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Why Google Should Terrify You [Video}

Meet Google. The noun that became a verb. The world’s favourite search engine, and the company whose motto is “Don’t be evil…”

A recent segment about the search giant on Australian news program The Hungry Beast reveals why people are becoming increasing concerned with the integration of Google into our daily lives.

While this video does paint an overly dark picture; some of Google CEO Eric Schmidts comments should concern you.

Take a look at the video below

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Google, Microsoft Spar on Antitrust

But what really caught Google’s attention was the Internet site’s legal counsel: It was Charles “Rick” Rule, long the chief outside counsel on competition issues for Google archrival Microsoft.

“My reaction was, ‘What the heck is this?’ ” says Mark Sheriff, an Ohio attorney who represents Google, speaking of the involvement of Mr. Rule and his powerhouse law firm, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, whose antitrust practice is based in Washington, D.C. “It’s not every day that a big D.C. law firm like Cadwalader gets involved in a collections lawsuit in Ohio.”

Mr. Rule also represents another small Internet firm that has brought an antitrust suit against Google. Meanwhile, in Europe, following complaints about Google that came from, among others, a Microsoft subsidiary in Germany, the European Commission has opened a preliminary antitrust inquiry into the search giant.

To Google, the pattern is clear: It contends Microsoft is embarking on a proxy war against it through various apparently unrelated cases, preparing the ground for a broader antitrust assault of some sort on Google’s dominance in the online world. “It’s become clear that our competitors are scouring court dockets around the world looking for complaints against Google into which they can inject themselves, learn more about our business practices, and use that information to develop a broader antitrust complaint against us,” said a Google spokesman, Adam Kovacevich.

Microsoft calls that nonsense. It says it neither initiated nor is funding the small Internet firms’ antitrust lawsuits. The plaintiffs and their legal counsel also deny that Microsoft orchestrated the actions. The Internet firms say they chose Cadwalader and Mr. Rule on their own.

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Google under investigation for alleged breach of EU competition rules

Under scrutiny: Google under investigation for alleged breach of EU competition rules Photo: GETTY

The investigation comes under the Lisbon Treaty’s “abuse of dominant position” powers and is the first time that Google has been targeted by the European Union.

Telegraph.co.uk can reveal that the Commission has written to Google with a series of questions over how its search functions operate and also questioned the way it sells advertising. It acted after complaints from the UK search site Foundem, a price comparison site, Ciao, an online shopping site owned by Microsoft, and ejustice.fr, a French site which details legal cases and solicitor services.

Foundem claims that Google, which has a 90pc share of the search market in the UK, has penalised the site with a “search penalty” on its business.

In a post last August on its site, Foundem said: “Google has always used various penalty filters to remove certain sites entirely from its search results or place them so far down the rankings that they will never be found.

“Whereas these penalties used to be reserved for spam, or sites caught attempting to cheat Google’s algorithms, they are now increasingly targeted at perfectly legitimate vertical search and directory services.

“It may not be coincidence that, collectively, these services present a nascent competitive threat to Google’s share of online advertising revenues.”

Foundem claims that Google lifted the “penalty” in December, resulting in an increase in traffic from Google searches of “10,000pc overnight”.

Google has dismissed the claims, saying that its search algorithms are aimed at pointing people to the best sites and that it does not pick and choose favourites. Company sources argued that Foundem struggled on Google search because it had little original content.

In a post published on Wednesday morning, Google said: “We’ve always worked hard to ensure that our success is earned the right way, through technological innovation and great products, rather than by locking in our users or advertisers or creating artificial barriers to entry.”

The Commission’s action marks the latest round in the increasingly acrimonious battle between Google and Microsoft which senior Google sources accuse of waging a “lobbying campaign” against the Californian firm.

Ciao was bought by Microsoft in 2008 for nearly $500m (£324m) and is now called Ciao Bing, after Microsoft’s search engine. Foundem is a member of ICOMP, an internet pressure group which receives funding from Microsoft.

A spokesman for ICOMP said that it was backed by a number of companies and was only interested in promoting transparency and fair competition on the web.

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A Brief Review of Google Voice for iPhone

As Google Voice is rejected by Apple as a native application

on iPhone last August, Google finally repackaged the Google Voice mobile for iPhone as web application that was built on HTML 5 and launched publicly in late January.

If you are not familiar with Google Voice, it is a free phone service by Google that allows you to associate multiple phone numbers (up to six) to one Google Voice number. The app improves the way you use your phone. It offers a centralized interface to get transcribed voicemail and archive or search all of the SMS text messages you send and receive. You can also screen and block unwanted callers via the centralized interface.

