Google is about to launch Screenwise, a project that allows them to monitor the sites users visit and how they use them. For that, participating users get paid up to $25 in gift cards over the course of a year. Users who sign up get a $5 Amazon gift card right away, and then additional $5 gift cards for every three months they stay in the project.

According to the information posted on the Screenwise Landing panel, Google attempts to use the information to “improve Google products and services and make a better online experience for everyone”.

Participating users need to download the Google Screenwise browser extension for the Chrome web browser and use the browser for their Internet activities. Eligible are Google account users who are at least 13 years of age. Google notes on the page that the company will not save user email addresses, or “associate it with any other personally identifiable information”.

Google has partnered up with Knowledge Networks, a research company that specializes in Internet research.

Interested users can submit their email address to receive notifications when registration opens. According to the landing page information, users will receive participation information in the coming days.

The process, even though opt-in, will certainly face its share of criticism, especially since Google is currently already facing public pressure over their privacy policy and terms of service changes.

The question is, how many users are willing to give up their privacy for 12 months for $25 in Amazon gift certificates? What’s your take on this?

Yesterday a third design was spotted that combines the black bar with the menu structure of the single menu bar.

The new bar displays Google’s most popular services directly again on the bar for quick access. The More link leads to additional services. Users of the gray bar design will notice that the black bar has been moved on top of the design. Everything else, with the exception of the Google logo menu has remained the same.

The Google Operating System blog has posted instructions on how to enable the new Google bar design.

• Open google.com in your web browser of choice.
• In Google Chrome, press Ctrl-Shift-J
• In Mozilla Firefox press Ctrl-Shift-K
• In Internet Explorer press F12 and select console
• Paste the following code into the form

document.cookie="PREF=ID=381502750b6e9119:U=aaee74aefea7315a:FF=0:LD=en:CR=2:TM=1328391998:LM=1328392000:S=yPtlCgLbEnezu5b4; path=/; domain=.google.com";window.location.reload();

• Press enter and close the console again.
• Local users need to replace the domain in the information (google.com) with the country code domain, e.g. (google.de)

The page should refresh automatically, and you should see the new layout on the Google page. Please note that it will only be active for as long as the cookie remains on your system.

Users who want to return to the old Google homepage layout can repeat the steps, by loading the following code in the console.

document.cookie="PREF=; path=/; domain=.google.com";window.location.reload();

My personal opinion? Google should give users more choice when it comes to the services that are displayed on the homepage. I’m for instance not using Google News, so why should it be there that prominently on the page? Google furthermore needs to select a design and stick with it, instead of confusing users with different designs and layouts. Some users, depending on the browser they use to access Google, have reported that they are seeing different layouts on the same computer.

What’s your take on this, and what’s your favorite bar so far?

For instance they’ll see what emails you receive and subscribe to, what videos you watch, what things you search for, what sorts of documents you work on and what the content of those documents is, what you blog about, what you take photographs of and where, what newspapers and blogs you read, what you buy online, what parts of the world you’re interested in (and where you live), who you chat to and what you like to buy.

All of this information, when put together, helps advertisers paint an incredibly detailed picture of you and with about a billion users worldwide, that information is incredibly valuable.

Now Microsoft have hit back with newspaper adverts in the US saying that this isn’t what want at all and that you should ‘obviously’ use their products and services instead.

In the advert they say…

Google is in the process of making some unpopular changes to some of their most popular products. Those changes, cloaked in language like “transparency”, “simplicity” and “consistency” are really about one thing: making it easier for Google to connect the dots between everything you search, send, say or stream while using one of their services.

But, the way they are doing it is making it harder for you to maintain control of your personal information. Why are they so interested in doing this that they would risk this kind of backlash? One logical reason: Every data point they collect and connect to you increases how valuable you are to an advertiser.

So is this fair enough, sour grapes or the pot calling the kettle black?  In fairness it is all of the above as there are elements of all of these in the advert.  Google make almost all of their revenue from advertising and the better and more attractive they can make their own advertising, and the data they collect on their users, the more companies they will attract and the more money they can charge for the (your) personal information.

Many people simply don’t want to be tracked and Microsoft point out that you can do this in the latest version of Internet Explorer.  What they don’t mention is that you can also do it the latest version of Google’s Chrome browser as well and that many of the advertising and data-mining tactics used by Google are also used by Microsoft.

Consumers will have to decide for themselves how they feel about the approach Microsoft are taking here, though many will just see it as a company taking advantage of an open goal for a publicity stunt.  The fact remains though that the US Congress is so concerned about the new changes Google is introducing that they are holding an closed door hearing to discuss what the changes mean.

