Business Tech

It appears that the Google Goggles search-by-sight tool could soon work not just with mobile phones, but through Google's Chrome browser, too.

"I am working on a 20 percent project to facilitate the input of Web image searching," Google programmer Xiuduan Fang said in a post Tuesday to the Chrome Extensions mailing list titled "Chrome extension for Web Goggles. The 20 percent figure refers to a Google program that permits engineers to devote a fifth of their time to projects of their own choosing.

"We would like to have some browser extensions so that the user can drag a Web image and drop it in an input box on the toolbar...The search results of the image will be shown," Fang said, then asking for advice on how to write it up for Chrome. The original message isn't online, though a response with some pointers is.

Google Goggles currently is available as an application for phones running Google's Android operating system, but Google is working to release other versions, too. A Web browser interface would expand the service's availability beyond phones. Though there are plenty of situations where you might want to point your phone at a subject while out and about, there also are plenty of images on the Web that might provoke further inquiry.

The Goggles feature works by comparing an uploaded image to a database of billions Google has collected and analyzed. It can recognize landmarks and read the text of wine labels, among other things, but until Google works out privacy controls it doesn't make use of its ability to recognize faces. The effort is part of Google's unending effort to expand the scope and utility of its search service.

The new beta version of Google's Chrome browser adds support for extensions, though at present with some limits on user interface choices for programmers.

Vic Gundotra, Google's vice president of engineering, takes a photo of the Itsukushima Shrine in Japan. The Google Goggles feature successfully identified it during the Dec. 7 demonstration that was the feature's debut.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Mozilla Messaging has released the first release candidate of a Thunderbird 3, software it hopes will significantly improve how people read, write, catalog, and search their e-mail.

Mozilla released the software Tuesday for Windows, Mac, and Linux, several days later than predicted earlier this month but close to a year later than Mozilla planned in 2008. A final version of Thunderbird 3 is expected not long after the release candidate.

Thunderbird 3 has been years time in the making. For its next versions, the Mozilla Messaging group hopes to release new versions more frequently, said Mozilla Messaging programmer Dan Mosedale.

"Part of the plan for Thunderbird is to move our development process in a more agile direction...Rather than having super long releases, we'd like to release significantly more frequently than we have historically done," said a draft Mozilla proposal for what to do in the post-Thunderbird 3 era Mosedale posted. He proposed major Thunderbird releases every four to six months, starting with version 3.1, and also laid out some ideas for Thunderbird after version 3.1.

Thunderbird 3.0 adds a variety of features, according to Mozilla and the Thunderbird 3 RC1 release notes:

• A more elaborate search option to locate specific messages. People can employ a variety of methods to sift the wheat from the chaff.

• An e-mail archive a la Google's Gmail. Rather than filing every message in a folder, an organizational technique that can be hard to maintain with high volumes of messages, people can move them out of the inbox into the archive where search can find them later.

• A streamlined interface that cleans up the toolbar and moves some of its functions to the frame around e-mail messages.

• A new plug-in system designed to be easier to use to replicate some of the success of the Firefox browser. The browser, by the way, is built in so plug-ins can use it.

• A tabbed interface that can reduce clutter of e-mails, e-mail folders, and other tasks. A tab can, for example, house a version of Yahoo's online calendar.

• An easier process to set up new e-mail accounts. The software has preset settings for several e-mail services.

• "Smart folders" that can be customized in a variety of ways. For example, users with multiple e-mail accounts can create a smart folder that provides a unified inbox for all the accounts.

• An easier way to add people to the address book by clicking a star icon next to the sender's name.

Be sure to check the list of Thunderbird 3 RC1 issues if you're the cautious type.

Google claims more than 2 million businesses and 20 million people have switched to Google Apps, a movement the company is touting through its expanding "Gone Google" marketing program.

Google's official blog on Monday put in a plug for the ongoing flow of companies that have adopted its services, including not just Google Apps, but also the Postini spam filtering and Google's Enterprise Search Appliance.

In August, Google asked customers to tweet the benefits of using its online apps and services, and now the company has gathered together those tweets in its GoogleAtWork Twitter page.

Through its "Gone Google" marketing campaign, the company has been able to relate the stories of corporate customers who have switched to Google Apps and "no longer have to deal with the hassles of managing e-mail servers or rolling out software updates."

The "Gone Google" campaign has also included billboard advertising in high-traffic spots like airports and train stations. Pleased with the results, Google said it's expanding the campaign to other countries, including the U.K., France, Canada, Japan, Australia, and Singapore.

