Crenk » google

Google Open Sources Its Own Development Programs

Dean Sherwin — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:29:32 +0000

It’s a great day when Internet giant Google open sources the programs it uses to build well-known favourites such as GMail, Docs and Google Maps. It announced on its blog that it will be making a lot of it’s own development software available to developers all over the world. This release comes as Google are undoubtedly upgrading their own tools especially with the upcoming launch of Google Wave.

The first of the three tools they released is called Closure Compiler which helps developers trim down code and optimize it for better performance. There is also a plug-in for Firefox released alongside this so they can view heir Java Script code in the browser.

The second one is called Library which is a tool to help build Java Script Apps. Here is what Google said on their official blog about the program:

The Closure Library is a JavaScript library that provides many features that are useful for building web applications across browsers. It helps to abstract browser differences and provides clean class and function interfaces for common tasks. Besides DOM interaction and UI tools, the library includes tools for arrays, objects, string manipulation and much more. The library also implements a name spacing and import standard, which helps keep scripts small and load fast when used with the Closure Compiler.

The third and final release until further notice was Templates. This is an app that is for creating HTML elements that can be used within Java Script.

Closure Templates simplify the task of dynamically creating HTML and have an easy-to-read syntax. They allow you to write templates for reusable HTML and UI elements that can be used within JavaScript or on the server side in Java. They also have excellent run-time performance because they are never parsed on the client side.

Over the next month or so there is undoubtedly going to be a big rush of new Java apps and programs onto the market thanks to the Google outsourcing. Be sure to stay in touch with Crenk to stay informed!

Web App Buffers Timely Online Communication

Luis Sandoval — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:53:50 +0000

Heard of Twitter? Sure the whole world has by now. Lone tribes on far islands have heard about Twitter. This massively immersive and widely used micro-blogging network has become a staple for both our personal and professional lives. The world seems to still be feeling the “Twitter effect” as industries adapt their existing messages to fit the fast paced world of this social network.

But do you ever feel like you’re being left behind? Perhaps not enough time to get the right message in a timely fashion? Now there’s a solution to that.

Twuffer presents itself as the buffer between you and your timed messages. By using the web application, you are able to preset messages on a timed schedule to be released on your network at the times you think most important. The possibilities of this type of functionality are as endless as your creativity.

The web app is easy to use and can serve you to better time your announcements, set reminders for yourself or others, engage in timed online activities, or, as the site suggests, make it appear as if you never sleep. The practicality of this app seems pretty straightforward.

The application is currently in beta, but your able to explore what it has to offer pretty seamlessly. I suggest you give it a try to announce regular days when your podcast or blog post will go live, or perhaps some other similar campaign to see if Twuffer is right for you!

Google Chrome 4 Beta Released on Windows

Steven Finch — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:06:18 +0000

It has been amazing that Google have been able to pump out 4 releases of a browser that has only been in the market for a little over a year. Compare that to Firefox, which took over six years to reach 3.6.

We’ve improved performance scores on Google Chrome by 30% since our current stable release, as measured by Mozilla’s Dromeao DOM Core Tests, and by 400% since our first stable release.” – Idan Avraham and Anton Muhin

Expectedly, Google Chome 4 is currently only available for the Windows platform. Reports have come in that it works just fine with the latest release of Windows, despite the fact that it only specifies XP/Vista as being currently supported.

Download Google Chrome 4 Beta

Google Wave Federation Begins Testing – Start of SPAM

Dean Sherwin — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:20:59 +0000

Google Wave has not been a big hit so far – everyone though it would be…but it hasn’t. The interface is complicated, buggy and unpractical. People aren’t staying long enough to build a community and worst of all – nobody is quite sure what exactly it’s for yet. However the development team are still making strides.

They have just opened up Wave to third party companies by releasing an API package. This allows companies to host their own Wave like services on their own servers and interact with other companies API Waves. This is currently only in sandbox testing and isn’t live on the internet as of yet.

