Now you can tell Google what all your friends and family look like, from your desktop - Minority Report just got 1 step closer. Picasa 3.5 brings facial recognition to the desktop |
Just as it does on the Web, Picasa scans your photos for faces, then groups together photos of specific people. It’s then your job to tell it who they are as well as confirm its guesses. If someone you’re tagging is in your Google address book, you can also look them up very quickly with auto-complete. Otherwise, Google gives you the option to add them as someone new; this information then gets synced back up your Google address book. Read more at news.cnet.com |
Google offers potential new business model for news media companies | Google tries to enhance news browsing with Fast Flip |
IDG News Service -
Google is developing a product called Fast Flip that aims to make it simpler and faster to browse through news articles on the Web, a process that the company finds is cumbersome and discourages people from reading more online. |
| Fast Flip lets readers glance at pages and browse through them quickly without having to wait for multiple page elements to load, which can significantly slow the rendering of articles, especially if they have multimedia content, according to Google. |
The idea is to try to replicate online the ease with which people flip through the pages of print magazines and newspapers in the offline world. This could motivate people to read more online, which Google argues will help publishers attract more readers and increase their revenue. Read more at www.computerworld.com |
Will Google launch government cloud for other governments? Google to Launch Government Cloud |
Google will launch a government-specific version of its popular cloud computing offerings, the company said Tuesday. The Google announcement came just hours after federal government officials unveiled Apps.gov, a Web-based storefront designed to let federal agencies easily acquire cloud computing applications.
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The Google government cloud will offer a version of the commercial Google Apps suite — which includes hosted e-mail, word processing, collaboration and Web site creation services — that’s tailored to meet specific public-sector requirements. The company plans to launch the new offering in 2010, and it will be available to federal, state and local government agencies. |
Google will “strive to meet the full set of requirements across federal, state and local government,” Glotzbach said. But he added that agencies will need to standardize their requirements on issues like security and privacy to gain the benefits of cloud computing. Read more at www.govtech.com |
Google Launches Internet Stat Center |
| Without any fanfare, Google has launched a new resource called “Google Internet Stats” which brings together industry facts and insights from across five different industries. |
| The collection of statistics is broken down into five main areas of focus: Technology, Macro Economic Trends, Media Landscape, Media Consumption, and Consumer Trends. Within each topic are subcategories focusing on a particular aspect of that subject area. For example, within Technology, you can drill down into Broadband, Mobile, Devices, and Speed. While that’s obviously not a comprehensive look at all of technology, the stats available are compelling.Read more at www.readwriteweb.com |
Making it easier to export your files from Google’s servers. Google’s plan to free your information |
As head of its ‘Data Liberation Front’ Brian Fitzpatrick’s role is to make it easier to export your files from Google’s servers |
| For years, the aim of pretty much every technology company has been to make a product that people can’t give up using, and in case something better comes along from a rival, make sure that they can’t get their stuff – whether it be data, software or hardware – to work easily with the newcomer’s platform. |
| Amidst which, Brian Fitzpatrick’s role at Google sounds, at the very least, contrary. He runs its self-styled (and half-jokingly named) “Data Liberation Front” in the Chicago offices, and his aim is to make it easier – one button is the ideal – to export your data from Google’s servers onto a storage format of your choicRead more at www.guardian.co.uk |
Will the Google Domestic Trends database be a useful economic indicator for governments? | Google Domestic Trends: tracking economic sectors |
Google Domestic Trends tracks Google search traffic across specific sectors of the economy. The changes in the search volume of a given sector on google.com may provide useful economic insight. We’ve created 23 indexes that track the major economic sectors, such as retail, auto and unemployment. |
For example, the Google Luxuries Index tracks queries like [jewelry], [rings], [diamond], [ring], [jewelers], [tiffany] and so forth. As you can see from the screenshot below, this index has seasonal spikes in December — however, in the last two years there has been a pronounced decrease as the recession made consumers wary of spending on luxury items. |
Los Angeles gets its Google Apps groove |
On August 11, Randi Levin, the chief information officer of the city of Los Angeles, stood before City Council members at a hearing of the information technology committee and made her case for why the nation’s second-largest city should adopt Google Apps. |
“The ability to get whatever information the city needs, whenever they need it, on whatever device they need it on will fundamentally change the way the city works and enhance productivity greatly,” she said. “In a fiscal crisis it is difficult to find technology solutions that will save money without requiring a significant capital outlay to achieve those objectives.” |
| Specifically, 17,000 of the 30,000 total LA city workers would be migrating to Google Apps if the plan gets approved. |
| As the deadline looms, New Zealand authors must decide whether to opt in to a controversial agreement which lets online giant Google scan their works for American audiences. |
The internet’s global reach and the e-book revolution made it inevitable that books by New Zealand authors would be digitised. But the proposed Google Books Settlement appears to challenge international copyright conventions and has left the world’s writers with a stark choice: go with Google and limit your future options or opt out and receive not a pittance when Google digitises your work anyway. |
As for internet users, it benefits only Americans - Google would be vulnerable to lawsuits if it extended access to other countries. Read more at www.nzherald.co.nz |
Are we now entering a new age of the "collective"? Google Wave Gets the Collective |
Like most, I was impressed with the Google Wave demo. What struck me as most important and foundational was Google’s core grasp of the power of the collective. By collective, I mean the root of the term; “collect.” |
In the early days of personal computing we were all excited about being able to produce more rich individual efforts using office software (e.g., word processing, spreadsheets, presentations). |
With the coming of the Internet we then could take our wonderful individual efforts and widely distribute them creating a world where relatively small contributions zip about the world with dizzy speed and scale. |
We are now entering the age of the “collective” (empowered by social software) where like never before we can cost effectively capture massive “collections” from this world of distributions. Read more at blogs.gartner.com |
Google’s Android is taking on a life of its own. Manufacturers are taking up Android, even though Google has started raising awareness of Chrome. Having a standard architecture for living room boxes opens up the possibility of customisation. Google’s Android Jumps to the Living Room |
| MIPS wants to put Android in home electronics devices. |
To date, products like digital TVs and set-top boxes have used a hodgepodge of proprietary software, often based on a version of the Linux operating system. Android brings much-needed standardization to the industry, according to Kevin Kitagawa, director of strategic marketing at MIPS. Read more at bits.blogs.nytimes.com |
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Google brings facial recognition to the desktop
