15 May 12 Chrome now syncs tabs to Android
Chrome now offers Other Devices for tab syncing.
(Credit:
Google)
As a warm-up for next month’s Google I/O conference, the company has released an update to Chrome this morning that allows you to sync tabs across PCs and
Android devices.
The option Other Devices is now available in the new Google Chrome 19 stable version for Windows (download), Mac (download), Linux (download).
The option is available at the bottom of your New Tab page, alongside the Recently Closed menu. When it synchronizes a tab, it includes that tab’s browsing history. You’ll be able to navigate forward and back when you open it on a new device. While Google wrote in a blog post announcing the update that the multiple-device tab syncing will be rolled out “over the next few weeks,” I found the feature available available as soon as I updated the browser.
Chrome 19 includes bug and security fixes, as well, including eight security fixes marked high-priority. Google awarded more than $16,500 in the last build cycle for security fixes suggested by the Chrome development community. The Chrome 19 changelog can be read here.
Updated at 9:50 a.m. PT
with additional information about tab syncing.
Article source: http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-57434453-12/chrome-now-syncs-tabs-to-android/?part=rss&subj=software&tag=title
Tags: Google Chrome, New Tab, PT, Recently Closed
12 Apr 12 Sony SmartWatch launches, delivers ‘Android power’ to wrist
Sony’s SmartWatch works with Android smartphones.
(Credit:
Sony)
Have you ever wanted a watch that can communicate with your
Android phone? Sony sure hopes so.
Sony today launched its SmartWatch, a timepiece for the wrist that allows owners to read text messages, social updates and e-mail, manage calls, and control music. The SmartWatch connects to an Android phone via Bluetooth in order to deliver its functionality and capture what Sony calls “Android power.”
The SmartWatch might be useful for those who don’t want to continuously pull their smartphone out of their pocket, but it certainly won’t win a fashion contest. The device’s strap is rubber and comes in several colors, including white, pink, mint, and blue. However, the black strap comes standard, while the additional colors must be purchased separately. Sitting atop the strap is the watch’s touch-screen OLED display measuring 1.3 inches. To alert users to an event or an incoming call, the timepiece vibrates.
Sony announced the SmartWatch at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. The company said at the time that the watch would work with Android phones from Sony, HTC, Motorola, Samsung, and others. Sony says the handset can run four days on a single charge and is both dust and splash proof.
This isn’t Sony’s first foray into the watch business. Back in 2010, the company launched LiveView, another watch that interacted with Android phones. Although it floundered after launch, the device is still for sale on Amazon for $54.99.
Sony’s SmartWatch is available now for $149.99 on the company’s online marketplace and in its stores. Sony says that it will “soon” announce availability at other retailers.
Keeping time and in touch with the Sony Xperia Watch (photos)
Update 6:34 a.m. PT
to include more details.
Article source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57412973-94/sony-smartwatch-launches-delivers-android-power-to-wrist/
Tags: HTC, OLED, PT, Sony Xperia Watch
14 Mar 12 Google to give Chrome a Metro sheen
Never fear, Windows 8 Metro browsers that aren’t Internet Explorer are near. Google says that Chrome will go Metro for the new operating system.
Chrome will come to Windows 8 Metro when Microsoft’s in-development operating system is released to the public, a Google representative has confirmed with CNET.
“Our goal is to be able to offer our users a speedy, simple, secure Chrome experience across all platforms, which includes both the desktop and Metro versions of Windows 8. To that end, we’re in the process of building a Metro version of Chrome along with improving desktop Chrome in Windows 8, such as adding enhanced touch support,” wrote the representative in an e-mail to CNET. As first reported by Mashable, this indicates so far that Google will be following Microsoft’s lead by developing two interfaces for Windows 8: one for Metro, and one for the desktop view. Beyond that, Google would not confirm any other plans for Chrome in Metro. However, Mozilla revealed last Friday many of the challenges in developing a third-party browser for Windows 8 that go beyond just two different interfaces. Problems include a “very large” amount of new code, according to Mozilla developer Brian Bondy, but also a limitation imposed by Microsoft that currently prevents third-party browsers from running in Metro mode unless they’re chosen as the default browser.Opera is also keeping a close eye on Windows 8, although the company wouldn’t confirm whether development on a Metro version of Opera had begun. “Unfortunately, we can’t comment on any specifics yet, other than we are currently looking into Windows 8. The new OS and the Metro UI offers an interesting new platform and we know users will want to run Opera on it,” said Arnstein Teigene, the Opera desktop product manager.
