In view of the hardening of positions on both sides, Google reportedly has chalked out a detailed strategy for closure of its search engine in China, and it is almost final now as the talks over censorship with the Chinese authorities have reached an apparent deadlock since January of this year. The Chinese government on Friday warned the US based search company, that it was not prepared to compromise on internet censorship with Google in China.

To recap on what happened, it was December last year when the Google – China relations took a bad turn. Someone from China targeted human right activists Gmail accounts. These Google human rights activists accounts in China were hacked by hackers who originated from mainland China. As a reaction, the dismayed authorities at Google threatened to withdraw its services from China, saying that it can no longer censor its search results on the Chinese version of Google homepage i.e. Google.cn. Google, in a detailed blog post said that if it is unable to find a way to operate an unfiltered search engine within the Chinese law, which currently requires it to block access to millions of websites, it will have no option but to close its operations in China. Few days later, Google-China debacle took a new turn when Google in a secret counter-offensive encounter managed to hack these Chinese hackers back. It was successful in breaking into the source computer in Taiwan which was involved in these attacks. Google engineers, thus found out some evidence which were pointing fingers towards mainland China. It appeared as if the whole script was orchestrated by the Chinese government. Later in a new development, U.S. authorities were able to track down the man who wrote the code to attack Google in China. The guy in question was a freelance security consultant in China, and his discovery made it even more difficult for the Chinese government to deny their involvement.

In mid last month, some more scary details came to light where linkage of two Chinese Institutions were discovered in hacking Google sites. These schools were also reported having tacit connections with PLA.

Google also delayed the launch of two Android based smartphones from Motorola and Samsung, and didn’t plan to unveil Nexus One in China.

Redmondpie.com

Labels: Google News, Google News blog

Google has shut down a number of popular MP3 blogs on its Blogger service for copyright infringement. More shutdowns are promised.

Over the course of the past day, the Google-owned blogging service Blogger has shut down a number of popular mp3 blogs, including Pop Tarts Suck Toasted, I Rock Cleveland, LivingEars, and It's a Rap. If you follow the links to any of those blogs, you'll see that they've been wholesale deleted. All you'll find is the Blogger message, "The blog you were looking for was not found." The apparent reason? The music posted on the blogs allegedly violates Blogger's terms of services.

From Google's official blog:

Earlier today, word spread about some popular music blogs that were recently removed from Blogger. While we make it a policy to not publicly discuss individual users or their accounts, we wanted to clarify a few things about how and when Blogger enforces its Terms of Service as they relate to our DMCA policy. Last summer, we updated our enforcement of the DMCA. Our current policy is that when we receive a DMCA complaint, we: 1) Notify the blogger about the complaint by e-mail and on the Blogger dashboard. 2) Reset the offending post to ‘draft’ status, allowing the blogger to remove the offending content. 3) Send a copy of the complaint to Chilling Effects.org. When we receive multiple DMCA complaints about the same blog, and have no indication that the offending content is being used in an authorized manner, we will remove the blog.

The blogs being shut down often offer free downloads authorized by labels in order to promote releases. They also post a disclaimer that unauthorized downloads will be removed upon request. Obviously, those disclaimer notices do not protect MP3 bloggers from charges of copyright infringement.

Source:http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2010/02/google-shuts-down-mp3-blogs.html

Labels: Google MP3 Blogs, Google News, Google News blog

Imagine sitting in a rural health clinic, streaming three-dimensional medical imaging over the web and discussing a unique condition with a specialist in New York. Or downloading a high-definition, full-length feature film in less than five minutes. Or collaborating with classmates around the world while watching live 3-D video of a university lecture. Universal, ultra high-speed Internet access will make all this and more possible. We've urged the FCC to look at new and creative ways to get there in its National Broadband Plan – and today we're announcing an experiment of our own.

We're planning to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States. We'll deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 giga bit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.

Our goal is to experiment with new ways to help make Internet access better and faster for everyone. Here are some specific things that we have in mind:

Next generation apps: We want to see what developers and users can do with ultra high-speeds, whether it's creating new bandwidth-intensive "killer apps" and services, or other uses we can't yet imagine.

New deployment techniques: We'll test new ways to build fiber networks, and to help inform and support deployments elsewhere, we'll share key lessons learned with the world.

Openness and choice: We'll operate an "open access" network, giving users the choice of multiple service providers. And consistent with our past advocacy, we'll manage our network in an open, non-discriminatory and transparent way.

Like our WiFi network in Mountain View, the purpose of this project is to experiment and learn. Network providers are making real progress to expand and improve high-speed Internet access, but there's still more to be done. We don't think we have all the answers – but through our trial, we hope to make a meaningful contribution to the shared goal of delivering faster and better Internet for everyone.

As a first step, today we're putting out a request for information (RFI) to help identify interested communities. We welcome responses from local government, as well as members of the public. If you'd like to respond, visit this page to learn more, or check out our video on You tube


Official Google Blog: Think big with a gig: Our experimental fiber network

Labels: Google Fiber Network, Google News, Google WiFi

We've blogged before about our thoughts on the social web, steps we've taken to add social features to our products, and efforts like Open Social that propose common tools for building social apps. With more and more communication happening online, the social web has exploded as the primary way to share interesting stuff, tell the world what you're up to in real-time and stay more connected to more people. In today's world of status messages, tweets and update streams, it's increasingly tough to sort through it all, much less engage in meaningful conversations.

Our belief is that organizing the social information on the web — finding relevance in the noise — has become a large-scale challenge, one that Google's experience in organizing information can help solve. We've recently launched innovations like real-time search and Social Search, and today we're taking another big step with the introduction of a new product, Google Buzz.

Google Buzz is a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting. It's built right into Gmail, so you don't have to peck out an entirely new set of friends from scratch — it just works. If you think about it, there's always been a big social network underlying Gmail. Buzz brings this network to the surface by automatically setting you up to follow the people you email and chat with the most. We focused on building an easy-to-use sharing experience that richly integrates photos, videos and links, and makes it easy to share publicly or privately (so you don't have to use different tools to share with different audiences). Plus, Buzz integrates tightly with your existing Gmail inbox, so you're sure to see the stuff that matters most as it happens in real time.


Official Google Blog: Introducing Google Buzz

Labels: Google Buzz, Google News, Google Social Search

According to Wall Street, Google is planning to pimp Gmail to make it social network place that will allow users to exchange status and updates with friends and family members. It also let users to share web content links or stories which make it in direct competition with Facebook and MySpace.

No official comment was not received from Google about reshaping Gmail, however, company has reportedly invited journalists and bloggers to its events which is scheduled on Tuesday in the Mountain View, California.

The status update will ultimately emerged with other Google services such as YouTube and Picasa.

Sources:http://www.sindhtoday.net/news/1/102813.htm

Labels: Gmail News, Gmail Social Features, Google News

Apple CEO Steve Jobs isn’t holding back with how he really feels about Google and Adobe - at least according to Wired and some anonymous sources over in Cupertino.

According to the Wired piece, Jobs let loose on his Silicon Valley neighbors/frenemies during an Apple employee Town Hall-style meeting.

The highlights of the speech? Starting off with Google,Jobs fired off that Apple “did not enter the search business,” rather that Google “entered the phone business” and “they want to kill the iPhone” with the HTC Nexus One. But Jobs won’t let that happen on his (probably touchscreen) watch.

He then allegedly roared that Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” motto is, well, “bullshit.” (But now that quote is being disputed.)

Then on to Adobe, Jobs just thinks they’re plain “lazy.” And if you ever wondered why your MacBook is crashing, it’s all Flash’s fault, he said, continuing on that HTML5 is the way of the future. (Maybe he’s just upset because everyone made a big deal that the iPad doesn’t really handle Flash and it was so obvious at the press event last week.)

So is any of this true? Maybe some of the language is questionable, but I wouldn’t really be surprised about any of this. It’s just business, not personal, right?

