Search results could soon improve with Google's recent purchase of Metaweb, Inc.

In a recent purchase of Metaweb, Inc. for around $57 million, Google has plans to make its search engine that much smarter.  Search terms like celebrities, companies, books, movies and more will become more specific and easier to identify with the five year-old technology called Freeweb.

Danny Hillis is the brains behind the keyword service.  He developed Freeweb as an entrepreneur living in Silicon Valley.  The way it works is that a large database siphons through search results and helps distinguish which terms belong to what subject.  For example, if you search for the city of Boston you may come up with a variety of subjects like Boston cream pie or the city of Boston.  Freeweb helps separate words into distinguishable search results that can be easily chosen.

Google is looking forward to improving its search engine results with the new acquisition, and will allow Freeweb to continue as a free service on the Internet while at the same time making it even better.  Google also hope that developers will contribute their input and ideas as they incorporate Freeweb into their own database structure.

Technorati Tags: Freeweb, Google, Google acquisition, google news, Google purchase, Metaweb, search engine, search engine technology

Everyone wants to get in on Google's ultra high-speed broadband experiment

Shouts of joy and elation are ringing from a list of hand picked communities around the United States as Google opens up its first test run of a brand new ultra high speed fiber optic Internet connection, Google Fiber.

This could be the future of Internet connection, which would catapult speeds faster than Captain Kirk can say, “beam me up, Scottie.”  At 1-gigabye per second download rates would increased over 100 times faster than what they are today.  This means a full-length feature film could be downloaded in around five minutes.

A Google Fiber for Communities website has been officially let loose so that we can keep tabs on this exciting new project, which is being coordinated with the help of the FCC.  The ultra high speed broadband network will be in an experimental phase, with thousands of communities beating on Google’s doors to get in on the action.

Recently Don Ness, mayor of Duluth, Minnesota, swam in Lake Superior in order to garner attention for his community.  Google has put in place a request form for communities who are interested in participating in the project, but only a small number are expected to be chosen.

Technorati Tags: broadband, Google, google fiber, google fiber for communities, google news, high speed interent, ultra high speed internet

YouTube Leanback will soon offers its videos to television

YouTube, which is a part of the Google Empire, has just released an exciting new service called Leanback. Viewers will be able to live stream programs on YouTube right to their television sets and connect and share watch they are watching with their Facebook friends.

Leanback is still in its infancy as a beta version and only functions with a computer right now. Google has high hopes that the new service will be as prolific as Facebook. This is just one more way the company is breaking into social media, in addition to Google Buzz and rumored Google Me.

In order to get started, you need to be registered with YouTube and login.  Unlike a computer, you will not need a mouse to navigate the channels.  All of this is done through the arrows on a standard keyboard and the enter or return key.  Similar to a dvr, you can pause and play the video that is being viewed.

YouTube will also be offering a paid rental service that can be customized. Videos that are on the website already will remain free. Leanback not only gives people a greater choice of programming, but also allows full control of what to watch.  The connection to Facebook should also give this new service a big boost in popularity.

Technorati Tags: facebook, Google, Leanback, social media, videos, Youtube, Youtube Leanback

Google Me is rumored to be the a direct competitor of Facebook

The rumors could be true.  Google Me is supposedly the latest project being hammered out by a large staff of tech elves soon to be in direct competition with Facebook, the largest and most popular social media website today.

Lately Google has been pumping up Google Buzz, adding new apps and allowing users to be more easily connected.  Google Me, however; could take their venture into the social media world a lot further.

There will be a few things for Google to overcome if it wants to be a large competitor of Facebook, which currently has 450 million users and growing.  It is thriving far more than MySpace, and the interface is user friendly and well connected to other social network sites like Twitter and Digg.

The new information about Google Me originated from Adam D’Angelo, a former Facebook CTO and owner of the website, Quora.  D’Angelo seems confident in his predictions, but Google is still keeping it under wraps for the most part.

Google Me, if it is true, would add healthy competition to the social media landscape, which has been so saturated that only a few remain on top like Facebook and Twitter.  Google has had great success with its other online ventures that it will be interesting to watch as the company ventures further out into the social media arena.

Technorati Tags: Digg, facebook, Google, Google Buzz, google me, google news, google rumors, Myspace, social media, twitter

Google Voice is now available to all Google users in the U.S.

In 2007 Google snatched up the company GrandCentral, and turned it into what is now Google Voice, a free service to all Google users in the United States.  The company hopes to make telephone calling and messaging easy and free with the service.

Google Voice offers free features that can be used with any cell phone or telephone carrier including voice mail, a new telephone number to connect everything to, voice mail transcription, call blocking and more.  The idea is to streamline telephone services into one, easy to use web based application.  Right now Google has one million subscribers, who have all had to be invited to use the service.  But now it is available to anyone in the U.S.

Any computer user can access Google Voice right from their Google account.  You can choose to use one telephone number or not and just continue to access each individual one.

The aim of Google creating this new application is to enhance its already growing online services like Google Buzz, Google Docs and Google Wave.  Small businesses can benefit greatly from these free services and be able to operate on a shoestring budget without compromising productivity.  As more users are added to the Google Voice network, be on the lookout for more improvements and features.

Technorati Tags: free telephone features, free voicemail, Google, google news, google voice

Google is stopping the use of its Street View cars for a while

Google maps is famous for its map images and reliable directions on the web, but how they have been gathering information may just surprise you and has spurred some civil legal action and debate in the United States and abroad recently.

