Subscribe to the RSS feed

Grok on Google Newsletter Sign Up Today.

Today Google added another business-oriented company to the swath of acquisitions it has made this year. It has bought up DocVerse, a Web-based office productivity company. Google has also turned around and made the source code for reMail -- which it also recently acquired -- open via an Apache license.

Comment on this blog entry

SiliconRepublic quotes a Google Europe exec saying "desktops will be irrelevant in three years." CIOs can only dream that some device, any device, would actually go away.

Comments(2)

Google recently rolled out a new beta version of its Chrome browser for the Windows XP, Vista and 7 platforms. The biggest new feature is automatic language translation powers. Its new privacy tweaks are a nice upgrade, too.

Comment on this blog entry

Google Sync, which lets users sync Google's Gmail, calendar and contacts data with their smartphones, is apparently experiencing a glitch. Google has acknowledged the issue and says it is working on a fix.

Comments(2)

Last November I took a look at the user experience for a new user who attempts to access Twitter.com. Now I'd like to provide the same new user experience overview for a person attempting to use Google Buzz.

Comment on this blog entry

Google recently announced that it has promoted six Gmail Labs features to become full-time, regular options within Gmail. Sadly, at the same time, five precious Labs have lost their struggle for relevance and are being, in Google parlance, "retired."

Comment on this blog entry

A judge in Italy recently convicted three Google executives for failure to comply with Italian privacy laws. The privacy violation was actually committed by a school student who shot video of a classmate being bullied and then uploaded the footage to Google Video. Google calls the convictions "a serious threat to the Web" and contends that new precedent set by Italian courts endangers the very fabric of the Web.

Comments(2)

This week Google quietly rolled out a new feature within Google Docs. It is offering a Web-based clipboard that will let users copy-and-paste content between Google Docs. It also manages to keep Web formatting intact.

Comment on this blog entry

Google recently purchased a small company that offered an iPhone email search application. The app, called reMail, was superior to the iPhone's native email search tool. As soon as Google purchased the company behind reMail, the app was pulled from the iPhone Apps Store.

Comment on this blog entry

Eric Schmidt took the stage Tuesday evening in Barcelona to address a sometimes-hostile crowd. His message? Mobile comes first, and Google "comes in peace."

Comment on this blog entry

Google will be providing a $100,000 grant to The Dalles, Oregon, to build and operate a Wi-Fi cloud that covers the city's business district.

Comment on this blog entry

This week, my colleague, David Berlind and I talk about the Data Center, some of the upcoming announcements we expect to see at this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week, and we rant about all of the social platforms that continue to sprout like nasty weeds (this week's culprit: Google Buzz).

Comment on this blog entry

Today Google announced via a blog post that it has enabled extensions support in the latest beta of its Chrome browser for Apple's OS X. Users can expect their browsers to update in the next day or so.

Comment on this blog entry

Tech news sites have been buzzing about Google's plan to turn mobile phones into universal translators, based on a report in The Times.

Comments(2)

Google is prepared to update its Gmail service with a new social networking feature that will be make it behave more like Facebook or Twitter. Is this what we want clogging our inboxes, or will it be too distracting for those who rely on Gmail day in and day out?

Comment on this blog entry

Google has taken a lot of heat the last few weeks over its support -- or lack thereof -- for the Nexus One. Customers find dealing with Google's support forums to be lacking. Google hinted that it may be making some changes to better handle the situation.

Comment on this blog entry

Google recently announced that it will be halting support for Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6 for Google Docs and Sites. Google's not stopping there, however. Gmail and Google Calendar won't work with IE6 starting later this year.

Comments(1)

Google has removed what for many CIOs and IT professionals has been one of the last remaining hurdles to their adoption of Google Apps for business documents, spreadsheets, presentations and probably most importantly: email. Yesterday, the biggest of the cloud-based challengers to Microsoft and IBM-Lotus announced it now has a range of Blackberry-esque mobile device management features (including the ability to remotely wipe a smartphone) for iPhones as well as Windows Mobile and Nokia-based devices.