So what do you think about Google’s new privacy policy?  Have you even heard about it and what do you think of Microsoft’s response?  Why not tell us in the comments below.

Only custom hosted domains are exempt from the change. Why is Google doing this? According to a recently added help page to “continue promoting free expression and responsible publishing while providing greater flexibility in complying with valid removal requests pursuant to local law”. Google explains the move with greater content removal flexibility as they can now manage those removals on a per country base to limit the “impact to the smallest number of readers” as content removed “due to a specific country’s law will only be removed from the relevant ccTLD”.

The company notes that users who want to visit the original domain name can do so by accessing blogspost.com/ncr for that. It is not clear if this can also be attached to deep links, or if it only works to access the root domain of a particular blog.

It is definitely a confusing move both from a webmaster and site visitor perspective. Especially site regulars may think that something’s not right with the site if they are redirected automatically. Some may even believe that they are redirected by a hacked site or computer virus.

What’s your take on this development? Lets discuss it in the comments. (via Techdows)

It is also not clear if users who are locked out of the country domain can access the ncr version of the site, or if they are blocked from accessing that version as well. It is however likely that Google will first check the country of origin before making the redirect, which would suggest that users would be blocked from accessing ncr versions if the blog is blocked in their country.

Blog owners on the other hand may fear that the change will impact their search engine rankings or visibility. Google will make use of the rel”canonical” tag to prevent search engines from indexing different country versions of the same blog or post. It is however still possible that some webmasters will notice negative effects of the change.

Google furthermore has created a main Google Terms of Service file that covers many of their products. This too improves accessibility.

The following paragraphs outlines how Google thinks users will profit from the change

What does this mean in practice? The main change is for users with Google Accounts. Our new Privacy Policy makes clear that, if you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services. In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.

Our recently launched personal search feature is a good example of the cool things Google can do when we combine information across products. Our search box now gives you great answers not just from the web, but your personal stuff too. So if I search for restaurants in Munich, I might see Google+ posts or photos that people have shared with me, or that are in my albums. Today we can also do things like make it easy for you to read a memo from Google Docs right in your Gmail, or add someone from your Gmail contacts to a meeting in Google Calendar.

But there’s so much more that Google can do to help you by sharing more of your information with … well, you. We can make search better—figuring out what you really mean when you type in Apple, Jaguar or Pink. We can provide more relevant ads too. For example, it’s January, but maybe you’re not a gym person, so fitness ads aren’t that useful to you. We can provide reminders that you’re going to be late for a meeting based on your location, your calendar and an understanding of what the traffic is like that day. Or ensure that our spelling suggestions, even for your friends’ names, are accurate because you’ve typed them before. People still have to do way too much heavy lifting, and we want to do a better job of helping them out.

The first thing that you will notice is that Google will share activity information between services come March 1 when the new policies go live. This has an impact on two areas:

• Personalization: Up until now only a handful services shared information with each other, Google+ data was for instance used for a personalized search experience. Now all data may be used for that experience.
• Advertisement: The more Google knows about you, the higher paying ads they can get to be displayed to you.

We already know that Google is reading your emails to serve ads on Gmail. Gmail users who are using other Google services may now see tailored ads pop up on other services as well, or YouTube videos recommended to them based on the emails they read.

It could also link things they do on their phone to searches they make on a desktop PC, or display ads for a popular coffee chain on their phone if Google has picked up that you like to drink coffee in the morning and notice that you are currently on the go with your phone.

Google could use location based information it collects from the Android phone to display ads to you on all other Google services that share the new privacy policy. You went to a clothing store for big people? Then you may see “lose weight” videos on YouTube, or ads on Google search.

Like to visit sex clubs? How about ads for related items on your desktop?

As Owen Williams points out over at Neowin, this could also have business and job related consequences. If you have an Android business phone that you use with an enterprise account, then other users with access to that account may see what you have been up to lately.

What you view at home, while accidentally being logged into your Enterprise Google Apps account could mean you have an awkward conversation with your boss.

There is no opting-out

No opt-out is offered by Google. Users who want to keep their account data separated only have two options: Create a separate Google account for each service they use, or cancel their Google account and move on to another service provider.

It is unlikely that many users will actually close their account as a consequence. Depending on which Google services are used, it could mean lots of work. And lets not forget that you’d need to research the new service’s privacy policies and terms of service as well.

