Do you know where your kid is? Check Google's maps

With an upgrade to its mobile maps, Google Inc. hopes to prove it can track people on the go as effectively as it searches for information on the Internet. The new software released Wednesday will enable people with mobile phones and other wireless devices to automatically share their whereabouts with family and friends.

The feature, dubbed "Latitude," expands upon a tool introduced in 2007 to allow mobile phone users to check their own location on a Google map with the press of a button."This adds a social flavor to Google maps and makes it more fun," said Steve Lee, a Google product manager.

It could also raise privacy concerns, but Google is doing its best to avoid a backlash by requiring each user to manually turn on the tracking software and making it easy to turn off or limit access to the service.Google also is promising not to retain any information about its users' movements. Only the last location picked up by the tracking service will be stored on Google's computers, Lee said.

The software plots a user's location — marked by a personal picture on Google's map — by relying on cell phone towers, global positioning systems or a Wi-Fi connection to deduce their location. The system can follow people's travels in the United States and 26 other countries. It's left up to each user to decide who can monitor their location.

The social mapping approach is similar to a service already offered by Loopt Inc., a 3-year-old company located near Google's Mountain View headquarters. Loopt's service is compatible with more than 100 types of mobile phones.

To start out, Google Latitude will work on Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry and devices running on Symbian software or Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile. It will also operate on some T-Mobile phones running on Google's Android software and eventually will work on Apple Inc.'s iPhone and iTouch. To widen the software's appeal, Google is offering a version that can be installed on personal computers as well.

The PC access is designed for people who don't have a mobile phone but still may want to keep tabs on their children or someone else special, Lee said. People using the PC version can also be watched if they are connected to the Internet through Wi-Fi.

Google can plot a person's location within a few yards if it's using GPS, or might be off by several miles if it's relying on transmission from cell phone towers. People who don't want to be precise about their whereabouts can choose to display just the city instead of a specific neighborhood.

There are no current plans to sell any advertising alongside Google's tracking service, although analysts believe knowing a person's location eventually will unleash new marketing opportunities. Google has been investing heavily in the mobile market during the past two years in an attempt to make its services more useful to people when they're away from their office or home computers.

Yahoo! bringing Internet to Samsung television sets

Yahoo! and Samsung on Monday said they will put the California firm's software to work linking the South Korean electronics giant's televisions to the Internet. New Samsung high-density flat-panel television models to be displayed this week at a premier Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas will feature Yahoo! "widgets," mini applications which access Internet services.

Samsung televisions built with an "Internet@TV" content service will let viewers check online news or stock portfolios as well as see videos or pictures on the Web, according to the companies. "Through this partnership, we can combine the Internet benefits of user choice and personalization with Samsung's leading product innovation and global reach to deliver a new experience to users around the world," said Yahoo!'s Connected TV vice president Patrick Barry.

The applications will let Samsung televisions link to Yahoo! properties including Flickr, News, Weather, and Finance as well as to websites such as YouTube, eBay, and Showtime. Samsung already offers "Internet-enabled TV" technology and last year launched an "InfoLink" service that delivers news feeds from the publication USA Today to some sets in its line-up. "The collaboration with Yahoo lets viewers go one step further," said Samsung Visual Display Division executive vice president Boo-Keun Yoon.

"This new interface allows them to interact and connect with many of their favorite Web services on a personal level. It's frankly way beyond just passively watching broadcasts and is no doubt the future of TV." Samsung said it is using an open software platform so that outside developers can build custom applications viewers can install in its Internet-linked televisions as desired.Pricing for the televisions was not revealed.

Samsung HDTVs with the Yahoo Widget Engine are to be available in about four months in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the United States. The Samsung/Yahoo! announcement came on the same day as South Korea's LG Electronics and online movie rental giant Netflix revealed plans to market a broadband-enabled high-definition TV.

LG and Netflix said the "Broadband HDTVs" to go on sale this spring would have Netflix streaming software embedded in the TV, allowing users to stream movies directly from Netflix with no external device.

Google launches Cross-Language Enterprise Search (InfoWorld)

Google launched on Thursday an innovative cross-language search feature that is sure to be welcomed by any global organization. Cross-Language Enterprise Search works only with the Google Enterprise Search Appliance and will find internal documents written in any language, no matter what language was used to create the query.

With more and more companies linking their global systems, by simply pointing the search engine to each system the cross-language feature will find the documents in any one of 34 languages. Keep up on the latest tech news headlines at InfoWorld News, or subscribe to the Today's Headlines newsletter.

"Google Search Appliance is meant to mix 30 million documents, since the search appliance can do that all you have to do is point to all the servers," said Cyrus Mystry, product manager, Google Enterprise Labs[cq].

