Readaloo

Also available: rating information from the same business review sites that appear in Google Maps search results. So show me the best-rated coffee shop within a mile of me that's described as dog-friendly in user reviews. That would be awesome.

How it Might Be Used

When Google first began discussing the Places API in April, we discussed as an example a pizza restaurant that edited its delivery area on Google and then made that information available to apps that pinged the API for information.

Those kinds of examples are less likely to be implemented at first, since the first developers being allowed access to the API are people building check-in apps. But the possibilities beyond checking in are many and diverse.

Just as Google Maps made it easy for any developer to add a map and display location, the Places API could make it easy for any developer to search up to date information about any location for their application. At least that's what seems to be possible. The Terms of Service favoring search and prohibiting caching may prove frustratingly prohibitive.

That data may be free, but it will come at the expense of integrating with Google's Adsense platform. "Note that in order to be issued credentials for this service," the API documentation reads, "you must provide a valid Adsense publisher id that matches the Google account with which you are currently logged in." That's pretty smart of Google and maybe a little nefarious, but someone's got to pay the bills.

Why is Location so Hot?

Why is location becoming such a hot commodity? From one perspective, the proliferation of smartphones and the development of easy-to-use, compelling applications like Foursquare and MyTown are making it easier than ever for consumers to publish and leverage information about their location. Consumers want to do that for a variety of reasons, from recording their travel history to letting family know where they are to bragging about the hip places they hang out.

For developers, location data is a whole new world to pivot on when looking at feeds of user activity data. Our online activity has to date gone on in the placeless ether. Applications could offer features, highlight content or make recommendations based on things like our interests and social connections - but now any of that and more can be sorted by location. That's a very potent column to add to any spreadsheet, too. We're just beginning to see what all the recombinations of these types of data can look like.

It's an exciting new location-based world, and much of it may be powered by the Google Places API.

Google headquarters in Mountain View, California. AP

U.S. government grants Google first security certificate for cloud computing bundle

Google is launching a new tool on Monday that lets anyone create an app for Android phones.

Google App Inventor claims to enable non-coders to develop complete, working Android   apps by connecting a series of “blocks.” Google has been testing App Inventor in schools for a year, reports The New York Times. At the time of writing, App Inventor is only available to those who apply via a form.

It’s a smart concept. Not only is the Android Market an open platform for developers (with no approval process, a la Apple’s App Store), but now we’ll likely see a vast array of specialized apps built by non-developers. This could radically increase the volume of apps in the Market versus the App Store.

The expansion may, of course, come at the cost of quality. We’ll see thousands of new Android apps, but will they be of a “cookie cutter” nature, offering very little value? There is, however, an upside in the long term: If App Inventor is so simple that schoolchildren can make apps, some those same children will soon become coders themselves and perhaps choose to develop apps for Android rather than iOS.

Google and Apple are currently in a heated battle to win the hearts and minds of developers. Google, it seems, wants to win over the non-developers too.

What do you think? Is App Inventor a winning play on Google’s part?

According to a blog post last May by Google, a leftover piece of code made it into code used in Google's Street View cars, which collected not only the intended SSID and Mac Addresses, but also wifi payload data. This meant that Google inadvertently collected information sent over unsecured wireless networks as it took pictures and other information. Already, the company has been sued and faced multiple investigations. Now, Consumer Watchdog is calling for another investigation, saying that "Congress owes Americans action."

The group "sent technicians with equipment similar to that used by Google to five members' homes depicted on Street View to see if there were open WiFi networks that Google could have tapped into and recorded communications." Apparently, they found that Representative Jane Harman of California - chair of the Intelligence Subcommittee of the Homeland Security Committee - was among a group of nearly 20 high level government officials whose home networks "could have been breached by Google."

John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog told the BBC that the group thinks "the Google Wi-Spy effort is one of the biggest wire tapping scandals in US history" and that its purpose "was to show that members of Congress are targets just as much as every other citizen in the land".

A better purpose, it would seem, would be to show that government officials entrusted with issues of national security are apparently broadcasting information out to the public over unencrypted networks - perhaps this merits an investigation.

Entertainment companies may find it harder to keep movie and TV show clips from circulating for free online after a federal judge on Wednesday threw out Viacom's hotly contested $1 billion copyright infringement suit against Google's YouTube.