Source: http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=11925

Labels: Adobe Flash, Apple, Apple iPad, Google News, Google Nexus One

Google has decided to delay the planned release in China of two smartphones based on its Android platform, a sign the company's handset operations could be affected by its dispute with China over cyber security.

The company made the announcement a day before China Unicom was set to release Android phones from Motorola and Samsung. According to the New York Times, a source close to the situation said that given the uncertainty over Google's operations in China, the company decided the devices should not be released. Additionally, another unnamed source told the Wall Street Journal that it would be "irresponsible" to release the phones, given the current atmosphere.

Last week, Google said it had been the target of cyber security attacks originating in China, and that it would no longer censor the Chinese version of its search engine--even if that led to Google shutting down its operations in China.

Google had worked closely with the handset makers and China Unicom on the design of the devices, which were to come packaged with several Google applications. Google did not provide any further information on the delay.

Read more: http://www.fiercewireless.com/

Labels: Google, Google News, Google News for mobile

Typing on cellphones is more difficult than it is on computers. While the computer keyboard offers us a place to rest our hands to type and keys large enough to easily press, in a cellphone the tiny keys often make typing rather time consuming.

Google has recognized this difficulty faced by mobile phone users and has now introduced a new feature to save our time while running Google Search on our cellphones.



When we type some characters in the search bar of Google, some suggestions automatically appear. These suggestions might seem random to the average user and might be useless. But at times the suggestion is exactly what we need and occasionally even better than what we about to originally search for.

Google has now improved their search suggestions for cellphone users by presenting search suggestions based on the current or recent location of the cellphone user. For instance, typing ‘muse’ in the search bar while a user is in Boston will present suggestions like “Museums in Boston.”

Source: http://techcityinc.com

Labels: google android, Google News, Google Search

If you have not bought yourself the Nexus One Google Phone yet then please read the quick guide on how to buy it below.

All you need to do is visit google.com/phone and then click the “Get your phone”, which will get the whole purchase process started. You can buy this smartphone without a service plan for $529 USD, you can also buy obtain this device with a T-Mobile US service plan at a discounted price, whatever one you choose both phones are unlocked.

You will have to sign into your Google Account and provide your credit card number/billing address/shipping address, and then you will need to use the Google Checkout to complete the purchase. If your existing Google Account is not associated with Checkout, you will also be asked to sign up for Google Checkout before completing your purchase.

Do you want the Google Nexus One with the T-Mobile service? If you do you will need to have this information to hand: Where you will use the phone, Your Social Security number, your existing mobile phone number (if porting your number from another mobile provider) and Your T-Mobile account number (existing T-Mobile customers only).

A little about the T-Mobile service plan: This plan is called “T-Mobile 500 Even More individual service plan” and features 500 Whenever Minutes, Unlimited T-Mobile to T-Mobile calling, Unlimited nights and weekends, Unlimited web access and Unlimited text. This plan will cost $79.99 per month.

Source:http://www.phonesreview.co.uk

Labels: Google News, Google News for mobile, Google Nexus One, Google Phone

Over the next few weeks, we’re rolling out the ability to upload all file types to the cloud through Google Docs, giving you one place where you can upload and access your key files online. Because Google Docs now supports files up to 250 MB in size, which is larger than the attachment limit on most email applications, you’ll be able to backup large graphics files, RAW photos, ZIP archives and much more to the cloud. More importantly, instead of carrying a USB drive, you can now use Google Docs as a more convenient option for accessing your files on different computers.

This feature can also help you work with teams to organize and collaborate on information online. For example, an architect can share large schematic files with her construction firm, while a P.T.A. member can share large graphic files for posters with other members. You can even add these files to the same shared project folder your team has already been using to collaborate on documents and spreadsheets.

In addition to uploading any file into Google Docs, our Google Apps Premier Edition customers will be able to seamlessly upload many files at once and sync them with their desktop in real time using third party applications. You can read more about how the ability to upload any file will help businesses on theGoogle Enterprise blog.

This feature will be enabled for your account over the next couple of weeks — look for the bubble notification when you sign in to Google Docs. For more information, check out our post on the Google Docs blog.

Official Google Blog: Upload your files and access them anywhere with Google Docs

Labels: Google, Google Apps Engine, Google docs, Google News

Google News homepage added a new section for Fast Flip, the innovative service from Google Labs that lets you quickly scan news articles. Scroll to the bottom of the page and you'll see a list of the most viewed articles and some articles about popular topics.

So far we've found that the speed and visual nature of the service encourages readers to look at many articles and, for the ones that catch their interest, click through to the story publishers' websites," explains the Google News blog.



Unlike Google News, which only shows a small snippet from the article, Fast Flip displays a screenshot that includes the first paragraphs of the article. That means Google needs to get permission from each news site before adding it to Fast Flip. If the experiment is successful and Fast Flip makes news articles more discoverable, it could replace Google News image view.

Source:http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2010/01/fast-flip-in-google-news.html

Labels: Google Labs, Google News, Google News blog

Last week I sent an email to Googlers about the meaning of "open" as it relates to the Internet, Google, and our users. In the spirit of openness, I thought it would be appropriate to share these thoughts with those outside of Google as well.

At Google we believe that open systems win. They lead to more innovation, value, and freedom of choice for consumers, and a vibrant, profitable, and competitive ecosystem for businesses. Many companies will claim roughly the same thing since they know that declaring themselves to be open is both good for their brand and completely without risk. After all, in our industry there is no clear definition of what open really means. It is a Rashomon-like term: highly subjective and vitally important.

The topic of open seems to be coming up a lot lately at Google. I've been in meetings where we're discussing a product and someone says something to the effect that we should be more open. Then a debate ensues which reveals that even though most everyone in the room believes in open we don't necessarily agree on what it means in practice.

This is happening often enough for me to conclude that we need to lay out our definition of open in clear terms that we can all understand and support. What follows is that definition based on my experiences at Google and the input of several colleagues. We run the company and make our product decisions based on these principles, so I encourage you to carefully read, review, and debate them. Then own them and try to incorporate them into your work. This is a complex subject and if there is debate (and I'm sure there will be) it should be in the open! Please feel free to comment.

There are two components to our definition of open: open technology and open information. Open technology includes open source, meaning we release and actively support code that helps grow the Internet, and open standards, meaning we adhere to accepted standards and, if none exist, work to create standards that improve the entire Internet (and not just benefit Google). Open information means that when we have information about users we use it to provide something that is valuable to them, we are transparent about what information we have about them, and we give them ultimate control over their information. These are the things we should be doing. In many cases we aren't there, but I hope that with this note we can start working to close the gap between reality and aspiration.

By:Jonathan Rosenberg, Senior Vice President at Google
Google Public Policy Blog: The meaning of open

Labels: Google, Google News, Open Source, Open technology

Google is an amazing company, even more so from the inside. To the outside world Google is just search. But Google has made three big bets on the future of computing; Chrome (browser), Google Apps (cloud), and Android (mobile) that will change everything.

Vibe – Google is a high energy environment. Lots of smart people with big ideas. Everything is data driven. Decisions are made based on data that has been analyzed, and going forward everything is monitored and measured based on the data. Opinions and “gut feel” are considered too, but in the end, results are measured by data. Even things like travel expense caps for airfares and hotels are data driven. They keep track of every trip taken and the actual costs for airfares and hotels, then establish the caps based on the data.

The Google campus is beautiful, funky, and efficient. There are bicycles everywhere for people to use to get between buildings. In some ways it feels like a college campus, but the intensity level is much higher. Most people sit in open cubes with four or more people in a pod. Offices with doors typically have 2 or 3 people in them. People work in groups and there is a real sense of teamwork everywhere you look.

Perks – Free breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the gourmet cafes in each building. The food is awesome!! The 401K match is 50% of your contribution up to $8,250. Health plan is pretty good, but not as good as Microsoft’s plan. MSFT pays for everything, no co-pays, no deductibles. Google really caters to employees needs. Onsite dry cleaning service, car washes, Oil changes, ATM, Fitness Centers, Haircuts, Massage, and Concierge services.

