GeoEye releases high resolution earth photo album

GeoEye has just unveiled new high resolution images of Pennsylvania's Kutztown University from 423 miles above the 326-acre campus to depict it's new, highly accurate sattelite can be helpful for Google Earth.

GeoEye-1's main client is the U.S. Defense Department's mapping arm, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, but Google has exclusive commercial rights to its images.

Google has not said when it plans to use the images for Google Maps as well as Google Earth.

"Though the satellite collects imagery at 0.41-meter ground resolution, due to U.S. licensing restrictions, commercial customers will only get access to imagery that has been processed to half-meter ground resolution," GeoEye says.

Why did GeoEye shoot Kutztown University?

"When we opened the camera door at noon on Oct. 7 and looked down on the earth 423 miles below, the school was underneath us," GeoEye Vice President for Communications and Marketing Mark Brender told The Washington Post. "It is truly our first image."

Motorola to hire 300 Google's Android developers

Google's Android is starting to see more industry support. Motorola recently announced plans, despite hardships within the company, to hire 300 Android developers.

A quick search of Motorola's job openings suggests that, indeed, Android is set to become a permanent fixture at Motorola, which has long built Linux-based phones but hitherto used MontaVista's Mobilinux.

The goal? Move from an internal development pool of 50 Android-savvy developers to 350. Motorola, recognizing that most developers won't have deep experience with Google Android, is looking for a somewhat general skillset. Although Java and Google Android programming experience is listed as "highly desirable," but not required.

Google Moderator - A remedy of ad-hocism in Q/A sessions

Google has released a free Web-based service called Moderator that organizations can use to improve question-and-answer sessions during heavily attended meetings.

In theory, meeting leaders will be able to ask speakers the questions that the group democratically chose as the best ones.

The goal is to improve on the random, ad-hoc selection via the raised-hands method and thus make better use of the often limited question-and-answer periods.

Moderator also makes it possible for remote attendees to have as much of a say as in-person participants in the process of selecting questions.

The idea came to Platform Engineer Taliver Heath after attending the frequent "tech talks" Google holds and realizing that as the number of attendees has grown, many participants' questions went unasked due to time constraints, while not all questions that were asked seemed good ones.

At Google, Moderator is known as Dory, like the character in the Disney/Pixar film "Finding Nemo" whose short-term memory loss forces her to constantly ask questions. Moderator runs on Google's App Engine, a service for developers to build and host their Web-based applications using Google's computing infrastructure.

Google introduces an iPhone rival

Google and T-Mobile unveiled their answer to the iPhone on Tuesday, pulling the wraps off a slick mobile device that combines a touch screen and a keyboard and is aimed at putting the Internet in the pockets of millions of cellphone users.

The T-Mobile G1, which will be available in the United States on Oct. 22, is the first mobile phone to be powered by Google’s Android operating system. It represents a milestone in Google’s efforts to extend its dominance of the PC-based Internet to mobile phones and further loosen the control that wireless carriers have over what consumers can do with their phones [...]

Google knows where are you at

This week Google announced Mobile Search with My Location, for devices running on Windows Mobile. By either using GPS or cell-ID, Google can tap into your location and deliver location-specific information.

Previously, the system returned results based on the last location entered. The new Search with My Location feature will be able to give much more precise results.

You have to specifically opt in to use the service and you can always change that setting. Google assures users that personally identifiable information is never associated with you location. At least we know they have privacy issues on the brain.

Google acquires Textcube

Top internet spy Google, has snapped up Korean blogging software developer Tatter and Company.

The Mountain View search behemoth is apparently interested in Tatter's blogging platform, known as Textcube. According to Google, the deal will allow the company to improve its various capabilities in the Korean market.

"We are excited to welcome Tatter and Company's engineering team to Google Korea", announced a Google spokesperson in an e-mailed statement. "Acquiring Tatter and Company will allow us to enhance our online publishing tools in Korea, benefiting a large number of users who already depend on and enjoy Google and Tatter and Company's products".

An excited Tatter co-chief executive Chang-Won Kim confirmed the deal on his personal blog, noting that Tatter had been "Googled".

The acquisition is Google's third in 2008 and comes just two months after reaching an agreement to buy Rambler Media, a Russian contextual advertising firm, for $140 million.

The ubiquitous search company purchased a total of 16 companies in 2007.

Google Chrome: and now, the comic EULA

As you already know, Google announced its new browser on Tuesday but within a day of its release, there are already a couple of points that users should be cautioned of before using this new browser.

The first, is the popular "carpet bomb" vulnerability that still exists within Chrome. This vulnerability allows malicious websites to drive by download and execute programs on your machine. Our visitors may remember the uproar that this same vulnerability caused for Safari users, and that Apple patched the carpet-bombing issue with Safari v3.1.2. Chrome is vulnerable to this exploit because it is based on the same engine, WebKit 525.13, and Google did not patch or update the engine before releasing the software.

The other, and less technical, problem with Chrome exists in its EULA. More specifically, the point that would seem to give Google rights to anything you post on the Internet while using their browser, mostly in conjunction with the promotion of its services.

