Google+ Starts Rolling Out Vanity URLs For Some Accounts

A few weeks ago, the Google+ team punked The Oatmeal by redirecting its Google+ profile URL to a slightly more interesting (and profanity-laden) URL. That, it turns out, what just a test for today’s wider rollout of vanity URLs for a subset of verified business pages and profiles on Google+. Google has already enabled this feature for a number of big brands and celebrities like Toyota, Delta Airlines and Britney Spears, but don’t get too excited yet: it’s not clear when Google plans to roll out custom URLs to all of its users.
This new feature, says Google, will be available worldwide, but it’s unclear how Google plans to choose the first batch of users who will get first dibs to pick their custom URL. In its announcement, Google only notes that it is introducing this feature for “a limited number of verified profiles and pages” and that this is just a “first step.”
Vanity URLs have long been among the most requested features of Google+’s most dedicated users. The standard Google + profile and page URLs don’t exactly lend themselves to memorization, after all, and businesses aren’t likely to use these ugly URLs in their marketing materials (you can currently find TechCrunch’s updates at https://plus.google.com/103037366582313115962/posts, for example).
When Facebook launched its vanity URLs back in 2009, it created somewhat of a land rush as its users hustled to get their URL of choice. Facebook, too, first allowed a few select brands and celebrities to claim their custom URLs a few months ahead of its other users.

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Motorola Mobility in the hands of Google

In May Google bought Motorola to the tune of $12.4 billion and though google has not exactly stated how it intend to uses Motorola, it however made it clear that it was buying the company because of it thousands of patents and patent applications. Speculations had it that ,
google will break the company to parts and sell off but that is yet to happen. What we see now , is that it intends laying off about 4,000 of the Motorola staff and reducing the number of branches worldwide. Employees have began receiving notification today concerning the cut of 20% of Motorola Mobility employees.

This plan to lay off workforce is the first step Google has taken since it bought the Motorola Mobility and it plans on restoring the company’s market. It also plans to trim down the number of handsets it makes.

In my words, google surely bought the Motorola Mobility because of its patents worth about $5 billion and it hopes on using this patent to help Android’ defence against the likes of Phone makers that plan on taking Android OS out of the market.I just knew Google would do something, seeing how hard Apple is coming against Samsung; one of its OS users, it better start preparing a strong defence for android just in case Apple wins the case and comes after other Android OS users. You might wonder how google is connected to the apple Samsung Trial and i will tell you how.

Samsung is one of google’s partner because its mobile devices uses Android Operating System and though Apple has not clearly attacked the OS yet, it will because Android is taking over the market and that is what Apple doesn’t want. Google might not directly comment or get involved with the trial but one of the Leading attorneys in Samsung’s defence comes from Google.

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Flipboard for Android updated with tutorials, navigation improvements

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Flipboard for Android has been on a steady update cycle ever since it arrived on the platform a few months ago. The latest release focuses on navigation improvements, simplified access to Google Reader feeds, and adds in-app hints for those new to the elegant magazine-style news aggregator. Version 1.9.6 of Flipboard also introduces shopping cart functionality for the Gilt Taste food section, letting readers order select treats directly within the app. And there are of course the usual promises of performance improvements and bug fixes, though the release notes don't delve into anything specific. The latest update is available via Google Play now.

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Google Omits Youtube From Anti piracy Rule

Google recently decided to make its search engine an anti piracy tool, which will bring down the rankings of all sites showcasing and making use of media, they have no right over, report has it that, they intend to remove Youtube from that list.

Report on the anti piracy policy
Search Engine Land reports that flagging supposedly illegal content on most sites involves using an online process that starts on a page labeled “Removing Content From Google,” whereas flagging content on YouTube involves using the video site’s baked-in “Copyright Center.” And the removal requests Google will be considering as far as search-result positioning is concerned will be those made through the Removing Content page, not through YouTube’s Copyright Center.

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Google improves mobile search UI with card-based interface reminiscent of Google Now

So far, the new Google Now feature in Android has received a lot of positive feedback from users, saying it’s very useful, and also that the card style answers look very good. Google is moving to replicate the same functionality and user experience on its mobile site, such that accessing from any compatible smartphone or tablet will make the mobile site look like the Google Now cards in Jelly Bean.

This move will make (some?) answers richer, more beautiful, and more interactive. It should be easier for the users to get the information they need at a glance. Some of the answers that include this new cards-style interface include finance, currency conversion, unit conversion, dictionary definitions, local time lookup, and holiday and sunrise times. And, of course, these include weather and flights cards, as well.

These cards pull the information from the Knowledge Graph, which is the latest evolution of Google search. Knowledge Graph better understands the context of your questions and search queries that you input on the search box. But this new Google Now cards style system is not just about understanding the information being asked, but it is also about presenting it to the user in a way that is easy and quick to read, which means  you waste less time in looking further for that particular piece of information.

 

Google’s AI and algorithms are getting smarter, and the big G wants to provide people with more direct answers to their questions, rather than just a list of blue links. Google’s new cards style search is just the first step in that direction. For now, these changes will only come to smartphones and tablets, and are only available for the English version of Google.com. Google promises to bring the new UI to the desktop and other languages as soon as possible.

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Report: Nexus 7 Supply Issues Stall Growth

Google may be taking the ill-conceived Nexus Q back to the drawing board, but the Nexus 7 tablet has been quite a hit since it went on sale a few weeks ago. Since then, though, Google has faced a number of supply issues and the company even suspended sales of the 16GB for a few days to catch up with demand. The latest data from ad network Chitika shows how those supply issues have stalled the growth of Google’s first tablet – at least when measured by web traffic from Nexus 7 owners.

