You know those little fields you have to fill out anytime you want to write a comment on a blog and or social media site? The company that provides those little fields with the squiggly text is reCAPTCHA, and the service helps immensely to help prevent spam. Today Google has announced that they have acquired reCAPTCHA but not only for the spam prevention services they provide but also to apply their technology to Google Books.
The distorted text you see in CAPTCHA text boxes are scanned from old newspapers and magazines, making them very hard for computers to recognize. It is this technology called Optical Character Recognition (OCR), that Google would like to apply to Google Books. Google stated “Improving the availability and accessibility of all the information on the Internet is really important to us, so we’re looking forward to advancing this technology with the reCAPTCHA team.”
Google also plans to use the OCR technology to their news achieves as well. The company hopes to better improve the scanning process of Google Books, and news immensely with reCAPTCHA.
Google’s popular Google Docs, has received a much needed upgrade. It comes in the form of a language translator that has just been added to the application today. With the new feature you will be able to translate any Google doc into any of 42 languages.
If you enter the tools menu of Google Docs, and then click the “Translate Document,” there will be a drop down of the various languages you can choose. Once you click the language you would like to use, Google Docs will automatically translate your text. You will be able to save your doc in the translated version, or save it as a separate doc so you can have two docs in different translations.
The new feature was created in consideration to families who use more than a single language. Rita Chen, a Product Manager Intern used her family as an example. Rita stated that “My cousin is in first grade and sometimes she writes short stories for class. I try to share the stories with her grandparents, but because Japanese is their first language and they don’t speak English very well, it’s been tough.”
In a decision that comes as little surprise, Eric Schmidt has resigned from Apple’s board. Schmidt sat as a board member for Apple as well as Google, and due to the growing conflict between the two companies Apple felt best he resign. This decision comes shortly after the FCC made inquiries into why Apple denied the Google Voice application for its iPhone App Store.
“Eric has been an excellent Board member for Apple, investing his valuable time, talent, passion and wisdom to help make Apple successful,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Unfortunately, as Google enters more of Apple’s core businesses, with Android and now Chrome OS, Eric’s effectiveness as an Apple Board member will be significantly diminished, since he will have to recuse himself from even larger portions of our meetings due to potential conflicts of interest. Therefore, we have mutually decided that now is the right time for Eric to resign his position on Apple’s Board.”
Schmidt held his position at Apple since 2006, and many people believed that his resignation was inevitable. Apple and Google continue to compete within the Internet and mobile markets. From the search engine battle between Safari and Chrome, to the competition on the mobile front between the Apple iPhoneGoogle Android, the two companies have become major rivals. operating system and
Yesterday, Google hoped to appeal to businesses by removing the ‘Beta’ label from Google Apps. Hours later, Google dropped a nuclear bomb on Microsoft, via its official blog, by announcing its plans to release a Google Chrome Operating System in the second half of 2010.
Without surprise, Google is aiming to solve problems associated with Microsoft Windows by the release of Google Chrome OS. The following excerpt from Google’s blog entry details some features in the new OS:
“Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.”
Google Chrome will run within a windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. Google Chrome OS will also be open-source, but Google does not clarify whether that means the OS will be free.
So let’s break this down: fast, secure, simple, free?, web-oriented and….possibly everything Windows is not? Or is Microsoft Windows as synonymous to the OS as Google is synonymous to search? Will Microsoft have the advantage of releasing the new Windows 7 before Google releases Google Chrome OS? More importantly, will the majority of netbook users, Google’s initial target market, already have Windows 7 running before the official release of Google Chrome OS?
Today, Google announced it is finally peeling the ‘Beta’ label off Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and GTalk.
Gmail, one of the leading email services, was launched 5 years ago. Google Apps suite, which includes Gmail, Docs, Calendar, and more, is used by nearly 2 million companies worldwide. Google hopes to make Google Apps more appealing to enterprises, explains Dan Olds, principal analyst with the Gabriel Consulting Group, “Taking the beta tag off of Google Apps is kind of like taking the training wheels off of your kid’s bike. If there were problems, Google could always fall back on the ‘but it’s a beta’ line either explicitly or implicitly. But now that the apps are fully baked they don’t have that excuse anymore and will be held to a higher standard.”
Google also introduced two new features to Gmail for its enterprise customers today: email delegation, which allows administrative assistants to send e-mail on others’ behalf, and an email retention tool that lets companies automatically purge old e-mails after a certain period of time.
Google assures App users that the removal of the ‘Beta’ label in no way means that the company will stop innovating, updating, and adding new features to its Google Apps services.
