Google Wave Now Taking Open Signups
Google Wave is a new web application for real-time communication and collaboration.
After over a year of closed beta usage, Google Wave has finally opened sign-ups to the general public.
Google Inc. Drops “Google” Name, Now “Topeka”
Early last month the mayor of Topeka, Kansas stunned the world by announcing that his city was changing its name to Google. We’ve been wondering ever since how best to honor that moving gesture. Today we are pleased to announce that as of 1AM (Central Daylight Time) April 1st, Google has officially changed our name to Topeka.
We didn’t reach this decision lightly; after all, we had a fair amount of brand equity tied up in our old name. But the more we surfed around (the former) Topeka’s municipal website, the more kinship we felt with this fine city at the edge of the Great Plains.
In fact, Topeka Google Mayor Bill Bunten expressed it best: “Don’t be fooled. Even Google recognizes that all roads lead to Kansas, not just yellow brick ones.”
For 150 years, its fortuitous location at the confluence of the Kansas River and the Oregon Trail has made the city formerly known as Topeka a key jumping-off point to the new world of the West, just as for 150 months the company formerly known as Google has been a key jumping-off point to the new world of the web. When in 1858 a crucial bridge built across the Kansas River was destroyed by flooding mere months later, it was promptly rebuilt — and we too are accustomed to releasing 2.0 versions of software after stormy feedback on our ‘beta’ releases. And just as the town's nickname is "Top City," and the word “topeka” itself derives from a term used by the Kansa and Ioway tribes to refer to “a good place to dig for potatoes,” we’d like to think that our website is one of the web's top places to dig for information.
In the early 20th century, the former Topeka enjoyed a remarkable run of political prominence, gracing the nation with Margaret Hill McCarter, the first woman to address a national political convention (1920, Republican); Charles Curtis, the only Native American ever to serve as vice president (’29 to ‘33, under Herbert Hoover); Carrie Nation, leader of the old temperance movement (and wielder of American history’s most famous hatchet); and, most important, Alfred E. Neuman, arguably the most influential figure to an entire generation of Americans. We couldn’t be happier to add our own chapter to this storied history.
A change this dramatic won’t happen without consequences, perhaps even some disruptions. Here are a few of the thorny issues that we hope everyone in the broader Topeka community will bear in mind as we begin one of the most important transitions in our company’s history:
Correspondence to both our corporate headquarters and offices around the world should now be addressed to Topeka Inc., but otherwise can be addressed normally.Google employees once known as “Googlers” should now be referred to as either “Topekers” or “Topekans,” depending on the result of a board meeting that’s ongoing at this hour. Whatever the outcome, the conclusion is clear: we aren’t in Google anymore.Our new product names will take some getting used to. For instance, we’ll have to assure users of Topeka News and Topeka Maps that these services will continue to offer news and local information from across the globe. Topeka Talk, similarly, is an instant messaging product, not, say, a folksy midwestern morning show. And Project Virgle, our co-venture with Richard Branson and Virgin to launch the first permanent human colony on Mars, will henceforth be known as Project Vireka. We don’t really know what to tell Oliver Google Kai’s parents, except that, if you ask us, Oliver Topeka Kai would be a charming name for their little boy.As our lawyers remind us, branded product names can achieve such popularity as to risk losing their trademark status (see cellophane, zippers, trampolines, et al). So we hope all of you will do your best to remember our new name’s proper usage: Finally, we want to be clear that this initiative is a one-shot deal that will have no bearing on which municipalities are chosen to participate in our experimental ultra-high-speed broadband project, to which Google, Kansas has been just one of many communities to apply.
Posted by Eric Schmidt, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Topeka Inc.
Google May Pull Out of China Soon!
Both Google and the Chinese government appear to be leaking word that the search firm may soon shutter its operations there as negotiations between the two break down.
The Wall Street Journal reported today that the Chinese government has begun informing news Web sites in that country that Google's Chinese site is likely to close soon.
Google first threatened to halt its operations in China after disclosing in January that an attack on its network from inside China was aimed at exposing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. At the time, Google also said it was reconsidering its willingness to censor search results of users in China as required by the government.
Google has since been negotiating with the Chinese government to find a way to continue operating in the country. Google did not respond today to requests for comment on the state of the negotiations with China.
"I think Google thought China would be flexible," said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group.
"As the US government has often found, flexibility isn't something you generally look for in China with regard to Western ideas of what human rights should be. This is China playing hard ball, and it once again would indicate that when you negotiate with a government, you are generally at a massive disadvantage."
Google's continuing stand against China has been met mostly with support from industry watchers, who say it is helping the search giant has overcome the major hit in good will it's taken in recent years by ceding to China's censorship demands.
Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group, said the latest reported statements on the negotiations probably indicate that there's been a major rift between the two sides.
"I think that the latest reports we're hearing about Google leaving China signal an authentic breakdown in talks rather than typical posturing," Olds said.
"From what I'm seeing, there has been a long-term philosophical conflict at Google ever since they decided to play by the Chinese government's rules on search. I think Google's stand on principal now, is in large part fueled by their discomfort in agreeing to play the role of censor in the first place. It's goes against their fundamental belief in freedom of information and the social good arising from that," he added.
If Google does leave China, Microsoft could be hit harder by critics of its decision not to censor search results in China.
Microsoft executives have made clear of late that the company will remain in China no matter what the resolution of Google's battle with the government there.
