管窺 Google 公司

Google Bases a Campaign on Emotions, Not Terms

2012-01-25T19:45:00.000-08:00

Google Bases a Campaign on Emotions, Not Terms

Google

In the lounge at Google's Zeitgeist conference in Arizona, white “poofs” echoed the beanbags that its software engineers use.

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

Published: January 1, 2012

Google, one of the biggest advertising companies in the world, has finally embraced advertising for itself.

Times Topic: Google Inc.

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David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News

Larry Page, its chief, wants to integrate Google's products.

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The search giant made its first push into advertising with a Super Bowl ad in 2010 about a young couple falling in love. But through last year it began a more focused national television campaign, as well as taking on other efforts, like hosting Google-themed conferences in an effort to represent its online brand in the offline world.

“This past year has really been a remarkable transformation for Google,” said Peter Daboll, chief executive of Ace Metrix, a firm that evaluates TV and video ads.

Though Google is a household name, it needs to tell its story now for a few reasons. It needs new businesses like the Chrome browser and the Google Plus social network to succeed if it is going to find sources of revenue beyond search ads.

The ads are also part of Google’s mission, led by Larry Page, its co-founder and chief executive, to pare down its product offering and make Google products more attractive, intuitive and integrated with one another.

Lorraine Twohill, Google’s vice president for global marketing, would not disclose how much the company had increased its advertising spending, but said there had been a shift in strategy.

“As we got bigger, we had more competition, more products, more messages to consumers, so we needed to do a bit more to communicate what these products are and how you can use them,” she said.

Also as Google comes under attack from antitrust regulators, it can’t hurt to tell heartwarming stories about Google to wide audiences.

“If we don’t make you cry, we fail,” Ms. Twohill said. “It’s about emotion, which is bizarre for a tech company.”

Some viewers may be hard-pressed to keep their eyes dry after watching “Dear Sophie,” Google’s ad for Chrome in which a father sends multimedia messages to his baby daughter, or to hold back a smile watching grandmothers and children dancing to Lady Gaga.

But that is not to say that Google, where data is religion, does not back up sentimental branding efforts with cold, hard data.

Before showing the Super Bowl ad, Google tested a dozen versions on YouTube and chose to broadcast the one that received the most views.

And Google events, which also fall under the marketing division, require immense spreadsheets, like one to choose a location for Google Zeitgeist, its annual conference for wooing its biggest advertisers. The spreadsheet charted 140 hotels from Manhattan to Phoenix, with color-coded tabs and columns for ballroom size, room rates and the number of layovers to fly there.

The winner was Paradise Valley, Ariz., where Google’s event planner, Lorin Pollack, brought the company headquarters’ preschool motif to the desert.

“Google’s an online brand,” Ms. Pollack said. “You can’t experience the brand except for typing keys. It’s a huge responsibility to actually bring that brand to life outside of the computer.”

The lanterns lining the steps at the nighttime parties were Google colors — red, yellow, blue and green — and oversized stuffed ottomans mimicked the office’s beanbags, where engineers sit with laptops perched on their knees. Attendees could climb on the giant tricycle that Google Street View engineers ride to take photos or design their own Android robot T-shirts. A vending machine dispensed primary-colored juggling balls, bought by swiping Android cellphones.

Even the tablecloths had to evoke Google, which meant no billowy linen, Ms. Pollack said.

“Google is a very clean, simple brand,” she said. “Linen gets sloppy. It gets dirty; it’s hard to sit under. I take a lot of inspiration from our home page. It’s just simple.”

Like Google’s events, its TV ads are light on details about products’ features. Instead, they are meant to evoke curiosity and emotion, Ms. Twohill said.

The first ads for Chrome, aimed at frequent Web users, were online and discussed the browser’s speed and security. But when it came time to take Chrome mainstream, she said, Google turned to television to reach those “who don’t get out of bed in the morning and think, ‘I’ll get a new browser today.’ ”

Google broke the recent trend of 15-second television ads to tell stories in a minute or two.

An ad for Google Plus shows the arc of a couple’s courtship without spoken words. The man places the woman in a social circle titled “love of my life,” but he starts out in her circle called “creepers.” Over time, though, he graduates to “book club,” “ski house” and eventually “keepers.”

Another, which was broadcast just before Christmas, shows the Muppets in a Google Plus Hangout video chat singing along to Queen and David Bowie. A newspaper ad for Google Plus featured the Dalai Lama joining Desmond Tutu by Hangout after he was denied a visa to visit South Africa.

Google is also advertising its search engine, even though, with two-thirds market share in the United States, it is hardly an unknown brand to anyone.

“I still think it’s important to remind people why Google matters, how it’s had an impact on people’s lives, what life was like before this,” Ms. Twohill said. An added incentive is that Google’s main rival, Microsoft’s Bing, also has a new ad campaign.

One search ad shows a surfer finding the perfect wave, a teenager becoming the youngest person to discover a supernova and a man installing solar panels.

“We’re all searching for a different thing, even if we’re all trying to get to the same endpoint,” a voice says.

Google’s strategy has connected with viewers, Mr. Daboll said, because they would rather view a story than have products pushed at them. Google ads took five of the top 10 spots on Ace Metrix’s list of the most effective TV ads for Web sites last year.

“Google has been so dominant in its usefulness,” he said. “Now they want to make you feel something about search, as opposed to just relying on it as a useful tool.”

Wherever you go, there we are

2012-01-25T13:37:00.000-08:00

紐約時報的網羅下的一半道具

Wherever you go, there we are
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Con Artist Starred in Sting That Cost Google Millions

2012-01-25T13:10:00.000-08:00

variegated, con artist, forfeitures

Con Artist Starred in Sting That Cost Google Millions

By THOMAS CATAN

PROVIDENCE, R.I.—Wearing leg irons and guarded by federal agents, David Whitaker posed as an agent for online drug dealers in dozens of recorded phone calls and email exchanges with Google sales executives, spending $200,000 in government money for ads selling narcotics, steroids and other controlled substances.

A con man starred in a government sting targeting Google Inc. that yielded one of the largest business forfeitures in U.S. history. Thomas Catan reports on Markets Hub. (Photo: David Whitaker)

Over four months in 2009, Mr. Whitaker, a federal prisoner and convicted con artist, was the lead actor in a government sting targeting Google Inc. that yielded one of the largest business forfeitures in U.S. history.

"There was a part of me that felt bad," Mr. Whitaker wrote in his account of the undercover operation viewed by The Wall Street Journal. "I had grown to like these people." But, he said, "I took ease in knowing they…knew it was wrong."

The government built its criminal case against Google using money, aliases and fake companies—tactics often used against drug cartels and other crime syndicates, according to interviews and court documents. Google agreed to pay a $500 million forfeiture last summer in a settlement to avoid prosecution for aiding illegal online pharmaceutical sales.

Google acknowledged in the settlement that it had improperly and knowingly assisted online pharmacy advertisers allegedly based in Canada to run advertisements for illicit pharmacy sales targeting U.S. customers.

"We banned the advertising of prescription drugs in the U.S. by Canadian pharmacies some time ago," the company said in its sole comment on the matter. "However, it's obvious with hindsight that we shouldn't have allowed these ads on Google in the first place."

The half-billion dollar forfeiture, although historically large, was small change for Google, which holds $45 billion in cash. But the company's acceptance of responsibility opened the door to potential liability for taking ads from other people involved in unlawful acts online, such as distributing pirate movies or perpetrating online fraud.

Google has long argued it wasn't responsible for the actions of its more than one million advertisers. But the forfeiture paid by Google represented not just the money it made from the ads, but also the revenue collected by illegal pharmacies through Google-related sales.

In an important shift, the settlement "signals that, where evidence can be developed that a search engine knowingly and actively assisted advertisers to promote improper conduct, the search engine can be held accountable as an accomplice," according to Peter Neronha, the lead prosecutor.

Unknown is whether the company will toss aside advertisers as a result. "If Google were to adopt a much more restrictive definition of problematic advertisements, everyone would immediately notice a drop in their revenue," said Eric Goldman, director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University.

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Google's settlement with authorities reported in the WSJ last summer

The government's case also contained potentially embarrassing allegations that top Google executives, including co-founder Larry Page, were told about legal problems with the drug ads.

Mr. Page, now Google's chief executive, knew about the illicit conduct, said Mr. Neronha, the U.S. attorney for Rhode Island who led the multiagency federal task force that conducted the sting. "We simply know from the documents we reviewed and witnesses we interviewed that Larry Page knew what was going on," he said in an interview after the August settlement.

Mr. Neronha declined to detail the evidence, which was presented in secret to a federal grand jury. Other people familiar with the case said internal emails showed Sheryl Sandberg, a former top Google executive who left in 2008 for Facebook Inc., had raised concerns about the ads.

Prosecutors could have used that evidence to argue Google deliberately turned a blind eye to lawbreaking to protect a profit stream estimated by the government in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Ms. Sandberg declined to comment through a spokesman. Mr. Page also declined to comment.

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Google says it has strict policies in place to prevent criminals from using its ad services and it bans advertisers who repeatedly violate its guidelines.

"We ban not just ads but also advertisers who abuse our platform, and we work closely with law enforcement and other government authorities to take action against bad actors," said Kent Walker, Google's general counsel.

Mr. Whitaker's story, told here for the first time, presents a different picture. Shuffling into federal court in handcuffs and beige overalls last month, the 37-year-old prisoner looked like he could pass for an employee of a Silicon Valley start-up.

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David Whitaker

'It was very obvious to Google that my website was not a licensed pharmacy,' said David Whitaker, the prisoner who acted in the sting.

The Tennessee native suffers from bipolar disorder, according to court submissions by his lawyers, and has a history of manic spending and fraud sprees. When he was 16 years old, Mr. Whitaker took his mother's credit card, rented a private jet and flew his girlfriend for a shopping spree in Knoxville, the documents said.

Mr. Whitaker's path to undercover operative began in 2005, when he took millions of dollars in orders for Apple iPods and other electronics at below market prices and skipped town without filling the orders, according to his account and court documents. He hopscotched around the U.S. in a private jet, evading arrest and protected by a private security detail. He briefly rented a Miami mansion for $200,000 a month.

He fled to Mexico in 2006 and started an Internet pharmacy, selling steroids and human growth hormone to U.S. consumers through Google ads, he said. The two substances—sold in the U.S. by prescription only—are sought by body builders to add muscle and by older consumers seeking to slow the signs of aging; they aren't approved in the U.S. for such uses. Google's policy prohibited advertising their sale online.

"It was very obvious to Google that my website was not a licensed pharmacy," Mr. Whitaker wrote to the Journal. "Understanding this, Google provided me with a very generous credit line and allowed me to set my target advertising directly to American consumers."

Mr. Whitaker was arrested in Mexico in March 2008 for entering that country illegally and returned to the U.S. to face charges of wire fraud, conspiracy and commercial bribery in the iPod case. Mr. Whitaker told U.S. authorities about the alleged role Google played in helping his Mexico-based pharmacy.

Federal prosecutors, seeking to test the allegation, set up a task force in early 2009 with Mr. Whitaker's help. On weekdays, he was escorted from the Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I., to a former school department building in North Providence, R.I. There, under the watch of federal agents, he set a snare for Google.

Posing as the fictitious Jason Corriente, an agent for advertisers with lots of money to spend, Mr. Whitaker bypassed Google's automated advertising system to reach flesh-and-blood ad executives. Federal agents created www.SportsDrugs.net, designed to look "as if a Mexican drug lord had built a website to sell HGH and steroids," Mr. Whitaker said in his account of the sting.

Google first rejected it, along with an anti-aging website called www.NotGrowingOldEasy.com. But the company's ad executives worked with Mr. Whitaker to find a way around Google rules, according to prosecutors and Mr. Whitaker's account.

The undercover team removed a link to buy the drugs directly—instead requiring customers to submit an online request form—and Google approved it. "The site generated a flood of email traffic from customers wanting to buy HGH and steroids," Mr. Whitaker said.

To pay Google's fees for the growing online traffic, undercover agents made payments every two or three days with a government-backed credit card.

Federal agents grew more brazen. They created a site selling weight-loss medications without a prescription, according to Mr. Whitaker and people familiar with the matter. They also added another site selling the abortion pill RU-486, which in the U.S. can only be taken in a doctor's office.

Google's ad team in Mexico approved the site, so U.S. consumers searching for "RU 486" would see an ad for the site. Google ad executives allowed the agents to add the phrase "no prescription needed."

Days later, federal agents added links to buy the drugs directly. Such sales broke U.S. laws prohibiting the sale of drugs from outside the country and without a prescription. "There were photos of the drugs, descriptions, labels that clearly printed out that we were shipping without a prescription and it was from Mexico," Mr. Whitaker said.

By the end of the operation in mid-2009, agents were buying Google ads for sites purportedly selling such prescription-only narcotics as oxycodone and hydrocodone. Agents also got Google's sales office in China to approve a site selling Prozac and Valium to U.S. customers without a prescription.

"Google's employees were instrumental in bypassing policy regarding pharmacy verification," Mr. Whitaker told the Journal. "The websites were blatantly illegal."

At the agents' direction, Mr. Whitaker said he signaled his illegal intent to Google ad executives, including Google's top manager in Mexico. As a tape recorder ran, he walked Google executives through the illegal parts of the websites. He said he told ad executives that U.S. Customs had seized shipments, for example, and that one client wanted to be "the biggest steroid dealer in the United States."

Agents at first ignored the flood of orders. But as the ersatz sites morphed into full-fledged Internet pharmacies, they worried that clients, some sick, would be expecting medication.

So customers were told they had to become members by filling out an online form and to receive a "membership kit." The kits never arrived, but it stopped users from placing orders, Mr. Whitaker said.

In the summer of 2009, U.S. agents visited Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., to tell corporate executives about the evidence they had collected. Prosecutors served grand jury subpoenas and eventually collected four million pages of internal emails and documents, as well as witness testimony.

The federal task force, which also included the Food and Drug Administration's Office of Criminal Investigation, was preparing criminal charges against the company and its executives for aiding and abetting criminal activity online, prosecutors said.

Google hired attorney Jamie Gorelick, the former deputy U.S. Attorney General under President Bill Clinton. Two years later, the company reached a settlement with the government, a decision that stopped the likely introduction of emails to top Google executives had the case gone to trial.

"Suffice to say this was not two or three rogue employees at the customer service level doing this on their own," said Mr. Neronha, the U.S. attorney. "This was corporate decision to engage in this conduct."

Six private shareholder lawsuits have so far been filed against Google's executives and board members, alleging they damaged the company by not taking earlier action against the illegal pharmacy ads.

Google has other potential legal exposure. Record companies and movie studios say Google willfully profits from illegal Internet piracy—an issue raised last week, when Congress dropped antipiracy legislation after opposition from Internet companies, including Google.

A 2011 study commissioned by NBC Universal estimated that nearly a quarter of all Internet traffic relates to pirated movies, TV shows and games. "There's big business in being agnostic about what sites you place your ads on," said Jay Roth, national executive director of Directors Guild of America, which backed antipiracy legislation.

Online scams pose another potential legal threat. Searches relating to mortgage refinancing have been among the most popular on Google, Eric Schmidt said in 2009 when he was chief executive. An investigation by Consumer Watchdog, a consumer advocacy group, found that a large number of companies selling "mortgage modification" on Google bore the hallmarks of fraud.

The special inspector general's office for the Troubled Asset Relief Program in November said it had shut down 85 alleged online loan modification schemes that defrauded homeowners through Google ads.

"Google has a natural long-term financial incentive to make sure that the advertisements we serve are trustworthy so that users continue to use our services, and we aren't afraid to take aggressive action to achieve that goal," the company said.

To end the sting, federal agents killed off Mr. Whitaker's fictional character. They sent the Google employees a final email, allegedly from Jason Corriente's brother, saying the online entrepreneur died in a car crash.

Mr. Whitaker, who pleaded guilty and faced a maximum 65-year prison term, was sentenced in December to six years, following what federal prosecutors called "rather extraordinary" cooperation. He is due for release in two years.

—Amir Efrati and Amy Schatz contributed to this article.

Google News, U.K. Edition

2012-01-25T04:31:00.000-08:00

Google News
U.K. Edition 似乎比台灣的版本還精彩 (未個人化之前)

Google moves to integrate, overhaul/ Users Can't Opt Out

2012-01-24T21:24:00.000-08:00

Google overhauls its privacy policies
San Jose Mercury News
By Mike Swift Google (GOOG) on Tuesday said it would consolidate and simplify its large litter of privacy policies into a single umbrella statement, reflecting the company's plan to increasingly meld what were once separate services into a single ...

Google moves to integrate user data across services
Washington Post
Google announced a new privacy policy and terms of service on Jan. 24. Here's a look at some of the Google products that will be affected by the policy change. The video-sharing Web site is included under the policy, which integrates user information ...

Users Can't Opt Out of Google's New Privacy Policy

The Internet titan will be able to access user data across Google platforms like Gmail and YouTube.

READ FULL STORY

Google's Alegre Says China Business Continues to Thrive / YouTube hits 4 billion daily

2012-01-23T21:23:00.001-08:00

Google's Alegre Says China Business Continues to Thrive
Washington Post
24 (Bloomberg) -- Daniel Alegre, president of Google Inc.'s Asia-Pacific division, talks about the company's business strategy for the region. He speaks from San Francisco with Susan Li on Bloomberg Television's "First Up." (Source: Bloomberg) ...

Exclusive: YouTube hits 4 billion daily video views
Reuters
By Alexei Oreskovic | SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - YouTube, Google Inc's video website, is streaming 4 billion online videos every day, a 25 percent increase in the past eight months, according to the company. The jump in video views comes as Google ...

Google Deepens Push Into Web Display Ads

2012-01-19T12:45:00.000-08:00

click,display ads

Google Deepens Push Into Web Display Ads

Google, long labeled as a one-trick pony that sells Web-search text ads and little else, is quickly learning another trick: selling online display ads.

Display advertising is a type of advertising that typically contains text (i.e., copy), logos, photographs or other images, location maps, and similar items. In periodicals, display advertising can appear on the same page as, or on the page adjacent to, general editorial content. In contrast, classified advertising generally appears in a distinct section, was traditionally text-only, and was available in a limited selection of typefaces.

