More access control for viewers in Google Sites
Filed under: Featured, Google, Google API, Technology News
Site owners now have the option to allow viewers of a site to also see site activity and site revisions.
Editions included:
Standard, Premier, Education, Team and Partner Editions
Languages included:
All languages supported by Google Sites
How to access what’s new:
When editing a site, select ‘More actions’ from the drop-down menu in the top right. Then select ‘Manage site’, then ‘General’ and in the ‘Access Settings’ section, select the level of access you want for collaborators or viewers for site activity and revision history. This new option is also included in the Sites API.
For more information:
http://sites.google.com/support/
Google Hands Out Its First 1337 Cash Prize For A Chrome Bug
Back in January, Google announced that it would follow Mozilla’s lead and start offering cash bounties for bugs found in the code of Chromium (the open-source browser behind Chrome), or Chrome by the community. Google both matches Mozilla’s $500 and ups the bounty all the way up to $1,337 (yes, 1337) for “particularly severe or particularly clever” bugs. This week, they rewarded the first of those.
As noted on the Chrome Release blog, Google made four cash payments on Wednesday. There were two $500 prizes (both for memory errors), one $1,000 prize (for a cross-orgin bypass), and the first-ever $1,337 prize. The lucky receipient of that was a man named Sergey Glazunov, who located a bug that Google is calling, “High Integer overflows in WebKit JavaScript objects.”
This crowd-sourced bug hunting seems like a great idea, especially for a browser moving through development as quickly as Chrome. Chrome has only existed for a year and a half and already they’re testing version 5.0. Stable builds of both the Mac and Linux version of the browser are likely to launch at some point over the next few months.
Opera, Safari Beat Chrome On Google’s Own JavaScript Conformance Test
Filed under: Browser Compatibility, Browsers, Featured, Google, JavaScript, Microsoft, Technology News
Back in June, Google launched Sputnik, a suite of tools that runs over 5,000 tests to check a web browser’s JavaScript conformance. Last week, they made the tool a lot easier for anyone to use, with a version that works in the web browser. The results are interesting.
Notably, both the Opera and Safari web browsers beat Google’s own Chrome browser in the test. As you can see in the picture above, Opera is the clear leader, with only 78 failures (the closer to the center, the less errors). Safari came in second with 159 errors, with Chrome in third with 218 errors. Firefox is close behind with 259 errors, while Internet Explorer is the outlier with 463 errors.
These tests were run on Windows machines, with the latest released version of each browser. Using the web tool on my Mac, though, shows similar results (at least for Opera, Chrome, Safari, and Firefox — there is no IE for Mac anymore).
While much of the focus on JavaScript is about speed (that’s what the SunSpider test measures, for example), Sputnik is interesting because it focuses on conformity, making it more like the Acid3 test, which tests web standards compliance. Chrome, Safari, and Opera have all passed Acid3, with Firefox getting very close (94/100 for Firefox 3.6). IE, meanwhile, again lags behind with just 20/100 for IE8. And even the new IE9 preview only scores 55/100.
Speaking of IE9, I tried to run the Sputnik tool in the preview build of the new browser on Windows 7. Unfortunately, it completely shut down several times after getting up to about 50 failures after only a few hundred of the 5,000+ tests — not a good sign. But again, it’s just a very early preview release of the browser, and early SunSpider results for the browser have been good.
Migrating from Microsoft Exchange now even easier with new Google Apps Migration for Microsoft Exchange tool
Filed under: Featured, Google, Google API, Technology News
The new Google Apps Migration for Microsoft Exchange tool simplifies migration of email, calendar and contacts from both hosted and on-premise Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps. With this tool, admins can:
- Do multiple migrations in parallel.
- Centrally manage migration without end user involvement.
- Selectively migrate email, calendar or contacts (or any combination thereof).
- Migrate from Microsoft Exchange 2003 or 2007.
