google

My stunted interview with Google's Eric Schmidt

I've always wanted to interview Google CEO Eric Schmidt one-on-one, and this week I finally got the chance.

I learned that he was going to be making a big Google Health announcement at a health care trade show on Thursday and a Google spokesman promised me I would get a "one-on-one" interview with him in private afterward if I flew out to Orlando, Fla., from San Francisco for the event.

That Schmidt was sitting down with me proved even billionaires can let bygones be bygones. Our professional relationship got off to a rocky start shortly after I … Read more

The future of Web apps will see the death of e-mail

MIAMI--The way people have been talking about e-mail at the Future of Web Apps conference, you'd think it were a cell phone carrier or a domestic airline. It's antiquated, it's backward, and everybody hates it.

Kevin Marks, a Google engineer and Technorati veteran, said in a talk about the company's OpenSocial project and Social Graph APIs that e-mail is a "strange legacy idea."

"E-mail has died away for a group of users. For the younger generation, they don't use e-mail," he said, talking about the young Web users who have started … Read more

Q&A: Throwing sheep at Plaxo's Joseph Smarr

MIAMI--Joseph Smarr, chief systems architect at Plaxo, has become somewhat of an icon of social media's future. An ardent supporter of open standards, Smarr is arguably one of the biggest proponents of Google's OpenSocial who can't officially claim to be a Googler. So it's fitting that Smarr has played a prominent role at the Future of Web Apps conference; CNET News.com had a chance to catch up with him on Thursday and find out some more about what "open" really means and what's next at Plaxo.

Plaxo was the first major social … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 671: Vista Price Patch 1

Episode 671

Microsoft cuts Vista price http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/29/vista_price_cut/ http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9882510-56.html

iPhone/iPod SDK: Apple to approve, distribute apps, limit add-ons http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/ iphone-ipod-sdk-apple-to-approve-distribute-apps-limit-add-ons/13537 http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/29/ iphone-software-development-to-be-locked-down-by-apple/

Bluetooth not working after iPhone 1.1.4? Simple fix: http://www.iphoneatlas.com/2008/02/28/ bluetooth-not-working-after-iphone-114-simple-fix/

Mac OS X secretly cripples non-Apple software http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/28/2339246

Wii outsells the PS3 4-to-1 in Japan, Sony execs “not psyched” http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/29/ wii-outsells-the-ps3-4-to-1-in-japan-sony-execs-not-psyched/… Read more

The last word (for now) on Google Sites

The launch of Google Sites has spurred closer examination of the Google Apps suite and of some of the claims or innuendo from Google executives regarding the enterprise fitness of its cloud-based applications.

Sarah Perez of ReadWriteWeb compiles a dossier from recent posts on ZDNet and other sites that strip bare the Google Sites bride. Google plays the backdoor game--IT isn't giving you solutions you can use, so raise the software pirate flag, and use Google Sites for free to manage projects:

Google is actually going about marketing to the enterprise market in a pretty ingenious way--they're not. … Read more

Google expands free phone number and voicemail project

Google is partnering with homeless shelters in San Francisco to distribute free phone numbers and voicemail accounts to those without homes, the company said Wednesday.

The Internet giant is expanding a service that was started by Grand Central, a San Francisco-based start-up that Google acquired last year. Grand Central's technology allows calls to be routed to a home, business, or cell phone using a single phone number. The service offers people a way to organize and unify their communications, a Google spokesman said.

Grand Central had already been offering the free phone number and voicemail service to people in … Read more

Google Sites is not the big story

The hullaballoo that attends every Google product debut triggers the predictable bloviation fest one normally associates with market-moving news. But much of the commentary about the debut of the revamped JotSpot technology misses the more interesting story.

Sure, the announcement is intriguing. But it's not because we're talking about Jotspot (or Google Sites, as the service was rechristened). I don't want to suck up too much to my cubicle mate Dan Farber (well, maybe just a little), but he's right about this being a show.

Outside of a fanatic few, how many computer users really will … Read more

Google to start accepting Summer of Code applications next week

Just as a reminder, Google is about to start accepting applications for its Summer of Code. Google will begin accepting applications from open-source mentoring organizations (i.e., open-source projects) on Monday, March 3, 2008, and will then stop accepting them on Wednesday, March 12th. Students can then start applying to participate in these projects on Monday, March 24 until Monday, March 31, 2008.

Not much time until the application process kicks off, but also not much time to submit an application.

Google's Summer of Code started with just 40 open-source projects in 2005 and jumped to 130 in 2007. … Read more

Questions ahead for Google's Eric Schmidt

It's fair to say there are plenty of things to chat about with Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

Microsoft may be closing in on its whopper acquisition of Yahoo. Google's stock price has slid dramatically since its 52-week high in November. ComScore says bad stuff's a' brewing in Google's U.S. paid-click performance. And the economy, perhaps the only thing that can really slow Google, seems to be headed south.

Schmidt sat down with CNET News.com earlier Thursday for a brief interview at a medical-trade show Health Information Management Systems Society in Orlando, Fla., where Google … Read more