Google posts

This morning, Google finally pulled back the curtain on its rumored social networking product. It's called Google Buzz, and it's being billed as "a Google approach to sharing," in the same way Gmail was "a Google approach to email." In the 15-minute demo of Buzz, Google hit on 5 key features, plus an overview of the mobile version of Buzz.

Google Buzz will begin rolling out to the general public in just a few minutes, although it might take a few days before it's accessible to all users. Meawhile, you can check out the video announcement of Buzz.

Here are the five main features of the desktop version of Buzz, which will be built right into Gmail:

1. Auto-following

You don't need to build a new social graph from scratch on Buzz. It uses your Gmail social network, and automatically adds the people you email and chat with most often.

2. Rich, fast sharing

Buzz pulls in content your friends share on Flickr, Picasa, Twitter, Google Reader and YouTube, even if you don't use those sites. There's a special focus on video and photos, with a custom photo viewer that lets you navigate galleries in full screen. When you share a link, Buzz fetches the headlines and photos from the post you're sharing. The keyboard shortcuts you already use in Gmail all work the same way in your buzz stream.

3. Public and private sharing

Privacy settings allow you to share publicly (quickly indexed by Google, of course), privately, and with custom groups.

4. Inbox Integration

Buzz makes sure you don't miss new comments on the stuff you share. You don't get new email when someone comments, but your Buzz comments show up along with your email in your inbox. The comments show up in real time. Also, Buzz borrows Twitter's convention of @replies. You can type @ and a username and Buzz will autocomplete your contact and deliver your message to that user's Buzz.

5. Just the Good Stuff

Buzz has a recommendation system that brings in shared items from friends of friends, and learns from your feedback. You can collapse the stuff you don't care about, to make the filter better in the future. At the same time, if someone you're following posts something you don't care about, you can collapse that, too. Google says that Buzz will only get better at filtering over time, like Gmail has.

When I think about searching online, my first and often only thought is, "how can I do this with Google?" Well, Google's great at search, but that doesn't mean it's the best tool in every situation. Consider searching for PDFs containing specific information; wouldn't you like to see a nice clean list of PDF titles with links both to the PDF in question and an HTML version of it? PDF Search Tool offers exactly that functionality.

To be fair, Google can do this too, particularly if you use the search argument "filteype=pdf", but PDF Search Tool feels somehow more purpose-built. For those that are inclined, it's interesting to see what happens when you search for a well-known author's name; PDF Search Tool almost feels like a pirate ebook finder when used that way. Not that you would. Or should.

Who do you think of when you want to search for what's happening now? Increasingly people are searching social networks like Twitter and Facebook, and Google has increased the speed of its index to offer more up-to-date real-time information. In the realm of technology, Techmeme has had a lock on live news for a few years now.

But there's a site I recently learned about that you might not be aware of that has a unique take on allowing you to search for and presenting news and current affairs called Silobreaker. Silobreaker's current list of categories includes Global Issues, Technology, Science, Business, Energy, and World. Clicking on any of these top-level categories presents a menu of 4 to 6 sub-categories that allow you to further refine your view.

Silobreaker pulls from news sources, blogs, and multimedia sites to put together a hub of related posts and articles for any given story. In the sidebar, they offer an In Focus section with direct links to the people or organizations being discussed, a Network graph that helps you to visualize how each of the publications or services that are used in a story's summary are related, a Blogs section listing relevant blog posts, and a self-explanatory Audio/Video section.

Silobreaker's approach to sourcing out relevant information and determining what's hot seems to be working, and the way they present the collected information is second to none. Watch for the service to grow by leaps and bounds.

Google is working on something mysterious that has to do with Gmail and social networking, but the details are still under wraps. The new product will be unveiled tomorrow, and it could be anything from integrating Gmail status updates with Twitter and Facebook to launching a full-scale Twitter-like service of its own.

Here's what we're hearing so far:

TechCrunch says the new product will "intregrate with at least two existing Google products. The general consensus in the tech blogosphere is that one of the two is Gmail. The Wall Street Journal says the new product will make it "easier and faster for user of Gmail to view media and status updates." (Media, eh? Is the other Google product YouTube?)

Meanwhile, over at Mashable, they're calling the pending announcement "HUGE" and saying Gmail will offer a Twitter-like timeline of your friends status updates, as well as integration (Twitpic and Yfrog-style, maybe?) of Picasa photos and YouTube videos. We won't find out until 10 AM Tuesday what this new Google hotness is called, but we can start speculating! What do you think, DLS readers?

p.s.: I haven't actually heard anyone call this thing "Google Stream," but don't you think it would make a catchy name?

