Flash 10 for Google Android

Adobe showed at the Adobe MAX 2008 developer conference Flash 10 running on Android.

The Apple iPhone might never get Adobe Flash because it would impact Apple's software control over the iPhone.

This is a real disadvantage for the iPhone as Flash is very popular on the web especially for video playback and online games.

When the Flash Player 10 will be released on the Android OS is not known yet.

Any smartphone with a 200 MHz or better processor and 16 MB of RAM should be able to run the new version of Flash, opening many phones up to the software. A completely capable web browser is also required, implying support of typical standards.

Previously, Flash was only available on a few smartphones via Flash Lite, a greatly stripped down version of the software.

Google tests Picasa for Mac beta

After Linux and Windows users, Google's Picasa photo management tool is currently being tested for Macs.

People familiar with the matter say the search engine giant has just begun internal beta testing for the Mac-native version of the software.

While its proximity to a final release is still unknown, Picasa for Mac would serve as one of Google's few fully offline Mac apps and has often been one of the most conspicuous omissions on Apple's platform from a company otherwise known for its cross-OS friendliness in programs like Google Earth and SketchUp.

The company has previously made gestures towards integrating the app with Macs, including iPhoto and web plugins to upload images to Picasa's Web Albums service. To date, however, most observers have seen Picasa's basic organization, editing and sharing features as making the app a direct competitor to iPhoto that hasn't been as necessary as on Linux or Windows platforms, which have generally gone without rough equivalents.

Google sorts one petabyte in 6 hours

Google has sorted a record 1 terabyte of data on 1,000 computers in only 68 seconds, which breaks the previous mark of 209 seconds established in July by Yahoo.

Team leader Grzegorz Czajkowski wrote that the team followed the rules of a standard terabyte sort benchmark and used Google's MapReduce software framework that supports parallel computations over large (multiple petabyte) data sets on clusters of computers. Yahoo's effort had featured a 910-node cluster, and used Hadoop, an open-source MapReduce implementation.

The sort benchmark, which was created in 1998 by computer scientist Jim Gray, specifies the input data (10 billion 100-byte records in uncompressed text files), which must be completely sorted and written to disk. Not content with just rewriting the record book, the Google team then decided to up the ante in sorting massive volumes of data.

One petabyte is a thousand terabytes. One way to put that amount in perspective, according to Czajkowski, is to consider that the aggregate size of data processed by all instances of MapReduce at Google was, on average, 20 PB per day in January 2008. A paper explaining MapReduce on the Google labs site says that the upwards of one thousand MapReduce jobs are executed on Google's clusters every day. So the infrastructure team's MapReduce job that extended the benchmark factors out to 50 typical MapReduce jobs, or one-twentieth the total of all daily MapReduce jobs run on Google's clusters.

Layoffs in Google

Rumor of the day is that even Google is not as immune to the recession as we used to believe with 500 people already laid off and a total of 10 thousand to be affected as well.

And while the blogosphere is actively engaged in a conversation about the huge number of layoffs, everyone agrees that the rumor is most probably wrong and the number of people will not reach anything near 10,000.

The figure of 10,000 itself arrives from the fact that Google has 10 thousand people working for the company as temporary workers, or contractors without all the full-time employment benefits involved. This arrangement both makes the expenses lower as these workers are not paid benefits or offered stock options and also makes the company look healthy to shareholders as the productivity per employee is higher than it could be if everyone was actually counted.

Laying off personnel classified as temporary workers (or in this case cancelling or not renewing their contracts) does not require public reporting - which explains why we did not know of the 500 people already out of their jobs if this actually happened. Still it is rather surprising that no one of the 500 people sent a tip to a technology blogger who would have gladly covered the story given the existing trends of the layoffs coverage. But some commentators suggest that the people were requested to sign non-disclosure agreements which could explain why we have heard nothing about it.

Use Google Docs Via Gmail with a new gadget

Gmail users can now add a Docs gadget to the sidebar of their Gmail inbox that will let them access files as well as drag and drop content into e-mails.

