Posted 03/10/10 at 05:46:14 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has hinted that the company's negotiations with the Chinese government may be drawing to a close. The parleys began in January after the search engine giant announced it was no longer willing to censor its search results in China.

Eric Schmidt told reporters at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit that “something will happen soon.” However, Google has chosen to remain mum until it concludes negotiations with the Chinese. Schmidt also revealed that the company is working alone on resolving this issue and hasn't “coordinated with the U.S. government except post-facto.”

But the company does want the U.S government to take a strong stand against internet censorship. "Internet censorship is a growing global problem that not only raises important human rights concerns, but also creates significant barriers for U.S. companies doing business abroad," Google's deputy general counsel, Nicole Wong, told a congressional hearing Wednesday.

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Posted 03/10/10 at 07:47:03 AM by Paul Lilly

According to the League of American Bicyclists, there are some 57 million Americans who ride a bike, all of which will now be able to map their daily commute, check out side trails, or any other biking activities without getting lost. Why is that? Google this morning announced it has added biking directions in the U.S. to Google Maps.

And not just a handful of trails in select cities, either, but a whole new biking layer that differentiates between bike trails, bike lanes, and bike friendly roads. By partnering with Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, Google said it was able to provide information on bike trails in more than 150 cities, including thousands of miles of trails.

"The demand for trail maps and information has never been higher, especially as more people recognize biking as a viable, inexpensive, and healthy alternative to driving," says Rails-to-Trails President Keith Laughlin. "Sharing our trail data is an exceptional way to introduce the world to what 150,000 RTC members and supports already know -- biking is the ideal way to ge where you're going. The addition of biking directions to Google Maps makes life easier for bikers, whether they are commuting to work or biking for fun, and it can introduce our network of trails to a whole new audience of cyclists-to-be."

If you want to try it out for yourself, hit up http://maps.google.com/biking. You can access the biking layer via the "More..." drop down menu, which will then display an overlay of the different biking areas. Dark green indicates a biking-only trail, light green means is a dedicated bike lane along a road, while a dotted green line means it's not an official bike lane or trail, but is probably suitable for biking based on terrain, traffic, and intersections.

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Posted 03/09/10 at 05:31:08 PM by David Murphy

Alright, geeks--this week's feature Chrome extension is calling out your name.  While most net-savvy individuals can always surf on over to Google to run most any calculations they need to run (quick: 12 cups is how much of a gallon!), there's an easier way to go about solving the answers to life's tougher mathematical issues.  In fact, you can do it straight from your Chrome browser without having to surf on over to a secondary page. 

The genius behind this functionality is a little extension called Chromey Calculator. Don't let the cute alliteration fool you--this little wonder is akin to packing Einstein's brain into a tiny little button next to your address bar.  Clicking on said button pulls up a little pop-up window with a simple, console-style prompt.  Type in a common equation you need solved (1+1), and the extension will spit out an answer in a running field that keeps track of the last few commands you've entered.  Not only does this beat the one-equation, one-answer style of Windows' default calculator program, but Chromey Calculator also taps into the power of the Web to fuel more complex commands.

Click the jump to get the gritty, super-user details!

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Posted 03/09/10 at 08:37:35 AM by Paul Lilly

One of the questions surrounding Google Buzz for mobile was whether or not the search giant planned on using the app to replace Google Latitude. That isn't the case, and instead Google will try different points of integration between Google Latitude and the new Google Buzz for mobile application, eWeek.com claims to have heard from a Google product manager.

"Latitude is a friend-finding app. It's about a user continuously sharing location," said Steve Lee, product manager for Google Maps for mobile and Google Latitude. "Google Buzz is about creating conversations, and keeping up to date with friends and keeping your friends up to date about you. It lets you share photos of places where you're at. If I'm at this restaurant, I can take a photo of a meal, post it in a click, and friends can see it in Gmail and comment on it."

In other words, they're different apps with different goals, and according to Lee, Google is still investing in Latitude. But that's not all Google is doing.