At the time of writing, Apple has not commented on Windows 8 plans for
Safari.
Updated 1:05 p.m. PT: Added a statement from Opera.
Article source: http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-57396484-12/google-to-give-chrome-a-metro-sheen/
Tags: Arnstein Teigene, CNET, OS, PT
14 Mar 12 Google to give Chrome a Metro sheen
Never fear, Windows 8 Metro browsers that aren’t Internet Explorer are near. Google says that Chrome will go Metro for the new operating system.
Chrome will come to Windows 8 Metro when Microsoft’s in-development operating system is released to the public, a Google representative has confirmed with CNET.
“Our goal is to be able to offer our users a speedy, simple, secure Chrome experience across all platforms, which includes both the desktop and Metro versions of Windows 8. To that end, we’re in the process of building a Metro version of Chrome along with improving desktop Chrome in Windows 8, such as adding enhanced touch support,” wrote the representative in an e-mail to CNET. As first reported by Mashable, this indicates so far that Google will be following Microsoft’s lead by developing two interfaces for Windows 8: one for Metro, and one for the desktop view. Beyond that, Google would not confirm any other plans for Chrome in Metro. However, Mozilla revealed last Friday many of the challenges in developing a third-party browser for Windows 8 that go beyond just two different interfaces. Problems include a “very large” amount of new code, according to Mozilla developer Brian Bondy, but also a limitation imposed by Microsoft that currently prevents third-party browsers from running in Metro mode unless they’re chosen as the default browser.Opera is also keeping a close eye on Windows 8, although the company wouldn’t confirm whether development on a Metro version of Opera had begun. “Unfortunately, we can’t comment on any specifics yet, other than we are currently looking into Windows 8. The new OS and the Metro UI offers an interesting new platform and we know users will want to run Opera on it,” said Arnstein Teigene, the Opera desktop product manager.
At the time of writing, Apple has not commented on Windows 8 plans for
Safari.
Updated 1:05 p.m. PT: Added a statement from Opera.
Article source: http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-57396484-12/google-to-give-chrome-a-metro-sheen/?part=rss&subj=software&tag=title
Tags: Arnstein Teigene, CNET, OS, PT
17 Jan 12 Awwwk-ward: Google Chrome pay-for-post promo misfires
A Google effort to promote its Chrome browser misfired with the appearance of some blog posts that fly in the face of Google’s own attempts to discourage low-quality Web content.
The campaign, spotted yesterday by Aaron Wall at SEOBook, is apparent in several blog posts from late December bearing the label, “This post is sponsored by Google Chrome.” But there appears to be some backtracking now that the campaign is under scrutiny, and Google itself is disclaiming responsibility while trying to prevent anything similar from happening again.
The theme of the posts is evident in their titles: “Google Chrome Helps Small Businesses Find Success Online,” “Google Chrome Helping Small Business,” “The Power of Google Chrome for Small Businesses.” The posts appear to be a vehicle to promote a Google video about King Arthur Flour; the posts introduce the video with the words, “Google Chrome helped this small business in Vermont go global. What can Google Chrome do for your future?”
Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan, a longtime Google watcher, pointed out that Mariah Humphries’ paid post sported a hyperlink to Google’s Chrome download page. Such links to a particular Web site can help it rise higher in Google search results through Google’s PageRank algorithm, but paying people money to include such links violates Google guidelines. Those guidelines state, “Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.” The links are fine if they’re labeled “nofollow,” which means search-engine indexing robots won’t pay attention to them.
But now on Humphries’ blog post, the “Google Chrome” words no longer link anywhere, indicating that perhaps somebody realized the SEO (search engine optimization) bungle. In addition, the video–which Sullivan said had been hosted by Unruly Media–is now missing from that and other posts.
Google disclaimed any responsibility for the posts. “Google never agreed to anything more than online ads. We have consistently avoided paid sponsorships, including paying bloggers to promote our products, because these kind of promotions are not transparent or in the best interests of users. We’re now looking at what changes we need to make to ensure that this never happens again,” the company said in a statement.
In an e-mail to CNET, Unruly confirmed its involvement in the campaign, and shared this comment from Chief Executive Scott Button: “Unruly never requires bloggers to link to back to an advertiser’s site. That’s because we’re in the business of video advertising not search engine marketing, so we couldn’t care less about link juice. We don’t ask for it, we don’t pay for it, and we don’t track it.”
