Behind-the scenes @ Google

Google lauched MyMaps with a game (prize, not some new Google hardware product but a Nintendo Wii). Some employees got in on the act:

• The Googleplex: A photo essay on life at the Google headquarters in Mountain View

Oh, and they've also added live traffic reports - this is Miami.

Bytes · Apple isn't Green - Craigslist’s gay profits - GodTube

• Apple Inc. has the worst environmental policies among major electronics companies, according to Greenpeace.

• First placed Lenovo, who are Chinese, "offers takeback and recycling in all the countries where its products are sold," Greenpeace said. Lenovo also says how much e-waste it recycles as a percentage of sales.
  Greenpeace environmental scores

  1. Lenovo: 8
  2. Nokia: 7.3
  3. Sony/Ericsson: 7
  Dell: 7
  5. Samsung: 6.3
  Motorola: 6.3
  7. Fujitsu/Siemens: 6

  
  

  8. Hewlett-Packard: 5.6
  9, Acer: 5.3
  10. Toshiba: 4.3
  11. Sony: 4
  12. LG Electronics: 3.6
  Panasonic: 3.6
  14. Apple: 2.7
  
  
  · More about Apple's environmental record at Green My Apple.
  
  
• Microsoft has released a new mobile browser called Deepfish. Users are able to zoom in on the part of the page they want to read or click on.
  
  
• Fab Google Gadget (and general widget) World Sunlight Map by die.net, who also do one showing moon phases.
  
  
• Woolworths is the latest company to add user-generated content to it's website. They're using Reevoo to collect and publish reviews of many of the retailer's products including music, video and mobile phones. They say:
  

  We aim to publish all reviews – good and bad. However, we have to reject reviews with bad language, confusing or offensive content. So what they say, is what you see.

• Telegraph.co.uk have dropped Google Maps citing fears that they'll ad ads and start charging brands. Instead, they signed up to Rocket Map.
  
  
• Tagging has seen explosive growth as a locator for Web content according to Technorati report The State of the Live Web, April 2007.
  
  Blogging continues to grow exponentially. Japanese grew as the dominant language for posts — Farsi moved into the top 10 languages.
  
  
• Google released MyMaps, a point-and-click add-on for Google Maps, aimed at a mass market. The product mimics Platial, who responded thus on their blog:

  "While no entrepreneur is excited about potentially competing with Google, it had to happen… There are a number of friend/foe relationships that spring up when you have alliances and markets with rapidly evolving needs. Our business will be disrupted too in some ways but it was time."

  MyMaps doesn't match Platial functionality though - you can't use it to embed maps in your site for example.
  
  
• In another new move there's Google Voice Local Search, which offers a free '411' (local information) phone service.
  
  
• Stephen Bagg exposes Craiglist's 'Dirty Little Secret' on his blog.
  
  Turns out that by far the most popular categories are men-seeking-women etc. with some interesting breakdowns by category by city.

  "But that’s not the entire story. A deeper look into the metrics reveals a real power group behind Craigslist’s impressive numbers: men seeking men. Even though they only enjoy Top 5 status in two cities by visitor volume, each month these Craigslist constituents view over 50% more pages and 20 more minutes on average searching these posts than any others – from apartment rentals to items for baby."

  
  
• Tony Blair has launched a YouTube channel.
  
  
• ReleMed is a new search engine for PubMed, the largest database of medical literature, which assigns relevance to results in addition to just looking for keywords.
  
  
• After the Evangelical Christian version of Wikipedia comes their version of YouTube. GodTube, however, The Times reports, has been attracting the most viewers for the unintentionally hilarious videos.

  In one of the website’s most-watched videos, Ray Comfort, a New Zealand-born evangelist who lives in California, employs a banana to demonstrate the genius of God’s creation.
  
  “Notice how gracefully it fits in the human hand,” declares Comfort. “The maker of the banana, almighty God, has made it with a nonslip surface.”
  
  Comfort goes on for several minutes, seemingly unaware of the dangers of double-entendre in his reverent handling of the banana.