Just a few weeks ago, Chitika reported that the Nexus tablet was on its way to surpass the Kindle Fire in its traffic rankings. By now, the company predicted, the Google tablet was supposed to be ahead of the Fire. Instead, its latest data shows that it’s still trailing Amazon’s tablet by quite a bit. While traffic from the Nexus 7 to Chitika’s network of member sites grew rapidly during the first few weeks after it went on sale, growth stalled over the last three weeks. Chitika reports its tablet data relative to the iPad and the Nexus 7 currently accounts for 0.35 impressions per 100 iPad impressions. That’s virtually unchanged from the 0.3 impressions it reported three weeks ago.
With only a few new Nexus 7 owners surfing the web due to Google’s supply issues, the company’s numbers probably reflect the usage of existing users. ”While the Nexus 7 experienced a huge initial surge in both sales and Web traffic, users don’t seem to be surfing as much as one might expect them to.” As the novelty of the device wears off and as the honeymoon phase comes to an end, people simply don’t use it as much as they used to. Now that the Nexus 7 is back on sale, it will be interesting to see if the growth rate picks up again.

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Google Updates Its Search Algorithm: Will Start Punishing Sites With Too Many DMCA Takedown Notices

Google just announced that, starting next week, its search algorithm will start taking a new signal into account: the number of valid copyright removal notices it receives for a given site. According to Google, “this ranking change should help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily.” The idea here is obviously to punish pirate sites by pushing links to them down on Google’s search results pages and to appease copyright holders who often claim that Google doesn’t do enough to remove links to copyrighted material.
Since it started giving rights owners the ability to report potential copyright infringement in 2009, Google says, it’s been getting “much more data by copyright owners about infringing content online.” Just over the last 30 days, for example, it received copyright removal notices for more than 4.3 million URLs. That’s more than in all of 2009 together. Most of these notices in the last 30 days concerned content owned by RIAA members, followed by Microsoft, a group called Froytal Services Ltd. and NBC Universal.
In its announcement today, Google notes that users can always file “counter notices” when they believe their content was wrongly removed from its index. Google stresses that it won’t actually remove any pages from its search results unless it receives a valid copyright removal notice from the rights owner. Still, chances are that this update will push legitimate links to sites like filestube.com, downloads.nl and isohunt.com to the bottom of Google’s search results pages.

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Chrome For Windows Gets A Stronger Flash Sandbox, Promises 20% Fewer Flash Crashes

Flash doesn’t get a lot of love these days, but it’s still ubiquitous on the web. To make displaying Flash content safer for its users, Google just announced that it is now putting the Flash Player plug-in it ships with Chrome for Windows (including the aging Windows XP) inside a new and enhanced sandbox “that’s as strong as Chrome’s native sandbox, and dramatically more robust than anything else available.” Besides the security advantages, Google also stresses that this change will reduce Flash crashes by about 20%.
Until now, the Flash plugin on Chrome for Windows used the older Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface. Now, it is using Google’s own Pepper Plugin API. This, apparently, wasn’t an easy undertaking as it took Google and Adobe two years to complete this project. According to Google software engineer Justin Schuh, “as the web evolved, the past benefits of NPAPI became liabilities” and NPAPI now “severely impedes or outright prevents us from extending those improvements to any pages with plug-in content.” Schuh also stresses that this change is the only way to use all of Flash’s feature in Windows 8 Metro/Windows 8-Style UI mode and all Windows users will now get to enjoy new hardware accelerated Flash features that weren’t previously possible with the NPAPI plugin.
For now, the PPAPI Flash port is only available on Chrome OS, Windows and Linux, but Google promises to ship Chrome for Mac with these enhances security and stability features “soon.”

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Google Settles With FTC, Agrees To Pay $22.5M Penalty For Bypassing Safari Privacy Settings

Google today agreed to pay $22.5 million to settle a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charge that it bypassed Safari’s privacy settings to serve targeted ads to consumers. Google placed these cookies on Safari users’ computers, despite the fact that, as the FTC notes, “Google had previously told these users they would automatically be opted out of such tracking, as a result of the default settings of the Safari browser used in Macs, iPhones and iPads.” This, according to the FTC, was in direct violation of the earlier privacy settlement between Google and the FTC.
The FTC’s charge focused on the fact that Google exploited a loophole in Safari to place cookies on its users’ computers even though Safari, by default, blocks cookies from third-party sites. As the WSJ reported earlier this year, Safari makes an exception for cookies from sites that users interacted with before by, for example, filling out a form. To place its ad tracking cookies, Google tricked Safari into believing that users were submitting a form to Google and the browser would then allow Google to install its temporary ad tracking cookies.
The existence of today’s fine was first reported last week, but wasn’t official until today. Given that this is a settlement, it’s important to note that today’s “consent order is for settlement purposes only and does not constitute an admission by the defendant that the law has been violated.”
Despite these legal details, the FTC is clearly looking at this settlement as a success. “The record setting penalty in this matter sends a clear message to all companies under an FTC privacy order,” said Jon Leibowitz, Chairman of the FTC. “No matter how big or small, all companies must abide by FTC orders against them and keep their privacy promises to consumers, or they will end up paying many times what it would have cost to comply in the first place.” One could easily argue, though, that paying a $22.5 million fee isn’t exactly a problem for Google, which had an operating income of over $3 billion last quarter.

Google’s Response

We asked Google for a statement regarding today’s announcement. Here is Google’s response:

We set the highest standards of privacy and security for our users. The FTC is focused on a 2009 help center page published more than two years before our consent decree, and a year before Apple changed its cookie-handling policy. We have now changed that page and taken steps to remove the ad cookies, which collected no personal information, from Apple’s browsers.

Google has until February 15, 2014 to expire all of the cookies involved in today’s settlement.

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