Italian prosecutors seek jail for Google execs

Italian prosecutors sought six-month to a year sentences for four Google executives Wednesday over an Internet video showing the bullying of a teenager with Down's Syndrome, the company said.

How To Get Your Pages Indexed By Google

Provided that you respect some basic SEO guidelines, 100% of your posts should be indexed by Google. The basic SEO guidelines are:

1. All your posts must have unique and quality content. By unique I mean that the content of your posts should be found only on a single place (i.e., avoid duplicate content both inside and outside your domain). By quality I mean that the content should be useful to potential visitors. If you repeat the letter “z” one thousand times you would end up with unique content, but it would have zero quality so Google would probably not index that.

Two Verizon Android phones coming in 2009

Google and Verizon Wireless on Tuesday announced what would have once seemed a very unlikely partnership, pledging to "advance the discussion" in the mobile computing market with a family of jointly designed devices to appear over the next few years.

Verizon has joined T-Mobile and Sprint in support of Google's Android software, with plans to release two new Android phones this year.

Eric Schmidt and Lowell McAdam, CEOs of Google and Verizon Wireless respectively, worked on this partnership for 18 months before they were ready to officially bring it to light, they said Tuesday morning in a Webcast press conference. Two mobile phones running Google's Android mobile operating system will launch on Verizon's network by the end of the year, and that's just the start of a joint road map that will include other Android-based devices beyond phones, the companies said.

Verizon is known for the strong performance of its data network, but has not historically been known for its mobile software, at least not in a good way. The carrier was perhaps most emblematic of the wireless industry's desire to control the software that ran on its devices, and that left Verizon customers with a stable network but relatively unpopular applications.

However, ever since Apple's iPhone shook up the mobile industry in 2007, Verizon has pledged to improve the quality of the software that runs on its phones by scaling back its control over that software to allow outside developers a greater say over what software is available on Verizon phones.

The Android devices that emerge from this partnership will have Google's Android Market pre-installed on the phones, said John Stratton, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Wireless parent company Verizon Communications. Verizon also pledged to support applications such as Google Voice, currently at the center of a controversy among Google, Apple, AT&T, and the Federal Communications Commission over Apple's decision to prevent Google Voice from reaching the iPhone.

The companies declined to name hardware partners for the initial devices, but Motorola and HTC have been rumored for months as the initial phone makers expected to work with Verizon. Beyond that, it sounds like Verizon and Google expect to release other devices, such as Netbooks or perhaps an ebook reader that will run on Verizon's network.

Verizon will become the third U.S. carrier to support Android, with the notable exception of iPhone carrier AT&T. T-Mobile has been perhaps the most vocal Android backer in the U.S. to date, although Sprint has also pledged its support for Android.

>Verizon, however, is playing in a different league than T-Mobile or Sprint. With 87 million customers, Verizon has more subscribers than Sprint and T-Mobile combined.

Schmidt spoke several times during the call about Google's eagerness to team up with a network of that scale and implied that developers should like that combination as well. "Developers need the kind of data network that is the base of what Verizon offers," he said.

McAdam and Stratton deflected several questions about what this partnership would mean for Verizon's existing partners, of whom Research in Motion and Microsoft are perhaps most prominent. Verizon chose to make this announcement on the eve of the CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment conference in San Diego, overshadowing the debut of Windows Mobile 6.5.

Stratton did say that Verizon sees room for multiple partners on its network. The carrier is still expected to bring the Palm Pre to its network next year, according to analysts.
A few years ago, smartphones made up around 10 percent of Verizon's devices, he said. Now, it's more like 40 percent and the growth has not stopped amid a global recession that has hurt demand for many consumer electronics products.

Google and Verizon have pledged to create services and applications that may or may not be exclusive to Verizon Android handsets. Partnerships are a dime a dozen in the tech industry, but the combination of two giants of Verizon and Google's size has to be taken seriously by the rest of the mobile industry.

Source: Tom Krazit of Cnet October 6, 2009 Post

Curious things appear in Google Earth images

At a first glance, these landscapes of Google Earth to play some may seem alien humorous. But in reality, are only the result of the trained eyes of the fans of this Internet service free of satellite images over the Internet.




The images shown are real, but look like faces or world-famous icons such as aerial photo of a labyrinth in the U.S.state of Arizona that is reminiscent of TV presenter Oprah Winfrey. Or,the image of a shadow on sand dunes in Peru that resembles the face of Jesus Christ.