Google Softens China Stance 谷歌跟中國夢賽跑

2012-01-12T17:49:00.000-08:00

2012年 01月 12日 12:11

谷歌準備放低姿態開拓中國市場

兩

年前因與中國政府在審查制度上產生爭議而將服務器撤出中國內地的谷歌公司如今更新了其在內地的業務擴張計劃。谷歌承認﹐公司無法承擔缺席世界上最大的互聯網市場的代價。

Bloomberg News

谷歌聯合創始人布林(Sergey Brin)在公司與中國政府出現“沖突”時曾說﹐他力主谷歌採取反審查的態度。布林說﹐中國審查互聯網和壓制異己的努力讓他想起了前蘇聯的“極權主義”。布林出生在前蘇聯。

谷歌亞太區總裁阿利格瑞（Daniel Alegre）說﹐這家互聯網搜索引擎巨頭正在中國僱傭更多的工程師、銷售人員和產品經理﹐並在為向中國用戶提供新的服務做準備。

阿利格瑞在一次採訪中說﹐尤其值得一提的是﹐谷歌正在指望利用其快速增長的應用於移動設備的安卓手機操作系統謀求移動設備、在線廣告和產品搜索服務在中國的增長。

他說﹐谷歌的目標之一就是將安卓市場引入中國﹐安卓市場為安卓平台的智能手機和平板電腦用戶提供數千款移動應用﹐但是在中國目前還無法使用。

公司還在努力通過一些無需經過官方審查的服務贏得中國顧客﹐該服務於9月啟動﹐目的是幫助人們搜索提供當地商戶折扣的網站。谷歌還在努力加強其產品搜索服務﹐幫助用戶從網上的零售商中找到需要的商品。

中國官員對於發表評論的請求沒有做出回應。

在其宣佈不再依照中國法律審查其互聯網搜索結果並退出中國兩週年之際﹐谷歌正快馬加鞭為其新的計劃做準備。

谷歌公司在2010年1月12日宣佈的決定和該公司和其他西方科技企業長期服從中國當局的做法迥然不同。當時許多中國人認為此舉意味著谷歌將徹底從中國撤出。

在谷歌公開表示﹐發生在2009年的網絡入侵是中國黑客所為之後﹐一場圍繞著審查制度的大戲拉開帷幕。這些黑客竊取了谷歌公司專有的電腦代碼並試圖監視中國民主活動分子的Gmail賬戶。中國官員否認與該事件有關。

谷歌隨後停止了在其中文網站Google.cn上提供搜索服務﹐並將用戶導航至無需服從政府審查要求的香港搜索站。

但是對於中國內地的用戶來說﹐香港的搜索引擎以及包括郵件在內的其他的谷歌服務因受政府的網絡過濾系統影響﹐總是故障不斷。

谷歌聯合創始人布林(Sergey Brin)在公司與中國政府出現“沖突”時曾說﹐他力主谷歌採取反審查的態度。瞭解當時討論情況的人說﹐布林的看法壓倒了時任谷歌首席執行長施密特(Eric Schmidt)及其他人的觀點﹐後者起初認為谷歌應保持在中國的發展策略。

布林當時接受本報採訪時說﹐中國審查互聯網和壓制異己的努力讓他想起了前蘇聯的“極權主義”。布林出生在前蘇聯。他還說﹐對於中國的一些政策特別是審查方面的政策﹐我個人感覺很受困擾。

谷歌2005年在中國設立首個辦事處﹐在決定停止審查搜索結果後﹐谷歌關閉了很多在中國的重要功能﹐但表示永遠不放棄中國市場。目前谷歌在中國內地仍有500多名員工﹐其中300多人都是技術人員。

阿利格瑞說﹐如今隨著安卓業務在中國的增長以及更多中國公司希望在網上投放廣告﹐讓谷歌掉轉航向並在中國增加投資對布林及谷歌聯合創始人兼CEO佩奇(Larry Page)來說是個很“務實”的決定。

阿利格瑞說﹐中國有很大的商機﹐他們也意識到了這一點。

據政府統計﹐截至去年9月底﹐中國互聯網用戶總數超過5億。

谷歌此舉正值中國互聯網業處於關鍵時期。儘管中國內地的網絡內容普遍受到政府審查﹐但互聯網卻日益成為中國民眾分享信息、表達不滿(包括對政府的不滿)的渠道。由於中國將在今年開始10年一次的領導換屆﹐有關互聯網審查的緊張態勢目前有所加劇。

與 Twitter類似的新浪微博等微博服務提供商已成為中國網友對爭議性話題交換看法、共享信息的廣受歡迎的平台﹐而谷歌卻被晾在一旁。據花旗集團 (Citigroup Inc.)一份分析報告顯示﹐來自中國的收入目前佔谷歌總營收的比例不超過2%﹐預計谷歌2011年總營收將超過400億美元。

北京市場研究機構易觀國際(Analysys International)表示﹐谷歌在中國網絡搜索市場中所佔份額從2009年第四季度的36%大跌至2011年第三季度的17.2%﹐而這些失去的市場份額主要流向了競爭對手百度。

相關報導

專題：谷歌在中國

阿利格瑞說﹐儘管如此﹐中國內地網民使用谷歌進行互聯網搜索的次數在過去兩年仍有所增加。阿利格瑞目前常駐東京﹐不過經常到北京和上海出差。從理論上說﹐搜索次數的增加有助於提振谷歌的搜索廣告業務﹐不過谷歌發言人拒絕對此事置評。

此外﹐谷歌還有業務是幫助中國廣告商鎖定數千個非谷歌網站和移動應用程序上的互聯網用戶(包括中國海內外用戶)﹐這些業務也出現了增長。

阿利格瑞說﹐總體而言﹐和2010年相比﹐谷歌去年在中國的收入有所上升。但他不願透露具體數字。阿利格瑞又說﹐考慮到已經發生的那些事﹐我們實際上對業務在中國的進展感到高興。

據易觀國際透露﹐2011年上半年﹐谷歌在中國在線廣告市場的份額穩定在7%左右﹐與2010年二季度的10.9%相比有所下降。

咨詢公司BDA China Ltd董事長克拉克（Duncan Clark）說﹐人們往往認為谷歌退出了中國﹐但中國市場並沒有遠離谷歌。這裡克拉克指的是想要接觸全球客戶的中資企業依然需要谷歌的廣告服務。

克拉克又說﹐儘管時常出現中斷﹐但中國一些互聯網用戶仍然在忍受使用谷歌產品的種種不便﹐這些產品包括谷歌地圖和Gmail郵箱。

如果谷歌如期完成對摩托羅拉移動公司（Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc.）125億美元的收購案﹐那麼谷歌將擁有中國市場上最大的一個移動設備銷售商。

谷歌也希望能從安卓(Android)系統上盈利。據易觀國際的數據﹐中國近60%的智能手機搭載的是安卓操作系統。

在中國使用的安卓手機沒有自帶搜索引擎或應用程序商店“安卓市場”（Android Market）等谷歌官方服務。阿利格瑞說﹐谷歌還在與中國市場的多位伙伴（可能是指中國的無線網絡運營商）商談運營安卓市場一事﹐但他說目前還沒有消息可以透露。

引入“安卓市場”服務可能會給谷歌帶來一些審查問題。中國的安卓設備目前使用的非谷歌官方應用程序商店會過濾掉違反中國監管規定的應用程序。

谷歌同中國政府有關部門的關係仍然不夠穩定。谷歌在2011年6月曾宣稱位於中國的黑客曾試圖侵入美國政府高官、中國人權活動人士和其他人的Gmail賬戶﹐這相當於是在指責中國政府。

中國外交部發言人當時表示﹐這種指控“不可接受”。但幾個月後﹐中國政府卻更新了谷歌在內地的互聯網牌照。中國指責谷歌和美國利用網絡自由問題干涉其內政。

一位知情人士說﹐自2009年成功發起攻擊以來﹐谷歌的系統就多次成為中國黑客的攻擊目標。但專家說﹐這並不一定意味著政府參與其中。阿利格瑞拒絕置評。

前谷歌中國多位員工感嘆谷歌在中國地位下降。2009年離職的前谷歌中國總裁李開復說﹐谷歌中國所希望實現的目標正在由微博實現﹐這證明接觸才是正確的做法。

Amir Efrati / Loretta Chao

Google Softens China Stance

Google Inc., which pulled its Web-search engine out of mainland China two years ago after a confrontation with Chinese authorities over censorship, has renewed its push to expand there, in an acknowledgment that it can't afford to miss out on the world's biggest Internet market.

The Web-search giant is hiring more engineers, salespeople and product managers in China and working to introduce new services for Chinese consumers, according to Daniel Alegre, Google's top executive in Asia.

In particular, Google is aiming to capitalize on its fast-growing Android operating system for mobile devices, online-advertising and product-search services to grow in China, Mr. Alegre said in an interview.

One goal, he said, is to introduce its Android Market, which offers thousands of mobile applications to users of Android-powered smartphones and tablets but isn't available in China.

The company also is trying to win over Chinese consumers with services that don't require official censorship, such as Shihui, which launched in September to help people search among Chinese sites offering discounts at local stores. Google is also working to beef up its product-search service to help consumers find goods from online retailers.

Chinese officials didn't respond to request for comment.

Google is revving up its new push near the two-year anniversary of its declaration that it would stop censoring its Internet-search results in China, as required by local law, and that it was prepared to leave the country altogether.

The Jan. 12, 2010 announcement represented a stark departure from the policy of compromising with Chinese authorities that Google and other Western technology companies had long followed. And it was perceived by many Chinese as marking Google's total withdrawal from the country.

The censorship fracas began after Google disclosed it had traced a 2009 cyberattack back to Chinese hackers, who allegedly stole some of the company's proprietary computer code and attempted to spy on Chinese activists' Gmail accounts. Chinese officials denied any connection to the incident.

Google subsequently stopped offering Web search on its main Chinese site, Google.cn, and instead directed people to a search site based in Hong Kong, which isn't subject to the same government censorship requirements.

But for users in mainland China, the Hong Kong search site, along with other Google services such as Gmail, are plagued with frequent service disruptions, because of the government's Web-filtering system.

Company co-founder Sergey Brin said at the time of the clash that he pushed for the company to take an anti-censorship stance. He prevailed over then-Chief Executive Eric Schmidt and others, who initially felt Google should stay the course in China, people familiar with those discussions have said.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal back then, Mr. Brin said China's efforts to censor the Web and suppress dissidents reminded him of the 'totalitarianism' of the Soviet Union, where he was born. 'In some aspects of their policy, particularly with respect to censorship,' he added, 'I find that personally quite troubling.'

While Google, which opened its first China office in 2005, shut down many key functions there following its decision to stop censoring search results, it says it never abandoned the country. It still has more than 500 employees there, including more than 300 engineers.

Now, with Android's growth in China and with more Chinese companies looking to advertise online, Google decision to reverse course and invest more in China is a 'pragmatic' one for Mr. Brin and fellow co-founder Larry Page, who is Google's current CEO, said Mr. Alegre.

'There is a very large business opportunity in China and they recognize it,' he said.

Overall, China had more than 500 million Internet users as of September, according to government statistics.

Google's move comes at a pivotal time for China's Internet industry. Despite the prevalence of government censorship, the Web is increasingly an outlet for Chinese citizens to share information and express discontent, including about the government, amid heightened tensions ahead of the country's once-a-decade leadership transition this year.

Twitter-like microblogging services such as Sina Corp.'s Weibo have become popular platforms for sharing and opinions and information about controversial topics, even as Google sat on the sidelines. China currently accounts for no more than 2% of Google's total revenue, which is expected to reach more than $40 billion for 2011, according to a Citigroup Inc. analysis.

Google's share of China's web-search market declined to 17.2% in the third quarter of 2011 from 36% in the fourth quarter of 2009, largely to the benefit of rival Baidu Inc., according to Analysys International, a Beijing-based research firm.

Still, the number of Google Web searches by mainland Chinese Internet users rose over the past two years, said Mr. Alegre, who is based in Tokyo and frequently visits Beijing and Shanghai. Such a gain would theoretically help boost Google's search-advertising business, though a company spokesman declined to comment on the matter.

Separately, the company has seen growth in its services that help Chinese advertisers target Internet users -- both inside and outside of China -- on thousands of non-Google websites and mobile apps.

Overall, Google's revenue in China rose in last year, compared with 2010, Mr. Alegre said, though he declined to go into specifics. 'If you look at what has transpired, we're actually very happy with the way our business is progressing' in China, he said.

Google's share of the Chinese online-ad market stabilized at around 7% during the first half of 2011, according to Analysys, down from 10.9% in the second quarter of 2010.

'People tend to think Google quit China, but China didn't quit Google,' said Duncan Clark, chairman of consulting firm BDA China Ltd, referring to Google's advertising services for Chinese companies who want reach people around the globe.

He added that some Chinese Web users 'still put up with the frustration of using Google,' including Google Maps and Gmail, despite the disruptions.

If it completes its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., as expected, Google will own one of China's largest sellers of mobile devices.

Google also wants to make money from Android, which powers nearly 60% of smartphones in China, according to Analysys.

The phones there don't come with official Google services like the company's search engine or the Android Market app store. Mr. Alegre said Google continues discuss carrying Android Market 'with various players in the market' -- likely Chinese wireless providers -- but that he had nothing to announce.

Introducing Android Market could pose some censorship issues for Google. Non-Google app stores that currently run on China-based Android devices filter out apps that violate Chinese regulations.

Google's relations with some arms of the Chinese government have remained rocky. In effect, it pointed the figure at the government in June 2011, when it announced that China-based parties had been trying to gain access to the Gmail accounts of senior U.S. officials, human-rights activists and others.

Such allegations are 'unacceptable,' a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said at the time. Several months later, however, China renewed Google's license to operate a website in the country. China has accused Google and the U.S. of using Internet freedom issues to meddle in its internal affairs.

A person familiar with the matter has said Google's systems have been repeatedly targeted by China-based hackers since the successful attack in 2009, though this doesn't necessarily imply government involvement, experts say. Mr. Alegre declined to comment.

Many former Google China employees lament Google's diminished status in the country. 'What we hoped to accomplish with Google China is now being realized by Weibo,' proving that 'engagement is the right approach,' said former Google China chief Kai-Fu Lee, who left the company in 2009.

Amir Efrati / Loretta Chao

Google Punishes Itself for Violating Own Rules

2012-01-05T03:30:00.001-08:00

有意思的報導

Google Punishes Itself for Violating Own Rules

After paid-blogging gaffe, the company's browser won't show up in top results for 60 days.

By Abby Ohlheiser | Posted Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012, at 10:41 AM ET

Google was forced to punish itself after Chrome was caught paying bloggers for links

Photograph by Kimhiro Hoshino/AFP/Getty Images.

Google is putting Chrome, its own Web browser, in the search-results timeout corner for the next 60 days.

The crime? Apparently the company broke its own quality guidelines and paid bloggers for links in order to improve search rankings. The blog Search Engine Land, which helped break the story, has more on what the campaign entailed and how it happened.

The punishment imposed on Chrome will significantly lower the results ranking of the main download page for the browser. Google regularly punishes sites who violate the company's quality guidelines in order to get a favorable treatment from their search analysis algorithm, PageRank. The practice of gaming the rankings is often referred to as Black Hat SEO, and it's something Google has publicly worked hard to combat.

Some of these penalties are high-profile: last year, the New York Times published an expose of JC Penney's mystifying ability to appear at the top of many relevant and semi-relevant search results. JC Penney was punished, but not before making it through a holiday shopping season with the top search spot.*

As the Washington Post notes, a search for "browser" in Google doesn't pull up Chrome in the top results anymore.

Here's how Google responded to the embarrassing gaffe, in a statement sent to Search Engine Land:

Google never agreed to anything more than online ads. We have consistently avoided paid sponsorships, including paying bloggers to promote our products, because these kind of promotions are not transparent or in the best interests of users. We’re now looking at what changes we need to make to ensure that this never happens again.

The Post explains that Matt Cutts and his Google webspam team found one sponsored blog post that broke the rules, prompting the demotion. Chrome will be able to submit a reconsideration request, Cutts explained, "just like any other company would."

But Google seems to be using itself to set an example. An updated statement from Tuesday night reads, "We believe Google should be held to a higher standard, so we have taken stricter action than we would against a typical site."

As CNET notes, this actually isn't the first time Google has punished itself for violating the guidelines. Previously, Google Japan was demoted in rankings after it hired a company to pay bloggers to write about Google features.

Correction, Jan. 4, 2012: This article originally misspelled the name of the retailer JC Penney. (Return to the corrected paragraph.)

Google adds IBM patents as it looks to future (BBC)UPI

2012-01-05T03:19:00.000-08:00

Google buys 187 patents from Big Blue

Published: Jan. 7, 2012 at 10:46 AM

vertisement

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Jan. 7 (UPI) -- U.S. Internet search-engine giant Google has purchased another nearly 200 patents from IBM for an undisclosed sum, IBM confirmed.

The purchase of 187 patents and 36 patent-pending applications from the Armonk, N.Y.-based computer hardware and software maker is part of Google's continued pursuit of intellectual property, ZDNet reported Saturday.

Google, with headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., purchased about 1,000 patents from IBM this summer and is attempting to buy Motorola Mobility Holding, also as an attempt to acquire patents that could protect Google from lawsuits down the road.

If the $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola's smartphone division is approved, Google would add 17,000 patents and another 7,000 pending patents to its intellectual property portfolio.

European antitrust regulators are studying the merger.

Google also tried to purchase Nortel's trove of 6,000 patents, but its bid, submitted to a bankruptcy court, was not successful.

Google adds IBM patents as it looks to future

Google's patent shopping bill has so far run into billions of dollars

Google has gained hundreds of patents from IBM as it continues its intellectual property spending spree.

It has acquired 187 patents and 36 applications, adding to the 1,000 it purchased from IBM last summer.

The latest patents include a system for "using semantic networks to develop a social network".

Google has spent billions building its technology rights portfolio, including a $12.5bn (£7.7bn) deal for Motorola Mobility.

The California-based company has been actively bolstering its patent catalogue in the face of lawsuits from key competitors such as Apple and Microsoft.

Among the patents acquired in this latest deal is US Patent 7,865,592 which relates specifically to social networking sites, allowing "identifying common interests between users of a communication network".

Vicki Salmon, the chair of the litigation committee of the UK Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, believed this might be a nod that Google was moving from protecting existing technology and beginning to plan for the future.

"When you start you have to play catch-up," she told the BBC.

"When you've finished playing catch-up and you've got yourself in a stronger position, you then can begin to look forward."

Other patents included a method for using web-based applications across additional devices, and an intriguingly titled computer phone.

Neither Google nor IBM would comment on the deal when approached by the BBC.

'Get real'

Last year, Google accused its competitors of buying up what it called "bogus patents" in order to slow the development of its Android operating system.

However, the company now appears to have succumbed to the same approach as it adds the IBM patents to a portfolio that also includes technology for driverless cars.

“Start Quote

I think they've realised that they just had to get real, and understand that you can't just ignore the system”

Piers Strickland Patent lawyer

"Although you can object to a lot of cost of inconvenience by virtue of people enforcing their patents, the patent system still exists," Piers Strickland, a lawyer specialising in mobile telephone patent litigation, told the BBC

"In order to engage with that you've either got to take licences from from people's patents, and/or aggressively increase your bartering position by buying patents.

"I think they've realised that they just had to get real, and understand that you can't just ignore the system."

Google's agreement to buy Motorola Mobility, announced in August last year, includes 24,500 patents, many of which could be used to defend the use of features on its Android mobile operating system.

The purchase is currently being reviewed by competition regulators.

'Turf war'

Google's Motorola move came off the back of losing out on buying the 6,000-strong patent portfolio of bankrupt telecoms firm Nortel. It was outbid by a consortium of companies including Apple, Microsoft and Blackberry manufacturer Research in Motion.

"The reality is that you've got a fairly vicious turf war going on between the different operating systems," explained Ms Salmon.

"People want to be in there, and they want their platform established and people to be using them."

Google is just one of many technology companies involved in patent lawsuits which seek to slow down competition or strike lucrative licensing fee settlements.

On Wednesday, US mobile operator AT&T was forced to pay Tivo - the digital video recorder specialist - $215m plus additional undisclosed monthly licensing fees.

The fee will vary depending on AT&T meeting growth targets for digital video recording customers until 2018.

"No matter which projections you take, they all involve AT&T paying us significantly higher revenue than $215m," Tivo chief executive Tim Rogers said.

感謝有您邁向2012

2011-12-29T17:38:00.001-08:00

感謝有您 邁向2012

hc的”剪貼簿”在2011年約有25萬人次造訪

戴明圈: A Taiwanese Deming Circle

"交情千千" 電子連絡簿(日報)

胡適的世界 The World of Hu Shih

管理學新生

 Books Birdviews 書海

 People 人物

 品質世界 quality world

教育人

 英文人行道 et cetera, et cetera .

漢語人行道：演變風貌

 譯藝

 英國風

 日本心得帖

 亞洲

 SHE健康一生

Berkeley Explains Why Google Trumps Microsoft

2011-12-23T21:51:00.000-08:00

Berkeley Explains Why Google Trumps Microsoft

0
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By Caleb Garling
Email Author
December 23, 2011 |

The University of California at Berkeley has chosen Google over Microsoft for its campus-wide email and calendar services, and it will tell you why — in great detail.

Google and Microsoft are locked in a battle for the hearts and minds of businesses, government agencies, and schools across the globe, each touting its own suite of business applications as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Sometimes, Google wins, and sometimes Microsoft. But Berkeley’s choice is worth noting because the university so carefully explained why it picked one over the other. Though both Google Apps and Microsoft Office 365 are billed as “cloud” services, they are very different things. Google is built to operate entirely on the web, while Microsoft’s suite still leans on local software.

Berkeley plumped for Gmail and Google Calendar in part because they’re cheap — Google offers its Apps to schools and colleges for free — but the university looked at far more than just price. This week, it laid out a detailed comparison of Google and Microsoft on its public website. “We’re a public university so we want to be transparent about the decision,” Shelton Waggener, the UC Berkeley CIO, tells Wired.

While Google came out ahead in a large majority of Berkeley’s email-related evaluations, Waggener said that the decision was not as easy as it may look on paper. With the school’s roughly 70,000 students and staff already using so many web and software tools on their own, he said, the IT department must consider not only its own preferences but the preferences of so many others. “We recognize that whatever choice we make, we’ll have to continually re-evaluate,” he says. “These aren’t permanent decisions anymore.”

The school started looking for new services in part because of recent outages on its existing email system, CalMail. Google’s ability to move the school from CalMail to Gmail in an estimated six to ten weeks was an important consideration, according to Berkeley’s report. “A UC Berkeley migration to Google can start faster and with less infrastructure investment,” the report says. “Google’s solution is optimized for web-based interaction. It is designed to be quickly provisioned and a migration to Google could begin more quickly than one to Office 365.”

