in Gmail reveals a pull-down menu that lets you do stuff with the search result.

What's in the menu depends on what you're doing in Gmail:

If you're reading a message, you can start a reply to the message with the search result as the first thing in your reply.

If you're writing a message, you can paste the result, or just the URL into your message.

If you're chatting with someone, you can send the result via chat.

You can also always compose a new message to send the search result.

If you have keyboard shortcuts turned on, typing g and then / will take you to the search box when you're not composing, and Ctrl + g will do it when you're composing (that's ⌘ + g for Mac users).

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-in-labs-google-search-right-in.html

Twitter keeps on growing especially in australia

2009-05-02T01:54:00.000-07:00

Twitter loves celebrities.

We know that Oprah Winfrey's brought a lot of new users to Twitter in the U.S., but according to Hitwise, the popular microblogging service is currently seeing some of its most impressive growth outside of America. In Australia, where Oprah Winfrey doesn't command the same kind of daytime television audience, Twitter grew over 1,000% since the beginning of 2009, and its annual growth since last April tops 3,200%. In Australia, Twitter is now the 37th most visited web site.

According to Hitwise, 38% of the top 50 searches for 'twitter' in Australia include the name of a celebrity. Lindsay Lohan leads the charge, followed by Ashton Kutcher, Miley Cyrus, and Australia's own Hugh Jackman. While Kutcher's much publicized race to 1 million followers increased Twitter's share of daily visits in Australia by 10.6%, Oprah's first tweet only registered a 2.46% increase

Twitter is also seeing similar growth in other Asia Pacific markets. In New Zealand, the official home of RWW, Twitter's share of daily visits increased 305% in 2009, and it is now the 49th most visited web site there, and its growth rate in Singapore is comparable. Only Hong Kong is lagging far behind these other markets.

Twitter is Sticky

One interesting phenomenon about Twitter is that new users tend to stay on the service. In Australia, according to Hitwise, the single largest spike in visits came one day after the queens land election n March, and interestingly, Hitwise did not record a drop in numbers since then. This bodes well for Twitter, which, thanks to the hype around Oprah Winfrey and Ashton Kutcher, was able to pick up a lot of new users who typically wouldn't have been too interested in joining Twitter.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twitter_keeps_on_growing_-_especially_in_australia.php

Pixelpipe uploader firefox addon

2009-04-24T08:45:00.000-07:00

Despite the number of add-ons available in the Firefox ecosystem, it can still sometimes feel like there are only a few truly good ones out there. That's why when we find one that's actually worth using, we get excited. The latest add-on getting installed into our small but critical collection of extensions is Pixelpipe's new drag-and-drop uploader. This utility lets you upload media directly from your computer or the web to any of the 75 plus services you've configured at Pixelpipe.com.

If you're not familiar with Pixelpipe, you should go get acquainted now. You can think of the service as sort of a Ping.fm for your media. Using their software, you're able to publish either text, photos, videos, and audio to any of the services supported, making it one of the easiest and quickest ways to distribute your content across the web. After it arrived last year, we quickly identified it as a winner when it worked exactly as advertised. Since that time, the company has grown and expanded, adding more features, more services, and even a handful of mobile applications. (We especially love that iPhone one!)

The latest addition to their collection of utilities is a new, experimental Firefox extension called the Pixelpipe Media Uploader 1.0. With this add-on, you can upload media all across the social web either through drag-and-drop or by selecting from a chooser.

After installing the extension and restarting Firefox, you'll see that there's a new orange "P" button in your toolbar. Click that once and the Pixelpipe sidebar will display on the left side of the screen. The first time you go to use this tool, you'll need to sign in with your Pixelpipe account and authorize it to work in Firefox. Once that's done, you can then drag-and-drop any media into the sidebar to upload it to Pixelpipe which then, of course, shoots it out to any of the services you've configured. Alternately, you can right-click on any image on the web and choose the "Upload image with Pixelpipe Uploader" option from the menu that appears.

One of the nice things about the uploader is that you can add the title, any appropriate tags, and set the privacy levels before you click "Upload." That way, you don't have to actually go visit the sites afterwards to configure these sorts of settings.

This new utility is just another reminder of how desktop software tools are slowly being replaced by browser-based services. Who needs the Flickr uploader anymore when you can drag photos to your browser and send them directly to Flickr, Facebook, and a slew of other sites with only a click or two?

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/pixelpipes_new_uploader_is_a_must-have_for_firefox.php

Power point and TIF in Gmail

2009-04-24T08:25:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, we added fast online viewing of PDFs in your browser. As of today, that same viewer now supports TIFF and Microsoft PowerPoint document formats too: you can now view TIFF and PPT files online, directly in your browser, without having to save the files to your computer and without needing to buy, install, or wait for any special software to start up.

