By summer, Google may roll out Chrome OS laptops that can be rented with a monthly subscription price of $10 to $20. The business goal for Google is to get more people using it’s services and interacting with Google advertising, which is the company’s bread and butter. Certainly a cheap, cloud-computing dedicated computer paid for mostly by advertising could stir things up in the laptop market.
It has been unclear whether Google will be targeting it’s standard Gmail users or the enterprise-level Google apps users with this subscription model. Google has launched a pilot program to test run the devices.
Amazon used it’s EC2 cloud service to build a 10,000-core cluster, which has made the list of the world’s Top 500 supercomputers. This wasn’t a first for the company–Amazon has already built a top supercomputer that lives in the cloud. The new computer runs an HPC-optimized application and a batch scheduling technology. The 10,000 cores were composed of 1,250 instances with eight cores each, as well as 8.75TB of RAM and 2PB disk space. (The cluster ran eight hours at a cost of $8,500.)
Google settled the FTC complaint that the company used deceptive tactics that violated consumer privacy when it launched it’s social media service, Buzz. Specifically, when Buzz launched, Google used personal Gmail data from its users to populate the Buzz service without their permission. Google’s privacy statement stated they they would not use Gmail data for any other purpose.
The settlement goes as follows:
Google is barred from future privacy misrepresentations
They are required to implement a comprehensive privacy program
They are required to undergo independent privacy audits for 20 years
The Dummy Lipsum extension for Firefox helps web designers generate fake latin text for prototyping and layouts.
Lorem Ipsum is the industry standard for filler text, which helps clients visualize a website or print proof with content that isn’t distracting. The purpose of putting fake Latin text as dummy copy evolved from a need to not influence a client or buyer with distracting copy…instead allowing the client to focus on the elements of design.
This Firefox extension generates copy in a customizable quality. Additionally, the tool will generate HTML, like <p> tags.
Gmail has a strange, empty default mailbox glitch, which shows the message “no new mail” while the account has plenty of new messages. A user, upon first logging in, is greeted with an empty screen until they click the inbox menu item in the sidebar, which displays the messages waiting for them.
Many SEO firms have tested the affect of social media interactions such as conversations on Facebook and Twitter on search result rankings. Google’s Matt Cutts confirms the use of social media as a ranking signal in this video. Back in May 2010, a video by Matt Cutts stated that Google did not use social media as a ranking component, but this has since changed. Real time search is the primary focus of this ranking signal, but Google is incorporating it into regular search results. Again, quality should be the key focus.
Twitter and Facebook do contribute to ranking as one of the score building components. Google is trying to build an understanding of reputation (of a brand’s, author’s, etc) through the interpretation of that content.
Youtube Feed is a new Chrome extension invented by an engineer staff member of the company. The extension should be a hit with the API community, as it will fetch the activity of your Youtube account including friends’ actions. This tool will help track videos that your friends upload to Youtube or comments made on videos in your channel.
The source code of the application is available to web developers. JavaScript code can be used to build upon the application and Youtube’s data alongside OAuth to authenticate users.
Groupon turned down Google’s incredible $5 billion-plus takeover bid. This would have been the largest acquisition in Google’s history.
The revenues of Groupon may be closer to $2 billion than the previous estimate of $500 million. The company’s revenues must be climbing dramatically. Groupon may be leaning towards an IPO.
Facebook is close to trademarking the word “Face” with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. On Tuesday, Facebook was notified that it can proceed to the next phase of the trademark process by illustrating the term’s usage in the real world and online way once it has become a trademarked term.
The trademark for the term will only apply for using the word “face” in the context of “telecommunication services, namely, providing online chat rooms and electronic bulletin boards for transmission of messages among computer users.”
We noticed a frequent and unresolved issue for Netflix which involves Micrsoft’s Silverlight (alternative to Flash). The issue has been mentioned many times in blogs and forums–even on Microsoft’s own product forums. The error prevents users from watching Netflix streaming movies, and the error message displayed by the application also contain some “self help” instructions for “fixing” the problem–these instructions did not help.
Our answer to solve the problem was simple: delete Microsoft’s Silverlight from your computer. Once you get rid of Microsoft’s buggy software the problem was solved for us.
Below is a screen shot of the error message.
We tried following the “self help” instructions to no avail. The instructions suggested to engage the Silverlight program’s preferences panel and remove all data from the “Application Storage” list and then refresh the page. This did not work. We also tried removing Application Support files and re-installing using the latest version–none of which would help. It’s funny… simply getting rid of Microsoft was the solution. After that everything worked fine.
Below is a screen view of the Application Storage panel from the Silverlight preferences, for reference.
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