Unruly spokesman Michael Tive added, “As far as we are aware [only] one post contained a link that was not marked as ‘nofollow’…this was an innocent mistake that has since been addressed and fixed.”
In a similar situation in the past, Google punished itself. Google Japan hired a company called CyberBuzz that paid bloggers to post about Google features. After that came to light, Google penalized Google Japan itself in search-engine rankings.
Low-grade content
Even without the hyperlink to the Chrome download page, it’s hard to see how the posts help Chrome’s fortunes much. The browser is steadily increasing in popularity. But if you were thinking about changing browsers, would these Chrome-sponsored words convince you?
The Internet now offers a myriad ways by which we could save money. Just google the words “saving money” and you’ll see so many resources that will help you save and even help you in your small business and earn money. Internet businesses are currently growing because the Internet allows them to cater to customers around the world. And all these for a minimal cost because they don’t need to think to much about operating expenses because of all the free resources available for them on the Internet.
Or how about this?
Words can’t begin to capture how much time and money the web has helped me save. As a busy marketing professional, I spend an inordinate amount of time online. The Web has helped enabled me to connect with people while offering and performing services that would never have been possible. Small businesses seeking to go to the next level know how important it is to be online…
Small businesses can further cultivate offline relationships online by demonstrating their expertise by creating and sharing content that is relevant to your audience. In addition, you have the ability to host giveaways, Twitter parties, etc. Regardless of your business size, the Web opens up a whole world of endless opportunities.
Sure, the Web is important. But what does this have to do with Chrome?
Of the sponsored posts I found, Tree Root and Twig was one of the few that came close to saying anything about the browser itself: “With apps and extensions for a number of business needs, and the powerful Google search engine to lead potential customers to your commercial site, Google Chrome can help today’s small businesses enter the world of new and social media.” Moomette’s Magnificento plugged Chrome as “much more reliable.”
Overall, the blog posts seem to me (and Sullivan) to be the sort of low-grade content that Google tried to cull from search results with its Panda algorithm change earlier this year.
Google described Panda as “designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites–sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other Web sites, or sites that are just not very useful.”
Unruly has this perspective on the content: “We also believe that it’s really important that bloggers, if they write any content in response to a campaign, write it by themselves, in their own tone of voice, and preferably that they write about the video content, not the brand or the product being promoted, so the nature and style of posts will vary considerably from blogger to blogger.”
Part of the difficulty seems to be that the King Arthur Flour video is mostly about Google search, not Chrome. The bloggers didn’t have much to work with, so it’s no surprise that headlines overreached and prose was strained.
I’m all for mommy blogging and other self-publishing ventures. But concerning Google’s goals, I’d be surprised if this pay-for-post campaign convinced anybody to use its browser.
Updated at 1:13 p.m. PT
with comment from Google.
Update at 3:45 p.m. PT : SearchEngineLand is reporting that searches for “browser” have been pushed way down in its PageRank. In a statement sent to SearchEngineLand, Google reportedly said: “We’ve investigated and are taking manual action to demote www.google.com/chrome and lower the site’s PageRank for a period of at least 60 days. We strive to enforce Google’s webmaster guidelines consistently in order to provide better search results for users.” Google did not immediately respond to CNET’s request for confirmation of the statement.
Article source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-57351145-264/awwwk-ward-google-chrome-pay-for-post-promo-misfires/?part=rss&subj=latest-news&tag=title
Tags: Google Chrome, Google Japan, King Arthur Flour, PT
14 Jan 12 Google uncloaks Chrome’s top security goals
Chrome’s privacy controls.
(Credit:
Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)
Google’s Chrome security team unveiled yesterday its guiding principles on how they build a safer browser.
The manifesto declares seven key guidelines for Chrome security. The first one, “Don’t get in the way,” both echoes Google’s unofficial motto, “Don’t be evil,” and reflects what many Windows security vendors have learned the hard way about keeping people safe. If security negatively affects performance, users will look to alternatives. For a browser which has built its user base on speed, sluggish response times have the potential to wreak great havoc.
“It’s great to see invisibility and automatic background updates as the first principal. Good security is transparent and inescapable,” said Chris Wysopal, chief technology officer at Veracode. “The less security decisions that involve the user the better. Every security decision made by the user is a chance that something with be postponed or forgotten or worse, an opportunity for social engineering.”