The cross-language tool also uses Google's machine translation technology to automatically translate the document if that feature is activated by the administrator through a dropdown menu. Otherwise, it can bring back the search results in the language they were written in.

While machine translation is notoriously inaccurate, Mystry noted that the Web has a vast amount of documents that are in multiple languages, and Google uses that along with statistical analysis to create a more accurate rendering of one language into another. Recently, Google also created a translation feature that allows users to enter text or a Web URL and have it automatically translated.

Mystry said the goal of the Enterprise Labs is to develop and launch a new feature every six to eight weeks by posting innovations from over 10,000 Google engineers, and then making it available to about 55,000 visitors who can test the feature.

Massive World War II collection debuts online

An online collection of World War II documents, billed as the world's largest, debuted last week. Footnote.com, which archives historical documents on the Web, developed the collection with the National Archives and Records Administration.

The collection starts with 9 million "hero pages" profiling individual U.S. veterans of World War II with data taken from Army enlistment records. Veterans and their families and friends can add further information and photos.

The project also includes an online reproduction of the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, which is inscribed with the names of more than 1,100 crewmen who died when the battleship was sunk on Dec. 7, 1941. Visitors to the Web site can search for the names of the victims.

Other highlights of the collection include the personnel rolls of Pearl Harbor, reports of missing air crews, submarine patrol reports and naval press clippings. Also included are extensive analyses of the Allied bombing strategy against Japan, including target photographs.

Footnote.com Chief Executive and President Russ Wilding says the collection will mark the debut of 50,000 photos exclusive to the site.

"Our hope is to engage people to share their stories about relatives and friends who served in World War II," he says. "Many of the veterans have passed away, and the number of living World War II veterans continues to shrink. We're trying to facilitate the capturing of stories before they're lost forever."

Guitar Hero bangs out a new tune

The fourth instalment of the Guitar Hero series - Guitar Hero World Tour - hits the shops on 7 November. Developed by Neversoft, the game now has a drum kit and microphone, in addition to the classic plastic guitar. Using one of the instruments, players accompany a music track trying to match the performance and prowess of an on-screen character. The game features more than 80 licensed tracks from a diverse set of artists, ranging from Korn to Fleetwood Mac.

The series differs from most other games in that it uses a customised controller, rather than the systems gamepad. Prior editions came bundled with a plastic guitar that simulated an actual instrument, using five coloured buttons on the neck and a "strum" bar, instead of frets and strings. The new version now has a drum kit and microphone. Percussion consists of three conveniently coloured pads, and two cymbals.

The guitar has also been given a makeover. Not only has the look been updated, but the developers have added a touch sensitive panel that can be used for pulling off flash musical stunts. The game launched at the Hoxton Bar and Grill in Central London. A number of game stations had been set up for people to try out the game and a stage area allowed guests to pretend to be a real rockstar by performing on stage in front of the assembled crowd. British metalcore band Bullet for My Valentine were on hand for a live performance including "Scream, Aim, Fire" one of the tracks shipping with Guitar Hero World Tour.

Attendees were fairly positive about the game. Official Xbox Magazine's Ben Talbot said the game was in a new league and was just "so much fun". A view shared by Fred Dutton from Official Nintendo Magazine. "It's a big step forward from the last game, it's got something for everyone. It makes you feel like you're actually playing the instrument," he said. "The game's competing with Rock Band and they're both doing similar things. But I think Guitar Hero does it slightly better."

Speedy USB 3.0 spec to be unveiled

On November 17 the SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0) Developers Conference, hosted by the USB Implementers Forum in San Jose, Calif., will unveil the USB 3.0 specification to the industry, according to a statement Wednesday from the Implementers Forum.

The USB 3.0 specification, a next-generation high-speed connection standard due in 2009, is significant because all future PCs and devices will use connectors based on it. The spec is also expected to offer 10 times the speed of USB 2.0--used in virtually all PCs introduced in the last few years--or roughly 5 gigabits per second.

Hewlett-Packard, Intel, NEC, NXP Semiconductors, Microsoft, and Texas Instruments are all backers of SuperSpeed USB.

Speaking at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Los Angeles, USB-IF President Jeff Ravencraft said he expects the final specifications to be made public on November 17.

Intel and Nvidia had been skirmishing over the standard but resolved their differences.

Google's 10th Birthday Present: World-Changing Ideas

Google is marking its 10th anniversary by offering 10 million dollars to back world changing ideas. Google promises to divvy up the cash between the five best ideas that spring from its Project 10 to the 100th, a reference to the numerical sum "googol" from which the Internet powerhouse took its name.

"Our company's very name expresses our goal of achieving great results through smart technology that starts small and scales dramatically over time to have a tremendous long-term impact," Google said in a website posting. "Project 10 to the 100th is a similar attempt to produce those kinds of scalable results by harnessing our users' insights and creativity."

