TechiePost » Google

German Govt. Recommends Alternative Browser to Internet Explorer

TechiePost — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 10:04:06 +0000

German government warns web surfers to find alternative browser to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer after the firm admitted that IE was used to hack Chinese Human Rights Activists’ Gmail accounts. The BBC reports that the warning comes from Federal Office for Information Security.

However, Microsoft, as usual, rejected the warning saying that the risk was not so high that users have to switch. It said, the risk is low and the browser’s increased security setting would prevent any serious risk. However, German authorities still recommends finding alternative.

When the fact about IE’s role in hacking search giant’s system came, Microsoft Spokesman in Germany said that the particular hack was made by “highly motivated people with a very specific agenda”. The company claims that there were no attacks against general users or consumers, as the BBC reported.

Microsoft recommends settings browser’s security zone to “high” to stay fully safe, however, this removes some functionality and blocks many sites. As a result, users’ surfing will be interrupted if the Internet Explorer’s security settings is set “High”.

The warning includes version 6, 7, and 8 of Microsoft Internet Explorer. German government said that it is hoping that Microsoft will as soon as possible release important security patches to fix the problem of its browsers. But this is not easy. Patches may fix the existing problem creating some new ones. Also, it may not work on all computers. It is a very difficult challenge for Microsoft to release patches for all three versions. To avoid releasing patches, Microsoft said to upgrade to IE’s latest version as it says that the risk is ‘lower’ with more recent versions of the browser.

Have your Say

Did you notice Microsoft has never said that any of its IE’s version is not risky? That means, as long as you’re surfing through Microsoft Internet Explorer, you’re unsafe. So, tell us what you’re thinking. Do you use Internet Explorer? Do you plan to switch? What’s your alternative choice to Internet Explorer? Google Chrome, Safari, Opera, or Mozilla Firefox?

Google Goes Tough in China

TechiePost — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 04:55:49 +0000

Chinese Google users leaving flowers outside the Google headquarters in China as the company declared possibility of leaving the country.

The online giant Google has taken a tough decision of providing unfiltered search results to the Chinese people. In a blog post, it said that when it launched Google in china, it clearly stated that it will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If it is determined that Google is unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.

That’s what Google has done lately. It is taking all censorship off its search result pages in China though the Chinese government requires opposite. Google in that post also said that it will shut down its business in China if it isn’t allowed to continue providing uncensored result to its users in China.

The Beginning

Google has come up with what Chinese rival Baidu calls “Hypocritical” decision following a cyber attack on Chinese human rights activists’ gmail accounts. Google said that the attack was sophisticated and targeted originating from China. The statement from Google reads:

In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google.

Following the incident, Google has made a tough decision not to provide censored search result anymore. Google said that it recognizes the potential of shutting down its Chinese offices as well as Google.cn (Google’s Chinese homepage).

The move was all on a sudden that almost shakes the technology world.

7 Things That May Make Nexus One Smarter

TechiePost — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 03:26:05 +0000

After the launch of the first ever Google phone on the planet, mixed reaction is seen among all kinds of people including technology analysts and end-users. However, The Huffington Post has pointed 7 things that Nexus One has but iPhone lacks. Here we will discuss about those 7 things that will probably make Nexus One smarter than iPhone.

Typing Tricks

On Nexus One, users don’t have to switch screen to enter a period when typing. Nexus One has a conveniently arranged typing screen that makes typing smarter, better, and faster. Also, both phones (iPhone and Nexus One) provide word suggestions from dictionary as the user types. But iPhone usually doesn’t show more than 5 suggestions at a time while Nexus One comes with as many as 15 suggestions if you scroll down vertically. This is obviously a good point for the newcomer in the industry.

Battery Life

Battery is the life of handsets. But batter has its own life too. In iPhone, the battery durability is 5 hours talk time. Google has made Nexus One’s life a bit longer. Nexus One battery comes with 7 hours talk time; ahead of iPhone, obviously. Also, Nexus One battery is replaceable, meaning that if battery dies, you can replace it with another battery at your convenient.

Although you might be thinking that there’s nothing more about battery; but in fact, there is. The Nexus One has a feature that tells you exactly which part of your mobile is using the battery power. No wonder you can easily guess how long your battery is going to live without further charge.

Better Camera

It is said that Nexus One comes with a better 5 megapixel camera while the opponent iPhone is still limited to 3 megapixel. Another great feature of Nexus One camera is that it comes with a built-in flash light so that you can capture regardless of day or night. Some people wonder why iPhone missed such a great thing to equip with their handset. A technology journalist writes: “Probably iPhone developers always stay in light, however, I don’t.”