As of today, Google Voice is not yet available to everybody but for U.S. customers only. You also need to have an invitation. You can request an invitation before using the service.

Well, with the release of Google Voice as a web application, you can simply point your mobile Safari to m.google.com/voice. Similar to the way the mobile Gmail site works, the Voice site caches your contacts list in a browser page. All of the regular Google Voice functionality is available. You can write SMS messages, listen to any voicemails and check your Inbox.

Similar to the built-in phone application, when you make a phone call using Google Voice, you can choose the recipient or dial the number to make a call. After tapping the dial button, the app then prompts you to dial one of Google’s ‘local numbers’ via the native dialer. That’s it. And, the web app lets you display your Google Voice number (instead of the number of your SIM card) as the outbound caller ID.

So, how about internation call? You can also make international call via Google Voice. But don’t expect it’s completely free. Unlike Fring or Skype, Google Voice is not a VOIP app. So, you will get charged for calls using Google Voice, just not as much as if you dialed a long distance or international call directly, but with a lower rate.

Google Voice also lets you to view all your transcribed voice mails in the Inbox. You no longer need to listen the voice mails one by one. Simply click on the one that interests you and listen to it.

Text messages sent via Google Voice is completely free. You can simply tap “Compose”, type a number (or select a contact), write your message and send your message. By now, Google Voice does not support international SMS. You can only send text messages in the U.S. But please take note here. When you send a text message via Google Voice, the text message is appeared to be sent from your Google Voice number. In case your recipient replies back (to your Google Voice number), it won’t appear as from the sender’s actual number but something like 1-406-xxx-xxxx.

You can always sync your contacts on iPhone with your Google contacts using Google Sync so that you have all the same info in your iPhone contacts available with our Google Voice contacts.

Despite Google Voice is not released as a native iPhone application, it is still a pretty cool web application and works smoothly. In future, I really wish Apple to allow Google Voice appear in App Store. Anyhow, if you love the features offered by Google Voice, go ahead and request an invite to try out the service.

To learn more about Google Voice, check out these official videos from Google:

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Buy Motorola Droid at Discounted Price of $109.99

Amazon, the famous American based online retailer has always offered great deals on all kinds of consumer electronic items. This time, they have got a great deal going on the popular Android based Motorola DROID phone. The said phone is now offered for just $109.99 if bought with a two year service plan with Verizon.

This deal from Amazon is going to save you about $90 that you would have to otherwise shell out if bought directly from the carrier itself. More info on this deal can be found at Amazon page here. [via Android Central]

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HUGE: Google Considers Pulling Out of China in the Name of Free Speech

In a lengthy blog post today, Google announced that it would no longer censor its Chinese search engine, even if it means pulling out of China entirely. This comes in the wake of a wide-ranging attack on its infrastructure targeting Chinese human rights activists.

In the post, Google() outlined in rather striking detail a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack” that occurred last month, targeting around 20 companies. In its investigation, the search giant found that the attackers’ primary objective was accessing Gmail() accounts of Chinese human rights activists. It also found that dozens of other Gmail accounts owned by human rights activists worldwide were compromised, most likely due to phishing scams or malware.

Google wouldn’t say it, but implications are that the Chinese government had something to do with these attacks.

As a result of the attacks, Google has decided to reassess its presence in China. The Chinese government and Google have fought over censorship before, but currently the search engine does block certain results (such as images of the Tiananmen Square massacre).

Now Google’s making it clear that it won’t comply with China’s demands any longer. Here’s the key paragraph from the Google post:

“These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”

Google has taken a very public stand against censorship, albeit one that is years overdue. How this series of events plays out could not only affect Google and the tech community, but global politics as a whole

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Google Moves to Keep Its Lead as Web Goes Mobile

SAN FRANCISCO — Google’s expected unveiling on Tuesday of a rival to the iPhone is part of its careful plan to try to do what few other technology companies have done before: retain its leadership as computing shifts from one generation to the next.

The rapid emergence of the smartphone as a versatile computing device may be as much a challenge as an opportunity for Google, which built its multibillion-dollar empire largely on the sale of small text ads linked to search queries typed on PCs.

As people increasingly rely on powerful mobile phones instead of PCs to access the Web, their surfing habits are bound to change. What’s more, online advertising could lose its role as the Web’s primary economic engine, putting Google’s leadership role into question.

“The new paradigm is mobile computing and mobility,” said David B. Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School. “That has the potential to change the economics of the Internet business and to redistribute profits yet again.”

In recent decades, the power of industry giants like I.B.M. and Microsoft, which once seemed unassailable, waned as computing shifted from big mainframes to PCs, and from PCs to the Internet. Many analysts say it is now Google that is faced with a less certain future in the face of another shift.

