GOOGLE UPDATES :Google Chrome Update

As many of you most likely are aware, Google’s Chrome web browser current comes in 3 different flavors or ‘channels.’

There is a stable version, a beta version, also a ‘dev’ version of Chrome.

As with any product, non-tech oriented users that desire to begin implementing Chrome must use the stable version which is updated often.

The beta channel is just what the term implies. It is aimed at those they desire a peek at what may be coming also comment on how the features work with their systems.

At last, the ‘dev’ version of Google Chrome is mostly aimed at developers. Those building extensions or otherwise contributing to Chrome through the Chromium project.

Earlier today, the ‘dev’ version of chrome was updated to version 5.0.335.0.

In early versions of Chrome, it was very easy to switch back and forth using a ‘channel changer’ program. For best results, now that the product is budding, you are MUCH better off uninstalling your preceding channel version before changing to a different channel. (Updates within the similar channel will still be as easy as hitting ‘about’).

For those experiencing tab crashes or other issues, I trust this brief piece helps.

Google AdWords Updates its Pharmacy Policy For United States and Canada

Google announces the AdWords Pharmacy Policy Updates for the United States and Canada.

Here is the information on what exactly the changes are:

Only those online pharmacies in United States and Canada will be permitted to post their ads on AdWords, who will be accredited by the National Association Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) VIPPS program and the Canadian International Pharmacy Association (CIPA.) respectively.

The online pharmacies in United States and Canada can target their ads to only the users of their respective...

GOOGLE UPDATES: Google Updates Images Search Site Function

The site attribute on queries conducted using Google Images has been updated to comprise all images on a site – though they’re not hosted on its domain.

A blog post on the Official Google Blog explains that, previously, queries conducted using the site operator – such as by adding site:Google.com – would yield only images that were hosted on the domain integrated in the search query.

At present, using the operator will return all images that are displayed on the site, no matter where they’re hosted online, allowing social sharing sites like Flickr or Digg to be incorporated into the results in a move that might directly impact SEO services for sites optimizing their image content.

Marissa Mayer, vice-president of search products and user experience, writes in her blog that “The operator will run your search over sites that include images, no matter where the images themselves are hosted – which removes lots of noise from your results."

Advanced Google Images searches can question not just specific domains, but also precise image sizes, file formats, colors and aspect ratios.

GOOGLE UPDATES: Google starts MySpace updates in real time searches

Google has started real-time search results for MySpace. The outcome will show live updates from MySpace users together with news, photos, music and blog posts.

The MySpace content joins further sources of Google real-time search results, including Twitter and Facebook’s FriendFeed.

While Google was the social networking site’s launch partner, together with OneRiot, it took a duo of month’s time for Google to incorporate MySpace’s updates into its real-time search results.

MySpace, which is not the grand figure of social networking it once was, will be hoping that Google results will drive superior traffic to its now more music focused pages.

Mr. Mike Jones, co-president of MySpace, said, “This partnership increases our users’ ability to share and showcase content across the open web and gives people outside the MySpace network even more ways to find out new content.”

Google Updates: Google Plans Buzz Updates

Google is planning updates to its Buzz social-networking service and expanding the service’s testing to the communal, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Google launched Buzz last Tuesday, after it introduced it as a tool for keeping track of all the social activity happening across Google and other websites.

The Buzz service, which is integrated with Gmail, permits users to share postings with friends also to view and comment on items their friends share, making it a potential rival to Facebook, as said by the Journal.

Amongst the new Buzz enhancements in the works are features that aid people filter what postings they see and block certain conversations, a dispensation to people who have raised concerns that Buzz didn’t do sufficient to protect their privacy, reported the Journal.

Google Updates Buzz Yet Again To Tackle Privacy Concerns

It was only last week that we informed you regarding the first security updates which went live on Google’s new social media service Buzz, however now we’ve details on another significant security update that has been released.

As reported from BGR, Buzz came in for initial criticism later than it was revealed that user’s contacts were publicly available to view, but Google in a little while fixed the issue after a swift update.

Now though, more updates are just around the corner, changes include various tweaks to the Picasa Web Albums and Google Reader shared items, as you can now also ‘hide’ Buzz in your Gmail account or disable it entirely if you want.

GOOGLE UPDATES: Google updates Chrome for Mac and Linux betas

Google has announced the availability of version 5.0.307.7 of Chrome for Mac and Linux users, the latest betas of its Chrome WebKit-based browser for each platform. In accordance with the developers, Chrome on both platforms features stability improvements to plug-ins, like the Adobe Flash Player, and is now doubly reliable.