Meetings - 30 minutes is the standard, start on time and end early if possible. Video Conferences are pretty standard since the company is geographically distributed. Nearly every conference room has video conference equipment. Everyone uses Google Docs to capture meeting notes, a true example of real time collaboration.


Gmail – The Gmail you all use as consumers is the same email all Google employees use internally. Threaded conversations are a HUGE time saver and help keep things organized. I didn’t really appreciate that feature until my departure from Microsoft when my email inbox was flooded with messages many with the same subject line.

More On:http://dondodge.typepad.com

Labels: Google Chrome Extensions, Google Cloud, Google News, Microsoft News

At Google, we are committed to giving you a consistent user experience across products and devices, and we really value the feedback you've given us about Google News for mobile. Today we're excited to announce a completely new Google News offering for iPhone, Android, and Palm Pre users. (We already offer a mobile-optimized version of Google News for other phones, such as Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and S60, and more improvements will be coming to those in the near future)

This new version provides the same richness and personalization on your phone as Google News provides on desktop. Our new homepage displays more stories, sources, and images while keeping a familiar look and feel. Also, you can now reach your favorite sections, discover new ones, find articles and play videos in fewer clicks. If you are an existing Google News reader on desktop, you will find that all of your personalizations are honored in this mobile version too.

Google News for mobile is now available in 29 languages and 70 editions.

So pick up your mobile phone and point your browser to http://news.google.com to catch up on news anytime and anywhere. Feel free to check out more information or leave feedback in our Help Center.


Official Google Mobile Blog: New Google News for mobile

Labels: Google News, Google News for mobile, Google News reader

Back in 2001, to give people a new, quicker way to find images, we launched Image Search. When you do a search for [eiffel tower] you'll find an array of images of the tower in the daytime, in black and white, at sunset and more. With Similar Images, which recently graduated from Google Labs, you can click "Find similar images" to narrow your search to, say, pictures of the Eiffel Tower lit up at night. Today, we've launched an experimental feature in Labs called Google Image Swirl, which builds on new computer vision research to cluster similar images into representative groups in a fun, exploratory interface.

For example, if you search on Image Swirl for [washington], you'll see 12 image thumbnails including President Washington, the Washington Monument, a map of Washington D.C. and the Capitol Building:




Once you find the group of images you're interested in, you can click on the thumbnail and a cluster of images will "swirl" into view. For example, here's what you'll see if you click the image of the Washington Monument:


You can then further explore additional sub-groups within any cluster. The interface may look familiar to those of you who have tried Google's Wonder Wheel available in the Search Options panel, which enables you to explore related search queries.

Official Google Blog: Explore images with Google Image Swirl, now in Labs

Labels: Google, Google Image Search, Google Image Swirl, Google Labs, Google News

Just over one year ago, we unveiled Google Earth for the iPhone and iPod touch. Google Earth quickly became one of the most popular applications in the App Store, and after only six months, was the second most-downloaded free application overall. A big thank-you to the over 220,000 users have taken the time to write a review!

Today, we're proud to announce version 2.0 of Google Earth for iPhone. We've added some exciting new features, including the ability to view maps that you create on your desktop computer right from your iPhone, explore the app in new languages, and improved icon selection and performance.

View your maps wherever you go



Have you ever wanted to view a custom map with Google Earth on your iPhone? Well, now you can. By logging in directly to your Google Maps account, you can view the same maps that you or others have created, using the My Maps interface. Maybe you're on a trip and want to see where Tony Wheeler, the co-founder of Lonely Planet, most likes to travel. Or perhaps you're walking around looking for a restaurant and you want to see where world-famous chef Ferran Adrià likes to eat. All you have to do is click "Save to My Maps", open Earth on the iPhone, log in with the same account information, and voilà, you have your same collection of My Maps right in your pocket.


It's fun to create and view your own maps as well. Here's an example of a map that I created that shows the two attempts my friends and I made to summit Mount Ritter in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. As you can see, we didn't quite make it (the red line is the intended route, and the blue and green lines are our 2008 and 2009 attempts, respectively). Next year we'll get it for sure! I created this map by using the desktop version of Google Earth to read the tracks directly out of my GPS device, saving the resulting tracks as a KML file, and then importing into My Maps in Google Maps. You can learn more about My Maps here.


Official Google Mobile Blog: An update to Google Earth for the iPhone

Labels: goo, Google Earth, Google Maps, Google News, Google Service

Today we're pleased to announce we've acquired Gizmo5, a company that provides Internet-based calling software for mobile phones and computers. While we don't have any specific features to announce right now, Gizmo5's engineers will be joining the Google Voice team to continue improving the Google Voice and Gizmo5 experience. Current Gizmo5 users will still be able to use the service, though we will be suspending new signups for the time being, and existing users will no longer be able to sign up for a call-in number.

We've acquired a number of small companies over the past five years, and the people and technology that have come to Google from other places have contributed in many ways, large and small, to all kinds of Google products. Since the GrandCentral team joined Google in 2007, they've done incredible things with Google's technology and resources to launch and improve Google Voice.

We welcome the Gizmo5 team to Google and look forward to working together to bringing more useful features to Google Voice.

Google Voice Blog: Google welcomes Gizmo5

Labels: Gizmo5, Google, Google News, Google Voice

Apple’s iPhone has dominated the smart-phone market the past couple of years, tearing down would be “iPhone killers” almost on a monthly basis.

This could soon change with the new Droid. Coupled with Google’s open-source software, Verizon's blazing network and Motorola’s new-age design, the Droid makes for a powerful Apple-directed dagger.

Structure
The phone is made up of two main pieces, the large, glass display up top, and the slightly longer keyboard / mainboard lower half. Above the 3.7-inch touch screen -- a full glass display with a large 480-by-854 resolution (slightly bigger than the iPhone).

There are four main buttons at the bottom of the display: back, menu, home and search. The top section slides smoothly upward to reveal the QWERTY keyboard.

The phone also has a 3.5-mm headphone jack and a power / sleep button, and camera button, a micro-USB port; a 5-megapixel camera (and flash), a thin, gold crosshatch strip that hides the Droid's speaker.



The thickness of the Droid is striking. It's just a bit thicker than the iPhone 3GS, which is impressive, considering it sports a full keyboard, a bigger screen than the iPhone and a flash-based camera.

Speed
The Droid sports a 600 MHz Arm Cortex A8 CPU 600MHz, with 256MB of RAM. That’s enough to browse the Internet, take a call on the speaker phone, while chatting it up on G-chat.

The phone was consistently responsive to opening and closing applications, switching between landscape and portrait modes, and multi-tasking. Users can further speed up their phone by turning off animations and effects.


Keyboard
The Droid’s built-in keyboard is a blessing for those still not comfortable with the virtual counterpart. The keyboard has shallow, but responsive click keys.

Although the keys can feel a bit cramped, typing on the Droid is an easy experience that will come naturally after a couple of days of use.

If you’re into the onscreen keyboard, you won’t be disappointed. The buttons are relatively large, and most importantly pretty accurate. You won’t be using the delete button as much as many iPhone users complain they must.

Camera
Motorola has outfitted the DROID with a 5 megapixel camera with an LED flash. The camera features the Android software that controls auto focus, flash settings, white balance and effects.

The biggest problem is that the camera is e painfully slow to focus and take pictures. Users can tweak the settings between close-ups and landscape photos to try to speed up the camera speed, but it's not an easy thing to do on the fly.

The quality of recorded video is one of the Droid's biggest assets. The Droid shoots at 720-by-480 resolution that produced some impressive shake-free videos and clear videos. The camera was able to handle shooting in bright sunlight, at night and even on a rainy day.

The Droid won’t replace the camera you use for weddings or formal social events, but it’s one of the sweetest phone cameras around.

Software
So what did Google do to support all the hardware pushed by Motorola? The biggest thing that will jump out to iPhone users is the multi-application support.

Users can read their Gmail, while listening to Pandora radio, while the built-in GPS tracks their location.

