Google Fans Egg Blurred German Street View Houses

Date: 2010.11.24 | Category: google streetview | Response: Comments

Fans of Google’s Street View service in Germany are punishing their countrymen for getting their houses blurred out from the controversial mapping service by pelting eggs at their houses.

Citing a report in a German newspaper, Search Engine Landreported that some of the houses in the Bergerhausen area of Essen that had opted out of the Street View service were pelted with eggs by misguided Google fans.

The unknown egg throwers also pinned a message to the mailboxes of the houses, saying: “Google is cool”.

The search giant had launched the mapping service in Germany this month, but provided people with the option of getting their houses blurred out of pictures to address the country’s privacy concerns.

Google has faced serious criticism after it was discovered that it had unknowingly stolen sensitive Wi-Fi data from unprotected connections while taking pictures for Street View.

Commenting about the incidents, Google said in a statement to Search Engine Land: “We respect people’s decision to opt out and by no means consider this to be acceptable behaviour.”

Originally published on ITProPortal.com

New Google Doodle Offers Perfect Thanksgiving Feast

Date: 2010.11.24 | Category: Google | Response: Comments

In its new Google Doodle celebrating the Thanksgiving Day, the search giant is dishing out popular festive food recipes by cookbook author and US TV chef Ina Garten.

The latest seasonal Google Doodle comprises of photos of favourite Thanksgiving ingredients including turkey, wine, cranberries and other vegetables normally associated with the celebration.

When users click on the Doodle, they are redirected to this page, which contains Thanksgivingrecipes from Ina Garten commissioned by Google.

The dishes include ‘Perfect Roast Turkey with Herb and Apple Stuffing’, ‘Smashed Sweet Potatoes’, ‘Cranberry Fruit Conserve’ and ‘Pumpkin Banana Mousse Tart’ among others.

The company said in a statement to Cnet: “We’re celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday a little early this year and collaborated with Ina Garten, who brings a sense of warmth and style to her cooking. We hope our users enjoy her culinary advice and that it helps them get a head start on their dinner preparations.”

Originally published on ITProPortal.com

Google In Talks For Miramax Screening Rights

Date: 2010.11.24 | Category: Google | Response: Comments

Google is reportedly in talks with Filmyard Holdings to procure the digital screening rights to movies produced under the Miramax Studios banner.

According to The New York Post, there have been claims from industry insiders that Google was negotiating a digital rights deal in order to offer more diverse and long-duration content on its YouTube online video platform.

Securing rights to movies produced by Miramax Studios could allow users to get their hands on a whole movie catalogue full of blockbuster movie titles like ‘Trainspotting’ and ‘No Country for Old Men’.

The move will also enable Google to offer more content to the subscribers of its Google TV IPTV platform.

YouTube has emerged as the most widely used video sharing and viewing platform in the world. According to Reuters Google have informed that users uploaded 35 hours of video every minute of last week.

A Google spokesperson told the NY Post that “We’re always talking to the studios about different things and Disney remains a valuable YouTube partner. Outside of that, we don’t comment on rumour or speculation.”

Originally published on ITProPortal.com

Google Launches Cloud Connect For Microsoft Office

Date: 2010.11.23 | Category: Google Could | Response: Comments

Google has released the Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office tool set to allow users to benefit from the functionality offered by Google’s cloud without leaving the Office interface.

In a blog post, Google explained that the new tool will not only allow users to store their documents on the cloud, but also collaborate and share them with colleagues and friends.

The tool has been developed by integrating the technology developed by DocVerse, a company acquired by Google earlier this year, with that of Google’s Docs online document collaboration and sharing tool.

“Users of Office 2003, 2007 and 2010 can sync their Office documents to the Google cloud, without ever leaving Office. Once synced, documents are backed-up, given a unique URL, and can be accessed from anywhere (including mobile devices) at any time through Google Docs,” Shan Sinha, a Google group product manager wrote on the blog.

People will be able to edit the documents simultaneously and logs will be kept for every change that it made, Google said.

Originally published on ITProPortal.com

Google Donates $100,000 To Help Save Turing Papers

Date: 2010.11.23 | Category: Google | Response: Comments

Google has donated $100,000 to a group campaigning to save papers written by UK codebreaker Alan Turing, which go on sale at Christies auction house today.

According to THINQ, the papers written by the mathematician, who was responsible for breaking German codes in World War II, are expected to fetch £300,000 and £500,000.

A campaign to stop the papers from leaving the country was started by IT journalist Gareth Halfacree. He plans to raise enough funds to purchase the papers at the auction and donate them to Bletchley Park, the hub of codebreaking during the war.

The fate of the campaign was looking bleak before Google came in with a donation of $100,000.

Google said in a statement: “Dr Turing is a hero to many of us at Google for his pioneering work on algorithms and the development of computer science. He’s also an important figure for many across the world who face homophobic attacks and bullying.”

It is now hoped that other tech giants will step in to help save the papers.

For more information or to make a donation, please visit the official fundraising page.

Originally published on ITProPortal.com

Groupon In Takeover Talks With Google

Date: 2010.11.22 | Category: Google | Response: Comments

Popular online discount coupon service Groupon is said to be considering an acquisition bid by Google.

