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Use Web apps offline with Google Gears

My laptop's wireless 3G connection has been crapping out for over a week now. It works for a while, and then it quits. I don't know why. I don't know when it will be fixed, if ever.

I only know that when I'm on the road, I've got no way to get work done. While I wrestle with AT&T's alleged support services, I'm stuck in the breakdown lane of the old info highway.

I need access to Gmail and a half-dozen other sites, but for now I'll have to settle … Read more

Report: Motorola expanding Android team

The talk of the tech town lately has been Android, Google's cell phone operating system. Last week, Google and T-Mobile showed off the forthcoming G1--the first phone that will be powered by the open platform.

But the plan was never about just one Google phone, as Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in a statement last fall: "Our vision is that the powerful platform we're unveiling will power thousands of different phone models." Thus, Google formed the Open Handset Alliance--big players in the wireless industry charged with helping form the development community for Android devices.

So it'… Read more

A promising open-source company bites the dust

Ringside Networks was a very cool company - one of the best new open-source companies, as I wrote earlier this year. The company had a dream similar to Ning's - to make social networking-type applications an integral part of a wide array of websites and enterprises.

This past month, however, even as Ning neared 500,000 social networks (at least one of which is not used for porn! Go figure!!), Ringside went down for the count.

Why? How could a company flush with some of the best venture money in the business - Matrix Partners - go under even before it really had a chance to sell into a welcoming market? Bob Bickel, Ringside's co-founder, explains:

We were ready for our Series A round of funding, and in late May we received a number of term sheet offers from the very best VC firms. As we were about to finalize our funding, one of the biggest non-evil Internet companies asked if we would have interest in being acquired instead. After a lot of thought and debate, we decided that the larger company would enable us to get our technology to market sooner and with more impact.… Read more

Google opposes anti-gay marriage measure

Google has taken a public stand against Proposition 8, an anti-gay marriage measure on the November ballot in California.

Co-founder Sergey Brin, who made the announcement in a blog Friday afternoon, acknowledged that it is unusual for his company to take stands on issues outside the tech realm. The company "especially" avoids taking stands on social issues, he said, because of the diversity of its workforce.

However, Brin said, "it is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8."

"We should not … Read more

Google reveals wireless hopes in a patent

Google's vision of tomorrow's wireless network is in stark contrast to how wireless operators do business today, setting the two sides on a possible collision course.

Earlier this week, the search giant filed a patent application with the U.S. Patent Office describing its vision of an open wireless network where smartphones aren't tied to any single cell phone network. In Google's open wireless world, phones and other wireless devices would search for the strongest, fastest connection at the most competitive price. Essentially, wireless operators' networks would be reduced to "dumb pipes."

The idea … Read more

Speed up Google search in Firefox

Quiz time: What do CustomizeGoogle, GooglePreview, and McAfee SiteAdvisor have in common?

Answer: The ability to improve on Google search in the Firefox browser. For example, does this scenario sound familiar: You accidentally click on a sponsored link and have to return to the main results page to try again?

How about this one: You wasted 10 minutes clicking through search results because you can't remember the link by name, but think you can identify it by sight (so you check them all)? Or worst yet: You stumble on a dangerous link and get bogged down with malware that … Read more

Waiting on the wild man on Yahoo's board

After watching the demise of U.S. capitalism in the last couple of weeks, nothing shocks me any more. So I'm the last person to dismiss the veracity of M&A rumors one might ordinarily classify in the "No way, Jose" category.

So it is that the latest buzz centers on a post from Matt Marshall at VentureBeat, who reports renewed rumblings of a Microsoft-Yahoo marriage--but this time with a twist: the deal would follow Yahoo's acquisition of AOL.

But here's why it makes sense. Increasingly, word is that Google is going to have … Read more

Friday Poll: What would get you to buy a T-Mobile G1?

Unless you've been living in a cave (and as comedian Jon Stewart recently pointed out, that might be the safest real estate investment around these days), you probably noticed that a little phone called the T-Mobile G1 made its debut this week.

Now that you've had a chance to glimpse the first phone powered by Google's Android software, would you plunk down for a G1? And if so, what would be the main factor motivating you to become a G1 owner?

Click here for full coverage of Google Android.

Buzz Out Loud 818: The Zipless Squirt

It's an "in the wild" sort of show today: love on the bus, Zune-style; a Tesla in the wild; an anecdotal Netbook in the wild; and wild assumptions and paranoia about Internet tracking ensue as Rafe Needleman returns to BOL. Also, the birdman flies over the Channel. Awesome. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 818

Jack Thompson Disbarred http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/25/1822207 http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10051241-52.html

AT& T, Verizon to refrain from tracking users online http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/25/AR2008092504135.html… Read more