The issue has to do with Google’s interception of unsecured wireless networks.  If you have ever sat in your car or even in your own home and jumped on someone else’s broadband connection wirelessly, then apparently you are not breaking the law since the connection is not encrypted or made secure.  Google has done this extensively since 2007 with the aim to improve its map data.  The problem is that is has also picked up and collected private, personal information along the way and United States senators have been challenging the company on this issue.

Recently authorities in Germany, France and Spain have ordered Google to hand over the private data it has collected.  In the United States there are pending civil litigations against the company regarding this security breach.  Google claims that the data, once picked up wirelessly, is fragmented.  They have, however; decided to stop using Street View cars in collecting information until these issues can be resolved.

Technorati Tags: data, Google, google civil litigation, google maps, google news, google street cars, satellite images, security breach, wireless networks

Google Buzz users can now enable Google Maps

If you are a fan of Google Maps then you are going to love this.  Google just announced on Monday, June 7, that it has added the maps feature to its popular Google Buzz service, which gives users instant access and easy sharing capabilities.

The new addition is a feature that is optional and needs to be enabled within a user’s Google account under the service settings then by clicking on the Labs tab.  Google Maps has become a competitive tool in the online world, and now it can be added directly to a Google Buzz e-mail.  Once it is enabled, the map will automatically be generated based on any U.S. address information and is fully interactive.  In the future Google plans to expand this new capability to worldwide addresses.

More than ever Google Maps is become the most popular because of it’s easy to use format, satellite images, and accuracy.  For example, GM just announced that it will be utilizing Google Maps now in its OnStar service beginning with the Chevy Volt, which is an electric high-tech vehicle.  And of course iPhone, Android, and Blackberry customers already have easy access to the application.

What does this all mean for Google Buzz users? It brings easy of use, quicker directions and maps and faster communication.  This is just one more enhancement that Google will continue to bring to Buzz fans.

Technorati Tags: Google, Google Buzz, google buzz maps, google maps, google news

Google users will soon be able to personalize their search with photos

Say goodbye to the minimalist look of Google’s clean, white browser page and hello to a new photo look created by none other than you.  Internet users will soon be able to drag and drop their own collection straight from their desktop or programs like Picasa right into the Google browser page to create a personalized page.

Social networks like Myspace already have customizing features that users are accustomed to, and so this is a natural move for Google to stay current with the latest Web 2.0 trends.  Currently Microsoft’s Bing does not have a drag and drop feature, but does contain some great images on its newly re-made site.

The new feature will be available to Internet surfers within the next couple of days.  A link on the bottom left hand corner of the Google browser page will soon be available and make the search engine more fun and interactive.

There are several Picasa sample images found on the Google blog page, googleblog.  The pictures fill up the entire screen and create a whole new dimension to the once blank screen.  And if you still enjoy the minimalist view you can choose to not have any photos plugged into your Google browser page.

Already Google is the top search engine over Yahoo and Bing.  Now that users can customize their page this will surely help keep it in top place.

Technorati Tags: Bing, Google, Google search, personalized photos, picasa

Google Wave is an exciting new real time productivity app

This is an exciting time for Google as it expands its horizons and reaches out into more and more technical arenas.  Now the company has yet another new and exciting app that has just launched into Beta release called Google Wave.

The idea behind Wave is to create a real-time experience with platforms such as blogs and e-mails.  In fact, each character that the user types can be seen on-screen as it happens.  This has never been done before and company is very excited about it, but recognizes that the new app is still in its infancy and will need to catch up to speed.

Right now Google Wave works best with small groups and allows the administrator to control access to the discussions.  The advantage of this program is that participants can join in on discussions at any time and those ideas are recorded just like in Google Docs.  This is a great solution for those who need to conduct a conference or press conference, like the upcoming Facebook Privacy press conference.  Facebook has decided to jump on the Wave and utilize Google’s new service.

Since the app was launched to the public a few days ago, users have had lukewarm reviews of it.  Right now Google Buzz seems to be the top performer, however; Google expects its new Google Wave addition to rise to the occasion and become a part of improving productivity, which so far they have excelled at over Microsoft.

Technorati Tags: Google, Google Wave, Wave

Google Buzz API integrates with twelve social apps

Google Buzz is growing up and maturing into a more compatible, multi-platform tool like Facebook and Twitter with the addition the Google Buzz API.  Now Buzz users can go outside of Gmail and tap into applications like Tweetdeck, Seesmic and Boxee.

The announcement came today and is refreshing for current Gmail account holders who have not completely embraced Google Buzz being a part of their e-mail.  It is expected that with the connection with other social network apps that there will be more of a Buzz community emerging, especially since the new version will now be compatible with Facebook and Twitter.

Video sharing will be a major plus for those familiar with Boxee, which will now be integrated with Google Buzz API.  And Seesmic will now be using Buzz with its newly updated apps, its redesigned Desktop and with Android.

Because this is a brand new API, Google has created a Buzz API issue tracker to report any bugs and a developer’s forum.  The company plans to continue to add to Google Buzz API in the hopes of making it a universally compatible social network platform.

There are currently twelve apps that are now integrated with Google Buzz listed on the website.  A developer’s manual has also been issued so that Buzz users can quickly get up to speed with the new API technology.

Technorati Tags: API, Buzz, Google, Google Buzz, Google Buzz API