With a portfolio that includes Google Docs, Gmail, and Google Calendar, Google Apps has been adopted by more large businesses in need of software that costs less and is easier to maintain. Converts to Google Apps include Motorola with 20,000 users, Genentech with 16,300 users, and Valeo with 30,000 users.

Google has also been more creative in nudging businesses toward its services. As one example, the company's Apps Sync for Outlook plug-in lets users keep Outlook but move away from Microsoft Exchange.

Even Google's response toward advertising has been evolving. In the past, the company has typically avoided promoting its own services, relying more on word of mouth to grow its search and ad businesses. But it's recently become less shy about tapping into the ad market, using TV, billboards, and other unique arenas to tout Google Apps and its Chrome browser.

Netbooks continue to soar in sales at the expense of the venerable notebook, according to a new report from DisplaySearch.

Revenues for Netbooks, or mini-notebooks, rose to $3 billion in the second quarter of the year, a leap of 264 percent over the second quarter of 2008, according to the new "Quarterly Notebook PC Shipment and Forecast Report" released Thursday. With those gains, Netbooks now enjoy an 11.7 percent share of the portable PC market.

(Credit: DisplaySearch)

Though traditional notebooks still command an 89 percent slice of the market, their second quarter sales fell to $23.2 billion, a 14 percent decline from the second quarter of 2008.

Measuring 2009's second quarter against the prior year's quarter, sales fell in all subcategories of the portable PC market, including ultraportables and desktop replacements, the report noted. PCs in the 13-inch to 16-inch range managed to eke out a gain, but only measured against the first quarter of 2009.

The low prices of Netbooks appeal to consumers looking for a second PC and to those in emerging markets who don't need the rich and costly features of a large laptop. The market has also been buoyed by cable and telecommunications providers who have doled out Netbooks to customers who sign up for lengthy contracts.

As finalization of a Microsoft-Yahoo search deal reportedly nears, activist investor Carl Icahn--who played a key role in trying to broker a broader partnership between the companies last year--is speaking out in favor of such an agreement.

"I've been a strong advocate of getting a search deal done with Microsoft," Icahn, who owns about 5 percent of Yahoo and sits on its board, told Reuters in a phone interview Friday. "It would enhance value if a deal got done, because of the synergies involved."

According to an All Things Digital report late Thursday, several top Microsoft players--including online executives Yusuf Mehdi, Satya Nadella, and Qi Lu--are in Silicon Valley to try to finalize a search deal with Yahoo.

The report says the two sides are "down to the short strokes" after years of closely watched on-again, off-again talks. A deal could come within a week, All Things Digital said.

Icahn, for his part, wouldn't comment on where the latest supposed negotiations between Yahoo and Microsoft stand, according to Reuters. Icahn was a central figure in Microsoft's highly scrutinized $47.5 billion takeover bid for Yahoo, which fell apart last November.

During the negotiations, he launched a proxy fight in a bid to take over Yahoo's board. Among his wishes was that then-CEO Jerry Yang step down. The company and Icahn eventually reached an agreement that got him a seat on the board, and the number of seats was expanded, with Yahoo appointing two new members from Icahn's slate of candidates.

Since the full-out acquisition fell through, both Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and current Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz have indicated they are open to some sort of a search deal.

As my CNET News colleague Ina Fried pointed out, with Microsoft's Bing getting some good reviews and Microsoft having billions in cash on hand, the pieces would seem to be in place if both sides have the will to make it happen.

Bing may be catching on as a new search engine, but it has yet to generate growth in ad dollars for Microsoft, according to a report released Tuesday.

Microsoft's share of search engine ad spending for the second quarter stayed flat at less than 6 percent, according to the report by research firm SearchIgnite. That's the same level it's been for the past several years.

"Microsoft appears to be focusing its efforts on driving consumer interest and capturing increased search query share," said Roger Barnette, president of SearchIgnite. "We have not yet seen this translate into more paid search advertising dollars for Microsoft, although typically consumer adoption precedes advertiser adoption."

Meanwhile, Microsoft's one-time acquisition target Yahoo lost ground in the second quarter, with only 17 percent of the market. But top dog Google continued to rise, grabbing a 77 percent market share for search engine ad spending.

(Credit: SearchIgnite)

However, don't count out Bing just yet. The report noted that research groups have tracked Bing's share of the search query market growing since its launch last month. Ad spending typically lags behind search queries. If consumer interest continues, Bing could enjoy a boost in ad dollars for the third quarter.