Comment on this blog entry

Last year, Microsoft laid off some 800 employees in November. Don Dodge, director of business development for Microsoft's emerging business team, was one of them.

Comments(2)

Apple isn't the only company with a tablet computer in the works. Google's forthcoming Chrome OS may debut in tablet form, too. Chrome OS's lead designer Glen Murphy posted a video that demonstrates what a tablet version of Chrome OS might look like.

Comments(2)

Never mind apps for phones, Google is planning to launch a new online apps store for business customers. The software would integrate with its Web-based services. Google continues to increase the pressure on Microsoft.

Comment on this blog entry

Heaven forbid we actually have to dial a phone number any more. That would be awful. Google is saving smartphone owners, once again, from exercising their thumbs by adding a click-to-call feature directly in mobile ads.

Comment on this blog entry

Cardinal Richelieu, chief minister of France's King Louis XIII, is generally credited with saying, "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."

Richelieu's claim attests to the ease with which information can be misused. It's a lesson that Internet users might want to revisit in this age of online insecurity.

Comment on this blog entry

The news of a cyber attack from within China on Google and other companies has prompted a range of reactions, including Google's decision to reassess its operations there and a rebuke from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But no one should be surprised by what happened. Two months earlier, a U.S. government report warned that the private sector was susceptible to this very risk.

Comments(1)

Had the Chinese shot intercontinental ballistic missiles into 33 US-based businesses including those in the finance and defense industries as well as the Mountain View-based headquarters of Google, there would be no question in anyone's mind as to whether war had been declared on the US. Is there any difference now that a Chinese government-backed organization has cyber-attacked 33 US businesses? Let's be honest with ourselves. It was an act of war and it deserves more of a response from the US government than it is getting.

Comments(11)

Google's decision to challenge China's censorship policy is seen by a number of China experts as a no-win situation.

Comment on this blog entry

From separate coasts, InformationWeek editorial director Fritz Nelson and I have been trying to launch the video version of the Fritz & David Show for what seems like forever. But technology has conspired against us. We're close, and we'll keep trying. But in the meantime, we've decided to offer the audio version of the weekly program that gives you a peek at how we talk about latest technology news and buzz amongst ourselves here at InformationWeek.

Comment on this blog entry

I don't have a fax machine. In fact, I only have access to one if I choose to go to a local FedEx or UPS store and pay for service. I was thinking, Google offers so many services that business users need, why not an electronic faxing service?

Comments(2)

Had Novell's director of public relations Ian Bruce not responded to my blog post about Google's choice to change Gmail's default transmission mode from the less secure HTTP (Web) to the more secure and encrypted HTTPS (Secure Web), I would have never seen his own blog post on Novell's Web site entitled On Google, e-mail security, and cloud. But I'm glad I saw it. It's evidence of how some vendors might be too quick to throw fuel on the fire of misinformation in order to draw positive attention to themselves.

Comments(2)

Kudos to the folks at Gmail who, in defaulting to a secure browser setting (as opposed to the previous insecure default) for sending and retrieving email, have decided to help users who may not know enough to help themselves. The new default (see screenshot below) tells the browser to access the Gmail service over HTTPS instead of the prior default, HTTP. This significant shift by Google is a reminder that there's probably more you can do to secure your organization's data and communications.

Comments(5)

Google's decision to reevaluate its business operations in China may cost the company potential revenue there -- the company's stock is down following its announcement yesterday and Baidu's stock is up -- but it may be rewarded for its stand in the West.

Comments(7)

Whether or not the timing of this announcement has anything to do with Google's recent actions in the Chinese market is unknown. The company today said that it is switching Gmail access to https for all users by default.

Comment on this blog entry

Google was recently granted a patent that will allow it to stick new advertisements on the billboards and other surfaces captured by its Street Views cameras. The big question is, what took it so long?

