Googleholic for April 15, 2008

by Romeo Wahed Apr 15th 2008

Welcome to Googleholic - your bi-weekly fix of everything Google! In this edition:

Geotagged YouTube videos on Google Maps
Google Earth 4.3 to be released later today, includes Street View
Market leader in China within 5 years - Goodbye Baidu?

Geotagged YouTube videos on Google Maps

A new view has been made available in Google Maps, which allows you to enjoy YouTube videos that have been tagged with geographic information. Which is nothing new to users of Google Earth, who have been kicking back and partaking of videos with their map experience for a while now. To access the view in Google Maps, simply add the add-on. And a note for those who want to go ballistic with this: at this point, unfortunately, searching for videos within Maps is not yet possible.

Google Earth 4.3 released, includes Street View

Exciting are the days when things are released, especially when they contain new features. Google Earth 4.3 will be released later today, featuring Street View of Google Maps fame. In addition, switching between earth and sky will be faster, as well as a new real-time sun lighting option among other new trinkets to play with. If you love Google Earth, give it a spin.

Market leader in China within 5 years

Having claimed 26% of the search engine share in China, Google seems to be doing well. But it looks like this is just the beginning. Eric Schmidt feels that Google can be the market leader within five years, and head of all things Google in China, Kai Fu-Lee, says that it is going to be done by focusing on social networking and mobile markets. But is that enough to beat Baidu, the search engine that cares not for copyrights and helps people find free music?

Another snippet of Google news we covered:

Google and Salesforce.com announce Google Apps integration - Salesforce integrates with Google Apps, allowing users to use Google Docs, Calendar, and other apps with their Salesforce account.

Tags: baidu, china, google, google earth, google maps, GoogleEarth, googleholic, GoogleMaps, street view, StreetView, video

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

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