By default the gadget shows a list of your most recently accessed documents, but you can change this to documents you own, you have opened or you have starred. And let's not forget search - you can find any document by typing a few letters into the search box.

Users interested in the gadget will have to add it themselves via Gmail Labs. To access it, sign into Gmail, click Settings, and select the Labs tab. Find the Google Docs gadget at the bottom of the page, click Enable, and save your changes. Gmail will reload with the Docs gadget intact.

This gadget isn't just about accessing your documents. You drag any document from the gadget into an email you are composing and the unique link to your document automatically shows up in your email--a quick and easy way to share your documents with others. Users can also create a document while composing an email with the "New" menu in the gadget.

SearchWiki, your personal customized search

SearchWiki, the new Google search lab tool is a way for you to customize search by re-ranking, deleting, adding, and commenting on search results.

With just a single click you can move the results you like to the top or add a new site. You can also write notes attached to a particular site and remove results that you don't feel belong.

These modifications will be shown to you every time you do the same search in the future. SearchWiki is available to signed-in Google users. Google stores your changes in your Google Account. If you are wondering if you are signed in, you can always check by noting if your username appears in the upper right-hand side of the page.

The changes you make only affect your own searches. SearchWiki is a great way to share your insights with other searchers. You can see how the community has collectively edited the search results by clicking on the "See all notes for this SearchWiki" link.

This new feature is an example of how search is becoming increasingly dynamic, giving people tools that make search even more useful to them in their daily lives.

Google shuts Lively down

The 20% time project Lively is now facing the end of it’s life, as Google announced today that the virtual chat and meeting tool is set to be shut down by the end of the year. In a concise post Google notify users about the shut down:

"In July we launched Lively in Google Labs because we wanted users to be able to interact with their friends and express themselves online in new ways. Google has always been supportive of this kind of experimentation because we believe it's the best way to create groundbreaking products that make a difference to people's lives. But we've also always accepted that when you take these kinds of risks not every bet is going to pay off.

That's why, despite all the virtual high fives and creative rooms everyone has enjoyed in the last four and a half months, we've decided to shut Lively down at the end of the year. It has been a tough decision, but we want to ensure that we prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business. Lively.com will be discontinued at the end of December, and everyone who has worked on the project will then move on to other teams.

We'd encourage all Lively users to capture your hard work by taking videos and screenshots of your rooms."

And, that's all folks...

DoCoMo to sell phone with Google Android

Japan's NTT DoCoMo and South Korean partner KTF will jointly develop a smartphone using Google Android software for launch next year.

DoCoMo owns 10 percent of KTF and the two companies have been jointly procuring handsets to cut costs.

Smartphones, which combine the capabilities of personal computers and mobile phones, have been gaining popularity in Japan, in part led by the July introduction of Apple's iPhone.

DoCoMo aims to introduce the Google phone at a price about 20 percent lower than existing smartphones, as it will save costs on software development using the Android software, the report said. Google is offering the software for free.

The new phone would be the first Google phone to be sold by Japanese and South Korean carriers.

A DoCoMo spokesman said the company had not yet decided to launch an Android-based phone next year.

Local search available for China

Users already using the AJAX Search API for local search, should now be able to search for businesses in China without having to make any changes.

Try typing "hotels in Beijing" in your site or app which uses the Google AJAX Search API, and you should see some results. This version of Google's local search for China has maps for a number of cities and information on businesses. Maps are provided by mapabc.com.

To take advantage of local search functionality, take a look at the AJAX Search API. The samples are also particularly useful.

The Google AJAX Search API lets you put Google Search in your web pages with JavaScript. You can embed a simple, dynamic search box and display search results in your own web pages or use the results in innovative, programmatic ways.

For Flash, and other Non-Javascript environments, the API exposes a raw RESTful interfaceNew! that returns JSON encoded results that are easily processed by most languages and runtimes.

The Google AJAX Search API provides simple web objects that perform inline searches over a number of Google services (Web Search, Local Search, Video Search, Blog Search, News Search, Book Search, Image Search, and Patent Search). If your web page is designed to help users create content (e.g. message boards, blogs, etc.), the API is designed to support these activities by allowing them to copy search results directly into their messages.