"Down the road, there might be points of integration between Buzz and Latitude, but they are separate products, and have different use cases," Lee said.

Lee didn't get into details, but did note that Google is thinking of what apps it can build that have certain compelling use cases and how they might location enhance those apps.

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Posted 03/09/10 at 08:26:42 AM by Paul Lilly

In the not too distant future, you'll start to see netbooks running Google's Chrome OS. How popular the OS turns out to be remains to be seen, but one thing's for sure - Google appears to be taking a pretty serious approach to system security.

According to Will Drewry, a Google software security engineer, all of the Google Netbook products will ship with the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) installed to ensure security in key storage and multi-factor authentication. This in addition to the "trusted bootpath."

By keeping Chrome OS open source, Drewry said it allows for constant feedback from developers about its security design. He also referred to Chrome as a "hardened" OS, pointing out the auto-updating and sandbox features, both of which are intended to keep malware at bay.

Will Chrome OS live up to the hype? We'll find out soon enough, as the first Google Netbook is expected to ship later this year.

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Posted 03/08/10 at 04:33:00 PM by Bart Salisbury

How odd is this? Google, which makes a bit of coin by making anything and everything available through its search engine to anyone and everyone, would prefer a little privacy when that information is about itself. Google has asked a federal court to keep sealed documents filed in the case between it (as owner of YouTube) and Viacom for another month.

Google’s request comes on the heels of Viacom’s asking for the records to be unsealed right away. Unsealed means the records will be publicly accessible--the ‘down and dirty’ of the Google/YouTube-Viacom battle can at last be revealed. According to Viacom, and entertainment lawyer Ben Sheffner, law requires that records, save for trade secrets, be unsealed once summary judgment has been filed for. Google, on the other hand, envisions a nightmare of inefficiency in processing the records, which might impede Google’s final arguments in the case.

What’s in the records is anyone’s guess. Some are hopeful there’ll be more embarrassing admissions, such as Google emails that indicate YouTube managers were uploading or condoning the presence of copyrighted material on YouTube. Or Viacom’s, where employees purposely uploaded Viacom content to YouTube to promote Viacom’s product.

If such things do exist in these records it will take a while to find out. During the three year battle hundreds of thousands of pages of information have been exchanged. It’ll take a while to shift through it all once its released--whether that’s now, as Viacom as requested, or in June, when Google prefers.

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Posted 03/08/10 at 10:47:13 AM by Paul Lilly

As part of a regulatory requirement imposed by the European Union, Microsoft has implemented a browser ballot for European Windows users, and as expected, the ballot has given rise to alternative browsers.

According to Mozilla, more than 50,000 people had downloaded Firefox as a direct result of the choice screen Microsoft is forced to show.

"It's definitely being taken up, so consumers are paying attention and taking advantage of the choice being offered to them," said Thomas Vinje, legal counsel to the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, a lobbying group based in Brussels whose members include Opera.

While the initial results look promising for Firefox and other competitors, Microsoft said it's too early to draw a conclusion on whether the choice screen could lead to significant users ditching Internet Explorer.

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Posted 03/05/10 at 06:48:42 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Let’s just assume that you prefer not to trust the big G with your data. Where are you supposed to go for your online mapping needs? As it turns out, Bing Maps is a perfectly acceptable alternative. With the most recent update, it’s gotten potentially even more useful thanks to the addition of about 6.7 million square kilometers of aerial imagery.

 We’ve always had a fondness for Bing’s visual style, which is frankly more polished than Google Maps. It is a bit slower than Google, but that’s just a small tradeoff. The aerial and bird’s eye views are some of the coolest features, and we expect they’ve been helped by the addition of all that image data. The vast majority of the new data is for the aerial view (a top down angle). There’s much less for the bird’s eye view (an oblique angle). It’s good to see Microsoft continuing to invest in their Bing Maps, but is anyone really using it over Google? If you prefer Bing Maps, let us know why in the comments.

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