View : Google Chrome EULA

Google buys GeoEye satellite imagery

Google has signed a deal under which GeoEye will supply the search giant with imagery from a satellite due to launch in coming days, the companies said.

Under the deal, Google is the exclusive online mapping site that may use the imagery, said Mark Brender, vice president of corporate communications and marketing. Google uses satellite imagery in its Google Maps and Google Earth product.

And as a little icing on the cake, Google's logo is on the side of the rocket set to launch the 4,300-pound satellite in six days from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

GeoEye-1 will orbit 423 miles above Earth, but it will be able to gather imagery with details the size of 41 centimeters, Brender said. Google, though, is permitted to use data only with a resolution of 50cm because of the terms of GeoEye's license with the U.S. government [...]

Google's browser Chrome arrives on tuesday

Google has revealed plans today to release an innovative new open source web browser called Chrome that includes some extraordinary and unprecedented features. Google says that its new browser will move the web forward and provide a stronger platform for emerging web standards.

"We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser," said Google VP of product management Sundar Pichai in a blog entry. "What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build."

The browser is built on top of Apple's WebKit HTML rendering engine, a lightweight renderer that is known for its clean code base, good performance, and excellent standards-compliance. WebKit's versatility and the ease with which it can be embedded in applications has led to its adoption in numerous contexts, including Google's Android web browser. Alongside WebKit, Google will be using its own JavaScript virtual machine called V8, which was designed for high performance and has some compelling features [...]

How to boost traffic to your website

Want to increase your odds of people finding your Web site on the Internet?

Well then, you'd better optimize your site so it ranks high in the listings presented by top search engines such as Google and Yahoo, say experts.

This "search engine optimization" is critical, considering that more than 150 million people in the United States regularly use search engines to look up information online, according to Tim McAtee of Warren, R.I.-based MarketingSherpa. Of those users, 60 percent to 70 percent look only at the first page of results, he says.

"The goal of search engine optimization is to get your site as high in the search rankings as you can," explains Julie Gross Gelfand of Harrison Leifer DiMarco, a Rockville Centre, N.Y., marketing and public relations firm that assists companies with optimization. "The ones on the first page get the most traffic."

So how do you propel your Web site toward the top [...]

Cuil not a google killer yet

With hours of being launched Monday, Cuil - a new search engine created by former top Google engineers - was already being touted in the blogosphere as the next Google killer. But unless Cuil (pronounced ‘cool’) can develop an ad platform to rival Google’s, Cuil will have a difficult time challenging the search giant.

The comparisons to Google were inevitable. Cuil was founded by several lead engineers from Google, including Anna Patterson, chief architect of the company’sTeraGoogle search index. Cuil also claims its search algorithm scans through 120 billion web pages - three times the number that Google sifts through. And Cuil’s spare start page is reminiscent of Google’s minimalist home page.

The launch of Cuil certainly raised eyebrows at Google. Though the company would not comment on Cuil’s launch, Google’s web search team stuck it to the small search startup on Monday with a blog post that begins, “We knew the web was big…We’ve known it for a long time.”

“It’s a new kind of technology and platform that is going to unseat a company like Google - not a company that‚s trying to beat them at their own game,” says Scott Kessler, Standard & Poor’s Internet analyst.

Both Yahoo and Microsoft have been trying [...]

Google launches Knol, the Wikipedia alternative

The Search Giant has launched a program known as Knol (knowledge) that is alternative to wikipedia. The basic reason of developing this so-called knowledge based platform is to incorporate the Google AdSense into different articles, with a revenue share between the authors of particular topic.

In this platform authors will have kind of ownership in the way that, they can moderate their articles by acting as gatekeepers to any changes made by other users outside the creator group. More than one knol can be created on a subject but the rating on the article would define it's authenticity and quality.

As of now, it seems to be a good system. A good article would be a popular article, and a popular article would be more likely to get AD revenue. It would be an interesting social experiment to see who will fly among Wikipedia - where social contribution is encouraged or Knol - where there is a capalitism to the mix.

Social Search by Sightix

Today, users are interested in searching for the social entities that created the best means of engaging them. But the problem is with social networking sites, how can they able to provide the ability to return relevant search results for their users? Google, The Search Giant is no doubt great for searching the pages but still unable to search inside a social network.

Sightix is the next step in the evolution of search. It provides the appropriate and focused results based on the user’s social circle that includes his friends and relationships. Sightix basically searches the content of everyone you are connected with, and rank results gleaned from each user based on the strength of their connection to you.

“This is both a huge asset as well as a management challenge. For startups the fact that people are given the creative freedom and flexibility in the process means they aren’t just working for the job, they are working to prove their inputs and opinions as being right…” Said, Ari Gottesmann, Sightix’s VP of Business Development.

With Sightix Social Search, you would be able to empower your search capabilities with a unique ranking based on social relevancy and an interactive social map to better understand interpersonal relationships and best street of approach. Current search engines do not consider an identity of the user and that’s why everybody gets the same results.