Citing people with the knowledge of the talks between the two companies, Bloomberg reported that Groupon is currently considering whether to accept Google’s offer or to move ahead with a fresh round of funding that could value the company at $3 billion.

According to the Bloomberg sources, the company’s management held talks last week in order to discuss both possibilities and is currently leaning towards an acquisition. However, the company will not be making a decision until the end of this year.

If Google manages to acquire Groupon, its online advertising business could receive a significant boost and would provide Google entry into the lucrative web based discount coupon market.

However, Bloomberg said that Groupon may decide against the Google acquisition as a previous attempt by Yahoo had fallen through.

Groupon representatives refused to comment on the matter.

Originally published on ITProPortal.com

Google Rolls Out Gmail Call Recording

Date: 2010.11.22 | Category: Google Mail | Response: Comments

Google Voice has been updated to include the ability to record incoming VoIP calls directly from Gmail.

According to tech news site Tech Crunch, a number of Gmail users have already noticed the new feature on Gmail, suggesting that Google has initiated broad roll-out of the service.

The Google Voice integration with Gmail first took place back in August, which was then followed with a couple of tweaks and a promise to introduce a call recording feature soon.

The function has been available on Google Voice for a long time – to use, people needed to press ’4′ on their keypad – but not many people were aware about.

The record button can now be found on the Gmail dial-pad, allowing people to record inbound voice calls. However, the function comes with some limitations. The function is only limited to inbound calls and voice calls made directly from one Gmail account to another do not support the recording feature.

Originally published on ITProPortal.com

Google To Buy Groupon : A Direct Attack Against Affiliates

Date: 2010.11.22 | Category: Google Groupon | Response: Comments

It’s been only a few days since Google announcedBoutiques.com, a decidedly very un-Google project that captured our attention; now there comes the rumour of the possible acquisition by Google of Groupon for $5 billion.

Not only would that be Google’s biggest acquisition yet, more than Doubleclick a few years ago, it would also confirm a shift in Google’s strategy which puts it on collision course with some of its partners.

Already, the purchase by Google of ITA, a US-based company, for $700 million, has caused many in the online travel sector to express the fears that Google could become the 900-pounds Gorilla in their market.

Groupon would eliminate one middleman and bring Google presence in the booming cluster buying market, one which it can use to its own advantage.

Many are suggesting that Google could use it to inject some significant growth its location-based services, for example by mashing that up with Google Maps or Street View.

For the likes of Tradedoubler or Affiliates4u though, Google’s purchase of Groupon may seal their fate. Google has already understood that the only way to sustain its massive growth is to start looking beyond the usual CPC and into CPA where the big money is.

Given how well the likes of Moneysupermarket, Moneyexpert, Kelkoo or Pricerunner are doing even during a recession, it’s only a matter of time before Google launches its own offer and turns into a commission monster.

Originally published on ITProPortal.com

Mystery Of Naked Man On Google Street View Germany Solved?

Date: 2010.11.21 | Category: google streetview | Response: Comments

Users of Google Street View managed to unearth, a rather weird image of a naked German guy emerging from the trunk of a convertible car, with what appears to be a gallon of oil (or at least some sort of yellow fluid) a few feet away.

There have been a number of suggestions regarding whether the picture (see here) is that of a man looking to clean the inside of the trunk of a car without ruining his clothes.

There’s also a broken umbrella next to what looks like a sleeping dog and a lot of bric-a-brac. The photo appears to have been taken either in summer or spring but has been removed from Street View with Google saying that the picture is under review and “will be available soon”.

Our (educated) guess is that the naked man just wanted to pay an homage to hit animated TV series “Family Guy” by emulating the “Greased Up Deaf Guy” (check below).

Seriously though, it’s probably one of these random pictures of that often pop up on Google due to the nature of the service; which might explain why nearly 250,000 German households asked for their dwellings to be removed from the database.

Originally published on ITProPortal.com

Google To Delete Wi-Fi Data In 9 Months : Does It Matter?

Date: 2010.11.20 | Category: Google | Response: Comments

Google has been let off very lightly by the Information Commissioner Office after it promised to delete all the Wi-Fi data that its Street View cars had downloaded in the UK.

One however must ask (a) who will check whether Google has actually deleted the data given that it is only available in electronic format and can therefore be cloned ad infinitum and (b) how do we know that Google will not make use of the secondary data extracted from the Wi-Fi database to get a competitive advantage over its rivals.

Fortunately for Google (and unfortunately for the rest of us), the deputy information commissioner, David Smith, said that the ICO spent less time searching than others like the Canadian authorities did, before unceremoniously adding that if they had searched for days and days, they would have found more.

The ICO has already said that they will do an audit of Google’s internal privacy structure, training programs and privacy reviews for new products (ed : what about existing ones?) within the next nine months.

Over a period of more than four years, Google Street View cars systematically criss-crossed 30 countries worldwide, collecting more than 600GB worth of data, whose nature, no one really knows.

Did Google know about the data? Certainly yes. Did Google use it? We shall never know even if the search engine giant would strongly deny it. Was there anyone fired over the privacy violation? Not that we know.

Originally published on ITProPortal.com