While Enderle said that Microsoft shouldn't suffer too much ill will from staying in China and continuing to censor search results, Olds suggested that the company could be pummeled by bad press.
"Google leaving China while Microsoft stays and, assumedly, continues to cooperate with the government by censoring content may certainly bring some bad press to Microsoft," added Olds. "No one argues that China censoring the Internet is a good thing or that it is within their rights, but companies have complied with this requirement in order to get a piece of the massive and growing Chinese market. If Microsoft continues to run censored search for China, I would expect to hear plenty of widespread criticism - some of it perhaps even fueled by Google."
3D Google Earth & Google’s Liquid Galaxy
CNN.com's John Sutter demos two test products at the Googleplex, including "Liquid Galaxy."
Will Chrome Be the Next Firefox?
Google has been pumping funds into their new free browser Chrome recently. It seems that Google is learning how to actually appeal to their consumer.
Google Chrome's market share numbers are skyrocketing, blowing past Safari and Opera to become the number three most-widely-used Web browser. That's pretty impressive, and I don't think it's going to stop there. I fully expect it to overtake Firefox and challenge, if not beat, Microsoft Internet Explorer sometime in the next 5 years.
It took Firefox most of this decade to achieve its solid number two status, but the one-and-a-half-year-old Chrome is growing faster and, in some ways, developing more quickly than Firefox ever did. The question, though, is not whether or not Chrome will beat other browsers, but why it is rising while Firefox seems to have stalled or is falling.
Over the years, most tech-savvy users I've talked to have said they run Firefox. It's faster—I agree—and it has amazing features, which is true. The Awesome bar, also known as Firefox's address bar, works better than virtually any other address bar in the business. When I start to type in a URL, its best guesses are almost always on target. Those same tech-savvy users have always touted Firefox's extensive add-on library. I use a handful of them, but I'm not an extension nut like some people I know. I find it fascinating how, say, a "27 Best Firefox Extensions" story can kill on Digg and drive thousands of page views. What, exactly, is the attraction to stuff you can add to your browser? Does everything we use need to be customized?
Firefox has also, traditionally, been faster than the competition. It usually loaded pages lickety split, and it did so with an admirable level of precision. The pages looked the way they should and everything worked—most of the time.
In essence, Firefox had the growing support of average consumers and the critical support of early adopters, the tech-heads who were building the Web.
When Google launched Chrome in 2008, it was almost laughably under-powered, but it was wicked fast. It let you search right inside the address bar (a feature I love to this day) and loaded pretty much every page (almost always with an odd HTML translation error or two). Wonkiness aside, it just worked. We were all impressed with Google's first effort. Chrome beta was followed in a remarkably short time by a full-blown first version. Now, less than 2 years later, we're testing Google Chrome 4.0. Firefox is still beta testing version 3.6!
As Chrome has risen, something disturbing has happened on the Firefox side. I've heard grumblings from people who previously supported Firefox, saying that it seemed slower, bloated, and, worse yet, that it's a resource hog. This is the worst thing you can say about a Web browser.
Web browsers are the ultimate Internet utility and the one that we most need to get the heck out of the way. If using it is weighing your system down, then it's no good. All modern browsers—Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, Firefox, and Chrome—use tabbed browsing. This means they all have to manage multiple instances of themselves, with each one featuring full-blown Web pages that could be running everything from basic HTML to Flash video. I do not envy the developer's task.
Microsoft has made some strides with Internet Explorer, a perennial resource hog. It's a slightly better task citizen. Still, each tab is a separate process and all of them together can bring your system to a halt. Firefox lumps all the tasks into one, but the overall process number can get pretty big and, to be honest, it can get a bit slow at times. What's worse is when it becomes unstable and crashes. Internet Explorer does this, too. Chrome spawns multiple processes when you launch new tabs as well, but it just seems to handle the whole thing better.
Every week I participate in a radio show where I have to answer listener's questions. I can answer some questions off the top of my head, but with some, I need an assist. Usually, my Web site or a search engine can help me unlock at least the start of the answer. But once I find something, I don't want to switch away from that Web page, so I open a new tab. I used to try this with IE and with Firefox. After a half dozen tabs, both made my system feel like it was swimming through molasses. Not Chrome. I open almost a dozen tabs and it still simply screams.
As it grows more popular, Chrome will surely suffer from one of the growing pains common among popular Web browsers: Someone will exploit its vulnerabilities. Google automatically updates Chrome when you launch it, so I'm positive it'll take care of these issues as soon as they crop up.
Microsoft and Mozilla may be glancing confidently in their side-view mirrors right now, pleased that Chrome is, at just 5 percent, a mere spec in the distance. However, they may want to pay closer attention to that little note printed faintly on the glass: "Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear."
Article By: Lance Ulanoff
Deals & #@%*
Trending Topics
Recent Posts
- How to Print a House – 3D Printing [VID]
- The Future & Promise of Nanotechnology [VID]
- The Future of Building: Self-Assembling Machines
- What Happens When BP Spills Coffee? [VID]
- Sony: Emotion Reading Video Games Coming
#@%* That Matters
Recent Comments
- Justin Hedge on UFC – Barry vs. Kongo Prediction
- Ronzio Nelle Orecchie on Pulsating Tinnitus Defined
- Mhalper2000 on Best Local Gas Prices Map
- Justin Hedge on Best Local Gas Prices Map
- dog skin bumps on Would Somebody Like A Bull Penis?
Polls
Loading ...