Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
Google is starting to add user-generated information to Google Maps search results. For example, if you search for "bike paths in New York," several of the top results will include a note showing where the East River Bike Path narrows as well as listings for bike shops. The user-generated results show up with blue icons, and for this particular query are a lot more accurate than the standard results.
Google Maps users have been able to create personalized maps for a while now by adding notes to various locations and saving the maps to "my maps." In case you had any illusions that this was private data, this is the pool of information Google is using to beef up its search results.
If you'd rather not share your favorite coffee shop with the whole world, just make sure not to set your personalized map to public.
Google may have started out as a search engine, but the company now has all sorts of divisions: e-mail, maps, online video, social networking, online document creation/storage, photo sharing. Some of these services already talk to one another. You can send a Google Document via e-mail, for instance. Others remain separate. There's no way to save a photo from Gmail to Picasa Web.
But if you've noticed that many of Google's services are marching slowly toward convergence, you're not alone. Today Google announced support for discovering geotagged YouTube videos from within Google Earth. Because you know, that's exactly what you've been waiting for. Wait, what?
Here's how it works. Anyone can tag a YouTube video with the location where it was recorded. Then when you're searching Google Earth you can look for videos from across the globe. The new geotagged video layer is in the 'featured content" folder of Google Earth. Click on the YouTube button and you'll see video icons pop up. When you zoom in you'll find even more videos. You can play them from within Google Earth or you can click through to YouTube and watch them in your web browser.
It's kind of cool, but seriously, we would have been happier if Google had announced we could save Gmail attachments to Picasa Web.
What is white and red and stupid all over? YouTube! Or at least that is that is the premise that the StupidFilter project is using to seed their self-training database. And really is there any form of stupidity with a more enduring appeal than a video discussion? Of course not!
The goal simple: build a stupid filter that works like a spam filter. Take a huge collection of stupid comments (225,000 to start), rate and organize them according to stupidness, and then teach the filter to recognize stupidity in the wild. Once the research is done a core engine will be released suitable for implementation in blogs, wikis, social networks, content management systems, and video sharing websites.
The current target release date for an alpha release is December 2007. After that the race begins: can the StupidFilter keep up with the diabolical adaptiveness of internet stupidity? Or will "stupiders" change their tactics and find ways around the filtering technology (by using complete words, for example)? Only time, and the efforts of a few brave programmers, will tell.
Google is making it just a bit easier to stalk your friends and find pictures of yourself online. The company has expanded its Google Maps Street View feature to cover 6 new cities: Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, and Tucson. No, we have no idea why they didn't just drop Tucson and Chicago and find two more cities starting with P, (Portland, Oregon, and Portland Maine anyone?)
The Tucson, Phoenix, and Chicago imagery is all in high resolution. Google has also enhanced the pan capabilities. You've always been able to look up, down, left and right in an image. But if you ever tried looking at the top of the Empire State Building, the image was cut off. Google has added the ability to pan up to the top of high buildings including the Sears Tower in Chicago. The top of the Empire State Building is still missing.
If you live in a major city that hasn't been added to Google's Street View yet, all we can say is keep an eye out for cars with cameras mounted to their roofs in the near future. And make sure you're not carrying anything embarrassing. And say cheese.
Part of the appeal of virtual worlds like Second Life and World of Warcraft are that they let you escape from the real world. But who's to say there's isn't a market for virtual spaces based on real places?
CNet reports that Google and Multiverse Network are set to announce a partnership that will let anyone create a virtual world/MMORPG using data from Google Earth and 3D models created with Google's SketchUp.
You could set your virtual world in real cities, allowing visitors to interact with realistic representations of buildings, streets, terrain, and other landmarks.
Google seems to be intent on making waves. There's speculation that Google could launch a Facebook-rivaling service on November 5th. Today the company announced that they've acquired Jaiku - the 'what are you doing' and presence service based in Helsinki, Finland.
Whilst there's no mention of how much Google paid (all the terms remain confidential), it's certainly something that's going to weigh in the minds of rival services such as Twitter (particularly as Twitter has yet to establish its business model). As for what's next for Jaiku, all the founders will say is 'Check back in a few months to see what we've developed.'
In a nutshell, AdSense customers can sign into their accounts, select the new video units, and set up a YouTube video channel with advertising. In other words, visitors to your site will see a video with an AdSense ad unit at the top of the player. OK, that's a bit distracting, but we'll live. Then once you start playing the video a new unit will pop up within the Flash video player and it won't go away unless you click something.
In other words, the new ad unit gives web publishers a way to trick their users into thinking there's exciting new multimedia content on the site when in fact the publishers are just trying to make a quick buck (and share it with Google and the video creator).
Oh yeah, the new ad units are only available to US customers, and even US customers might not find a video option in their AdSense Setup tab. When we went looking this morning we couldn't find it.