Mitigation may be possible, if users log out of Google whenever possible. This could reduce the number of personalized ads and recommendations that they will see on Google product pages.

Update: Here is the email that Google is sending to all of its users:

Dear Google user,

We’re getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that’s a lot shorter and easier to read. Our new policy covers multiple products and features, reflecting our desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google.

We believe this stuff matters, so please take a few minutes to read our updated Privacy Policy and Terms of Service at http://www.google.com/policies. These changes will take effect on March 1, 2012.

One policy, one Google experience Easy to work across Google Tailored for you Easy to share and collaborate Easy to work across Google

Our new policy reflects a single product experience that does what you need, when you want it to. Whether you’re reading an email that reminds you to schedule a family get-together or finding a favorite video that you want to share, we want to ensure you can move across Gmail, Calendar, Search, YouTube, or whatever your life calls for with ease.

Tailored for you

If you’re signed into Google, we can do things like suggest search queries – or tailor your search results – based on the interests you’ve expressed in Google+, Gmail, and YouTube. We’ll better understand which version of Pink or Jaguar you’re searching for and get you those results faster.

Easy to share and collaborate

When you post or create a document online, you often want others to see and contribute. By remembering the contact information of the people you want to share with, we make it easy for you to share in any Google product or service with minimal clicks and errors.
Protecting your privacy hasn’t changed

Our goal is to provide you with as much transparency and choice as possible, through products like Google Dashboard and Ads Preferences Manager, alongside other tools. Our privacy principles remain unchanged. And we’ll never sell your personal information or share it without your permission (other than rare circumstances like valid legal requests).

Got questions? We’ve got answers.

Visit our FAQ at http://www.google.com/policies/faq to read more about the changes. (We figured our users might have a question or twenty-two.)

Notice of Change

March 1, 2012 is when the new Privacy Policy and Terms will come into effect. If you choose to keep using Google once the change occurs, you will be doing so under the new Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

Please do not reply to this email. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered. Also, never enter your Google Account password after following a link in an email or chat to an untrusted site. Instead, go directly to the site, such as mail.google.com or www.google.com/accounts. Google will never email you to ask for your password or other sensitive information.

Depending on the terms you search for, you may end up with results from YouTube, Google News, Google+, Google Images or other products that Google has hard coded into the search results. That’s fine if those results are relevant to the search term. More often than not though, they are not.

Engineers from Facebook, Twitter and other social networking companies have now released a Don’t Be Evil bookmarklet and browser extension to make Google’s search results more impartial and relevant at the same time.

Once you have dragged the bookmarklet to your bookmark bar or bookmarks folder you can run it whenever you have performed a Google search.

Below are two screenshots. The first is a copy of a standard search for AT&T on Google, the second how the page looks like once you have run the bookmarklet.

The bookmarklet has replaced the Google+ listing with the more relevant Twitter account listing. We need to look at how relevancy is computed to make sure that it does not just favor other social networking sites over Google. According to the developers, their tool checks Google Search for the term to select the first social networking listing in the standard results as the most relevant term. Standard result means a page that Google has not hardcoded into the search results.

The bookmarklet will also analyze people and pages results on the right side with relevant results

and the suggestions when you start typing a name into the search form.

It is interesting to note that the bookmarklet enables the feature for the session, and not only for the current page that you are on. Results are automatically adjusted if you use Google Search functionality on the same page again.

Is this making the search results on Google more relevant? The answer should be yes if you look at a pool of users. When it comes down to the individual user, it depends solely on that user’s preference. Some users do not want to see social signals in the results at all, others may be using Google+ exclusively or a mixture of services. Users should not turn this into a Google vs Facebook vs Twitter vs Whatever fight. Instead, they should look at what they want their search results to be and voice that opinion loud and clear.

How they do that? By switching to another search engine for instance if they feel that Google Search has deteriorated in the past year. If users flock to other search engines, then Google may be willing to reanalyze their latest strategies and may return to impartial search results.

The developers have created a browser extension for Google Chrome that automates the process. You can download it only directly from the Focus on the user website.

Here is a video demonstration of the bookmarklet.

Keep in mind that while not officially released by Facebook or Twitter, it still has their stamp all over it. I suggest you read Giga Om’s comment on this.

What’s your take on this? Voice your opinion in the comments.

The biggest issue for many is the fact that the majority of features cannot be disabled if you do not want to use them. It is either an all or nothing deal, unless you happen to run across programs that make the necessary modifications for you.