Privacy is not mentioned in the list of principles, and that may raise the hackles of some security experts. “I think Google’s approach to privacy is a little bit different than others,” said Jeremiah Grossman, WhiteHat Security’s chief technology officer. “They make the assumption that you trust them, but if you don’t trust them then you have to separate the two. You can’t protect your data that’s on Google, from Google, because it’s contrary to their business model.”
(Credit:
Google)
Google does have a site dedicated to explaining privacy in Chrome, and it does have a company-wide privacy policy that applies to Chrome. However, there isn’t a company policy statement on Chrome privacy like the new security manifesto.
A Google representative told me that the Chrome security team works in close conjunction with Google’s overall security team, as well as the Chrome team itself. “We protect users by embedding security deeply into our culture, as well as our process for designing and developing products. This relentless focus on security often benefits the web more broadly as well, either through our own action or through others who adopt similar approaches,” the representative said.
The need for speed has found its way into Chrome security, and the representative pointed to regular release note updates as evidence of this. “We’ve demonstrated that we will shine a light on security topics that are relevant to our users, even when most companies wouldn’t,” he said, with tough benchmarks set for response time and how long systems are left unpatched.
Of course, Google is hardly the only company to take this approach. Mozilla also regularly publishes security update release notes, and Microsoft has become so regular at publishing security updates to Internet Explorer and its other software that Patch Tuesday has become lingua franca in the computer security world.
Microsoft recently touted a decade of security achievements, and it’s practically universally accepted that the company learned some tough lessons in the past 10 years.
Not surprisingly, Microsoft’s current policies of a company-wide approach to security echo Google’s similar stance with Chrome. Chrome’s third core principle states that security is a “team responsibility,” which was explained to me as meaning that browser security concerns go beyond the realm of just the Chrome security team to include Google’s general security group and the general Chrome group. While this may sound obvious to some, cross-department communication has had an impact on the browser’s development, said the Google representative.
“Engaging the security community makes Google part of the security community. More technology companies should take this approach. They have set up a cooperative and non-adversarial posture. Microsoft pioneered this approach, but Google has taken it a step further with their bug bounties,” said Wysopal.
Google has said that the quality of the bug reports has helped it fix vulnerabilities much faster. The company has paid out more than $200,000 for Chrome and Chromium-related security bugs found by bug hunters. The open-source progenitor of Chrome, Chromium was around for a year before Google debuted Chrome.
While likely familiar to many who keep tabs on browser security, the principles document stands as a place where Google can point to its achievements in the field as well as its goals. Some of the Chrome features referenced in the document include the mention of anti-exploit technologies such as JIT hardening along with Google-sourced innovations like the Safe Browsing API. The “Make the Web safer for everyone” section notes numerous public security standards like public key pinning, SPDY, and Native Client.
Grossman concluded that despite some concerns about Chrome, that the project has been a boon for the Web. “I think they’re doing a lot more right than wrong when it comes to browser speed and security,” he said.
Correction 4:41 p.m. PT: This story originally misstated the amount of money rewarded to bug hunters working on Chrome and Chromium. The correct sum is more than $200,000.
Update 4:45 p.m. PT: The story has been updated with a link to Google’s company-wide privacy policy, which it says also applies to Chrome.
Article source: http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-57359066-12/google-uncloaks-chromes-top-security-goals/
Tags: Chris Wysopal, Credit Google Google, Patch Tuesday, PT
14 Jan 12 Google uncloaks Chrome's top security goals
Chrome’s privacy controls.
(Credit:
Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)
Google’s Chrome security team unveiled yesterday its guiding principles on how they build a safer browser.
The manifesto declares seven key guidelines for Chrome security. The first one, “Don’t get in the way,” both echoes Google’s unofficial motto, “Don’t be evil,” and reflects what many Windows security vendors have learned the hard way about keeping people safe. If security negatively affects performance, users will look to alternatives. For a browser which has built its user base on speed, sluggish response times have the potential to wreak great havoc.
“It’s great to see invisibility and automatic background updates as the first principal. Good security is transparent and inescapable,” said Chris Wysopal, chief technology officer at Veracode. “The less security decisions that involve the user the better. Every security decision made by the user is a chance that something with be postponed or forgotten or worse, an opportunity for social engineering.”
