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Google, the World, and the World Wide Web, Weblogged

OK, I can see myself waste some time with this. Google Reader Play is a casual, push style way to feed yourself distracting/ enlightening/ inspiring snippets, imagery and videos. You can star a specific page, Like it or share it, but just jumping from page to page using the bottom navigation works too. Note Reader Play is personalized. Google writes, "We use the technology behind Recommended Items in Reader to populate Reader Play with the most interesting content on the web. While you don’t need a Google account to use Reader Play, your experience will be personalized if you ...

Ten years ago, the best-available translation software analysed the source text to determine its structure: subject, object, nouns, verbs, phrases, etc. From the structure tree, a new text could be generated in the target language. The precise details of Google's translation algorithms are not published, but the structure tree is not the main mechanism. Instead, there is a corpus -- an enormous database of parallel works. These are works available in more than one language as a result of a previous human translation. Based on equivalents found in the corpus, Google obtains translations for various multi-word fragments from the source text, then blends those together into what is usually a coherent sentence in the target language. The system doesn't work so well on fragments that weren't translated in the c ...

If you've opted in to YouTube's HTML5 experiment, the videos will play in your own browser's player, instead of in an Adobe Flash player. This was discussed in the Forum a few weeks ago. YouTube can serve HTML5 videos if you have an HTML5-capable browser with the h.264 video codec (i.e. Chrome but not Chromium, Safari v4+, or IE with Google Chrome Frame). Videos containing ads continue to use the Flash player. YouTube has implemented a variable speed control for their HTML5 videos. Next to the play/pause button is a small arrow. When clicked, it opens up a panel containing a slider and two icons: a hare and a tortoise. As you can probably gues ...

Wikipedia has a whole page dedicated to criticism of Google.

Do some people confuse public Buzz messages with private email conversations? I don't know, but some of the following conversations I found using Gmail's Buzz search sounded a bit odd. One of the conversation, for instance, was by a person who only follows one person and only has one follower. Then again, how would this misunderstanding come about, if that's the case, as Buzz says "Public on the web" next to the Post button, and doesn't offer a field to address only a single person? Gmail puts private emails and public buzz messages in one app, one click away in the interface... is that enough to trigger misunderstandings? I've obfuscated some parts in these screenshots.

This snippet is from Popular Science, May 1967, page 94: [Hat tip to George R!]

In the year 2025, perhaps we'll be seeing: 1. YouTube Super Zoom What it is: When watching a video, you can press the pause button and zoom in on smaller stuff you see in the background. For example, we see a mayor walking through a museum, and there's a painting by Vermeer in the background. Hit pause and the zoom icon, and click on the Vermeer painting, which is highlighted with a "zoomable" color (as are some other objects in the scene). It will be enlarged up to the point where you can see individual paint strokes. How it works: Google's image comparison engine will run in the background as soon as you select the zoom tool. For instance, the comparison engine will notice that images of the region containing Ver ...

TechCrunch reports that YouTube announced they will roll out auto-captions to all English videos now, for content creators who want this (before, only a portion of videos received this option). As a disclaimer, Google noted that (quote TechCrunch) ... ... Just like any speech recognition application, auto-captions require a clearly spoken audio track. Videos with background noise or a muffled voice can’t be auto-captioned. President Obama’s speech on the recent Chilean Earthquake is a good example of the kind of audio that works for auto-captions. When video creators now choose a platform to upload their video, a feature like this -- well in sync ...

SiteLinks are now appearing in Google's Sponsored Links. An AdWords SiteLinks unit consists of a regular text ad with four additional links. These ad units were sighted in August 2009, and trialled in November 2009 in conjunction with some of Google's Agency Partners, including Gillissa in the UK. Each link can be up to 35 characters. Up to 10 links can be entered by the advertiser, although only 4 will show at a time. The links are not always displayed, and none will appear unless the ad is the only ad being shown for the search term. The ad ...

