I've Had It With Google (the new 'Evil Empire' perhaps?)

In a rather chatty and gleefully positive and 'helpful' December 2009 blog post, Google announced that all the world's news gathering and publishing companies (read: all of the major papers, major broadcasting networks and wire services now publishing on their own web sites) needn't fret about their original articles and information being re-published on Google search result pages and iGoogle-based home pages because the 'ol Goog had figured out a way to make nice. Basically it boils down to this (at least in the Goog's thinking): give Google some stuff for free and charge visitors to the original news and information publishers' sites for access to other stuff. Here's the problem. Rupert Murdoch and several other media poo-bahs have only recently figured out that Google cheerfully re-publishes headlines and article excerpts (accompanied on each search result page by ads from which Google earns big money), and which collectively cost the aforementioned media magnates hundreds of millions of dollars (for paid reporters, agencies and sources, bureaus, etc.) to gather and publish in the first place in their own newspapers, web sites, magazines and television broadcasts. While the Goog helps you find all this stuff online, its search result pages loaded with ads at the same time help the Goog make money. To many people, this all makes perfectly good sense. The media magnates who spend big dough gathering news and information in the first place would much prefer to be collecting all (or at least a significant portion) of the revenue Google is squeezing out of the magnates' investments. Consumer groups (including the Electronic Frontier Foundation - the EFF) haven't quite figured this one out. Here's the rub. If it costs lots of money to gather and publish original information, and if the major news publishers who fork over big money to gather the news from around the world can't make a buck doing so, how long will it be before most of the information we see is nothing more than reprints of corporate and government press releases absent any challenge, any analysis and any opinion. After all, if there's no money to pay people to do that sort of work, why would anyone bother to do it? Google's logic has large holes in it. So I say let Google contribute to its own information storehouse by jumping into the same pond as the real media companies. It's all well and good for Google to avoid such a commitment by stating that it has never intended to engage in such work, but the reality is that Google profits directly from the investment of others in news gathering and media companies. It's a bit of a free ride which Murdoch and his compadres are getting ready to halt. We all used to pay for newspaper subscriptions which supported little more than the cost of delivering the paper. All other revenue came from advertisers. Now that Google has scooped large buckets of money out of advertising budgets formerly devoted to the news gathering and media companies, those companies are asking Google to either contribute news gathering of its own or get out of the water. Google can't have it both ways.

T-Mobile's Android Based G1, Jailbroken

It appears the Android-based G1 phone has been jailbroken. The G1 jailbreak is just the first step toward opening the system up. There will most likely be a full suite of Unix tools which will enable the customization of a whole range of features on the phone, including backgrounds and icons, custom apps and a whole lot more. Jailbreaking the G1 was relatively easy compared to the iPhone, which initially required remote access tools that emulated iTunes' mobile device management calls. By comparison, the G1 jailbreak is simple because it consists of using a Terminal program, starting a background process and issuing a few standard Unix commands. There will most likely be less fallout too because google are not as litigious or protectionary as Apple.

Google Launch Chrome Open Beta

Google have released an open Beta of their new webrowser Chrome, and from all appearances it's fast and has some cool features. The browser opens really fast and each new window opens a new instance of Chrome. The Tab page displays your most-visited websites, recently-visited bookmarks, and recently-closed tabs. The browser allows you to instantly kill any Flash element using the task manager and all without closing the page. You can drag tabs in and out of windows and even combine windows. The browser has one drawback in that it does need some finessing visually it is currently more than a little bland. To download it visit http://www.google.com/chrome.

Cuil - New Search Engine Launched

Another Search engine concept has joined the pack. Cuil.com (pronounced "cool") sees itself as a real competitor to Google. Calling itself the "biggest search engine on the web." it is run by a team of former Google employees, just how good it is and wether or not it can challenge Google remains to be seen. The engine claims to have already indexed 120 billion Web pages, and according to information on the site, it analyzes each page and organizes search results based on content, relationships and relevence.

Google Launch Knol

Google have launched Knol, a knowledge based service where users can share knowledge in a wiki type approach. Knol is different from traditional Wikis in that it places a heavy emphasis on accountability. It also intends to pay users for the use of their submissions via adsense based revenues.

Google Anonymizes YouTube Data

Google will anonymize an user identifiable data in the database they hand over to third partys. Much of this is because of the cry from consumer privacy and advocacy groups over privacy issues. Viacom relented due to the outcry and not wanting to look like the bad guys in this legal battle. Groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other privacy advocates argued that disclosing users' usage histories and IP information amounted to a violation of the Video Privacy Act of 1988. Tread carefully big corp ... you don't want to piss off the little guy.

Viacom To Get YouTube User Data

Viacoms $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube, has its first victim, us... Viacom had asked for the source code for the search functions that power Google and YouTube, and for the source code for YouTube's new "Video ID" program. It also asked for a copy of every video ever removed from the site, the databases containing information on every video ever hosted at YouTube, and a copy of every private video. The had some sense and "only" allowed Viacom to get a copy of every video removed from Youtube and the databases, which is like a kick in the teeth to the users because the database covers everything we've viewed on the sites. Civil liberties groups are already crying foul ... can't blame them really. Big brother isn't watching us, the media is...

Google Announce GPS-less Location System

Google has revealed a new software solution called My Location which enables non-GPS mobile phones to be pinpointed to within three miles of their actual location. Whilst that isn't anywhere near the resolution of GPS-based tech, Google is claiming that it will suffice for providing "neighborhood-level" data, and that pressing "0" whilst in the app will enable users to skip the task of entering in a starting address when looking up directions. The tracking database still has a few gaps in it with locales in Europe and all of China and Japan included in the "to be done" list. However interesting, this concept lacks any punch and needs to be refined much further before GPS users will even look at it.

Google Intros New Search Capabilities

Google today announced a slew of new features that go beyond their long standing search capabilities. Universal Search is a feature which combines several types of search results and something which bridges their video, images and other search indexes. There is also a new contextual search, access to experimental search features as well as a cross-language search platform, which will bridge search results across different languages.