Privacy is not mentioned in the list of principles, and that may raise the hackles of some security experts. “I think Google’s approach to privacy is a little bit different than others,” said Jeremiah Grossman, WhiteHat Security’s chief technology officer. “They make the assumption that you trust them, but if you don’t trust them then you have to separate the two. You can’t protect your data that’s on Google, from Google, because it’s contrary to their business model.”
(Credit:
Google)
Google does have a site dedicated to explaining privacy in Chrome, and it does have a company-wide privacy policy that applies to Chrome. However, there isn’t a company policy statement on Chrome privacy like the new security manifesto.
A Google representative told me that the Chrome security team works in close conjunction with Google’s overall security team, as well as the Chrome team itself. “We protect users by embedding security deeply into our culture, as well as our process for designing and developing products. This relentless focus on security often benefits the web more broadly as well, either through our own action or through others who adopt similar approaches,” the representative said.
The need for speed has found its way into Chrome security, and the representative pointed to regular release note updates as evidence of this. “We’ve demonstrated that we will shine a light on security topics that are relevant to our users, even when most companies wouldn’t,” he said, with tough benchmarks set for response time and how long systems are left unpatched.
Of course, Google is hardly the only company to take this approach. Mozilla also regularly publishes security update release notes, and Microsoft has become so regular at publishing security updates to Internet Explorer and its other software that Patch Tuesday has become lingua franca in the computer security world.
Microsoft recently touted a decade of security achievements, and it’s practically universally accepted that the company learned some tough lessons in the past 10 years.
Not surprisingly, Microsoft’s current policies of a company-wide approach to security echo Google’s similar stance with Chrome. Chrome’s third core principle states that security is a “team responsibility,” which was explained to me as meaning that browser security concerns go beyond the realm of just the Chrome security team to include Google’s general security group and the general Chrome group. While this may sound obvious to some, cross-department communication has had an impact on the browser’s development, said the Google representative.
“Engaging the security community makes Google part of the security community. More technology companies should take this approach. They have set up a cooperative and non-adversarial posture. Microsoft pioneered this approach, but Google has taken it a step further with their bug bounties,” said Wysopal.
Google has said that the quality of the bug reports has helped it fix vulnerabilities much faster. The company has paid out more than $200,000 for Chrome and Chromium-related security bugs found by bug hunters. The open-source progenitor of Chrome, Chromium was around for a year before Google debuted Chrome.
While likely familiar to many who keep tabs on browser security, the principles document stands as a place where Google can point to its achievements in the field as well as its goals. Some of the Chrome features referenced in the document include the mention of anti-exploit technologies such as JIT hardening along with Google-sourced innovations like the Safe Browsing API. The “Make the Web safer for everyone” section notes numerous public security standards like public key pinning, SPDY, and Native Client.
Grossman concluded that despite some concerns about Chrome, that the project has been a boon for the Web. “I think they’re doing a lot more right than wrong when it comes to browser speed and security,” he said.
Correction 4:41 p.m. PT: This story originally misstated the amount of money rewarded to bug hunters working on Chrome and Chromium. The correct sum is more than $200,000.
Update 4:45 p.m. PT: The story has been updated with a link to Google’s company-wide privacy policy, which it says also applies to Chrome.
Article source: http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-57359066-12/google-uncloaks-chromes-top-security-goals/?part=rss&subj=software&tag=title
Tags: Credit Google Google, Jeremiah Grossman, Patch Tuesday, PT
10 Jan 12 Google Chrome pay-for-post promotion misfires
A Google effort to promote its Chrome browser misfired with the appearance of some blog posts that fly in the face of Google’s own attempts to discourage low-quality Web content.
The campaign, spotted yesterday by Aaron Wall at SEOBook, is apparent in several blog posts from late December bearing the label, “This post is sponsored by Google Chrome.” But there appears to be some backtracking now that the campaign is under scrutiny, and Google itself is disclaiming responsibility while trying to prevent anything similar from happening again.
The theme of the posts is evident in their titles: “Google Chrome Helps Small Businesses Find Success Online,” “Google Chrome Helping Small Business,” “The Power of Google Chrome for Small Businesses.” The posts appear to be a vehicle to promote a Google video about King Arthur Flour; the posts introduce the video with the words, “Google Chrome helped this small business in Vermont go global. What can Google Chrome do for your future?”
Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan, a longtime Google watcher, pointed out that Mariah Humphries’ paid post sported a hyperlink to Google’s Chrome download page. Such links to a particular Web site can help it rise higher in Google search results through Google’s PageRank algorithm, but paying people money to include such links violates Google guidelines. Those guidelines state, “Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.” The links are fine if they’re labeled “nofollow,” which means search-engine indexing robots won’t pay attention to them.
But now on Humphries’ blog post, the “Google Chrome” words no longer link anywhere, indicating that perhaps somebody realized the SEO (search engine optimization) bungle. In addition, the video–which Sullivan said had been hosted by Unruly Media–is now missing from that and other posts.
Google disclaimed any responsibility for the posts. “Google never agreed to anything more than online ads. We have consistently avoided paid sponsorships, including paying bloggers to promote our products, because these kind of promotions are not transparent or in the best interests of users. We’re now looking at what changes we need to make to ensure that this never happens again,” the company said in a statement.
In an e-mail to CNET, Unruly confirmed its involvement in the campaign, and shared this comment from Chief Executive Scott Button: “Unruly never requires bloggers to link to back to an advertiser’s site. That’s because we’re in the business of video advertising not search engine marketing, so we couldn’t care less about link juice. We don’t ask for it, we don’t pay for it, and we don’t track it.”
Unruly spokesman Michael Tive added, “As far as we are aware [only] one post contained a link that was not marked as ‘nofollow’…this was an innocent mistake that has since been addressed and fixed.”
In a similar situation in the past, Google punished itself. Google Japan hired a company called CyberBuzz that paid bloggers to post about Google features. After that came to light, Google penalized Google Japan itself in search-engine rankings.
Low-grade content
Even without the hyperlink to the Chrome download page, it’s hard to see how the posts help Chrome’s fortunes much. The browser is steadily increasing in popularity. But if you were thinking about changing browsers, would these Chrome-sponsored words convince you?
The Internet now offers a myriad ways by which we could save money. Just google the words “saving money” and you’ll see so many resources that will help you save and even help you in your small business and earn money. Internet businesses are currently growing because the Internet allows them to cater to customers around the world. And all these for a minimal cost because they don’t need to think to much about operating expenses because of all the free resources available for them on the Internet.
Or how about this?
Words can’t begin to capture how much time and money the web has helped me save. As a busy marketing professional, I spend an inordinate amount of time online. The Web has helped enabled me to connect with people while offering and performing services that would never have been possible. Small businesses seeking to go to the next level know how important it is to be online…
Small businesses can further cultivate offline relationships online by demonstrating their expertise by creating and sharing content that is relevant to your audience. In addition, you have the ability to host giveaways, Twitter parties, etc. Regardless of your business size, the Web opens up a whole world of endless opportunities.
Sure, the Web is important. But what does this have to do with Chrome?
Of the sponsored posts I found, Tree Root and Twig was one of the few that came close to saying anything about the browser itself: “With apps and extensions for a number of business needs, and the powerful Google search engine to lead potential customers to your commercial site, Google Chrome can help today’s small businesses enter the world of new and social media.” Moomette’s Magnificento plugged Chrome as “much more reliable.”
Overall, the blog posts seem to me (and Sullivan) to be the sort of low-grade content that Google tried to cull from search results with its Panda algorithm change earlier this year.
Google described Panda as “designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites–sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other Web sites, or sites that are just not very useful.”
Unruly has this perspective on the content: “We also believe that it’s really important that bloggers, if they write any content in response to a campaign, write it by themselves, in their own tone of voice, and preferably that they write about the video content, not the brand or the product being promoted, so the nature and style of posts will vary considerably from blogger to blogger.”
Part of the difficulty seems to be that the King Arthur Flour video is mostly about Google search, not Chrome. The bloggers didn’t have much to work with, so it’s no surprise that headlines overreached and prose was strained.
I’m all for mommy blogging and other self-publishing ventures. But concerning Google’s goals, I’d be surprised if this pay-for-post campaign convinced anybody to use its browser.
Updated at 1:13 p.m. PT
with comment from Google.
Update at 3:45 p.m. PT : SearchEngineLand is reporting that searches for “browser” have been pushed way down in its PageRank. In a statement sent to SearchEngineLand, Google reportedly said: “We’ve investigated and are taking manual action to demote www.google.com/chrome and lower the site’s PageRank for a period of at least 60 days. We strive to enforce Google’s webmaster guidelines consistently in order to provide better search results for users.” Google did not immediately respond to CNET’s request for confirmation of the statement.
