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вторник, 30 ноября 2010 г.

EU launches antitrust probe into alleged Google abuses

05:32

Hi Speed

The European Commission has launched an investigation into Google after other search engines complained that the firm had abused its dominant position.

The EC will examine whether the world's largest search engine penalised competing services in its results.

The probe follows complaints by firms including price comparison site Foundem and legal search engine ejustice.fr.

Google denies the allegations but said it would work with the Commission to "address any concerns".

Earlier this year the attorney general of Texas launched a similar investigation following complaints from firms including Foundem.

The objections in both cases are from competitors which allege that Google manipulates its search results.

"The European Commission has decided to open an antitrust investigation into allegations that Google has abused a dominant position in online search," the body said in a statement.

It said the action followed "complaints by search service providers about unfavourable treatment of their services in Google's unpaid and sponsored search results coupled with an alleged preferential placement of Google's own services."

The Commission's investigation does not imply any wrongdoing by Google.

"Since we started, Google we have worked hard to do the right thing by our users and our industry," said the firm in a statement.

"But there's always going to be room for improvement, and so we'll be working with the Commission to address any concerns."

Google offers two types of search result - unpaid results produced by the firm's algorithms that are displayed in the main body of the page and "ads", previously called sponsored links.

The investigation will try to determine whether the firm's method of generating unpaid results adversely affects the ranking of other firms, specifically those providing so-called vertical search services.

These are specialist search providers, and can include sites that offer price comparison, for example.

Foundem alleges that Google's algorithms "remove legitimate sites from [its] natural search results, irrespective of relevance". It also says that the firm promotes its own services over those offered by competitors.

"Google is exploiting its dominance of search in ways that stifle innovation, suppress competition, and erode consumer choice," Foundem said in its complaint filed in February 2010.

But Google argues that there are "compelling reasons" why these sites are "ranked poorly".

For example, it said, Foundem "duplicates 79% of its website content from other sites."

"We have consistently informed webmasters that our algorithms disadvantage duplicate sites," the firm said.

The Commission will also look into allegations that Google manipulated elements of its system that determine the price paid for ads from these sites.

Finally, the investigation will also probe how the company deals with advertising partners.

Advertising is the core of Google's business.

Google is alleged to impose "exclusivity obligations on advertising partners, preventing them from placing certain types of competing ads on their web sites, as well as on computer and software vendors," according to an EC statement.

In addition, the EC said it would also look into "suspected restrictions on the portability of online advertising campaign data to competing online advertising platforms."

Google says it already allows customers "to take their data with them when they switch services" adn that its contracts "have never been exclusive".

WikiLeaks reveals how US snoops on friends and foes

10:25

Hi Speed

Nearly 250,000 classified United States documents procured by WikiLeaks give detail about a wide variety of secret diplomatic episodes and incidences of backroom bargaining, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

The confidential cache of US cables released to the paper by the whistleblower website was described by the Times as the one that unlocks the secrets of American diplomacy. The newspaper made public the details contained in the documents on Sunday, some time after WikiLeaks said its website was under a cyber attack.

"A cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the past three years, provides an unprecedented look at backroom bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats," The Times said in its lead story.

US-Pak stand-off over nuclear fuel

More eminent newspapers across the globe are expected to follow suit, even as WikiLeaks on its Twitter account said that it is "currently under a mass distributed denial of service attack". It added that even if its website goes down, a number of newspapers will go ahead and publish the documents.

These documents, according to NYT, reveal a dangerous standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel. Since 2007, the US has mounted a highly secret effort, so far unsuccessful, to remove from a Pakistani research reactor highly enriched uranium that American officials fear could be diverted for use in an illicit nuclear device.

In May 2009, Ambassador Anne W Patterson reported that Pakistan was refusing to schedule a visit by American technical experts because, as a Pakistani official said, "if the local media got word of the fuel removal, they certainly would portray it as the United States taking Pakistan's nuclear weapons, he argued".

China on a hacking spree

Besides, they also provide an insight into a global computer hacking effort initiated by the Chinese government. China's politburo directed the intrusion into Google's computer systems, a Chinese contact told the American embassy in Beijing in January, according to one cable.

The Google hacking was part of a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government.

They have broken into American government computers and those of Western allies, the Dalai Lama and American businesses since 2002, the cables said.