NoCrap Google Search Bar injects itself on Google Search pages. You will see two search forms on the Google homepage, and only the NoCrap search form on results pages.

You will notice two things right from the start:

• The Google header bar has been removed. A click on the x icon hides the custom search form so that the standard header is again displayed on the screen.
• Menus to customize the search are displayed right beneath the search form. Here you can select the number of results per page, safe or unsafe search, whether you would like to only see specific result types (e.g. images or video), the time span, language and format.

You can configure default parameters in the userscript settings.

You may also notice that searches are always enclosed in double quotes automatically which ensures that those terms need to be on all result pages.

NoCrap Google Search on top of that does away with many of the annoyances that one encounters on Google Search:

• Autocomplete disabled
• Google Instant disabled
• Live Preview disabled
• Personalized web search disabled
• Cache links show up again in the search results
• Links can now be copied directly, Google link manipulations on copy or mouse over are removed.

The search parameters do still work even if you clear all Google cookies. Users who have used custom parameters in the past know that clearing the Google cookies will reset the preferences to their default values.

NoCrap Google Search Bar is a useful userscript for Google users who want more control over their search result pages.

You first need to be logged in to a Google account on your smartphone. You could obviously access most Google services directly on the phone, but sometimes you may want more screen estate, especially if a computer is available. That’s not a issue if you are working on your own computer, but what if you are on a public terminal or a friend’s house? You probably do not want to enter your log in information on the computer as a number of things can happen.

This includes a keylogger running on the PC, someone looking over your shoulders while entering your sign in details, forgetting to log out after you finish your session or configuring the sign in information to be saved on the computer.

If you have your smartphone at hand, you can perform the following steps instead. Visit http://goto.google.com/login. All you should see is a QR code on the page.

Scan the code with the camera of your smartphone. You should see the following screen on your phone.

Tap on Start with Google Mail or Start with iGoogle to load those pages in the web browser you have just scanned the QR code in. You can alternatively stop here to end the process without logging in, no harm done then.

Google Mail or iGoogle will be opened with the connected account, and without you having to enter your account username or password into the web browser or on the computer.

It needs to be noted that you will access data from the same account that you are logged in on the smartphone. There is no option, other than signing in into another account on the phone, to access a different account on the PC.

It is also important to log out of the service on the computer after you have finished using it. If you do not, the next user may be able to access your data.

Google Sesame can be quite useful in situations where you want to log in to your Google account on a computer that is not your own. Instead of having to enter your user data, you can simply use your smartphone to log in.

What’s your take on Google Sesame? Let me know in the comments? (via Caschy)

Update: Seems as if Google has pulled the plug on the new feature again. When you now visit the site where the QR code was initially displayed, you get the following message:

Hi there – thanks for your interest in our phone-based login experiment.

While we have concluded this particular experiment, we constantly experiment with new and more secure authentication mechanisms.

Stay tuned for something even better!

Dirk Balfanz, Google Security Team.

It is not clear why it has been removed by Google or whether it will be back at a later point in time.

You get information about the number of personal results integrated in the search results on top. The right displays Google+ profiles from Facebook employees, and below the Facebook site listing is the first personalized entry that was moved up there.

If you look closer you will realize that almost everything that has been added is related to Google+. The personalized results are taken from Google+, the people and pages listing is taken from that site as well, as are the personal results as they are based on what your Google+ friends have “liked” in the past.

You may also notice that search suggestions will now display Google+ names directly in the window.

All personalized results are highlighted with a blue icon in front of the page title. You can turn off Search plus Your World with a click on the Hide personal results button. There are other options that you can make use of if you thing that personalized search has gone to far.

Log out before running searches on Google or use another search engine like Bing, Duck Duck Go or Ixquick.

Personal results can also be turned off in the Search settings. Click on the options button and select Search Settings there.

Locate Personal results on the new screen and switch from “use personal results” to “do not use personal results”. Click on the save button afterwards.

Google is starting to promote their Google+ service heavily with the integration of results from that social networking service in the results.

Why I do not like it? I think that the majority of information added by personalized results are not telling me anything that I do not already know. And pages favored by friends are not necessarily better than other pages. Say you search for movies to watch on Google, and one of the first results is a personalized result where several of your female friends have voted for the movie Twilight. Does that mean that you will like the movie as well?

You now have to think about the people who voted for the result to make a decision whether this search result is helping you out or not.

Another issue that I have with person.lized search is that I always feel that the search engine is holding back on me. Instead of displaying the “real” results, it displays crippled results on the first page.

