The Global Syndicator - google

Google Tests Custom Highlights, Comments In Search

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:21:52 +0000

Ian Lamont writes "Google is testing functionality that lets users tinker with query results by re-ranking them and commenting on them. The reason for the commenting feature: 'We're just curious to see how it will be used,' according to a Google engineer quoted in the article. The company has posted screenshots of some of the experiments, which also involve highlighting certain results as well as stems and synonyms within results. Google declined to answer any questions about the experiments, and it's not known whether Google would factor the rearranging of results by users into the overall computation for ranking results for those specific queries. It's also not clear whether search result comments would be made available to anyone to read."

Outages Leave Google Apps Admins In the Hotseat

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 12:23:53 +0000

snydeq writes "This week's Google outages left several Google Apps admins in the lurch — and many of them are second-guessing their advocacy for making the switch to hosted apps, InfoWorld reports. The outages, which affected both Gmail and Apps, 'could serve as a deterrent to some IT and business managers who might not be ready to ditch conventional software packages that are installed on their servers,' according to the article. 'If we began to experience a similar outage more than about two or three business hours per quarter, we'd probably make Google Apps and Gmail a backup solution to a locally hosted mail system, if we used it at all,' said one Apps admin. 'And it would likely be years before we'd try a cloud-based collaborative system again from any vendor.' Coupled with recent Apple and Amazon cloud issues, these Google outages are being viewed by some as big wins for Microsoft."

Sneaking Past Heavy-Handed Audio Compression on YouTube

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 19:22:12 +0000

niceone writes "Recently YouTube seems to have started applying extreme compression to the audio of uploaded clips. This is the type of compressions used by radio stations to make everything louder, but in this case applied extremely badly. In quiet passages, breathing and shuffling become overpoweringly loud. A gently plucked guitar chord becomes a distorted thud. Listen to an example here. And here's what it could sound like — still not perfect, but a whole lot better. The fixed version is thanks to a workaround proposed by Sopranoguitar — the idea is to turn down the audio and mix in a high frequency sine wave (I used 19kHz). The sine wave fools YouTube's compressor into thinking that the file is at a uniform level (and does not need the volume changing at all) but is filtered out by the encoding process (so, no need to worry about deafening any dogs)."

Google URL Index Hits 1 Trillion

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 04:03:21 +0000

mytrip points out news that Google's index of unique URLs has reached a milestone: one trillion. Google's blog provides some more information, noting, "The first Google index in 1998 already had 26 million pages, and by 2000 the Google index reached the one billion mark. Over the last eight years, we've seen a lot of big numbers about how much content is really out there. To keep up with this volume of information, our systems have come a long way since the first set of web data Google processed to answer queries. Back then, we did everything in batches: one workstation could compute the PageRank graph on 26 million pages in a couple of hours, and that set of pages would be used as Google's index for a fixed period of time. Today, Google downloads the web continuously, collecting updated page information and re-processing the entire web-link graph several times per day."

How much is Google stockpiling?

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 12:11:11 +0000

"This is not the first time Google has fought the disclosure of user information it had been stockpiling."

This is a quote from a CNN article I read this morning about the most recent ruling in the Viacom vs. Google lawsuit, in which Viacom is asking for $1 billion in damages from Google because some of their copyrighted content has appeared on YouTube (owned by Google). Viacom has won a preliminary ruling in which they asked Google to provide a complete listing of all videos, who viewed them, and how many times. Google claims this is about 12 TB of information and will take months to gather.

Google Begat the End of the Scientific Method?

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:42:01 +0000

TheSauce writes "In a fairly concise one-pager from Chris Anderson, at Wired, the editor posits that all of our current (or now previous) models for collecting data are dead. The content is compelling. It notes that we've entered the Age of the Petabyte — where one can collect immense amounts of data that are paradigm agnostic. It goes on to add a comment from the head of Google's R&D, that we need an update to George Box's maxim: 'All models are wrong, and increasingly you can succeed without them.' Have we reached a time where all of our tool-sets are now made moot by vast clouds of information and strictly applied maths?"