The White House immediately condemned the release strongly, saying it risked the lives of thousands of diplomats and officials and endangered its relationship with friends and allies.

WikiLeaks exposed rights abuse in Iraq

Top officials of the Obama administration called up several countries including India and warned them about the imminent release of such classified US documents.

The Pentagon condemned what it called a 'reckless' act, and said it has initiated measures to prevent such leaks in the future ahead of the imminent release. The State Department asked it to return the 'illegally obtained' papers, insisting that their leak would "endanger the lives of countless individuals."

The Twitter message by WikiLeaks earlier said that El Pais, Le Monde, Speigel, Guardian and New York Times newspapers will publish many US embassy cables on Sunday night, even if WikiLeaks goes down.

The website has earlier released thousands of documents on the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In October, WikiLeaks released four lakh secret US files on Iraq war detailing abuse of Iraqi prisoners in US custody, rights violations and civilian deaths.
Earlier in July, the website had published tens of thousands of secret documents on the war in Afghanistan.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Sunday said the soon-to-be released classified US documents will cover 'every major issue' in the world.

Late on Saturday, Washington rejected talks with WikiLeaks, saying the website was holding the cables in violation of US law. However, Assange has rejected the claim that the release would put to harm many lives.

The 251,287 cables, first acquired by WikiLeaks, were provided to The Times by an intermediary on the condition of anonymity. Many are unclassified, and none are marked 'top secret', the government's most secure communications status.

China hacks Google, US spies on allies
The NYT reported that details contained in the released documents include plans to reunite the Korean peninsula after the North's eventual collapse and bargaining over the repatriation of Guantanamo Bay detainees.

The cables also detail fresh suspicions about corruption in Afghanistan and Saudi donors financing Al Qaeda. Many more cables name diplomats' confidential sources, from foreign legislators and military officers to human rights activists and journalists, often with a warning to Washington: 'Please protect' or 'Strictly protect'.

The cables show that nearly a decade after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the shadow of terrorism still dominates the United States' relations with the world.

They depict the Obama administration struggling to sort out which Pakistanis are trustworthy partners against Al Qaeda, adding Australians who have disappeared in the Middle East to terrorist watch lists, and assessing whether a lurking rickshaw driver in Lahore, was awaiting fares or conducting surveillance of the road to the US Consulate, the daily said.

"They show American officials managing relations with a China on the rise and a Russia retreating from democracy. They document years of painstaking effort to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon and of worry about a possible Israeli strike on Iran with the same goal," it said.

Google v/s Facebook

09:37

Hi Speed

09:29

Hi Speed

Google's Innovative Hands-Free Car Technology

23:09

Hi Speed

Google is driving head first into more controversy today after revealing it has been testing its innovative hands-free car technology on California's roads.

For it wasn't talking about keeping hands off the phone or the GPS - alarmingly, it was testing cars driven with hands off the steering wheel.
Road safety experts were raising questions about the robot-driven cars after Google revealed it has logged over 140,000 miles around the state - almost all of them on auto-pilot.

The specially adapted Toyota Prius automated cars drove from Google's HQ in Mountain View, Northern California, down the famously scenic Pacific Coast Highway to Santa Monica.

They also drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and down San Francisco's Lombard Street, one of the nation's steepest and curviest roads.
The computer giant boasts that seven cars, which have funnel-like cylinders on the roof that acts as the vehicle's 'eye', have driven 1,000 miles at a time without any hands-on human input.

Transport chiefs were said to be investigating the legalities of the robo-cars, but Google insists its lawyers are confident they are perfectly street legal.

Researchers claim the artificial intelligence technology could eventually halve the 1.2million lives lost every year on roads around the world.
The cars have a person in the driving seat ready to step in if there is a problem and a software engineer sits shotgun to take care of possible software hiccups.

They keep to the speed limit because the maximum for every road is included in it's database.

So far, says Google, the trips have been almost accident free. The only hitch came when another - human-driven - car rear-ended one of the pilotless Priuses.

'Our goal is to help prevent traffic accidents, free up people’s time and reduce carbon emissions by fundamentally changing car use,' said Sebastian Thrun, the researcher in charge of the project.

'Our automated cars use video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder to “see” other traffic, as well as detailed maps which we collect using manually driven vehicles to navigate the road ahead.