Like its Windows counterpart, the Mac Beta of Chrome at present features support for extensions and bookmark sync. With extensions, users can widen their browser's functionality by writing also installing scripts that become part of the browser, in a similar fashion to Firefox Add-Ons. Up to now, there are more than 2,500 extensions available from the Google Chrome Extensions page.

The addition of bookmark sync to the Mac Beta permits users to make use of their Google Account, to synchronize their bookmarks across all of their computers. Once enabled, bookmarks created on one computer will automatically be added to the users other computers over the internet. The Mac Beta in addition adds a new bookmark manager, cookie manager and task manager.

The Linux Beta, which formerly included support for extensions and a bookmark manager, includes a number of bug fixes, like addressing an Out Of Memory (OOM) error that will cause "runaway tabs before it kills the browser". The Chrome for Linux beta supports 32 as well as 64-bit versions of Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora and openSUSE. Chrome for Mac need an Intel Mac with Mac OS X 10.5 'Leopard' or later. All beta users are advised to upgrade to the newest release.

Further details about the beta releases can be found in the release announcement and release notes. Chrome 5.0.307.7 Beta is available to download for Linux and Mac. Users that presently have Chrome installed can make use of the built-in update function by clicking Tools, selecting About Google Chrome and then click on the Update button.

Google readying social updates for Google mail (Gmail)

Google is about to make a number of social networking updates to its Gmail service, as said by reports. The company declined to corroborate any specific updates, but did say that it will be unveiling a few new product innovations this evening.

The reported enhancements include a real-time contact update stream, alike to those provided by Twitter and Facebook, as well as photo and video sharing capabilities.

Google users can previously post status updates to Google Chat, which is connected to Gmail, but it is unclear whether Google will aggregate the chat updates or create a wholly new add-on for internet users to access real-time information about contacts.

Additionally, while a few reports hint that Google will include add-on video and photo sharing capabilities specific to Gmail, others suggest that the web giant plans stronger ties among Gmail, YouTube and Picasa.

Google has had limited success in providing social networking services. And Orkut, a social networking site is very much popular in Brazil, for instance, but virtually unheard of elsewhere.Analyst firms like Gartner predict that social networking services will replace email as the primary vehicle for communications for lots of business users by 2014, and Google is likely to be feeling under more pressure to vie in this area.

Other email providers, like Yahoo and AOL, have previously made moves to become more social, whereas Facebook is rumoured to be updating its private messaging capabilities to better vie with email providers.

Google Is Working On Speech Translation For Phones

Google by now runs a successful online translator, Google Translate, but they have got far-loftier ideas than simply converting the written word. They desire to translate languages spoken over the phone, as said by their head of translation services.

Speaking to The Times, Mr. Franz Och, Google's head of translation services, said: "We think speech-to-speech translation should be possible also work reasonably well in a few years time.

Obviously, for it to work smoothly, you need a combination of high-accuracy machine translation and high-accuracy voice recognition, and that's what we are working on.

If you gaze at the progress in machine translation and corresponding advances in voice recognition, there has been enormous progress recently."

It is not really clear as to whether Google wants to translate a phone conversation or conversation around you (for instance, ordering food in a Japanese restaurant). If it is the former, I am unsure as to whether I would actually use the software, although booking hotels in other countries might be one instance.

But then, when the whole thing is done online these days and effective online translation services like Google Translate and Babel Fish exist--Google may find that by the time they launch translation software on a phone, it is too late and everybody can speak English by then anyway. I hope that is not the case, though.

Google drops IE support in Apps

Google has announced that its Apps suite, including Google Docs, will no longer support IE 6 and other outdated browsers.

"In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features as well as performance, we're harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology and this includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. Therefore, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft IE 6.0 and other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers," said by the company in an official statement.

From March 1 2010 support for older browsers will be phased out in the Google Docs suites and Google Sites editor. Users of old browsers will discover that these applications might have higher latency in use or may not work properly. Google Apps will keep on to work correctly in IE 7 and above, Firefox 3 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, also Safari 3.0 and above.

The move comes after Microsoft admitted that a defect in IE6 was used by Chinese hackers to attack Google. Since then, the backlash against IE has been harsh and has even led to the German government telling web users to ditch IE totally.

Google append more search capabilities to Gmail

Google has updated its email offering Gmail to permit users to search the web while composing messages.

In the Compose Mail section, a Web Search box has peacefully appeared on the left hand side of the composition space which formerly was only available to Labs users.

Whilst the web giant didn’t publically announce the latest functionality, a Google UK spokesman inveterate it was new and introduced over the weekend.

Whenever a user searches for a term in the box, the results pop out in one more box at the bottom of the page with links that can be copied and pasted.

The functionality will permit users to effortlessly add links to their email without opening a second browser window.