GoogleKnot

Paper911 has been using online word processor Writly for the past couple months to collaborate on our academic and scholoarly writings. I have been very pleased with it and am even more pleased that Google has choosen to help out with the project. Writly's interface is great and makes sharing and collaborating on documents a cinch. Best part is: Its free and your documents are accesible from anywhere.

Google Desktop is a sidebar application which brings together many Google functionalities including Email, News and Talk. The new version allows you place the panels wherever you would like on your desktop and show and hide them by pressing shift twice. This is a very nice feature for maximizing screen realestate and reminds me of the dashboard widgets on Mac.

But the big news is the ability to share files with other Desktop/Talk Users which is a feature that Talk had been lacking and one that I felt could be improved in services such as AOL instant Messenger. In Addition you will now be able to search files across multiple computers. To take advantage of this feature you have to install Desktop on all the computers and then choose which files you would like to share. The files are then copied to all the computers. There is concern about this feature because during the copy process the files are temporarily stored on Google's servers. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is not recommending this feature because the storage of the files on Google's servers makes users much more vulnerable to subpoenas. Only a subpoena is required for information stored on service provider servers where as a warrant. The EFF is asking Google to join it in asking the US Congress to strengthen the privacy rights for data stored on service provider servers but Google has yet to respond

Google Talk is being integrated into the Gmail Interface. You will be able to chat with with your Talk buddies though gmail and not have to download and install any client program. You will not be able to do voice without the client, however. Even more superprodundo is the fact that all your Talk transcripts will be logged and searchable through gmail. And yes, you can go "off the record" for those little on the job cybersoirees. In addition Talk users can talk with any user on the Jabber network

A unique feature of the Jabber system is that of transports, also known as gateways, which allow users to access networks using other protocols - such as AIM and ICQ (using OSCAR), MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger (using the .NET Messenger Service), Yahoo! Messenger, SMS or E-mail. Unlike multi-protocol clients like Trillian or Gaim, Jabber provides this access at the server level by communicating via special gateway services running on a remote computer. Any Jabber user can 'register' with one of these gateways by providing the information needed to log on to that network, and can then communicate with users of that network as though they were Jabber users. This means that any client which fully supports the Jabber protocol can be used to access any network to which a gateway exists, without the need for any extra code in the client.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabber)

So it looks like it wont neccesary to convert those in the dark ages of AIM and MSN

Google and bunch of other big boys like Skype and Cisco are backing a global Wifi "community" company called fon. Founder Martin Varsvsky paints a cyber utopian world filled with Foneros who share Wifi connections. The idea is fun and ingenious.

The users may sign up to FON in three ways: they can be Bills, Linus or Aliens. What are those names you might ask? The explanation is quite simple: a Linus (who are called like this after Linus Torvalds) shares his/her bandwidth for free with other Foneros, Bills (of course named after Bill Gates) share their bandwidth for a small fee, and Aliens don't share their bandwidth at all.(playfuls.com)

So they got 20 mil, but I'm not really sure they have a business model. You can already share or not share you internet connection though your router and pc. So the only thing they seem to be offering is the ability to charge others to use your bandwith. You are still going to have to pay a separate ISP. This would be an interesting program for isps to offer. I think that skype and google could have better spent the money on cable modem service and cisco could supply the routers.

A Google spokeswoman, Lynn Fox, said that the company was an investor in the project but that it was not in a partnership with it. "We're looking forward to seeing how it develops," she said. "We are optimistic that this technology will be good for users, I.S.P.'s and Internet technology companies, as it will enable people to get online more often and from more locations

Well At Least They're not betting the farm on it. This seems like pet company to me. A toy for these big boys. Fon will probably never succeed on Wall Street but will hopefully push the wifi sharing envelope and get people thinking about community networking.

Google has been doing wifi R&D and is a bidder for the deployment of a municipal wifi netowrk for San Francisco

The Chinese government censors tampon-box instructions so it's no surprise that in order for its people to earn access to Google, certain compromises must be considered. Compromise with the Chinese government usually means getting to keep your left nut.

Google has faired better than this. With two nuts and a wee little shaft, Google is peeking its head into the information oligarchy that is China. Its core principle of total information freedom, however, has undergone a slight modification at the behest of one big-ass country. It is thus that Google may be setting an unfortunate and heretofore unthinkable precedent of philosophical divergence. Hopefully Bush and Homeland Security won't pick up on it.

Google and the Patriot Act in cahoots? I don't want the government knowing that I stroke it to the Google Image search terms 'dustin diamond' AND 'jiffy lube'.

“As was widely reported last week, Google has now joined Yahoo! and Microsoft by censoring its Internet search results in order to do business in China. It was a decision that supposedly tested the company's "don't be evil" pledge, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin. As Orville Schell, a China scholar and Dean of Berkley’s Graduate School of Journalism, told John Battelle, author of "The Search," "China represents a great paradox for a democratic business culture -- its political culture is repugnant, but its market is far too rich to ignore.”
(Kutnikoff)

Check out the whole article here or by clicking the title above:

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=271724&rel_no=1

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After close to 4 years, Google News is out of Beta. This service is compiled electronically in full and groups stories on the same topic from different sources into clusters. This allows you to see news trends around the world and look at stories from multiple perspectives. The move out of beta comes along with the incorporation of Personalized Search into Google News. This allows Google News to recommend stories based on your past searches. This means that although News is no longer in beta it will allow the service to continually improve on an individual basis.

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The value of Google’s stock has swelled to 450% of its original value since going public in 2004. Still, market forecasters say it will need to diversify its means of revenue and remedy such issues as google-bombing and AdWords / AdSense Click Fraud in order to remain the preferred internet portal. The latter of these issues is costing the advertisers who occupy Google’s search-engine sidebar and often delivering a less-than-favorable value for the dollar. Given that the AdWords service constitutes 99% of Google’s income, a failure to cure its shortcomings could be fatal.

“Click fraud is a difficult situation. I don't know what is being done to stop click fraud on Google Web sites and on its AdSense network, which is advertising technology used by third-party, or other company, Web sites. They have to invest in technology and people around the concept of click fraud to ensure that it doesn't happen. At some point, this will become an issue that people will talk about in 2006.” (Kessler)

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