Office 365, the report says, would require the installation and configuration of local software before any migration could begin and a “significant change” the company’s mail routing infrastructure. “Office 365 offers an integrated experience for on-premise and cloud users,” it reads. “This comes at a greater ongoing, operational expense and complexity of maintaining central infrastructure.” The report also cites recent news that the University of Nebraska still hasn’t completed its migration to Office 365 despite being one of the first university’s to sign-up for the service after its debut this past summer.

All that said, Berkeley liked that Microsoft would allow the company to better straddle the line between local software and services in the proverbial cloud.

The university also liked Gmail because it’s already used by a large swath of students and faculty. The report notes that a “significant” percentage of UC Berkeley’s student body is familiar with Gmail and that a large number of students are already forwarding their existing school email to a Gmail address. After the move to Gmail, the report says, it would be easy for users to retain multiple, separate email accounts. By contrast, there’s not a consumer version of Office 365 comparable to Gmail, the report says, and Microsoft’s solution would force users to consolidate separate accounts into one.

But Google’s victory wasn’t completely one-sided. Microsoft scored well on calendar tools, with the University arguing that a move to Office 365 would cause fewer problems for calendar “power users” — those who “may schedule dozens of meetings a day for several administrators and keep track of one to two dozen calendars minute by minute.” The report says that only about 5 percent of the people on campus are power users, but they account for about fifty percent of calendar use. “The lessened functionality in Google would be a detriment to these power users’ productivity going forward,” the report says.

Microsoft also came out ahead on security. After examining such security issues as authentication, encryption of stored email, and guarantee on where data will be stored, the university feels that Microsoft has a clear edge. “Google is inferior on all fronts,” the report says, “but only by a small margin.”

Asked to comment on the Berkeley report, Microsoft pointed to Berkeley’s recent decision to some of its other software on campus, including Windows. “Productivity is in our DNA,” reads a statement from Microsoft. “This is a market we understand well and care about deeply. We’re delivering the power and familiarity of Office as part of easily consumer cloud solutions that non competitor can match.”

But behind the scenes, according to Berkeley’s Shelton Waggener, Microsoft has contacted the university to take issue with its report, requesting certain changes be made. He also said that several other universities have phoned to thank him for laying out the university’s thinking in such detail.

Berkeley’s very public report spotlights yet another clash of the tech titans. But when you consider the university’s efforts to accommodate what students and faculty are already using — and its ultimate choice of Google — it raises a larger question. Why do schools even provide an email account anyway? Gmail and most web-based clients are free. Schools — especially state school strapped for funding — could save on huge infrastructure costs by cutting the email systems and just letting student use their own accounts. An email address would just be one more data point gathered during registration, like a phone or social security number.

Waggener’s office is considering the question, and he notes that campus surveys find that many students prefer to receive information via text messages and Facebook rather than email. “It’s fair to say that email is for old people,” he says with a laugh. But Waggener is also serving the university’s entire staff and faculty. The university still believes in a unified infrastructure, and all things considered, email and calendars are still a very important part of that. Waggener says that if Berkeley changed technologies with the arrival of each new thing, it would still be using MySpace. “You have to be prepared to move, but you can’t be schizophrenic about it,” he says. “I would rather build the tools to let students choose.”

Browser Search Deal and others

2011-12-22T18:40:00.000-08:00

2011 年末在台灣的電視看過Google自己的Chrome 的廣告

我的貢獻也許是每天的blogs 娛樂500-800人......G公司學會發正體字的信了

感謝您

因為有您與我們一起攜手合作，我們才能在這感恩的時節裡，為致力於改善全球數百萬人生活的慈善組織略盡棉薄之力。

歡迎前往瞭解我們的計劃內容

Google 全體員工在此致上最深的謝意，感謝您一直以來持續與 Google 合作，並祝您闔家新年快樂。

– Google 小組敬上

Google Ups Payment to Mozilla in Browser Search Deal

The search giant will pay just under $300 million per year to be the default choice in Mozilla's Firefox browser, a huge jump from its previous arrangement.

Using Google's Data to Reach Consumers
New York Times
THE viruses that Google researchers usually focus on are those that strike computers, but in recent years, they have studied those that infect people, too. Google correlated billions of flu-related Web searches from 2003 to 2008 with actual Centers for ...
See all stories on this topic »Google's Ice Cream Sandwich is a tasty Android upgrade
Boston.com
Ice Cream Sandwich is Google Inc.'s name for the latest version of its Android operating system. In coming months the software will be rolled out free of charge to millions of Android phones and tablet computers, but for now you can get it only by ...

Google's New Ester Egg: "Let It Snow"

2011-12-19T18:00:00.001-08:00

Google's New Easter Egg: "Let It Snow"

The Internet giant gets in the holiday spirit with a new festive search trick.

By Josh Voorhees | Posted Monday, Dec. 19, 2011, at 3:53 PM ET

Google's latest Easter Egg make it "snow."

Photo by Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images.

Fresh off its popular "do a barrel roll" trick, Google’s back with a new Easter Egg, this one of the winter holiday variety.

Users who enter "let it snow" in the search field are greeted with a flurry of digital snowflakes on their screen, followed by frost that eventually takes over the entire page.

Have no fear, you can use the left button on your mouse much as you would a gloved hand to clear the frost or, for those looking for a less manually-intensive option, the search button turns into a defrost button.

Go ahead, have at it. If all your Christmas shopping has left you too exhausted to actually type in the words, we've got you covered. Just click here. You're welcome. Merry Christmas.

廣告神話

2011-12-07T00:12:00.000-08:00

許多年前知道Google 公司用內容當Keyword設廣告
幾年過去之後我想為賺錢不必堅持此一原則
這正是我從自己的多個blogs 知道的

Against Online piracy bills

2011-12-01T01:03:00.000-08:00

Film business strikes back at Google over piracy act
Reuters
By Peter Voskamp WASHINGTON (TheWrap.com) - The film industry came back swinging Wednesday, calling recent claims by tech companies including Google that online piracy legislation will destroy the internet "nonsense," while also labeling those ...

Google chairman: Online piracy bills before Congress take wrong approach, are unfeasible

By Associated Press, Thursday, December 1, 3:39 AM

MINNEAPOLIS — Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said Wednesday that it would be a mistake for Congress to approve Hollywood-backed legislation meant to combat online piracy because it would be ineffective and could fundamentally alter the way the Internet works.

Companion bills before the House and Senate would allow copyright holders to go to court to compel credit card companies and online advertising companies, including Google, to cut off websites dedicated to distributing pirated material. Prosecutors would be able to get court orders forcing search engines to drop the sites.

The House’s Stop Online Piracy Act the Senate’s Protect IP Act are backed by the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which estimates the cost of online piracy at $135 million a year. Internet giants Google, Yahoo, Facebook have come out against the legislation.

In response to a question after speaking Wednesday at the University of Minnesota, Schmidt said it would be a mistake to adopt the bills’ approach to fighting piracy. “The problem with the two bills is that they go after all the wrong problems,” said Schmidt.

Schmidt said some provisions in the bills were technologically difficult, including giving copyright holders the right to delete links from the Internet and criminalizing the indexing of the content by search engines.

“There are a whole bunch of issues involved with breaking the Internet and the way it works,” he said.

Another big problem, he said, was that the bills won’t work. He said the criminal activity would immediately move to different websites and continue.

“The correct solution, which we’ve repeatedly said, is to follow the money,” Schmidt said. “Making it more explicitly illegal to make money from that type of content is what we recommend.”

Finally, Schmidt said they violated free speech rights protected in the First Amendment. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the author of the Senate bill, disputed that in a statement released by his office Wednesday afternoon.

“There is no First Amendment right to steal,” he said. “This (bill) will protect Americans’ intellectual property rights, which in turn boosts our economy and promotes American jobs.”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., has introduced a separate bill that would update current federal copyright law to make clear that streaming copyrighted material for commercial purposes can be prosecuted as a felony. A spokesman, Linden Zakula, said Klobuchar “hopes that Leahy and the House authors work to address the concerns about the larger bill.”

Schmidt spoke at the university’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs. The university is one of the biggest users of the Google’s free applications in higher education in the United States, with more than 90,000 Google email accounts.

Google kills off seven services including 'Wave'

2011-11-29T05:05:00.000-08:00

Google kills off seven services including 'Wave'

by: Chris Griffith
From: The Australian
November 28, 2011 7:25AM

GOOGLE has announced it will kill its much hyped Google Wave real time messaging platform on April 30 next year, and six other projects.

Google Wave combined instant messaging and email and was designed to allow multiple users to collaborate on projects in real time.

Despite its technical sophistication, Google Wave failed to become popular, and there are many blogs speculating as to why: its complexity is cited as one of the main reasons.

In an email sent to Wave users, Google said as of January 31, all "waves" would be read-only.

“As of January 31, 2012, all waves will be read-only, and the Wave service will be turned off on April 30, 2012,” Google said in the email.

“You will be able to continue exporting individual waves using the existing PDF export feature until the Google Wave service is turned off. We encourage you to export any important data before April 30, 2012.”

Google in its blog says it is closing down seven services overall.

“We’re in the process of shutting a number of products which haven’t had the impact we’d hoped for, integrating others as features into our broader product efforts, and ending several which have shown us a different path forward.”

The other services to shut down are:

•Google Bookmarks Lists: an experimental feature for sharing bookmarks and collaborating with friends. It will end on December 19.

•Google Friend Connect: a service that allows webmasters to add social features to their sites by embedding snippets of code. The service will end for non-blogger sites on March 1 next year;

•Google Gears: it allowed the creating of offline web applications. Gears-based Gmail and Calendar offline will stop working across all browsers on December 1.

•Google Search Timeline: a graph of historical results for a query.

•Knol: it allowed experts to collaborate on in-depth articles. Instead, Google said it had been working with Solvitor and Crowd Favorite to create Annotum, an open-source scholarly authoring and publishing platform based on WordPress.

•Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE

“Overall, our aim is to build a simpler, more intuitive, truly beautiful Google user experience.,” Google said in the blog.

利用Google 命名

2011-11-27T01:00:00.000-08:00

Cultural Studies

What’s in a Name? Ask Google

By ALLEN SALKIN

Published: November 25, 2011

KALIA is a stripper name, but Kaleya is not, her parents-to-be concluded.

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Allison Seiffer

Children of the Hyphens, the Next Generation (November 24, 2011)

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No offense to the Kalias of the world, but Lecia and Thor Kaslofsky decided this two years ago, after conducting a Google search of names they were considering for their first child.

A search for Kalia pulled up several images of scantily clad women. “I didn’t want there to be a Google identity for her to wrestle with,” said Ms. Kaslofsky, a corporate investigator in San Francisco. So the couple, who wanted an uncommon name, came up with a creative spelling that sounds the same as kah-LEE-ah: Kaleya.

Another Google search didn’t raise any red flags, and thus a name was born. “The Kaleyas online were an illustrator of goth posters and a Spanish metal band,” she said.

In our still-budding digital world, where public and private spheres cross-pollinate in unpredictable ways, perhaps it’s not surprising that soon-to-be parents now routinely turn to Google to vet baby names. A quick search can help ensure that a child is not saddled with the name of a serial killer, pornography star or sex offender.

But what’s new is the level of complexity that Google and other search engines have brought to the name game. Some parents want names that are unique so their child will rise to the top of future search results. Others want names that are uncommon enough to bestow uniqueness, but not so exotic that they would be considered weird on the playground. A rare few want their child’s name to get lost in a virtual crowd.

While there are no reliable statistics on the matter, a small survey on LilSugar, a parenting and pop culture site, found that 64 percent of respondents had Googled their baby’s name before settling on it.

Uniqueness seems to be a primary motive and has spurred an unspoken competition among parents to find the most original names, said Laura Wattenberg, author of “The Baby Name Wizard,” a guide for selecting a name. “Parents thinking of a baby name will type it in and say: ‘Oh, no, it’s taken. There are already three others with that name.’ ”

But too little research can backfire, too. Deborah Goldstein, 43, and her partner, Gabriella Di Maggio, thought they had chosen unique names for their boys: Levi and Asher. To be sure, they checked the Social Security Administration’s list of most popular baby names. Neither was in the top 100.

“I did not want them to have names where there were 15 in their class like I was,” Ms. Goldstein said. “There were a lot of Debbies back then”

But shortly after the couple moved to South Orange, N.J., in 2006, they had a rude awakening. While waiting at an ice cream parlor, they heard a woman shout “Asher!” at a different boy.

“It was two other Jewish lesbian moms with a child of the same name,” Ms. Goldstein said. Google had let her down. “It didn’t tell us it’s a unique name unless you move to a neighborhood outside New York City where other trendy Jews are moving, too.”

More common, it seems, are parents who strive for a middle ground. “You want your kid to be unique enough so there aren’t 80 of them, but not so unique that they seem weird,” said Doug Moe, a comedian in Brooklyn whose show, “Doug Moe Is a Bad Dad,” is playing at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. His 5-year-old daughter, Phoebe, he points out, shares a first and last name with at least two other Phoebe Moes online.

It’s the rare parent, it seems, who wants a common name for a child. New parents, after all, envision future presidents, Super Bowl winners and cancer curers, not Vatican streakers or college beer-bong guzzlers.

But maybe common names are more prudent. A recent study by the online security firm AVG found that 92 percent of children under 2 in the United States have some kind of online presence, whether a tagged photo, sonogram image or Facebook page. Life, it seems, begins not at birth but with online conception. And a child’s name is the link to that permanent record.

“When you name your baby, it’s a time of dreaming,” Ms. Wattenberg said. “No one stops and thinks, ‘What if one day my child does something embarrassing and wants to hide from it?’ ”

Maybe the wisest approach in our searchable new world is to let computers do the naming.

Lindsey Pollak, a writer on the Upper West Side of Manhattan who specializes in career advice, fancied the name Chloe when she was pregnant with her daughter. Her husband, Evan Gotlib, wanted Zoe.

To settle the feud, they downloaded a 99-cent iPhone app called Kick to Pick. After typing in the two names, they held the phone to Ms. Pollak’s stomach, as the phone alternated between the two. When the fetus kicked, the phone froze on one name, like a coin toss. It came up Chloe for each of the four tries.

The next thing Ms. Pollak did, of course, was to Google it. “One of the Web sites said Chloe means little green shoots, and we liked that,” Ms. Pollak said. Chloe it was. They even registered their unborn child’s first and last name as a domain name and signed her up on Tumblr, Twitter and G-mail.

The Kaslofskys wish they had had that foresight. When they Googled Kaleya in 2009, there were only a few relevant results. But since then, the parents of another child named Kaleya have started posting videos of that little girl’s adventures on YouTube, with titles like “Kaleya Makes a Snow Angel” and “Kaleya Runs From a Wave.”

Ms. Kaslofsky is miffed. “Things have changed in the last three years,” she said.

Luckily, she’ll get a second chance: Ms. Kaslofsky is pregnant with her second child, a boy. “We are probably going to name him Lucian, which is related to a family name of Thor’s, and call him Luke.” she said.

Why? “We like the name.”

"The report of my death was an exaggeration,"Google+ death reports

2011-11-22T21:05:00.000-08:00

BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15829333

Google denies Google+ death reports

By Matt Danzico BBC News Magazine

The Circles feature in Google+ allows members to categorise friends into groups

In today's Magazine

Google+ was supposed to be a "Facebook killer". Some now say it's already dead - but the search giant says it is just getting started.

The 19th Century writer Mark Twain once famously told a newspaper journalist: "The report of my death was an exaggeration," following unfounded media speculation that the author had suffered a fatal illness.

Similarly, search giant Google, which unveiled its much-anticipated online social network Google+ at a private launch in June, is battling recent reports from pundits who claim the network is "dead".

Early reports wagered that the service would one day rival social network Facebook in popularity. But a mere four months later, grim headlines have begun popping up on the homepages of US media outlets.

Forbes published "A Eulogy for Google Plus", while Slate declared simply: "Google+ is dead".

The online tool gained 10 million users within the first 16 days after its private launch, and 40 million within the first 100 days, making it the fastest-growing social network in the history of the web.

Facebook and Twitter both took more than two years to hit the 10 million user milestone.

But web analytics firm Chitika reported in October that excitement appeared to have waned for Google+ one month after its public launch, with traffic down 60% after spiking to 1,200% of pre-launch levels.

“Start Quote

We have not even begun, let alone these reports of premature demise”

Bradley Horowitz Google+

Google has not released figures on the number of users signing up since September.

Meanwhile Facebook, which now boasts more than 800 million users, has unveiled features similar to those that once set Google+ apart - such as the ability to lump friends into groups in order to separate who sees which content.

Reporting for Forbes, Paul Tassi was clear about the challenge Google faces trying to compete with Facebook.

"No-one is going to scrap a social network they've spent eight years building up to start over from scratch for one that offers only a few minor improvements," he wrote.

'Social layer'

Bradley Horowitz, vice-president of product at Google+, says the service aims to be more than simply a social networking website.

"Google+ is a foundational element for identity, relationship, interest across all we're doing at Google," Mr Horowitz tells BBC News, adding that the social networking function is just one of many social tools.

Google executive Bradley Horowitz explains the future of Google+

Mr Horowitz says Google is attempting to build a social layer across all its products - including Gmail, YouTube and Blogger - in an effort to help tie the services together.

For instance, Google+ users can recommend links, videos and other pieces of content to their friends by clicking "+1" on a small widget, Google's version of the Facebook "Like" button.

This +1 is then used to help inform Google about how to list results from search criteria for each user.

"Everything we do is going to be informed by this sense of person and interest and relationship, so that all users' data can be used in their interest at their discretion," Mr Horowitz says.

"So the concept of Google+ dying, it's a misunderstanding of what we're doing," he says. "We have not even begun, let alone these reports of premature demise."

John Abdell, New York Bureau chief of Wired.com, agrees with Mr Horowitz, but adds that Google+ could conceivably grow alongside Facebook, rather than in competition with Mark Zuckerberg's empire.

Mr Abdell told BBC News that online communities were maturing and had "entered an era where there will not be a single dominant social network that kills the previous one, which has been the history of social networks so far".

And he says that if any company can build itself up as a social superpower alongside Facebook, it is Google.

"We're not talking about somebody who has borrowed $10,000 (£6,400) from his mommy," Mr Abdell says. "This is Google."

"Since Google has such deep pockets, the notion that you can declare it dead because you are counting numbers and trend lines on a spreadsheet is kind of loopy."

Major player

Google has partly built its reputation on the breadth of its services, from email to photo sharing to music streaming. Users of these products total in the hundreds of millions, comparable figures to Facebook's reach.

But Google's bedrock still remains its search engine, which has been challenged by the increasing trend of online users finding content through their friends rather than through search.

Whether Google+ grows or not, the public should expect to see Google putting everything it has into the service's promotion and development during the coming months.

After all, many people first learned about Google+'s reported demise through friends - on Facebook.

Gmail的一些問題

2011-11-21T23:13:00.000-08:00

David Hsu 說Gmail 等的軟體亦不可靠他人都在家鄉卻變成去上班

換句話說 Google公司的各種軟件錯誤仍相當多我也有些經驗如

Google的密碼..

死海經卷上線

2011-11-20T21:14:00.000-08:00

我一開始就知道此死海經卷要上線

Quietly, Google Puts History Online

By ERIC PFANNER

Published: November 20, 2011

PARIS — When the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, home to the Dead Sea Scrolls, reopened last year after an extensive renovation, it attracted a million visitors in the first 12 months. When the museum opened an enhanced Web site with newly digitized versions of the scrolls in September, it drew a million virtual visitors in three and a half days.

The scrolls, scanned with ultrahigh-resolution imaging technology, have been viewed on the Web from 210 countries — including some, like Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Syria, that provide few real-world visitors to the Israel Museum.

“This is taking the material to an amazing range of audiences,” said James S. Snyder, the museum’s director. “There’s no way we would have had the technical capability to do this on our own.”

The digitization of the scrolls was done by Google under a new initiative aimed at demonstrating that the Internet giant’s understanding of culture extends beyond the corporate kind. The Google Cultural Institute plans to make artifacts like the scrolls — from museums, archives, universities and other collections around the world — accessible to any Internet user.

“We’re building services and tools that help people get culture online, help people preserve it online, promote it online and eventually even create it online,” said Steve Crossan, director of the institute, which is based in Paris.