Google Sued for $1B Over Outlook Migration Tool

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:19:58 +0000

A two-count lawsuit filed by Chicago company LimitNone alleges that Google misappropriated trade secrets and violated Illinois' consumer fraud laws when it developed "Google Email Uploader" which competes with LimitNone's "gMove" application. "Google claims its core philosophy is 'Don't be evil' but, simply put, they invited us to work with them, to trust them — and then stole our technology,'" said Ray Glassman, CEO of LimitNone, in a prepared statement. The lawsuit was filed by Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, the same commercial litigation group which challenged Google over the company's online advertising system.

Georgia's New State Health Plan Is Google

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 20:51:30 +0000

theodp writes "In yet another case of life imitating Dilbert, the State of Georgia has issued a press release touting how helpful Google products will be in getting Georgians to go outdoors. According to the release and a follow-up Yo-State-So-Fat Official Google Blog post, this includes AdWords, Analytics, Maps, Earth, Picasa, Gadgets and a branded YouTube channel for the GO Georgia initiative 'We're thrilled that Google has joined us in the effort to help everyone in the state lead a healthier life,' said Sally Winchester, a manager for Georgia State Parks & Historic Sites. 'At Google, we are committed to helping our employees lead healthy lives,' added Maureen Schumacher, a Google regional sales director. 'We are very excited that Google products will be used as part of this effort to improve the health and well-being of all Georgians.'"

Blogger Launches 'Google Bomb' At McCain

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 16:22:25 +0000

hhavensteincw writes "A liberal blogger has launched a 'Google bomb' project aimed at boosting Google search results for nine news articles showing Sen. John McCain in a negative light. The Computerworld article notes: 'Chris Bowers, managing editor of the progressive blog OpenLeft, is launching the Google bombs by encouraging bloggers to embed Web links to the nine news stories about McCain in their blogs, which helps raise their ranking in Google search results. Bowers is reprising a similar Google bombing effort he undertook in 2006 against 52 different congressional candidates. "Obviously, it is manipulating, but search engines are not public forums and unless you act to use them for your own benefit, your opponent's information is going to get out there," Bowers said.'"

Citi’s Mahaney: If Google Wants To Stay On Top, It Needs To Ramp Up Its Display Ad Revenues

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:58:25 +0000

A decade ago, the leading Internet companies were AOL, Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo. With the exception of Amazon, which is experiencing a renewal as it embraces digital distribution and cloud computing, they all fell by the wayside because they failed to adapt to a major market transition. For AOL, it was the transition to [...]

Google Faces Off With Compete, Alexa, Comscore, Quantcast (And Soon Firefox)

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 19:50:22 +0000

Google has just introduced Google Trends For Websites, a new tool that lets users take a peek at the traffic data from sites around the web. The new feature pits Google against a number of well-established players in the traffic data space, including Compete, Comscore, Alexa, and a host of others. All these services fall [...]

Arrington Analyzes Yahoo on ABC

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:30:18 +0000

Michael was dragged out of bed at 8AM on Wednesday morning to talk with ABC’s Vinita Nair about the situation at Yahoo, its deal with Google, and where that leaves Microsoft. He wakes up about a minute into the interview when he starts discussing the talent drain at Yahoo and how the deal gives [...]

Google Street View Showing more than Expected

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 01:05:40 +0000

A few weeks ago it was a guy in Chicago waiving a gun. Now it's possible Hookers in California. It's turning into a Where's Waldo game - except it's "Who's on Street View"?

I wonder how many hours it takes to scan the Google website to find something interesting to report about. The only thing more hilarious is the fact that Google is not looking at what they are taking pictures of. There are even some people that, when they see the Google car coming, they plan a last minute improvisation. Jalopnik has a couple pictures of that.

Google Maps Gets Political

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 01:15:43 +0000

The Google Maps team has set up a showcase for some of its favorite mashups from the 2008 US presidential election. Four of the mashups - Primary Results, Twitter, Search Queries, and Campaign Trail - were made by Google itself. The Primary Result mashup shows how states and districts across the country voted in the [...]

Google's Trying to Help with NetNeutrality

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 05:45:14 +0000

"We're trying to develop tools, software tools...that allow people to detect what's happening with their broadband connections, so they can let [ISPs] know that they're not happy with what they're getting -- that they think certain services are being tampered with,"