One thing which concerns me is that this could mean the start of SPAM on Wave. Since its launch people have been confined to specific waves but now we’re seeing a growth in access. Although this growth isn’t enough to start a spamming campaign it could be the start of it. I’m pretty sure that soon the hackers and spammers will descend on Google Wave – then it’s up to Google to stop them on a platform which will supposedly be more open than e-mail.

Google Provides Virgin Airline Customers Free On-board Wifi Until 2010

Steven Finch — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:59:40 +0000

Google has long wanted to make the internet faster and provide internet to everyone in the world. Google has now taken this to the next level as they are going to sponsor free wifi from November 15th to January 2010 for all Virgin Airline customers.

This wifi service normally costs $13 for computers over long haul flights and $8 for smartphones and handheld devices. Google has tried to state that they are just aiming to ease passenger stress during the busy holiday season, but im sure they will be focusing their sponsorship to get customers to use Google products while in flight.

Unfortunately Virgin Airlines only services major airport hubs in the U.S. although that service still means tens of thousands of passengers will have free access during that promotional period.

Google’s New Barcode Logo

Dean Sherwin — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:11:02 +0000

If you’ve been surfing the web (do people still say that?) for a while today you may have noticed that Google’s doodle today is odd, in fact it’s not really a doodle – but a barcode. Oh, and in spite of the recent debacle when Google announced that it would no longer be paying artists to create their doodles, rather the publicity alone would act as payment, this isn’t the beginning of a decline in Google’s doodles as a result.

They are simply celebrating the anniversary of that little invention we all take for granted at the supermarket; the barcode. By clicking on the doodle you get search results for ‘Barcode’. I can only imagine what the image results would be.

Before I sign off for today, a few facts about the barcode.

v It was originally circular so it could be scanned from all angles. Often called a bull’s-eye.

v The first product ever to be scanned in a real life situation was a packet of Wrigley’s chewing gum in a supermarket in Ohio in June of 1974.

v Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver (the inventors) never made much money from their invention as they sold the patent before it was commercialised. Silver never even lived to see its success as he died in a car crash before it was released to the public.

Googles New Look

Dean Sherwin — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:21:56 +0000

Google’s minimalistic homepage has been a cornerstone of the internet for the past decade or so. Now, they’re testing out a new homepage which will take the word count from thirty down to one; ‘Google’.

Basically, it will look like the screenshot above with everything but the Google logo and search function being removed. This includes their famous ‘I’m feeling lucky’ button

When you move the mouse however near any area where buttons used to be they will appear. The thinking is that this new method will have the best of both worlds: minimalism and functionality.

However, they are only bucket testing the new homepage to see how it goes down so only a certain percentage of users will actually get access to the new design. For those of you who can’t, see the video below.

Fast, Simple and Free: New Google Chrome Themes from Artists

Steven Finch — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 07:57:18 +0000

Nearly exactly a month after launch Google has announced more cool themes for Chrome. This release is based upon prominent artists which include Jeff Koons, Jenny Holzer, Karim Rashid, Jonathan Adler, Oscar de la Renta, Anita Kunz, Tom Sachs, Kate Spade, Donna Karan, Kid Robot, Casey Reas, Dolce & Gabbana, Michael Graves, Todd Oldham, Yann Arthus-Bertrand and Mariah Carey (and that’s just to name a few!).

For a behind-the-scenes look at one illustrator’s unique creative process, check out the Google Chrome Blog. And for a preview of these themes, here’s a video flipbook we’ve compiled to showcase some of the artistry behind this project:

My favourite:

Google Chrome OS Arriving this Month?

Augusto Alvarez — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 15:40:47 +0000

I guess when there’s a lot of anticipation on something, sometimes things might get faster. We’ve talked before about Google Chrome OS announcement, and we’ve also said that users might get hands on it in the second half of 2010. But now, a Chinese netbooks manufacturer seems that is planning to release netbooks with a previous version of Chrome later this month.

Shanzai is announcing that the devices with the Loongson-CPU will have Google Chrome OS installed, and released by Lemote hardware manufacturer. And even though these are only rumors, there have been some snapshots available in the web of what seems to be Google’s OS:

The anticipation is increasing significantly, since we don’t have much data around this operating system. We know that it will be focused on netbooks, open source with a Linux kernel and user interface based mainly in a web experience.

