Labels: design, Jeff Koons

 

Labels: Earth, Earth Day

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Yahoo Inc. is now more likely to outsource its search advertising to Google Inc., according to a person familiar with the situation.

Yahoo (YHOO) moved closer to the deal with Google after initial tests of the system proved promising, the person said.

Yahoo had earlier announced that it was testing Google's (GOOG) online advertising technology on a limited basis, prompting more speculation that the beleaguered Web portal was seeking a deeper partnership with Google as a way to fend off Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) takeover bid.

Read more: marketwatch.com

Labels: advertising, microsoft, search, Yahoo

Google Earth lets you fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings and even explore galaxies in the Sky. You can explore rich geographical content, save your toured places and share with others.

Satellite images and 3D buildings all in one place.

New! in Google Earth 4.3 (beta)

- Photo-realistic buildings from cities around the world
- Dawn to dusk views with the Sunlight feature
- Swoop navigation from outer space to street-level

Download: Google Earth 4.3 Beta  for PC, Mac or Linux

Labels: 3D, Earth, Linux, Macintosh, satellite, search, space, terrain, World

Members of industry group the Open Geospatial Consortium have approved Google’s KML technology as an open standard for describing some geographic data.

KML is used to manage the display of geospatial information in Google Earth, the company’s software for flying over the surface of a virtual globe. With its 3D co-ordinate-based system, people can create models of city buildings, draw a line showing where they have hiked or overlay their own custom place names on a generic map.

Google hopes standardising KML will help mean broader use for the map description language, with rivals such as Microsoft already embracing it. Google already shares its KML format openly, and others have used it in software products, but the search giant now hopes that its status as an official Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standard will decrease the number of barriers to further adoption.

Full article: ZDNet.co.uk 

Labels: Earth, mapping, Maps

The US-based National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) is adopting custom-made Google technology to combat the sexual abuse of children.

Analysts from NCMEC’s Child Victim Identification Program (CVIP) have reviewed more than 13m child abuse images and videos as part of their mission to identify and rescue children. To help automate and streamline this process, a team of Google engineers led by Dr. Shumeet Baluja created software tools to help NCMEC track down child predators and victims of child exploitation through video and image search.

The Google technology will enable NCMEC analysts to more quickly and easily search NCMEC’s systems, in order to sort and identify files that contain images of child pornography victims. New video tools from Google will streamline analysts’ review of video snippets from files seized in child pornography cases.

Full article: theregister.co.uk 

Labels: abuse, Child, tools

Extended partnership gives Salesforce customers a home in the clouds, access to suite of Google offerings.

Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) announced today that it will offer its suite of consumer relationship management (CRM) applications to businesses through the Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) Apps cloud hosting platform.

The partnership, which builds on an existing alliance between Google and the software-as-a-service (SaaS) leader, signifies an accelerated campaign to upend Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) old-line Office productivity suite by enabling businesses to run their operations entirely in the cloud.

Heralding the expanded partnership, Salesforce CEO Marc Beniof was his usual blunt self in his assessment of the disruptive impact new models of computing will have on traditional business lines.

Read more: internetnews.com 

Labels: business, microsoft, Salesforce

Google has hired the controversial banker Frank Quattrone, who has beaten charges that he manipulated stock offerings for favoured clients, according to The Times.

Quattrone was accused by federal investigators of trying to cover up evidence that he pushed lucrative stocks towards favoured clients when they went public during the internet boom. His first trial ended in a hung jury and was convicted in a second trial, but that ruling was later overturned on appeal.

Read more: vnunet.com 

Labels: banker, Frank Quattrone

Desperate for an alternative to a Microsoft takeover, Yahoo explores a partnership with archrival Google.

For more than two months, Yahoo’s official line about Microsoft’s unsolicited bid is that it is exploring “strategic alternatives.” The pundits (and some shareholders) would argue that no viable alternative exists to the offer from Microsoft.

But today, Yahoo made a move. The Web pioneer announced that it was conducting a trial of Google’s AdSense for Search product to place ads alongside Yahoo’s search results.

Outsourcing search advertising to Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) has been a long-simmering rumor as one of Yahoo’s few options to remain independent in light of the acquisition bid, which represented a 62 percent premium over Yahoo’s value at the time.

Full story: internetnews.com 

Labels: ads, Adsense, Yahoo

Opera Mini already available for most other mobile devices

Opera sure is making a name for its browsing tech away from the PC – it has now announced a version of Opera Mini for the Google-backed Android mobile OS.

We clocked the first Android prototype devices in use at this year’s Mobile World Congress two months ago.

The move is yet another phase in broadening the appeal of Opera away from its traditional desktop-territory, where it loses out to big shots Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Full article: techradar.com 

Labels: Android, mobile, opera, phone

Search engine giant Google has defended itself after a report from the European Union (EU) questioned the company’s policy of keeping users’ search records for more than six months.

A report published earlier this week by the Article 29 Working Party committee questioned if Google was justified in keeping user identification data such as IP addresses for more than six months, and called for greater clarity from search engines in general regarding data collection practices.

“Search engines, in their role as collectors of user data, have so far insufficiently explained the nature and purpose of their operations to the users of their services," the report published earlier this week reads. “[We do] not see a basis for a retention period beyond six months.”

Full article: information-age.com 

Labels: Europe, policy, privacy

Yahoo has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the assets of Tensa Kft., better known as IndexTools.