Editions included:
Premier and Education Editions
Languages included:
US English
How to access what’s new:
- Download page
- In the administrator control panel, in ‘Advanced Tools’, enable the checkbox ‘Allow users to upload mail using the Email Migration API’.
- Enable two-legged OAUTH, as outlined here.
Google Chrome’s translation – A brabhsálaí gréasáin ilteangach (or, a multilingual web browser)
Since announcing the latest Google Chrome beta earlier this month, we’ve been excited to receive feedback from our beta users on the browser’s new translation and privacy features. Today, we’re introducing these features in the stable channel, so that they’re widely available to everyone who uses Google Chrome on Windows.
Google Chrome’s translation feature is the latest step in the evolution of translation tools across Google. Just a few years ago, Google’s translation tools consisted of a site where you had to copy and paste text into a box — and it only worked for a handful of languages. Today, our translation technology works across 52 languages and can automatically detect and translate entire websites in less than a second. Chrome’s translation feature automatically detects if the language of the webpage you’re on is different from your preferred language setting, The browser will then display a prompt asking if you’d like the page to be translated using Google Translate. With one click, you can instantly translate the page, and all of its text will appear in your preferred language. Here’s a demo of Chrome’s translation feature:
Language detection happens only on your computer, so no information is sent to Google Translate until you choose to translate a page. You can read more about how this feature works on the Google Translate Blog.
In addition, we’ve introduced new privacy features in this stable release to give you even greater control of your privacy while helping to protect the information that you do decide to share online. You can now manage Chrome’s privacy settings via the browser’s Options dialog. From these settings, you can control how browser cookies, images, pop-ups and even JavaScript and plug-ins are handled on a site-by-site basis. For example, you can set up rules to allow cookies exclusively for sites that you trust, while blocking them from for untrusted sites. For the in-depth scoop, check out google.com/chrome/privacy or watch our video series on privacy and browsers.
For those of you who already use Chrome, go raibh maith agaibh! You’ll soon be updated with these new features. And for those of you who haven’t yet tried Google Chrome, download it at google.com/chrome.
Posted by Wieland Holfelder, Engineering Director, Google Munich
Google Calendar Updated New scheduling tool in Calendar
Filed under: Featured, Google, Google API, Technology News
Scheduling meetings is tough, but rescheduling is even harder. We all know how frustrating it can be to try to find just the right time that accommodates everyone’s availability and preferred working hours. Throw in different time zones and conference rooms and it goes from painful to excruciating. We’d rather schedule dental appointments.
On the Google Calendar team, we’ve noticed that when people talk about scheduling they say things like “I’m trying to find a time” or “let’s search for a new date.” We wondered what would happen if we treated calendaring more like a search problem. Just as Google search applies ranking algorithms to return the most relevant results from the web, we hoped we could rank meeting times based on criteria important to the person scheduling the meeting.
Today we’re launching the result of that experiment, a gadget called Smart Rescheduler, in Google Calendar Labs. Once you enable the Lab, you can find a new time for an event simply by clicking on a link. Our schedule search algorithm will return a ranked set of the best candidate dates and times based on the calendars others have shared with you. You can read more about it on the Gmail Blog.
So next time your boss says “We need to reschedule,” just smile and say “I’m feeling lucky.”
Posted by Ken Norton, Product Manager
Now Yahoo! Contacts That Updates Itself
by Rick
Have you ever lost track of a friend because she moved and forgot to let you know her new address and phone number? When you’ve changed your contact information, did you remember to let all of your friends and colleagues know?
Wouldn’t it be great if you had an address book that updated itself — that always had the most up-to-date information for the people who matter most to you?
In the latest version of Yahoo! Contacts – in addition to making it simple to import email addresses from your Facebook friends – we have rolled out an “auto-updating” Address Book! Let’s take that friend who moved away and didn’t share her new phone number. In the old days, you might have lost touch with her. But now, when your friend updates her Yahoo! contact details and chooses to share the information, your Yahoo! Contacts gets automatically updated. Here’s how it works:
Let’s turn my example around, and make sure your friends always have the most up-to-date information for you! Just go to Yahoo! Contacts and click on the Share my info link under the Popular Tools.
