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Latest Gear Live Videos
Google Latitude now lets you check in to local spots
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Google, GPS, Software,
In the crowded world of location apps like Foursquare and Facebook Places, Google Latitude aimed to differentiate itself from the rest of the pack. Unlike the others which center around checking into places by tapping an icon, Latitude always tracked where you were in real-time, without any user interaction needed. Then it would share your whereabouts with your friends as you moved around. Thing is, people like checking in. So Google went ahead and added the ability to check in on Latitude, which will allow more flexibility for users of the app. A more interesting feature in Latitude is you can even choose to be automatically checked into locations, which sounds fairly ridiculous given how close many spots are to each other.
Gallery: Google Latitude now lets you check in to local spots
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Google’s censorship of BitTorrent, Rapidshare, and MegaUpload has begun
Posted by Reza Malayeri Categories: Corporate News, Google, Internet,
The age of Google censorship is finally here. Google announced several weeks ago that they planned on rolling out censorship of "piracy related" keywords. Pressure from the RIAA and MPAA has resulted in keyword censorship by Google. Phrases that are currently being censored include: BitTorrent, torrent, utorrent, RapidShare and Megaupload. Interestingly, the censorship does not apply to Google's full search results, and the questionable keywords are only being filtered out of Google's "Autocomplete", and "Instant" services.
Reports are coming in that Google's censorship is arbitrary. "What is most surprising about the new filter is that the keywords appear to be picked arbitrarily. It includes BitTorrent clients such as uTorrent and Xunlei, but not BitComet and Vuze. While cyberlockers such as RapidShare and Megaupload are banned, prominent sites such as 4shared, HotFile and MediaFire are not."
This has created an interesting situation for Google. Are they becoming the very thing they despised when they left China? China's censorship of Google was a major factor in the company leaving that country, and now the shoe is on the other foot.
What do you think about Google's censorship? is broad censorship of arbitrary keywords the answer to stopping piracy? What about the large number of honest BiTtorrent users that will be affected?
Read More 
| TorrentFreak
Gallery: Google’s censorship of BitTorrent, Rapidshare, and MegaUpload has begun
Google Voice now supports number porting
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Smartphones, Google, Internet,
Google Voice, the wonderful service that can integrate all your calls to a single number, providing free services like voice mail, transcription and SMS messages, now supports number porting. This means that if you have a phone number which you want to keep, but you'd like to use it for Google Voice, now you can port it over. You may recall that the feature appeared in Google Voice last week, but was quickly pulled, with Google saying it was just a test. The video released by Google shows the process this takes, which seems pretty straight forward. This service has a one time cost of $20. Of course, Google Voice is still only available in the US, at least so far, and if you take advantage of the number porting, you may incur an ETF charge from your wireless provider.
Read More | Google Blog
Gallery: Google Voice now supports number porting
Gmail favicon now shows unread message count
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Google, Internet,
Ever since the advent of tabs, web sites with messaging or updating features have started providing unread message counts in the title, usually at the front, so that people can easily scan their opened tabs and see if any of them has unread stuff. Of course as tabs become more commonplace, heavy users have so many opened that often no part of the title is even visible anymore. Google introduced an innovative little feature today to fix that in Gmail. They call it the Unread Message Icon. It's a dynamic favicon that the server provides which updates the tab to show the number of unread messages in your inbox. Now, even in a crowded browser, you can easily see if you have new email. It's a simple improvement, but brilliant nonetheless, and I wouldn't be surprised to see other sites adopt the technique. To enable it, you have to go in your settings and click on the Labs options.
Read More | Gmail Blog
Gallery: Gmail favicon now shows unread message count
Why American students fail in science
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Editorial, Google, Microsoft, Science,
There is going to be a lot of debate over the fact that American students are again falling behind in their education. According to National Assessment of Educational Progress, American children are nothing less than pathetic when it comes to understanding science.