IndexTools offers web analytics software with a focus on delivering a “highly customizable and scalable analytics platform.” The service competes with other analytics providers as well as Google Analytics and Microsoft adCenter Analytics.

Read more: techcrunch.com 

Labels: Analytics, IndexTools, Yahoo

Video is killing the radio and TV star as more and more people flock to the Internet to watch content on video sites like YouTube. Today everyone is buzzing about Flickr's jump into online video after the photo-sharing site announced a new feature that will allow its pro members the ability to upload video clips under 90-seconds and 150MB. This feature is restricted to Flickr users who pay the $24.95 annual membership fee, but anyone with an Internet connection can watch the short clips or post comments, unless the user enables their privacy settings.

Why the 90-second limitations? According to the site's help section, Flickr is trying something new by offering a place for videos that highlight special moments in your life, and not commercial content.

Read more: tech.yahoo.com 

Labels: Flickr, video, Yahoo

Site refuses to carry religious abortion ads

The Christian Institute, a UK charity, is taking legal action against Google after the search engine refused to take its advertisements.

Google bans adverts which link "abortion and religious-related content" but the charity, which opposes abortion, embryonic stem cell research and chemical contraception, is taking legal action to try and change the policy.

Colin Hart, director of The Christian Institute: said: "Google promotes itself as a company committed to the ideals of free speech and the free exchange of ideas. It is against this standard that Google's anti-religious policy is so unjust.”


Read more: vnunet.com 

Labels: ads, christian, lawsuit, UK

Google App Engine lets you run your web applications on Google's infrastructure. App Engine applications are easy to build, easy to maintain, and easy to scale as your traffic and data storage needs grow. With App Engine, there are no servers to maintain: You just upload your application, and it's ready to serve your users.

You can serve your app using a free domain name on the appspot.com domain, or use Google Apps to serve it from your own domain. You can share your application with the world, or limit access to members of your organization.

App Engine costs nothing to get started. Sign up for a free account, and you can develop and publish your application for the world to see, at no charge and with no obligation. A free account can use up to 500MB of persistent storage and enough CPU and bandwidth for about 5 million page views a month.

During the preview release of Google App Engine, only free accounts are available. In the near future, you will be able to purchase additional computing resources.

Platform: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux

Download: Google App Engine SDK 1.0 

Labels: App Engine, applications, apps

An American couple is suing Web goliath Google, claiming photos on Google's popular mapping website violated their privacy, devalued their property and caused mental suffering, media reports say.


Aaron and Christine Boring say they bought their Pittsburgh home in 2006 for a "considerable sum of money", the Associated Press reported. A major reason for the purchase was their desire for privacy, they said.

The couple claim Google used photos taken from their long driveway and put the images online, AP said. Google's mapping website allows people to click for photos of the street taken using cars mounted with digital cameras.

Read more: stuff.co.nz 

Labels: couple, lawsuit, lawyers, photos

Google announced on Monday the release of Google App Engine, which allows outside developers to build and run their applications on top of Google’s infrastructure, making it easier for them to focus on the applications, rather than on system administration and maintenance, the company said.

Pete Koomen, product manager at Google, said in a statement: “Google has spent years developing infrastructure for scalable web applications. We’ve brought Gmail and Google search to hundreds of millions of people worldwide, and we’ve built out a powerful network of datacenters to support those applications. Today we’re taking the first step in making this infrastructure available to all developers.”

Full article: efluxmedia.com 

Labels: App Engine, applications, apps, developers, hosting

After months of testing, we've just updated our text ad format to include 'next' and 'previous' arrow buttons for cost-per-click (CPC) ads. When a user clicks on the 'next' button, an entirely new group of ads will appear in the ad unit, giving your users greater control over the ads they see and click.

While the ads the user initially sees may be relevant to a publisher's content, they may not be precisely what the user is seeking -- for example, a user may see ads about cheddar and brie cheese but would prefer more information about Swiss cheese. With the 'next' and 'previous' buttons, users can view more cheese ads until a Swiss cheese ad appears.

Read more: adsense.blogspot.com 

Labels: ads, Adsense, arrow, buttons

Google Weblogs, or “GWeblogs,” or “Gblogs,” which will launch later this year in a public beta, is the next revolution in personal publishing. Here’s what you can expect:

Don’t limit yourself to “reverse chronological” publishing. Our advanced Google algorithms put your best content at the top of your blog. Even if your later work goes downhill your previous posts will still shine.

No more template languages to mess with or sidebars to get right. Our advanced Google algorithms automatically populate your blog’s sidebar with the most relevant possible content.
Stop worrying about your PageRank or your search engine optimization. Post directly into Google search results for maximum visibility.

Save your readers time and effort. We’ll automatically extract the most relevant sentence from your post for the index page, along with any necessary ellipsis. We'll also put some words in bold!

Your blog’s header will stay fresh with new images from our team of artists, each and every anniversary of a scientific achievement.

Unsure of what to post about? Just click “I’m Feeling Lucky” and we’ll “take care” of the rest!

Read more: buzz.blogger.com 

Labels: April Fools, blogging, blogs, Gblogs, GWeblogs, Weblogs

Online apps go offline

Google is introducing new code to allow Google Docs to be used offline.

Users will be offered offline access to docs.google.com over the coming weeks allowing them to work on documents when web access is unavailable.

On reconnecting to the internet any changes will be automatically synchronised, the company said in a statement.

Read more: vnunet.com 

Labels: apps, docs, Gears, Internet, offline