I personally have disabled Google Search plus your World right away. What about you? On a related note, all Google Search pages are now making use of HTTPS by default. You can still switch to HTTP search manually though

When you load the Google homepage you will see part of the menu expanded, with options to display additional links to Google products, services and pages with a click on the more link. A click on the actual page hides the menu on the page.

Google users who do not yet see the new menu can enable it by installing the Google Bar+ userscript. This userscript is only compatible with the Firefox web browser if Greasemonkey is installed, and with the Google Chrome browser if Tampermonkey is installed. It won’t work with Scriptish for Firefox or Google Chrome without Tampermonkey installed.

The script has more to offer than that though. A click on the profile icon in the header of the page displays two new entries that have been added by the script. The first can be used to reduce the height of the header bar on Google pages, the second to disable ads on Google.

Those three features alone are already very useful. The userscript furthermore adds options to edit any menu item in the Google Bar menu. Just right-click on a menu entry to edit it and to customize the Google bar.

This opens a menu with options to change the menu title, icon and link by either editing the values directly, or by selecting one of the preset options from the pulldown menu.

The preset buttons offer links to Google properties but also to other popular sites like Facebook, Netflix or Yahoo Mail.

If your favorite service is not in the list you can add it easily using the edit options provided by the userscript.

The only thing that is missing is an ability to move menu items around.

You can download Google Bar+ from the official userscript website.

The service provided users with a health record summary, background and related information, as well as interactions between drugs, allergies and conditions.

Google Health became publicly available in 2008, received a redesign in 2010 and was finally shutdown on the first of January 2012.

A blog post at the official Google Blog reveals the reason for the shutdown (please note that they refers to Google Health and Google PowerMeter)

While they didn’t scale as we had hoped, we believe they did highlight the importance of access to information in areas where it’s traditionally been difficult.

Internet users who try to open the Google Health website right now will notice a service announcement on the login page.

The notification links to the official service discontinuation announcement, information on how to download health records that have been uploaded to Google Health, frequently asked questions and a link to the privacy policy. The latter could be interesting for Google users who have uploaded health records to the health site. Google notes there that the company won’t “sell, rent, or share your information”.

Google Health user data will remain online until January 2013 when it will be deleted permanently. Google Health users have one year to export their data, either for safekeeping or importing into other health services such as Microsoft’s Health Vault.

A support guide explains how users can export their profile data.

On the main page of your Google Health profile, click the Download drop down next to your profile name. You can choose to download your profile records as ZIP, PDF, CCR, or CSV, or you can download your Notices as XML or HTML or you can send a copy of your profile to another personal health service via the Direct Project protocol.

Why has Google Health failed? Google mentioned that the service did not become as popular as they hoped it would. One of the main reasons, besides being US-centric, was that the service did not really offer that much besides the ability to collect health records on the website. The provided information were also publicly accessible on the Internet, and privacy must have been a concern for many users.

What’s your take on this? Let me know in the comments.

The Stop Online Piracy Act in the US is getting ever more publicity with GoDaddy one of the high profile companies to suffer from supporting it as we wrote a couple of days ago.  In our previous article Martin summed up SOPA very effectively.

If you are living in the United States, you should have heard about SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and Protect-IP, which, when passed, would give companies rights that they should not have. If it passes, IP rightsholders (a term vaguely defined) could send notices to payment processors or ad services like Google Adsense to force them to stop doing business with listed websites, all without legal process.

Site owners have five days to file a counter-notice, but neither payment processors or ad networks have any obligation to respect it. Even worse, they are granted “immunity for choking off a site if they have a “reasonable belief” that some portion of the site enables infringement”.

Now a loose confederation of Internet giants are considering shutting down the entire websites for 24 hours and instead showing a messagew urging their visitors and customers to contact their representative in the US congress the day before the vote goes to the house there.

The coalition is made up of some very big names on the Internet including Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, Yahoo!, eBay, PayPal, AOL, Foursquare, IAC, LinkedIn, Mozilla, OpenDNS and Zynga.  If the plan goes ahead all these services could be taken offline for 24 hours.

In a report by CNet…

When the home pages of Google.com, Amazon.com, Facebook.com, and their Internet allies simultaneously turn black with anti-censorship warnings that ask users to contact politicians about a vote in the U.S. Congress the next day on SOPA, you’ll know they’re finally serious.

True, it would be the political equivalent of a nuclear option–possibly drawing retributions from the the influential politicos backing SOPA and Protect IP–but one that could nevertheless be launched in 2012.