The plans for the Cultural Institute grew out of the Dead Sea Scrolls initiative and another pilot project for Google in Israel, in which it helped bring the photos and documents of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial onto the Web.

Previous Google cultural programs have also been incorporated into the center, including the Google Art Project, a digital repository of pictures from museums like the National Gallery in London, the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

Now the institute is building up its activities in Paris, where it will be one of the anchors of a sprawling new Google headquarters for Southern and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, which is set to open next year.

So far, the institute is mostly just a team of engineers working on projects like the ones in Israel. Among the first projects are partnerships with the Palace of Versailles, to help it develop galleries devoted to the history of the chateau, and with the Nelson Mandela Foundation in South Africa. Other plans will be announced soon, Mr. Crossan said.

In addition to working with individual museums and archives, Mr. Crossan said, the engineers intend to develop a standard set of tools that any institution could use to digitize its collection. That way, even small, private archives or collections could be placed online in formats that would make them easily accessible to broad audiences.

When the new building opens, the institute will get a physical presence, including a gallerylike area featuring exhibits on how to present culture in an increasingly digital world.

Google plans to invite cultural figures for talks before live audiences, which will be filmed and posted on YouTube, the company’s video sharing site.

“We’ll discuss all kinds of things — subjects that are of relevance to Google, but really just subjects that are of relevance to the cultural world and the world of technology more generally,” Mr. Crossan said, in his first interview since plans for the institute were disclosed. “It’s one of the ways we actually wanted to connect with the cultural world.”

“We’re engineers; we’re technologists,” added Mr. Crossan, who does, however, have a history degree from Oxford. “We hope we bring competence in storing large amounts of data and serving it and creating a good experience for users, but we’re not professional curators or historians or artists ourselves, so we need to connect with that world.”

Indeed, Google has sometimes struggled to persuade cultural leaders to accept its plans. The company has been sued by authors and publishers on both sides of the Atlantic over its book-digitization project. In 2009, President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged hundreds of millions of euros toward a separate digitization program, saying he would not permit France to be “stripped of our heritage to the benefit of a big company, no matter how friendly, big or American it is.”

When Google recently signed an agreement with the biggest French publisher, Hachette Livre, to scan and sell digital books, Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterrand issued a news release reiterating the importance of authors’ rights, which both Hachette and Google insist will be protected under their accord.

The activities of the Cultural Institute differ from some other Google initiatives in that there are few outward signs of the company’s involvement. While Google provided the technology to digitize the Dead Sea Scrolls and is host to the pages on its servers, for example, the only reference to the company is a small note that the site is “powered by Google.”

Mr. Crossan said Google did not want to “come across as the bad guy.”

“Sometimes we have, in the past, not quite taken the time we needed in terms of communicating what we wanted to do,” he acknowledged. “I think those lessons have been very well learned in the DNA of the company.”

Mr. Crossan said Google was providing its services to the cultural institutions at no cost, with no immediate expectation of a financial return. Why would Google, a publicly traded, profit-motivated company, take such a step? Philanthropy and public relations are not the only goals, Mr. Crossan acknowledged.

“There’s certainly an investment logic to this,” he said. “Having good content on the Web, in open standards, is good for the Web, is good for the users. If you invest in what’s good for the Web and the users, that will bear fruit.”

Is it appropriate for museums and other nonprofit cultural institutions to work so closely with a money-making machine like Google?

Corporate sponsorship of the arts is nothing new, of course. Elizabeth Merritt, founding director of the Center for the Future of Museums at the American Association of Museums, called Google’s support “just an evolution in the scale and scope of the traditional relationship between museums and sponsors.”

“Museums should make savvy use of these kinds of relationships,” she added.

Michael Lieber, chief information officer at Yad Vashem, said one of the center’s goals — to disseminate information about the Holocaust as widely as possible — aligned neatly with Google’s self-proclaimed mission to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Like the Israel Museum, Yad Vashem saw an immediate increase in traffic when its enhanced site opened early this year. The number of unique visitors went from 60,000 a year to 60,000 a month, Mr. Lieber said.

“People need to remember that Yad Vashem’s mission statement is not about technology,” he said. “Maybe in a world where there was money for everything, you wouldn’t need money from people like Google. But we don’t live in that kind of world.”

Google’s Lab X/ 屬意付費電視業務/Agrees to Allow Owners of Wi-Fi Routers to Opt Out of Database

2011-11-16T05:57:00.000-08:00

谷歌屬意付費電視業務

互

聯網巨擎谷歌公司(Google Inc.)正考慮推出面向消費者的付費有線電視服務﹐此舉有可能在傳統電視領域掀起一輪新的競爭。

Associated Press

谷歌公司一直在考慮如何拓展其早先宣佈的一項在密蘇里州堪薩斯城和堪薩斯州堪薩斯城開展高速互聯網服務的計劃。據瞭解該計劃的知情人士透露﹐該公司打算在其高速互聯網服務中增加視頻和電話服務﹐提供來自有線電視公司和其他電視運營商的節目內容。為此﹐谷歌公司已經同包括迪士尼公司(Walt Disney Co.)、時代華納公司(Time Warner Inc.)和探索傳播公司(Discovery Communications Inc.)在內的主要頻道運營商進行過談判﹐希望將來自這些公司的電視頻道搬上互聯網﹐成為其視頻服務的一部分﹐不過上述談判尚在探索性階段﹐還未達成最終協議。

一些知情人士稱﹐谷歌公司今年9月份聘請的原有線電視公司高管傑里米•斯特恩(Jeremy Stern)是此前谷歌與媒體公司接觸過程中的主要談判者。

谷歌發言人表示不會針對傳言或臆測發表評論。迪斯尼、時代華納和探索傳播的發言人則拒絕置評。

上述公司的接觸凸顯一個事實﹐即電視領域的控制權之爭已經愈演愈烈了。近年來﹐電話公司開始闖入這個原本被有線電視和衛星電視運營商所佔據的市場。而今像亞馬遜(Amazon.com Inc.)這樣的公司開始在節目內容上下功夫﹐而蘋果公司(Apple Inc.)等企業則在通過iPad等設備努力創造新的節目收看體驗﹐這些新設備很有可能成為一類新的電視機。

與此同時﹐康卡斯特(Comcast Corp.)等老牌有線電視運營商和衛星電視運營商則開始還擊﹐他們開發出自己的應用程序﹐並通過互聯網上的節目授權內容與他們的離線電視節目訂戶建立互動。

谷歌進軍付費電視領域的努力存在很大變數。目前美國電視運營商每年從廣告客戶以及月付費訂戶那裡獲得的收入總額超過1,500億美元。谷歌公司作為全美最大的互聯網廣告銷售商﹐也打算從電視廣告那裡爭得部分市場。而該公司的最新計劃又將進一步威脅到有線電視和衛星電視運營商的訂戶收入。

此外 ﹐谷歌公司推出的其他一些舉措使得用戶能夠以較低費用收看網上視頻﹐從而也有可能影響到利潤豐厚的電視訂閱服務模式。10月末﹐該公司陸續同一些知名製片公司簽約﹐為旗下視頻網站YouTube推出大約100個靠廣告收入支持的免費網上“頻道”。谷歌此外還推出了一種名為Google TV的軟件﹐這種軟件可以安裝在電視或有線電視機頂盒內﹐幫助人們搜索並收看來自互聯網和電視頻道的內容。鑒於用戶對於第一版軟件的接受程度不高﹐谷歌在 10月末又推出了新版的Google TV軟件。

曾在谷歌公司任產品主管的凱瓦爾•德賽(Keval Desai)稱﹐谷歌多年以來一直在考慮進軍電視業務。德賽目前在InterWest Partners LLC做風險投資。

他說﹐“電視建立在一個封閉系統之上﹐這是為何人們要想看ESPN或是其他頻道﹐就只能去找傳統的有線電視和衛星電視運營商。”而隨著電視更多地和互聯網建立聯繫﹐“像谷歌這樣的網絡公司將能夠讓人們看到同樣高質量的內容﹐”而且很可能收費較低。

迄今有關堪薩斯城這項計劃的許多細節──比如定價以及包括那些頻道──都還不明朗。該計劃是否會拓展到堪薩斯城之外的地區也是個未知數。目前在堪薩斯城之外 ﹐只有加州的帕洛奧多也在谷歌推出網上視頻電話服務的考慮範疇之內。谷歌公司已經為加州帕洛奧多的部分居民舖設了高速互聯網線路。

谷歌於去年2月份公佈其計劃在某地舖建寬帶測試網絡﹐當時該公司曾表示不打算讓網絡覆蓋全美。

理論上講﹐大多數娛樂傳媒公司應該都會拒絕授權別家企業使用自己的節目﹐而那些屬於分銷商──比如有線電視運營商──的頻道可能會是例外。不過﹐也有一些傳媒公司的管理人士指出﹐頻道所有者一向喜歡將他們的頻道授權給各類分銷商﹐衛星電視運營商也好﹐電話公司也罷﹐只要他們付的錢不比現有分銷商少。

還有個大問題﹐即谷歌的野心有多大。

這家總部位於加州山景城的公司的高管們最近幾個月一直在同傳媒企業高管談論他們的其他一些想法。據熟悉談話內容的知情人士透露﹐其中一個內容是﹐通過允許付費訂戶獲得完整有線電視頻道內容的方式﹐擴大該公司YouTube網站頻道內容的可能性。這個想法一旦實現﹐YouTube將變成“虛擬”有線服務。不過 ﹐據另一位熟悉谷歌公司的知情人士稱﹐雖然相關公司可能就這個想法進行過初步討論﹐但目前這個想法尚未正式提上談判日程。

無論如何﹐一些媒體公司的管理人士表示﹐他們相信早晚有一天﹐谷歌或是蘋果這樣的科技企業將開始通過互聯網提供類似有線電視和衛星電視節目內容的虛擬服務。那將遠遠超越谷歌在堪薩斯城的設想﹐在堪薩斯城﹐谷歌不過是想用自己的網絡傳播視頻。新業務的推出將改變電視服務市場群雄割據的局面。目前﹐除衛星電視運營商外﹐大多數電視節目供應商的服務只能覆蓋部分地區。

堪薩斯城寬頻項目如今進展順利。谷歌曾表示計劃在2012年初正式開始運作該項目。根據SNL Kagan的數據﹐目前堪薩斯城電視訂戶數量最多的前三家電視運營商是時代華納有線電視公司、以及衛星電視運營商Dish Network Corp.和DirecTV。

谷歌目前與Dish和DirecTV有廣告業務合作。

Sam Schechner / Amir Efrati

Google Agrees to Allow Owners of Wi-Fi Routers to Opt Out of Database
New York Times
By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN BERLIN — Google, under pressure from privacy regulators in the Netherlands, said Tuesday that it had agreed to give people around the world the option of keeping the names and locations of their home or business Wi-Fi routers out ...

Google’s Lab of Wildest Dreams

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER and NICK BILTON

Published: November 13, 2011

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — In a top-secret lab in an undisclosed Bay Area location where robots run free, the future is being imagined.

Enlarge This Image

Ramin Rahimian for The New York Times

Google is said to be considering the manufacture of its driverless cars in the United States.

Bits Blog: What Do You Want in the Future? (November 14, 2011)

Enlarge This Image

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News

Sergey Brin, one of Google's founders, is said to be deeply involved in Google X.

Enlarge This Image

Noah Berger for The New York Times

Sebastian Thrun, one of the world's top robotics and artificial intelligence experts, is a leader at Google X.

It’s a place where your refrigerator could be connected to the Internet, so it could order groceries when they ran low. Your dinner plate could post to a social network what you’re eating. Your robot could go to the office while you stay home in your pajamas. And you could, perhaps, take an elevator to outer space.

These are just a few of the dreams being chased at Google X, the clandestine lab where Google is tackling a list of 100 shoot-for-the-stars ideas. In interviews, a dozen people discussed the list; some work at the lab or elsewhere at Google, and some have been briefed on the project. But none would speak for attribution because Google is so secretive about the effort that many employees do not even know the lab exists.

Although most of the ideas on the list are in the conceptual stage, nowhere near reality, two people briefed on the project said one product would be released by the end of the year, although they would not say what it was.

“They’re pretty far out in front right now,” said Rodney Brooks, a professor emeritus at M.I.T.’s computer science and artificial intelligence lab and founder of Heartland Robotics. “But Google’s not an ordinary company, so almost nothing applies.”

At most Silicon Valley companies, innovation means developing online apps or ads, but Google sees itself as different. Even as Google has grown into a major corporation and tech start-ups are biting at its heels, the lab reflects its ambition to be a place where ground-breaking research and development are happening, in the tradition of Xerox PARC, which developed the modern personal computer in the 1970s.

A Google spokeswoman, Jill Hazelbaker, declined to comment on the lab, but said that investing in speculative projects was an important part of Google’s DNA. “While the possibilities are incredibly exciting, please do keep in mind that the sums involved are very small by comparison to the investments we make in our core businesses,” she said.

At Google, which uses artificial intelligence techniques and machine learning in its search algorithm, some of the outlandish projects may not be as much of a stretch as they first appear, even though they defy the bounds of the company’s main Web search business.

For example, space elevators, a longtime fantasy of Google’s founders and other Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, could collect information or haul things into space. (In theory, they involve rocketless space travel along a cable anchored to Earth.) “Google is collecting the world’s data, so now it could be collecting the solar system’s data,” Mr. Brooks said.

Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder, is deeply involved in the lab, said several people with knowledge of it, and came up with the list of ideas along with Larry Page, Google’s other founder, who worked on Google X before becoming chief executive in April; Eric E. Schmidt, its chairman; and other top executives. “Where I spend my time is farther afield projects, which we hope will graduate to important key businesses in the future,” Mr. Brin said recently, though he did not mention Google X.

Google may turn one of the ideas — the driverless cars that it unleashed on California’s roads last year — into a new business. Unimpressed by the innovative spirit of Detroit automakers, Google now is considering manufacturing them in the United States, said a person briefed on the effort.

Google could sell navigation or information technology for the cars, and theoretically could show location-based ads to passengers as they zoom by local businesses while playing Angry Birds in the driver’s seat.

Robots figure prominently in many of the ideas. They have long captured the imagination of Google engineers, including Mr. Brin, who has already attended a conference through robot instead of in the flesh.

Fleets of robots could assist Google with collecting information, replacing the humans that photograph streets for Google Maps, say people with knowledge of Google X. Robots born in the lab could be destined for homes and offices, where they could assist with mundane tasks or allow people to work remotely, they say.

Other ideas involve what Google referred to as the “Web of things” at its software developers conference in May — a way of connecting objects to the Internet. Every time anyone uses the Web, it benefits Google, the company argued, so it could be good for Google if home accessories and wearable objects, not just computers, were connected.

Among the items that could be connected: a garden planter (so it could be watered from afar); a coffee pot (so it could be set to brew remotely); or a light bulb (so it could be turned off remotely). Google said in May that by the end of this year another team planned to introduce a Web-connected light bulb that could communicate wirelessly with Android devices.

One Google engineer familiar with Google X said it was run as mysteriously as the C.I.A. — with two offices, a nondescript one for logistics, on the company’s Mountain View campus, and one for robots, in a secret location.

While software engineers toil away elsewhere at Google, the lab is filled with roboticists and electrical engineers. They have been hired from Microsoft, Nokia Labs, Stanford, M.I.T., Carnegie Mellon and New York University.

A leader at Google X is Sebastian Thrun, one of the world’s top robotics and artificial intelligence experts, who teaches computer science at Stanford and invented the world’s first driverless car. Also at the lab is Andrew Ng, another Stanford professor, who specializes in applying neuroscience to artificial intelligence to teach robots and machines to operate like people.

Johnny Chung Lee, a specialist in human-computer interaction, came to Google X from Microsoft this year after helping develop Microsoft’s Kinect, the video game player that responds to human movement and voice. At Google X, where he is working on the Web of things, according to people familiar with his role, he has the mysterious title of rapid evaluator.

Because Google X is a breeding ground for big bets that could turn into colossal failures or Google’s next big business — and it could take years to figure out which — just the idea of these experiments terrifies some shareholders and analysts.

“These moon-shot projects are a very Google-y thing for them to do,” said Colin W. Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners. “People don’t love it but they tolerate it because their core search business is firing away.”

Mr. Page has tried to appease analysts by saying that crazy projects are a tiny proportion of Google’s work.

“There are a few small, speculative projects happening at any one time, but we are very careful stewards of shareholders’ money,” he told analysts in July. “We are not betting the farm on these.”

2009/9/25-2011/11/11 兩則新聞

2011-11-11T04:29:00.001-08:00

2009/9/25-2011/11/11

Google CEO Eric Schmidt says acquisitions are 'back on'
San Jose Mercury News
Google, facing slowing growth amid a slump in advertising spending, is again considering acquisitions, CEO Eric Schmidt said. "Acquisitions are back on," ...

back off

To retreat or draw away.

Google and Barnes & Noble get serious about Android patent lawsuits
ZDNet (blog)
By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | November 9, 2011, 11:52am PST It's not just Microsoft though that Schmidt is giving notice to that Google won't be sitting back in patent lawsuits. “For example, we have been supporting HTC in its dispute with Apple ...

sit back
1. Relax, as in Now that the work's finished, we can just sit back.
2. Refrain from interfering or taking part, as in Mom and Dad just sat back and watched Meg try to decide whether or not she should tell on her friends. [Mid-1900s] Also see sit by.

Google’s Chief Works to Trim a Bloated Ship

2011-11-10T04:36:00.000-08:00

Google’s Chief Works to Trim a Bloated Ship

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

Larry Page returned to the helm of Google to find it bloated, unwieldy and hard to move quickly. He’s working to change all that.

Online giant Google funds Internet institute in Berlin and why

2011-11-04T00:35:00.001-07:00

Internet | 30.10.2011

Online giant Google funds Internet institute in Berlin

Google itself could come under scrutiny by institute academics

Internet giant Google is investing in a research institute that will look at the relationship between the web and society in general. However, some are questioning the motives that it has for doing so.

The Internet giant Google has learnt from recent history that it still has much to understand about the places and people for which it provides services.

In Germany, in particular, there have been numerous problems and it seems there is a lot that the Internet company has yet to discover.

Many Germans simply put their foot down when it came being themselves photographed or having their homes displayed on Google Streetview. German web users also rebeled when they were told it was not possible to use a pseudonym on its social networking site. And, there is the problem with data protection - something for which Google has often been criticized by German authorities.

Academics from different spheres will need to understand each other, says Pernice So, it appears apt that the Californian business has stated its own academic project, the Institute for Internet and Society, in Germany itself.

The new institute at the Humboldt University of Berlin cost some four-and-a-half million euros ($6.3 million). "This is a great idea," said Ingolf Pernice, one of the four founding directors of the institute and a law professor at Humboldt University.

"We want to understand how the Internet is changing our world and here we can investigate it in an interdisciplinary way."

The questions that arise are multiple, although they still have to be properly formulated: Copyright, political mobilization, the transformation of the public sphere.

Together, experts in law, the media and politics would look at these issues from their own individual perspectives. "First of all, we just have to learn to mutually understand each other," said Pernice.

As well as the Humboldt University, Berlin University of the Arts (UDK) and the city's Social Science Research Center (WZB) are involved and Hamburg's Hans Bredow Institute is also cooperating.

Stressing the need for independence

While the desirability of the project is perhaps understandable, what drives Google to donate several million dollars to it? Admittedly, with quarterly profits - most recently - of 2.73 billion dollars, it is relatively small change, but the connection has raised concerns.

Is the internet giant - described by some as a data-gathering monster - now stretching its tentacles into the realm of free and supposedly independent research? "We have kick-started the Institute for Internet and Society and provided the money for that," said Google spokesman Ralf Bremer, "and we look forward to the results."

Bremer says that, even if study results are critical of Google, they would be valued Bremer denied that there might be any pressure exerted when it came to results and research issues. "If results that are critical of Google arise, that is okay," said Bremer. "Dialogue is important."

And at least the institute brought the company a positive couple of days of headlines. Meanwhile, it is notable how often the independence of the institute is stressed.

Two entities have actually been established, one for research and the other dealing with sponsorship. It is hoped that more supporters can be brought on board. "We are taking part in the search," said Bremer.

No rare thing

It is not particularly rare for academia to take the money of private investors. The academic innovation body Stiftverband has registered more than 600 professors who are paid through private business.

The researchers are in fact encourage to try and find extra funding for their research. Those who are successful can enjoy a good standing in their universities - although they may sometimes be met with suspicion.