Comments(3)

According to CEO Paul Jacobs, Qualcomm plans to lend its support to Google's Chrome operating system for netbooks.

Comment on this blog entry

Google has asked Internet users to submit questions for a discussion it's hosting next week about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), an international treaty that the U.S. and other countries have been negotiating for the past two years.

Comment on this blog entry

After carrying-on for many years an on-again, off-again email-only relationship with Free Software Foundation president and founder Richard Stallman (or "Chief GNU-isance" according to the FSF staff), I finally met him today for a face-to-face interview. While the interview was actually for a larger project we're working on here at InformationWeek, we spent a considerable amount of time talking about the issues he wrestles with every day. One of them is GNU and the highly misguided usage of the term Linux to describe what is really GNU/Linux. Stallman, GNU, and the FSF deserve some credit and we (including distributors such as Red Hat and Novell) should all pay it to them.

Comments(10)

Apple on Tuesday said that over 3 billion apps have been downloaded from Apple's iTunes Store.

"Three billion applications downloaded in less than 18 months—this is like nothing we've ever seen before," said Apple CEO Steve Jobs in a statement. "The revolutionary App Store offers iPhone and iPod touch users an experience unlike anything else available on other mobile devices, and we see no signs of the competition catching up anytime soon."

Comments(1)

Google Wave hasn't quite caught on yet, at least, not with anyone I know. I've played with it a bit and have found it to be an interesting concept, but not full of much real value so far. That hasn't stopped a number of people from putting it to interesting use. This video is one of them.

Comment on this blog entry

The last thing drivers need is more distractions in the car, but that hasn't stopped Audi's engineers from adding Google Maps, Google Earth, and satellite imagery to the cockpit of its 2011 flagship A8 sedan.

Comment on this blog entry

YouTube has compiled a list of the most-watched videos of the year. Amazingly, Susan Boyle trounced Michael Jackson by a factor of three. See what else made the top ten lists.

Comments(3)

Google recently released beta versions of its Chrome browser for the Apple and Linux platforms. After they became available, the number of Chrome users surged past Apple's own Safari browser to become the third-most used browser. But...

Comments(2)

No one ought to be surprised by the notion that Chrome is Google's big cross-platform play -- a way to get their app-delivery system running everywhere. It's not just a way to soften people up for the arrival of Chrome OS, either.

Comments(1)

Google has updated Maps for Mobile again for Android phones. There are several new features with this latest update, but the new version isn't compatible with all the variants of Android that are out there.

Comment on this blog entry

Mac users rejoice! Today Google has made the beta version of its Chrome browser available for Apple computers. The download is free.

Comment on this blog entry

The idea of conducting visual searches is nothing new, but Google is attempting to bring just such a service to market. In recent tests, its version of visual search, called Google Goggles (totally different from Mail Goggles), didn't quite get the job done. Can Google make it work?

Comment on this blog entry

Not all Web connections are created equal. It's with that in mind that Google offered up YouTube Lite today, called "Feather." Its promise is to get those videos playing faster, even if you have a flaky Web connection.

Comment on this blog entry

Google has admitted that it is no longer developing its Gears browser plug-in. Instead, it will focus efforts on HTML5, which it says will accomplish much of the same functionality that Gears made possible.

Comment on this blog entry

IBM has already established cloud computing centers in the Chinese cities of Dongying and Wuxi. In the former, the cloud will serve as a "smarter city" platform for development of services. In Wuxi, it will serve as a collective platform for software development. Now it's on to Ho Chi Minh City.

Comment on this blog entry

I'm wondering if Google Wave is like a concept car for Google. We'll never see it in production--but all of its features and capabilities will emerge in other products released by Google and other companies. Google Wave solves some very real business problems. But I think even Google will have trouble getting companies to adopt it.

Comment on this blog entry

Would Google's Chrome OS spell more competition for Android than anything else? That's one of the possibilities looming for Google's browser-centric Linux distro, as on each closer inspection it looks that much less like a Windows killer.

Comment on this blog entry