Gmail and Gchat setup is as easy as signing in to your Google account during the initial setup. After that, the phone will be continually connected to both (unless you choose otherwise). Users can also easily setup POP / IMAP / Exchange email accounts on the Droid.

Facebook account integration is built into the Android, so that all your friends will sync on your contact and calendar list. (Thankfully, this is only an option.) As for the application itself, you get a widget with the news feed, photos, friends list, profile, notifications, and an option to take a picture to post.

The contact list is straightforward. The quick contact function allows users to tap on someone's name and get a menu with jumps to the various ways you can reach out; if you're friends with someone on Facebook, you'll be given an option to message them there, along with SMS, phone, and e-mail choices.

APPS
At the opening bell on Friday, the Droid will have about 25,000 (free and paid) applications available, ranging from Facebook and Twitter to hundred of games.

While the iPhone claims over 100,000 apps, it will only be a matter time before the Droid hits the six figure mark. With Google’s Android’s open source software, it will probably be sooner than later.

Browser
The Web browsing might be one of the biggest selling points of the Droid. Surfing the net on this thing is virtually painless. Compared to the Apple’s ATNT network, the Verizon 3G network is blazing.

The Droid’s browser had no problem quickly loading graphic intensive sites like Newsday.com.

Coupled with the Droid’s massive display, its responsiveness, and speed, browsing and navigating the Internet is pretty easy and painless.

GPS
The Droid features fully realized turn-by-turn navigation which integrates with Google Maps. If you're familiar with Google Maps, the navigation is intuitive and easy to learn.

Google has gone all out with the GPS extras, providing a rich mixture of its satellite, map, traffic, and location info with text-to-speech directions.

Google also added layers like parking info, ATM spots, restaurants, and gas station locations like most dedicated GPS devices.

Probably the most important part of the Droid’s GPS services, its free.

Battery
My biggest disappointment with the Droid was its relatively short battery life. If you’re thinking of using a lot of screen time or heavy application usage, the phone will let you down.

About 30 minutes of listening to Pandora radio through a headset, pretty much drained most of the phone's battery. If you’re considering the Droid, be prepared to buy a couple of sets of chargers (home, office, vehicle).

Overall
The Droid is an excellent smart-phone with many of the features that a modern user would expect, and for Verizon customers, there isn't a more action packed device on the network.

Coupled with Google’s smooth software, Verizon's killer network, and Motorola’s new-aged design, the Droid makes for a powerful tool.

Full Story:http://www.newsday.com/

Labels: Google News, Google's Droid, Verizon Motorola Droid

We are excited to announce the launch of Google Dashboard. Have you ever wondered what data is stored with your Google Account? The Google Dashboard offers a simple view into the data associated with your account — easily and concisely in one location.

Over the past 11 years, Google has focused on building innovative products for our users. Today, with hundreds of millions of people using those products around the world, we are very aware of the trust that you have placed in us, and our responsibility to protect your privacy and data.

In the past, we've taken numerous steps in this area, investing in educating our users with our Privacy Center, making it easier to move data in and out of Google with our Data Liberation Front, and allowing you to control the ads you see with interest-based advertising. Transparency, choice and control have become a key part of Google's philosophy, and today, we're happy to announce that we're doing even more.

In an effort to provide you with greater transparency and control over their own data, we've built the Google Dashboard. Designed to be simple and useful, the Dashboard summarizes data for each product that you use (when signed in to your account) and provides you direct links to control your personal settings.

Google Dashboard covers more than 20 products and services, including Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Web History, Orkut, YouTube, Picasa, Talk, Reader, Alerts, Latitude and many more. The scale and level of detail of the Dashboard is unprecedented, and we're delighted to be the first Internet company to offer this — and we hope it will become the standard. Watch this quick video to learn more and then try it out for yourself at www.google.com/dashboard.

Source : http://googleblog.blogspot.com/

Labels: Gmail Calendar, Google Dashboard, Google News, Orkut, Picasa, YouTube

Millions of Google users worldwide use JavaScript-intensive applications such as Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Maps. Like developers everywhere, Googlers want great web apps to be easier to create, so we've built many tools to help us develop these (and many other) apps. We're happy to announce the open sourcing of these tools, and proud to make them available to the web development community.

Closure Compiler
Closure Compiler is a JavaScript optimizer that compiles web apps down into compact, high-performance JavaScript code. The compiler removes dead code, then rewrites and minimizes what's left so that it will run fast on browsers' JavaScript engines. The compiler also checks syntax, variable references, and types, and warns about other common JavaScript pitfalls. These checks and optimizations help you write apps that are less buggy and easier to maintain. You can use the compiler with Closure Inspector, a Firebug extension that makes debugging the obfuscated code almost as easy as debugging the human-readable source.

Because JavaScript developers are a diverse bunch, we've set up a number of ways to run the Closure Compiler. We've open-sourced a command-line tool. We've created a web application that accepts your code for compilation through a text box or a RESTful API. We are also offering a Firefox extension that you can use with Page Speed to conveniently see the performance benefits for your web pages.

Closure Library
Closure Library is a broad, well-tested, modular, and cross-browser JavaScript library. Web developers can pull just what they need from a wide set of reusable UI widgets and controls, as well as lower-level utilities for the DOM, server communication, animation, data structures, unit testing, rich-text editing, and much, much more. (Seriously. Check the docs.)

JavaScript lacks a standard class library like the STL or JDK. At Google, Closure Library serves as our "standard JavaScript library" for creating large, complex web applications. It's purposely server-agnostic and intended for use with the Closure Compiler. You can make your project big and complex (with namespacing and type checking), yet small and fast over the wire (with compilation). The Closure Library provides clean utilities for common tasks so that you spend your time writing your app rather than writing utilities and browser abstractions.

Closure Templates
Closure Templates grew out of a desire for web templates that are precompiled to efficient JavaScript. Closure Templates have a simple syntax that is natural for programmers. Unlike traditional templating systems, you can think of Closure Templates as small components that you compose to form your user interface, instead of having to create one big template per page.

Complete Post : http://googlecode.blogspot.com/

Labels: Gmail News, Google Closure Tools, Google docs, Google News

Google Wave has generated a lot of interest in the past few months, despite most people I’ve talked to being unclear about what the service is, and how to use it. I confess that after I finally got an invitation, I was somewhat perplexed when faced with Google Wave’s minimal interface.

Tech writers Gina Trapani and Adam Pash have created an online e-book, “The Complete Guide to Google Wave,” which does an excellent job of explaining what Google Wave is and how it can be used. The book provides step-by-step instructions on how to get invited to the service, what to do when you get there, and how to make the most of it.

For those of us who are used to skimming the highlights and jumping around in technical manuals, I strongly suggest that you read the book — at least the first couple of chapters — in full. It’s not that long, and will give you a working knowledge of the service. I suspect that web workers will find Wave to be a very useful collaboration tool once we get used to using it.

The book is written in a clear, straightforward style, and is sprinkled with helpful and sometimes humorous quotes like this one from Wave user Andy Baio: “I keep pushing the New Wave button, but it never plays Depeche Mode or The Cure.”

An electronic version of the book will be offered for sale beginning in November; it’s unclear whether the online version will continue to be available once the book comes out. So if you’re interested in Google Wave, this is an excellent time to learn more about it. But you may need some patience; the book’s web site has been very slow, as I suspect it’s getting more traffic than the authors expected.

Are you using Google Wave?

Source: http://webworkerdaily.com/

Labels: Google News, Google wave, Google Wave applications

There are two brass rings in search these days: real time and social. Google (and Bing) have been working on the real time thing with Twitter, and last week Google announced they were working on a Social Search option in Labs—and now it’s out.

With Social Search, Google finds relevant public content from your friends and contacts and highlights it for you at the bottom of your search results. When I do a simple query for [new york], Google Social Search includes my friend’s blog on the results page under the heading “Results from people in your social circle for New York.” I can also filter my results to see only content from my social circle by clicking “Show options” on the results page and clicking “Social.”