Dictation

People are going lazy. That’s probably why some iPhone developers had developed the iPhone app “Dragon Dictation”. Google realized that this is a necessary application and is worth making a built-in app for its first physical product in history. So, Google’s Nexus One comes with a “Dictation” feature that can dictate your texts, emails, searches, notes, and more using the phone’s transcription feature. The New York Times reported that the accuracy is 90% and usually faster than typing. So, why wouldn’t you get a Nexus One?

You Are Independent

Yes, you are! Nexus One comes both locked and unlocked. If you purchase the unlocked Nexus One, you’re free from T-Mobile (iPhone is bonded with AT&T, so is Nexus One with T-Mobile). If you want, you can purchase Nexus One directly from Google.

Open Door to Apps

Apple was criticized because it has an approval process for its App Store. Any app developed by someone and then submitted to App Store goes through an approval process which doesn’t satisfy the developers. Some reports say that this is so frustrating that a number of developers are about to quit making iPhone apps.

But Nexus One isn’t so. It allows developers to submit their apps directly to Android Market which is immediately visible to consumers. Analysts believe that this opens a major gate that has a potential of changing the apps landscape.

The BIG Thing: Price

In case you haven’t guessed yet, the Nexus One is cheaper (Is it mandatory to state that cheaper “than iPhone”?). You can figure the difference between the prices of these smartphones by yourself after you take a look at the following plans that both phones come up with.

The service contract is two years long. Over this period, he unlimited voice and data plan plus the cost of the subsidized phone is $3,799 for an iPhone on AT&T.
Nexus One on T-Mobile contract has a contract of same period and same offers (unlimited voice and data plan plus the price of Nexus One) costs $2,579.

So, if you go with Nexus One, you will save $610 every year that equals to $1,220 two years.

Comments

So, after knowing about all those new features available in Nexus One, what is your decision? Are you planning to move to Nexus One permanently, or use it temporarily as a Beta testing? Let us know by commenting off below.

Google Chrome Beats Apple’s Safari

TechiePost — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 03:27:30 +0000

Despite lacking a lot of facilities, it seems like users with minimum requirements of their browser — who are obviously larger in number — preferred the simplicity, stability and speed of Google Chrome. Users’ love made Google Chrome third most popular web browser around the world beating the Apple’s browser, Safari.

British News Media Telegraph.co.uk reported that Google Chrome is now the third most popular web browser around the web. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is still at the first place in popularity queue followed by Mozilla Firefox. According to data collected in last year on December, Chrome has been used by 4.63 percent of total internet surfers while Apple’s Safari was used by a percentage of 4.46.

The statistics also showed that Internet Explorer was used by nearly two-third of all internet users having a percentage of 62.69 while the second most popular had 24.61 percent users worldwide. The data was collected by online services firm Net Applications.

The Telegraph says that winning the third place in browser battle is an important milestone for Google; not because it has become third most popular, but its win against Apple. However, it was not easy at all for Google to conquer this place. It had started advertising of Google Chrome almost everywhere on the internet. In Britain, Google got the major billboards across the roads for the purpose of advertising Google Chrome. It had an active campaign with Google Chrome across the Europe.

Today, users who just need to surf the websites are more likely to use Google Chrome because of its wide area of browsing and its simplicity, speed, and stability that makes it lighter than any other web browser out there.

Google Phone Unofficially Named “Nexus One”

TechiePost — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:38:25 +0000

At last Google is coming up with the first mobile device of its history, named “Nexus One”. Google has built this ‘google phone’ in conjunction with Taiwanese mobile set manufacturer HTC. The handset is supposed to become available on the first month of the new year.

Mario Queiroz from Google first posted about the Google Phone on the Official Google Mobile Blog on 12th December. There was insufficient information about the newly-built handset which is currently available only for the Google employees across the world.

Unverified Image: Nexus One, also knows as Google Phone.

Popular news sites including Mashable, TechCrunch and others have reported that the Nexus One is thinner than iPhone, and its screen size is bigger than iPhone. They also released some pictures of the handset, which are unverified by Google.

From those sources, we’ve also come to know that the Nexus One might be available for public in market by the first month of the upcoming year.

However, Google has not published any of those information anywhere officially.

Google’s first step into the mobile market was in late 2007 when they introduced Android operating system for other smart phones. The mobile OS was an open-source product. Later this year, Motorola built its first smart phone named Droid that runs on Android operating system.

Rumors were floating everywhere that Google cannot live in peace if it doesn’t build any hand-held device. Nexus One is the result of that rumor, and it is the first physical product released by Google, whose first journey had begun as a search engine on the internet.