Indeed, there are examples of donor organizations being perceived to use such arrangements to their advantage. One such example was Deutsche Bank, which contributed three-million euros to a professorship in finance and was then accused of trying to wield influence to its advantage.

But director Pernice, has few worries about the ethics of the situation. "If the Google people tell me one day that they do not like my work, I will start working again with European law," he said and jokingly added that "at the moment, I think I am the one that is exploiting Google."

Author: Heiner Kiesel / rc
Editor: Andreas Illmer

Google Says It "Messed Up" Gmail iPhone App

2011-11-02T22:12:00.001-07:00

Google Says It "Messed Up" Gmail iPhone App

The long-awaited iOS app was yanked only hours after its release.

READ FULL STORY

Google Announces New Data Visualization Tools for Analytics

2011-10-21T06:51:00.000-07:00

October 19, 2011, 7:42 pm

Google Announces New Data Visualization Tools for Analytics

By NICK BILTON AND CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

A classic map showing Napoleon’s army as it marched to and from Russia is the inspiration for Google’s Flow Visualization.

In the early 1900s, John Wanamaker, a political figure and well-known merchant, coined one of the most famous quotes about advertising: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I don’t know which half.”

For the past century that observation has remained true, but that is slowly changing as online companies start delivering real-time analytics about Web surfers and the ads they see. It could be used for social networking advertising — an area that Google is poised to enter with its new social network, Google+.

On Wednesday, at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Google announced that it is releasing tools that will help narrow the advertising conundrum even further. The company showed off a new analytics tool called “Flow Visualization” that can track the path users take when navigating a Web site.

The new tools are for Google Analytics, the free service for Web site owners and app developers to track what happens on their Web sites, like the number of visits to a site, the percentage of first-time visitors and the amount of time people spend there.

The visitors flow view in Google Analytics shows how users move through a site.

Now, with something called flow visualization, Web sites will also be able to see what those visitors do on the site in a graphical format. For example, they could first sort visitors by which browser they use or which country they live in, then see which pages they visit and how many abandon the site at each point along the way.

Flow Visualization takes the data Google collects and then creates an interactive visual map. The graphic will illustrate the number of people who are navigating a Web site, but also the path they take on their journey: entering through the home page, clicking on interior links and viewing ads along the way.

Susan Wojcicki, senior vice president for advertising at Google, said at the conference that the new tool was inspired by a form of early data visualization from the 1900s known as a spaghetti graph. Ms. Wojcicki pointed to an early map showing Napoleon’s army as it marched on Russia in 1812, which shows the number of soldiers who died on the journey over a period of time.

In a similar way, Ms. Wojcicki said, ”Flow visualization enables Google to show how people are moving around a Web site.”

“We think this is going to help data be told in a story that can be understood very quickly and easily,” Ms. Wojcicki said.

Ms. Wojcicki said that the tool would be useful for companies running promotions on social networking sites like Google+ and Facebook. They want to know how many visitors a promotion sent to the site immediately, not two days later.

Google also recently introduced a paid version of Analytics for businesses that want extra features.

Ms. Wojcicki said Google will be releasing the new product to Google Analytics users in the coming weeks.

central business is sound

2011-10-13T21:51:00.001-07:00

Google Posts Strong Earnings and Beats Expectations

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER 5 minutes ago

Google’s high-priced acquisitions and new businesses have spooked shareholders, but its third-quarter earnings offered some assurance that its central business is sound.

cheapest iPhone to $0, Google debuts Dart, a JavaScript alternative

2011-10-11T04:37:00.001-07:00

Google debuts Dart, a JavaScript alternative
CNET
by Stephen Shankland October 10, 2011 1:44 AM PDT Follow @stshank Google today launched an "early preview" of Dart, a programming language the company hopes will help Web application programmers overcome shortcomings of JavaScript that Google itself ...

Targets Shift in Phone Wars

Apple has dropped the price of its cheapest iPhone to $0, hoping to score with price-conscious consumers who have tended to favor phones based on Google's Android software, while makers of Android phones are starting to aggressively pursue business customers, which have flocked to the iPhone.

Google Earth /2012 YouTube channel

2011-10-07T02:51:00.001-07:00

Google launching all2012 YouTube channel
Politico
Google-owned YouTube is launching a special site Thursday that it hopes will be a one-stop online spot for political junkies to watch the good, the bad and the ugly of the 2012 presidential campaign. The site, YouTube Politics, will include videos from ...

10 new results for google

Google Earth passes 1 billion download mark
Christian Science Monitor
Google Earth has been downloaded more than a billion times, Google announced today. So what's next for Google Earth? By Matthew Shaer / October 6, 2011 Google Earth has surpassed 1 billion downloads, Google announced today. When it was introduced in ...

most attractive employer

2011-10-01T18:13:00.000-07:00

Google crowned world's most attractive employer
CNET
Analyzing the choices from job seekers across the world's 12 largest economies, the study "The World's Most Attractive Employers 2011" (PDF) found Google tops among professionals with a business degree as well as those with an engineering background. ...

提供5~20全職工作: Google資料中心落腳彰化

2011-09-28T18:20:00.000-07:00

Google資料中心落腳彰化

斥資1億美元台灣網友可享更佳連網品質

2011年 09月29日

【王郁倫、蕭文康╱台北報導】看好台灣穩健基礎建設，Google（谷歌）昨宣布將斥資逾1億美元（約30.4億元台幣）在彰化成立資料中心，市場解讀，Google此舉對肯定台灣投資環境具正面意義，對合作夥伴廣達（2382）而言，受惠最大。

對於網友關心Google在台灣成立資料中心對未來上網服務有何差異，Google台灣暨香港區公關經理許佳齡表示：「可以說將為台灣和其他亞洲地區的網路用戶提供更迅速、可靠的Google服務與體驗。」
換句話說，網友將來在使用Google的服務中，包括使用搜尋引擎、Gmail信箱、社群網站Google+、Google Map（地圖）、影音網站YouTube，均可較目前連網速度更快、品質更為穩定，享受資料儲存更安全的服務。

動工時程尚未敲定

除台灣之外，Google將同步在新加坡及香港分別成立亞太資料中心。微驅科技總經理吳金榮說，Google成立資料中心，一定會根據當地環境條件篩選，台灣在供電穩定、電價便宜、優秀人才及具有許多代工客戶等優勢下，成為Google成立資料中心的據點，就是對台灣投資環境的一種肯定。
不過吳金榮強調，Google資料中心未來員工數不多，對台灣產業上的幫助不如來台設立研發中心需要許多研發人才，但已具極大象徵意義。
Google來台設立資料中心傳聞已久，地點包括苗栗銅鑼、彰化彰濱工業區等，昨Google終於證實在彰化成立資料中心，至於是否位於傳言中的彰濱工業區，Google以地點需要保密為由，不願證實。

提供5~20全職工作

至於彰化最後勝出的關鍵，許佳齡表示，Google依照嚴謹的資料中心興建計劃審核標準與程序，在全球各地物色合適的用地，其中須充分考慮地點與用戶的鄰近度、穩健的基礎設施、可靠的供電系統、一流技術人員、合理的商業法規，及成本等各方面因素，由於台灣彰化符合所有上述條件，因此決定設立。
有關各方關切的動工時間，許佳齡低調說：「還要跟政府及台灣的合件夥伴協調，不過，動工後預定1~2年可落成啟用。」同時，預計該資料中心的投資金額將會超過1億美元，其中包含購買用地、營建和添購技術設備等費用，但最後金額將取決於用地限制和最終設計細節等因素。

雲端產值估年增20%

彰化資料中心投入運作後，未來將可提供5~20個全職的工作機會，以及少數兼職或全職的約聘人員，而該中心預料將是Google在亞太區最有效率和環保的資料中心。
由於Google與廣達具緊密合作夥伴關係，廣達董事長林百里曾表示相當看好後PC時代，雲端商機的發展，他說，在個人雲端時代來臨下，看好雲端資訊產值每年將有20%成長力道。

Google彰化資料中心小檔案

●動工時間：未定，若動工後將在1~2年落成啟用
●地點：外傳是彰化彰濱工業區，但Google不願證實
●面積：15公頃
●投資金額：逾1億美元（約30.4億元台幣）
●主要功能：為台灣及亞洲市場的網友提供更快速安全上網服務
●員工數：5~20名正職員工及少數兼職、約聘員工
●特色：Google在亞洲最有效率及環保的資料中心
資料來源：記者採訪整理

Google Alerts

2011-09-28T00:03:00.000-07:00

這是每天10則Google Alerts
看來這一blog 應該關門或冰凍起來.....

Google Alerts to me

show details 12:34 PM (2 hours ago)

News

10 new results for google

Google will finance rooftop solar installations
Los Angeles Times
Google wants homeowners to use solar panels to generate electricity. And it's investing $75 million to help up to 3000 of them install panels on their roofs. The Internet search giant said Tuesday that it will create a fund for solar installers to ...
See all stories on this topic »

Google asks to protect confidential information about Android system in AT&T-T ...
Washington Post
By AP, WASHINGTON — Google Inc. wants to protect confidential information about its business plans related to Android smartphone operating system in the upcoming antitrust trial against AT&T and T-Mobile. Google filed a motion in Washington federal ...
See all stories on this topic »

GOOGLE BIRTHDAY: Doodle celebrates company's 13th anniversary
Washington Post (blog)
By Michael Cavna If we'd known your birthday was coming up, Google, we'd have baked a cake (well, after Googling for the recipe). Fortunately — as you have every September since 2002, in some form — you rendered your own. On Tuesday, Google ...
See all stories on this topic »

Inside Google Plus
Wired News
By Steven Levy The positive response to Google+ has been sweet vindication for Bradley Horowitz, Google's VP of products. For all of Google's successes, the company has an underwhelming track record when it comes to social networks. ...
See all stories on this topic »

Wired News

Google's Biggest Threat Is Google
New York Times (blog)
By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER Google faces antitrust inquiries and competition from all corners. But its biggest threat is Google itself, Larry Page, its chief executive and co-founder, said Tuesday. “There are basically no companies that have good slow ...
See all stories on this topic »

Google's Dead Sea Scrolls project: why putting parchment & papyrus in the ...
Wired News
In bringing the Dead Sea Scrolls into the cloud via an interface so user-friendly that even a humanities professor can navigate it, Google has once again played a part in something wonderful for the world. And I don't mean “wonderful” in the modern web ...
See all stories on this topic »

Top Google PR Blunders
PC Magazine
Google is now a teenager, and as with any big company, it has had its share of PR nightmares. By Chloe Albanesius Google celebrated its 13th birthday today, and in that time, it has had a number of product hits and misses. As with any big company, ...
See all stories on this topic »

Google Drive could be integrated with Android
TIME
TechCrunch's MG Siegler speculates that Google could be holding up the launch of Google Drive for the next version of Android, codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich. It's a plausible theory given that Apple's iCloud and Microsoft's SkyDrive will bring online ...
See all stories on this topic »

Google Seeks To Drop Cloud Case Against Feds
InformationWeek
Google filed suit last year claiming that the cloud computing contract was written to benefit Microsoft. Now it seems to be changing its mind. By J. Nicholas Hoover InformationWeek Google has filed a motion to dismiss its case against the federal ...
See all stories on this topic »

Samsung, HTC, Motorola Endorse Google Wallet Rival, Isis
PC Magazine
Like Google Wallet,, Isis uses near-field communication (NFC) chips in upcoming smartphones to enable mobile payments. But spokesman Jaymee Johnson promises one huge difference when Isis finally launches in the spring of 2012: diversity. ...
See all stories on this topic »

國會聽證會打嘴仗

2011-09-22T17:47:00.001-07:00

週

三﹐針對谷歌公司(Google Inc.)有沒有濫用互聯網壟斷地位的問題﹐該公司執行董事長施密特(Eric Schmidt)與美國參議員打起嘴仗﹐但基本上毫發未傷。這是谷歌成立13年以來與華盛頓爆發的最具戲劇性的沖突。

國會聽證會開始時﹐施密特面帶微笑﹐略顯緊張。在跟參議員發生一系列小小的爭吵、並且全身而退的時候﹐他顯得自信起來。

參議院反壟斷委員會代表共和黨的副主席、來自猶他州的議員李(Mike Lee)說﹐谷歌曾“篡改”數據﹐以便自己的產品和服務在搜索結果中比其它競爭對手更靠前。

施密特直截了當地回答：參議員﹐我可不可以就這麼說﹐我可以向你保證﹐我們沒有篡改過任何東西。

European Pressphoto Agency

施密特否認公司濫用其互聯網搜索市場壟斷地位。

施密特從2001年開始擔任谷歌CEO﹐一直到今年早些時候。他極力使自己的公司與微軟(Microsoft Corp.)之間劃清界線。上一家受反壟斷執法者如此密集盤問的科技巨頭就是微軟。

聽證會開始的時候﹐施密特說﹐我們硅谷的很多人都從那個時代汲取了教訓。他暗指微軟﹐但沒有點名。施密特說﹐請你們注意﹐並非所有公司都是從一塊布料上裁下來的﹐一家公司的過去不必成為另一家公司的將來。

20世紀90年代﹐微軟以激進好鬥的方式來回應華盛頓方面對其商業慣例的質疑﹐結果不得不忍受多年的法律訴訟﹐才得以避免被政府分拆。

施密特還反復說﹐谷歌公司的目標是引導用戶找到最相關的信息。他說用戶完全可以選用其他搜索引擎﹐並暗示美國和歐洲針對谷歌的反壟斷調查﹐是在那些對排名感到失望的網站推動下展開的。

但施密特確實也出現了一些失誤。他似乎一度承認谷歌在互聯網搜索市場的佔有率處於壟斷的“區域”。後來谷歌外部法律顧問克賴頓(Susan Creighton)予以糾正﹐說谷歌並不處於壟斷地位。

爭吵的起因是人們對谷歌的互聯網地位存在截然不同的看法。批評者說﹐經過過去的10年﹐谷歌的核心宗旨已經改變﹐從一家以引導用戶找到網上最佳、最相關內容為明確目標在搜索引擎﹐變成了一家希望親自為用戶提供這些服務的公司。

競爭對手說﹐谷歌控制著絕大多數的搜索活動﹐所以它能夠把用戶引向它自己的服務﹐而這是以競爭對手的犧牲為代價的﹐可能使後者失去至關重要的網絡流量。

點評網站Yelp Inc.首席執行長斯托普爾曼(Jeremy Stoppelman)對參議院反壟斷委員會說﹐谷歌已經不再做引導人們找到網上最佳信息源的業務了﹔它現在希望親自充當“目的地市場”。

谷歌的施密特說﹐公司正在為了滿足用戶需求而進化。他說﹐當用戶輸入一個地址的時候﹐他們可能是想找一張地圖﹐谷歌就利用自己的地圖服務給他們一張地圖。

Google+ Opened to Public

2011-09-20T21:26:00.001-07:00

Google+ Opened to Public

Google broadened its assault on rival Facebook by opening its Google+ online social network to the public.

• Heard on the Street: Closing the Gap

• Search Engines, Social Networks Grow Closer

Google Lures Frustrated Facebook Users, Points The Way To Google Plus
ReelSEO Online Video News
And in the face of all this criticism over the new Facebook, Google got a little cheeky promoting their Google Plus service, which would, of course, love to pick up any new customers that may be unhappy with their current social network. ...
See all stories on this topic »
ReelSEO Online Video News

Google Aims Dart To Kill JavaScript

2011-09-13T23:31:00.000-07:00

Google Aims Dart To Kill JavaScript

The Web has outgrown JavaScript, argues Google, and needs a more modern means of creating Web apps.

By Thomas Claburn InformationWeek
September 13, 2011 03:22 PM

Slideshow: Top 15 Google Apps ForBusiness

(click image for larger view and for full slideshow)

JavaScript is a critical component for modern Web applications. It's one of the most popular programming languages and is widely used for tasks like validating input in Web apps or creating animated visual effects, as well as for more complicated application logic.

Google, however, believes that JavaScript, an implementation of ECMAScript standard, is fundamentally flawed and can't be fixed at a speed that matches its development ambitions. The company plans next month to announce a new programming language called Dart that it hopes will eventually replace JavaScript.

Google declined to provide further details about Dart in advance of the official announcement, scheduled to be delivered at the GOTO conference in October. But a document describing Google's position was published last November. The post, from Mark S. Miller, a Google engineer and designer of the E and Caja programming languages, who also serves as a representative to the ECMAScript committee, was sent to an internal Google developer mailing list. It was co-authored by Miller and over a dozen other Google engineers, including Lars Bak, who is scheduled to introduce Dart next month.

The executive summary notes that JavaScript "has fundamental flaws that cannot be fixed merely by evolving the language" and describes a two-pronged strategy to address the situation.

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Google plans to continue to participate in the development of Harmony, a future version of ECMAScript that's being spearheaded by the ECMA T39 standards group.

At the same time, Google plans to release and promote Dart, formerly called Dash. "The goal of the Dash effort is ultimately to replace JavaScript as the lingua franca of Web development on the open Web platform," Miller's post states.

The first Web application written using Dart that we're likely to see from Google is a cloud IDE known by the codename "Brightly," according to Miller's summary. Presumably, Brightly is based on the code for Writely, the online document creation app that Google acquired in 2006 and later turned into Google Docs.

IDEs, or integrated development environments, are tricked-out text editors for writing code, with tools for compiling, debugging, and the like. Mozilla has offered a Web-based IDE called Bespin since 2009, but Google, for all its promotion of Web-based apps, has yet to release one.

Dart has been designed with three main goals: performance, developer usability, and support for tooling. Performance is obviously necessary: No one would want to use a programming language that produces slow, inefficient apps. Developer usability is necessary to match the usability of JavaScript, which is popular with programmers of varying abilities. If Google creates a language that's too complicated, it will remain a niche tool and have only marginal influence on Web development. Support for tooling is necessary because large projects, such as Google Apps, often require special extensions that support code refactoring or locating subroutine calls.

Miller's summary also notes that security is important, though less so than the three main goals: "Dash is also designed to be securable, where that ability does not seriously conflict with the three main goals," the document says.

Brendan Eich, creator of JavaScript and Mozilla CTO, said in a blog post last month that while Google would put "a death mark" on JavaScript, the existing approach driven by standards committees is sufficient to direct the language's evolution. He argues that the inherent slowness of community-driven standards is a necessary price to avoid fragmentation and to maintain interoperability.

"[M]any Googlers, especially V8 principals, do not like JavaScript and don't believe it can evolve 'in time' (whatever that might mean--and Google of course influences JavaScript evolution directly, so they can put a finger on the scale here)," Eich wrote. "They're wrong, and I'm glad that at least some of the folks at Google working in TC39 actually believe in JavaScript--specifically its ability to evolve soon enough and well enough to enable both more predictable performance and programming in the large."

Among the JavaScript supporters cited by Eich is Google Chrome Frame developer Alex Russell, who published a blog post to address concerns that Google has it in for JavaScript. "Google is big, can do many things at once, and often isn't of one mind," wrote Russell. "What we do agree on is that we're trying to make things better the best we know how. Anyone who watches Google long enough should anticipate that we often have different ideas about what that means. For my part, then, consider me and my team to be committed JavaScript partisans for as long as we think we can make a difference."

To those disinterested in technical plumbing, it may seem unimportant whether or not JavaScript remains central to Web apps and Web development. But to Google, it's a critical issue. Google has staked its future on the Web, but the Dart summary suggests that Google's major Web applications "are struggling against the platform" and could be eclipsed by native mobile applications, in particular those controlled by Apple.

"The emergence of compelling alternative platforms like iOS has meant that the Web platform must compete on its merits, not just its reach," the document states. "Javascript as it exists today will likely not be a viable solution long-term. Something must change."

While Russell as a confessed JavaScript enthusiast sees things differently, he too recognizes some of the issues facing the Web. "[T]he language isn't the problem, the platform is," he wrote. "The only thing that's going to replace the Web as universal platform is the next version of the Web."

The question facing Google is whether it can get to the next version of the Web, with or without the open Web community, before enough people decide that building on other platforms represents a more appealing way to create online services.