Rumors about a Google phone have been flying for months. And since they started around the time that Apple was releasing its game-changing iPhone, it should come as no surprise that we all started to get the idea that Google might get into the hardware game and release a gPhone handset featuring Google software.
But according to the New York Times, while Google has developed a few prototype handsets for internal testing, what the company is really working on is a mobile operating system. Or to put it another way, what the company is really working on is a way to serve up advertisements on your mobile device.
Google will offer up its OS to hardware manufacturers, so perhaps one day you'll be able to get a Treo running PalmOS, Windows Mobile, or a Google operating system. The OS will be Linux-based and will include Google applications including mail, directions, possibly a web browser, and probably some sort of mobile version of Google Docs & Spreadsheets.
Google has been offering two different types of gadgets (or what the rest of the world calls widgets) for a while now. You could install tiny applications on your desktop using Google Desktop. Or you could install them in a personalized Google Startpage using iGoogle. Now Google has gone and removed the line dividing these two gadget types: You can now install Google Desktop gadgets on your iGoogle page.
In other words, you can add applications that will let you interact with your computer directly from an iGoogle page. For example, you can play music, or check your PC's power consumption or WiFi signal. You can find the gadgets using the iGoogle Content Directory.
Google is also releasing a new beta of Google Desktop 5.5 with improved Outlook search features and the ability to open multiple instances of the same gadget on your desktop.
Microsoft is rolling out a few changes to its Live Search Maps services in the coming weeks. It looks like the new page will offer a bunch of new features making it easier to find and print driving directions. Here are a few of the highlights:
A new display mode will let you compress the first few or last few directions. If you're tired of wasting paper by printing out the 5 step directions for getting out of your driveway, this feature could make your day (and prolong your printer's days).
The two-box search bar at the top of the page will be transformed into a single search box with multiple tabs.
There's a new option to select the best route to avoid current traffic.
A new 1-click directions feature will let you search for a location and then get directions to that location from the North, South, East, or West.
It's interesting to note that while Google Maps lets you know how long your trip might take in traffic, and lets you reroute your trip any way you'd like, Live Search Maps might be one-upping Google by giving you something more useful: directions that will actually help you avoid traffic. In theory, anyway. We'll see how well this feature works once Microsoft launches the new Live Search Maps.
Do you use the 'I'm Feeling Lucky' button over at Google search? Didn't think so, and Google knows this, so why not just take it off?
The 'I'm Feeling Lucky' button has been a mainstay at Google since it was released nearly eight years ago. Its main purpose, to connect users with the top search result with a simple click.
But not many people use it, and the company has no plans to get rid of it. Fearing a mass protest Google execs just want to leave it alone. Marissa Mayer echoed this fact saying that it is part of their heritage and what users really like about Google even though it's only used in 1% of searches.
As Google and Verizon are locked in a tiff over the way 700 MHz radio spectrum is licensed by the Federal Communications Commission, it looks less and less likely that we're going to see the forthcoming Google Phone at wireless retail stores when it finally hits the market. Google contends that the licensee of the radio spectrum should be forced to sell "unlocked" devices, therefore permitting open applications on their network, a move which would certainly benefit Google and other powers whose bread and butter is mainly software.
Verizon, on the other hand, argues that they don't need to make unlocked phones available, since it's possible to get unlocked phones from other sources. Google's response? Big carrier retail sells 95% of the phones in North America, so arguably less than 5% of available phones are unlocked and open. Google, of course, isn't accustomed to having access to just 5% of the market these days. Nevertheless, the spectrum license reads as follows (quoted from Google's public policy blog):
"[Licensee] shall not deny, limit, or restrict the ability of their customers to use the devices and applications of their choice."
It's a clash of business models. Verizon makes money by selling applications they control. Google makes money by giving applications away and monetizing the mindshare they gain by doing so. Wireless is a wild frontier for somebody like Google, because the power brokers in the cellular industry don't want to compete with new players from other spaces, like a search engine company.
Bottom line, it doesn't look like the Google Phone is going to be on Verizon's store shelves, and something tells me Google isn't about to start a retail chain of its own.
Get a team together with gloves, garbage bags and shovels and choose a location, International Cleanup Weekend is coming.
Ok, that has nothing to do with what we usually discuss on Download Squad, but Google jumping into the picture sure does. Google is urging people to get involved in this special day to help make a difference in the neighborhood you live in by heading out and cleaning up parks, beaches and other spots. The team at Google Maps has put together a special cleanup map mashup project so people can see where others will be cleaning International Cleanup Weekend on October 13th and 14th. The steps to get started are simple, Get a group together, choose a spot, and submit the map to Google who will share it with others. When the weekend is done, post photos and videos on the map.
If you need some help organizing your cleanup weekend, Google has put together some tips. It's great that companies like Google step up to the plate and help great causes like this. We hope more take the lead and lend their exposure and technology.
Google seems to be intent on making waves. There's speculation that Google could launch a Facebook-rivaling service on November 5th. Today the company announced that 
