Underexposed

Google's mock Picasa site on April Fools' Day. (Click to enlarge.)

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Google loves its April Fools' jokes, and this year a prank emerged in the form of CADIE--an artificial-intelligence research project with a cute panda avatar--taking over the search giant.

"We're pleased to announce that just moments ago, the world's first Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity (CADIE) was switched on and began performing some initial functions," according to a CADIE description accompanying the faux announcement.

The site pointed to CADIE's YouTube channel and CADIE's blog.

Among CADIE's abilities: • Gmail Autopilot, which answers your e-mail for you.
•  Chrome updated for use with red-and-blue 3D glasses (predictably but disappointingly, the CADIE Chrome EULA looks unmodified from the original).
• A Picasa Web Albums feature to add red-eye to your photos.
• Brain Search for Mobile (with a graphical tip of the hat to XKCD, I'm guessing).

Google offered a faux version of Chrome to be used with 3D glasses. (Click to enlarge.)

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Here's Google's description of the bogus feature of Picasa 4.1.

New! Automatic Red-Eye Addition

Approximately 4.1 seconds after achieving sentience, Google's new Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity scanned the corpus of online digital photographs and discovered the exceptionally popular but difficult to achieve photographic technique known as "red-eye."

Having established that "red-eye" is an aesthetically pleasing effect implying superior broad-spectrum lux measurement capability, CADIE has directed the human Picasa Team to introduce Auto-Red-Eye. No more "clicking and hoping" for that telltale glow; now you can simply select any photo(s) and a lovely red-eye effect will appear (unless there are no eyes in the shot whatsoever, in which case the image will be destroyed).

(Note that 4.1, whether seconds or version numbers, can also be read as April 1.)

Google inverted some YouTube videos for April Fools'.

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Also, I didn't detect a CADIE reference, but YouTube inverted its videos and text of videos linked from its home page (perhaps with this Unicode font inversion technology).

"Our internal tests have shown that modern computer monitors offer better picture quality when flipped upside-down," the video-sharing site said on its blog. "The page also makes it simpler for you to view content in the southern hemisphere."

Also, note the GPS-enabled gBall from Google's Australian outpost.

Google has begun showing ads on search results at its Picasa site for sharing photos, part of its gradual expansion of advertising across its numerous Web properties.

Pages for photos and galleries doesn't show ads, but search results do for some people. The ads are located in a yellow-tinted "sponsored links" section above the photo results for some in the United States. (See screenshot below.)

"As part of our ongoing commitment to innovation, and to help users find new and better ways of getting the information they're looking for, we are currently showing text ads on the search results pages for Picasa Web Albums. This experiment is only visible to a small number of U.S.-based users," the company said in a statement. The ad experiment has been running for "a few weeks," Google said.

Google, trying to increase profitability, has been spreading ads to sites that previously lacked them. Among them: Google Finance, Google News, image search, Google Maps, and Google Earth.

Google is showing ads on search results at its Picasa photo-sharing site. (Click to enlarge.)

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

(Via the unofficial Google Operating System blog.)

Google's Street View now is augmented by photos supplied by contributors to the company's Panoramio service. This shot of the St. Louis courthouse is more scenic than the official Street View version. Note also the advertisement below the photo. (Click to enlarge.)

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Google Maps' Street View feature uses imagery collected by cameras mounted to Google cars, but now the company is blending in photos taken by the public as well.

Panoramio, which Google acquired in 2007, lets people share photos that have been geotagged with location data so they can be shown on a map. Those Panoramio photos already were available in Google Earth and Google Maps, but now they can show on the more personal Street View as well, Google programmer Frederik Schaffalitzky said in a blog post Wednesday.

Potential advantages of checking the photos on Street View include views at a higher resolution view or during a different time of day, which could be handy for the occasions when Google's Street View camera was shooting into the sun and didn't produce much of an image.

And of course a disadvantage is that the Street View intrusiveness to which some people object is amplified.

When a view can be shown with Panoramio images, a "user photos" icon shows in the upper-right corner of Street View. Clicking it shows an array of local photo thumbnails, and clicking one of those thumbnails loads that image. Above it is a link to the Panoramio page of the person who added the photo.

Not every Panoramio image is included. Once you've contributed geotagged photos to Panoramio, "Google's image-matching algorithms will analyze them at some point to see if they are also a good match for a Street View location," Schaffalitzky said.

Since I helped open this particular can of worms, I feel responsible for sharing the latest news about an issue in which Adobe Systems' software opens Internet Explorer even when Chrome is set as the default browser.

I had a Twitter tirade in January after the umpteenth time that Lightroom showed me the location of a photo in Internet Explorer when I clicked the Lightroom's GPS photo location icon. Internet Explorer also showed when using Adobe Photoshop's browser-based help and when Lightroom launched my Flickr page after uploading images to the Yahoo Web site. The problems showed on my home machine with 64-bit Vista, but not my work Windows XP laptop.