Google maps available in Argentina

Google maps product manager for Latin America Marcelo Quintella, announced today the availability of Google Maps service in the major cities of Argentina. In this way, Argentina ceased to be a white island in Google maps as of today.

We must remember that Microsoft with its service Livemaps was the predecessor in the area, but Google does not want to get out of the arena. In a first stage, the service will be only a visual aspect and the search for basic directions. In a few days may also be available on mobile devices. In the future, the plan is to include the remaining features of Google Maps in Argentina: search for specific addresses with more complex data, the "From here" functionality, search for shops and even StreetView (the latter for the coming year) . In addition, Quintella said: "The information will cover the spaces in the 80% of the population area. " This includes major cities like Buenos Aires, Rosario, Mendoza, Bariloche and Cordoba among others.

The reason why Argentina was not even present at the Google maps service is because the company had no material with sufficient coverage and quality for Argentina. Google began to work with the company Geosistemas, which has the necessary information for the implementation of the service.

Speak to Google with your iPhone

Google researchers have added sophisticated voice recognition technology to the company’s search software for the Apple iPhone. Google’s voice search software works only with iPhones, but the company plans to make it available to other phones.

Users of the free application, which Apple is expected to make available soon in iTunes store, can place the phone to their ear and ask virtually any question, like “Where’s the nearest hotel?”. The sound is converted to a digital file and sent to Google’s servers, which try to determine the words spoken and pass them along to the Google search engine.

The search results, which may be displayed in just seconds on a fast wireless network, will at times include local information, taking advantage of iPhone features that let it determine its location.

The ability to recognize just about any phrase from any person has long been the supreme goal of artificial intelligence researchers looking for ways to make man-machine interactions more natural. Systems that can do this have recently started making their way into commercial products.

Both Yahoo and Microsoft already offer voice services for cellphones. The Microsoft Tellme service returns information in specific categories like directions, maps and movies. Yahoo’s oneSearch with Voice is more flexible but does not appear to be as accurate as Google’s offering. The Google system is far from perfect, and it can return queries that appear as gibberish. Google executives declined to estimate how often the service gets it right, but they said they believed it was easily accurate enough to be useful to people who wanted to avoid tapping out their queries on the iPhone’s touch-screen keyboard.

The service can be used to get restaurant recommendations and driving directions, look up contacts in the iPhone’s address book or just settle arguments in bars. The query “What is the best pizza restaurant in Noe Valley?” returns a list of three restaurants in that San Francisco neighborhood, each with starred reviews from Google users and links to click for phone numbers and directions.

Auction-based ads on YouTube

YouTube officially unveiled an auction-based advertising system, similar to the one Google pioneered, that promotes sponsored video clips alongside regular search-engine results on the website.

The move tries to take advantage of YouTube's new status as the No. 2 Web search provider. It recently passed Yahoo and now trails only its corporate parent, Google, in terms of searches conducted.

YouTube wants to emulate the success of Google, which became the first company to turn searches into huge profits. "What we're trying to do is bring the best parts of Google and the best parts of YouTube together," said Matthew Liu, product manager for the service, called YouTube Sponsored Videos.

Google bought YouTube for $1.7 billion two years ago and has been looking for ways ever since to capitalize on its popularity. With the economy in the grips of the deepest recession in a quarter of a century, the search giant needs some help restoring Wall Street's faith in its growth prospects.

YouTube's new sponsored video program allows advertisers to create ads and bid for placement alongside certain keywords, through a self-service website modeled after Google's AdWords system for search ads. YouTube says the approach, which is initially available only in the United States, levels the playing field by making the ads available to individuals and small businesses as well as major brands.

Videochat available in Gmail

You can now use voice and video capabilities in your Gmail chat. From within Gmail, you can have an actual conversation with someone, or even chat face to face over video.

Here's what you'll need to get started:

Download the Gmail voice and video chat plug-in, quit all open browser windows, and install the plug-in.
Sign in to Gmail.
In the Chat section of your Gmail, select the contact you want to call. If they have a camera icon next to their name, you can make a voice or video call to them; just click Video & more.