Google Might Buy Twitter – Rumor Generated by the Twitter Founder

TechiePost — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 04:55:39 +0000

The search giant Google has a habit of acquiring those companies who start rocking the world; and apparently its new target is the most powerful micro-blogging community on the Earth — Twitter.

The news is shaking, though it isn’t officially announced by either company. But the rumors of Google acquiring Twitter have started out lately from the founder of twitter. That’s why we are putting much value into the rumor; which may soon become a reality.

Twitter-bird above the Google logo does not look bad anyway!

Jack Dorsey, the founder and chairman of Twitter, attended a panel session titled as “European Gang Live” at LeWeb 09 in Paris, where he was asked by journalists if the search giant Google was planning to buy his company. People there were expecting a straight “No”; but the founder instead replied saying:

“There have been no announcements.” (Telegraph online)

As soon as he answered the question in this kind of positive tone, he was repeatedly being questioned by others why he hadn’t denied the possibility of the deal between Google and Twitter. In reply, he just said that the answer had come to him.

He also said:

Twitter is focused on building a sustainable company.

That’s when the rumor among millions of twitter users and other technologists as well as end users has begun. Another rumor of Google interested in buying twitter had spread earlier this week, and when Google started indexing updates from twitter in a real-time basis, the rumor has just strengthened.

The founder has given wood onto the fire by not denying the possibility of the deal between his company and the largest “acquiring-company”, Google.

What do you think?

Do you think that Google would buy twitter soon? Do you believe it’s worth for Google to acquire twitter? Do you think Google, if acquires twitter, will put additional policies on the usage of twitter? Share with us whatever comes up after reading the news above.

Google Search Launches Real-Time Indexing Feature

TechiePost — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 10:25:01 +0000

Suddenly the web has become livelier and rapid. Most probably twitter has launched this rapidness. And this has reached the search giant, Google.

In an event held in California’s Computer History Museum, Google has said that it now indexes contents each second from over billions of websites on the internet. Indexing contents on a real-time basis will let people see real-time information on the search results. From now on, Google will index contents as soon as they are published online.

Google will also include search results from twitter statuses, as well as statuses from Facebook and MySpace profiles.

Google said that the feature is live now, but it may take several days to be available everywhere in the world. However, content indexing from Facebook & MySpace will not begin until the upcoming year.

65% of total internet surfers prefer Google for searching contents on the web.

Amit Singhal, on behalf of Google, said:

“Information is being created at a pace I have never seen before and in this environment, seconds matter.”

“There is so much information being generated out there that getting you relevant information is the key to the success of a product like this. It’s all about relevance, relevance, relevance.”

Google is the first among all the existing search engines that indexes information on a real-time basis. There will be no new result page for showing up real-time results. This feature will work on Google’s current result page, and will also work on smart phones such as iPhone and Android-based handsets.

Reaction to this new feature has been positive from across the blogosphere and the technology world. Most people believe that this is what they were in need of. Experts say that the new feature will make it almost impossible for Microsoft’s search engine Bing, which has recently signed a deal with Yahoo and paid to News Corporation to block Google search from its contents, to beat Google.

Days of Free News Are Going to be Over

TechiePost — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:01:14 +0000

Google says that it will soon start charging readers to read news from various publishers. Reader will have to pay the news publisher concerned for reading more than five articles on any given day. That means, online news content is going to be unavailable at no cost.

Publishers of news online and newspapers had urged Google to remove free access to online news articles because they were losing revenue from the news they bring. So far people are able to access news content for free hosted on Google news. According to reports by the British Broadcasting Corporation, some users have discovered that contents that need to be paid to be viewed are often available at no cost in Google. In a response to these complaints, Google has come up with a new solution that will remove free access to news contents as well as smile from most of the online non-paid news readers.

Less Differences existing between printed newspaper and online.

Google will let the publishers use its new program that will force readers to pay in order to get access to more than five contents on any given day. This means if a publisher uses this program, their content will be available on Google but under a barrier. A reader will be able to read through five contents a day. As soon as he clicks the sixth headline, he will be prompted to register/subscribe or will be redirected to the concerned publisher’s payment page.

Publishers were not so happy because they were not generating any revenue while Google was earning advertising revenue by providing contents for free.

The web is sharing mixed reaction on this context. Most people are not so happy to pay for reading news online, while experts say that it is a good idea.

Google Translator Update: Translate As You Type

TechiePost — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:03:17 +0000

We have no idea how many people around the world is being helped by one of the greatest services of Google, Google Translator. Happily, Google is constantly improving the performance of the translator tool by making it more user-friendly and easy to use.

