What is one of the few online services that Google does not yet have? That may be a difficult question with the dozens of products and services Google offers, but the answer is a cloud drive. There are already ways to store information on some Google services, but comprehensive Google cloud storage may be available soon.
We all hate Spam. Not the processed meat in a can, the email messages that we did not want to receive. Whether they appear as advertisements for products we do not want or emails for services we have no interest in, everyone has received spam at some point. Sometimes, though, spam emails can be far more dangerous than annoying ads – they can contain phishing links that appear to come from a legitimate source.
In the wake of the Justice Department’s closure of the file-sharing and data backup website MegaUpload, most similar sites began reducing or shutting down their downloading features. The owners of these sites are concerned that they will face the same criminal charges as MegaUpload’s founders are, so they are playing it safe.
Google Plus has finally opened its virtual doors to the teenagers. Anyone ages 13 and up can now create a Google+ account, although for teenagers, Google has added more safety precautions. It was not that Google did not want teenagers to be able to use the site previously – there was no “mature content” – but simply that Google wanted to get things ironed out and ready before letting in the teens.
Since teenagers and young adults are the more avid social networking users, and the most avid Internet users, it makes sense for Google to allow teenagers to join its social networking site. According to Bradley Horowitz, the Vice President of Google, “We want to help teens build meaningful connections online. We also want to provide features that foster safety alongside self-expression.”
Facebook versus Google Plus – which side are you on? It is the battle for the future of social networking and the outcome will decide the direction the Internet takes in the coming years. Google+ is still a relatively new social networking site, having only been launched last year, but it shows promise.
Some of the most basic features of Google+ were applauded by the public when first introduced. Facebook did its best to integrate similar features within its own site, but the features on Google+ are far more seamlessly incorporated. These features include the circles, hangouts, and making Google+ part of all other Google websites.
Google+ allows you to easily group your friends the way we do in real life with the circles feature. The best thing about this feature is that no one else knows in which group you have put him or her. The hangouts are the video chat feature for Google+ and this feature allows people to chat with everyone in one of their circles all at the same time.
Brilliant ideas often need to come at the right time in order for it to be recognized. Occasionally, there is an invention in the tech sector that fails simply because the marketplace was not ready for it or the supporting technologies did not exist to make it a success. But the success of online digital photo editor Picnik is the result of a good idea hitting the marketplace at precisely the right time. Much of the credit for Picnik’s success, then, comes from co-founder Mike Harrington.
At one point in his career, Mike Harrington was best known for the immensely popular video game Half-Life. Harrington was the lead programmer for Half-Life and he was a co-founder of Valve, the software company that produced Half-Life. Prior to starting Valve with Gabe Newell, Harrington was a software developer for Microsoft. His work in the tech sector began in 1985 when he went to work for Dynamix as a programmer. Following the success of Half-Life, Harrington took a sabbatical and traveled with his wife.
As companies rise and fall in Silicon Valley, it is no surprise that the big tech companies frequently see employees migrate from one popular company to the next big thing. While some of the big tech companies actively poach employees from their competitors, other tech companies seem to just attract a lot of employees from the companies with greater name recognition. In the case of StumbleUpon, the comparatively small Internet company has a surprisingly high number of employees formerly employed at Google. One of the most significant ex-Google workers who is now vital to StumbleUpon is Japjit Tulsi.
Japjit Tulsi made a lateral move in 2011 when he became StumbleUpon’s Vice President of Engineering from being Google’s Director of Engineering. While at Google, Tulsi was responsible for creating Google Analytics, which is one of the standard-bearers of online traffic analysis. That level of programming genius made him very attractive to StumbleUpon. Prior to Google, Japjit Tulsi was a part of Microsoft’s executive development program. At Microsoft, Tulsi served as a group manager in the engineering department. Prior to Microsoft, Tulsi studied at Punjab University where he abandoned a law career in favor of the tech sector.
In big technology companies like Microsoft, it is a rare thing for an executive in the Customer Service branch to make the mainstream news. In fact, it is hard to make a splash in customer service such that you get noticed within the industry at all. Customer service defines the old adage of “no news is good news;” if a customer service department is doing their job efficiently then you seldom hear about them. But in 2010, one corporate officer in the technology sector’s customer service division stood out. That person was Barbara Gordon and she boldly challenged Google to rise to the level of customer service Microsoft delivers!
Barbara Gordon serves as the Corporate Vice President for Customer Service and Support for the Microsoft Corporation. In 2010, she wrote a blog that became famous in the technology industry. The article, Microsoft’s Support Sets Us Apart, garnered mainstream media attention by boldly calling out Google for its lack of customer service options. While some in the industry characterized the gambit as brazen, Gordon used the media attention to constructively criticize Google while touting the strong customer service department at Microsoft. When Google floundered in its response – even now it offers easy access only to Internet customer service support – Gordon’s risky public statement paid off for Microsoft.
Other than flying, what is one aspect of a ‘future car’ that most people would want? Self-driving, of course! In this hypothetical future, we would only have to tell the car where to go, sit back, and enjoy the ride. But is that really just a hypothetical far-off future?
Not if Google gets its way. According to the New York Times, Google is looking to have the first driverless vans or taxis available in 2013 or 2014. The search engine company has been working with car manufacturers for a few years now on autonomous, driverless cars. Several working prototypes have even been test-driving around on some California roads.
When this technology gets the bugs worked out and becomes available on the open market, there will be some major changes in the way driving works. There will not be as many accidents since most accidents occur because of human error. Speed limits and traffic laws will no longer be the ‘suggestions’ most people perceive them to be because the car will be a law-abiding driver.
We all know Google, Bing, and Yahoo are the most popular search engines. Why, when there are hundreds of other possible choices, do people choose these three? Maybe there is a better choice out there, but how will you know? How do you choose a good search engine?
According to comScore’s latest press release, Bing now controls 15.1% of the market share for search engines in the United States. Yahoo, which dipped to 14.5% in December, has been decreasing in market share for quite some time now. Google, unsurprisingly, reigns supreme with 65.9% market share. If Bing continues to rise in popularity though, it may eat slowly away at that impressive number.
But what makes one better than another? Why did Bing finally surpass Yahoo? Why is Google the most popular?