Google Directions is a service by the Google Maps team that can be used to get driving, transit or walking directions. The web interface of the Google service consists of a web form on the left and the map on the right. All that needs to be done to get directions is to enter the [...]

If there’s a good piece of technology doing its rounds around the world, you can rest assured that small, unknown Chinese companies are likely to try their hands at it. It happened with the iPod, the iPhone and now it is time it happened to Android. No. I am not talking about some freak phone [...]

We mentioned a few days ago that Google was planning to release a new search interface. There were only a few screenshots available at that time and it was not sure when the general public was able to test and work with the new interface. The search interface has still not been released but the [...]

This is the continuation of the last post that rounds up the latest on the popular smartphones of the moment. Of course, their smartness is highly relative – like whether your last phone had a color display or not and whether the rock that was over you was volcanic in origin. There’s a lot happening [...]

With so much going on in the mobile phone industry, I have decided to do a bit of a comprehensive round up. This is an essential update of all the intriguing new phones that you have had your eyes on. Like the X6, the N900, the HD2, etc. This is a strictly non-Apple/iPhone update, mainly [...]

Have you ever asked yourself how you did end up with the email account that you are currently using? Chance is that you have at least one account at one of the three most popular web based email service providers Gmail, Yahoo Mail or Windows Live Hotmail. This question might have become insignificant in recent [...]

Google has added a new module to Google Analytics called Intelligence. The currently in beta module displays custom and automatic alerts that are created from website traffic operations. It is not sure yet if all Google Analytics users have access to this new module of the website traffic analysis service yet or if it has [...]

Google Translate is one of the most popular automatic translation services on the Internet. It is not only available at the official Google Translate website but also as a mashup in various other online applications and even lots of desktop software programs. Google has recently updated the interface of the translate service which is now [...]

The Google phone is all over the Internet, thanks to a fresh wave of new leaks and speculations. It looks like the Google phone is ‘very real’ and it is being developed by Google as you read this. This news, brought to us by the good folks at TechCrunch, has created quite a sensation everywhere. [...]

A recent post over at Search Engine Land suggests that Google will be rolling out a new search interface – or more precisely search result page design – to selected users later today. The effort seems to have originated in the analysis of the current search results layout which is everything but coherent and has [...]

Seems that the Youtube developers are finally starting to implement new features at the popular video hosting portal. After the announcement of 1080p video support which began rolling out in the last 24 hours. There does not seem to be an option just yet to search for those 1080p videos on Youtube. Youtube videos that [...]

Now that the source code of Chrome OS is in the open the project has entered the second stage of the development phase. I suggest to visit the announcement about Chrome OS that was posted yesterday and take a look at the video posted if you have not followed the news about Google’s operating system [...]

Well, after the HTC CEO said in a cryptic tone that they would never make an Android HD2 there was a general round of murmuring about what happens to the rumored HTC Dragon. But there was also the other interpretation that he is simply saying that to deny it without denying it. We were in [...]

Google Image search is a very comprehensive search engine to find photos and all kinds of images that have been posted publicly on the Internet. It does offer a few sorting and filtering options and can even find related images to one of the selected images on the results pages. Google Image Swirl takes this [...]

Have you ever “googled” yourself? Chance is you found at least a few websites and resources about yourself even more so if you have deliberately added information about yourself on websites across the Internet. Most users probably do so when they signup for social networking websites such as Facebook or MySpace but information are also [...]

Why is the Internet so damn slow. That’s probably a phrase that every Internet user in the world has said more than once. Even users with fast broadband connections experience slow downs and slow loading websites every now and then as the speed to display a website in the user’s web browser does not only [...]

Safe Search is a filter in the Google search engine. By default moderate filtering is applied to all search results which can be changed by the search engine user to strict filtering or no filtering. Especially families with kids but also organizations and businesses use these filters to prevent that inappropriate search results appear in [...]

