google

Google Earth gets snail's-eye view

Part of the fun of Google Earth is flying over the virtual planet like Superman. But let's face it: we're ground-dwelling creatures, and the street-level view is useful, too. Even Superman has to land sometimes.

Enter Google Earth 4.3, due for release at about 8 p.m. Tuesday. It the Street View feature from Google Maps for a ground-level view of some areas, and a new navigation method makes the software more like a first-person video game, Google said in a statement.

The new version also lets users watch time-lapse views of sunsets and sunrises, either locally … Read more

Does 'platform as a service' mean developer lock-in?

As people get their heads around Google App Engine, they see some things they may not like. Namely, the dreaded "lock-in."

Tim O'Reilly dissected whether Google's App Engine is a lock-in play on Monday, and RedMonk analyst Stephen O'Grady hit the issue head-on with his excellent Q&A on what Google App Engine actually is.

Developers for years have been clamoring for more openness and standards. They are tenets of the open-source movement.

But as more application development moves to hosted platforms, does data and application portability get lost in "the cloud"? … Read more

Google, lock-in, and evil

The last week of news surrounding Google doesn't paint a picture of a lovey-dovey company that just wants to help you search. The backdrop for all of the news is the emergence of "cloud platforms" upon which developers can build. It used to be that developers would write for Windows or Linux: Now they're writing applications to run in the cloud of their choice (Google, Bungee Labs, Salesforce, or open-source Coghead)

The problem with this approach, as Tim O'Reilly points out with reference to Google, is it paves the way to lock-in that the "offline" world could only dream of inflicting:

I've been warning for some time that the first phase of Web 2.0 is the acquisition of critical mass via network effects, but that once companies achieve that critical mass, they will be tempted to consolidate their position, leading ultimately to a replay of the personal computer industry's sad decline from an open, energetic marketplace to a controlled economy.

Enter Google's soft disavowal of its "Don't do evil" motto. As Techcrunch suggests, Google likely doesn't like being held to this (somewhat subjective) standard anymore, now that not doing evil becomes ever more difficult at its size and scale.

So what is Google to do? How can Google preserve the impressive heft of its momentum without strangling its potential supporters?… Read more

Tying Hillary to Chinese censorship through Bill's speech for Alibaba: a stretch?

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton's foundation received an undisclosed sum in exchange for his keynote address at an event held by Alibaba, the Chinese internet company that controls China Yahoo* and has been accused of aiding China's crackdown in Tibet.

Some activists are trying to tie this money to Sen. Hillary Clinton, saying it conflicts with her statements on China. In addition to claiming she "stood up to" China's government in a speech while Bill was president, she has said President George W. Bush should not attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic … Read more

Report: Google aims to top China search

Google is giving itself about five years to unseat Baidu.com's dominance for Internet search in China, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday night.

"We would like to aspire to be a market leader in five years," Kai-Fu Lee, president of the Google's Greater China operation, told the Journal. Google also is examining possible investments in social networking and mobile Internet services, he said.

Report: Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo on its own

Microsoft, while entertaining an alliance with News Corp. or other options, would rather buy Yahoo on its own, Reuters reported Sunday, citing a source close to the company.

In addition, an unnamed source told Reuters that News Corp. is talking to Yahoo directly about a tie-up, though the source didn't share details.

Microsoft's attempt to acquire Yahoo has spawned a flurry of possible alliances and counter-alliances, none of them confirmed by the companies except a partnership under which Yahoo will test use of Google's search ads.

You heard it here first. Microsoft won't phone Benioff to become his new best friend

With Google teaming up with Salesforce.com, might Steve Ballmer be tempted to phone up Marc Benioff and strike a similar deal? The short answer is no. The longer answer is more complicated.

Google's agreement to integrate its office productivity applications with Salesforce's customer relationship management software obviously is a big deal. In his prepared remarks, Eric Schmidt laid it on thick with his rehearsed line about the "old" business model being replaced by the "new" model. (Gee, I wonder who he has in mind?)

But industry politics are only part of the story. … Read more

Google App Engine meets Amazon EC2

What do you get when you cross Amazon's EC2 on-demand cloud computing infrastructure with Google's new App Exchange foundation for Web applications?

It's hard to say what the union could produce besides ugly children. But it's not just a hypothetical hybrid: programmer Chris Anderson has released software called AppDrop that brings App Exchange to EC2. Programmer Andy Baio spotlighted the development Monday on his blog.

OK, now I need to mention the caveat that this isn't really one cloud computing foundation running inside another.

In fact, Anderson just has the single-computer version of Google's … Read more

Gmail cookie stolen via Google Spreadsheets

Security researcher Bill Rios reported Monday that a cross-site scripting (XSS) attack against Google Spreadsheet could have exposed all of Google's services. XSS can occur whenever a legitimate site accepts input from the user but does not filter that input properly and could allow the injection of potentially malicious instructions. In this case, however, once an attacker gained access to any xxxx.google.com site, they would have access to other Google services, such as Gmail, Docs, and Code.

In an e-mail to CNET News.com, a Google representative confirmed that the flaw as described by Rios has been … Read more