We've had a "View as slideshow" option for PowerPoint files for a while; now we've integrated this conversion technology into the same viewer that we use for PDFs and TIFFs.

his viewer provides a richer set of features than the old "View as slideshow" version: you can zoom in and out, select text to copy and paste, and "print" the presentation to a PDF document. And, unlike the old version, we no longer require you to have a Flash plugin installed on your browser.

Courtesy:

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/powerpoint-and-tiff-file-viewing.html

Twitter experiments with new status notification

2009-04-20T09:05:00.000-07:00

It appears Twitter is experimenting with some additional tweaks that may make status updates easier and faster for its users and could help decrease the back end load on its servers.

A semi transparent notification bar (see screenshot below), slides down from the top of the screen when you update your status via the Web. While in itself, the feature may not appear earth shattering, the fact that updating now feels extremely fluid and is almost instantaneous makes us wonder whether Twitter will begin caching tweets for delivery to its servers.

Source:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/

Youtube testing secret new channels Beta

2009-04-20T08:49:00.000-07:00

Word has it there's a secret link available on YouTube's site right now that will give you access to their new top-secret Channels beta testing program. Some YouTube users received notification of the beta via an email message from YouTube, but others discovered it on their own.

So what's this all about? It seems that, in the coming weeks, YouTube plans to launch a brand-new user interface for their Channels section and if you click the secret link, you can be a part of the group that helps test it and provide feedback.

The secret link's URL is (hilariously): http://www.youtube.com/super_seekrit. Once you click that, you'll be taken to a web page that welcomes you to the secret Channels beta program. The page also warns you that this is experimental so things may be broken while other things may be incomplete. If you don't like the beta design, you can switch back to the old layout by clicking the "opt-out" button.

Source:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/youtube_testing_secret_new_channels_beta.php#more

Gotalk mobile from Gmail

2009-04-15T19:20:00.000-07:00

Short message service (SMS) is an integral part of our lives today. In fact, there are many people who prefer SMSing to making phone calls, notwithstanding the steep decline in call rates in recent times. That said, sending SMSes can be an expensive proposition, especially if you are sending them to a person in another city or worse, country. Or if you are on roaming!

Which is why mobile Instant Messaging (IM) is so handy. Thanks to some rather innovative applications, you can actually exchange text messages with your friends online without using SMS on your cellphone. All you need is a GPRS connection that enables you to access the internet on your mobile and the right software, and you can actually cut down on your SMS bill.

Mobile instant messaging has been around for a few years now. However, most mobile IM applications came with price tags—you either had to pay to download them to your phone or shell out an annual subscription fee. What’s more, they were often only available for high-end (read “colossally expensive”) phones.

However, that has been changing over the past few years, thanks to the dramatic increase in the world’s cellphone-toting population.

Yahoo! has even made it possible for users to access its IM messaging service on its WAP site without having to download any software on to their cellphones. And Yahoo! Messenger is one of the services that form part of the Yahoo!Go passage that is being bundled with select Nokia phones these days.

There are plenty of free software options for non-Yahoo! users too. MSN chat users can download eMSN Mobile for their cellphones—it works like a treat, has plenty of features (including customising photographs) and can run on most phones.

Similarly, those addicted to Google Talk can try Morange, which also gives users access to Gmail, contacts and RSS feeds, but is at its best when handling the chat function. What’s more, Morange comes in two versions—one for advanced phones and one for ‘normal’ ones!

But if you are seeking an SMS-like IM experience, then try out Go Talk Mobile, a mobile instant messenger for Google Talk. Unlike other mobile IM applications that one has to start up and then exit whenever you have to do something else on your phone (say, look at the address book, or play a game), you can keep GoogleTalk running in the background all the time, without having to exit. The phone will vibrate and emit a little tune whenever you receive a message, which will pop up on the screen.

A word of warning, though—do not expect to see features like voice chat and webcam chats on mobile IMs. On a cellphone, the IM is largely restricted to sending and receiving messages, although some do allow users to swap pictures and the odd music file.

For more details follow the link

Source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/291568.cms

Arial and Times new roman fonts in Google Docs

2009-04-14T02:31:00.000-07:00

Arial and Times New Roman fonts are now available in the text editor in Google Docs for users who have these fonts locally installed on their computers.

Editions included:
Standard, Premier, Education, Team and Partner Editions

Languages included:
All languages supported by Google Docs

How to access what's new:
Arial and Times New Roman will appear in the font drop-down from the menu bar if these fonts are detected as being locally installed on your computer.

http://googleappsupdates.blogspot.com/2009/04/arial-and-times-new-roman-fonts-in.html

Mobile offline access for Iphone and Android

2009-04-12T15:30:00.000-07:00

The new version of Gmail for mobile includes:

– New offline functionality that allows you to start Gmail for mobile, compose new messages and read recently read messages when offline.

