Entries Tagged 'Google' ↓

Today Sprint announced the extension of 4G to three new cities. Richmond, Virginia; Salt Lake City, Utah; and St. Louis, Missouri are all live today.

With the recently introduced Sprint HTC Evo 4G, the first 4G phone, Sprint will need more service areas for it to be a compelling offering.

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"In 2010, Sprint expects to launch 4G service in multiple markets, including Boston, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Washington, D.C."

The locations where Sprint's 4G is currently available includes Atlanta, Honolulu, Chicgo, Baltimore, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Portland (OR), Philadelphia, Dallas/Fort Worth and Seattle.

Despite the anticipation for 4G, ReadWriteWeb has reported on a study that indicated its speed may not be what was expected.

The developer's version of the Google Chrome Web browser was updated this week to include the ability to sync your extensions. The new feature joins Chrome's other sync options, in place for some time (Bookmarks, Preferences and Themes), to more fully round out the browser's synchronization platform.

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How to Enable Sync

To enable extension sync in Chrome, you'll first need to install the current developer's build. Once installed, you'll then need to edit the Chrome shortcut's properties.

In Windows, you right-click on the shortcut, choose "Properties," and in the "Target" box, add -enable-sync-extenstions at the end of the command, to the right of the quotes.

Mac OS X users will need to use Terminal or this handy script that does the work for you (Pointed out to us courtesy of LifeHacker.)

Sync: For a Browser that Knows You

The great thing about Chrome's synchronization options is how it allows you to create a standardized experience no matter what computer you're using. Whether on the netbook in the living room, the desktop in the den or your notebook at the office, you can install Chrome and immediately have it set up with your personal preferences.

For this former Firefox user, the addition of extension sync has been one of the more highly anticipated options, second only to bookmark sync. There was a time - not too long ago, mind you - when you had to make manual lists of your installed extensions or use some sort of third-party add-on to back them up every time Firefox released a new version. And believe me, that process was not as simple as it sounds.

With Chrome, though, the transition from version to version is seamless. There's no backup needed. Forget iterative Web apps, Chrome is the iterative Web browser.

Although the current version of extension sync is still in testing - and apparently a bit crash-prone reports CNET - it's only a matter of time before the feature is stabilized and ported to the beta channel, followed by the public release.

As for what's next for Chrome sync, could it be the ability to sync browser history, searches and cookies? Passwords? Auto-complete settings? We would imagine that it's all of the above...maybe not soon but definitely not never.

Australia is only the latest country to announce it is officially investigating Google for its collection of personal information. The company used its Google Street View cars to map Wi-Fi locations. However, it collected not just anonymous and aggregated info, but unprotected personal information which may include emails and photographs.

Australian Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland announced today that the Australian Federal Police are investigating Google for a possible breach of the country's telecommunications interception act.

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Since this data collection was first noticed and trumpeted loudly about a month ago, there have been a number of investigations and lawsuits brought against the company. Here is a partial list.

• United States: Class action in the state of Oregon
• United States: Class action lawsuit in state of Massachusetts
• United States: Possible Federal Trade Commission investigation
• Germany: Criminal investigation
• France and Italy: Investigations
• Canada: Privacy commission investigation

Google CEO Eric Schmidt and co-founder Sergei Brin have both apologized, calling the over-collection a "screw up."

Google has also turned over the data it captured to the European investigators, to be examined in camera. It would be surprising if Australia were the last country to investigate. Google has had previous issues with privacy concerns.

Flag photo by Marragem
Car photo by Geograph

Google is busy hiring 300 temporary workers at its Kirkland, Washington offices to help it make corrections to its maps. This undertaking is expected to last a year.

Google has gained ground on its competitors, companies like Yahoo and Microsoft, by rolling out a series of map overlays for activities like walking and biking. But it has also registered plenty of exasperation from users encouraged to, for instance, bike through the White House.

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A Google spokesperson named Jordan told Seattle tech blog TechFlash that a lot of "the work will be focused on data management, said Newman. That includes keeping current on new business listings and the latest information on things like bike trails."

Google "is working with temporary staffing firms Randstad and Aerotek to find 300 'visual data specialists' to improve the product."

Today, Google announced that the a "formal API" for Google Moderator is now available "to access, update, and participate in Google Moderator from custom interfaces."

Among internal projects Google gives as use examples are one to allow attendees to Google I/O to ask questions and another that allows Moderator to be downloaded and used on Android.

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Suggested uses of the API include the following.

Google's developer version of the Chrome browser has made a significant change. In the URL the traditional first step, "http://" has been done away with.

Thom Holwerda, of OSNews, had an idea why.

"(T)he URL scheme bears little meaning to most people using a browser - they know it's there and how to type it, but it doesn't indicate anything to them. Since computing has been about abstracting away complexity for a while now, it was only a matter of time before browser makers started removing this piece of web history."

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There are problems with this change, as far as developers are concerned.

• The change itself was unclear. When developers started noticing it, they interpreted and reported it as a bug. It seems that Google perhaps did not converse with their developers prior to implementing this
• Although the http is hidden, it is not gone. So the change is a visual one, perhaps not a functional one.
• Some developers are worried about what will happen when working with the https or ftp protocols.
• This is not an agreed-upon move, industry-wide.

A moderator on Google's Chrome code forum said, "we include "http:// when copying the URL to the clipboard, so it will still appear when pasted elsewhere." This is a function that is apparently not in working order for a number of developers.

Today, YouTube migrated its user videos over to a new design. The design was available before now, and has been in development for months, but today was the day all the videos got their Sunday go-to-meeting clothes on.