Article source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-57351145-264/google-chrome-pay-for-post-promotion-misfires/?part=rss&subj=latest-news&tag=title
Tags: Google Chrome, Google Japan, King Arthur Flour, PT
23 Nov 11 Chrome extension lets users express email privacy expectations in Gmail
-
As ISPs choke file-sharing, users look elsewhere
-
US P-to-P companies will disappear, exec says
-
Live Update: iPhone Software 3.0 -
MPAA asks Supreme Court to rule on P-to-P cases
-
iOS 5 Review: Ambitious update rings in the changes -
French bill could chill open source
A team of privacy researchers and product designers from Europe and the U.S. have released a browser-based implementation of Privicons, a project that aims to provide users with a simple method of expressing their expectations of privacy when sending email.
Privicons is a set of icons accompanied by short descriptions that can be appended to email in order to instruct recipients about how to handle a message or its content.
There are a total of six icons, each with a special significance, that can be represented as graphics or ASCII art. This makes them suitable for email in both HTML and text-only formats.
The instructions accompanying the icons are: don’t attribute (anonymous), keep private, keep internal, don’t print, please share, and delete after reading or a specified number of days.
The use of such icons in email communication was first proposed in November 2010, but it took one year for the project to materialize.
The first implementation consists of a browser extension for Google Chrome that works with Gmail. However, its developers also plan to release a Firefox add-on to serve the same purpose in the near future.
Once the Chrome extension is installed, the option to add privicons will be available on the Gmail window for composing messages. The button is located next to the one for attaching files, but it doesn’t seem to be present in the new Gmail interface that’s being rolled out by Google.
The icons and corresponding instructions are added on separate lines at the beginning of the email messages, together with links to additional information. Their ASCII representation is also added to the subject line.
The Privicons project stands apart from other email privacy efforts because it relies on user choice instead of technological enforcement. The people who support the project strongly believe that, given the chance, most users will respect the instructions expressed through these icons because they are similar to other social norms.
In fact, user choice is so important for the project, that developers who create email user agents are instructed in an Internet draft submitted to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to provide the option of overruling Privicons if they choose to implement the standard.
“Privicons embraces the concept of code-based norms approach,” the developers said in their proposal. “The approach is grounded in reminder over hard-coded solutions that indiscriminately restrict speech,” they added.
“Email is an open system. We cannot change the way clients and protocols work, but we can create a cultural awareness of the privacy desires of the mail sender,” said Marc Alier, a lecturer on history and ethics at UPC-Barcelona Tech University who is also involved in the Privicons project.
“This cultural awareness can bring an important change in behavior and could push further changes like the generalization of cryptography usage or mail clients acknowledging the privicons policies,” he added.
Editor’s note: Updated on 11/22/11 at 12:45 p.m. PT with quotes from Marc Alier.
Article source: http://www.macworld.com/article/163797/2011/11/chrome_extension_lets_users_express_email_privacy_expectations_in_gmail.html
Tags: Live Update, Marc Alier, PT, Review Ambitious
10 Oct 11 Google debuts Dart, a JavaScript alternative
Google today launched an “early preview” of Dart, a programming language the company hopes will help Web application programmers overcome shortcomings of JavaScript that Google itself feels acutely.
Programmer and project leader Lars Bak detailed the project in a talk today at the Goto conference in Denmark and in a blog post. Dart is geared for everything from small, unstructured projects to large, complicated efforts–Gmail and Google Docs, for example.
“If we want to focus on making the Web better over time, we have to innovate,” including with new programming languages, Bak said in an interview today.
Google also unveiled a Dart language site that includes open-source tools for writing Dart programs, code samples, and tutorials; libraries of supporting software; the Dart language specification; and forums for discussion.
A month ago, details about Dart raised some hackles about Google’s Web technology tactics when a 2010 internal memo about Dart, then called Dash, surfaced on a mailing list. One tidbit from that memo was that Dart was designed “to replace JavaScript as the lingua franca of Web development.”
Google is a big company, though, and others within the company remain strong JavaScript adherents. And Bak, while not denying Google has big ambitions, was quick to proclaim JavaScript alive and well.
“It’s not going to replace JavaScript,” Bak said. “JavaScript is a cornerstone of the Web today, and it will continue to be for a long, long time.”
Bak bristled at some of the complaints about Google’s approach to creating Dart in-house and not through a more collaborative approach.
