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24 Oct 2010 10:48

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Tech: Google apologizes (profusely) for Street View data scraping

  • We work hard at Google to earn your trust, and we’re acutely aware that we failed badly here.
  • Google Senior VP of Engineering and Research Alan Eustace • Revealing what the company did in the wake of Google Street View’s accidental wi-fi snooping in Europe. (Lots of training, lots of policy changes.) He also admitted, though, that (while most of what they grabbed were data fragments) the company did in fact grab entire e-mails and other private information. “We are mortified by what happened,” Eustace writes, but says that they hope that the policy changes will prevent it from happening again. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

21 Oct 2010 15:26

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Biz: Based on their accounting, Google has a new mantra: “Don’t Pay Taxes”

  • 35% the current corporate tax rate in the United States
  • 2.4% the amount Google pays, thanks to fancy accounting source
  • » How do they do it? Well, the search giant uses income-shifting methods referred to by lawyers as the “Double Irish” and the “Dutch Sandwich,” which sound like endlessly fascinating names for avoiding taxes. It involves a lot of money-shifting between various countries – Ireland, Bermuda, The Netherlands. But the end result saved Google $3.1 billion in taxes in the last three years, which probably helps them afford investing in self-driving cars and stuff.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Oct 2010 20:57

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Biz, Tech: Based on its profits, Google’s freewheeling spending warranted

  • $2.17 the size of Google’s profits this quarter
  • 25% boost in Google’s overall revenues last quarter – not bad, considering all that extracurricular spending
  • 9% jump in stock price on the news; put that in your self-driving car’s tailpipe and smoke it source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

12 Oct 2010 10:44

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Tech: From self-driving cars to wind farms: Google’s latest project

  • $200
    million     the amount Google plans to initially invest in the $5 billion renewable energy project
  • 1.9
    million     the number of homes in the mid-Atlantic that will directly benefit from the massive project source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Oct 2010 15:36

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Tech: Yakov Smirnoff wants royalties: In Google’s future, car drives you

  • See that car in the middle with the weird crap on top of it? Well, we’re gonna let you in on a secret: Nobody is driving it. No person, that is. That car is being driven by Google’s artificial intelligence, which can detect cars and traffic patterns without any trouble. There was only one accident in the various tests, and it wasn’t even caused by Google’s car (it was rear-ended). The fuel they’re using? Ed Begley Jr.’s sense of self-satisfaction. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

30 Sep 2010 20:26

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Tech: WebP: Google wants to upgrade, shrink your JPGs for some reason

  • What the heck is this? It’s Google’s attempt to replace the venerable JPEG format on the Web with something else. Nobody supports this format at the moment, so it’s a halfway-between PNG, but you get the idea, right? Think of this as an image-only extension of their already-well-regarded WebM open-source HTML5 video format. We like the idea behind it and think the Web could use an upgrade from JPEG, but these things load very slowly on Chrome right now. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

21 Sep 2010 21:14

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World: Google’s transparency map: The U.S. firmly at the top, China missing

  • We appreciate Google doing this. Letting people know how governments are censoring or looking into content is important for a free society. However, we do find China’s entry very disappointing. Here’s all it says: “Chinese officials consider censorship demands to be state secrets, so we cannot disclose that information at this time.” That said, take a look at how the U.S. compares to every other country. They’re way ahead of everyone else. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

15 Sep 2010 20:39

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Tech: Google engineer fired for being really creepy and stuff

  • creepy A Google employee was fired for reportedly breaking the company’s internal privacy policy. Which is pretty darn creepy.
  • creepier According to Gawker, he was hacking into the Gmail and Google Voice accounts OF CHILDREN HE KNEW. Yikes. source
  • » One caveat: It appears the abuses weren’t sexual in nature (because we know that’s what you were thinking.) Rather, this was a 27-year-old guy hanging around with kids half his age, because that’s perfectly normal and won’t raise any eyebrows. It appears the abuses were him just showing off to the kids more than anything.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

15 Sep 2010 11:01

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Tech: Eric Schmidt: Google’s doing social integration, not “Google Me”

  • Everybody has convinced themselves that there’s some huge project about to get announced next week. And I can assure you that’s not the case.
  • Google CEO Eric Schmidt • Regarding the rumored launch of “Google Me,” which is expected to be a Facebook killer. But it may not be that. Rather, Schmidt makes it sound like a full-site integration of social features akin to Facebook’s “Instant Personalization.” “If you think about it, it’s obvious,” Schmidt continued. “With your permission, knowing more about who your friends are, we can provide more tailored recommendations. Search quality can get better.” So, in other words, a actually useful Google Friend Connect. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

11 Sep 2010 14:01

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Tech: Android making dramatic inroads in smartphone share

  • 3.9% Android’s worldwide market share at the end of 2009
  • 17.7% Android’s projected market share by late 2010 source
  • » And it gets better: Slowly but surely, Android is gunning for the 900-pound gorilla in the market, RIM. In the most recent quarter, Android had sold 27 percent of all smartphones in the past six months, topping iPhone’s 23 percent share and closing in on BlackBerry’s 33 percent share. Of course, as nobody ever notes in any of these articles – ever – Google offers up their OS for free and sells it on a variety of models sold by numerous companies. To compare, Apple sells two iPhone models for high margins. Of course Google’s going to own the market.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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