Actual photos and their supposed similarities,presented Wednesday at the site of the Daily Mail, also come with afield of Massachusetts seems to have been carved in the shape of the symbol of Halloween, the pumpkin for Halloween or a photo of Rockies that resembles the image of a Canadian Indian wearing headphones.

The famous gardens of Versailles in France, seen from above, may suggest the image of the little robot Johnny Five. Or, a field in Poland that resembles the face of former President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.

Creepy isn't it? 

Google Fast Flip is Here

Google has just recently released Fast Flip, Google's newest service that will allow you to read internet articles the way they should be read, like a magazine. You flip pages, just like reading a book. Making it more convenient for readers to enjoy every bit of what they are reading.



The service is meant to duplicate the look and feel of perusing a printed publication. The stories are displayed on electronic pages that can be quickly scrolled through by clicking on large arrows on the side instead of a standard Web link that requires waiting several seconds for a page to load. Readers can sort through content based on topics, favorite writers and publications.

For now, Fast Flip will only  show first page of a story. Readers who want to continue will have to continue will have to click through to the publishers site, where they display reverts to a traditional Web page.

More than three dozen publishers, broadcasters and Web-only outlets have agreed to share their content on Fast Flip. The participants include two major newspapers, The New York Times and the Washington Post, as well as large magazines like Newsweek and Business Week.

The publishers providing the stories to Fast Flip will get most of the revenue from the ads the Google intends show in the new format. That's a switch from Google's main search page and it's news section, where the Mountain View-based company keeps all the money from ads shown alongside headlines and snippets from stories.


Fast Flip is the latest step that Google has taken to improve its relationship with newspaper and magazine publishers, many of whom have railed against the company for profiting from their articles without sharing wealth. The acrimony has escalated as a three-year decline in the print medium's ad revenue accelerated during the past year. The newspaper industry's ad sales plunged 29 percent during the first half this year while Google's crept up 4 percent. In another example of cooperation, Google recently offeredto help newspaper publishers set up a system to charge readers for access to parts of their Web sites.

While the notion of Google funneling more sales to publishers is appealing, news executives also want to ensure that Fast Flip doesn't become too popular. Publishers still want readers to come to their Web sites, where they can sell ads without giving Google a peice of the action.

Internet Traffic Chokers Exposed by Google (Republished)

Google has begun offering tools to expose Internet service providers (ISPs) that choke traffic or shift users into slow lanes while allowing others to zip along at high speeds.



The online search and advertising king is an unabashed champion of "net neutrality" in which all Internet traffic is treated equally instead of letting service providers give preferential treatment to privileged clients.
"At Google, we care deeply about sustaining the Internet as an open platform for consumer choice and innovation," Google chief evangelist Vint Cerf and principal engineer Stephen Stuart wrote in an online posting.
"No matter your views on net neutrality and ISP network management practices, everyone can agree that Internet users deserve to be well-informed about what they're getting when they sign up for broadband."

Google worked with New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, the PlanetLab Consortium, and academic researchers to create an online Measurement Lab (M-Lab) that researchers can use to detect Internet traffic manipulation.

"When an Internet application doesn't work as expected or your connection seems flaky, how can you tell whether there is a problem caused by your broadband ISP, the application, your PC, or something else?" Cerf wrote.

"It can be difficult for experts, let alone average Internet users, to address this sort of question today."
M-Lab went online Wednesday with three diagnostic tools running on computer servers near Google headquarters in Mountain View, California.

The tools are available to help users "diagnose common problems that might impair their broadband speed, as well as determine whether BitTorrent is being blocked or throttled by their ISPs," according to Cerf, a computer scientist often called "father of the Internet."

ISPs such as US behemoth Comcast have sparked controversy by clandestinely throttling some traffic, such as peer-to-peer file sharing.

ISPs argue that such measures are necessary to manage growing congestion on the Internet highway. Google has been among those advocating against fettering online traffic, saying that doing so stifles Internet innovation and growth.

M-Lab United States. More diagnostic tools will be added and results made public, according to Google.
"M-Lab is intended to be a truly community-based effort, and we welcome the support of other companies, institutions, researchers, and users that want to provide servers, tools, or other resources that can help the platform flourish," Cerf wrote.