All of the info in Social Search is publicly available, but they highlight info based on their (massive data collection) information about you from:

• Google profile contacts


• Gmail contacts, chats and groups


• People you’re following on FriendFeed or Twitter


• Feeds in your Google Reader

Story URL : http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2009/10/

Labels: Google, Google News, Google Social Search, Social Media News

Now you can export all your documents, spreadsheets, presentations and PDFs from Google Docs in a ZIP archive.

The most difficult part is to select all your files: you need to go to the "All items" section, scroll down to the bottom of the documents list, click on the checkbox button from the toolbar and then on "select all visible". Google Docs uses "infinite scrolling", but it's not smart enough to select all the documents from a view.



After selecting all your files (or only some of them), right-click and choose "export". A dialog lets you choose the download format for each kind of file: Microsoft Office formats, OpenOffice formats, PDF or some other formats.

Source:http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/10/export-google-docs.html

Labels: Google, Google docs, Google News

Google will soon launch a music service, we’ve heard from multiple sources, and the company has spent the last several weeks securing content for the launch of the service from the major music labels. One source has referred to the new service as Google Audio.

We’re still gathering details, but our understanding is the service will be very different to the Google China music download service that they launched in 2008. That service, which is only available in China, allows users to search for music and download it for free.



This new service will be available for at least U.S. users, our sources confirm, although it isn’t clear if it’s a download or streaming service, or both. Google already has a decent (if little used) music search engine that can be accessed by simply typing “music:” before a query (example). But songs are not available for streaming or download from those searches.


Source:http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/21/google-music-service-the-screenshots/

Labels: Google, Google Audio, Google News, Google Service

If you got an iPhone and want to test Google Wave on it, there’re two ways to get Wave to work on your iPhone: First’s to go to wave.google.com using mobile Safari. Click through the warning, as it works well, as the site is optimized for Webkit-based browsers. You can select different conversation “waves” (or threads) and contacts, or dive into a specific wave.


To get rid of Safari wrapper to use web apps; save a Wave bookmark on your Home screen; clicking the icon takes you to Wave, but without the Safari wrapper which allows you to navigate to another page or search the Web. Instead, it looks more like a regular app and there’s no way to navigate away from it. Everything else works the same as in the mobile browser version. Google confirms that’s indeed the case, explained. When you bookmark Wave it launches in “app mode,” which’s an existing option for developers on the iPhone.

By:http://www.ditii.com/2009/10/14/google-wave-tips-to-run-on-iphone/

Labels: Google News, Google wave, iPhone App, iPhone News

Some of us here at Google spend almost all of our time thinking about one thing: How do we create a three-dimensional model of every built structure on Earth? How do we make sure it's accurate, that it stays current and that it's useful to everyone who might want to use it?

One of the best ways to get a big project done — and done well — is to open it up to the world. As such, today we're announcing the launch of Google Building Maker, a fun and simple (and crazy addictive, it turns out) tool for creating buildings for Google Earth.

We like to think of Building Maker as a cross between Google Maps and a gigantic bin of building blocks. Basically, you pick a building and construct a model of it using aerial photos and simple 3D shapes – both of which we provide. When you're done, we take a look at your model. If it looks right, and if a better model doesn't already exist, we add it to the 3D Buildings layer in Google Earth. You can make a whole building in a few minutes.

Our early beta testers insist that Building Maker is more like a game than a tool. Check out this video to see Building Maker in action:




Google LatLong: Introducing Google Building Maker

Labels: Google, Google Building Maker, Google News

The quality of facts table generator Google Squared seems to have improved, so you might want to give it another try. Entering the same search as I did when the tool was released in July this year, comic book character, I’m now getting better columns and more correct values. Perhaps there is also a higher confidence threshold required for values to show up, i.e. some values which were previously right are now missing, but some others which were previously wrong are also gone.

Google also say they built Squared to “learn from edits and corrections, so as people have been improving their squares, Google Squared has gotten better for everyone”. As my single search comparison is very non-represenative I’m curious what you think of the update, and how your queries are performing.



One feature I wished for when I first looked at the app was export of the data to CSV or Google Spreadsheets, which is now both possible via a top-right hand button, as Google’s announces. Plus, tables generated can now hold more data, increased from 30 fact cells to 120. Last not least, you can sort columns.

Google squared was probably one of Google’s more premature releases (the crown still belongs to Google Open Social I guess!), but in just a few months it already made quite a jump. Wonder at what speed it will continue from here?

[Image:http://blogoscoped.com/]

Story:http://blogoscoped.com/

Labels: Google News, Google Squared, Google Squared Features

Google is celebrating the 57th anniversary of the patenting of the barcode with a Google logo that is literally a barcode.

On October 7, 1952, Joseph Woodland, Bernard Silver, and Jordin Johanson were awarded US Patent 2,612,994, after waiting since 1949 for it to come through.



The barcode could have ended up in the hands of IBM, where Woodland and Johanson moved to in 1951 and “continually tried to interest IBM in developing the system.” IBM commissioned a report which concluded “that it was both feasible and interesting, but that processing the resulting information would require equipment that was some time off in the future.”

In 1952 Philco purchased the patent, and then sold it to RCA the same year.

The common use of barcodes though was more recent. In July 1972 RCA began an eighteen-month test of their system in a Kroger store in Cincinnati. By 1977, there were scanning machines in fewer than 200 grocery stores in the United States. By 1980 the technology was being adopted by 8000 stores per year.

At 34 I’m just old enough to remember shopping at a supermarket where every item had a price tag. During the 80’s old fashioned price tags
disappeared, and today you even see self service checkouts in supermarkets.

Although not yet confirmed by Google, it’s fair guess that the barcode logo on Google.com equates to something along the lines of Google, be it in the numeric form of the word.

Via:http://www.inquisitr.com/41117/google-barcode-logo/

Labels: Google, Google News, Google Search

In the most recent stable release of Google Chrome, we looked at ways to make a snappy, simple browser even more customizable, and we're happy to hear that you've enjoyed personalizing Google Chrome's look and feel with a few of our early themes for the browser.

Today, we are introducing Artist Themes for Google Chrome. We invited leading artists, architects, musicians, illustrators, filmmakers and fashion and interior designers from across the globe to create artwork for an unusual canvas: the modern web browser. The result is a vibrant fusion of art and technology, with a hundred Artist Themes that we hope will add a touch of inspiration and delight to your web browsing experience with Google Chrome.

One of our favorite themes comes from Yulia Brodskaya, whose innovative paper art techniques and passion for typography and illustration have brought her into the international spotlight. We were particularly intrigued by Yulia's approach to the design challenge at hand, explained in her own words:

I was really curious to see how the traditional paper craft, which I use for creating my work, can be applied to the Google Chrome browser. I made a quick pencil sketch first, choosing the two main elements for my theme: green jungle leaves for the top and a very colourful parrot to accompany it. Then I followed my usual working pattern and created a physical artwork out of edge glued paper stripes. I used the photographs of the paper leaves and parrot to design my theme layout, and sent the resulting mock-up to Google designers who brought the whole thing to life.

Source:http://chrome.blogspot.com/2009/10/splash-of-color-to-your-browser-artist.html

Labels: Google, Google Chrome, Google Chrome themes, Google News

Microsoft Bing was launched as a challenger to Google this summer. But according to the latest search engine statistics from Stat Counter, the MS search engine has lost its sheen to Google search. The decline isn’t limited to the U.S., either. The search engine’s global market share has dipped slightly to 3.3 percent in September from 3.6 percent the month before. It means that the initial hype is now fading and people are now looking for some “real search results” instead of all the fun and fancy results.

On the other side, Google search was a big gainer. Google’s search market share went up from 77.83% to 80.08%. It also has a global market share of over 90%. The statistics have been collected using more than 4.6 billion search engine clicks on sites that are tracked by StatCounter. US traffic accounts for over 1.1 billion of those clicks.

Labels: Google News, Google Search, Microsoft Bing

How long would it take to translate all the world's web content into 50 languages? Even if all of the translators in the world worked around the clock, with the current growth rate of content being created online and the sheer amount of data on the web, it would take hundreds of years to make even a small dent.