“There have been some serious discussions about that,” says Markham Erickson, who heads the NetCoalition trade association that counts Google, Amazon.com, eBay, and Yahoo as members. “It has never happened before.”

This wouldn’t be the first piece of anti-piracy legislation around the world to face stiff opposition.  France have already passed an Internet copyright law but the Digital Economy Act in the UK stalled in the face of arguments from major Internet Service Providers British Telecom and TalkTalk.

Many reports say that SOPA is still set to pass the US congress and that very few Americans have heard about it.  Shutting down services such as Facebook and Google, and replacing them with anti-SOPA messages for a day would certainly raise awareness, but a question mark remains over whether doing so only one day before the congress vote would be effective enough.

This is the first time ever that major websites have threatened to effectively go on strike to boycott something, and it is completely unprecedented.  It is unclear at this time whether the services would be taken down worldwide or just in the US and also how serious the coalition are about the boycott, which would inevitably lose them all a day’s trade.

Services are commonly targeted for IP addresses anyway and it wouldn’t be difficult for these companies to target messages to their US-based users.  With many millions of visitors every day in the US, companies such as Google and Facebook could achieve this on their own.  Imagine then how much more leverage they would have with Amazon, Yahoo! and others on board.  If this goes ahead it is still possible that other companies could follow suit, effectively crippling the Internet in the US for the day before the vote.

So what do you think of SOPA and your favourite websites being taken offline for a day?

Internet users who feel that the tracking goes to far can install programs that disable the tracking. This ranges from the excellent NoScript add-on for the Firefox web browser or the Disconnect extension for the Google Chrome web browser.

If you want to block Google from tracking your every move, you’d could install Google Disconnect for the Firefox web browser. The add-on has been created by Brian Kennish, who is also responsible for the Facebook Disconnect extension which blocks website communication with Facebook.

Google Disconnect works similar to that extension, with the difference that it is blocking communication with Google servers. The Firefox add-on blocks Google scripts running on websites. This includes Google Adsense, Analytics and Google Plus. It is likely that additional scripts are blocked as well, but the Firefox add-on description is not providing enough information to tell which.

All Google services that you may use, Google Mail or Search for instance, continue to work as before. The extension is rather bare bones at the moment. Next to the missing list of services that it blocks, it is also not providing any visual indicators that scripts have been blocked. Options to block only select scripts are missing as well.

I have tested the add-on by opening websites that make use of Google services in Firefox with the script enabled, and in Google Chrome without the script. I also looked at the source code to make sure that the scripts were indeed not loaded at all.

Google Disconnect can be downloaded and installed at the official Mozilla add-on repository.

Users who maintain Google+ pages can now add up to 50 managers as administrators for a page. This is especially useful for large brands who maintain very popular pages on Google+. It is not clear yet if managers will have the same powers as the page creator, or if their power will be limited. Google merely notes that managers will stay in “the loop on all the activity that takes place on a page” so that they can “stay involved in page conversations”. The feature will roll out in the coming days to all users of Google+.

More interesting from a user perspective are new stream filters that are currently rolled out. A slider to manage the filters appear on all circle pages on Google+.

The four filtering options have the following functionality:

• Show nothing from the stream in the main stream
• Show fewer things from this stream in the main stream
• Show most things from the stream in the main stream
• Show all posts in the main stream

The default setting is always set to show most things that get posted in the circle in the main stream. This way you can filter out posts by circles that you are not that interested in, and make sure that all posts from a circle that you are interested in appears in the main stream.

Notifications that appear after you click on the notification count in the Google header are now more meaningful. This includes better previews and the ability to see the +1′s and shares posts have received since the last check.

Photo Viewing has been improved with a new lightbox that offers improved navigation. The Google Blog offers additional information about each feature and videos that demonstrate each feature’s functionality.

Oh, and if you have not already: Follow us on Google+.

The menu looks like this when it is fully expanded on the screen. Core Google services like Google+, Google Search, YouTube and Gmail are linked in the main black menu. Secondary services such as Translate, Music, Finance or Wallet in the white menu that is displayed by hoovering the mouse over the More link.

The Even More link opens a page listing additional services. Part of Google’s userbase has criticized the new design, particularly that it now takes longer to access services that were displayed directly in the black bar, and that Google offers no customization options based on the user preferences.

That’s where the userscript Tweak Google Menu comes into play. The userscript adds reordering abilities to the Google menu.

The options are available with a click on the Even More link in the Google menu. The page lists the main and secondary menu entries, and other options that are not linked at all in the standard menu.