Sounds good to me if an Asian hardware manufacturer is taking a chance with this new OS. We are all waiting for the moment to install and use Chrome OS.

Google Announced Website Translator Gadget and Firefox Addon

Steven Finch — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:16:19 +0000

Google has announced a lot of new additions to its translation offering. Firstly they have announced a new website translator gadget which is available in 51 languages. Now, when people visit your page, if their language (as determined by their browser settings) is different than the language of your page, they’ll be prompted to automatically translate the page into their own language. If the visitor’s language is the same as the language of your page, no translation banner will appear.

Additionally, Google has announced that they have improved their Toolbar, which now also includes in-page translation.

Google Acquisitions and Investments Chart

Steven Finch — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:08:48 +0000

Our friends at The Next Web have put found a great chart of Google’s Acquisitions and Investments. Click here for a larger view.

Big Google Wave Coming Up

Augusto Alvarez — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:23:04 +0000

Well, it’s time. A lot of people have been waiting for this for several months now: Google Wave is releasing 100,000 invitations in the next few days (expected for September 30^th) for enlisted participants.

As we’ve discussed before, Google Wave will give users the chance to manipulate the same content at the same time, and displaying the information in real time for the rest of the users. This collaborative environment can be crucial in developers’ teams. Will be something like this:

I know what you are about to say: how do I get an invitation to Google Wave? Well, there’s no guarantee at this point that you may receive one of the 100k that Google’s releasing, but you might get a chance for a second Google Wave (mid-October maybe?):

Dev guys can click here and enlist to receive one of the invitations.

The rest of the mortals can click here.

And yes, if we receive one of those invitations you’ll hear from our experience.

Google Release Picasa 3.5 Their Free Photo Editing Software

Steven Finch — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:13:57 +0000

Today Google has announced that they have launched Picasa 3.5, a new version of their very popular free photo editing software. This version of Picasa gives the user the ability to add name tags to their photos, using the same facial recognition technology that powers name tags on Picasa Web Albums.

Name tags have been designed to help the user easily organise their photos by what matters most. Picasa identifies similar faces and puts these into an “Unnamed People” album. From there, you can easily add a name tag by clicking “Add a name” and typing the person’s name. After you’ve added name tags to some photos, you can use your tags to do creative things, like quickly find all the photos with the same two people in them, make a face collage with just one click or upload and share people albums with friends.

Additionally, Picasa 3.5 has integrated Google Maps, so it is easy to geotag your photos and then view them according to location. Finally, Google has completely redesigned the import process in which you can now import photos from your camera and upload the photos to Picasa Web Albums in one easy step.

Google Timeline

Augusto Alvarez — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:37:58 +0000

No, it’s not exactly Google’s Twitter Timeline; but you could consider these as tweets I guess. This list represents the entire life of Google represented in chronologically: Google Timeline.

Here you will see every significant milestone this company had since the first time Google was just a thought (BackRub search engine) until the newest ones like “Google Translates in 41 languages”, or “Picasa for Mac”.

A few months back we’ve talked about the history of Microsoft, the OTHER big company, and we had the chance to see how from a simple idea you can, not only build an entire company, you can design the future. Quite similar like they did with Google, here’s what they’ve called “Google Master Plan”.

(Click on the picture to see a large version. You would probably be amazed with all the stuff that appears there and they haven’t done it, just yet)

Getting back to Google Timeline, take a close look to that, because you would probably find some things that you didn’t even know.

Social Media Revolution

Augusto Alvarez — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 19:07:11 +0000

How much is Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google involved in your common day activities? Did you ever ask yourself that? Where would you be if those didn’t exist?

Well there thousands of those existential questions that you may or may not asked yourself, and there’s no need to get real philosophical about this, but we sure can be certain that those technologies, web apps and more have an important presence in most of our days.