This whole mess will be blamed on all sorts of things, probably all valid. But who, besides me, is going to blame the computer? Has anyone noticed that ever since the computer was brought into the classroom, student test scores have been falling? Does anyone find this coincidence weird? After all, the computer is, in itself, a teaching machine, of sorts.
Over the years, I've seen a lot of quasi-teaching software and educational software companies come and go, but can you name one large or middle-sized software company that specializes in educational software for children in grade school now? Just try to name one.
The biggest software company in the world, Microsoft, used to have some educational software sold under its discontinued Home brand, but I have no idea what became of it. The company, along with the Gates Foundation, promotes the idea of computers in the classroom, but it seems more of a ploy to make kids comfortable using Windows than anything else.
For science education, the greatest thing a computer can do is to show scientific principals in a way no blackboard or discussion could ever do, with graphical representation and full motion animation. You'd think that with all the computers that have been installed in school that American kids would be wizards by now. But no.
Click to continue reading Why American students fail in science
Gallery: Why American students fail in science
Google releases opt-out extension for Chrome
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Google, Software,
Google has released a new browser extension for their Chrome browser called Keep My Opt-Outs, which is a simple way to opt out of Google-based advertising tracking, along with ad tracking from other major advertising companies. The company points out that this is in part an answer to governments and groups asking for "no track" options online. It's worth noting that this is an extension that needs to be downloaded, so this won't change much for advertisers. Everything this extension does could be done manually before, and people who go out to get it may well have been blocking tracking cookies in the past. Still, this is a good step which will hopefully lead to similar tools on other browser platforms.
Read More | Google Blog
Gallery: Google releases opt-out extension for Chrome
Google Offers to compete with Groupon
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Google, Hot Deals, Internet,
A few months ago Google was in talks to buy Groupon for $6 billion in order to bolster its local advertising business, but nothing came out of it. Now, a leaked document points at the company starting their own Groupon clone, Google Offers. The new service will be similar to Groupon and offer coupons to subscribers, based on location, offering them a deal of the day. It will be powered by Google Checkout and allow sharing through Facebook, Twitter, Reader and Buzz.
The service is in the testing phase right now, but we know Google wants to push this one out to the masses as soon as possible.
Read More | Mashable
Gallery: Google Offers to compete with Groupon
Larry Page to replace Eric Schmidt as Google CEO
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Corporate News, Google,
Google announced as part of its earnings call that Eric Schmidt, one of the company founders, will be stepping down as CEO and will move into the role of Executive Chairman of the Board, focusing on external deals, partnerships and broad business relationships. Google co-founder Larry Page will take the role of CEO and handle day to day activities. Google says this will help clarify roles and create clearer responsabilities at the top of the corporate ladder. This came as somewhat of a surprise, since typically CEO changes happen when a company does poorly, or an executive retires, but this is sure to puzzle analysts for some time.
Read More | Mashable
Gallery: Larry Page to replace Eric Schmidt as Google CEO
Google testing Google Voice number porting
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Google, Internet,
Word on the street this morning was that Google had quietly made number porting available to all its Google Voice users, but the search giant confirmed Thursday that it is only conducting a test of the option with a few users.
"We're continually testing new features to enhance the user experience. For a limited amount of time, we're making the Google Voice number porting process available to users," Google said in a statement. "We don't have any additional details to share at this time, but plan to offer this feature to all users in the near future."
Click to continue reading Google testing Google Voice number porting
Gallery: Google testing Google Voice number porting
Google shows off Android 3.0
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: CES, CES 2011, Google, Software, Videos,
We've been hearing about Android 3.0 Honeycomb for a while now, the build of Android that would be designed with tablets in mind. Now, Google shows off it's latest version during CES, and it does appear that the UI has been redesigned in some major ways--it now fits especially well on the larger screen. Google posted a video showcasing some of the new design, which looks very different from what we've grown used to in the Android world.