If your friend doesn't have a camera next to their name in your chat list, you can invite them to download the Gmail voice and video chat plug-in from the Video & more menu in a chat window.

Even if your friend doesn't have a video camera, you can still make a voice call or a 1-way video call.

Debugging tool for Google Android

Klocwork, known for its debugging software, today announced a new version of its Java source code analyzer for the Google Android operating system.

“We created about a dozen checkers that look for specific mistakes you could make in the Android environment,” CTO Gwyn Fisher said.

Devices built on Android – only T-Mobile’s G1 smartphone presently – feel from a developer perspective like ordinary open-source Web servers, he said. Fisher said that approach has some benefits for designers, but it also means there can opportunities for denial-of-service attacks if software is not thoroughly checked for errors.

For more tasks, Google did well at abstracting coders from hardware. “The chances of you being able to cause real trouble are slim,” Fisher said.

Klocwork’s Insight product for Android is slated to ship later this month. A server analysis license costs $15,000 and per-user licenses cost $1,750. Licenses are also available bundled for enterprises.

Next up for Klocwork is an Apple iPhone version. Fisher declined to state a timeframe for that.

Gmail is now more enterprise friendly

Those of you who haven't dusted off your Gmail accounts in a while, please do so now. You may well not recognize it from when it was launched in 2004 by invitation only. Google has jazzed up the application to the point where it is more of a personal productivity tool for businesses than a consumer communications application.

Take for example, new features that let users add Google Calendar and Docs gadgets, or small applications also known as widgets, to the left-navigation bar next to Chat and Labels.

Users can now view their Google Calendar agendas and get alerts, and search recently accessed Google Docs from within Gmail. The idea is to improve worker productivity by saving users the trouble of leaving Gmail to check their appointment schedules or access their files.

These gadgets are not exactly what you think of when you look at early Gmail or older Yahoo Mail or Microsoft Live Hotmail Web mail applications. Here's another example of how Gmail is going wide, albeit on the communications front.

Users have long been able to send instant messages from Gmail with the chat feature, but on Oct. 30 the Gmail team attempted to open this up a little more by allowing users to send text messages from their Gmail accounts to contacts' mobile phones.

This is a prime example of how Gmail is also becoming an ubercommunications tool with which users can do more than just send and receive e-mail messages. Of course, Gmail is not without its hiccups.

This chat SMS (Short Message Service) feature has only been enabled on a few user accounts because Google wasn't able to turn it on for everyone. The company is working on a fix, which should be ready this week or next.

These features hint that Google may have bigger plans for Gmail, perhaps something along the lines of making the application the hub of work productivity communications for its tens of millions of consumer and business users.

Think about it like this: If you were able to access all of your Google Apps from Gmail, wouldn't you be inclined to make Gmail your home page?

You wouldn't need to go to each application individually, you could just launch everything from Gmail as the central hub for working and playing online. This is something neither Yahoo nor Microsoft seems ready to offer yet.

Google maps available for Blackberry Enterprise Server

The iPhone may have outsold RIM's Blackberry devices here in the U.S., but Google knows that getting their software in the hands of business execs still means building Blackberry apps. The company's recent offering in this arena is a new, deployable package of Google Maps for Mobile which IT admins can distribute using Blackberry Enterprise Server.

Although an end user may not understand why their IT admin won't let them use their iPhone at work, what they don't understand are the complexities behind the need for standardization of equipment. Once an IT shop standardizes on one platform, like the Blackberry for example, making the decision to support other devices is not something made lightly. Standardization means less training is required for IT support personnel, fewer problems due to less variables in play, cost savings by buying in bulk (equipment and/or licenses), as well as numerous other advantages, too.

In addition to the benefits provided by standardization, IT departments also have to take into account the investment in their current infrastructure technology. To date, that investment often includes BES, or Blackberry Enterprise Server, which supports the needs of email-on-the-go for millions of corporate users.

Now, BES admins can deploy Google Maps for Mobile to those millions of users with ease, thanks to Google's new packages designed specifically for this server technology.