Winning ideas will get Google funding, while the people that submitted them will get "good karma and the satisfaction of knowing that your idea might truly help a lot of people," according to the Northern California firm.

The deadline for submitting ideas to Google is October 20. A panel of Google employees will pick 100 top submissions to be announced on January 27, 2009. Google users will then vote to determine 20 semi-finalists, from which a Google advisory board will select five winners. "At Google, we don't believe we have the answers, but we do believe the answers are out there," a message at an introductory project Web page said.

"Maybe the answer that helps somebody is in your head, in something you've observed, some notion that you've been fiddling with, some small connection you've noticed, some old thing you have seen with new eyes."

Information about the project is posted on Google 10th Birthday Web pages that also feature a company timeline featuring such tidbits as how co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin met and the website originally being named "BackRub."

Google helping expand undersea cable infrastructure

Google is once again joining forces with foreign phone companies to help lay new undersea fiber-optic cables to bring faster Internet speeds to the far corners of the world.

On Tuesday, the Web site TeleGeography reported that Google has joined a consortium to build an intra-Asia undersea cable called the Southeast Asia Japan Cable to connect Japan, Guam, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Thailand.

Earlier this year, Google joined a group to build an undersea cable linking Japan to the United States. The consortium building the new intra-Asia cable has many of the same members as the consortium developed for the Japan-U.S. cable, including Google, Bharti, SingTel, KDDI, and Global Transit.

There is already a lot of competition along this Southeast Asia route, where several cables have already been planned. As a result, the new intra-Asia SAJC cable won't likely be ready until 2011, TeleGeography analyst Alan Mauldin said in the report.

In addition to helping new fiber under the ocean in Asia, Google is also supposedly looking for partners to help it build a new undersea cable to Africa. So far details have been scarce, but the South African Web site ITWeb reported earlier this month that Google recently met with South African ISP Internet Solutions, Telkom SA, MTN, and Vodacom in July.

The site also reported that Google supposedly met with two existing project leaders, South Africa's Broadband Infraco, which is trying to build a cable along the western coast of the continent to Europe, and Seacom, a privately owned system that will run along Africa's eastern coast, connecting Africa to India and Europe.

Google has been building fiber infrastructure domestically for the last few years. Most of this fiber infrastructure has been used to fuel internal network and data center growth. These new undersea cable investments could be an extension of this strategy. But it also is likely a way for Google to push more bandwidth and capacity into regions of the world where it sees the most growth potential for its services.

Google executives have said for a long time that developing markets offer the biggest opportunity for the company with billions of sets of new eyeballs in these regions poised to use Google's products and services in the future.

Microsoft Opens Windows 7 Blog for Discussions

Microsoft has launched a new blog page for discussions with customers and partners about the next Windows operating system. "We strongly believe that success for Windows 7 includes an open and honest, and two-way, discussion," said Windows 7 development engineers Jon DeVaan and Steven Sinofsky.

For a while now, Microsoft has said it would deliver Windows 7 approximately three years after the January 2007 launch of Windows Vista. "The product is tracking very, very well," said Senior Vice President Bill Veghte, who runs Microsoft's Windows business. "And we are looking good relative to our commitment," he told analysts last month.

To prep developers on the new OS, Microsoft will hold two major Windows events. "The Professional Developers Conference on October 27 and the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference the following week represent the first venues where we will provide in-depth technical information about Windows 7," DeVaan and Sinofsky said.

Sales of licenses for Windows Vista surpassed the 180 million in the second quarter, according to Colleen Healy, general manager of investor relations at Microsoft. "And Windows Vista had driven client revenue to an average growth rate of 16 percent since it became generally available," she said during a conference call with analysts last month.

However, Vista has come under fire because of its failure to work well with other software applications and hardware. Adoption rates in enterprises have also lagged analysts' expectations.

With the launch of Windows 7, Microsoft will have its first major opportunity to improve industry perceptions about its operating system. "The biggest problem Vista has today is in perception --- a perceived lack of value and perceived instability," said Michael Silver, a research director at Gartner Client Computing.

Microsoft says it plans to listen more closely to what the world has to say about Windows. Earlier this year, Veghte told Microsoft's India-based customers and partners that the feedback they provided was playing an important role in work on Windows 7. The launch of the Windows 7 blog page is another step in that direction.

Improving performance certainly has to be one major Microsoft goal, Silver noted. Another will be to bring a new set of innovative features to market, he said.

"It's hard to come up with 'gee whiz' features for a relatively mature product, but security and improved manageability and ease of deployment -- especially from the standpoint of ecosystem support -- will certainly help improve Microsoft's chances," Silver said.