Microsoft and Facebook have worked together for two and a half years now, with Microsoft selling display ads on the social network. In a newly-announced deal Facebook will be taking over responsibility for selling their own display ads -- which makes sense given that they've got their own ad network.

Microsoft's Bing web search service will be extended to Facebook worldwide, and Microsoft will continue to provide search ads. Beyond the advertising changes, Facebook will now have access to Bing's full set of features to implement as they see fit within Facebook, which could lead to some exciting new features.

Microsoft's strategy of exposing Bing to the at least 350 million active Facebook users is an attempt to kick-start the service's growth which is already recognized among web power-users as being comparable to Google in terms of quality.

Google already offers a tool that lets you translate text from one language to another and technology that can convert spoken language to text. Now it looks like Google is taking the next logical step and creating a Babel Fish which you can stick in your ear to instantly understand any spoken language.

...Only instead of a fish, Google's version will be an app that runs on your smartphone. But you'll still probably hold it up to your ear.

The Times reports that Google hopes to have a working application ready within the next few years. The idea is that your phone would be able to conduct real-time translation for you. So you could be visiting Japan, Hungary, or Iraq and communicate with the locals without taking all that time to actually learn the language and customs. What could possibly go wrong?

Of course, anyone that has ever used Google Translate or Google Voice knows that machine-translation and speech to text systems are still prone to errors. You often get clunky sentences that include nonsense words. So I'm not really all that hopeful that cellphones in 2012 will solve all of the world's communication problems. But we're certainly inching closer to the Babel Fish.

[via MobileCrunch]

Apparently a small-time business in NYC called "Oh Nuts" claims Google paid them a visit and asked to take photos inside the store every six feet (that's every two meters for the rest of us), a-la Street View. They took photos of the aisles and of actual products.

Google say they're just experimenting and are not making any statements (how surprising), but still, it's an interesting prospect. If implemented on a broad scale, will it mean shopkeepers would have to keep their shelves super-neat until the Street View team comes along?

What if they decide to stop carrying a product? And if they've changed things around and decide they want the photos taken again?

I think the only way this can work is as a paid advertising service, with Google hiring out their photographers -- but then it would probably only be available in major cities. Still, I kind of like the idea because it sounds like something which could give the small guys a better chance and some exposure in their perpetual fight against big-time retailers.

[Via: Search Engine Land]

On a recent Google Chrome post one of our commenters -- MoneyMike -- lamented the apparent passing of one of Chrome's popular UI features in recent nightly builds: pinned tabs.

I, too, noticed the change recently and wondered what was going on. There's been plenty of discussion amongst Chrome developers, and it boils down to an evolutionary step for Chrome and the introduction of app tabs. The arrival of phantom tabs recently is also part of the change.

To clear the air, I pinged Google's Eitan Bencuya to see if he could shed any light on the situation. Here's his response:

"As you know, all of these features are still pretty experimental (they're not even in the dev channel yet) and we're trying out different approaches to see what works. In this case this is part of a larger set of tweaks we are making related to extensions but we haven't yet fleshed out all the details of app tabs specifically."

Right now, changes to the tab strip are a moving target. Developers are also working hard at tweaks for the almost-certainly-coming tablet version of Google Chrome, and the extension API is still evolving as well.

Ultimately, while this kind of change might be frustrating to us it's all part of the thrill of using experimental software. Yes, it comes at the expense of perhaps watching a feature you like fall by the wayside, but you still get to play around with all functionality users of the stable version may never see.

Though Macs ship with a reasonably good video player in the shape of QuickTime Player, the sheer number of different types of video files that are available out there can be frustrating to keep up with. You have to install various plugins to make QuickTime compatible with them all. Or, you can choose an all-in-one solution like VLC.

Of course, some people are not fans of the look and feel of VLC. If you're in that camp, check out Movist. Movist is another all-in-one video player for OS X that has so far handled every file type that I've thrown at it. You can even go into the preferences and manually control the decoder that you want to use for each file type in case one works better than another.

Movist's UI feels very at home on my Mac, and I like it enough that it has become my default video player. I'm looking forward to see what the next update holds for Movist, which appears to be a very active project hosted on Google Code.

[via MacStories]

Since it's introduction last week, people have been clamoring for more information on the iPad. Apple has released a video and has posted some basic specs and pricing, but more information has been hard to come by. Scammers have started to pick up on this and have been looking for ways to exploit users searching for iPad websites.