Still, they say Google saw this coming years ago and has been preparing for it. Google executives now say they are confident that the company will thrive as the mobile Internet grows.

“We are incredibly excited about the opportunities that we see in mobile,” Vic Gundotra, a vice president of engineering at Google who oversees mobile applications, said in an interview on Monday. “We have invested a considerable amount, and we can now really provide a compelling mobile experience.”

Top Google executives, including Eric E. Schmidt, the chief executive, have long said that the mobile Internet was Google’s biggest opportunity for new growth. They orchestrated a string of acquisitions of companies with mobile-related technology, including Android, maker of a cellphone operating system; GrandCentral, a service for making calls that can bypass telephone lines; and AdMob, an advertising network for mobile applications. The AdMob deal is awaiting approval from regulators.

Google also invested far more aggressively than its competitors in mapping technologies and services tied to a user’s location, which are likely to become the vital underpinnings of new advertising systems on GPS-equipped mobile phones. Last month, Google came close to paying more than $500 million to acquire Yelp, a Web site for business listings and reviews. While the deal collapsed at the last minute, Google’s interest underscored its determination to become a force in mobile advertising.

And in recent years, Google has worked systematically to loosen the hold that other companies have on the mobile industry.

In 2008, for example, Google bid $4.7 billion in a government auction of the nation’s airwaves. While Google had no intention of winning, it bid to ensure that the airwaves would be subject to so-called openness requirements, meaning that Verizon Wireless, which won the bidding, would not be able to exclude Google services like Web search, Gmail and maps from phones using those frequencies.

The expected unveiling on Tuesday of the Nexus One, a thin, touch-screen handset built to Google’s specifications and made by the Taiwanese company HTC, is a challenge to a newly minted industry power: Apple, whose iPhone dominates the high end of the smartphone market. While the iPhone sends millions of people to Google’s search and other services, some of the company’s applications, like Google Voice, have not been allowed to run on the phone.

Analysts say that with the Nexus One, which Google plans to sell to consumers directly, the company is trying to free itself from Apple’s growing influence. It also wants to broaden the appeal of Android’s technology. The phone is expected to be sold unlocked, allowing consumers to buy service plans separately.

Mr. Gundotra declined to discuss specifics of the Nexus One. But he said all of Google’s mobile moves were driven by one objective: pushing the industry to open up in an attempt to replicate on mobile phones the environment that has allowed the PC-driven Web to grow at explosive rates.

“Before the mobile Web really started to take off, there were many barriers to consumers,” he said. “Sometimes it was limited choice about what you could do with your phone,” he said, adding that in some cases, it could take as many as 19 clicks for a user to get to Google’s site.

Some of Google’s moves, like its bid for spectrum, confounded many in the industry. But analysts say that Google’s actions proved shrewd and that the company has, to a large extent, helped open up the mobile Web and ensure that its own services, and its ads, will be accessible to all.

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Google To Acquire DocVerse; Office War Heats Up

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Google Branded Chrome OS Netbook to Launch in 2010

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch is reporting on an interesting news regarding a Google branded netbook, which could launch late next year. This rumored netbook will of coarse run on top of Chrome OS with mobility features like support for 3G, and will be sold directly to consumers under the Google brand.

It is also being said that Google has already sent a RFP (Request for Proposal) to its hardware partners like Acer, HP, Dell, ASUS, Toshiba, as one of these will be selected to build the hardware for the netbook in question. Just like the Google-branded Nexus One phone, this Chrome OS netbook is most likely to be designed by the folks in Mountain View, California, and one of the above mentioned partners is going to manufacture the hardware for it.

Chrome OS was unveiled by Google to the public for the first time last month. Chrome OS represents Google’s view point of what an OS should be like in this era. It is an open source operating system, designed specifically for the netbooks market to provide them fast experience using reduced boot and startup time. Speed, security and simplicity are the main aspects of Chrome OS.

Pre-release Chrome OS images are already available for download, which you can go ahead and try out on a supported hardware. You can also follow the complete step-by-step guide posted here on How-to install Chrome OS as a VM in Windows 7.

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Video of Google Nexus One Phone

We have been hearing all about the upcoming Google Nexus One phone, including pictures, specs and price, but its hard to believe that not even a single video of the phone existed, until now. Folks over at The Nexus One, who seems to have the phone have managed to capture the device in action, showing the now-famous “X” boot up sequence of Android 2.1 on Nexus One.

The handset is placed on top of a box, which seems to be the pre-release packaging for the Nexus One phone. You can see it in action in the video embedded below.

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