About those presences, here’s a very interesting video about the facts of several of these social tools, technologies and media: “Social Media Revolution”

Here are some of the facts that caught my attention:

Social media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the web
1 of 8 couples married in the US met via social media
If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s 4th largest
TV took 13 years to reach 50 million users, Facebook took less than 9 months to reach 100 millions
Ashton Kutcher has more Twitter followers than the entire population of Ireland, Norway and Panama
80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices
Wikipedia has over 13 million articles
80% of companies are using LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees
Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
35% of books sales on Amazon are for Kindle

“Social media isn’t a fad; it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate”

27 Circular Social Media Icons in 3 Sizes

Steven Finch — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 09:37:03 +0000

I have been after some great social media icons for a long time and I have finally come across a great set. All icons are circular and of the highest quality. Icons include AIM, Bebo, eBay, Hi5, Last.fm, LinkedIn, Windows Live, Ning, Orkut, Twitter and more.

Download: Social Media Icons Pack 2.0 (.rar), Social Media Icons Pack 2.0 (.zip)

Yahoo! and Bing Still Rivals

Dean Sherwin — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:07:28 +0000

When Bing and Yahoo! decided recently that they would work together in an effort to stage an offensive against the internet giant that is Google, I though competition between the two had come to an untimely end. I was wrong.

As it happens, although the two search engines will work together to defeat Google they will still compete for glory. Perhaps we will see a kind of WW2 cooperation just like the bitter Allies united to defeat the Nazis…not that Google is a Nazi.

A senior vice president of Yahoo! said “We are Yahoo and that will continue…We collaborate on the back-end but we are competitors on the front-end,”

I guess this makes sense. I mean, what were we all expecting? Yahoo! and Bing to come together like two lost lovers? Nonsense. This is a recession and both companies will by going full steam ahead to stay afloat. They will share advertising revenue with both search engines using the Bing ad model. The deal is due to come into affect next year and will last for ten years. By the end of that time will Google have been defeated? And will Yahoo! be left needing Bing more than Bing needs Yahoo?

MIT Report Could Save Internet Companies Millions

Dean Sherwin — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 15:06:30 +0000

Google, Yahoo, Amazon, and Facebook are some of the internets biggest names. All of them have huge online presence with millions of hits every single day. Their names have become so well known that even elderly people who have never sat at a computer know what they are. Ever think about their electricity bills?

Me neither, until I came across a report by MIT which states that they are easily spending $30 million per annum on electricity. This is to keep their servers up and running. First they have to power the servers. Then comes the technology that runs them and all the cooling and networking systems in between. A tall task with an even taller bill.

This report suggests a way in which these companies could save on their electricity bills.

It doesn’t offer a green solution of cutting back, rather it suggests that they constantly change which servers power their machines on a daily, even hourly basis.

So for example, the cost of electricity could rise in the US for any given reason so they shift the workload to servers in Belgium where the electricity is cheaper on that particular day.

While this would be a costly investment to begin with, it should pay off. After all, the total energy usage by the internet’s servers is set to go up four times within the next decade. Time for the big lads to make a big decision I think.

“Google Listen” for Android

Augusto Alvarez — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 15:40:25 +0000

Google Labs, as we said it many times, represent’s Google’s sandbox where they can try a lot of new technologies, and also sharing them with the globe. And if we talk about Google and new technologies we can always be amazed, and I guess this one it’s not the exception: Google Listen will provide audio search within th web, but wait, it is only available for Android (just for now I hope).

You can search, subscribe, download and strem podcasts and audio around the web. Interesting thing about this Android’s app: by subscribing to programs you will create a personalized audio-magazine.You can download Google Listen for your Adroid device from here.

You can see it like this:

Google Listen Home Page

The audio search is only available in English. And remember, this app belongs to Google Labs, so you should expect some bugs or lack of stability.

Also I’ve noticed that the Google Listen home page hasn’t been all that “available” in the last few days.

Google Analyticator: Free Google Analytics Plugin for Wordpress Blog

Steven Finch — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 19:13:08 +0000

Google Analyticator adds the necessary JavaScript code to enable Google Analytics logging on any WordPress blog. This eliminates the need to edit your template code to begin logging. Google Analyticator also includes several widgets for displaying Analytics data in the admin and on your blog. It includes a graph of the last 30 days of visitors, a summary of site usage, the top pages, the top referrers, and the top searches.

