Can Mozilla survive without Google?

Is Mozilla in danger of losing their biggest financial backer? The creator of the Firefox browser considers that a possibility. Currently, Mozilla sources nearly all of their monetary support from a partnership with Google, providing them with the top spot for searching, and in turn receiving a nice financial kickback. All in all, Google is responsible for footing nearly 90% of Mozilla's funds.

The reason Mozilla sees themselves in danger is due to Chrome. It's possible that due to Google pushing their own browser, they may not see any incentive to continue funding Firefox development. If Chrome usage rises to significant levels, Google may want to redirect their resources, after their three year contract with Mozilla expires in 2011. The search giant hasn't commented on any plans they have, though there's still a substantial benefit in working with Mozilla. After all, Chrome has yet to really take off and Firefox has a very large market share to play with.

The bottom line, as I see it, is that Firefox was not born with Google in mind and the browser will certainly not disappear should Mozilla suffer a massive revenue loss. A change in business, for sure, and it is also possible that development would be affected. Google may be king of search, but there are still other players, such as Microsoft and Yahoo – and there's nothing preventing Mozilla from working with them as well.

Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/33893-can-mozilla-survive-without-google.html

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Google and partners to expose network meddling

As promised several months ago, Google and a group of partners have formed the Measurement Lab platform, an open project of distributed servers meant to help researchers gauge just how well an internet connection is working and conversely help customers determine if their ISP is blocking or throttling particular applications.

As part of the plan, Google will provide M-Lab with 36 servers in 12 locations in the U.S. and Europe to run a set of tools which initially include: a network diagnostic tool, which reports the upload and download speeds and also attempts to determine what problems limited these speeds; a tool to detect whether your ISP is performing application-specific shaping; and network and path application diagnosis (NPAD), which diagnoses some of the common problems affecting the last network mile and end-users' systems.

Google insisted that the effort was not just another means to push Net neutrality and said it believes that consumers should have the right to clearly understand the exact nature of the connection they’re paying for. To help with that goal, M-Lab says two additional tools should arrive shortly, DiffProbe and Nano. The first will attempt to detect if an ISP is classifying certain kinds of traffic as “low priority” (a technique Comcast began using not long ago), while the latter will attempt to detect if an ISP is degrading the performance of a certain subset of users, apps, or destinations.

Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/33387-google-and-partners-to-expose-network-meddling.html

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Clickjacking vulnerability in Chrome discovered

Anyone who uses Chrome should be aware that an interesting and potentially dangerous vulnerability has been discovered. In the most current version of the browser, it is possible for someone to be fooled into viewing a site or submitting data to a page using a method known as clickjacking. As the links can be disguised, it can be difficult to tell when it is occurring. An example is a link that will appear normal in the browser, including the URL preview pane, but then redirect the user to a different page.

A proof of concept page was put up for demonstration. Google has confirmed that it is already working on a fix for the flaw, but until that arrives, it’s easy to see how this can be abused with dummy pages setup to look like the real thing. Upon redirection, people may not pay attention to what shows up in the address bar, and give away information they shouldn't.

Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/33404-clickjacking-vulnerability-in-chrome-discovered.html

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Google remains profitable despite earnings drop

Google impressed investors this week posting a significant profit during this past quarter. The company managed to pull in a $382 million profit despite of the adverse economic climate, beating Wall Street estimates. This includes some heavy financial setbacks after investing in Clearwire and Time Warner.

However, even mighty Google is not immune to slumping markets, something the company has discovered first-hand in recent days. The search giant, while still strong overall, posted a significant drop in profits with Q4 ending 68% lower than the year prior. What's more, the company itself sees troubled times ahead. Recently they laid off a significant number of employees and axed several services showing their willingness to cut up their business if needed.

If their profits continue to drop, you can expect more of that to occur. Probably not YouTube, despite it continuing to be a money sink, but other services may not have the benefit of popularity to protect them. Many of us use Google services on a daily basis, knowing full well that they remain free because Google turns a profit on advertising. What else will Google find expendable?

Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/33327-google-remains-profitable-despite-earnings-drop.html

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Google bails on print advertising

After axing some of its more unsuccessful web projects and announcing a round of layoffs, Google has revealed plans to stop selling ads in print newspapers as well, saying the effort failed to deliver the impact it wanted. The move marks another cutback for the company in the face of a slumping economy and a failed attempt to help embattled newspapers bolster their ad revenue as the publishing industry gradually moves online.

The program launched in 2006 with 50 newspaper partners and expanded to 800, but it is now slated to close by the end of February. With this, the company hopes to free up resources to try and “come up with new and innovative online solutions that will have a meaningful impact for users, advertisers, and publishers” – which makes me wonder what the future of their other offline ad efforts, like radio and TV, might be.

Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/33275-google-bails-on-print-advertising.html

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YouTube tries out downloadable videos

Users have long been able to use third party applications to grab content from YouTube, instead of just streaming it, but apparently the popular video sharing site is now embracing the idea of downloadable content itself. Just don’t expect to start downloading all your favorite clips just yet, as only a few political videos have the new download option for now.

Specifically, the “Weekly Address” videos on President-elect Barack Obama’s YouTube page now sport a “Click to download” link below the play button, which gives users a full-quality H.264 file. If and how this feature will expand remains to be seen, but of course Google Video has provided this feature for a while now, and following Google’s recent decision to end user uploads maybe this option will soon be available on YouTube as a standard publishing feature for those who enable it on their clips.

Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/33252-youtube-tries-out-downloadable-videos.html

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YouTube comes to gaming consoles, but not Xbox 360

Google’s popular video sharing site YouTube has already made its way into Apple TV and TiVo devices, but the internet giant is looking to invade even more living rooms with a revamped version of YouTube for Television, a feature announced last summer and highlighted recently at CES which is now available via Wii and PS3 game consoles.

By visiting www.youtube.com/tv from either console, users can view a streamlined version of the site that makes it easier to browse and search through videos. The interface has bigger text and simplified navigation tools, videos can be set to go full-screen by default and there’s an auto-play option that enables users to view related videos sequentially. Check out a video demo pulled from the Sony PlayStation blog, after the jump.

Google says it hopes to expand the number of TV-connected devices capable of supporting YouTube viewing, though notably absent from that list will be the Xbox 360, due of course to its lack of a browser.

Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/33230-youtube-comes-to-gaming-consoles-but-not-xbox-360.html

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Google kills off unpopular services, announces layoffs

It appears that the bad economic times are catching up with Google, as the search giant has announced that it will shut down – or at least stop supporting – various of its more unpopular web based services in an effort to streamline its operations in a recessionary economy. Included among the affected services are: Google Notebooks, Google Catalogs, Dodgeball, Google Video, Google Mashup Editor and Jaiku.

Google will not be shutting down all of these services though. For instance, all existing content in Google Video will remain viewable and be searchable but the ability to upload new stuff will be switched off in a few months from now. As for Jaiku, the less popular Twitter clone, will become a part of Google Apps and should be released later on as open source while Catalog Search and Dodgeball, the mobile social networking service, will be discontinued. Lastly, the Mashup Editor is being replaced by App Engine and Google Notebook will continue to function for current users but will no longer accept new ones.

The company said on its corporate blog that it will be hiring at a reduced rate, but still laying off 100 recruiters and reshuffling 70 engineering staff to other locations worldwide.

Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/33212-google-kills-off-unpopular-services-announces-layoffs.html

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Google Chrome Extension Support

Alternate browsers are becoming increasingly popular, even though Internet Explorer still has a stronghold when it comes to market share. Some of the most popular alternate web browsers available include Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Google’s new Chrome web browser.

Still in beta, Google’s "Chrome" has attracted less than 2% of the Internet browser market at its peak, but Google engineers are working to enhance the software to make it more appealing and useful to its users. One very popular idea for improving Chrome is the addition of an extension system, which will enable third-party developers to produce plugins for any number of add-on features, ranging from browser enhancements to RSS readers, calendar/reminder extensions, etc.Chrome users can then install the plugins to complete tasks that Google did not integrate into the web browser.

Mozilla Firefox, a browser that holds the record for the most downloads in a single day, has the ability to integrate third-party plugins, which has been perhaps the greatest factor in achieving its 20% web browser market share.

One of Google’s developers made the announcement that Google is looking into integrating third-party browser plugins for Chrome. They also released a design document that provided an outline for what needed to be done in order to add plugin support. This functionality is certainly at the top of the wishlist for most Chrome users, and Google seems to be working on providing the support as quickly as possible. The first plugins planned for integration include Flash and an ad blocker (ironic), which are some of the more popular plugins for Mozilla Firefox.

Unfortunately, Google has yet to announce when this implementation will be complete, but at least we know that they plan on offering extension support in the near future.

Source: http://www.gadgetadvisor.com/computer-software/google-chrome-extension-support

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Treasure Hunter Claims Google Maps Treasure Find

A treasure hunter testified in a Texas courtroom Tuesday that he used Google Maps to locate a shipwreck.

Houston Chronicle writer Mary Flood reported that Nathan Smith, a 39-year-old musician and filmmaker from Los Angeles, has been fighting representatives of an estate in Refugio County, Texas, for the right to excavate his claimed find.

Smith seeks to prove that the wreck lies in navigable waters rather than on privately owned land.

The case, Nathan Smith v. The Abandoned Vessel, was filed in March 2007. The significant documents, including the initial complaint, are under seal to hide the location of the supposed shipwreck.

In the publicly accessible depositions, much of the questioning has to do with the area in and around Melon Creek and Melon Lake, near the Mission River.

On Monday, according to the Houston Chronicle, Smith described the circumstances in 1822 by which the ship allegedly ran aground and sank in the mud near the Mission River while trying to avoid a hurricane. He claimed that half the crew died during the voyage and the remaining crew was killed by a local cannibal tribe.

Describing a seemingly implausible sequence of events, Smith testified that Comanche Indians found the ship's gold and buried some of it after encountering the cannibals and fleeing, the Chronicle reported.

The plaintiff's exhibit list mentions "Google Aerial photographs taken in 2007." Google has traditionally licensed its satellite imagery from companies like DigitalGlobe, GeoEye, and TerraMetrics.

The court exhibit list also includes Lost Treasures Of American History by W.C. Jameson. Presumably, the book has some relevance to the claimed shipwreck. The exhibit list also mentions a 1958 family manuscript, Nicholas Fagan: Texas Patriot, by Mrs. Tom O'Connor Sr.

Source: http://www.techweb.com/article/showArticle?articleID=212700355

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