High res Brum at last

• Amongst new high-resolution photo coverage updates for Google Earth for England are:
  

  Northamptonshire, Nottingshire, Berkshire, Peakdistrict, Birmingham (where the new developments like Selfridge's were absent), Greater Manchester, Avon, Gloucestershire, and Lincolnshire.

  Also included were Sydney Harbour and the Matterhorn.
  
  
• Google Earth Blog
  

Spam? Where art thou?

Blogger's little Bot is telling me it suspects my blog might be Spam.

Until a human can have a look it's making me enter Word Verification every time I edit something or post (until Tuesday I s'pose).

So where are the tell-tale signs of Spam on my blog I'm wondering?

How can you tell?

-------------

Postscript:

Just received (Monday, day earlier than I thought)

Hello,

Your blog has been reviewed, verified, and cleared for regular use so that it will no longer appear as potential spam. If you sign out of Blogger and sign back in again, you should be able to post as normal. Thanks for your patience, and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

Sincerely,
The Blogger Team

Nothing as to why but a quick scan of other blogs suggest either images and links were the key thing alerting the algorithm (but I'll never really know, OR that someone 'alerted' them :{

Tesco's so-called accessibility

tesco.com has made something of how accessible it is — and with good reason, it is the best UK Supermarket website.

It's competitors have quite rightly been criticised for their lack of effort (although, tesco.com's last redesign and how it happened caused negative changes to it's accessibility according to some experts).

But what is the point of creating an 'accessible' website if people can't buy anything? This is the case for up to ten million British people with basic bank accounts.

BBC Radio Four's MoneyBox reports [ Listen to this item (RealAudio) ] that several years after first alerting Tesco, they are still refusing to accept payments using Visa's Electron card.

Back in 2005, the program reported that due to the Halifax's decision to switch basic bank account customers to Electron, they could no longer use it with a host of retailers such as Boots, M&S, B&Q, Argos - and Tesco. (Sainsbury + Asda do take Electron).

The Halifax's response was that 'as only 20,000 Cardcash customers regularly shop online, it does not consider this to be a huge problem'.

The Government is encouraging, and in some cases forcing, people to open basic bank accounts.

Because of the way supermarkets have carved up the country, many people do not have a choice — they have to use Tesco.

What this means, MoneyBox reported, is that car-less disabled people are 'forced to ask others to pay on their behalf' for online shopping with Tesco.

Said one daughter of her housebound mother, "it robs her of her independence".

So we have people who are doing exactly what the Government wants:

• they are using online services
• they don't drive
• they run a basic bank account

and still they can't get anywhere.

Tesco does not have an explanation as to why they dont take Electron payments. Since these are debit cards, there is even less reason why they wouldn't take them.

MoneyBox characterised their attitude as "unexplained unwillingness".

They also noted that Tesco's press people now realise that there is no reason why they can't take Electron payments, but also that they've had few complaints.

Every little helps!

Here's your chance to do something — contact Tesco and tell them to start accepting Electron (they could do this TODAY).

Net is 38 years old today

Wired

Tony Long

1969: The publication of the first “request for comments,” or RFC, documents paves the way for the birth of the internet.

The Internet has a diameter of about 10,000 pookies. Here's a layout showing the major ISPs.

April 7 is often cited as a symbolic birth date of the net because the RFC memoranda contain research, proposals and methodologies applicable to internet technology. RFC documents provide a way for engineers and others to kick around new ideas in a public forum; sometimes, these ideas are adopted as new standards by the Internet Engineering Task Force.

One interesting aspect of the RFC is that each document is issued a unique serial number. An individual paper cannot be overwritten; rather, updates or corrections are submitted on a separate RFC. The result is an ongoing historical record of the evolution of internet standards.

When it comes to the birth of the net, Jan. 1, 1983, also has its supporters. On that date, the National Science Foundation’s university network backbone, a precursor to the World Wide Web, became operational.

• Hobbes' Internet Timeline

• The first ARPANET link was established between the University of California, Los Angeles and the Stanford Research Institute on 21 November 1969.

Bytes · Big easy smokes Google - Google's free website optimizer - Ask.com's strategy

• Google has updated, sorry expedited, new maps of New Orleans after the Katrina 'airbrushing' incident, which led to questions in the US Congress.
  