If you visit your Google Mail account you can look at the footer of the mail index to see how many free space is still available for that account. The current free storage that most Gmail users currently get is 7839 Megabytes which should be enough for the majority of the email users. But there [...]

Google set up a search sandbox a while ago showcasing and testing their new search algorithm. The public display served not only to show the world that Google was ready to take on the challenges by new search engines like Microsoft’s Bing but also as a testing ground for webmasters who were encouraged to compare [...]

There are two main reasons for switching to one of Google’s alternative search interfaces: Speed and Usability. The following three Google search engines utilize the same search index and parameters that the default Google search engine offers with the difference that all four of them are faster, more accessible and less obtrusive when displaying search [...]

Okay folks, the Droid is finally out now. Through all the iPhone-bashing and the creepy ad campaign, it has made its way into our minds and hearts (sort of). At the very least it has forced people to take a look at it and decide what it’s really like. Overall, the reviewers have liked it [...]

Google today launched a new service for Google account holders called Google Dashboard. Google Dashboard is a all-in-one dashboard that offers a decent view of a user’s usage of Google services. The dashboard basically lists specific information about data that each Google service has stored for that Google account. This ranges from information about received [...]

The extension development for the Google Chrome browser is slowly taking up speed. While there is still no option to use extensions in the latest public release of the Google browser the developers are slowly improving the capabilities of the extensions manager. The latest dev builds of the web browser support extensions right out of [...]

When Gmail first came out I wasn’t a fan. But after a year of use I have found Google Mail to be a very valuable tool. Because I use Gmail mostly for work-related issues, I do not always like to check it within a browser. Instead I use various applications that enable me to have [...]

Google introduced a new service called Google Sidewiki some time ago which basically gives Google account owners the opportunity to share their views and opinions about a website, service or page with the rest of the world. Google Sidewiki was integrated into the Google Toolbar. An unofficial bookmarklet appeared on the web soon thereafter allowing [...]

Data storage in the cloud offers several advantages like being able to access the data from multiple computer systems. But there are also aspects of cloud computing that only become apparent recently like being unable to access the data if the service or some of their servers become unavailable or are terminated completely. Backup solutions [...]

It is usually not that hard to access the Gmail login page. Most users simply need to point their web browser at the standard Gmail address to access their email accounts. But, this address is not working in all countries and some users do regularly experience difficulties when trying to connect to the Gmail web [...]

Real time search has become a buzzword this year. With Twitter increasing its popularity search engines like Bing or Google Search are aiming to make their search results real time or at least closer to that. We have seen some attempts already. Google for instance has included new time based filters for their search results [...]

Recently I finally managed to get rid of my iPhone for a much more Linux-geek friendly mobile – the HTC Hero. One of my issues with the iPhone was that, in order to do ANY syncing, you had to use iTunes, which I really didn’t like. And although the HTC Hero has yet to be [...]

Google Images is part of the Google search engine. It can be used to only search for images in the Google search engine with options to filter the search results. It is for example possible to define a minimum image resolution, image type or color. Images that are displayed in the search engine cannot be [...]

If you have Google software installed on your computer system chance is that you might see GoogleCrashHandler.exe running on the system if you open up the task manager. GoogleCrashHandler.exe is one of the two Google processes – the other is GoogleUpdate.exe – that might be running on the computer system. GoogleCrashHandler.exe will send anonymous usage [...]

Google Wave is a new service by Google that is currently tested in a limited preview. Google Wave invites are in high demand as everyone and their mum are trying to get into the service that is said to “change the way we communicate”. Google Wave is basically a realtime communication platform, a mashup of [...]

The Google Docs development team has finally added one of the most requested features to the document management service. The ability to share folders – and with those the documents contained in those folders – was not given until the new release yesterday. This new feature makes it more comfortable to work with several users [...]