U.S. District Court Judge Louis Stanton said that the popular video website could not be held responsible when people post clips from productions such as Viacom's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report without the entertainment giant's approval.

He rejected Viacom's argument that YouTube's business model depended on a sleight of hand: It attracts millions of visitors who want to see hit entertainment for free. Viacom said the site ensures that there's plenty to see, without paying a license fee, by making it easy for users to post clips and hard for copyright owners to keep track of those posted without permission.

Every minute of the day, people post 24 hours' worth of videos to YouTube, the ruling noted.

But Stanton said that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act includes a "safe harbor" provision. It was designed to relieve websites from the burden of checking user-generated material before it's posted.

Even at YouTube, where lots of people violate the law, "mere knowledge of the prevalence of (copyright violations) in general is not enough" to make the site liable, Stanton said.

He also noted that the current system can work well. For example, on Feb. 2, 2007, Viacom identified 100,000 videos that it said violated its copyrights. By the next day, "YouTube had removed virtually all of them," the judge said.

Viacom says it will appeal the ruling "as soon as possible."

The company added, in a statement, that the ruling is "fundamentally flawed and contrary to the language of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the intent of Congress and the views of the Supreme Court."

Other entertainment giants — including Disney, NBC Universal and Time Warner— as well as music publishers ASCAP and BMI wrote briefs supporting Viacom.

But Google general counsel Kent Walker, in a blog posting, said the decision "is an important victory not just for us, but also for the billions of people around the world who use the Web to communicate and share experiences."

Groups that want to promote widespread Internet use also applauded the ruling, saying that most websites don't have the resources to determine whether user-supplied videos violate the law.

"As the law now stands, prompt compliance with take-down notices shields an online service provider from liability," says Sherwin Siy, deputy legal director of Public Knowledge, an activist group that encourages citizen access to media.

“Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one.” So began the “letter from the founders” penned by Sergey Brin and Larry Page in the company’s securities registration form in 2004. Despite ever-increasing commercial success since that date, Brin and Page have kept to their word.

Google is an unconventional company with a huge stake in our online lives. It is a source of fascination for many, including us, but what really happens in the Googleplex? And what cool factoids and stats exist from the company’s relatively short past?

Here we bring you 10 fun facts about Google to quench our own thirst for Google knowledge as well as hopefully offer you a distracting diversion from your daily life.

1. The First Google Doodle

Google’s famous homepage “Doodles” (the changing Google logo graphics) are well known and enjoyed by millions around the world as a way to mark an event or anniversary. But did you know that the very first Google Doodle was designed as a kind of “out of office” message?

In 1998 Brin and Page took the weekend off to go the Burning Man festival in Nevada. The Burning Man doodle (shown above), was designed by the Google guys and added to the homepage to let their users know they were out of office and couldn’t fix technical issues like a server crash.

2. Interesting Figures from the Google IPO

While the initial price for Google’s stock at its Initial Public Offering in August 2004 is an interesting stat in itself, there’s more to the story. The opening price for Google’s stock was $85 per share. At the time of writing, the stock price was $483 but has soared as high as $600 in the past year, making GOOG a rather nice investment for many.

A bonus factoid from Google’s IPO process is the value Google stated it hoped to raise on its S-1 form — as much as $2,718,281,828. It may just look like a string of numbers to non-mathletes, but 2,718,281,828 is actually the first ten digits of the mathematical constant ““e”,” showing that even as their company was planning to go public, the Google guys could still geek out with a bit of numerical humor.

3. The First Google Storage Was Made From LEGO

As proud hosts to Google back when it was still a research project, and known as “BackRub,” here Stanford now showcases the original Google storage from way back in 1996. It’s made up of a whopping 40 GB (less than a modern iPod) and it’s made from, as fans of the building bricks will be delighted to see, LEGO. It even hash funny mini-figures on the top.

Legend has it that the reason for the LEGO construction was that the Google guys needed an easily expandable, and cheap way to house 10 4 GB hard drives, and LEGO fit the bill. Whether the primary colors of the bricks used were the hues that went on to inspire the Google logo’s design is up for debate, but we’d guess it wasn’t just a coincidence.

4. Google’s First Ever Tweet

Google’s first ever Twitter post was as satisfyingly geeky as you could hope for. The message, sent in February 2009, reads “I’m 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101100 01110101 01100011 01101011 01111001 00001010.”