In a January post, Julian Frumar, a YouTube user experience designer, commented on YouTube's blog that the old design could appear "cluttered and a little overwhelming." (Julian, by the way, is up for an Understatement of the Year Award.)

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In the intervening months, YouTube has experimented with a cleaner design that made "the video the star."

Other changes besides the focus on the video include a thumbs-up/thumbs-down rating system to replace the 1-5 scale, a finessed up-next video list, an easier-to-find subscription button and integrated video and text comments.

Is it a hit so far? Er. Nuh-uh.

On today's YouTube blog post announcing the change, there were... comments - hundreds of them as invested users chimed in. And the chimes sounded pretty discordant. As of this posting, the word "suck" was used 14 times, "terrible" and "shit" tied at nine times each, the word "crap" six times and "bad" five times.

Lies, damned lies and statistics? Maybe. Representative comments included the following: "Looks like crap, keep up the horrible work."

Firefox Twitter sentiment analysis gave the changes a 15-12 positive-negative rating. But TwitterFeel disagreed, with real-time analysis overwhelmingly negative.

Google is having a hard time in Europe these days. Whether its employees are being convicted of violating privacy laws in Italy or it's being convicted of copyright infringement in France, the company is facing opposition wherever it goes.

Now, the company that has set out to digitize everything from ocean bottoms to outter space has received a warning from the European Union that it needs to do more to warn people before sending out cameras to record images for its popular Street View feature.

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According to the Associated Press, the European Union not only asked the search engine to provide more notice, but also to shorten the time it keeps these photos on file. Currently, Google keeps the images for one year and EU regulators requested this be shortened to six months. Google said in a statement that the year-long period is "legitimate and justified".

Special software blurs faces and license plates to help prevent identifying information from showing up on the site, which has been known to catch some embarrassing moments.

Already, the company has backed out of Greece and agreed to remove raw images of Germany. The EU cited "high standards for data protection" in its warning, saying that "all companies play according to the rules of the game."

According to The Telegraph, Google said it "would appeal the case, claiming the ruling was an attack on freedom of speech on the internet."

Is there any business Google doesn't want to be in? Despite the fact that there are already plenty of excellent mobile shopping applications for the Android smartphone operating system, Google has decided to launch their own. Today, via an announcement on the Google Mobile blog, we're introduced to the search giant's latest creation: Google Shopper. If you're at all familiar with mobile shopping applications, then you can probably guess what this app does. It scans barcodes and retrieves prices. It can also find product information using photos snapped with your phone's camera. You can do voice searches, too. Apparently, Google didn't want to make just another mobile shopping app, they wanted to make a better one. 

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With the new Google Shopper application, currently for Android only, you can scan a barcode or snap a photo of a retail item and the app will return a list of search results for that product, complete with prices, ratings, photos and descriptions. And where do these results come from? Google Product Search of course. You can star your favorite items for later retrieval, access your browsing history and share items with your friends via Gmail, IM, Facebook and Twitter.

Another bonus: if you're not actually in a store doing some shopping, you can use the app as a custom interface to Google's Product Search portal. With the provided search box, you can either type in a product name or just speak into the phone's microphone and Google Shopper will retrieve results - much like how Google's standalone mobile application does with web searches.

Why Does Google Need Another Mobile App?

If you own an Android mobile phone, then you've probably already installed one or more mobile shopping companion applications. ShopSavvy, for example, was one of the first barcode scanners on the scene. Designed mainly to scan high-end goods like DVDs, CDs, books, and consumer electronics, after scanning a barcode, you're provided with a list of both local and online prices for that same item.

Amazon, on the other hand, wanted to go beyond the barcode. With its Amazon App for Android, you can scan barcodes but you can also snap a photo of an item using the phone's camera. Amazon then searches through their inventory for that item and displays either the item itself or a similar product if the catalog doesn't have that exact item available.

Then, of course, there's Google Search for mobile and the related downloadable application. From either web interface, the Shopping vertical is easily accessible - only a tap away under the "More" section. So what prompted Google to release a dedicated shopping app like Google Shopper? Perhaps they saw the success of Amazon and ShopSavvy and wanted to redirect mobile users back to their engine and their search results?

While that's obviously a major factor in the decision, it's notable that Google Shopper is only available at launch time as an Android application. If there was ever any doubt that Google plans to favor their own mobile platform over rivals from Apple, Windows Mobile, RIM and others, we can put that to rest now. Whether Google is or is not working on a version of the app for other mobile platforms is almost besides the point. If they are, then how clever of them to launch the Android version first instead of waiting until everyone could use it, and if they aren't...well, then specialized Google apps for Android just became a huge selling point for the phone, didn't it? If we had to guess, it's the former - after all, as much as Google wants to promote their mobile OS, they're more interested in search traffic and multi-platform mobile applications are the way to get more of that.

For Android owners, Google Shopper is available now. You can grab your copy from here.

Google Maps is a great program, but it's always been disappointing to see where in the world it doesn't offer much coverage. Today the Google Africa blog announced that local business data has been added for 30 countries in Africa.

"As well as searching online Maps for towns, highways, or roads," Joe Mucheru and Jarda Bengl of Google wrote today, "Google Maps users can now find local businesses. This could be a burger place in Lagos, a garage in Kampala, a hairdresser in Accra or an airport shuttle in Dakar."

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Google added a large number of streets and roads throughout Africa to its maps in May of last year and has offered mobile location services in Africa for several years.

Today's announcement included pointers to the Local Business Center and Maps API, so users in Africa can help fill out the maps all the more.