According to the Gottesmann, Google’s search algorithm is flawed while Slightix’s algorithm takes an identity of user, his friends and connections when providing him with search results. For example, if you’re searching for a nightclub, the clubs your friends talk about will get a higher relevance than your friends of friends. It's much more likely that this ranking will yield results that work for you than searching a general engine that doesn't give an extra weight to your friends' recommendations.

Currently, the company is focusing on smaller networks because of its less development process time. It's doubtful that this technology will work when users are looking for something completely unknown to their networks, but I bet they would be amazed to find how much they can infer from their extended social circle with a tool like Sightix.

Shin1 deal is a good one to get it first and Gottesmann is interested on getting this service embedded in the large upcoming social networks.

Google and Yahoo to index flash files content

Nothing can be hidden from search engines. Be it content in any of your favourite picture or the text inside the Adobe's flash (.swf) file.

As of today, the matter inside the SWF files are still invisible to search engines but due to Adobe's joint effort with Yahoo and Google, pictures, hyperlinks, audios and videos of Adobe's Flash File Format (.SWF) will be indexed by their Search Engines.

"End users will be getting more accurate search results because there's a lot of information in SWF files that will now befully indexed, including more information in Rich Internet Applications (RIAs)," said Justin Everett-Church, senior product manager for Adobe Flash Player, Platform BU

Adobe representatives claimed that crawling of data inside Flash Files is already being done at Google but no shipment date of improved search has been announced yet from Yahoo!

Google Media Server and your TV

Google announced that with the help of its Google Media Server, you can easily find photos, music and videos using your DLNA devices such as PlayStation 3, XBox 360 and most Media Center PCs.

Google Media Server is a Windows App that bridges the gap between Google and your TV. Google Desktop technology such as Desktop gadgets for the administration tool and Google Desktop Search to locate media files. All you need is a PC running Google Desktop and a UPnP-enabled device (e.g. a PlayStation 3). At the touch of a button, you can then:

• Access videos, music, and photos stored on your PC
• View Picasa Web Albums
• Play your favorite YouTube videos

This describes that Google is keen in getting famous across multiple paltforms.

Now the question is, what would the Google do with Android forthcoming?

Nokia throws open mobile software

Few companies have the heft to take on Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), and Microsoft (MSFT)—much less all three at the same time. But Nokia (NOK), the world's largest handset maker, made it clear on June 24 that it does not intend to cede its ground in mobile-phone software to gate-crashing U.S. tech giants.

The Finnish company announced a plan to buy the 52.1% of shares it doesn't already own in London-based Symbian, the leading maker of operating system software for advanced mobile phones. In an industry-shifting move, Nokia will merge the company with parts of its own organization and then create an open-source foundation that will give away the resulting software for free to other handset makers.

Read at Business Week

Disney World on Google Earth

Users now, can fly above the streets of the theme parks and access all kind of information, virtually.

Disney's effort will help the public not to get confused over the huge dimensions and additionally, users will also be allowed to book tickets to the rides and hotels offered by Disney World.

For this new step, more than 100,000 pictures were taken by the professional photographers and over 1,500 3D models and this project is supposed to be the biggest 3D model ever uploaded to Google Earth.

This tour is compiled with Google Earth 4.3 program. After the search for disney world, user must click on the golden Mickey Mouse ears and then click on “Show Disney World in 3D.”

Google to launch Friend Connect

Google has announced that it will launch Friend Connect, which will be a set of APIs for Open Social participants to pull profile information from social networks into third party websites.

MySpace has also launched competing product named Data Availability while on 8th May, 08, we also heard about the Facebook Connect, another similar product.

The best thing about Google is that this service will turn the internet itself into one humongous social networking platform which can be used by anyone, with no charge.

“Google Friend Connect is like giving Webmasters a salt shaker full of ’social’ that they can sprinkle on their sites to add social capabilities,” David Glazer, a director of engineering at Google told a conference call of reporters Monday.

Wherever you go on the web, your friends will be there. Google is hoping that this changes everything.

Google wins from end of Microsoft-Yahoo affair

Microsoft announced that it had given up its quest for Yahoo! which reject the Microsoft's offer of 46 billion dollars.

The announcement ended three months of overtures by the computer giant, which wanted to merge with Yahoo to gain ground on Google.

Meanwhile, Google was involved in multiplying its innovations and has also announced its advanced image search technology.

According to the new analysts, Microsoft-Yahoo talks have benefited Google.

"Microsoft did the smart thing -- they walked," said Silicon Valley analyst Rob Enderle. "Yahoo's stock price is going to come down like a rock on Monday."

Continue at AFP Google

Google's step towards Advanced Image Search Technology

Last week at the WWW2008 conference in Beijing, Google engineers presented a paper which will be applied on PageRank system of finding relevant pages to improve the accuracy of image search in Google. This new technology is called VisualRank.


The paper, titled "PageRank for Product Image Search," (PDF) was published by Yushi Jing and Shumeet Baluja of Google. In this paper, they discussed about using a 'visual link structure' in PageRank system and it also proposed to move away from the current search system.

In the proposed system, a numerical weight would be assigned to each image and, according to the paper, ranking would occur based upon "expected user behavior given the visual similarities of the images to be ranked.

Continue at PC World