Translate As You Type

Recently, Google has made some more updates to its translator tool. Now you can translate your text as you type. The old-fashioned “Translate” button still exists, but it has no use these days. Just type what you need to translate, Google Translator will auto-translate that for you.

Google Translator now translates as you type.

Read and Learn to Speak

Google has a new feature that will phonetically show the text in the translated language. As Google says in its official blog, if you want to speak in your translated chinese, now you can. All you need to do is click “Show romanization”. However, this feature is currently available for all non-Roman languages except for Hebrew, Arabic and Persian.

Listen and Learn to Speak

Google Translator can now also help you translate your tongue! No matter how it sounds like, you can listen to any English text. For those who want Google to read out any English text, just click the speaker icon.

Note: Speaker feature is for English language only; meaning that if you translate your Chinese language into English, you can listen to the English text.

Seems like Google is working hard to make the world even smaller by gradually removing the language barrier from all over the world. One day, we suppose, Google will be able to translate your speech and speak that in the translated language.

Google Celebrates Water on the Moon Changing its Logo

TechiePost — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:18:48 +0000

As announced by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a significant amount of water has been found on the moon after the intentional crash of Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite on October 9. At a midday press briefing held NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field near San Francisco, California; the project scientist Anthony Colaprete announced the discovery on behalf of NASA.

Since the news has been broken, everyone — especially the folks at NASA — is so much happy as this great discovery is supposed to open up the mysteries of solar system and the moon itself. The find was not just a little bit; instead, about a dozen, two-gallon bucketful water was discovered.

To spread the word, or maybe just to celebrate the success of the $79 million mission of NASA, Google changed its logo one more time with a combination of water and the moon which made the word “Google”.

Google has been great in celebrating special occasions as we’ve seen in early days. This is one more time Google changed their logo on a special occasion that happened pretty suddenly. This also lets us believe that Google homepage can be a great place to spread news in the shortest time; and Google can do that easily.

Needless to say, clicking on that logo used to lead the user to the search result page of the term “water on the moon”. We are looking forward to see what logo, and in which occasion, Google will use in the coming days.

Google Dashboard Lets You See What Google Has About You

TechiePost — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:23:14 +0000

Google launched a new service called “Google Dashboard” which lets you see what Google knows about you. The service is launched just to let users have total control over their privacy and usage of the services provided by the Google Inc.

The Search Giant said in a blog post on the launch of Google Dashboard:

In an effort to provide you with greater transparency and control over their own data, we’ve built the Google Dashboard. Designed to be simple and useful, the Dashboard summarizes data for each product that you use (when signed in to your account) and provides you direct links to control your personal settings.

Google Products

Google Dashboard shows the summary of data associated with a certain Google account you use to login on different Google services. Google users now have the ability to see what information they have provided to Google through various services such as Orkut, Google Profile, Docs, Calendar, etc. However, the number of services included in the dashboard is initially limited to 20. Google says it will add other services as soon as possible. If you are using any service beyond those 20 services, you will see a list of them at the bottom of the page.

Big analysts across the Internet world are showing mixed reactions on the launch of Google Dashboard. Some say that it is a great improvement; especially at a time when Google is critically criticized for privacy reasons. But, at the same time, other professionals are saying that the dashboard is still “disappointing” and Google needs to improve it a lot.

What is your reaction after getting all the Google services [you use] at a single page and a direct link to settings of them?

Mystery Google – Discover New Things on the Web

TechiePost — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 04:17:08 +0000

Google is the most popular and most used search engine of these days. Majority of internet surfers use Google to find out stuffs they want. Google often discloses what people searches for; mostly at the end of the year.

But now, with the help of the website named Mystery Google, you can easily find out what was the search query of the guy or girl who searched Google right before you did. Yes, that’s what Mystery Google is all about. You type your own search query in the search box, but in return, you will see the result of the previously searched query.

Mystery Google

By using this really-cool feature, you can discover new things on the web. You don’t know what else is available on the net. An unknown search term, which was entered by the previous searcher, will let you get to interesting new stuffs. Sometimes, you may just find out something worth reading.

When we checked out the site, we used the query “Technology News” in the query box of the Mystery Google. And in return, the result of “Why did he leave me?” was shown. So, we have found some extraordinary articles written on some possible reasons why a guy may leave his girlfriend!

Go to Mystery Google, type any query you want, hit Search, and discover new things on the Worldwide Web.

Share with us what you have discovered lately.

TechiePost » Google

German Govt. Recommends Alternative Browser to Internet Explorer

Have your Say

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Google Goes Tough in China

The Beginning

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Typing Tricks

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You Are Independent

Open Door to Apps

The BIG Thing: Price

Comments

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