Mr Thrun, 43, insisted the cars we're not a danger to other motorists.
'Safety has been our first priority in this project. Our cars are never unmanned. We always have a trained safety driver behind the wheel who can take over as easily as one disengages cruise control.

'And we also have a trained software operator in the passenger seat to monitor the software.

'Any test begins by sending out a driver in a conventionally driven car to map the route and road conditions. By mapping features like lane markers and traffic signs, the software in the car becomes familiar with the environment and its characteristics in advance.

'And we’ve briefed local police on our work.'
'The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that people spend on average 52 minutes each working day commuting.
'Imagine being able to spend that time more productively,' he added on Google's blog.

Jesus Seen On Google Earth

10:03

Hi Speed

Google Earth has captured the face of Jesus in the middle of a FIELD.

Satellite pictures appear to reveal the Lord's bearded face staring out of the ground in eastern Hungary.

Eagle-eyed web browsers noticed it while looking at Google Maps images of remote farmland.

Last month, we reported how the Son of God's face was spotted burned into the cooking fat of a pan of bacon.

Google : Facts and Figures

01:19

Hi Speed

New! Orkut Chrome Extension

23:42

Hi Speed

The orkut chrome extension allows you to receive orkut updates and scrap notifications. The popup menu allows you to quickly jump to a friends' page, search on orkut, visit your home/scrap/photos pages and share sites on orkut. More features, coming soon! You can install thhis new orkut chrome extension by clicking on the following link:

https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/dikgpddfoaipimjmmedapimgedgddhoj

Google Goes Social with Google Buzz

09:23

Hi Speed

Google has finally launched its new social product, Buzz, at an event held at its Mountain View, CA headquarters. Google Buzz is an easy way to start conversations, share updates, photos, videos, add comments and much more - right from the your Gmail account. The updates, which are often termed as 'Buzz', are available in real-time to the users right in their Gmail Inbox.

Head to buzz and check if it is being made available to you from your PC or iPhone/Android browser. Yes, Google Buzz has also been rolled out for iPhone and Android platform, leaving the rest mobile behind for the time being. Buzz is free from any sign-up or setup hassles.

Google Buzz is being heavily compared with Facebook acquired FriendFeed service that allows posting, sharing and viewing photos, videos and commenting within the stream of updates. If you can recollect, two years back, Yahoo had introduced a service named - Buzz, which is mostly a social news service that collates user-select content from the web and ranks it on basis of popularity.

Do note that Buzz doesn't have any character limitation like Twitter. However, that doesn't mean one can paste stories and lengthy blog posts just for heck of sharing.

Here are the key features of Google Buzz:

Gmail Inbox Integration:
It will take place without pushing update emails to Inbox mail as the updates will be dynamically updated in real-time to form threaded Buzz conversations. Also, all basic keyboard shortcuts for Gmail work for Buzz as well. It's obviously visible that Google is counting on those billions of Gmail users who'll wish to try out Buzz.. But why mix social pleasure with mails? Whether Google should have included Buzz to Gmail or not is going to be a pro-longed debate. Many would like to keep their serious mailing stuff separate from social conversations. However, getting an all-in-one-time access is nothing new. It's being developed previously like the Adobe Air apps that offer support for multiple account login to share content socially.

Automatic Friends Lists:
Based on the contacts you frequently mail and chat with, Buzz will automatically make names appear in your Buzz stream. Buzz will also give you a list of "Recommended Buzz" users that will based on 'friend-of-friend' content sharing into your stream - even if those folks aren't acquainted to the user.

This may raise a question of privacy. For instance, Adam is a popular guy and is on Becky's list and wishes to share updates only with Becky's friends. But what if a contact of Sam who is on Becky's is recommended to connect with Adam? Also it's kinda unsure whether the email address could be held as private from the connected 'friend-of-friend'.

Richer, Faster Sharing Experience:
In Buzz, Google focuses on one of the most crucial aspects in social arena today - real-time sharing and updates. Buzz allows importing feeds from Twitter, Picasa, Flickr and Google Reader to stay updated with the contacts on those services. Photos from Flickr and Picasa would appear as and clicking on thumbnail will give an overlay interface based full view of the image. The posts and comments on the posts get updated in real-time and one doesn't have to refresh the page. Note that real-time update may not be supported in all web and may cause freezing issues with them abruptly.