– The new "floaty bar" menu can be used to perform batch actions such as archiving multiple messages quickly.

Editions included:

Standard, Premier, Education and Partner Editions

Languages included:

US English

How to access what's new:

Visit http://www.google.com/m/a/example.com on your iPhone or Android-powered device. Be sure to replace 'example.com' with your organization's domain name. Continue by clicking the link for either Gmail or Calendar. If you have an Android device, click 'Update now' to enable Gears for offline access.

For more information:

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-mobile-gmail-experience-for-iphone.html

Google Lab Applications now available

2009-04-12T15:24:00.000-07:00

Organizations using Google Apps can now start using Google Labs applications. The first three new apps are:

Google Moderator – Manage Q&A sessions from the smallest video conference to the largest all-hands company meeting.

Google Code Reviews – Collaborate with others to catch bugs in software you're developing.

Google Short Links – Create easy-to-remember links for both your internal and external web pages.

Stay tuned for more Google Labs applications from Google and other software developers.

Editions impacted:

Standard, Premier, Education and Partner Editions

Languages impacted:

US English

How to access what's new:

Visit the Solutions Marketplace (see link below) to learn more about Google Labs and select the new applications you want to use in your organization.

For more information:

http://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/viewVendorListings?vendorId=1012

New Secure Data connector

2009-04-10T07:22:00.000-07:00

New Secure Data Connector:

With Google Secure Data Connector, employees you specify can interact with authorized data from your on-premise applications within Google Sites, Google Docs and custom App Engine applications, even when employees aren't on your corporate network.

Editions included:

Premier and Education Editions

Languages included:

US English

How to access what's new:

To download and begin using the Google Secure Data Connector, administrators should sign into the administrative control panel, go to 'Advanced tools' and follow the links under the 'Secure Data Connector' section.

Learn how to upgrade to Google Apps Premier Edition to use this feature.

For more information:

http://code.google.com/securedataconnector/

New in google Labs Gmail Features

2009-04-10T05:40:00.000-07:00

Inserting images in Gmail:

Well, it's about time. You no longer have to use workarounds to put images into your messages or attach images when you really want to inline them. Just turn on "Inserting images" from the Labs tab under Settings, and you'll see a new toolbar icon like this:Make sure you're in rich formatting mode, or it won't show up. Click the little image icon, and you can insert images in two ways: by uploading image files from your computer or providing image URLs.

Source courtesy
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-in-labs-inserting-images.html

Google Green Revolution

2009-04-09T06:24:00.000-07:00

Plug into a Greener Grid:

A significant amount of global greenhouse gas emissions are generated by coal-fired power plants and vehicles. To slow global warming, we must radically – and quickly – cut these emissions. Plug-in vehicles offer a major opportunity to reduce oil use and corresponding emissions while renewable energy sources – solar, wind, geothermal and others – could supplant a major portion of the planet's electricity generated from coal.

Google.org is confronting the climate crisis on two fronts: We're working on developing utility scale renewable energy cheaper than coal

For more details read the following

Source:

www.google.org

Gmail sender time zone

2009-04-09T05:51:00.000-07:00

New in google labs

Let's say your girlfriend sends you an angry email. It's mostly about how you behaved at the party last night and then left for a business trip without saying goodbye. You read it from the other side of the globe, jet-lagged after a 12 hour flight. You want to call and sort things out, but forget that it's now almost 3:00 am her time. After waking her up, things only get worse.

There's a new feature in Gmail Labs called Sender Time Zone that can help. Turn it on from the Labs tab under Settings, and you'll see green phone icons next to people who are probably awake and readily reachable (if it's between 9:00 am and 6:00 pm in the sender's local time zone) and red ones next to those who could be sleeping or out of the office:

Message headers always include the time sent and often include time zone info too. We use that information to show you these icons. If the time zone isn't included for a given message, this Labs feature won't display anything. Try it out and tell us what you think.

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-in-labs-sender-time-zone.html

Google India labs Google Notice board

2009-04-09T05:40:00.000-07:00

Google India has launched a new application called “Google Noticeboard” helping people to share and easily access information over the Internet. Google Noticeboard is a Firefox extension that is installed and configured on shared computers by an operator. After the initial configuration, the Noticeboard application enables community members to exchange information over the Internet without an intermediary. As a part of the configuration, each community Noticeboard is associated with an email address and a list of contacts.

For more details follow google labs link

http://labs.google.co.in/noticeboard/