An interesting article appeared in Friday’s - 11/14/08Washington Post regarding President Elect Barack Obama’s plan to appoint the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer.
According to Obama’s Website this person would help “to make government work better” by helping federal agencies use technology. It has not been determined whether this person would hold a Cabinet level position or just an administrative slot.
Another question is whether the potential CTO would be an executive from the tech sector or someone currently in the Government.
Some have mentioned current Google CEO Eric Schmidt (he has already stated he is not interested) or Vint Cerf, who is the ‘Chief Internet Evangelist’ at Google – either of these choices would have likely caused a storm anyway since Google has a major stake in how the government approaches ‘net neutrality’ and regulates broadband in general. Here is Google’s guide on Net Neutrality: http://www.google.com/help/netneutrality.html
Over the past two years Google has greatly increased its lobbying presence in D.C. With the new administration, it will be interesting to see how complex issues like ‘net neutrality’ (especially in Google’s case) are handled.
No matter what, the focus on technology in general and the possibility of appointing someone todevote more focus on how technology can help make things more efficient amongst the various government agencies seems like a good move for any administration.
Yang Giving Up the Good Fight and the Fate of Yahoo!
In Tuesday’s – 11/18/08 Wall Street Journal, it was reported that Yahoo’s co-founder will be stepping down after they find a replacement. Apparently Mr. Yang will stay on the board and remain a senior executive within Yahoo. With the rejection of the earlier Microsoft offer and now its co-founder about to step aside - the fate of Yahoo in general and whether it will remain an independent company remains unclear.
Of course the announcement on November 5, 2008 surely didn’t help (or the final nail in coffin) when Google decided to abandon their advertising partnership with Yahoo due to pending antitrust challenges by the Government. With Google essentially turning its back on Yahoo by backing away from their advertising partnership - everyone immediately speculated that Yahoo was back in play with Microsoft.
What Could Have Been
So the irony. . . because of Google’s move, the pressure on Yahoo is greater than ever for them to renew talks with Microsoft and sadly. . . get much less than the $33 per share that Microsoft had offered in May 2008.
A shame to Yahoo shareholders when you consider Yahoo’s stock as I type this is on 11/18/08 is at $11.71 per share. And, no doubt Yang has heard the roar for months from investors who kept saying he should not be the one to lead Yahoo – especially since only 66% of shareholders agreed he should stay in his current position. So, at this point – the Board is considering going with Susan Decker, Yahoo’s current president but some investors have said her former role as Yahoo’s Chief Financial Officer, still does give her enough experience to weather Yahoo’s uncertain future.
Timing is Everything
With the current economic environment and new people soon to be appointed in antitrust roles within the Government, the on-again-off-again negotiations with Microsoft remain in question. This past summer Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer mostly blamed Yang for the companies’ inability to draft an agreement. So, at this point who knows what will happen - no matter what – whether it was its partnership with Google or Yahoo being acquired by Microsoft, there will be less competition in the Internet advertising arena.
Google always trying to stay one step ahead of the game is now talking about taking their data centers where no one else dares too… the sea! Google, in 2007 patented the first sea data center, and is not talking about moving it’s infrastructure from Sunny California for a series of barges on the sea.
The Plan
Google will utilize the oceanic movements to create its own electricity to run the new data center; and also plans on using the water below for cooling the massive center of modern technologies.
The data center would be encapsulated on a large barge (say that three times fast) and would have several electricity generating snakes behind it capturing movement from the ocean. These wave-generating electric snakes have been in testing for sometime, below you can find a video on how they work. The most famous is Pelamis, which is being developed by a Scottish company. The Google model would work shockingly similar and would help sustain the massive electric needs of the new venture.
Along with electricity savings, Google would also benefit from the “free-sea” adventure by eliminating property taxes from their bottom line. With football fields worth of servers on land, after moving these off to the high seas Google will yet again gain massive amounts of money back!
Google has yet to mention when we can expect to see this project finished or even under way, however, one thing we can be certain of, is that Google has enough funds and technology to pull this off. If everything goes to plan we may see a whole new wave of technology companies taking their data centers to high seas in hopes of cutting costs.
Plausibility?
Many people are still skeptical (rightly so) about the new data center. Among those are environmentalists who fear the massive amounts of heat from the server cooling system would increase the temperature of the sea and effect the wild life below; still others are worried about the amount of pollution let off into the sea from the project. There is a lot at stake here if Google can make it work, but still the largest obstacle will be stabilizing the barge against hurricanes, tsunamis, and other oceanic forces that could sink the data center to an early death.