For anyone not fluent in binary, here’s a hint — it’s a well known phrase from the company’s homepage. Got it? Yep, it reads: “I’m feeling lucky.”

5. Google Rents Goats

This one isn’t actually one of Google’s infamous April Fools’ Day jokes: Google rents out goats. Yes you read that right. It rents goats from a company called California Grazing to help cut down the amount of weeds and brush at Google HQ.

The operation of 200 goats (plus herder and a border collie) is kind to the environment, and as Google puts it: “A lot cuter to watch than lawn mowers.”

6. Google’s Impact on Language

While you’d think the news that the Merriam-Webster and Oxford English Dictionary adding “google” as a verb to their lexicons in 2006 would thrill the search engine, Google was actually none too pleased with the development.

“We’d like to make clear that you should please only use ‘Google’ when you’re actually referring to Google Inc. and our services,” the company wrote in a blog post at the time.

The rationale behind the semantic displeasure was that Google had “a brand to protect,” and feared Google would “slip from trademarked status into common usage.” Now, four years later, we have to say Google was fighting a losing battle — just ‘google it.’

However, we’ve found some other Google-themed linguistic delights for you — a Google staffer is commonly referred to as a “Googler,” while a new team member joins as a “Noogler.” Nooglers also used to wear a colorful hat with a spinner on top. According to a former employee, those hats are now pretty scarce in some offices, instead: “Every Noogler gets a yellow smiley balloon and a nameplate.”

7. Google Is Dog-Friendly

Google is a super dog-friendly company. It proudly names “company dogs,” like Yoshka (described as a “free-range Leonberger”) pictured above. Yoshka accompanies Urs Holzle, senior VP operations and Google Fellow to the Googleplex. Less senior staff are also allowed to bring their dogs to the office.

According to Google’s “Dog Policy”, one indiscretion too many on the Google carpets, or aggressive behavior, means Lassie will have to stay at home in the future. Strong bladdered and friendly canines are more than welcome across the campus.

Unfortunately, cats are not quite as welcome. Here’s an excerpt taken directly from Google’s Code of Conduct: “Google’s affection for our canine friends is an integral facet of our corporate culture. We like cats, but we’re a dog company, so as a general rule we feel cats visiting our offices would be fairly stressed out.”

8. Google’s First Ever “Company Snack” Was Swedish Fish

Back in February, 1999, the chewy candy known as “Swedish Fish” became the first ever company snack (not counting beverages) that was ordered into the Google office.

Although a relatively small event, it has led to big things. Google is infamous in the industry for treating its employees to not just free drinks and snacks on tap, but full-on gourmet meals, three times a day at a plethora of on-site cafes and eateries, as well as regular BBQs during the summer.

Brin and Page have been quoted in the past as saying no Googler should have to go more than 100 feet for food, leading to snack-filled “microkitchens” that are liberally dotted around the Google offices.

In fact, the free food is said to be so tempting that Googlers risk the “Google 15,” similar to the “Freshman 15,” where they pile on weight soon after joining the company. Good thing they also have a Google gym.

Backing this up, here’s a stat from Google — “Bay Area Googlers consumed approximately 5,500 pounds of handmade chocolates from the snack bins in the microkitchens in 2007.” Wow.

9. The Google Logo Was Not Centered Until 2001

Google’s famously sparse homepage is considered a classic design in the online world. The Google logo, however, wasn’t actually centered on the page until March 31, 2001. As early users will remember, the homepage had a bias to the left-hand side, and even earlier — back in 1998 — Google sported a Yahoo-style exclamation mark.

10. Google Has a Company Dinosaur

By all accounts, there are many wondrous sights to be seen at the Googleplex, but one of the most arresting is surely the gigantic T-Rex skeleton — nicknamed “Stan” after a “real” dino found nearby — that looms menacingly at Googlers in Mountain View.

Joining Stan in the unique campus decorations is a scale replica of the SpaceShipOne, enormous Android-themed models, pink flamingos, a large LEGO man, Google-colored phone boxes and grown-up size ball pits. One thing seems for sure — just like the company itself — life at the Googleplex must be far from dull.

The world's largest search engine is asking U.S. and European governments to put more pressure on China to stop censoring the Internet.