Orkut is Google’s social networking attempt. The basic idea was created by one of Google’s engineers who quickly adopted the idea and created the social network Orkut from it. Orkut is one of the most popular websites on the Internet even though it does not receive all the media coverage that networks like Facebook or [...]

Google’s latest change to their search engine homepage was not welcome by all users. The increase of the font size was a shock to many who used to work with the same search engine page for the past years. Some users even got as far as claiming that they would move to another search engine [...]

Xoopit, a company that was bought by Yahoo not long ago, developed email indexing and photo sharing technologies that have since then be integrated into Yahoo Mail. Gmail users, among others, were also able to make use of the interesting options that Xoopit provided through the use of the Xoopit for Gmail Firefox add-on. Yahoo [...]

Cross-site Request Forgery are carried out from a computer system or user that is trusted by a website. Cookies that do not expire after a user closes the website or web browser are one of the most common forms of trust that can be exploited by cross-site request forgery attacks. The attacker needs to use [...]

The Date Liberation Front is Google’s attempt at make it easier for users to import and export data out of Google products. Here are a few scenarios where it might make sense to export data from a Google product. Google users who run a Blogger blog realizing that they need to switch to a superior [...]

One of the latest trends in the search engine market seem to be custom search options, search filters and specialized search parameters. Google has introduced the search options in the main Google search engine a while ago. These were made up of advanced search parameters which have been accessible before (before starting search) and new [...]

Internet users have the choice between several machine translation services that can automatically translate a given text or website in another language. Google Translate is one of the most popular services of this kind. It allows web users to translate text or websites into 51 languages. Google today announced that they have expanded their translation [...]

Some call Google Wave the next big thing on the Internet while others think that it does not add anything new or exciting to the web. Whatever it is, most users have not had a chance to test Google Wave as Google has closed registration for the service. The Google blog announced yesterday that they [...]

Google Docs Viewer is a new online service by the Google Docs team that makes it possible to view document like Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word or Microsoft PowerPoint directly in the web browser. The advantage of this option is that it is no longer required to download the document to the local computer system to [...]

Several developers have tried to create a universal tool to leave and read comments about websites. None so far has been backed by a company that could reach the critical mass needed to make the program a success. That’s until now. Google introduced a new service integrated into Google’s Toolbar called Google Sidewiki recently. Google [...]

It is not that easy to check multiple Gmail accounts regularly. Gmail itself only allows one login per user. There are a handful of ways to circumvent that. Probably the most popular ones are using a desktop email client like Microsoft Outlook or Thunderbird to check multiple Gmail accounts or add-ons or userscripts that allow [...]

How would you announce a major change to a product that is likely going to affect a large userbase? Probably not in the same way that Google announced upcoming changes to their popular document management and editing platform Google Docs. In a recent post at the Google Docs Help Forum Marie, a Google employee, notified [...]

Thumbnail previews in the Google and Yahoo search engines. Love em or hate em. Displaying thumbnails of the websites that are appearing in the search results of Google and Yahoo can contribute to the selection process of the search engine user and to the security of the web browsing experience. Thumbnails allow search engine users [...]

Google and Microsoft are constantly working on new services and features of their search engines. Microsoft introduced a visual search option in Bing yesterday which allowed search engine visitors to access and sort information of specific niches visually. Google introduced a new Google Labs feature called Google Fast Flip which is offering a new reading [...]

Google Search offers several options to limit the search results by a selected time frame. One is available in the advanced search parameters which allows users to search only in results that have been published or updated in the last year, month, week, day. The other becomes available in the newly added Search Options on [...]

Google Voice is a relatively new Google service that can probably be best described as the hub for all phone numbers a user, family or company uses. The main benefit of a single-number approach is that callers will not have to think about which number to call to reach a person. Google Voice users have [...]

It is not often that Google changes something on the front-end of Google Search. The only element that the Google developers change regularly is the logo that adds a little bit of change to the search engine every other day or so. Changes to the rest of the front-end on the other hand are rare [...]