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中共一年整 Google Inc. 一次

2011-09-07T17:52:00.000-07:00

*** 這則新聞堪玩味中共一年整你一次

谷

歌(Google Inc.)發言人週三稱﹐谷歌已獲得中國政府發放的互聯網牌照﹐允許谷歌未來一年繼續在中國大陸市場經營。

上述互聯網內容供應商牌照將允許谷歌繼續在中國大陸開展其有限的業務。

目前用戶訪問谷歌中國大陸站點時會被自動跳轉至該公司的香港站點。

Google CEO Faces Difficult Premiere

2011-08-30T20:54:00.000-07:00

Google CEO Faces Difficult Premiere

When Google co-founder Larry Page took over as CEO, he promised to shake up the Internet search giant. Instead, much of the shaking up has happened to the new CEO.

By AMIR EFRATI

When Google Inc. co-founder Larry Page announced that he would take over as chief executive earlier this year, he promised that he would shake up the Internet search giant to speed up decision making. Instead, much of the shaking up has happened to the new CEO.

Challenges have piled up for Mr. Page since he assumed his post in April. They include a broad U.S. antitrust probe of the company's practices; the settlement of a long-running criminal investigation into Google's advertising business; and shifting industry forces that led him to make a deal to buy mobile-device maker Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. Since he took on his new role, the company's stock price has declined 9.1%, compared with a drop of 8.42% for Nasdaq stocks as a whole.

Last week, federal prosecutors who had investigated Google's practice of allowing ads from illegal online pharmacies on its Web search engine between 2003 and 2009 singled out Mr. Page. They said he had personal knowledge of the alleged crime and failed to prevent it. The federal prosecutors made their comments after Google paid $500 million last week to avoid criminal charges.

Getty Images

Larry Page

A Google spokesman declined to comment on what Mr. Page did or didn't know of the ad practices. He added that "the investigation was not related to current advertising practices and that the company was moving on." The company declined to make Mr. Page, 38 years old, available for comment.

Other setbacks have included a failure to reach a deal with music labels that would let Google's new Internet music service sell songs and albums; a public disclosure by the company in June that China-based "bad actors" spied on Gmail accounts, and the failure to win a July auction for Nortel Networks Corp.'s technology patents, which Google said pushed it to make its purchase of Motorola.

But according to colleagues, Mr. Page has dealt with the eventful past few months by focusing on matters within his control, including positioning Google in new lines of business.

"Larry's very aware of all the things that are playing out internally and externally, and he cares about it," said Sundar Pichai, who leads Google's Chrome browser and operating system. "While he takes all that into his mind, the way he approaches work is with a strong focus around products and users."

Internet Empire

Larry Page in April reorganized Google into seven product areas.

Android: mobile-operating system, Google Music
Web search: Google.com
Commerce & Local: Google Wallet, Google Offers; Google Maps; Google Books
YouTube: video site, Google TV
Social: Google+ social network
Chrome: Web browser/laptop OS; Google enterprise apps
Ad products: Web-search ads, DoubleClick ad exchange, AdMob mobile ads.

Mr. Page has also taken an interest in newer products, such as local-business advertising initiatives and Google+, the social-networking and Facebook Inc. rival whose performance Mr. Page has tied to the size of employee bonuses this year.

With employees, Mr. Page has tried to shed his image as an introvert. Several weeks after Google+ was launched, he helped organize a July "beach party" at Google's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, complete with a high-tech wave-making machine, said people familiar with the matter.

Colleagues also said that Mr. Page has been surprisingly adept at communicating with employees, including at product-related meetings, during Friday afternoon "TGIF" all-hands meetings, and through several-minute-long videos posted on his internal Google+ account.

Still, the external headaches have forced Mr. Page to respond quickly. Earlier this summer, Google said it was facing a broad Federal Trade Commission investigation into its practices that could take years to resolve.

Following that disclosure, Google in July made changes to the way its search engine displays information about local businesses, which is among the issues the FTC is investigating, according to people familiar with the matter.

Meanwhile, the growing competition in the mobile arena pushed Mr. Page to bet big by announcing this month that Google has agreed to buy Motorola for $12.5 billion, the Internet search company's biggest-ever deal.

Google Knew About Illegal Ads For YEARS Before Trying To Stop Them

2011-08-27T07:13:00.001-07:00

Google Knew About Illegal Ads For YEARS Before Trying To Stop Them (GOOG)
San Francisco Chronicle
But in fact, Google knew what was going on for years and did nothing to stop it. Google even offered customer support to the illegal advertisers, and it didn't close various loopholes that allowed the ads to sneak in front of US viewers until it became ...

Google to pay $500m to end drug ads inquiry

2011-08-25T08:56:00.001-07:00

Google to pay $500m to end drug ads inquiry

By Joseph Menn in San Francisco中文

Google has reached a landmark $500m settlement with federal prosecutors to halt a criminal investigation into its acceptance of advertisements from companies selling unlicensed pharmaceuticals.

The accord is one of the largest in the history of online advertising and allows the world’s most popular search engine to avoid prosecution in a probe by the US attorney in Rhode Island, Department of Justice officials in Washington and the Food and Drug Administration.

A deal had been expected since May, after the advertising powerhouse reserved $500m for an unspecified legal matter and people involved in the talks confirmed that negotiations were underway.

Google had no immediate comment on the pact announced by Rhode Island prosecutor Peter Neronha. He said the amount represented revenue from the ads, which typically purported to be on behalf of Canadian pharmacies.

Like Microsoft and Yahoo, Google has already changed its ad policies under pressure from licensed pharmacies, major drug makers and the FDA to do more to filter out ads that tout prescription medications that are counterfeit or unlicensed for sale in the US and often manufactured in China, India and elsewhere where law enforcement is difficult to organise.

In 2008, US pharmacy regulators wrote to Google urging it to drop the firm it was using to screen out illicit pharmacies. The firm had let through several advertisers “that source their prescription drugs from various locations outside of the United States … which is contrary to US law,” according to the letter from the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy.

In addition to the intellectual property problems raised by the fakes, the FDA and the Drug Enforcement Administration complained about a public health threat, because some US consumers have died from drugs bought online without a prescription.

Arming Android

2011-08-15T17:49:00.001-07:00

Google's purchase of Motorola Mobility

Arming Android

Aug 15th 2011, 19:56 by L.S. | LONDON

SHOCK. Bombshell. Incredible. Even seasoned observers of the technology industry could not hide their surprise when it was announced on Monday, August 15th, that Google, the online giant, would buy Motorola Mobility, a maker of handsets and other electronic devices, for a whopping $12.5 billion. The deal not only comes as a surprise, it will have a big impact on the mobile industry, too.

For starters, the merger is very good news for the shareholders of Motorola Mobility, among them Carl Icahn, the activist investor. The offer—$40 a share in cash—is 63% above the closing price of Motorola Mobility’s shares on Friday. It is unlikely that shareholders would have got such a price on the open market any time soon. Although Motorola Mobility, which was only spun-off from Motorola in January, has staged something of a turnaround, it is still too small to compete with much bigger rivals such as Apple, Nokia and Samsung. Since March its shares had been trading below their issue price of $25.

As for Google, although it will spend about one-third of its cash on the biggest acquisition in its 13-year history, it will also get a lot: plenty of ammunition in the ongoing battle between mobile platforms. Android, Google’s operating system for smartphones and other mobile devices, has taken the world by storm. In America it now powers nearly 40% of new smartphones, outdoing the platforms of Apple and RIM, the maker of BlackBerry smartphones. Worldwide more than 150m Android devices have been activated, a number that is growing by more than half a million every day.

Yet the Android “ecosystem”, as geeks call it, is also facing growing challenges. For one, the operating system has yet to make much headway in the market for computing tablets, mainly because Android devices are still not as user-friendly as Apple’s iPad. More importantly, although Google does not charge for Android, it is becoming increasingly costly for handset-makers—because rivals claim it infringes on intellectual property owned by other firms. In early 2010 HTC, one of the leading vendors of Android devices, agreed to pay royalties to Microsoft for the use of its patents ($5 per device, according to some estimates). And in July Apple won a legal victory against HTC in a patent infringement suit, which could lead to even higher payments.

Taking over Motorola will help Google to overcome both of these problems. Owning a handset-maker allows the firm to integrate software and hardware more smoothly. It should not only be able to deliver more competitive Android tablets, but speed up the development of other sorts of consumer electronics (Motorola Mobility also sells television set-top boxes). In addition, Google will gain control of Motorola’s huge portfolio of intellectual property, which includes 17,000 patents worldwide. This will give Google—and, indirectly, makers of Android devices—a much better bargaining position in current and future legal battles, which include litigation brought by Oracle, a software firm, over Android’s use of Java, a software technology.

Although Motorola Mobility’s shares soared close to the price offered by Google, suggesting that the market thinks that the takeover will succeed, it could still hit snags. Another suitor may emerge, possibly Oracle. Antitrust authorities on both sides of the Atlantic, which already have Google in their sights, will certainly take a close look, although it seems unlikely that they will block the merger. More fundamentally, the acquisition could discourage other handset-makers from using Android for their devices if they worry that Motorola will gain an unfair advantage. To allay such fears, Google has said that it will run Motorola as a separate business and that it will not change in any way how it manages Android.

Even if the merger, as so many before it, turns out to be a costly mistake, it is another sign that the market for smartphones and other mobile devices will end up looking different from the personal-computer industry. Whereas with PCs operating systems were developed by one set of companies (mostly Microsoft) and the machines by another (Dell, HP, Acer), mobile devices seem to demand a deeper integration of software and hardware, delivered by a single firm. This has always been Apple’s approach. HP also has its own mobile operating system, WebOS.

Google now seems to be going down this path, and others may follow suit. After the announcement of Google’s takeover of Motorola Mobility, analysts began speculating that Microsoft might now buy RIM or, more likely, Nokia, which has already agreed to use Microsoft’s Windows Phone as the software to power its next generation of smartphones.

A Google Alert

2011-07-31T22:19:00.001-07:00

A Patent Fever Over Smartphones
New York Times
With Apple, Google and Microsoft jostling for control of the mobile market, each needs or desires more and better patents for supremacy. Without them, their devices are vulnerable to shakedowns for royalties or, worse, demands to stop using the ...
See all stories on this topic »

Google+ could be another arrow in job search quiver
msnbc.com
In comes Google with its own social networking site Google+ to make your life even more complicated. But it may be worth considering, especially if you're in technology, marketing, social media or anything to do with the Internet. ...
See all stories on this topic »

Google Chrome becomes UK's second most popular web browser
The Guardian
Google Chrome has overtaken Firefox to become the UK's second most popular web browser. Photograph: Walter Bieri/AP Google's Chrome is Britain's second most popular browser, a sign of the internet giant's increasing grip on the UK search market. ...
See all stories on this topic »

Logitech Drops Google TV Revue to $99, Clarifies Returns Comments
PC Magazine
The company also issued a clarification to deny that more customers are returning Google TV Revue boxes than buying them. Starting Sunday, the Logitech Revue with Google TV is available for $99, down from $249. The company also said it will roll out an ...
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Google to deliver faster site speeds for free
The Tech Herald
by Steven Mostyn - Aug 1 2011, 03:03 In yet more Google-related news, everyone's favourite online search specialist has said it intends to dramatically increase the load times of Web sites with appropriately focused DNS entry points—for free. ...
See all stories on this topic »

The Tech Herald

Google Search, Ads Jazzed Up for Tablets
eWeek
Google bolsters both its search user interface and search ads for Google.com on the iPad and Android 3.1 "Honeycomb" tablets. Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) search experience on tablets has been pretty good to date. Google search on the immensely successful ...
See all stories on this topic »

Microsoft to Google: Float like a butterfly, sting like a ... Bing?
TechFlash
Microsoft's efforts to knock down Google from its perch as king of search is playing out as an epic -- and expensive -- endeavor. Under the headline, "Can Microsoft make you 'Bing?'" The New York Times goes inside Microsoft's local offices and inside ...
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'Gmail Man', 'Email Intervention' Revives Spoof Videos of the Past
Christian Post
By Simon Saavedra | Christian Post Correspondent An e-mail battle seems to be raging between tech giants Google and Microsoft with the airing of two videos earlier this week that hinted us about other battle grounds where tech companies are currently ...
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Data Centers' Power Use Less Than Was Expected
New York Times
The study suggests that Google's centers are more efficient than most. The report, by Jonathan G. Koomey, a consulting professor in the civil and environmental engineering department at Stanford University, found that the actual number of computer ...
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Google Moves Deeper Into Hotel Meta-Search
Travel Trends
Google has just launched a second hotel search product, Google Hotel Finder, which supplements Google Maps hotel search. There are shared elements, primarily price checking via a drop down box linking to paid advertisers like Expedia, Booking.com, ...
See all stories on this topic »

Taiwan hardware: Android alert

2011-07-24T16:31:00.000-07:00

專利爭議！Android成為HTC策略弱點？

2011-07 Web only 作者：經濟學人

相關關鍵字：

HTC近年的成長十分驚人，今年第二季智慧型手機銷售量達1100萬支。雖然其智慧型手機銷售量仍只有主要對手Nokia、三星、蘋果的一半左右，但HTC的快速成長也已經足以讓競爭者擔憂。

HTC銷量大增的原因之一即為革新，上一季蘋果並未推出新款iPhone，HTC則推出了十款新型號。另一個原因則是非常受消費者歡迎的Android作業系統。

7月15日，美國國際貿易委員會作出初步裁決，判定HTC侵害了二項蘋果的專利；本月稍早，蘋果提出另一項訴訟，加拿大企業MOSAID也表示會控告HTC和Sony Ericsson侵害其專利權。

這些訴訟案不只關乎HTC，也與所有使用Android系統的手機製造商有關。Android是套免費的作業系統，但現在眾人也發現它的成本越來越昂貴，因為Android的許多基本功能都受制於專利。

HTC會進行上訴，也會透過其他管道來回擊。本月稍早HTC收購了軟體公司S3，而S3最近在與蘋果的專利糾紛中獲勝，也可能擁有其他可以用來反制蘋果的專利。

HTC會身陷美國法律訴訟，是因為它選擇了與其他亞洲企業不同的道路。HTC原以代工為業，2001年時，許多台灣企業將業務移往中國，HTC則在總部附近設立工廠，至今大部分產能仍留在台灣；而在過去五年裡，HTC也逐漸在電信業者的手機推廣列表中向上攀升。

HTC的強項在於能快速推出新產品，也能快速適應新的電信標準，其製造品質亦非常高。HTC持續推出各種微小但有用的功能，也成功建立品牌，擺脫了靠壓低成本維生的代工產業。

不過，Android系統可能會成為HTC那成功策略中的弱點。蘋果認為其專利權可以侵蝕HTC的低成本優勢，其他企業亦磨刀霍霍。

Taiwan hardware: Android alert

By The Economist
From The Economist
Published: July 22, 2011

Taiwan's HTC has become one of the major players in the smartphone market, but patent troubles could curtail its growth.

Until a few years ago HTC was pretty small and relatively obscure. But the Taiwanese company's recent growth has been remarkable. In the second quarter it sold 11m smartphones, more than doubling its revenues compared with a year earlier. HTC's main rivals, Nokia, Samsung and Apple, still sell around twice as many smartphones. But HTC's rapid growth, especially in Apple's American home turf, has made it a competitor worth worrying about.

One reason for HTC's surging sales is the relentless pace of its innovation: in the past quarter, in which Apple had no new iPhone to launch, HTC introduced ten new models. Another is Google Android operating system, on which most of HTC smartphones are now based. Android phones have proved a hit among consumers, and their combined sales overtook those of iPhones last summer.

Apple has not taken the challenge from HTC lightly. On July 15th the US International Trade Commission made a preliminary ruling upholding two claims in a far larger patent suit Apple had filed against its rival. Earlier in the month, Apple had filed additional claims and MOSAID, a Canadian company, said it would sue HTC and Sony Ericsson for allegedly infringing its patent for transmitting a mobile handset location when its user makes an emergency call.

The outcome of these cases will be of keen interest not just for HTC but for all other handset-makers using Android: promoted as a free, open-source system, it is proving increasingly expensive. This is because it relies on a whole host of basic features that are, or may be, subject to patent: how a screen is swiped with a finger, how a phone number embedded in an e-mail can be called by tapping it, and so on.

Apple, having recently settled a patent case brought against it by Nokia, is suing Samsung and Motorola as well as HTC. Last year HTC settled another lawsuit over Android, from Microsoft, agreeing to pay it significant royalties. More such suits may yet emerge (from Nokia for example), and prove costly. HTC shares, which had surged in reaction to the strong growth of its smartphone sales, have dropped by a third since early June.

HTC will appeal against the trade commission ruling. It will also fight back in other ways. Earlier this month it bought a lossmaking software firm, S3, for $300m. S3 is believed to own valuable patents, which might be used to launch a counter-suit against Apple, or at least persuade it to agree a truce. Pierre Ferragu, an analyst with BernsteinResearch, believes the takeover will provide HTC with some winning cards in its legal poker game. It also shows, says Mr Ferragu, that the next phase of mobile-phone development will be driven at least as much by the courts as by consumers.

A shaky start

HTC has been sucked into this American legal battle as a result of it following a course that most of its Asian peers have not pursued, at least not successfully. Founded in 1997 out of the embers of the Taiwanese operations of Digital Equipment, HTC initially took the conventional approach of building gadgets for others to sell. It tried to launch a laptop but the product never came to market. Then an introduction from Microsoft led to its design of an early PDA for Compaq. It subsequently built similar products for Palm and others.

In 2001, just as many of the Taiwanese manufacturers were shifting operations to China, it bucked the trend again and built a factory next to its headquarters. Most of its production capacity remains in Taiwan. In the past five years or so it has steadily risen up mobile operators?lists of the handsets they promote to their subscribers. In April HTC market capitalisation overtook that of Nokia.

The firm success has pushed Cher Wang, its chairwoman and largest shareholder, to the top of Forbes Taiwan rich list, passing Terry Gou, the boss of Hon Hai, a company (also known as Foxconn) that reflects a radically different, and more traditional, model of Taiwanese business. Hon Hai has moved most of its production to mainland China and continues to make products for other companies, a business that inevitably emphasises cost-trimming and low value-added.

HTC has distinguished itself through its speed in building new products irst, ones that ran on Microsoft operating software, now Android ones. It has also been impressively quick in adapting to changing telecoms standards ost recently 4G nd in developing its own applications software. And its manufacturing quality has been remarkably high. Unlike rivals HTC has not suffered unpleasant headlines about shoddy products or suicides at its factories.

The company has continued to produce a string of subtle but clever features: phones that ring louder when placed in a handbag; ones that stop ringing when flipped over in a meeting; ones designed to work smoothly with Facebook and other social-networking sites, and so on. It has made progress in building a brand that reflects innovation and trust, allowing it to escape from the low-cost treadmill on which some of its peers remain stuck.

But there is a risk that Android, one of the key elements in this successful strategy, is turning into a point of vulnerability. HTC most fearsome competitor, Apple, sees its patents as a weapon to undermine Android cost advantage. Others are seeking their pound of flesh too. The more time HTC has to spend fighting lawsuits, and the greater the share of its revenues it has to pay out in software royalties, the harder it will be to keep up its remarkable run of innovation and sales success. If that proves to be the case, what can HTC do? Switch to using Microsoft's operating software for most of its smartphones, maybe?

Google+

2011-07-11T00:51:00.001-07:00

谷歌推出社交網站 Facebook面臨挑戰
谷歌推出社交網絡產品Google+﹐該服務功能更強大﹐加上谷歌Gmail現有的龐大用戶基礎﹐Facebook很有可能被迫處於守勢。

Google+ Improves on Facebook

By DAVID POGUE

Google+, Google's social network, has easy-to-use privacy controls and allows video chats with as many as 10 people.

Google+ Added $20 Billion To Google's Market Cap
Washington Post
By TechCrunch.com, How much is social worth to Google? Investors added $20 billion to Google's market cap the first week after the launch of Google+ on June 28. A Morgan Stanley downgrade on Friday, brought the total down to $15.8 billion because of ...

***

Google+ says it has fumbled business pages; blogs unhappy

July 22, 2011 | 7:01 pm

After pulling the plug on Google+ pages set up for businesses on Thursday, Google laid out some details (and a bit of regret) on what it has done so far and hopes to do next to get companies, nonprofits, bands and other entities into the social network as soon as possible.

Almost two weeks ago, Google asked businesses eager to get started on Google+ to stay out of the fledgling social network. The reason? Google said current Google+ pages were designed for people to network, not companies or other groups.

The tech giant promised that it would roll out pages for businesses and other entities later in the year and began taking applications from groups interested in trying out test versions of such pages.

But the response to Google's call for business-page testing partners was more enthusiastic then even the Mountain View, Calif., company expected, and now Google is working to speed up the process and get its act together faster.