  
• It's launched a free Website Optimizer.
  
  
• GeoIQ have released a service for generating heat maps on top of Google Maps.
  
  
• Ask.com has launched an obscure, anti-Google campaign [TV Ad link]
  
  Apparently I've seen it but I can't recall it at all (we seem to have a surfeit of obscure. weird ads at the moment - consequently less impact). Can't recall seeing anyone handing our Ask buttons in 'Che Guevara-like dress' either. They even plastered the slogan "free the information" onto the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey and have you seen any coverage?
  
  The campaign was described as 'risky' by the Wall Street Journal, primarily because it isn't clearly branded and web users don't like being duped. The landing site isn't clearly branded either.
  
  Such is Google's domination, especially in the UK, that Ask admit that they have "little to lose" despite.

Q&A With Ask.com's Gary Price

• Ask's strategy does seem to chime with the current suspicious (paranoid?) Zeitgeist around Google. On John Batelle's Blog, he was corrected on what Google new Mac version of Google Desktop actually does:
  

  John, I'm with you on the fear that big organizations, however well intentioned, will ultimately abuse the trust placed in them. Since your clickstream, search history, credit record, phone calls and emails all traverse corporate - or government-controlled - networks, they're vulnerable.
  
  But in the case of Google Desktop, this product sends no data to Google unless you specifically request it to. You can't accidentally send your hard-disk contents, or even an index of your PC, to Google.
  
  From the Google Desktop Privacy FAQ:
  1. Does Google Desktop share the contents of my computer with anyone?
  No. Your Google Desktop index and copies of your files are currently stored only on your computer.
  2. What does Google Desktop do with the information on my computer?
  Google Desktop stores copies of the items it finds on your computer's hard drive ... Your Google Desktop index and copies are currently stored only on your computer ...
  (Though that word "currently" makes it sound like it may not always be true!)

Chimp-o-matic + other slow widgets

Hmmm..

Had to lose yet another widget..

Chimp-o-matic, which served up hot,delicious Bush-isms ...

.. only tooo .. sl.. oo.. ww.. l .. yyy . . .

and when the rest of your sidebar is a-awaiting on it, well I'm sorry hunny but bye ...

Absolutely fabulous widget.. as was World WebCams (weep) ...

Lesson: build a widget, better make sure you can cope when it gets taken up (or why bother really?).

• RyanRusson.com
• Catfood Software

Fashion and The Noose

Before everyone gets too carried away with Iran's propaganda coup



Just remember that they execute gay teenagers in public.

United States v. Gary McKinnon

This is appalling.

Hacker faces US justice after extradition appeal fails


· Cyber-terrorism charges could lead to life in prison
· Judges express distaste for American handling of case

Duncan Campbell
Wednesday April 4, 2007
The Guardian

The British computer hacker who spectacularly cracked the Pentagon system and embarrassed the American defence establishment now faces extradition to the United States, where a prosecutor has said he would like to see him "fry".

<>

The judges said in their ruling that they were unhappy with the US handling of the case: "We make no secret of the fact that we view with a degree of distaste the way in which the American authorities are alleged to have approached the plea bargain negotiations."

He has a website - thankfully linked from by The Guardian.

Wikipedia entry

McKinnon has admitted in many public statements to unauthorised access of computer systems in the United States including those mentioned in the United States indictment. He claims his motivation, drawn from a statement made before the Washington Press Club on May 9, 2001 by a group of high level ex-military and civilian sources known as "The Disclosure Project", was to find evidence of UFOs, antigravity technology, and the government suppression of "Free Energy", all of which he claims to have proven through his actions.^[7]

In his interview with the BBC he also claimed that "The Disclosure Project" says there is "extra-terrestrial and origin and [they've] captured spacecraft and reverse engineered it." He also claimed to have downloaded a low-resolution image of "something not man-made" and "cigar shaped" floating above the northern hemisphere. He said that unfortunately he did not manage to get a screenshot or recording of the image because he was "bedazzled" to see the image, could not remember the capture function in the software RemotelyAnywhere, and that he was "cut off" from his connection.^[8]