Overall, the market for search engine ad spending flourished in the second quarter. The report noted that retail firms spent 36 percent more on paid search engines than in 2008's second quarter. Spending just for the month of June shot up 55 percent from June 2008.

(Credit: SearchIgnite)

"We've seen very strong paid search spend from retailers for the last several quarters," said Barnette, "a trend that can be attributed to an increase in retailers' promotional activity as they turn to heavy discounting and sales to drive purchases."

For this latest report, SearchIgnite tracked 500 marketers using Google, Yahoo, and MSN/Bing for the quarter ended June 30.

Demand for Netbooks has been hot and is likely to get hotter, as sales of their big brother, notebooks, are set to remain steady this year.

Netbooks are projected to grab a 20 percent share of the worldwide market for 2009, according to a report released Monday by researcher DisplaySearch, an NPD Group subsidiary. Consumers are expected to scoop up almost 33 million Netbooks this year, marking a sales gain of close to 100 percent from last year's 16 million.

But notebook sales are set to be flat this year, with 129 million units shipping, virtually the same as in 2008, according to DisplaySearch's Quarterly Notebook PC Shipment and Forecast Report. This would make the first year ever that the notebook market showed no sales growth. DisplaySearch defines notebooks as laptop computers with screens measuring 12.1 inches or larger.

By region, this year's Netbook sales are forecast to jump 260 percent in China, 137 percent in North America, and 88 percent in Latin America.

(Credit: DisplaySearch)

The affordability of Netbooks, which typically have fewer features and are less powerful than notebooks, has fostered their growth around the world, the report noted. Last year, 45 percent of Netbooks were shipped to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), winning a larger market share over notebooks.

The availability of Netbooks has also boosted sales, DisplaySearch said. Telecommunications providers such as AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon Communications have marketed low-cost, subsidized Netbooks to their customers.

The notebook market itself has been hurt by reduced IT spending, stalling purchases on new units. If Windows 7 takes off at the same time the economy revives, notebook demand among enterprises could shoot up next year.

Notebooks also have carved out a large chunk of the global portable PC market, and they are not being replaced by Netbooks at this point.

"It is clear that buyers want a lightweight device but that they also want a bigger display," said John F. Jacobs, director of notebook market research at DisplaySearch and author of the report. "While (Netbooks) have certainly created a new market, our research indicates that they are predominantly used as secondary PCs by consumers and are not replacing notebooks."

Google's latest internal corporate search tool, the Google Search Appliance 6.0.

(Credit: Google)

Google sells hardware, too, and announced Tuesday that its Google Search Appliance can now find documents by the billions.

Google Search Appliance 6.0 (GSA) is the company's product for helping enterprises locate and manage the reams of internal corporate data that doesn't get indexed by Google's search bots, but which needs to be found by managers and employees. The latest version is all about scaling, or the ability to link dozens of these appliances to allow even the biggest companies to search their networks for presentations, spreadsheets, and other documents.

There are two hardware models that are capable of searching different numbers of documents: the high-end GB-9009 can search 30 million documents by itself and reach into the billions if a company links several appliances together. The appliances are built on the Dell's PowerEdge R710 design.

Google charges businesses a licensing fee for several years of internal document searching, based on the number of documents inside their organization.

TV makers worldwide saw their revenues slide 12 percent in the last year, according to a report set to be released Tuesday by DisplaySearch.

A total of 43.3 million TVs were sold worldwide in the first quarter of this year, a 6 percent drop compared to the same quarter a year ago, and prices dropped 6 percent, too, according to the Quarterly Global TV Shipment and Forecast Report.

Even Samsung, which collects more money in its coffers for TVs than any company in the world for the past 13 straight quarters, saw its revenues drop 8 percent since the same time last year. But it still held its lead in the industry, maintaining a 21.5 percent share of dollars spent on TVs worldwide.

The biggest shake-up in the last quarter came from LG Electronics which, at 2 percent growth from a year ago, was the only one of the top five manufacturers to see an uptick in revenues. It was able to leapfrog Sony into second place, claiming 13.3 percent of the TV market. Sony garnered 13.1 percent, followed by Sharp with 7.2 percent, and Panasonic with 6.1 percent.

Panasonic appeared to have the most trouble in the most recent quarter. It saw revenues from TV sales drop 22 percent over the last year.

These kinds of slumping progress reports from all sectors of the technology industry have become practically commonplace. Declining revenues are particularly a problem in consumer electronics as shoppers are finding themselves with less discretionary income.