BBCNews reports that handful of security firms have been spotting attempts to "trick" search engines into providing people with rogue links. People that click these links will be redirected to pages that scan their computer looking for holes and vulnerabilities.

So how is this happening? People have started crafting fake websites that will show up high in search results for "Apple" or "iPad", etc. Users will be redirected to sites peddling fake security software, asking them to sign up for credit cards and claiming that more information and rumors on the iPad are just a few clicks away.

The same common sense rules apply for preventing this from happening. Be careful when opening links and as always, make sure you're computer has the latest security patches and updates.

Scamming and exploitation of users is nothing new, especially around high profile "trending" events. A similar scam recently occured involving the earthquake in Haiti.

Google's user interface mockups and YouTube video were a hot topic the other day, and that buzz will likely continue until we finally see a tablet device emerge from Mountain View to accompany the Nexus One.

If the images and video weren't enough proof for you, changes are under way in the Chromium source code which certainly make it look like Google is getting serious about a new interface for Chrome OS on touchscreen tablets.

Coming soon to the Chromium nightly builds is an --enable-vertical-tabs command line switch. While the source note clearly states that this does nothing other than toggle a preference right now, there's every reason to believe that it will move the Chrome tabstrip from the top of your browser window to the side -- as shown in one of Google's tablet user experience slides.

It's a starting point -- though I'm more interested to see how the tab switching interface shapes up.

Your world is about to be rocked.

If you're not a hardened, tinfoil hat-wearing the-apocalypse-is-nigh conspiracy theorist, you soon will be. Wired has just published a stunning article detailing a really scary report from computer forensic firm Mandiant. The story brings to light some disturbing truths about the always-connected, always-on world we live in.

As an Internet nerd, I actually found the details numbly humbling. It made me think about a silent war, a cold war that is warming the ground we walk and air we breath -- but has not yet bubbled forth to be joined in the field of war. Reading Wired's story and thinking about the depth and detail and concerted effort required to pull off such a hack scares me.

You should read the full article for complete details, but here's a quick breakdown of the attacks employed against targets such as Google, U.S. oil companies, defense contractors and counter-terrorism departments:

• A new form of attack is being leveraged by hackers, called Advanced Persistent Threats (APT) -- think of APT as a 'ticking bomb', an apparently-benign piece of software that can be turned on at any time. These APTs can avoid detection and remain dormant for months or years, only turning on when the 'coast is clear'. In this most recent case, an unpatched zero-day attack on Internet Explorer 6 was the entry point.
• These attacks are theft-oriented -- the sole purpose behind these APT attacks are to get at sensitive data: email, Word documents, Powerpoint presentations, spreadsheets, etc. Corporate secrets, counter-intelligence, you name it.

YouTube began testing the waters with a movie rental service late last month. Starting small, they offered a collection of five films from the Sundance Film Festival. The movies were offered for ten days to see how users would respond to a paid movie rental service.

Charging only $3.99, the films picked up 2,684 views and pulled in only $10,709 total. While the "big guys" in the movie rental business such as NetFlix, Apple and Amazon are certainly not intimidated by such a paltry sum, YouTube says it's happy with the outcome of the test. According to Google, the results "exceeded our expectations given all the barriers" and it looks like we can expect a larger movie rental presence from YouTube in the future.

While nothing is finalized, YouTube says it will be pulling in new video partners and start offering rentals on various sections of their website on a short-term basis. It'll be interesting to see how they fares up against larger companies if their rental service grows.

[via NYTimes.com]

Deleting your account from a social networking site can be as hard as canceling a gym membership or convincing a telemarketer that you're not interested in their product. Social networking sites and other online services don't want you to delete your account. There's value for them in being able to quote huge and growing user numbers, regardless of whether those users are happy to be there (though of course they hope that they are).

If you're trying to cancel your Facebook, Digg, or LinkedIn account and you're having a tough time figuring out just how to do it, head on over to Delete Your Account. Delete Your Account is an online resource that helps you delete accounts from an ever-growing number of online services. It currently lists Amazon, AIM, Digg, eBay, Facebook, Flickr, FriendFeed, Google, Hotmail, iTunes, Last.fm, LinkedIn, Meebo, Monster, MySpace, PayPal, reddit, The PirateBay, Twitter, Wikipedia, WordPress, Yahoo, and YouTube, with others on the way.

When possible Delete Your Account gives you a quick link to the page that allows you to delete your account, and instructions on how to verify that it is gone. If there are any details that you need to know like whether a site actually holds onto deleted data, that's listed as well.

Happy account deleting!