Posts Tagged ‘Google’
Google News Revamped to Get More Personal
Google has overhauled its news website to tailor pages to individual interests of readers.
“We’re revamping the Google News homepage with several changes designed to make the news that you see more relevant to you,” software engineer Kevin Stolt said in a blog post yesterday.
“We’re also trying to better highlight interesting stories you didn’t know existed and to make it easier for you to share stories through social networks.”
The “heart” of the page was “News for you,” a stream of headlines customized based on interests that users specify when they personalize the service, according to Stolt.
“You can help us get it right by using the ‘Edit personalization’ box to specify how much you’re interested in Business, Health, Entertainment, Sports or any subject you want to add.”
People can also specify which news sources they like to see more or less often.
Google News also features a section showcasing major breaking stories and another spotlighting feature stories attracting lasting interest.
The website redesign included making it easy to share stories with friends using social networking services Facebook and Twitter along with Google Buzz and Google Reader, according to Stolt.
Dell in talks with Google over Chrome OS
Dell Inc is in talks with Google Inc over the use of the Chrome operating system on its laptops, a top company executive said on Monday.
“We have to have a point of view on the industry and technology direction two years, three years down the road, so we continuously work with Google on this,” Amit Midha, Dell’s president for Greater China and South Asia told Reuters in an interview.
“There are going to be unique innovations coming up in the marketplace in two, three years, with a new form of computing, we want to be on that forefront … So with Chrome or Android or anything like that we want to be one of the leaders,” Midha said, adding that there were no firm announcements to be made but talks were underway.
Toshiba to Develop Tablet PC with Two 7-Inch Screens
Toshiba is reportedly developing a tablet with two 7-inch displays, which folds like a book. That would make it the latest in a long line of companies-both big names and start-ups-who have toyed with these dual-display devices.
The concept makes some sense. A design with two displays maximizes the screen real estate while keeping the size down. You can mix-and-match different display technologies and operating systems to serve different applications in a single device. And the success of touchscreen smartphones, and more recently the Apple iPad, demonstrates that many users are willing to forgo a physical keyboard. But so far the dual-display has been DOA.
Asus, HTC, MSI and Sony among others have all experimented with these devices, either as full-blown tablets or e-book readers, but there’s no sign any of them are coming to your Best Buy anytime soon. The Microsoft Courier project generated a lot of excitement, but never made it out of the incubator. One Laptop Per Child scrapped its XO-2 dual-screen tablet, and instead plans to release updates to its standard XO netbook. OLPC will eventually offer a standard low-cost tablet, the XO-3.
Then there are the dual-display e-readers. Start-up Kno demonstrated its device at the D8 conference, but its unwieldy tablet, which consists of two 14-inch displays, has puzzled reviewers. The Entourage Edge is a hybrid device-the company calls it a “dualbook”–with a 9.7-inch E-Ink display on one side and a 10.1-inch LCD tablet running Android on the other. It’s a novel concept, but the device is much thicker than an e-book reader or tablet, and doesn’t really excel at either.
Aside from Apple, no company has yet figured out how to deliver a great experience on a standard tablet, let alone one with two displays-sometime using different technologies and input mechanisms. Google is still working on versions of Android and Chrome OS tailored for tablets. And Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently admitted that the company has a lot of work to do on Windows 7 tablets to catch up with the iPad.
Google Gets New Head of Experience from Palm
Palm made headlines when it was acquired by HP last month. Since then, most of the headlines about Palm have had something to do with HP’s plans for Palm’s WebOS operating sytem.Today, the smartphone company is in the news for a different reason: the company’s Senior Director of Human Interface and User Experience, Matias Duarte, has left the company.
As someone who oversaw user experience and interface, Matias likely played a huge role in the design of WebOS so it’s weird that he would leave right when the software was about to make the jump from smartphones to tablets. However, though Matias departure from Palm is news in itself, the revelation that he’s leaving to join the Android team at Google as the new User Experience Director for the OS is more interesting.
Google hasn’t released an official statement but Engadget reports receiving confirmation from the search giant. Duarte previously worked on the Sidekick with Andy Rubin, who is now head of Android at Google.
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Google to End Automatic Rerouting from China Site
Internet giant Google Inc said it plans to stop automatically redirecting users of its Google.cn site to its Hong Kong page, in a bid to secure renewal of the company’s China operating license.
Chief Legal Officer David Drummond said in a blog posting that Google had already started taking a small percentage of users to a landing page on Google.cn that links to Google.com.hk, and would soon stop all redirecting.
Google shut its Chinese portal in March over censorship concerns and began sending users to its Hong Kong site instead. But the operating license that allows it to use its old web address to send users on is up for renewal on Wednesday.
“It’s clear from conversations we have had with Chinese government officials that they find the redirect unacceptable, and that if we continue redirecting users our Internet Content Provider license will not be renewed,” Drummond wrote in the blog, posted late on Monday night in the United States.
“Without an ICP license, we can’t operate a commercial website like Google.cn so Google would effectively go dark in China,” he added.
The new Google page is extremely simple, with an image of the Google logo and a non-functioning search box. Below are short messages saying “We have already moved to google.com.hk” and “Please save our new website.” Clicking on much of the page redirects users to the Hong Kong site.
Google said in January it might quit China over censorship and after it was hit by a sophisticated hacking attack that it said came from within China.
It has kept its promise to end self-censorship that was demanded by Beijing as a condition for operating inside China — prompting the redirecting to Hong Kong — but is working to maintain a presence inside China.