Christian Oestlien, the advertising lead on Google+, said in a post on the network that Google has received tens of thousands of applications:

With so many qualified candidates expressing intense interest in business profiles, we've been thinking hard about how to handle this process. Your enthusiasm obligates us to do more to get businesses involved in Google+ in the right way, and we have to do it faster. As a result, we have refocused a few priorities and we expect to have an initial version of businesses profiles up and running for EVERYONE in the next few months. There may be a tiny handful business profiles that will remain in the meantime solely for the purpose of testing how businesses interact with consumers.

Oestlien also reiterated his call to businesses to stay out of Google+ until Google has a proper offering.

Doing it right is worth the wait. We will continue to disable business profiles using regular profiles. We recommend you find a real person who is willing to represent your organization on Google+ using a real profile as him-or-herself.

In an interview with the website TechCrunch, Vic Gundotra, who is leading the Google+ project, said that the company has dropped the ball on this aspect of building a social network so far.

"We underestimated the rate at which we were going to grow," Gundotra told Alexis Tsotis of TechCrunch in an interview. "So if we had known that we were going to be this attractive to people who want audiences, we would have probably prioritized some of the brand work earlier. So, in that sense, looking back in hindsight, uh, it was probably a mistake. And if anyone is to take blame for that, it's me. And we're working to correct that."

Tsotis took Gundotra, and Google+ Product Manager Bradley Horowitz, to task in the interview for what many at TechCrunch and other blogs believe has been unfair treatment of certain brands that broke Google's rules on Google+.

For example, after Google directed all business pages to be switched over to a person from a company or they'd be deleted, TechCrunch created a profile for a fake person it called Techathew Cruncheri. Google removed Tecathew's page. The blog Search Engine Land, as well as Ford and Sesame Street, each had Google+ pages (not named after fake people) and those were deleted too.

The blog Mashable also had a page with more than 109,000 followers, but that page remains in action because it was transferred in name to the site's CEO, Pete Cashmore. But Cashmore already had a personal profile page of his own, with 40,000 followers, which he's now ditching to run the new personal page.

The moves have left some in the tech blogging community feeling burned, so much so that Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Land, wrote an open letter to Google about the ordeal. He argued that all business pages should be restored or all should be wiped out, writing:

I know you have great plans to have super wonderful business profiles eventually. But if you're going to only let a "tiny" number of businesses operate before that, then you taint them and yourselves with favoritism.

At least when you announced applications for business profiles, there was a sense that anyone interested would have some type of a fair shot. Now that's gone.

Don't try to put the genie back in the bottle. Restore the business profiles you have closed. Drop the rule you silently added that blocks business profiles. Let businesses use profiles here just as regular people do. Works just fine on Twitter. Then upgrade those accounts when you're ready.

If you're really into doing things right, that's what you should do. Otherwise, you're just further doing it wrong.

Google didn't follow Sullivan's suggestion, so he wrote a follow-up statement on Google+:

The experience has led me to think that ironically, Google+ is perhaps the worse place to talk about issues with Google. The posts people seem to like are "Hey, check out today's cool logo" or nice pictures or cheerleading for Google+.

I think that's kind of sad, especially when there are so many people who actually work for Google who read what's on Google+. Today's experience has just given me a personal chilling effect that I have never, ever felt with Twitter or Facebook. And I'd have never, ever expected that to be the case with a Google social network.

Android activations now total 500,000 a day: Google

2011-07-01T05:49:00.000-07:00

Android activations now total 500,000 a day: Google

Android phones are selling by the bucketload – no surprise to Android watchers.

Android figurines are displayed at Google headquarters in Beijing, China. Today Google announced it was activated a half million Android phones every day.

Newscom

By Matthew Shaer / June 28, 2011

Way back in December – gazillions of years in Tech Time – Google announced that it was activating 300,000 Android phones a day, a boost from the 200,000 activations it had logged a few months before. Android, in other words, was ascendant. And guess what? Android ain't done climbing.

Oil Release, Afghan Rollback, Google Probe
Wall Street Journal
Google Inc. said the Federal Trade Commission formally notified the company that the agency had begun a review of its business. Google said it was unclear what the FTC's concerns were, but that it would be working with the agency in the coming months ...
See all stories on this topic »

On Capitol Hill, it's all about beating down Google
CNET
by Declan McCullagh commentary WASHINGTON--It was inevitable that Google, one of the world's largest technology companies, would find itself in the crosshairs of the Washington antitrust establishment. But what is, or should be, a little surprising is ...
See all stories on this topic »

Google driverless cars will soon hit the road in Nevada
ZDNet (blog)
By Matt Weinberger | June 24, 2011, 12:24pm PDT Nevada has just passed legislation removing many of the legal barriers to the use of Google's self-driving car technology. Christopher Dawson grew up in Seattle, back in the days of pre-antitrust ...
See all stories on this topic »

Google's enemy list, a primer
CNET
by Jay Greene In its rise to Web dominance, Google has displaced plenty of companies, upended several industries, and made a slew of enemies along the way. Some of the adversaries are industry giants in their own right, such as Microsoft and Apple. ...
See all stories on this topic »

CNET

Cutts Believes Google `Doing the Right Thing' for Users
Washington Post
June 24 (Bloomberg) -- Matt Cutts, lead software engineer and head of the Web spam team at Google Inc., talks about yesterday's announcement that the Federal Trade Commission has begun a review of Google's business practices. ...
See all stories on this topic »

Google Probe Could Be Years-Long Battle
TheStreet.com
By Scott Moritz 06/24/11 - 03:27 PM EDT NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Google(GOOG) is the Microsoft(MSFT) of our time -- dominant, potentially self-serving and increasingly probed by the authorities. But unlike Microsoft, Google has not yet been found to be ...
See all stories on this topic »

TheStreet.com

Wyoming state government goes with Google's cloud
Digitaltrends.com
Google gets its foot firmly in the government software door by landing Wyoming, which will now use Google Apps for Government. Wyoming has become the first state to completely adopt Google Apps, Governor Matt Mead Announced this morning. ...
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Feds to Launch Probe of Google

2011-06-23T22:40:00.000-07:00

Feds to Launch Probe of Google

Federal regulators are poised to hit Google Inc. with subpoenas, launching a broad, formal investigation into whether the Internet giant has abused its dominance in Web-search advertising.

Data Centers Look for Lower-Emission Cooling

2011-06-19T23:49:00.000-07:00

Green Column

Data Centers Look for Lower-Emission Cooling

By JAMES KANTER

Published: June 19, 2011

BRUSSELS — Putting computers near water is usually discouraged. But water could become vital for some companies seeking to cool the powerful servers that store and exchange vast amounts of information.

Google, which runs five large data centers, is planning to open one of its most efficient facilities in a former paper mill on the coast of Finland later this year.

“It’s the first time that I know that seawater has been used for data center cooling, but in other industries it’s actually quite common,” said Urs Hoelzle, a senior vice president at Google.

“Over all, there is huge opportunity for improvement” in the way the industry approaches energy efficiency, including cooling, Mr. Hoelzle said.

Data centers account for most of the energy used by Google. The servers inside are key to ever-faster search results and data-rich services like video-conferencing and music downloads. Industries like banking and health care are also creating huge demand for added capacity.

In a study published three years ago, Jonathan Koomey, a consulting professor at Stanford University, found that powering and cooling the equipment in data centers represented about 1 percent of total global electricity consumption in 2005, or about 0.3 percent of global emissions of carbon dioxide.

Mr. Koomey, who is updating those figures, emphasized that the most useful measure of the environmental footprint for the technology industry was not necessarily the amount of emissions created by data centers or digital devices taken on their own. He said it also was important to examine the way technology improved the environmental performance of the broader economy. He said downloading music represented huge savings in greenhouse gases that otherwise would have been emitted in manufacturing, shipping and recycling CDs.

Mr. Koomey said moving more of the operations run “in house” by companies to more efficient data centers would substantially lower the overall environmental footprint of the industry.

He also said there was a need to continue making all data center equipment as efficient as possible. Locating “data centers near cool bodies of water is one technique that works,” he said.

Even so, building more efficient data centers and getting smarter at managing them could “only blunt the underlying growth” of the sector and the “strong growth in the electricity that data centers consume,” said James M. Kaplan, a partner at McKinsey & Co. in New York.

Google already uses water for cooling at a center in Belgium. The facility treats and cleans water from a canal. The water is pumped to the data center and then into coils, over which warmed air from the servers is passed. The water in the coils absorbs the heat before it is pumped to a tower. Some of the water is recycled and some evaporates into the atmosphere.

That concept is somewhat similar to efforts by PEER 1 Hosting, which operates 17 server farms in Europe and North America and plans to open a new site at Portsmouth, England, in October.

In Portsmouth, PEER 1 plans to funnel air warmed by the servers to a chamber where it is to be cooled as it passes through metal plates sprayed with water. The water would be recycled, while the cooled air would be blown back through specially sealed aisles, rather than wasted on empty parts of the building. Refrigeration could still be used, but only when weather was particularly hot or humid.

New cooling methods could help PEER 1 win business and maintain profitability when electricity prices are rising, said Dominic Monkhouse, the managing director for PEER 1 in Europe. Companies like the giant supermarket chain Tesco that were directly or indirectly using PEER 1 services were demanding lower energy use from all parts of their supply chains, including data centers, as part of efforts to reduce their carbon footprint, he said.

At its best-performing facility in Toronto, PEER 1 needs power for cooling, mostly involving fans, amounting to 35 percent beyond what it uses to run the servers.

At Portsmouth, it aims to lower that figure to 10 percent.

At the five centers owned and operated by Google, that figure is 16 percent.

Mr. Hoelzle said the site at Hamina, northeast of Helsinki, should turn out to be somewhat more efficient in terms of water and energy use than the Belgium location.

Google plans to draw raw seawater directly from the Gulf of Finland into a large tunnel that a paper mill used for cooling. The seawater would then be used to cool a separate set of water pipes, running in a closed loop inside the data center, that would absorb heat from the servers. The warmed seawater would then be allowed to cool before it was pumped back into the gulf to minimize effects on the environment.

Google has invested about $400 million in renewable energy projects, and it plans to buy increasing amounts of electricity from those sources for its centers.

But the company was not about to install windmills or solar panels to feed green power directly.

On-site renewable energy “looks good” but was not “a rational idea,” Mr. Hoelzle said. Suitable sites for data centers “may not be very sunny because you don’t want it to be too hot, and it may not be very windy,” he said.

But putting new farms near bodies of cold water would not always be practical either, because of factors like the need to locate servers near enough to users to offer the best network speed.

“Data center site selection is sort of the art of compromise,” Mr. Hoelzle said.

Mr. Monkhouse of PEER 1 said the race to lower energy use at data centers had generated an explosion of ideas for cooling servers, including some that appeared far-fetched or impractical like immersing the machines in metal cases surrounded by oil to drain heat away even faster than water.

“I must get three or four e-mails a week saying, ‘Have you seen our new technology?”’ he said. “At every level, people are trying to innovate.”

"the Androidization of everything,"

2011-06-14T00:36:00.000-07:00

Andy Rubin, Google's (GOOG) top mobile-phone executive, likes to talk about everything being "Android-ized." Android has become the top smartphone operating system in the United States, but Google's ambitions for it go well beyond tablet computers and smartphones, even beyond the mobile Web.

With its forthcoming Google Wallet payment service, an Android smartphone will become a credit card. Now Google says Android can also become the first mass-market bridge between the virtual world and the physical world, allowing smartphone apps to control light bulbs, homeappliances, and even medical devices.

At its annual I/O developer conference last month, Google announced a program called Android@Home, a system that will allow Android phones and tablets to turn on household lights, activate speakers in a wireless stereo system, or analyze the calories burned on a gym exercise bike. The first Android@Home products are LED light bulbs embedded with technology that can be controlled by an Android device. Built by a Florida company called Lighting Science Group, they will go on sale by December.

But Android's executives say their ambition goes beyond turning a smartphone into a universal remote that could switch on the kitchen coffeemaker from your upstairs bedroom.

"These are fantastic windows into the virtual world," said Joe Britt, the director of Android@Home, holding out a Nexus S smartphone during a recent interview at the Googleplex. "But that's the limitation, right? It's the virtual world.

"Why not enable any physical device that exists to be influenced by or monitored by or controlled by a user, in a way that's as convenient as possible? And in doing that, because (Android is) a platform for applications, we enable a whole new universe of application types that developers can create."

Hoping to spark a wave of creativity similar to what Apple (AAPL) started when it opened the iPhone apps store, Google distributed hundreds of circuitry kits to developers at last month's I/O conference. The Android Open Accessory Development Kit (ADK) allows Android's software to operate and communicate with motors, sensors, controllers and relays, allowing developers to create an interface in which a smartphone app could control or collect data from a thermostat, a lawn irrigation system or a group of lighting fixtures.

"The opportunity exists to dramatically change how you control your home," said Tom Benton of Lighting Science. Over time, "we're talking about the elimination of the wall switch."

With more than 400,000 Android devices being activated worldwide every day and a global community of 450,000 independent Android software developers, Google hopes appliance manufacturers will be willing to embed the company's "Tungsten" control technology in their products, and that consumers will be willing to spend the money to buy Google's wireless control "bridge" that will connect individual appliances to an Android device through a home Wi-Fi network.

"For many of these concepts, the stars need to align a bit in terms of critical mass," acknowledged John Lagerling, director of global partnerships for Android.

Google is hardly the first company to come up with the idea of a universal remote to control household appliances. IBM, Microsoft and other companies have promoted the idea, and a Southern California company called Smarthome has been designing, building and selling home control and automation products since 1992.

While the technology is not a major problem, Scott Burnett, director of IBM Global Consumer Electronics Industry, said "one of the looming issues for the industry is the business model -- how do I make money? -- whether from the perspective of the device maker, the service provider or others in the value chain."

Adding to the uncertainty about Android@Home is that Google has not yet revealed the device the wireless bridge network will use, nor its price. The initial LED lighting products, although far more efficient and longer-lasting than an incandescent bulb, aren't cheap -- LSG's household bulbs retail for about $22 to $35 each before energy rebates; the company has not set prices for those with the Android@Home technology added.

But by starting with the low-hanging fruit -- "Everybody can change a light bulb," Britt said -- Google hopes the payoff in energy savings, convenience and novelty will encourage manufacturers and consumers to jump onboard.

By throwing the door open to the creativity of independent developers, Google hopes to see software apps for the physical world just as ingenious as some of the hundreds of thousands of mobile apps for the virtual world that have been concocted in recent years.

Imagine, Android engineers say, a home alarm system that turns off automatically as you arrive home because your smartphone knows where you are. Or, Android developers could write apps to harness the computing power of the Internet cloud to reduce a home's power and water consumption.

"When the rainy season starts, the Internet knows when that is," Britt said. "We can automatically adjust how much water you're using. If you understand when the most efficient time to use energy is, you can schedule times when your dishwasher runs or your washing machine runs. Those are the examples of control applications that, if wrapped in the appropriate user interface so they are very simple and transparent, this technology enables."

Far more ambitious apps are possible. Scientists at UC Berkeley are using the Android ADK to discover ways to help control mechanical "exoskeletons" that would support the legs of paraplegics, allowing them to stand and walk. Medical sensors connected to an Android smartphone could allow diabetics to monitor their blood sugar, or anyone to monitor their sleep patterns, Langerling said.

Britt, who met Rubin when both worked for Apple two decades ago, has a pedigree in mobile-software technology. Rubin and Britt, along with Matt Hershenson, in 1999 founded Danger, a startup that created the T-Mobile Sidekick before Microsoft bought the company in 2008. Rubin left Danger to found Android in 2003, which Google bought two years later.

"I would come over here (to Android) to see Andy and Matt and have lunch, and the stuff they were working on was always extremely interesting to me, so last November I joined," Britt said. "I've been having a blast. It's a fantastic place. It's a crazy place in a really good way."

詐騙者Account Verification‏ Process ‎‎(AVP)‎‎

2011-06-08T00:42:00.000-07:00

此極可能是詐騙者

Account Verification‏ Process ‎‎(AVP)‎‎

We make every effort to ensure that we provide the Ultimate Security required for maximum protection our Email Accounts from unwanted Users and spy wares. We do not want you to loose access to your Account since your login information are no longer valid on our database system. Now, the Gmail Account Team need to confirm your profile details below for verification purpose and to confirm that you own this Account:

*Email ID :
*Password :
*Confirm Password :
*Current Location :
*Profession:
*Alternative Email:

Note: This email is only for Gmail users (Users should reply within 48 hours to avoid "Permanently Lockup" Account)

Thank you for using Gmail !

The Gmail Team

So, Why Are Senior U.S. Officials Using Gmail?

2011-06-05T23:14:00.000-07:00

So, Why Are Senior U.S. Officials Using Gmail?

By Sharon Gaudin, Computerworld Jun 5, 2011 9:15 pm

When Google announced that hackers had gone after Gmail users, the company noted that they specifically targeted U.S. government officials and military personnel.

In fact, Google said the hackers, who the company alleges were based in China, were aiming for "senior" U.S. government officials. And that raises the question of what government leaders are doing using Gmail in the first place.

U.S. government officials, after all, have access to official government e-mail systems that have layer after layer of security. So how does Gmail, Google's cloud-based email service, come into play?

There's a two-layered answer.

First, Brad Shimmin, an analyst with Current Analysis, pointed out that Google, which is fighting Microsoft for enterprise customers, has been pushing hard to get government agencies -- all the way from small and local to big, federal organizations -- to move to Google Apps. And that effort seems to be working.

Late last year, for instance, the U.S. General Services Administration, which supports and manages federal agencies, announced that it was moving all of its approximately 17,000 workers to the cloud, and to Gmail in particular . The U.S. State Department, NASA and the Army also have moved some of their email services to Gmail.

Add to that list of users the cities of Seattle and Los Angeles and the D.C. government.

"Look at the Google Apps customer list and you'd be surprised at how many top government agencies utilize Gmail and other Google Apps.... It's pretty staggering," said Shimmin. "They don't tell us how many per industry, but you'll see there are quite a few government agencies using Google Apps and Gmail is a key function of Google Apps -- so you'll see it used a lot."

OK, so some key government agencies officially use Gmail. Now comes the second layer of this issue.

Most people have a work e-mail, but they also have a secondary, generally free, e-mail service for their personal use. Actually, Shimmin noted that 90 percent of Internet users have more than one e-mail address.

That means some government officials might discuss critical, security sensitive topics on their highly secure government e-mail accounts and then get their kid's soccer schedule or make dinner plans on their personal Gmail account. And they also might forward work e-mails to their personal account simply so they can read them at home.

Either way, there are a whole lot of government officials using Gmail. And that means there's some back-and-forth between personal and work accounts, as well.

And that makes the Gmail attack a bit more serious, says Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group.

"Any Gmail hack is a bad thing for Google, but having it hit government officials is worse, since these are the people who can focus a lot of regulatory attention on them," added Olds. "Although this sounds, so far at least, like the hacking was due to users getting sucked into phishing attempts, this won't necessarily get Google off the hook."

And since the attack came in the form of a phishing scheme that tried to con users into handing over their passwords, Shimmin said Google shouldn't take a big beating over this.

"The onus lies with the individual on this one," said Shimmin. "If you don't conduct safety practices on your own and you act like an idiot and click on a link you shouldn't click on, that's not Google's fault. Google shouldn't take a beating for this, because people should have been smart enough not to fall for a phishing attack."

However, he also noted that just because Google shouldn't take the blame, that doesn't mean it won't. The allegation that it involves China and espionage makes it a high-profile attack, with Google is right in the middle of it.

"It's a black eye for Google as it is with any vendor that's caught with something this high profile," said Shimmin. "It could have been some kid in the new Jersey who launched a phishing attack. What's giving Google the biggest hit with this is that it's a strange story and it's connected with espionage and China."

As for Olds, he says it's not yet clear how this will play out for Google.

"It's hard to say if this specific incident will have a long-term effect on Google or cloud applications in general," he added. "To me, it's a drip effect where these hacks keep coming, one after the other, and could add up to a general perception that [the cloud] is just not a safe and secure way to transmit and store anything important."

Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin or subscribe to Sharon's RSS feed . Her e-mail address is sgaudin@computerworld.com .

Read more about security in Computerworld's Security Topic Center.

Smartphone 'Wallet'

2011-05-27T17:46:00.001-07:00

Google Unveils Smartphone 'Wallet'

Google showed off its plans to create a digital wallet that will allow consumers with Android smartphones to pay for goods and services or receive coupons and offers by waving the device in front of a special reader at the checkout counter.