Today, we're happy to announce a new website translator gadget powered by Google Translate that enables you to make your site's content available in 51 languages. Now, when people visit your page, if their language (as determined by their browser settings) is different than the language of your page, they'll be prompted to automatically translate the page into their own language. If the visitor's language is the same as the language of your page, no translation banner will appear.



After clicking the Translate button, the automatic translations are shown directly on your page.



It's easy to install — all you have to do is cut and paste a short snippet into your webpage to increase the global reach of your blog or website.

Automatic translation is convenient and helps people get a quick gist of the page. However, it's not a perfect substitute for the art of professional translation. Today happens to be International Translation Day, and we'd like to take the opportunity to celebrate the contributions of translators all over the world. These translators play an essential role in enabling global communication, and with the rapid growth and ease of access to digital content, the need for them is greater than ever. We hope that professional translators, along with translation tools such as Google Translator Toolkit and this Translate gadget, will continue to help make the world's content more accessible to everyone.

Posted by Jeff Chin, Product Manager

Official Google Blog: Translate your website with Google: Expand your audience globally

Labels: Google, Google News, Google Translator Gadget

Google Inc.'s highly anticipated communication and collaboration tool - Google Wave - is one big step closer to its first customer shipment.

The company is inviting about 100,000 users and developers to preview the new technology, Lars Rasmussen, an engineering manager, and Stephanie Hannon, a group product manager at Google, said in a blog post today. The users and developers will get the invitations tomorrow, they said in the post.

The Google bloggers acknowledged that Google Wave, which was unveiled this past May, still isn't yet ready for prime time. But, they added, the developers are now ready to get some feedback on the current iteration of the tool.

"We'll ask some of these early users to nominate people they know also to receive early invitations -- Google Wave is a lot more useful if your friends, family and colleagues have it too," wrote Rasmussen and Hannon. "This, of course, will just be the beginning. If all goes well we will soon be inviting many more to try out Google Wave."

The Web-based Google Wave application is designed to consolidate features from e-mail, instant messaging, blogging, wikis, multimedia management and document sharing. Using social networking-like interfaces, the tool should enable collaboration and community-building applications.

Source:http://www.computerworld.com/

Labels: Google, Google News, Google wave, Google Wave applications

We believe that our customers should be able to access their information on the mobile device of their choice, using the applications of their choice. That's why we're excited today to announce support for push mail on iPhone and Windows Mobile devices. Google Apps now offers a complete mobile sync solution for businesses.

Apps customers who love native mobile applications can now get push mail, contacts and calendar across the major corporate devices: Blackberry, iPhone, Windows Mobile and of course, Android. With the over-the-air, always-on push connections, emails and changes to calendar events and contacts are reflected very quickly on their phones. And for those who prefer the mobile web, we also offer web applications for a rich experience, like threaded conversations and search across the entire inbox.

Google Sync is free to all Google Apps customers, and can be enabled by domain administrators in the US English version of the administrative control panel. If you're already using Google Sync for contacts and calendar, push mail is automatically enabled. iPhone and Windows Mobile users can set up Google Sync in a few easy steps directly from their phones, and those already syncing Calendar and Contacts can simply enable Mail sync on their phones. Google Sync is also available for people with personal Gmail and Google Calendar accounts.

You can read more about Google Sync here, and learn about our solutions for all devices, like Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server, on Google Apps mobile access page.

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Push mail for iPhone and Windows Mobile: the choice is yours

Labels: Gmail, Google Apps Engine, Google News, iPhone and Windows Mobile

Everyone benefits from cloud computing, though few stand to benefit more than government. The cloud helps agencies at all levels increase productivity, cut costs, keep pace with technology innovation, and become more open and transparent with their citizens.

That's why we were pleased to join other industry leaders today at NASA's Ames Research Center to hear Vivek Kundra, the CIO of the US Federal Government, announce the launch of Apps.gov. Apps.gov is an online storefront that makes it easy for federal agencies to browse and purchase cloud-based IT services from a variety of service providers, including Google. The cloud is coming of age, and we applaud the Obama Administration's efforts to ensure our government realizes its many advantages.

We also want to do our part to make it easier for government to transition to cloud computing. We recognize that government agencies have unique regulatory and compliance requirements for IT systems, and cloud computing is no exception. So we've invested a lot of time in understanding government's needs and how they relate to cloud computing. To help meet those requirements we're taking two important steps:

• FISMA certification for Google Apps. In July, we announced our intent to secure certification for Google Apps to demonstrate compliance with the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), the law defining security requirements that must be met by all US Federal government information systems. Our FISMA process is nearing completion. We will submit a Certification and Accreditation (C&A) package to the U.S. Government before the end of this year. Upon review and approval of the Google Apps C&A package, agencies will be able to deploy Google Apps knowing that it is authorized to operate under FISMA.
  
  
• Dedicated Google cloud for government customers in the US. Today, we're excited to announce our intent to create a government cloud, which we expect to become operational in 2010. Offering the same services and features as our existing commercial cloud (such as Google Apps), this dedicated environment within existing Google facilities in the US will serve the unique needs of US federal, state, and local governments. It is similar to a "Community Cloud" as defined by the National Institute for Science and Technology. The government cloud will allow Google to manage and meet additional government policy requirements beyond FISMA.

We look forward to working with governments across the country on these exciting initiatives in the months ahead.


Official Google Enterprise Blog: Google Apps and Government

Labels: Cloud computing, Google Apps Engine, Google Cloud, Google News

One problem with reading news online today is that browsing can be really slow. A media-rich page loads dozens of files and can take as much as 10 seconds to load over broadband, which can be frustrating. What we need instead is a way to flip through articles really fast without unnatural delays, just as we can in print. The flow should feel seamless and let you rapidly flip forward to the content you like, without the constant wait for things to load. Imagine taking 10 seconds to turn the page of a print magazine!

Today we're adding a new experiment to Google Labs: Google Fast Flip, accessible at fastflip.googlelabs.com. Fast Flip is a new reading experience that combines the best elements of print and online articles. Like a print magazine, Fast Flip lets you browse sequentially through bundles of recent news, headlines and popular topics, as well as feeds from individual top publishers. As the name suggests, flipping through content is very fast, so you can quickly look through a lot of pages until you find something interesting. At the same time, we provide aggregation and search over many top newspapers and magazines, and the ability to share content with your friends and community. Fast Flip also personalizes the experience for you, by taking cues from selections you make to show you more content from sources, topics and journalists that you seem to like. In short, you get fast browsing, natural magazine-style navigation, recommendations from friends and other members of the community and a selection of content that is serendipitous and personalized.



To build Google Fast Flip, we partnered with three dozen top publishers, including the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Salon, Fast Company, ProPublica and Newsweek.


Google News Blog: Read news fast with Google Fast Flip

Labels: Google, Google Fast Flip, Google Labs, Google News

My cousin is in first grade and sometimes she writes short stories for class. I try to share the stories with her grandparents, but because Japanese is their first language and they don't speak English very well, it's been tough. Today we're releasing a feature for Google Docs to make this kind of multi-lingual sharing easier — you can now automatically translate documents into 42 different languages.

So for my cousin's latest story, I helped her type it up in Google Docs and then clicked "Translate document" from the "Tools" menu. In a matter of seconds, Google Docs has translated the whole story into Japanese using Google Translate's technology.



You can replace the original document with the translation or make a new translated version. I like keeping an English version for friends here and creating a separate Japanese version for her grandparents. All the formatting and layout is preserved no matter what language it's in — translations aren't perfect, but we are continuously working on improving translation quality over time. We hope this new feature helps you more easily share information without worrying about language barriers.




Official Google Blog: Translate documents: sharing across languages and generations

Labels: Google, Google docs, Google News, Google Reader

Over the years, we've heard a lot from people who've unearthed hidden treasures in Google Books: a crafter who uncovered a forgotten knitting technique, a family historian who discovered her ancestor once traveled the country with a dancing, roller-skating bear. The books they found were out of copyright and in the public domain, which meant they could read the full text and even download a PDF version of the book.