“I don’t buy the argument that before writing any line of code or designing any features, you put it in a standards committee, because that would just be a lot of screaming,” Bak said. “You have to have coherent design before you start adopting Dart as a standard.”
Making a standard is a goal, though. “It will be fairly lonely to create a standards committee when there’s only us in it. We first have to get the backing of other partners before we can make a standard that’s useful,” he said.
Google is releasing Dart now for the next step in its maturation: outside feedback and participation. “We hope the other browser vendors will be excited,” Bak said, adding that today is the first that Google has shared details about Dart with them or others.
Google is evaluating the best way to integrate Dart directly into its Chrome browser, something Bak is keen on. One reason: it will enable a “snapshotting” technology that dramatically improves a Web app’s startup time. Snapshotting involves taking an application and “serializing” it into a single block of data.
In one test of snapshotting, a 55,000-line Dart program loaded in 60 milliseconds compared to 640 milliseconds without it, Bak said. A conventional JavaScript program would load in comparable time as Dart without snapshotting, he said. “I can see a lot of optimizations that’ll be applicable to Dart” when it’s integrated directly into a browser, he added.
Here is Bak’s quick description of Dart’s design goals:
Create a structured yet flexible language for Web programming.
Make Dart feel familiar and natural to programmers and thus easy to learn.
Ensure that Dart delivers high performance on all modern Web browsers and environments ranging from small handheld devices to server-side execution.
Dart targets a wide range of development scenarios: from a one-person project without much structure to a large-scale project needing formal types in the code to state programmer intent. To support this wide range of projects, Dart has optional types; this means you can start coding without types and add them later as needed. We believe Dart will be great for writing large web applications.
Dart programs will be able to run within a Dart virtual machine–essentially a layer of software that acts as a computer to execute programs. They’ll also be able to run using a compiler that translates Dart code into JavaScript code for browsers that don’t support Dart, Bak said.
Google’s Chrome browser has served as a vehicle to get the company’s technology such as WebM and SPDY useful for at least a portion of Web users. Though the 2010 Dart/Dash memo said Google planned build Dart support into Chrome, Bak was cautious about making any definite statements beyond saying browser integration brings benefits. It’s notable, though, that Bak led development of Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine, so he’s hardly a stranger to the Chrome team or to the challenges of improving Web-app speed.
Building Dart into Chrome could let Google build Dart versions of its advanced Web apps that–if the language lives up to its billing–could be better than those Web apps today.
“Google has a lot fairly big Web applications. That includes Gmail and Docs. I hope many of these apps will be converted into Dart,” Bak said. But he cautioned that this is his personal option, not an explicit plan.
Introducing new programming languages is tough. Though many hope that computing can improve by reforming or replacing languages, the incumbent power of existing languages is strong. Educating thousands or millions of programmers, building developer tools, and creating supporting libraries of code all can take years. As newer languages such as Java, JavaScript, and C# attest, though, it is possible.
Google also is trying to gain a foothold for Go, a programming language geared more for native software that today would most likely be written with C or C++.
Dart is designed to address several shortcomings Google sees with Web programming today, according to the Dart technical overview:
Small scripts often evolve into large web applications with no apparent structure–they’re hard to debug and difficult to maintain. In addition, these monolithic apps can’t be split up so that different teams can work on them independently. It’s difficult to be productive when a Web application gets large.
Scripting languages are popular because their lightweight nature makes it easy to write code quickly. Generally, the contracts with other parts of an application are conveyed in comments rather than in the language structure itself. As a result, it’s difficult for someone other than the author to read and maintain a particular piece of code.
With existing languages, the developer is forced to make a choice between static and dynamic languages. Traditional static languages require heavyweight toolchains and a coding style that can feel inflexible and overly constrained.
Developers have not been able to create homogeneous systems that encompass both client and server, except for a few cases such as Node.js and Google Web Toolkit (GWT).
Different languages and formats entail context switches that are cumbersome and add complexity to the coding process.
The priority right now is to hear what the rest of the world thinks and to get them participating in Dart’s development, Bak said.
“At this point it is mostly the language we are focused on,” he said. “We hope to get positive feedback on the language.”
Updated at 3:53 a.m. PT
with comments from an interview with Bak.
Article source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20117924-264/google-debuts-dart-a-javascript-alternative/
Tags: Google Web, Lars Bak, Make Dart, PT
Translation