Fake news site Onion has a piece titled Google Responds To Privacy Concerns With Unsettlingly Specific Apology. [Thanks Scjm]

Bill Bunten, the Mayor of Topeka (the capital city of Kansas, USA) has signed a proclamation declaring that during March the city will be known as Google, Kansas. This is being spun by the press as a name change, but that's not the case. The city's official name remains Topeka, even though during March it will be (also) known as Google. The wording of the proclamation is interesting. It starts by asserting that Google "is a corporation who maintains a small company feel", then lists ten core principles of Google's philosophy. (Somehow, the list still includes "It's best to do one thing really well".) Then we get to the p ...

Knol is a Google service that allows anyone to publish an article about almost anything. When Google's VP of Engineering, Udi Manber, announced Knol in December 2007 it was widely regarded as a "Wikipedia killer". If Knol's users could replicate the success of Wikipedia, the pundits proclaimed, then Google would gain an enormous commercial benefit. No longer would users leave the Google's search results to find their answers at Wikipedia; they would go to Knol instead. Google, meanwhile ...

At Gmail Buzz I've been subscribing to Robert "Weirdchina" Kong Hai and noticed that some of his buzz posts received tons of comments. I've asked Robert about this, and here's his reply: Your right, my posts do get a lot of attention, I'm having a fun time on buzz! I think the social media community is very surprised that my 19 posts have received almost 3000 comments and 1500 likes. This might even be the most on Buzz. I also have more then 13,000 followers right behind Mashable, so I could be the 2nd most followed person on Buzz at the moment. I'm in a unique situation, I have built up a world community based around the Chinese netizens. For a long time I have been sort of a bridge b ...

Caleb writes, "There's a strange snippet for the query [2010 academy awards]. It's longer and more carefully constructed". TomHTML in the forum wonders "if there is any partnership between the Oscars and Google". (I asked Google for a comment and will post an update if there's more info.) [Thanks Caleb and Tom!]

Google's director of research Peter Norvig has video-answered some questions from Reddit (Reddit has an overview of the questions that lets you jump straight to the specific bit).

CNET News.com

Tech news and business reports by CNET News. Focused oninformation technology, core topics include computers, hardware, software,networking, and Internet media..

Sony unveils their first motion controller for the Playstation 3.

Game AI, when done right, means it's closer to acting and reacting like humans. Find out what some developers are doing to shake things up.

After feedback from its Twitter followers, the tax-preparation software company decides to remove its advertising from the show hosted by Fox's most entertaining presenter.

Neat little clipping and saving service works on Web and iPhone.

Notorious as a malware ghetto, LimeWire takes its first steps to integrate authoritative threat protection by signing on AVG to provide premium users with download scanning and blocking.

But Microsoft is telling game developers to concentrate on the phones.

The PlayStation maker gives those gathered at a press conference during the Game Developers Conference a sneak peek at its motion-sensitive controller.

roundup This week's Game Developers Conference brings together designers, programmers, publishers, and others for the latest from the world of video play.

ICM Registry is again urging ICANN to allow adult sites to add .xxx to their names, creating what some have called a red-light district in cyberspace.

In our next interview for CNET Conversations, we'll ask FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski about everything from free broadband to exclusive wireless agreements to the NBC-Comcast deal. What's your question?

Google CEO expects a resolution on censorship in China soon, WhitePages.com drops its malware-tainted ad network, and a real-life jetpack for commuters.

Despite the easy-peasy development nature of the iPhone, there are some big legal strings attached to getting an app out into the wild, especially for those trying to take their app out of the U.S.

Secret negotiations over a once-obscure draft treaty called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement prompted an unusual rebuke from the European Parliament.

The FTC is asking Google competitors to weigh in on its proposed $750 million acquisition of mobile advertising company AdMob, according to a report.

At campfire-themed developer meet-up, Google introduces its Google App Marketplace, where users can buy third-party applications to run atop the Google Apps suite.

A woman appeals to the highest court in Germany to get the Large Hadron Collider stopped. The court decides she has no proof of any impending doom.

Target claims it's the first major retail chain to launch mobile coupons nationwide for eager bargain hunters.

The software maker says it is ready with a version of its Outlook Social Connector that links the e-mail program with the youth-oriented social network.

Latest problems linked to Toyota show the auto industry needs to fix the way it tests software, says company that specializes in software integrity.

Apple hit a home run in Consumer Reports' recent tech support survey, taking the top spot in laptops and desktops.