Google has released developer tools for a new image format that Google believes could replace JPEG as the ideal photo format for the Internet. Called “WebP”, the new format – invented by Google themselves – would offer improved performance while maintaining image quality. Google claims that files compressed with the new format would be as much as 39 per cent smaller than those compressed in the current JPEG photo format.
According to Google product manager Richard Rabbat, the open-sourced format is an attempt to cut the size of “lossy” compressed images, reducing file sizes and data traffic loads for networks with slower connection speeds such as mobile broadband platforms. “Most of the common image formats on the web today were established over a decade ago and are based on technology from around that time,” Rabbat wrote in a blog posting. “Some engineers at Google decided to figure out if there was a way to further compress lossy images like JPEG to make them load faster, while still preserving quality and resolution.”
The company is currently offering developer tools to help developers add WebP support to their applications. The company also plans to introduce support for the format with the next version of its Chrome browser.
Some time ago, Google launched its own URL shortening service – a service that turns long website links into shorter, more manageable ones – to not only help the site promote its own products through services like Twitter, but also help others with theirs. Dubbed Goo.gl, the service was previously available only with certain other Google services, including the Google browser toolbar, FeedBurner RSS service, News, Blogger, and Maps. But now, since last night, the service has its own website – http://goo.gl/ – where it can be used all by itself.
Google says its URL shorter is all about “stability,” “security,” and “speed.” Matt Cutts, a major Google player, had this to say about the service (spelling in context): “Google needed a url shortener for its own products where we knew the shortener wouldn’t go away. We also wanted a shortener that we knew would do things the right way… and that would be fast, stable, and secure.” That “right way” includes permanent redirects.
From the new goo.gl site, you can not only shorten URLs, but monitor traffic to your URLs after you shorten them. Google provides top referrers for each link as well as visitor profiles. “This can be a great way to better understand who’s interested in your links, how they’re finding them and when they’re reading,” the company says.
Thanks to various news sources for the Matt Cutts quote and for confirming the feature list!
There is one thing about GMail’s web interface that makes it stands out compared to other email solutions, and it’s the thing they’re both praised and criticised for in equal measure. Unlike most email clients, which stack your emails in chronological order and make no obvious links between the conversations they relate to, Google GMail has since the very start had a feature that groups all the emails in the same conversation together into one “thread”, making a whole conversation easy to find and read through in it’s entirety. This feature, called “Conversation View”, has split opinion. Threading enthusiasts say they spend less mental energy drawing connections between related messages and that their inboxes are much less cluttered. On the other hand, email traditionalists like many former Outlook users think conversation view just complicates something that has worked for years.
Today, Google has announced it is finally introducing a new option to cater for those in the latter side of the argument. Read the rest of this entry »
The failure of security that caused the infection of more than 190 thousand users on Orkut has been fixed by Google. In a statement, the American company says the cause of this problem was a code in the ‘New Orkut’, which was modified by the developers of social network.
“We took swift action to correct a vulnerability to cross-site scripting (XSS) in orkut.com which was discovered a few hours ago. Our analysis of the script code does not reveal any malicious activity. The problem is now resolved, but continued studying Vulnerability to help avoid similar problems in future, “Google said in a statement.
The flaw led the users to be included in the community “Infected by Orkut Virus”, without any need for approval. The group came to be deleted by the site staff in the early afternoon, but the hackers recreated using the same loophole. Besides becoming a member, the user started sending malicious code to your contacts through the network message.
Users who were infected by the code should clear browser history and delete temporary files. It is further recommended that the password for access to social networking should be replaced.
Have you heard of the Shweeb? Me neither. But apparently, it’s a rather fun little tourist attraction located in Rotorua, New Zealand. Basically, it’s a monorail system. Unlike traditional monorails, however, this one has numerous cars, each of which can hold one person comfortably. What’s more, each car is pedal-powered, so the passenger is actively keeping the car going.
More than 30,000 people have hopped inside the Shweeb and raced around its track in Rotorua, with users stating that it feels “different” and “exhilarating”. The idea first came to a frustrated commuter trying to navigate the streets of Tokyo – “I tried cycling here but that turned out to be a pretty dangerous activity so the idea just occurred to me to be able to cycle over the top of it,” says Shweeb creator Geoff Barnett. And after spending six years combining monorail and cycling technology, the Shweeb was born. Unfortunately councils couldn’t commit to making an untested technology into a means of public transport, so instead it went to Rotorua, where it became an adventure tourist attraction.
Now though, the Shweeb may become a viable means of public transport after all – thanks to Google. Read the rest of this entry »
A year ago, Google announced Chrome Frame, a project intended to bring the standards support, HTML5 features, and speed of Google’s Chrome Web browser to Internet Explorer as a plug-in, rather than requiring users to download a separate application. Now, Google has taken the “beta” tag off and announced Chrome Frame’s first stable release, bringing Chrome’s features—and speed—to Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8, without requiring users to replace their existing browsers.
We’ll have more information about this story as soon as it is available.
In a blog post posted today, Dave Girouard – the president of Google Enterprise – stated that the company will soon offer the ability to edit Google Docs documents on Android devices and the Apple iPad.
Little information was given about the additional editing capability in the blog post, which instead seemed more focused on the news that more than 3 million businesses have “gone Google,” a term Google has coined for those using Google hosted services. However, reports suggest the technology may be predicated on DocVerse, which Google bought in March.
DocVerse allows users of PowerPoint, Word, and Excel documents to collaborate and save them to the cloud, as well as chat with the collaborators, and many other features. Although DocVerse originally provided up to 1 GB of free storage, with any additional files costing $0.25 per GB per year, the service would presumably be rolled into the Google Apps Premier Edition fee, or $50 per user per year.
Google today have officially retired the original web-based interface for GMail, their own-brand email service, previously served to browsers unable to support the current interface or those who clicked the “Older Version” link at the bottom of the page.
Browsers incompatible with all the features of the modern interface are now forced to use the Basic HTML view, and the “Older Version” link no longer exists. Attempts to load the Older Version manually, by typing in the URL to it yourself, also fail.
Since the HTML version is incredibly limited in functionality, this change effectively means that Google has forced all GMail users into an “all-or-peanuts” situation – either having to use the default interfacer, with ALL of Google’s various features and tweaks if they want to use any feature not standard to email (such as Chat, Labs Features…); or going back to the dark ages. In this reporter’s opinion, expect to see a number of complaints in the upcoming weeks.
The G1 smartphone from T-Mobile was the first Android-powered handset to hit the market, and it was arguably a very good introduction for Android to the Smartphone market. But that was a few years back, and since then we’ve seen far superior Android smartphones hit the market. It didn’t take long, therefore, for people to spread rumours that T-Mobile was working on a sequel to the phone to hit back at the newer, stronger competitors. But T-Mobile stayed silent all this time.
Until today.
T-Mobile has just announced it is mounting a comeback with a sequel phone that’s “better than ever”. The new phone is called – what else? – T-Mobile G2 (with Google), and is Read the rest of this entry »
To be honest, I’m quite surprised that Google haven’t approached this idea sooner, however now, according to reports, Google are now lining up their own online music store, which no doubt they are hoping will give Apple iTunes a run for its money.
Reports say that Google’s VP of Engineering, Andy Rubin, has been in touch with various record labels proposing the idea which he hopes will be ready by Christmas, although it would seem that at the moment no deal has been agreed.
So, perhaps we will see yet another Google vs. Apple battle – however Google will have to step up a gear and get some major record labels on board if they are hoping to have this service up and running by Christmas time.