Google's top attorney, David Drummond, described the practice as an unfair barrier to free trade and said Western governments should defend the flow of information the same way they do products. The West has complained to the World Trade Organization that China sells its goods below cost and undermines competitors.

He said government talks are "the only way that it's going to change, that this tide of censorship or this rising censorship is going to be arrested."

Google withdrew from mainland China and stopped self-censoring searches in late March after a cyberattack compromised Google security. Google searches from China now go through Hong Kong.

"Censorship, in addition to being a human-rights problem, is a trade barrier," Drummond said. "If you look at what China does — the censorship, of course, is for political purposes, but it is also used as a way of keeping multinational companies disadvantaged in the market."

"It should be obvious that the Internet sector is very important to the West and so we should be working on seeing that that kind of trade is protected," he said.

Drummond did not say if he wanted the U.S. to make a case with the WTO, which could give the U.S. trading rights to compensate for harm to American companies.

Instead, he said new trade rules may be needed to cover the Internet.

"Under a lot of trade rules, there's still this notion that domestic media markets should be off-limits to trade and that's got to change," he said.

He said he'd had some support in discussions with the U.S., French and German governments and with the European Union executive for pressing Google's case and Chinese restrictions on the Internet in bilateral and multilateral talks.

The European Union persistently raises human-rights issues with China, usually without much success. Indeed, a Chinese state multibillion-dollar buying spree in Europe last year pointedly shunned France after President Nicolas Sarkozy threatened to boycott the opening of the Beijing Olympics over unrest in Tibet. China refuses to hold talks with the Tibetan government in exile.

Google’s child Android is dominating  the smartphone space. So we now question Google, on how they benefit from the Android phones- financially? Paid Content reports that Google has signed  revenue-sharing deals with the major wireless carriers who support Android phones. Google has a revenue sharing deal with handset makers as well. So when 60,000 phones are sold, cash counters at Google Inc is also going “chii—kiii—ng”.

The revenue sharing deals appear to be advertising revenue shared with carriers that support Android. For handset makers, the revenue comes in when they include Google applications like search, maps, Gmail etc which is not a requirement for Android phones. Well, the details are sketchy since Google is not as open as Android. Google declined to comment on their agreements stating they are private and confidential.

By being nosy, we found that the deal is applicable only to handsets that are Google branded like the Droid, Nexus One and G1. It excludes any phone that uses it own User Interface like HTC Evo or Samsung Behold II. Since, all Google applications will generate advertising revenue, Google can still afford to share their revenue. In fact, Google has nothing to loose. At present, direct revenue generation is only from the search application.

So, does this make Google look cheap? This is a common technique employed by Microsoft, HP and other giants to generate revenue. AOL, MacAffe or even less prominent softwares have paid pot load of cash to install their applications to the manufacturers. The largest loop hole in Google’s Model is that Android Operating system is open source, hence it cannot make a dime from licensing the operating system. If an Android phone does not make use of Google Applications, it wont be able to make any money through applications either. A good example is Moto Backflip!

Hence, there is nothing cheap about offering financial incentives to cell phone carriers or handset makers in the form of revenue sharing deals. After all Google’s revenue from these deals might be small, as revenue from apps like Gmail or Maps are nearly zero. However, Google is not a charitable organization to cut such deals if they don’t see a huge potential. After all, they are one of the most innovative companies on the planet.

Google’s official Android app store is getting some competition as upstart, independent challengers create their own app stores to lure users with the promise of more freedom, better access to apps and increased revenue.

But it’s all kosher because, unlike Apple, Google allows for multiple app stores to exist on the Android operating system.

A new Android app store called AndSpot plans to coax developers and users to try an alternative Android app store with better search and app-recommendation features.

“Google’s Android Market is slow and not as user friendly as it can be,” says Ash Kheramand, one of the co-founders of AndSpot. ”You don’t leave the Market thinking ‘this is great.’ Instead you are thinking, this is slow, clunky, and if you are a developer, ‘my app is not getting much exposure.’”

Over the next few weeks, Kheradmand and his co-founder Faisal Abid are hoping to unveil a snazzy new app store that they say will have better design and a better way to discover apps.

“We want to bring a level of personalization to the marketplace,” says Kheradmand. AndSpot is currently in private beta with its features available only to a small group of developers and users. (Two hundred Gadget Lab readers can check out Andspot using the invite code: WIRED3R5TY.)