Google services can be moved around by dragging and dropping them to another position. It is for instance possible to remove the Google News link from the main menu to replace it with a link to Google Code. New items can be added without removing existing ones. The menu is automatically expanded to make room for the additional menu items.

Tweak Google Menu allows Google users to modify the Google menu to their liking. An option to add custom links, e.g. to Blogspot blogs, would be useful but is currently not available.

The userscript can be installed from the official UserScripts repository.

By far the biggest market in the world is insurance and it will take some sizeable shift for Internet advertising to ever shift that from the top spot.  Online advertising though is now enormous business and because Google not just came into the game early, but also did it with a fantastic world-beating product portfolio that has been continually refined and expanded upon, they are clearly the front runners.

This infographic has a great deal of interesting information contained within it and while I might applaud those people and corporations who genuinely try to help the world’s poorest get out of poverty, starvation and squalor for good, I think this particular graphic has a political agenda.

At the end of the day it is for you to judge how valuable this information is and if the information is being twisted or skewed against Google.  The figures are still astronomical however and raise the question of how long the company will be able to maintain them.  Google’s entire product portfolio depends on their sales of advertising.  Nothing other than this makes the company any money and as they expand more and more into smartphones, tablets, television and search, they will need not just to maintain this advertising revenue, but also to expand upon it considerably.

The future of high revenues for Google are by no means secure as the Internet is still a young and ever-evolving thing.  2012 might look great for the company, but anything beyond that is anyone’s guess.

The growth in apps, not just for Google but for all the smartphone and tablet platforms is still growing exponentially as people discover the power and flexibility the devices have.  In their announcement Google said…

One billion is a pretty big number by any measurement. However, when it’s describing the speed at which something is growing, it’s simply amazing.  This past weekend, thanks to Android users around the world, Android Market exceeded 10 billion app downloads—with a growth rate of one billion app downloads per month.  We can’t wait to see where this accelerating growth takes us in 2012.

The figures released by Google show that their market reflects the current worldwide trend and is gathering pace.  Their store took 22 months to reach 1 billion downloads but only another 9 to get to to 10 billion.

In an interview with the BBC Geoff Blaber from analysts firm CCS Insight said…

Apple announced the 15 billion download mark in July so it’s clear that Android’s momentum in device activations is translating to application downloads and usage.  We’d expect Android to overtake Apple in application downloads in the first half of 2012.

Android is currently the world’s best-selling smartphone platform but it has come under fire for a lack of due diligence to malware in its store.  Figures have been released by security companies showing an accelerating malware problem on Android.  Many people are now beginning to hit back at the anti-virus firms with some very strong and robust claims that they’re hyping the malware threat unnecessarily to boost sales of their own anti-virus products for the platform.

However hyped the malware threat to Android users might be it’s still wise to be protected as there may come a time when mobile phone operating companies no longer want to insure users against the premium rate texts sent by the fraudsters.

Android’s growth in the smartphone and tablet market for the foreseeable future however is pretty-much guaranteed, boosted by the recent launch in the US of Amazon’s first tablet, the Kindle Fire.  This tablet is widely expected to be the world’s biggest selling tablet when overall figures are released in six months or so from now.

Among the apps and games being discounted in the Google app store to mark this occasion are Asphalt 6 HD, Color & Draw for Kids, Endomondo Sports Tracker Pro, Fieldrunners HD, Great Little War Game, Minecraft, Paper Camera, Sketchbook Mobile, Soundhound
Infinity and SwiftKey X.

The BBC reported that “Carolina Milanesi, from analysts Gartner, said download numbers were a poor measure of success.” but Android still has more handset activations per day than any other smartphone or tablet platform.  It’s by far the biggest and most popular platform out there at the moment.

How Windows 8 tablets, on new ARM-based hardware will fare against it when they begin to appear late next year or in early 2013 remains to be seen.  Android will already have gone through at least two more versions by then and will be a far more polished and accomplished operating system.  Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS is already struggling to keep up with Android and make any impression in the marketplace.  Android’s open-source nature, which allows handset manufacturers to modify it has helped considerably in this, as has the fact that it is free too.  HTC are one manufacturer that has taken full advantage of this and will no doubt continue to do so.

Today Google announced that they have started to roll out a new look for some of their most popular properties. The change affects Google Search, News, Maps, Translate, Gmail and other products that have not been mentioned explicitly in the announcement on the Google Blog site.

