Something very unseen and unexpected is happening around the web while I am writing this post. I searched for some term on mighty Google.com and all the results came with "This site may harm your computer" link. I tried searching same text on some other computers and operating systems and even gave a call to few friends to check it. It is returning the same erratic result set. I searched for the term "Google" and the result is (Screenshot below)Then I clicked on the 1st result which was google.com itself and the page opened was
What the heck? Google is hacked or is it some stupid mistake by googlers. This event looks like a solar eclipse in the world of Internet to me. I hope we get an explanation soon and the error fixed.

Update 1: Just now, the bug was fixed and it started behaving properly after more than an hour's erratic behavior. Are we getting an explanation, Google?

Update 2: And, here comes the explanation from Google ;) . A human error.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/this-site-may-harm-your-computer-on.html

Labels: Google Inc., Hacked, Search

Last week Google announced an Open Handset Alliance to group world's biggest mobile technology companies, chip manufacturing leaders, mobile operator giants and software companies altogether. Giants like Motorola, Intel, Samsung, LG, nVidia, NTT DoCoMo, Qualcomm, Ebay and more are combined under the alliance to prepare an open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices.

Google envisions huge possibilities for the alliance as there are 1.5 billion television sets in use around the world. 1 billion people are on the Internet. But nearly 3 billion people have a mobile phone. And, it will keep growing being world's most successful consumer product.

Android - the operating system, middleware and a set of key mobile applications. Android as a platform will technically collaborate all companies, services, developers, devices and users in the alliance. the SDK for developers is out now and probably it is based on Linux.

What does all this actually mean?

1. There will be one open platform for all mobile devices in alliance, named Android.
2. Android will be able to communicate to device features as well as applications.
3. Developers can develop applications on the Android SDK which will run on any mobile device.
4. All companies under the alliance are giants in their fields, which ensures the success of the alliance.
5. Google's vision for the alliance is really futuristic and well timed.
6. Like OpenSocial is for social networks, OHA is for mobile phones.
7. Being open ensures the rapid and unrestricted growth of the alliance and will also make it a success anyway.
8. It is going to benefit all, the service providers, the mobile operators, users, and all companies anyhow connected to the alliance.

Also, Google has announced an open challenge to developers worth $10 million for Android SDK.
All the best, thinktanks ;)

Labels: Android, Google Inc., OHA, Open Handset Alliance, Open Source, OpenSocial, SDK

"Google Inc will offer Internet developers an open system to create applications across Web sites, a move that could challenge the features behind the explosive popularity of social network Facebook.
The OpenSocial system offered by Google, which lost out last week to rival Microsoft Corp in securing an investment in Facebook, gives developers standardized tools to write applications and embed them in many sites.
This will eliminate the need for small startups or even one-person shops to customize their programs for each site.
It also has the potential to lure developers mostly allied with Facebook by allowing their applications to find a home on many other Web sites.
"This is about making the Web more social; how do you have your friends go along with you to any site on the Web?" Joe Kraus, Google director of product management, said in an interview on Tuesday.
In May, Facebook opened its site to outside developers whose programs let users do everything from comparing favorite books to buying friends a virtual cocktail or mapping travels around the world.
Thousands of applications have since been attached to the site and are credited with helping Facebook -- valued at about $15 billion after the Microsoft investment -- to increase its user base to more than 48 million.
UNLEASHING A CHALLENGE
Google said it has signed on about a dozen partners so far, including social network LinkedIn for business professionals, its own Orkut network and Friendster. The sites combined reach about 100 million people, the company said.
Developers who are testing the program include key companies behind Facebook applications, such as music recommendation service iLike and Slide, which created the "Top Friends" ranking application.
Industry blogs have speculated for nearly a month that Web search leader Google was seeking to unleash a major challenge to Facebook, which is due to announce its own new advertising strategy on November 6. "
courtesy, Michele Gershberg of Reuters

Labels: Facebook, Google Inc., LinkedIn, Open Source, OpenSocial, Orkut

Google is planning to launch the Indian flavor of its popular video sharing site YouTube. The launch is expected between January and March 2008(as Shashi Seth, head of monetization at YouTube, San Bruno California told). YouTube India is supposed to aggregate Indian movie trailers, music videos, independent films and TV content. It has already tied up with an Indian film and music production giant, Eros Entertainment to showcase its new releases etc. Even they are looking to tie up with other big productions both in films and TV too. Also, the news channels are on the list.

As they say,

1. The site will help Indian surfers what they want. It will also be an excellent platform for young filmmakers to launch their work.
2. YouTube charges $20 for every 1,000 impressions internationally but may have separate pricing for India.
3. A Rajnikanth video was recently ranked in the top 100 YouTube videos of all time.

