Ever received relative results prior to even typing out an entire search or query online? Google has done the inevitable, yet again.

The ‘numero uno’ search engine company has just bettered its previous best. Since Google is in a league of its own, all the company now looks at turning things up a notch.

Their latest technology, ‘Google Instant’, delivers apt results even prior to users typing out the entire keyword. Now that’s amazing! The purpose of this feature is to further simplify the entire process of searching online information. The (apparent) taxing task of searching for relevant information online is now made a bit easier. Users do not have to put their mind at work to a large extent.

“We really believe Google Instant is a quantum leap forward in search,”

stated Marissa Mayer, Vice-President in the search and user department for Google.

What are they aiming at next, brain-centric search results? All I can say is sit back and enjoy this online search treat. Cushion anyone?

Buzz, developed earlier this year as an additional networking feature on Gmail, was touted to be Google’s answer to Twitter. It kicked off with mixed reviews in spite of its much expected growth and boom. However a few months down the lane, we are looking at a much unexpected turn of events.

The complaint that surfaced was that users could access all contact details of people they were connected to through Buzz. And this wasn’t an option but by default. Several outraged Gmail users filed a lawsuit against Google alleging that their personal privacy had been violated. One can’t help but wonder whether this defect was a careless mistake or something casually overlooked.

Besides 30% of the dues being shelled out for legal fees, the settlement indicates a payout of $2500 to seven of the afflicted users each, and the bottom dollar will be split among various organizations involved in online privacy. It also demands the search engine firm to educate its users about their privacy rights. Google released a statement saying it is redefining all its privacy policies so as to make it more absolute and foolproof. The complete settlement is yet to be approved by the federal court.

Following the receipt of a string of privacy complaints, the error has promptly been corrected and made live.

Is Google looking for some damage control? ‘Cause their attempt at creating a niche in social networking has sure backfired. Although we won’t be surprised if this episode is just another minor hitch for the Internet Giant. There’s no denying its enormity despite these occasional hiccups. Let’s just hope it keeps up the usual standards.

The king of search engines, Google, never ceases to amaze us. The online giant has recently divulged details of YouTube now organizing a pay-per-view online full-fledged movie service.

Come year end, fans may just see YouTube convert from a user-generated online website to an international online channel for movies. According to the Financial Times, the latest films in the movie industry would be priced at $5, a little higher than the usual $0.99 to $3.99. A catalog that contains the entire YouTube pricing list for previous films is already maintained. Faint rumors have it that this service would collaborate with the also upcoming Google TV.

Wall Street Journal stated Google was in negotiations with Lions Gate, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Warner Bros. and Sony. Possibilities of a parallel release on the website along with their DVD-release have also stemmed out.

An executive from the company stated to Financial Times,

“Google and YouTube are a global phenomenon with a hell of a lot of eyeballs — more than any cable or satellite service. They’ve talked about how many people they could steer to this … it’s a huge number.”

Should such a concept roll out, YouTube will undoubtedly be pitted against iTunes, Hulu and Netflix. They might be given a run for their money too.

This one we surely do not want to miss!

The gaming company that has earned an established name for designing applications for various games that are found on social networking site, Facebook, has now come under the online king’s wing. It is reported that Google acquired the company for a whopping $182 million.

Slide was earlier founded in 2005 by co-founder of Paypal, Max Levchin.

“Slide has already created compelling social experiences for tens of millions of people across many platforms, and we have already built strong social elements into products like Gmail, Docs, Blogger, Picasa and YouTube. As the Slide team joins Google, we will be investing even more to make Google services socially aware and expand these capabilities for our users across the web,”

said Google’s Engineering Director, David Glazer.

Max Levchin also supports the cause by saying,

“Google is committed to building new, open and better ways for users to connect with others. At Slide, we have been focused on building online communities that foster self-expression, creativity and engagement across multiple platforms. Given our shared vision and values, this is a tremendous opportunity for the two companies to come together to change the way people socialize on the Web.”

This current take-over may well prove to be a path-breaking move in the digital world.

You might as well get your hearing senses accustomed to such a phrase as it will be frequently mouthed in future by millions. Google has left the world astounded, yet again. The internet giant has recently announced its plan to introduce the first-ever Google TV – targeting to serve as an online television entertainment channel.

Touted as one of the most-awaited and ambitious projects in decades, Google TV will see the merging of the internet with television. Viewers can now catch all their favorite TV shows, soaps and movies unperturbed by disturbing cable connections and other broadcasting networks.

With a simple combination of a set-top box /TV along with Google’s very own software that connects you online and a keyboard for different commands to be typed in; users will will be able to switch on the television. For all you Android phone and iPhone users do not fret; you are entitled to it too.

However, New Tee Vee also green lights the possibility of transferring online content to your TV set via a specific version of Google TV apps. Picture yourself chatting away on Facebook when suddenly a friend posts an interesting video on the social networking site. With a simple click of a button on your browser (acting as a remote control), you could watch the same video on your flat screen TV. That’s what Google TV does!

This seems to be a rewind of the era when the dawn of the internet-age saw the newspaper and printing industries at a downslide. The land of Hollywood would see many twitching eyebrows showcasing anticipation of their future fate in the entertainment industry.

The unfolding of this new venture by Google would undoubtedly be a treat for eyes. It excites my imagination levels to wonder what Google’s grey cells have in store next.

For now, it’s time to get your stack of popcorn ready!