The new design does away with the black bar and replaces it with a much smaller header element that is called the gray bar. This bar consists of three different regions. First the Google logo on the left incorporating a drop-down menu, a search for the particular Google product the user is currently using and a third area with sharing and account related links.

The down arrow on the right side of the Google logo leads to a product list. This makes it possible to navigate to other Google properties with two clicks from any of the supported Google product pages. This works even if the user is not logged into any Google account.

Search is now displayed in the middle of the gray bar. Users can use it to search for information provided by the Google Product they are currently using.

The sharing section finally confirms Google’s intention to push the Google+ social networking service. It is the only Google product that is linked prominently in the gray bar. The account picture finally displays links to the user’s Google profile, Google+ as well as general account and privacy related settings. a new Switch account option has been added to give users an option to switch accounts more conveniently.

The changes are being rolled out currently with no information when they may reach all users. I for one see the black bar on all Google properties and all web browsers at the moment.

This data will be analysed by Agari to see how phishing attacks can be identified and prevented.  The company has actually been in operation since 2009 and helps protect over 1 billion email accounts from these types of attack.  The company already collects data from around 1.5 billion emails a day, though they don’t collect the actual email messages.

Instead the company just passes on malicious URLs in the messages to the relevant companies who’s name is being used in the phishing message.  Google said it expects the new arrangement to benefit Gmail users as more mail senders will now be authenticating email and implementing common phishing blocking policies.

Cnet reported that Daniel Raskin, the vice-president of marketing for Agari said…

“Facebook can go into the Agari console and see charts and graphs of all the activity going on in their e-mail channel (on their domains and third-party solutions) and see when an attack is going on in a bar chart of spam hitting Yahoo.  They receive a real-time alert and they can construct a policy to push out to carriers (that says) when you see this thing happening don’t deliver it, reject it.”

Phishing emails aren’t just a nuisance, they cost businesses millions every year in credit card insurance payouts, a cost which is inevitably passed on in interest charges.  The sophistication of phishing messages, which purport to be from a bank, business or website asking you to log in to confirm your security details, or offering you a fantastic deal that doesn’t really exist, again to get your personal details including those for your credit card.

The simple rule is that no bank, company or website will EVER email you asking you to log in and confirm your details.  Modern web browsers will highlight the actual domain name for the site you are visiting, for example PayPal.com and you can see if you are being diverted to a different domain.  The best rule is that if you receive an email purporting to be from, say Bank of America, then never click on the link.  Instead manually go to the bank or company’s website and log in yourself.

Agari says they have been operating in “stealth” mode for the last few years to as to try not to attract too much attention to their work.  Currently they analyse 50% of all email traffic in the US.  Cnet say…

The company aggregates and analyzes the data and provides it to about 50 e-commerce, financial services and social network customers, including Facebook and YouSendIt, who can then push out authentication policies to the e-mail providers when they see an attack is happening.

This new alliance forms no guarantee that phishing emails will be eradicated, and it is still up to the end user to use caution when opening any suspicious email.

Users who visit the Google Knol start page see a big announcement on that page stating that “Knol will be moving to Annotum on May 1, 2012″. Google Knol was a Wikipedia-like online service to which Google users contributed articles to. Knol, unlike other services, can be migrated to Annotum, a multi-user WordPress site. Knol users alternatively have the option to download their articles to their computer.

Google Knol will be available until May 1, 2012. The service will be taken offline at this point in time. Knol users can still download or migrate their articles until October 1, 2012 when those options expire as well. Users who migrate will benefit from automatic redirects of their articles.

For Google Wave, the options are nearly the same. Google Wave will become read only on January 31, 2012 which basically means that users will not be able to create or edit waves after this point. Users have until April 30, 2012 to download the Wave data as PDF documents to their computers. There is also an option to export wave to an Open Source project called Workaround that is based on the Apache Wave code base.

Google Gears is deprecated and will no longer be available as of December 2011. The open source project allowed users to make and use web applications offline.

Other services that are discontinued include the Search Timeline feature which displayed a search term’s popularity over time in the search results, Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal which was an effort on Google’s part to drive down the costs of renewable energy, Friend Connect which could be used to add social features to web sites and Bookmark lists, which allowed users to share bookmarks.

Larry Page is hell-bent to slim-down Google’s operations. Getting rid of services that are not overly popular and concentrating on services that are may be a way to please share holders and make the company more profitable. These service discontinuations on the other hand can have an effect on the overall trust that users have in Google. Why would someone want to use a Google service that is not as popular as Gmail, if there is a chance that Google’s CEO will announce a fourth wave of retirements in the coming months.