I'm excited to announce that starting today, Google Books will offer free downloads of these and more than one million more public domain books in an additional format, EPUB. By adding support for EPUB downloads, we're hoping to make these books more accessible by helping people around the world to find and read them in more places.

More people are turning to new reading devices to access digital books, and many such phones, netbooks, and e-ink readers have smaller screens that don't readily render image-based PDF versions of the books we've scanned.

EPUB is a lightweight text-based digital book format that allows the text to automatically conform (or "reflow") to these smaller screens. And because EPUB is a free, open standard supported by a growing ecosystem of digital reading devices, works you download from Google Books as EPUBs won't be tied to or locked into a particular device.

We'll also continue to make available these books in the popular PDF format so you can see images of the pages just as they appear in the printed book.

To get started, just find any public domain book on Google Books and click on the Download button in the toolbar.



Inside Google Books: Download Over a Million Public Domain Books from Google Books in the Open EPUB Format

Labels: Google, Google News

When composing messages, you probably rely pretty heavily on auto-complete to add recipients. Auto-complete is convenient and fast, and usually does the trick. But sometimes seeing your list of contacts can help you remember all the people you want to include on your email. So, we've added a contact chooser to Gmail. Click the "To:" link (or Cc:/Bcc:) when composing a message and you'll see something like this:


You can click on the contacts you want to add or search for others.

If you use contact groups, your groups will appear in a drop-down menu in the contact chooser, so you can select contacts from the groups you've already created. And if you happen to use Gmail in Chinese, Japanese or Korean, being able to pick from your list of contacts should be particularly useful since auto-complete doesn't offer the same search as you type experience that it does in other languages.


Official Gmail Blog: Composing a message? Try the contact chooser

Labels: Gmail News, Google, Google Apps Engine, Google News

iGoogle is a start page for number of users to access customized information like: news, emails, blog posts and much more. It also allows you to chat with iGoogle friends. Now you can extend this chatting experience by doing video chat with iGoogle friends. Video chat was introduced for Gmail users while back and now it is also available for iGoogle users.

Start video chat on iGoogle page

1. Download Video chat plugin (not need to download, if it is already installed for Gmail video chat)
2. To start video chat, goto menu option Actions > Start video chat
3. Green icon next to friend name lists video chat ready friends.
4. Start the chat in popup window & make it bigger or fullscreen mode.

Video chat on iGoogle is ideal for Gmail users without going into Gmail. It is also useful for non-Gmail users and can be used by any user with Google account. iGoogle start page just became more interactive and chatty with video chat feature. This feature is not available to all users, it will be rolled out to all the users in the next few days according to Google.

Labels: Google News, iGoogle, iGoogle Video Chat

Google Yahoo and Bing fight for the top three spots for search engines. Apps are very important features for many users. Each of these three giants have focused differently on the subject at hand…apps.

Google, Yahoo, and Bing are the three most used search engines on the internet. Each one has apps which we use to make our (online) life more enjoyable and more productive. The apps which we enjoy so much are developed in order to appease the appetites of the internet world for more techno-advancements.

Google, Yahoo, and Bing all use their apps to attract new users in order to garner higher usage, thus getting higher ranking and pay for their services and goods. Let’s take a look at some of the individual apps that Google, Yahoo, and Bing have in their portfolios.

Google’s apps are very useful, indeed. For starters, Google calendars is a great way to keep track of the events in your life. You can also use the calendar to update your friends as to what is going on in your life.

This is can be very beneficial for someone who is on the go! When people have a difficult time following what you are up to in your busy world, they can receive updates via the web! You won’t have to answer so many questions like, “where have you been?” A simple, bur rewarding feature to Google’s apps list.

Yahoo has an app called Daily activities planner, which is similar to Google’s calendar, yet more customizable as it has many templates one can use to make their daily grind more enjoyable to update. Bing’s apps are pretty much limited as of yet. I believe this an attempt to streamline in order to produce a more useful search engine.

Cutting the fat may have allowed for more focus on the search engine’s capabilities for search. Of course MSN has apps as well, but this is a discussion of the top three search engines apps, so we’ll stick with the discussion.

Next up is email platforms.Google’s email platform is used by more advertisers (spammers) because it seems to get passed the spam guards more easily. It also seems that there are more options for those with slow connections or weak computers. One can load only in basic HTML if the connection seems to have trouble loading.

This is great for someone such as myself with lack of computing power. Yahoo’s mail services, both plus and classic seem to load very slowly and take quite a bit of resources for the slow computer.Multitasking can be a pain while trying to utilize Yahoo mail at the same time.

The features offered are well put together, though. It is a more navigable environment than Gmail once inside. Bing uses Windows live or hotmail as their platform for email service. There are several extensions which makes this engine a great place to setup throwaway accounts and I for one just found passwords for a mail account that I have not opened for at least four years.

There were over 8, 500 emails in the inbox, but the account was still functioning! I was amazed. I guess reliability is not a problem with Microsoft’s email platform.

[Via:http://webupon.com/search-engines/google-yahoo-or-bing-apps/]

Labels: Google News, Google Search, Microsoft Bing, Yahoo Search

Today we're pleased to announce a new Google Labs application for Android-powered devices in the US called, Listen. Listen quickly finds podcasts and web audio relevant to your searches, lets you stream over-the-air or download for later, and subscribe to fresh content from your favorite feeds and searches. In short, Listen helps organize the world of audio information and makes it easily accessible anytime, anywhere. And if you agree with the Jimi Hendrix quote that is the title of this post, then Listen may actually make you wiser, too.

Listen lets you stay informed even while engaged in other activities. Our colleagues use Listen as a personal audio-magazine while exercising, commuting, gardening, cleaning, dressing, cooking, and more*.



Source Images:googlemobile.blogspot.com

Official Google Mobile Blog: "Knowledge speaks but wisdom listens."

Labels: Android, Android applications, Google, Google Apps Engine, Google News

Google has come up with bookmark syncing for users of its Chrome web browser.Wit this you can sync your chrome browser bookmarks on different machines either home office or any other machine.

Xmarks, the well known Bookmark syncing utility is also letting users register for a beta to test out its Chrome support.

On its blog Google (Google) explained the new addition:-

As of today’s dev channel build, we’re adding a brand new feature to Google Chrome: bookmark sync. Many users have several machines,one at home and one at work for example.This new feature makes it easy to keep the same set of bookmarks on all your machines,and stores them alongside your Google Docs for easy web access.

To activate this feature,launch Google Chrome(Google Chrome)with the –enable-sync command-line flag. Once you set up sync from the Tools menu, Chrome will then upload and store your bookmarks in your Google Account.Anytime you add or change a bookmark, your changes will be sent to the cloud and immediately broadcast to all other computers for which you’ve activated bookmark sync (using the same XMPP technology as Google Talk).

Labels: Google, Google Chrome, Google News

We launched iGoogle in 2005 as a way for people to quickly and easily personalize their Google experience with all the information on the web that was most useful to them. Now tens of millions of people choose to use their iGoogle homepage to check email, track the news, watch videos, chat with friends and much more. Today, we're pleased to tell you about the new social features that we're introducing to iGoogle.

First, we're excited to introduce social gadgets for iGoogle. Social gadgets let you share, collaborate and play games with your friends on top of all the things you can already do on your homepage. The 19 social gadgets we're debuting today offer many new ways to make your homepage more useful and fun. If you're a gaming fanatic, compete with others in Who has the biggest brain? or challenge your fellow Chess or Scrabble enthusiasts to a quick match. Stay tuned in to the latest buzz with media-sharing gadgets from NPR, The Huffington Post, and YouTube. To manage your day-to-day more efficiently, check things off alongside your friends with the social To-Do list gadget.



Source: Official Google Blog: I scream, you scream, we all scream for iGoogle social!

Labels: Google, Google News, iGoogle, iGoogle social media

Since our last big launch, we've been thinking about ways to help our users better share, discover, and consume content in Reader. Today, I'm happy to announce several new features that we hope will further improve the way you use Reader.