Tom Hogarty, Lightroom's project manager, was sympathetic and brought the issue up with the company's engineers. They ultimately pointed the finger at Chrome, though, not at themselves. Lo and behold, the Chrome 2.0.164.0 update included this bug fix: "Fixed several problems with making Google Chrome the default browser on Windows Vista," according to Google.

But that fix is for the latest developer-preview version of Chrome--the fast-moving, relatively untested version that's not as reliable as the stable or beta versions Google also offers, which means most folks won't get it until the changes are better tested. Moreover, I installed the new version and still had the default-browser problem. Though I certainly wouldn't rule out some error or omission on my part, I decided to try the another fix suggested Thursday in an Adobe blog post by Jeffrey Tranberry: manually setting the default browser.

I eventually emerged victorious--but it took a lot of fiddling with Vista and a Chrome reinstallation.

Windows Vista offers multiple ways to set defaults. I had the best success with the topmost option.

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET Networks)

Vista helpfully offers a "Default Programs" option from the start menu, but then makes it unclear where to perform the action; I tried "Set your default options," "Associate a file type or protocol with a program," and "Set program access and computer defaults."

I had more success with the more straightforward first option, but not without a detour in which Photoshop's help system wouldn't load in any browser at all, instead throwing an error message at me suggesting I reinstall the application.

All my efforts to set the default browser consfused Photoshop to the point where its browser-based help system wouldn't work at all. Reinstalling Chrome fixed the problem.

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET Networks)

Instead, I reinstalled the stable version of Chrome and set it as the default during its installation process. That cleared up Photoshop's problems, and Lightroom now shows map links in Chrome as well.

The moral of this story: be careful assigning blame to one company or another for problems involving multiple applications and the operating system. Happily, I sidestepped that pothole in my irate tweet, but I confess that inwardly I thought Adobe the culprit since other programs seemed to have no trouble picking Chrome.

GeoEye-1 took this satellite photo of Barack Obama's inauguration ceremony. At left, crowd. At right, Capitol Building.

(Credit: GeoEye)

GeoEye-1, the satellite that will supply Google with high-resolution imagery of the Earth, took a high-resolution photograph of the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

The satellite is expected to start producing data for Google in coming weeks, but in the meantime, this shot shows a bit more tantalizing detail about what will show in Google Earth and Google Maps. It was taken from 423 miles up as the 4,300-pound satellite traveled 17,000 miles per hour.

GeoEye launched GeoEye-1 in September, and Google has exclusive rights to imagery for online use.

For a larger view, click on the bottom image, which we're publishing at one quarter the original resolution. The two smaller images are full-size crops.

Update 7:52 a.m. PST January 21: Google Earth users can view the photo through the software, according to Google's Lat Long blog. And GeoEye has added the image to CNN's Photosynth view of the inauguration.

GeoEye-1 took this satellite photo of Barack Obama's inauguration ceremony. Note the shape of the crowd gathered around the large-screen TV in upper right.

(Credit: GeoEye)

GeoEye-1 took this satellite photo of the Mall during Barack Obama's inauguration ceremony. Click to see a larger image.

(Credit: GeoEye)

Picasa for the Mac includes the ability to make collages and other core features.

(Credit: Google)

Google plans to release on Monday a beta version of Picasa for Mac OS X, helping Apple fans catch up to Windows and Linux users already employing the free tool for editing, cataloging, and uploading photos.

The Mac version largely matches the features in Picasa 3 for Windows, said Jason Cook, Picasa's marketing manager. Though the company has been scrambling to include some secondary features such as geotagging and the ability to get photos printed, the core abilities of Picasa are present, he said.

Picasa lets people edit and print photos, create collages and movies, and add labels, star ratings, and tags. More significantly, given Google's cloud-computing focus, it also lets people upload their images to the company's online Picasa Web Albums site where images can be shared. Google acquired Picasa in 2004.

"We have many Mac users," Cook said, though declining to offer any estimates, "and we think they'll be excited about this. It makes the Picasa Web Albums experience better."

Mike Horowitz, product manager for Google's Picasa software for managing photos and the Web site for sharing them, has left the company for Fetch Technologies.

"Mike was a valued member of the Picasa team and Google, and we wish him well in his new endeavors. We have a talented team working on Picasa, and we're excited about the future," Google said in a statement. The company didn't say who would replace Horowitz.

According to Horowitz's LinkedIn profile, he began his new role in December as chief product officer at Fetch, an El Segundo, Calif.-based company founded in 1999. The company sells an artificial intelligence product called Fetch Agent Platform "for extracting and integrating information from multiple Web sources, and transforming the data into a form that is useful for business applications," according to the company.

Horowitz has held a variety of high-profile positions at Google, including the product manager for Google Apps and for AdSense. He also launched AdSense for Domains and Google's personalized start page.