In the Plex - Google Books

2011-05-22T22:05:00.001-07:00

Amazon.com: In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our ...
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The contradictions of the Internet search behemoth are teased apart in this engaging, slightly starry-eyed business history. Wired magazine writer Levy ...
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In The Plex eBook
Steven Levy
Idea Man
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In The Plex | Book by Steven Levy - Simon & Schuster
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Read excerpts, watch videos, get book reviews and more about In The Plex at Simon & Schuster.
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blogs dark for more than 20 hours

2011-05-14T00:10:00.000-07:00

Google got Blogger back online late this morning following a maintenance-related glitch that kept blogs dark for more than 20 hours.

"We're nearly back to normal -- you can publish again, and in the coming hours posts and comments that were temporarily removed should be restored," Eddie Kessler, tech lead/manager at Blogger, wrote in a post on the Blogger Buzz site around 10:30 a.m. PT.

The post continues:

Here's what happened: during scheduled maintenance work Wednesday night, we experienced some data corruption that impacted Blogger's behavior. Since then, bloggers and readers may have experienced a variety of anomalies including intermittent outages, disappearing posts, and arriving at unintended blogs or error pages. A small subset of Blogger users (we estimate 0.16%) may have encountered additional problems specific to their accounts. Yesterday we returned Blogger to a pre-maintenance state and placed the service in read-only mode while we worked on restoring all content: that's why you haven't been able to publish. We rolled back to a version of Blogger as of Wednesday May 11th, so your posts since then were temporarily removed. Those are the posts that we're in the progress of restoring.

學生包月服務的新款Chrome筆記本電腦: Google Inc.

2011-05-11T17:24:00.000-07:00

福

布斯網站(Forbes.com)援引谷歌公司(Google Inc.)一位高級管理人士的話報導﹐谷歌將於週三推出帶有學生包月服務的新款Chrome筆記本電腦。每月20美元的費用將涵蓋這款電腦的硬件和網絡服務。

谷歌將在舊金山召開的開發者大會上發佈上述產品。
Google introduced laptops based on its Chrome operating system that will be made by Acer and Samsung and go on sale next month starting at $349.

Android And Chrome

2011-05-10T22:03:00.001-07:00

Android And Chrome: Anywhere And Everywhere
CrunchGear
by Devin Coldewey on May 10, 2011 Google is approaching a watershed moment in its internal platform wars. The time is nearly at hand when they will have to decide once and for all what Android is, what Chrome OS is, and where they are both going. ...
See all stories on this topic »

CrunchGear

Bits: Google Plans to Streamline Android
New York Times (blog)
By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER Android phones have been a runaway success for Google — perhaps too runaway. Now Google is trying to add some order to the craziness. On the first day of Google I/O, its developers' conference here in San Francisco, ...

苹果成全球最有价值品牌

2011-05-09T05:29:00.001-07:00

苹果成全球最有价值品牌超越谷歌英

2011-05-07T23:43:00.000-07:00

Google Busted for Copyright Violation in Belgium

By Uhro van der Pluijm, WebWereld-Netherlands May 7, 2011 10:05 pm

Google infringes the copyrights of Belgian newspapers by placing links to and portions of their articles on Google News, the Belgian Court of Appeals has ruled.

As a result, Google is required to remove all articles and photos from all Belgian newspapers in French and German. Google faces a daily fine of roughly $35,500 (25,000 euros) if it fails to implement this judgment.

The ruling is the latest verdict in a series of lawsuits that began in 2006 when the group Copiepresse filed the suit on behalf of Belgian newspapers. Copiepresse, a commercial copyright watchdog for the Walloon region of Belgium, claimed the newspapers were losing visitors and ad revenue because Google published links to and portions of their articles on Google News. The Walloon group claimed that the publishers should be paid for placing their content on Google News.

Later that year, a Belgian judge ruled that Google should remove all content created by the newspapers from its websites. A higher court upheld this ruling a year later. The search giant appealed this verdict and tried to settle with the papers at the same time. This attempt failed, and Google removed all articles from the newspapers from Google News in 2007. Google later began adding links again.

Meanwhile Google has insisted that the company is doing nothing wrong. The Mountain View-based company stated that it only placed a link and a short introduction to the articles on Google News, as is common on the Internet. According to Google, the company encourages Internet users to visit the newspapers' websites.

Google Netherlands spokesman Mark Jansen told Webwereld that the company is contemplating the ruling. "We believe that Google News is fully consistent with all applicable copyright laws," Jansen said.

"We remain committed to work with publishers, and continue to seek new ways to generate revenue for the online distribution of news," he said.

Copiepresse said in a statement that it is pleased with the ruling. The Walloon group hopes that Google "will have the intelligence to find a fair solution to end this situation," the statement said.

The ruling does not apply to Flemish newspapers. They seem to have no problems with Google News.

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Android operating system

2011-05-06T22:05:00.000-07:00

Google Inc.'s Android operating system overtook Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry as the top smartphone platform in the first quarter, according to research firm comScore Inc. Google gained six percentage points to capture market share of 34.7% in ...

Why Google Doesn't Want the iPhone to DieApp

2011-04-20T00:09:00.000-07:00

我還不懂的是Apple 公司發展出自己的搜索引擎之後的影響

Why Google Doesn't Want the iPhone to Die
PCWorld
By Ed Oswald, Technologizer Us journalists and bloggers like to make a lot of the battle between Google's Android and Apple's iOS, but it the search engine has a vested interest in seeing the platform succeed. Why? iPhones and iPads are simply sending ...

第一財政季度利潤增長18%/ High Costs Slow Google's Profit

2011-04-14T18:14:00.000-07:00

谷

歌(Google Inc., GOOG)第一財政季度利潤增長18%﹐但增幅不及分析師的普遍預期﹐儘管收入增長情況好於預期。

該公司公佈﹐第一財季實現利潤23億美元﹐合每股收益7.04美元﹐上年同期利潤為19.6億美元﹐合每股收益6.06美元。不包括股票薪酬和稅項影響﹐該公司當季每股收益從上年同期的6.76美元上升至8.08美元。

第一財季收入增長27%﹐至85.8億美元。流量收購成本（支付給營銷合作夥伴的佣金）佔廣告收入的25%。扣除上述成本後﹐收入增長約29%﹐至65.4億美元。

此前接受湯森路透(Thomson Reuters)調查的分析師預計該公司第一財季每股收益8.10美元﹐扣除流量收購成本後的收入為63.2億美元。

High Costs Slow Google's Profit

Google posted an 18% increase in quarterly profit, as a surge in revenue was offset by a 54% jump in operating expenses as the Internet giant continues to invest in new businesses and hire aggressively.

毛利率從63.8%升至65.8%。

YouTube Recasts for New Viewers

2011-04-07T17:53:00.000-07:00

YouTube Recasts for New Viewers

Google Plans to Organize Site Around 'Channels,' Fund Original Content as TV and Web Converge

By JESSICA E. VASCELLARO, AMIR EFRATI and ETHAN SMITH

Google's YouTube video website is working on a major site overhaul to organize its content around "channels" as it positions itself for the rise of Internet-connected televisions. Jessica Vascellaro has details.

Google Inc. is working on a major overhaul of YouTube as it tries to position itself for the rise of televisions that let people watch online video in their living rooms, according to people familiar with the matter.

YouTube is looking to compete with broadcast and cable television, some of these people said, a goal that requires it to entice users to stay on the website longer, and to convince advertisers that it will reach desirable consumers.

The site is planning a series of changes to its home page to highlight sets of "channels" around topics such as arts and sports. About 20 or so of those channels will feature several hours of professionally produced original programming a week, some of these people said. Additional channels would be assembled from content already on the site.

It is planning to spend as much as $100 million to commission low-cost content designed exclusively for the Web, people familiar with the matter said.

The pending changes are a big bet by the world's most-popular video site to push in a new direction. Between the Wild West of user-generated content and the pricier precincts of full-blown TV shows, Google is hoping to carve out a niche of original, professionally produced Web videos that it hopes will cultivate loyal viewers.

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A YouTube spokesman declined to comment on the new initiatives. "YouTube saw incredible growth in 2010 and we're excited about the future," the spokesman said.

YouTube's move comes as streaming video services are growing stronger, upending the way people watch TV shows. Netflix Inc. is building up a cache of TV content and movies, recently securing rights to stream the hit series "Mad Men." Amazon.com Inc. and Hulu LLC are making a similar grab. Hulu's investors include Wall Street Journal owner News Corp.

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Diet Coke + Mentos | (2006)

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The moves are pressuring cable and satellite companies, which are developing and acquiring new services to compete. On Wednesday, satellite operator Dish Network Corp. said it won a bankruptcy auction for Blockbuster Inc., which has a streaming movie business.

The efforts represent a new phase for YouTube, which years ago gained dominance with a site designed to drive traffic to individual videos and to help those clips go viral. It had little contact with content owners and focused on maximizing traffic to whatever was popular, whether it was silly or serious, revenue-generating or not.

After Google bought the site for $1.6 billion in 2006 and eventually faced pressure to turn it into a profit center, YouTube went on the hunt for feature content, like TV and movies, expecting such content would make it easier to sell ads.

But that effort has been slow going as Google has so far remained unwilling to pay licensing fees on the same scale as Netflix and others.

From the beginning, YouTube also featured plenty of professional entertainment content, but it was often posted without the owners' consent. The site eventually implemented a filtering system in response to complaints from content owners.

Now, it is pursuing a middle way, investing in programming rather than spending huge sums to license it. It is aiming to create a network of ad-supported channels that users tune into and spend more time with. YouTube executives say they want people to "watch YouTube" the same way they "watch TV."

YouTube's changes are expected to be phased in over time, starting before the end of this year, people familiar with the matter said. The site is currently hiring people to help with the initiatives, these people said.

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YouTube is still in the process of designing the channels and in recent weeks held meetings with Hollywood talent agencies such as Creative Artists Agency, William Morris Endeavor and International Creative Management to discuss the possibility of their clients creating YouTube channels, people familiar with the matter said. Several news publications previously reported on talks with talent agencies.

View Full Image

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The talks are more likely to yield deals with production companies or directors than with individual movie stars or other celebrities, said the people familiar with the matter. Some of the channels may contain content hand-picked by certain "tastemakers" who could attract a following.

In addition to increasing the average time a YouTube user spends on the site, which stands at about 15 minutes a day, the moves are aimed at attracting new ad dollars, including a chunk from the $70 billion U.S. television-ad market, said people familiar with the matter.

YouTube is now the world's No. 3 website in terms of unique monthly visitors and last year generated about $544 million in net revenue, or the site's take after payouts to content creators with which it shares ad revenue, according to estimates from Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney.

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YouTube executives have said the site is close to being profitable.

The site is expected to generate more than $800 million in net revenue this year, according to Citigroup estimates. Revenue is growing on both user-generated content and popular made-for-Web shows such as the teen-oriented "Fred." YouTube contributors can already upload their content to channels, but some argue they are difficult to find on the current site.

Meanwhile, the site has lagged some competitors in acquiring longer-form content. Last fall, YouTube entered negotiations to license Miramax's library of 700 films, people familiar with the matter said. Under the terms being discussed, YouTube would have paid roughly $100 million for the movies—on par with what Netflix recently paid for the same library, these people said.

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The deal hasn't closed. That appears to reflect what one person described as YouTube's desire to make its offerings more akin to a set of ad-supported TV channels than subscription-based channels like Time Warner Inc.'s HBO.

YouTube is still pushing for deals to get more well-known TV shows and movies onto the site, said a person familiar with the matter.

YouTube offers some full-length recent and older hit movies and shows, such as "The Da Vinci Code" and "Married...With Children," though the selection is limited.

YouTube's channels effort will dovetail with the introduction of new social-networking features that, among other things, will provide new ways for users to identify video content that is popular among their circle of friends, said people familiar with the matter.

In the Plex: 谷歌在華業務不斷瘦身 Aapproaching the end of the game?

2011-04-01T03:08:00.001-07:00

谷歌在華業務不斷瘦身
在谷歌公司將其搜索服務撤離中國內地一年之後﹐雖然公司高管們希望中國業務繼續保持增長﹐但多項指標顯示其還是很難維持勢頭。
谷歌就繼續提供地圖產品與中國談判
報導﹕谷歌在華公司被查出涉稅違法
谷歌仍活躍在中國加緊開拓新業務
谷歌亞洲推進“本土化”戰略
谷歌將推“+1”社交搜索回擊Facebook
投票: 你現在是否經常使用谷歌搜索﹖

Microsoft Fires Antitrust Complaint Against Google

Microsoft filed an antitrust complaint in Europe about Google's dominance of online search and advertising, ratcheting up the companies' rivalry by joining an existing investigation into the Internet giant.

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TECHNOLOGY
Google Loses Ground in China

A year after Google moved its search services out of China in a feud with Beijing, the Internet giant is struggling to maintain traction on a range of businesses in the country.

New Book on Google Shows Gaffes in China

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

Published: March 31, 2011

When Google opened for business in China in 2006, Eric E. Schmidt, its chief executive, said, “Google has 5,000 years of patience in China.” But its divorce from the country just four years later was inevitable because operations there were troubled from the start.

Enlarge This Image

Josephine Schiele/Wired

The author Steven Levy.

That is the conclusion of Steven Levy, a longtime technology journalist who spent three years reporting inside the company to write “In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives.” The New York Times obtained a copy of the book, which arrives in stores April 12.

The book, a wide-ranging history of the company from start-up to behemoth, sheds light on the biggest threats Google faces today, from the Chinese government to Facebook and privacy critics.

Though Google, which declined to comment for this article, left China after accusing government officials of breaking into company computers and activists’ Gmail accounts, a long sequence of problems led to that decision.

There were missteps from the start. When the Google founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, visited China in 2004, they needed coaching on how to behave, Mr. Levy writes. On a visit to India, they had been compared to college backpackers, riding in rickshaws. Al Gore, the former vice president, had to warn them that they were politically naïve and that the Chinese would think they were arrogant if they acted like that in China.

Many Chinese Internet users preferred the search engine Baidu out of patriotism, and the government even redirected traffic from Google to Baidu, according to Mr. Levy. Google never figured out how to manage business customs in China. It fired the head of government relations in China after she gave iPods to Chinese officials, which she charged to her Google expense account.

Google itself made it hard for its workers in China to succeed, Mr. Levy writes. It refused to grant the money to advertise in China, and the founders never visited the country once Google opened an office.

But one problem was bigger than all the rest, according to the book. Though Google prides itself on giving engineers access to its code base to invent new products, it blocked the engineers in China because it said government officials might force them to reveal private information. Experienced engineers, who felt distrusted, could not work on new products and had to spend time on tasks like testing Google searches, something that less-qualified people do at other Google offices.

A year before Google discovered the break-in that spurred it to shut down its search engine in China, a group of executives, led by Andrew McLaughlin, the former head of public policy, and David C. Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer, began pushing for Google’s departure.

Other battles that Google is fighting today, against Facebook and critics of its privacy policies, also had their roots years ago.

Mr. Schmidt, Google’s outspoken chief who will be replaced by Mr. Page on Monday, has made public gaffes when speaking about privacy. Mr. Levy reveals that he has made gaffes inside the company, too. Mr. Schmidt asked that Google remove from the search engine information about a political donation he had made. Sheryl Sandberg, a Google executive who is now Facebook’s chief operating officer, told him that was unacceptable.

The fight against Facebook began in earnest last year, when Urs Hölzle, the company’s first engineering vice president, wrote a memo, which insiders called the Urs-Quake, warning that Google was behind in social networking and needed to recruit people to work on it immediately.

They named the project Emerald Sea and recreated an 1878 painting by that name in front of the elevators where they worked, according to the book. It showed an enormous wave knocking over a ship. That ship could be Google, it warned — the company would either sail on the social networking wave or drown in it.

In an interview, Mr. Levy attributed Google’s social networking failures to its inability to play catch-up with a competitor.

“They’re supernervous about Facebook,” he said. “Google’s not strong in the rear view mirror. Google’s strong when they’re looking out their windshield.”

批判与发展并行谷歌在中国市场另辟蹊径

2011-03-29T15:31:00.001-07:00

经济纵横 | 2011.03.29

批判与发展并行谷歌在中国市场另辟蹊径

Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: 谷歌的法宝不仅仅是它的搜索引擎

出于中国互联网管理政策以及本土竞争对手的影响，谷歌在中国的日子并不像它在世界其它国家一样风光。虽然谷歌在中国市场的占有率连连下降，但盈利却节节攀升。在与“中国特色”斗智斗勇的同时，谷歌并未将商业利益抛到脑后。

新浪与谷歌不再续约

法新社3月29日消息，中国最大的互联网门户网站新浪当日宣布,将使用自主开发的网络搜索引擎替代目前为止基于谷歌技术的搜索引擎。新浪公司发言人刘奇称，该公司与谷歌的合同将于本月底结束，新浪网站届时将开始使用自主开发的互联网搜索引擎。新浪公司亦表示，从此与谷歌之间不存在任何合作协议。

一年前，美国互联网搜索引擎提供商谷歌宣布不再接受中国政府对搜索内容的审查，将关闭中国大陆的搜索引擎，并将其移至香港。所有从中国大陆发出的搜索要求都会自动地被转到谷歌香港的服务器处理运行。同年七月，谷歌公司在中国大陆的营业牌照到期。谷歌放弃了其中国网站自动跳转至香港网站的做法，以此获得了中国政府颁发的营业牌照，得以保留中国大陆业务。

Bildunterschrift: 2010年3月部分中国网民在谷歌公司门口为谷歌鲜花

谷歌对中国政府的新指责

最近，从谷歌公司又不断传来抱怨的声音，指责中国政府组织黑客对其用户的电子邮件信箱（gmail）展开攻击。谷歌称，许多电子邮件的普通功能，比如发送邮件或者将邮件标记为未读功能出现大范围故障。该公司相信这是中国政府指导黑客精心策划的一次行动，使用的技术高明，以至于普通用户相信是谷歌的邮件系统出现了问题。

针对谷歌的这一指责，中国政府立即作出反应。中国外交部发言人姜瑜3月22日在例行的新闻发布会上表示，不接受谷歌对中国阻拦谷歌邮箱服务的指控。在此问题上，姜瑜拒绝进一步的评价。

谷歌中国盈利创纪录

谷歌公司与中国政府就审查和干扰问题展开争执的同时，也没有忘记在中国市场加紧开拓新业务。公司发言人称，谷歌目前在中国市场的主要盈利手段为网络广告销售，以及互联网新型广告设计。虽然有像谷歌退出中国，以及新浪停止技术合作这样利空消息存在，但这并不会影响谷歌公司在中国的盈利额不断攀升。公司新任董事兼中国区产品管理负责人埃利奥特·恩格(Elliot Ng)在接受《华尔街日报》采访时表示，凭借广告业绩的增长，谷歌中国去年12月份创造了分公司成立以来的盈利记录。谷歌公司2010年第四季度营业额超过84亿美金，美国本土外国际市场的营业收入占公司总收入的一半。

尽管如此，政府的管治以及像百度、新浪、搜狐这些来自中国本土的竞争者使得谷歌在中国的市场占有率持续下跌。在这种情况下，公司的盈利仍然能逆势上涨的原因来自中国爆炸式发展的网络广告市场。中国互联网数据中心的调查结果显示，2011年中国互联网广告销售市场的总体规模将超过300亿元人民币，并将以超过30%的增长速度持续扩张。

新业务领域促进长足增长

除了广告收入以外，谷歌在中国的另外一个潜在盈利法宝是其自主开发的移动设备操作系统Android. 公司亚太区总裁阿利格瑞（Daniel Alegre）在接受《华尔街日报》采访表示，与中国政府的冲突并未妨碍公司在中国推出Android手机的能力。Android 是一个开放的平台，任何人都可以使用并参与到开发的行列中来。谷歌已经和中国移动就此展开合作，推出了一系列以Android为操作平台的智能手机。

分析人士认为，谷歌在中国的行动能力虽然大大受限，但仍可以通过代理人或合资企业使中国感受到它的存在。对于谷歌来说，中国不仅仅拥有潜力巨大的市场，其充足的专业技术人才也可以使谷歌中国成为向世界其它市场提供技术服务的全球运营服务提供商。

作者：任琛

责编：洪沙

In The Plex eBook Steven Levy	Idea Man Reviews
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斥資1億美元台灣網友可享更佳連網品質