The online biggie has already been slapped lawsuits in several other countries with illegal collection of private wireless data to assist its Street View initiative. Started in 2006; the basic feature of Street View allows users to conveniently view street panoramas and take on virtual walks via Google Maps. Starting late in 2009, Google dispatched cars that carried cameras atop that cruised along the country roads capturing different milieus and settings.

Now according to a statement made by the Cyber Terror Response Center of the Korean National Police Agency, the vehicles, while clicking through the various locales, may have illegitimately got a hold of valuable personal data present on wireless networks.

“We will investigate Google Korea officials and scrutinize the data we confiscated today”

to see whether the company violated the country’s laws on communications and privacy, it said.

“We intend to find out what kinds of data they have collected and how much,”

said the response center.

“We will try to retrieve all the original data illegally collected and stored through domestic Wi-Fi networks from the Google headquarters.”

Now that’s an unusual line to come by about Google.

Google, on the other side, confirmed about the investigation taking place and has vowed absolute co-operation. The search engine giant states the entire act as ‘unintentional’ and a solution in a bid to respond to Google’s competitor in Korea, Daum; running a famous service parallel to Street View. Google aims to take this service to Germany prior to the end of the year.

This dreadful scenario coming in after the recent tentative decision to shut down Google Wave.

Are we witnessing the downfall of the world’s biggest online company?

The Google Wave application that provided services like computing platform, and communications protocol to merge e-mail, instant messaging, wikis, and social networking is about to shut down due to lack of patronage. Launched in May last year, this software was described as a new web application for real-time communication and collaboration. The decision was taken on august 4, after Wave failed to make the desired mark in the industry.

“Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. So we don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects,”

said Urs Holzle, Google’s senior vice president of operations.

Although Google Wave changed the way people communicated online, its active users keep dropping drastically until Google finally decided to shelve it. Even as most users did not even know what Google Wave was all about, the search engine giant has already decided to come up with new products.

Company CEO Eric Schmidt on a YouTube video said that the Wave team would be looking towards moving other products that are

“like Wave but applied in some other areas.”

Though its time for Wave to say goodbye, it will benefit Google’s so-called Facebook competitor, Me. In fact Wave will help a lot of social networking sites.

When Wave debuted in May, PCWorld’s Ed Albro said that Wave could be a great answer for

“sharing content with only the people you choose.”

It allowed picking specific people to include sharing your content with in a Wave quickly and easily in a manner similar to creating group e-mail whereas with Facebook one can only restrict posts based on settings.

Despite the application being scrapped, Wave’s Website wave.google.com will remain live at least till the end of the year. Google also plans on creating tools that will make it easy for users to export data out of Google Wave.

Even after abandoning the project, Google boss Eric Schmidt has tagged Wave, as

“a very clever product”.

Perhaps he is trying to cover up for the slump.

“Our policy is we try things,”

he stated.

“We celebrate our failures. This is a company where it is absolutely ok to try something that is very hard, have it not be successful, take the learning and apply it to something new.”

It would be interesting to see how the giant search engine will recover from the loss and apply the Wave benefits to its other upcoming applications.

Google’s movie search service for mobiles is available in English initially and has commenced in Canada, United States, Ireland, United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia. To avail of the service, users need to access Google.com via their handsets, search for movies and enter the ‘more movies’ link according to Nick Fey, team member at Google Mobile. “From there, you can either browse a list of movies or select the ‘Theaters’ button to browse a list of theaters near you,” Fey wrote on the Google Mobile Blog.

Another feature added to complement this new service is the ‘Mobile Movie Trailers’ page that lets users play trailers of the latest movies on their phones and select movies by genres, all while accessing important information about the film such as movie ratings etc. Fey mentioned, “Just touch the poster or movie title and you’ll see our new movie-details page that has a synopsis of the movie, a more detailed list of showtimes, the cast and crew, and pictures.”

Google’s continuous development has highlighted newer ways to deliver relevant search information to users as well as create lucrative advertising space while at it according to Vice President, Susan Wojcicki’s statement, “As we continue to think up innovative ways to give you the information you want, you’re likely to see even more ad formats until we pinpoint the most useful, relevant and engaging ones”

Chrome OS is an open source operating system for ARM and x86 based netbooks which will be available for free initially and Google has partnered with the likes of HP, Intel, Lenovo, Acer, Toshiba, Qualcomm, Freescale, and Adobe to launch the same.

Microsoft’s domination in operating systems is directly related to its familiarity with the masses making it the obvious choice for a huge majority of the market; however there are certain drawbacks when it comes to small-form devices, namely cloud connectivity and simplicity. Google’s Chrome OS will look at strengthening its presence by working extensively on these weak links while introducing a new windowing environment with the Chrome browser as its main interface.

Past research on in-stream ads has shown that up to 70% of viewers dropped a video when they faced lengthy commercials without an option to skip. This number dropped down drastically once the commercial’s length was shortened to around 15 seconds.

The new skip feature will let YouTube recognize & differentiate between commercials that go well with the users from those which are skipped most often, thereby creating a whole new module in which advertising rates will be set according to the rankings received by the ads. “The longterm vision is more of a pay-for-performance model,” said Phil Farhi, product manager at YouTube.

Going down Google’s search ad system grading route, YouTube has decided to grade ads based on data about the target audience and an insight into their reaction ‘skip quotient’ to the commercial. “We’re looking for the signals that indicate whether someone is going to skip an ad,” said Farhi. “We’ll use that as the equivalent of a click-through rate.” This new pricing model will spark new challenges for advertisers translating into better creative/concepts in ads on display.