From the enterprise perspective, Silver thinks the Windows 7 development team will need to focus on making improvements to application control "to enable standard users to be able to install known good apps and prevent administrators from running known bad apps." Additionally, Silver sees room for improvement in in the way that user account control works to improve application compatibility and usability.

Overall, Microsoft will need to ensure that the computing ecosystem is ready to accept and adopt Windows 7 when it finally arrives, Silver said. And the development team must fix operating-system areas that currently confuse users, like the networking center, he said.

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Internet 2 works to reinvent the Web

Ten years after it began being embraced by the public, architects say the Internet is far from what it was destined to be, and they are working on a sequel. In 1993 Marc Andreessen launched Mosaic, the first browser to navigate the Web. In this vintage cyberspace, gray pages and low-resolution graphics were rife.

"I remember downloading it and running it on x-windows when it was running, said Pindar Wong, from Packet Clearing House. "So now it's really great to see parents and grandchildren and everyone using the Internet sort of through browser interfaces. It is a milestone. But I think the game is changing." It is changing because these days, the Internet is a much bigger beast. The "critical infrastructure" that hosts governments, businesses and universities is far-reaching, but far from flawless.With jerky video and hourglass icons, it's little wonder some call it the world wide wait. But one group is out to change that.

Enter "Internet 2" -- a U.S.-led effort to build cyberspace all over again, this time better. "Well the current Internet is not designed for the next generation of applications," said Ted Hanss, Director of Internet 2. "It's really focused on tens of millions of dial-up users. Not the applications that would really change how we do teaching, learning and education."

The Internet 2 backbone in the United States moves billions of bits of data per second, 300,000 times faster than the connection we have at home, said Hanss. Moving with such speed, Internet 2 will be able to provide remote diagnosis for doctors, send detailed medical files in a flash, stage high-resolution videoconferences and download virtual reality applications.

Champions of the project say Internet 2 shows what the net will do three to five years from now. But even a souped-up cyberspace is susceptible to worms, viruses and just plain junk or spam.And then there's the millions of mobile devices and appliances that are moving online, requiring more IP addresses. Back at the Internet monitoring station, engineers are scrambling to surmount those challenges, taking heart from their recent achievement. "I would view the last 10 years as a wonderful experiment," said Wong.

"Many of us were just kids, still young at heart now. We were trying all these different things. And we made our fair share of mistakes. The question is what can we learn from those mistakes?" The challenge is to build a cyber-sequel that's not just a pipe dream.

Italian Media Company Sues YouTube

Italian media conglomerate Mediaset Group has sued YouTube for €500 million (US$780 million), alleging the Google video-sharing site illegally hosts thousands of video clips that belong to Mediaset.

The suit, filed in civil court in Rome, names both YouTube and parent company Google. Mediaset operates television stations in Italy and Spain and produces films and TV shows. Its vice chairman, Pier Silvio Berlusconi, is the son of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is also a media tycoon.

The company claims that on June 10, there were 4,643 video clips on YouTube, totalling more than 325 hours of material, owned by Mediaset. The company believes that as a result, its three Italian TV stations have lost 315,672 viewing days. The €500 million claim does not include the loss of advertising revenues from the shows.

YouTube is already grappling with a $1 billion copyright lawsuit by U.S. media giant Viacom, which similarly claims its content is offered on YouTube without permission.

YouTube has said its policy is to remove infringing clips if media owners complain.

Google officials were not immediately available for comment.

Will Google, Facebook and Apple Own the Web?

Time looks at Google (GOOG), Facebook and Apple (AAPL) as likely winners of the Web wars. They do make think of the 3 Cs:

• Google = commerce
• Facebook = community
• Apple = content.

Interesting that none of the three create any of the underlying C, they just enable it. That being said, I don’t buy any of these “the future of this” or “how this will kill that” pieces, nor do I buy many of these “X company is the future of so-and-so”.

Google’s place in business is cemented: It’s catapulted itself to IBM (IBM) and Microsoft (MSFT) status and while it may or may or not change, it won’t go anywhere.

Apple today is kicking ass and won’t be disappearing, but just a decade ago it was going nowhere.

Facebook is a great story but has yet to prove itself. It can become Friendster, quickly, and last time I checked, MySpace remains much bigger…

But the bigger reason why I take these articles with a grain of salt is two-fold:

• Didn’t an analyst from Sanford Bernstein argue just last week that - on the strength of their respective 20-30% revenue growth - Amazon and Google would own the future of the Web?
• Isn’t the future of the Web a video-based one? Sure, Google has video mojo thanks to its YouTube acquisition. But Facebook? Not really. Apple can’t really claim leadership either.

This makes me wonder: If video is the future of the Web, who will win between the technology players versus the content players? Hmm… let me think about that, a post is coming soon.