Download here.

Create Google Chrome Windows 7 Jumplists

Steven Finch — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:25:08 +0000

Jumplists are part of the new Windows 7 taskbar. The jumplists basically provide access to program related options.

The latest dev version of Google Chrome is now offering jumplist support in Windows 7. The jumplist can be opened by right-clicking the Google Chrome icon in the Windows taskbar. The Google Chrome jumplist is divided into four areas of which three are always visible and one only if the user has added at least one item to it.

The Google Browser will display the most visited websites, the recently closed websites and tasks in the jumplist. The most visited and recent websites are directly taken from the web browser’s history while the task allow the user to open a new window (either normal or in incognito mode).

The fourth group only becomes available if the user pins an element in the jumplist. This is for example excellent for quickly accessing favorite websites from the Windows 7 jumplist. The latest developer build of Google Chrome can be downloaded from the dev channel page. It is interesting to see that the Google Chrome development team has added jumplist support while the Mozilla Firefox team has not shown any signs that they intend to support that feature in the near future.

Google Chrome Theme Gallery Is Now Available

Steven Finch — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:09:10 +0000

Just a few days after being spotted in Chrome’s new tab page, the official Google Theme Gallery is now open for business. Currently there are 29 new themes in which you can add to Chrome.

Remember, you’ll need to be running the Chrome 3 beta or developer channel or be using a recent build of Chromium to get in on the fun. If that includes you, check ‘em out then tell us which one you’re switching to in the comments. Unless you’re not impressed with the selection, in which case – sound off!

Google Acquire Video Compression Company

Dean — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:31:20 +0000

Google have just announced that they have acquired a new technology company that will serve YouTube very well indeed.

That have just invested shares worth over $106 million dollars in On2 Technologies which are a video compression company. This new venture could change YouTube forever giving it faster download speeds and less buffering as a result.

This may also help to cut Google’s massive bandwidth bill of over $300 million per year that is necessary to keep YouTube up and running. By compressing the size of the videos (some of which are as big of 2GB since HD was introduced) this would make the site smaller and easier to manage while attracting more because of a better user experience.

“Because we spend a lot of time working to make the overall web experience better for users, we think that video compression technology should be a part of the web platform.

“To that end, we’re happy to announce today that we’ve signed a deal to acquire On2 Technologies, a leading creator of high-quality video compression technology.”

Google Mobile: Links Getting Shorter and Smarter

Augusto Alvarez — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:29:57 +0000

If you have some kind of mobile addiction and feel the necessity to constantly check your email with your mobile; I’m pretty sure that you usually get uncomfortable trying to use the small screen on your phone. Well this is not a revolutionary invention, but it keeps reminding me that Google is trying to keep things simpler: “Smart Links” automatically shortens long links and converts them into named links.

This is what you usually when you are reading an email with a long link:

And Smart Links converting it like this:

Of course these links, at least for now, will only work with Google related sites: Google Maps, Google Sites web pages and YouTube videos (but they are expecting to make it available soon for Google Docs as well).

There’s an important disclaimer about the use of this feature: only works with plain text emails.

Google Wave: Open Source

Augusto Alvarez — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:26:09 +0000

At this point I think that saying that Google released a new and very ambitious project as open source should not surprise anyone. Google officially announced that one of their recent projects, Google Wave, and the protocol involved, will be open source and they expect a lot of contribution from the entire community (I’m sure they will get it).

Google Wave will be oriented to concurrent messaging in a collaborative environment, multiple users can be manipulating the same content at the same time and user activity is immediately visible to other participants. As any collaborative environment and architecture, most of the operations will converge when the server receives the concurrent requests; but the real challenge appears making all that an “invisible transparency” to the user without resigning the usability, functionality and performance.

Will be something like this:

Google says: “To kickoff Federation Day, we open sourced two components: 1) the Operational Transform (OT) code and the underlying wave model, and 2) a basic client/server prototype that uses the wave protocol. The OT code is the heart and soul of the collaborative experience in Google Wave and we plan that code will evolve into the production-quality reference implementation”.

You can even take a peak to the source code of this protocol. And you can check also a nice overview.