In September, Google launched Picasa 3 with a variety of photo-editing features, including better retouching and the ability to make slide-show videos and big collages. On the Web end, the new service groups similar-looking people to make them easier to identify. And the software and Web site can stay synchronized so editing changes on a person's computer are mirrored on the Web site.

(Via The Inquisitr.)

Only two and a half months after announcing Picasa 3 beta, Google has done the uncharacteristic and on Thursday has issued Picasa 3.

Here's the clincher:Picasa 3 is the exact same desktop organizer and editor it has been under the beta flag. (This is a good wagon for the Gmail team to climb aboard--Google's e-mail service has been in beta since 2004 and its latest releases have been earthshaking themes and emoticons.)

Although Version 3 beta users won't see changes in this release, those switching from Version 2.7 will enjoy the substantial boost in features. Version 3 stacks on over a dozen more tricks to refine the editing, creative, and sharing options in what has for years been a solid consumer app. Highlights below.

With a little creativity, you can make gorgeous collages like this in Picasa 3.

(Credit: Tara Morrison/Google)

Syncing and sharing
Instead of manually uploading new photos to Picasa Web Albums from Picasa 3, you'll be able to click "Sync to Web" to keep the folder automatically updated. You can exclude photos by right-clicking and choosing "block from uploading" from the context menu.

Sharing has also gotten much easier. In previous versions, you would upload the photos from Picasa and then click within the Web album to e-mail the link to friends. The 'Share' button next to Picasa's syncing button helpfully auto-uploads the album and sends the Web link without compelling you to go online.

No more leaving Picasa for the Web to update or share photos.

(Credit: CNET)

Movie Maker
A terrific but light addition, Picasa 3's new movie maker can take videos from your digital camera and other clips and intersperse them with any other file Picasa supports. You can then upload your video to YouTube or to Picasa Web, or share via e-mail.

Bare-bones editing tools will trim the clips and add a song for background. However, they don't do fading and there's no template to carry your caption style from frame to frame. Video output is currently only the WMV format, and encoding takes a little time--be patient while it renders.

Drop Box
Drop Box is the new default storage locker for newly uploaded photos, for pictures you don't want to assign to an album, and for multitaskers who tell Picasa to take it easy on the bandwidth so they can simultaneously surf and upload. The Drop Box also holds photos uploaded via Orkut, ShoZu, and other third-party photo uploading services that integrate with Picasa Web Albums. This is one of those features that some users will love and many will ignore.

Screenshots
Picasa 3 hooks into your keyboard's PrintScreen key to index captures of your screen, Webcam input, or a video. For casual users, this feature may replace independent screen-capturing software like Gadwin PrintScreen, Capture.NET, and SnagIt. Those who continue to use those apps may find the cataloging amusing or mildly annoying.

You can upload photos to the drop box and start making a movie from Picasa 3's toolbar.

(Credit: CNET)

Other notables
Picasa 3's red-eye reduction tool detects and auto-corrects all the red-eyes in a photo. This substantially cuts out the hassle of clicking and dragging over individual eyes to wipe out the redness, and it works well most of the time. For blotchy faces and other minor blemishes, the retouch tool will awkwardly but fairly effectively let you blot out problem areas.

Finally, the collage tool has gotten more customizable. Before Picasa 3, you couldn't delete, drag, angle, or print in full resolution. Now you can. These substantial additions make the tool an easy way to get really creative (see photo).

There's always room for improvement, especially with the movie maker and red-eye tool, which could use some more precision controls, but this Version 3 release is an excellent effort that will give people much greater control over their photos and Web albums without sacrificing simplicity. All without clinging to beta.

>>Want more detail? See the full list of additions and changes in Picasa 3.

Google has brought to Linux the beta version of its new Picasa 3 software for image editing, cataloging, and uploading.

The new release catches the open-source operating system up with Windows, which got the Picasa 3 beta one month earlier. There's still no word about a Mac OS X version, although Mike Horowitz, Google's Picasa product manager, told me earlier that "Macs are important to us...We're always looking for new ways of making sure our users are happy, so it's something we're looking at."

A collage mode in Picasa lets people create poster-size collections, sizing and placing each snapshot. (Click to enlarge.)

(Credit: Google)

The new version adds a retouching tool, automatic synchronization of photos on the PC with those stored at Google's Picasa Web site, and a collage mode that lets people combine numerous snapshots into a poster-size collection, Google programmer Lei Zhang said in a blog post announcing the new version. The new version also is faster, he added.

However, it does lack the Windows version's movie maker feature that can turn photos into a slideshow with a soundtrack that can then be uploaded to YouTube.

The software runs using Wine and an open-source software layer that translates a program's Windows instructions into commands for Linux instead. Google has contributed about 850 patches to the Wine project so far this year, Google said. Better video support in Wine is still a work in progress, though, which is why the movie maker feature is disabled.