Send to...
Send to menuWe've made it easier to share posts you like to Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, and more, with our new "Send to" feature. (Incidentally, Blogger is celebrating its tenth birthday this month, and we're hoping our friends there will like this little birthday present.)

Just head over to the settings page, and enable the services you want to use. If your favorite service isn't listed (and you're feeling extra geeky), you can create your own "Send to" link with a URL template.



Official Google Reader Blog: A flurry of features for feed readers

Labels: Google, Google News, Google Reader

When it comes to Apple and the iPhone, it was a weekend of fear and loathing. From loving Google Voice to Apple’s pending doom, we read it all. While I agree with some of the points that were raised, I see little to no evidence that Apple and its iPhone platform are going to melt down anytime soon. Sure, Google’s Android is going to be a worthy competitor, but it’s likely to wound other mobile ecosystems, such as Symbian and Palm’s Pre, before derailing the speeding freight train being driven by Apple.

Many have already already made a case that Apple isn’t doomed, so I won’t bother. Instead, I would like to let the data from Flurry, a San Francisco-based mobile analytics startup, speak for itself. The data in this report is computed from a sample size of more than 1,600 live applications and 60 million consumers across four platforms: Apple (iPhone and iPod Touch),Google Android, BlackBerry and JavaME.

According to the data collected by Flurry, developer momentum for the iPhone platform shows no sign of abating. The number of iPhone apps is growing 14 percent every month, to stand at roughly 65,000 applications in July. At that rate, Apple’s App Store will have some 100,000 applications by the end of 2009.

Source:http://gigaom.com/2009/08/10/the-battle-of-the-apps-google-vs-apple/

Labels: Google, Google News, iPhone, iPhone 3 G

Voicemail transcription is a popular feature of Google Voice. Having the ability to receive a transcript of a new voicemail by email or SMS and get a quick idea of what a voicemail is about, saves you time in deciding which voicemails are worth listening to.

Since transcription is fully automated and most people often don't talk in the same organized manner that they write, it is tricky to insert punctuation into a message. And reading long messages without punctuation can feel weird.

Today we made some more progress on transcript readability and launched an improved transcription engine with punctuation. Don't expect it to insert question marks for your callers' questions, but it should help make your message transcripts easier to read by breaking them into sentences separated by periods.

We hope you will like the improvement...


Google Voice Blog: Towards better transcription. Period.

Labels: Google, Google News, Google Voice

Every morning, millions of people wake up to a very refreshing experience at work. They don't see "mailbox is full" errors in their email. They don't worry about backing up their data. They can get to any file they need from any computer, anywhere with Internet access and a browser. They can all access and edit the same documents and spreadsheets at the same time as their colleagues. They use Gmail and Google Calendar at work as fluidly and easily as they use their personal Gmail accounts. They video, voice and text chat with their peers globally as naturally as they send email.

The IT people at these companies and organizations don't waste time or money buying, installing or managing email servers. They focus on the smart, innovative stuff they want to work on, because they never have to bother with expensive and painful software upgrades, hardware compatibility issues or managing data centers. They have left many IT frustrations and costs behind and moved on to something better.



Official Google Blog: "Going Google" with Google Apps

Labels: Gmail News, Google, Google News, Google Search

Google Voice is now more useful for BlackBerry and Android users. It has released apps for both platforms that provide access to the service’s features. With Google Voice mobile app for Blackberry and Android, users can now make calls and send SMS messages with their Google Voice number directly from their mobile phone. The app is fully integrated with each phone’s contacts, so they can call via Google Voice straight from the address book.

The main function of the apps is to make it easier to use your Google Voice phone number by automatically routing outbound calls through Google and to the recipient. Google Voice users get a phone number that should be the only number that they give out to people.

You route calls to mobile, home and other phones based on who’s calling and when. But there’s always been a nagging problem with the service - when you call out from your phones, people don’t see your Google Voice number on caller ID. They just see whatever phone number you are calling from. That means your friends have to store another phone number for you, or they don’t know who’s calling.

The Apps also allow users to access the core features of Google Voice. Listen to/read voice-mails and text messages (all voice-mails are automatically transcribed as well), access call history, send SMS and place international calls at low rates.

If you use more than one mobile, Google voice enables you to use one number for all of them, along with the ability to make outgoing text messages and calls, and international rates that start from US2c per minute.

Google Voice now seamless integrates with your phone’s address book, and when you call or text someone they see your Google Voice number rather than your mobile number.

You can also view your call history and, via the transcription feature, read your voice-mail – yes you read that right.

Google engineering manager David Singleton and product manager Marcus Foster assured that they were working on an iPhone app as well, and said it’s possible to use many Google Voice features via the mobile website.

Labels: Google, Google Apps Engine, Google News, Google wave

We believe you should only get the mail you want to get. Some of you already use the "Report Spam" button on all kinds of unwanted email, and for that we're very thankful: the more spam you mark, the better our system gets at weeding out junk mail.

Unsubscribing from mailing lists and newsletters you subscribed to a while back but no longer want to receive should be just as easy. Searching through individual messages for little unsubscribe links is too big a pain —you should be able to unsubscribe with a single click.



So we just launched something that makes this all work better, both for Gmail users and big email senders. Now, when you report spam on a legitimate newsletter or mailing list, we'll help you unsubscribe. After clicking report spam, you'll see a little dialog like this

Official Gmail Blog: Unsubscribing made easy

Labels: Google, Google Apps Engine, Google News

Many of the features in Google Maps involve adding layers of information to your map: the 'More' button (like Wikipedia and Transit), Traffic, My Maps and search layers (little red dots onyour map).

We're now adding lots of this same functionality to your mobile phone. With Google Maps for mobile 3.2 for Symbian S60 & Windows Mobile phones (and soon on other platforms too!) you can now access and interact with this content by tapping "Layers" in your main menu.

Not only are search results more useful but it's now easier to search in the new version as well. Under Search, you'll find a link to browse popular categories, which helped us avoid the pain of typing on a mobile whilst out on the road (only available in the US and China for the time being).


For more information about Google Maps for mobile 3.2 Google LatLong: Lots of layers in Google Maps for mobile 3.2

Labels: Google Maps, Google News

Ever since I was a young girl, it has been a dream of mine to travel into space. In September of 2006, I was fortunate enough to make that dream a reality — I took off from the launch pad in Baikonur bound for the International Space Station and became the world's first private female space tourist. Since then, it's been my mission to help as many people as possible think ambitiously about ways to push the boundaries of exploration, both here on Earth and beyond. As a trustee of the X PRIZE Foundation, and the sponsor of the Ansari X PRIZE, I support Google's goal of opening up space through projects like the Google Lunar X PRIZE, which serve to educate the public about the global benefits of space exploration.

That's why I'm so excited about the release of Moon in Google Earth, which is launching today at the Newseum in Washington D.C. This tool will make it easier for millions of people to learn about space, our moon and some of the most significant and dazzling discoveries humanity has accomplished together.

Official Google Blog: Explore the moon in Google Earth

Labels: Google Earth, Google News

It’s been an exciting few months since we announced Google Voice. The feedback from early users has been terrific, and the requests for invites have been flowing in. We started sending invites a few weeks ago and will keep sending them daily.

At the same time, we continue to improve the service and address your requests and feedback. Among the most requested features are tools to make placing outgoing calls from your Google Voice number easier. So today, we’re pleased to announce a Google Voice mobile app for Blackberry and Android.

Previously, to place a call using Google Voice, you had to dial your own Google Voice number from your cell phone or use the Quick Call button online.

Official Google Blog: Google Voice mobile app for Blackberry and Android

Labels: Google News, Google Voice

Google Chrome has always been a little more than a browser: it's optimized for running web applications, each tab runs as a separate process, the interface is minimalistic and there's even a task manager. "We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build," said Google in September 2008.

Google's blog announces a natural extension of the Chrome project: an operating system for netbooks. "Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. (...) Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel."

Link to this post: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com

Labels: Google, Google Chrome, Google News