Google

Facebook has overtaken Google as the most visited website among United States users. It's the first time Google has lost the top spot since September 2007. The revelation comes from Hitwise, a web analysis firm that gathers data directly from ... Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in order to help advertisers get a better idea of how to reach particular markets. Because the data comes from ISPs, it's considered more accurate than some methods which only gather data from individual sites or users. According to the firm, last week Facebook accounted for 7.07% of all US website visits, compared with ... (view more)

Google is rumored to be testing a search tool for Dish Network-powered televisions. It would allow users to search both for programming on the satellite broadcasts and for online videos. According to the Wall Street Journal, the service is being ... tested with a small group of employees. Based on Android and designed for use with a plug-in keyboard, the service would work with Internet-enabled television sets. Those are becoming more popular with the advent of streaming versions of rental services such as Netflix and even Blockbuster. (Source: wsj.com ) The idea appears to be that the service ... (view more)

Google is among several firms testing a new device that could replace the need for receiving electricity through power cables. It coincides with the search giant getting a license to buy and sell power in bulk, most likely to get a cheaper supply of ... energy. The device, known as the Bloom Box, is produced by the relatively new firm Bloom Energy. It's roughly the size of a refrigerator and is filled with fuel cells which can create electricity through an emissions-less chemical process. The process hasn't been fully detailed (the company plans a public launch shortly) but it involves a ... (view more)

At least five cities have already said they are interested in taking up Google's offer to build broadband networks running at a staggering 1 Gigabit per second (1Gbps). The comments come as analysts try to figure out what Google gains from the ... scheme. The firm says it will help fund networks serving between 50,000 and 500,000 customers. Cities whose officials have already said they are looking into the proposals include Winston, North Carolina; Peachtree City, Georgia; San Francisco, California; and Greensboro, North Carolina. Officials in Ontario County, New York have also shown an interest ... (view more)

Google has made a formal and public apology to Chinese authors after including their works in its book search project without permission. It's a striking contrast to the way the firm responded to similar complaints in the United States and Europe. ... Google Book Search involves scanning books with optical character recognition so that the text can be searched. The firm argues that this is simply to make it easier for users to find information in books and that they are limited to seeing the relevant pages rather than it being a free way to read an entire book. The firm has consistently ... (view more)

Small Canadian companies are having big success against even bigger opponents of late. Just a week after a U.S. judge confirmed Toronto tech firm i4i's claim against Microsoft's use of XML technology in Word, an Oakville, Ontario company has won its ... domain name case against search giant Google. For those who've missed the news, Microsoft last week lost its appeal over an August decision that forced it to remove XML functions in its very popular Word, a big part of Microsoft Office. On the winning side was small Toronto-based i4i; the court decision means Microsoft must remove the conflicting ... (view more)

Google makes tens of billions of dollars each year through advertising sales. Yet it has now allowed independent developers to produce tools which block ads from appearing on pages viewed with its Chrome browser. Since last month, the latest beta ... edition of Chrome has been able to run extensions, third-party tools which offer functions similar to those available for open-source browser Firefox (where they are known as add-ons). The current plan is to keep the extensions in the next full release of Chrome. Programmer, Student Create Ad Blocker An independent programmer from Athens, Georgia and ... (view more)

Reports suggest Google will soon unveil its own smartphone running Google's own Android operating system. However, analysts are split on how significant the move is and whether it will have a major impact on the market. Rumors of a "Google-phone" ... have been rampant ever since the company launched its open-source operating system Android, which now appears on a growing number of handsets, most prominently Motorola's Droid phone. Blog Posting Drops Strong Hints Officially, the firm has only said "We recently came up with the concept of a mobile lab, which is a device that combines innovative ... (view more)

It's been a year since Google released Chrome for Windows, and now Mac and Linux users have access to the popular, streamlined browser. It comes just two months after Google co-founder Sergey Brin told his audience at the Web 2.0 Summit that the ... absence of a Mac version of Chrome was a serious disappointment for his company. To be clear, the edition of Chrome for download by Mac users is still in its beta stages. Still, Google says the release is part of a long-term project that has meant much sweat and stress up to this point. "The Wait was Worth it, " Says Google "We've been ... (view more)

Google will soon offer a range of new search options. The improvements include a constantly updated "real-time" search and some creative ways for using camera phones. One of the main drawbacks to any search engine has been that it takes time for ... pages to be scanned, analyzed and then added to the site's index so that they appear in searches. Today, that time has been greatly reduced, and it's common for news stories to appear on the first page of Google search results on the same day they are published. However, that's not enough for some users who want to search for the latest details on a ... (view more)