My impression about why Google is launching a special edition of YouTube for a country sharing less than one percent of the global traffic is,

1. India is the biggest film production country in the world which proves it has a great potential in video content ofcourse.
2. Indian viewers are so interested in movies, music and TV. All they need is an Indianized easy source of entertainment.
3. There are so many big production houses to tie up with and earn money publicizing their video products.
4. Number of YouTube users is not much but number of video entertainment lovers is the highest in the world. It indicates there is a huge scope of business out there.
5. Indian content lovers are not just in India but in whole world.

We’re waiting, Google.

Labels: India, YouTube

A few moment ago, it was confirmed that Google has acquired the mobile social networking site Zingku. Also, Zingku has announced the news proudly as " We've entered into an agreement to have Google acquire our Zingku service."
Also, the new user registrations are frozen after the buyout.
What Google might be doing of zingku? My guess is, may be it's going to be integrated with Orkut.

Zingko have been doing really well and has social features like share, invite, poll, flyer and even mashups.

Labels: Acquisitions, Google Inc., Orkut

Google,
you turn 9 today. You've grown from

In-between being a search engine and staying one, this is what also happened during the last 9 years, in semi-particular order:

• The Google homepage goes out of Beta
• A Google Friends newsletter is started to address “Googlers,” originally the term for Google users
• Google teams up with RealNames to bring now-forgotten Internet Keyword support to their search engine
• Google bought a huge Newsgroup archive from Deja News and turned it into Google Groups. The first mention of Madonna on the internet is now owned by Google Inc.
• Google created a technology playground called Google Labs, where they release tools such as Google Sets
• Yahoo switches to Google results, but later changes their mind and develops their own search engine back-end to compete with Google and Microsoft in the club of the three only high-scale search engines worldwide
• Eric Emerson Schmidt, then 46, replaces Larry Page, then 28 years old, as boss of Google
• Google shows context-relevant AdWords in search results, and later AdSense on external websites
• Aaron Swartz starts posting news on Google on the Google Weblog
• Google releases more and more company blogs to communicate with people outside the company
• Google releases Gmail, which many thought was an April Fool’s prank due to the at the time incredible storage of 1 Gigabyte
• Google went through an Initial Public Offering, meaning the company gets special attention from stock market investors
• Google enters China and decides to compromise its mission by self-censoring human rights websites, proclaiming a change from “don’t ever be evil, period” to “scales balancing what Google thinks is least evil”
• Google releases a set of programming frameworks called GData
• Google releases a set of client-side, ad-powered JavaScript APIs, ditching support for their server-side, ad-free SOAP API
• Google releases a word processor, a spreadsheet editor, and later a presentations tool, all with a focus on online collaboration
• Google publishes their Google Apps suite for companies
• Google starts showing good-resolution photos of people on the streets as part of mining public information and making it accessible
• Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin in a speech given on a Google Developer Day says we’ve come full circle, as the generation which grew up with the web is now starting to create on the web, determining its shape... a self-increasing feedback loop causing exponentially growing development (or so one would hope).
• and much, much more.

according to Philipp Lenssen of blogoscoped

Good going Google. We're with you :)

Labels: Google Inc.

It has been long time since last post on this blog.
now we will try to keep the post coming in constant flow.

so getting back to the original topic

gmail is getting a new look.
















first evident scene is the account creation page which has been revamped and looks good,
secondly there have been rumors about the label feature of gmail getting an uplift.

We can expect some security features including some checks to tell when an account has been accessed simultaneously on two different places.

some side jacking attempts were made on gmail and were quite successful in the defcon2007, so we can expect gmail security to be beefed up.

a little improvements in terms of its usability on low bandwidth systems is a thing which could or could not be in the list of improvements.

Will inform more as an when possible.

Labels: gmail

Google just announced their latest version of Google Desktop. The new release gives users a better sidebar, a preview "plusbox" in search results and better security. The Gadget directory was given a major facelift too — it looks very apple-ish with the reflective gadget previews.

"The sidebar has a completely new look and feel. It samples the color of your wallpaper and fades in the sampled color so that it fits seamlessly onto your desktop. Some of our gadgets have been redesigned so that they are easy to tell apart, easy to read, and easy on the eyes. More differentiated gadgets allow for faster scanning of information through the sidebar. And we've created a new dialog for adding gadgets so it's easier and faster than ever to find the right gadgets for you." — Inside Google Desktop Blog , according to Garett Rogers

Labels: gadgets, Google Desktop