First antivirus for Android G1

VirusGuard from SMobile, is the first commercially available mobile security solution specifically developed to protect devices utilizing the Google Android operating system.

Using the knowledge gained by developing antivirus and security applications for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Palm and iPhone, SMobile engineers began development of VirusGuard for Android more than a year ago.

SMobile VirusGuard for Android will allow users to scan their devices and memory cards for over 400 known instances and variants of mobile Malware. These viruses, worms and trojans can infect and cross-over between mobile devices via the memory card. New Malware can infect devices via the web-browser, memory card and the installation of malicious open source applications. As Android Malware grows, VirusGuard for Android users can rely on SMobile to detect new viruses, trojans and worms and to provide users with timely virus signature updates.

In the coming weeks and months, SMobile plans to adapt the remainder of the SecurityShield suite to offer firewall, anti-spam and lock, wipe and backup for the Android platform. SMobile will also be able to offer parental controls that will allow parents to closely monitor their child's cell phone voice and messaging activities to ensure they are safe.

Currently, VirusGuard for Android is available to consumers at www.smobilesystems.com and www.handango.com . In early Q1/09, G1 users can visit the Android Market Place to purchase and download VirusGuard for Android.

Google-Yahoo ad deal ended

Google has ended the search-ad partnership with Yahoo that would have given Yahoo major new revenue but that raised antitrust concerns.

In words of David Drummond, Google's chiel legal officer "after four months of review, including discussions of various possible changes to the agreement, it's clear that government regulators and some advertisers continue to have concerns about the agreement. Pressing ahead risked not only a protracted legal battle but also damage to relationships with valued partners. That wouldn't have been in the long-term interests of Google or our users, so we have decided to end the agreement."

Yahoo continues to believe in the benefits of the agreement and is disappointed that Google has elected to withdraw from the agreement rather than defend it in court. Google notified Yahoo of its refusal to move forward with implementation of the agreement following indication from the Department of Justice that it would seek to block it, despite Yahoo's proposed revisions to address the DOJ's concerns.

FCC approves Google plan to free airwaves

U.S. regulators agreed to free up unused television airwaves for wireless Internet access, handing a victory to Google and rejecting claims by broadcasters that the plan would disrupt TV signals.

The proposal, approved today by the Federal Communications Commission, would let unlicensed devices use the vacant channels, known as white spaces, if they come equipped with anti-interference technology. Mobile-phone makers such as Motorola would have to obtain FCC certification for each white-space product before putting it on the market.

Kevin Martin, FCC Chairman said: "We've been very cautious in our approach, the plan will promote wireless innovation while requiring safeguards to protect broadcasters from interference".

Google and Microsoft say the plan would expand Americans' Internet access, especially in rural areas. White-space devices will tap into free, wireless Web access, while providing a wider range of coverage than today's Wi-Fi technology.

Craig Mundie, Microsoft Chief Strategy Officer said last week that if the FCC approved Martin's plan, white-space devices might be available in 12 to 18 months. Microsoft would make software for the products, he said in an interview.

Google fixes Android security issue

Google has begun distributing a patch to its Android mobile phone operating system, an early test for how the company can respond and how well the infrastructure works to distribute and install updates.

For the Android phone people are using, a T-Mobile G1, the update is smoother than the process by which the software problem came to light publicly on October 24.

The handset gives a message: "A system update is available," and a choice to update now or later. When you click the button to begin the update, it downloaded new software, which takes a few minutes, then installs it, then resumes working with no hitches.

The patch fixes the highly publicized security problem with Android's Web browser and makes a few other minor changes, according to a Google spokesman.

The researchers--Charlie Miller, Mark Daniel, and Jake Honoroff of Independent Security Evaluators--called the Android Web browser flaw serious, but Google said its severity was mitigated by Android's design, which restricts each program to its own area.

Earlier, Google appealed for what it called "responsible disclosure" of security vulnerabilities--in other words, a grace period to fix problems before they're made public to reduce the likelihood an attacker will get a chance to exploit a vulnerability. There's an ages-old tension between companies that want to fix their products and security researchers who want to get the word out, in part because attackers also are trying to find the vulnerabilities.

Source: CNet news