Andspot is not the only one trying to take on the official Google app store. Larger publishers such as Handango and GetJar have distributed a number of apps through their stores across multiple platforms — though on the iPhone they just publish individual apps.

But now smaller Android exclusive startups such as Andspot, SlideMe and AndAppStore are getting into the fray. Why develop just an app when you can build an app store, they say.

Similar to the official Google app store, these startups are hoping to become a central distribution platform for developers who want to get their apps out. The difference, they say, is they will go where Android Market has failed to tread.

“It’s all about promising more attention for apps,” says Vincent Hoogsteder, co-founder and CEO of Distimo, an apps analytics company. “If you are a developer targeting a specific market, it is easier to put your app in a store focusing on that, instead of losing yourself in the Android Market. If you are a consumer, then the idea is to help you find better apps.”

Google launched Android, an open, free, mobile operating system, in 2008. And like Apple, which pioneered the app-store idea, the Android OS also allows independent software applications through its Android Market. But that’s where the comparison ends.

Apple approves every app that makes it to its App Store. And it allows for just one app store, the Apple App Store. Rejects from Apple’s app store have the option of going to an underground store called Cydia. But Cydia apps are available to only jailbroken iPhones.

Google hopes to avoid that with Android. Multiple app stores can exist on the Android phone and apps don’t have to be approved before they hit the official Android app store.

In an intensely crowded app world, getting noticed is the big challenge. Finding Facebook, Shazam or Pandora on the Android Market is easy. But for smaller apps like Time Lapse or Zum Zum, the key to survival is finding enough eyeballs.

“There are 50,000 apps in the Android Market, while your phone lists only 50 apps at a time,” says Hoogsteder. “You are seeing just a fraction of what’s out there.”

That’s why many new Android app stores such as AndroLib and AppBrain have focused on being meta-stores, places that aggregate and let you search Android apps. But to actually download the apps, users have to go to the Android Market.

AndSpot and SlideMe are a step ahead. They are trying to convince enough developers to publish apps directly to their stores, in addition to offering them on the official Google Market. So users who have SlideMe or AndSpot will never have to go to the Android Market, if they don’t want to. Developers don’t have to make any changes to their apps intended for the Google Android Market before they list it on AndSpot or SlideMe.

SlideMe, which launched in April 2008, doesn’t take a cut of the revenue from app sales. When apps are sold through its store, SlideMe subtracts a payment-processing fee required by the credit card company (which usually is about 3.5 percent) and any applicable tax, and lets developers keep the rest. Apple and Google both allow developers to keep just 70 percent of the revenue they get from their sales.

Instead, SlideMe makes money by licensing its entire app store to gadget manufacturers. That also means SlideMe’s app store will come pre-loaded on a phone similar to Google’s Android Market.

Last year, SlideMe landed its first deal with Vodafone Egypt to pre-load its app store on the HTC Magic. The SlideMe app store will also be on Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X10 phones sold in the Middle East.

“Not all manufacturers can comply with the requirements of Google, so Google can’t give them the app store,” says Christopoulos. “That’s why SlideMe can be on more than just phones. We are thinking netbooks and in-car infotainment systems.”

AndSpot says, for now, it plans to offer developers an 80 percent cut of the revenues from its app store. But Kheradmand is not sure AndSpot can sustain the pace. “We are operating on very thin margins here,” he says.

Offering developers more revenue by finding ways to make money off their apps is key to the survival of these independent app stores.

Google’s Android Market lags behind its peers when it comes to paid apps. Distimo’s analytics show almost 75 percent of apps in the Apple App Store are paid, compared to just under 43 percent in the Android Market.

Only nine countries are allowed to distribute Android paid apps currently because of Google checkout restrictions, points out Hoogsteder. Consumers from only 13 countries can get access to paid content.

That cuts out a lot of international developers and users, says Christopoulos. For instance, a Polish developer created a game called Speed Forge 3D that couldn’t be sold through the Android app store in many countries because of restrictions around Google Checkout. The app is listed on SlideMe for approximately $3.

SlideMe will also focus on localized apps and tailor its app store by country.

“You might be from a country in the Middle East and not speak English. We can help you find apps in your local language,” says Christopoulos.

AndSpot says both users and developers will find the independent Android-focused app stores a sweet deal.

“Users will go where the apps are, and developers will be attracted because they have nothing to lose,” says Kheradmand.