Google

According to new figures released by Hitwise, the internet research company, Google remains in charge of the search engine market as Microsoft’s Bing and Yahoo! lose market share.
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If you are a Twitter user, you might be aware of the buggy but extremely useful “real time search” that helps you keep tab of events by the second. Ever wondered how it would be if Google offered this option?

Now, if you perform a Google search, you already get detailed options to customize your search to display results that were quite recent. It was in May that Google enhanced this “time frame limited” search options. However, even with these options, the search was hardly real time - partly because the search option only had the option to display results from Any time, Past year, Past week, Recent results and Past 24 hours. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, even “Past 24 hours” ain’t real time in today’s era of Twitter and real time updates. So, if there were some of you who were actually looking forward to Google offering real time search results, guess what? Google actually HAS an option to search real-time. It’s just that they aren’t telling you this.
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Things are really starting to get busy in the world of Chromium. Yesterday, we noted how the latest developer builds of Chrome were now Snow Leopard-ready. Today brings some other interesting news.

It looks like Chrome is about to gain a new built-in feature called Desktop Notifications. An overview document was recently placed in the Design Documents are of the Chromium Developers site. Basically, it sounds like there is an API that will allow a developer to pop up small messages on a user’s desktop area. I imagine this will look something like the FriendFeed notifications, but those are run through Adobe AIR, this would be run entirely in WebKit.

Interestingly, the documentation notes that for Mac OS users, there will be Growl integration with these notifications. It notes: “On Mac OS, desktop notifications in icon/title/text format will be routed to Growl for display if Growl is installed.” On Linux, the notifications would similarly be routed through DBus, apparently.

These notifications are to be turned off by default for now, but can be turned on using a command line switch. It’s hard to know exactly how these will be used from just reading about them in these documents, but this could be a potentially cool new feature sites can use — or pop-up ads 2.0.
Source:[TechCrunch]

Though Android can run multiple programs and close background processes as needed, there are times where the OS’ overall performance slows down. And during those times in particular it’s troubling that Android doesn’t let you close applications manually.

Fortunately, the Android Marketplace offers an answer. Advanced Task Manager is a paid application that enables you to view all running applications and end them on demand. For only 99 cents you can see all open applications and background processes on your phone, which can help you identify which are taking up memory. With the tap of your finger, you can easily end all processes or end them individually.

Though the application was targeted to users with hacked phones and root access when it first launched, a new version for all phones became available with the Android 1.5 update. The new version also added an “End All” widget on the Android home screen and one-click uninstalls.

Regular use of Advanced Task Manager can identify pesky applications that slow down your phone and eat battery life. When I first used it, I discovered several older applications I no longer used that were still running as background processes. I also found some beta applications that took up memory. Uninstalling these problem apps helped speed up my phone.

Considering its bargain price, Advanced Task Manager is an application that should appeal to most power users. Its ease of use and new widget support should also attract beginners as well. You’ll also get regular updates and support from the developer. So stop complaining about your slow phone and download Advanced Task Manager from the Android Market.

Source:[cnet.com]

Nokia S60 users can finally bypass the browser and start Google searches from the same application that most other smartphone users have been using for months. The free Google Mobile App has arrived on Nokia S60 phones.

As with CNET Editors’ Choice winner Google Mobile App on BlackBerry, this Symbian build places a search bar at its heart. The search bar supports search suggestions, history, and edits to the history, all of which saves you typing on subsequent searches for similar topics. Submitted searches return results in the default browser.

The search bar is flanked on the top by icons for Gmail, Google Maps for Mobile, YouTube, and Picasa Web albums. Clicking either of the first three will launch each separate native app if you’ve got it installed, or will install it for the first time if you don’t have it. A ‘more” button fast tracks you to online versions of Goog 411, Google Reader, Google SMS, and Orkut.

The final feature in this approachable and endlessly useful app is the My Location feature that uses the phone’s GPS or cell tower triangulation to guess your general neighborhood. With it activated, Google can automatically localize your searches, which takes typing your city or zip code off your hands.

You can launch Google Mobile App from Nokia’s Today screen by pressing the phone’s “back” key. Users can opt out by disabling the quick launch hot key in the app’s Setting menu.

Get Google Mobile App for Nokia S60 by visiting m.google.com from your mobile browser, or mobile.google.com from a desktop. It is available for handsets used in Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Russian Federation, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Finland, Hong Kong, Macao, Norway, Portugal, Taiwan, and Sweden.

Source:[cnet.com]

Android and iPhone developers looking for an extra source of revenue will soon have an advertising option, sponsored by Google.

Google’s AdSense program–in which it sells and distributes ads to third-party publishers–is coming to mobile devices as a beta program, the company announced Wednesday. A small group of developers have been testing this program but now anyone can apply, said Susan Wojcicki, vice president of product management, in a blog post.

Mobile apps are one of the hottest topics in software development these days, as Apple’s App Store continues to grow and other developers roll out their own app stores in response. Plenty of money is being made simply on the sales of the applications themselves, but additional revenue streams are starting to emerge, such as Apple’s addition of in-app purchases with the release of iPhone OS 3.0.

Google, naturally, would like to get in on the action. There are other companies offering this kind of service, such as AdMob’s strong presence in iPhone apps, but Google is an advertising freight train.

Still, AdSense growth has slowed this year amid a plunge in advertising spending around the world, and moving into mobile provides additional room for the company to grow. Last year Google offered AdSense for games, another step outside its usual comfort zone.

There are a few catches if you want to participate in the beta. Your application must generate 100,000 page views a day, and it must be free. Google is taking applications here.

Source:[cnet.com]

Google’s Marissa Mayer reminded Velocity attendees that pretty rounded corners on HTML images are counterproductive if loading speed is reduced.

Those who think HTML tags are low-level technology should realize they can have a huge impact on the bottom line.

By finding an HTML tag that allowed Google to offer ads on the right hand side of its search page without delaying page loading times, Google was able to cash in without harming the user experience, said Marissa Mayer, vice president for search products and experience, at the O’Reilly Velocity 2009 conference. There aren’t a whole lot of “billion-dollar HTML tags,” as Mayer put it, but she spent about 45 minutes Wednesday morning encouraging Web developers to focus on speed.

Google laid the seeds for Mayer’s talk Tuesday with the launch of a new Web page that gives Web publishers some help in making their pages load more quickly. Expanding on ideas she presented last year at Google I/O, Mayer told the crowd that “small changes can make a big difference” in how visitors perceive the speed and quality of a Web site.

For example, Google began compressing images in Google Maps, which improved load performance by two to three times for users on slower connections, which still comprise about 12 percent of those who use Google Maps, she said. Likewise, switching from an image version of the Google Checkout shopping cart to an HTML version saved time despite the complicated code needed to properly display the graphic.

As always, Google’s goal in sharing these tips with Web developers is to improve the user experience of the Web at large, which Google believes will lead to a greater number of searches on its site, and therefore more money, Mayer said.

Source:[cnet.com]