Clicking on the link will show all the contact information that Yahoo! has for you.
If everything looks good, just click Start Sharing and this information will be shared with all the people you’ve chosen to share it with (such as your Connections). If you are like me, much of the information shown will likely come from when you registered for Yahoo! In other words – it’s ancient! To update your information just click Edit to go to your account information page. From there you can easily update your contact details and choose who you want to share it with. Remember, you have complete control over what you share.
Now here’s the fun part: your friends get your latest contact information without having to lift a finger! First, they will get a Yahoo! Update notifying them that your contact information has changed. Next, when they go to look you up in Yahoo! Contacts, they will see the contact information you gave them access to and the last time it was updated (don’t worry, none of the information you have for them will ever be over-written). Here’s what you’re friends will see:
Hopefully this feature helps you never lose touch with the people who matter most.
Google Apps Make 25 million people to be Google
Filed under: Featured, Google, Google API, Technology News
Over the past year, we’ve highlighted companies around the world who have switched to Google Apps. And that means more than 25 million people have “gone Google”, including those at such globe-trotting organizations as Jaguar Land Rover and National Geographic. (You might have seen their Gone Google messages in print.)
Recently we visited one of our newest customers, Konica Minolta, to learn about why they decided to join us. Here’s their story:
For those considering a switch to Google Apps, this updated resources page offers a variety of info such as customer testimonials, white papers, links to webcasts and more. Be sure to visit the Google Enterprise Blog and visit google.com/appsatwork, too.
If your company is already using Apps, join the Gone Google community. Put yourself on the map to share your experience and see who else has, yes, gone Google.
After you add yourself to the map, grab a laptop sticker that you can personalize. We’re giving them away free for a limited time*. More details here.
*And our lawyers ask us to tell you that the “giveaway offer is void where prohibited and valid only while supplies last” — so hurry!
PayPal Wants To Go From 1000 To 2000 Employees In Asia – 2010
Filed under: Featured, PayPal, Payment Gateways, Technology News
PayPal has seen the future, and apparently it lies out East. The eBay company has just announced plans to double its presence in the Asian-Pacific region by the end of 2010, and made a couple of other, separate announcements to underscore its focus on Asia.
At PayPal’s new international headquarters in Suntec City, Singapore’s technology hub in the middle of the nation’s central business district, the company said that it plans to double the number of employees in Asia Pacific from 1,000 currently to more than 2,000 by the end of the year.
The company plans to add more than 100 new jobs at its international headquarters in Singapore alone, as it represents all of the company’s business outside of the United States.
New jobs will be located at all seven offices in the region including Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan. For its Singapore business headquarters and development center, PayPal will be recruiting Singapore-based professionals with expertise in technology, product development, infrastructure design, risk and engineering.
PayPal says it has processed more than $6 billion of total payment volume (at spot rate) in Asia Pacific in 2009, an increase of 38 percent from 2008. Since its establishment in the region in 2006, the company has struck dozens of partnerships with Asian companies including this morning’s announcements today with DBS, Singapore’s largest bank, and China UnionPay, China’s bank card association (more about the latter deal over at BusinessWeek).
As part of PayPal’s plans to help grow the e-commerce ecosystem across Asia Pacific, the company also announced that the PayPal mobile payment software development kit (SDK) will be made available to developers in the region. That way, developers can add a checkout button to accept mobile payments without the need to collect financial information from customers with just a few lines of code.
The mobile SDK, which will initially support iPhone app development, will be available in the second quarter of 2010 to developers in the region.
by Robin Wauters
GetJar: Mobile App Sales Will Overtake CD Sales By 2012
An independent study released this morning by neutral app store GetJar indicates that the market for mobile apps should grow to a whopping $17.5 billion within the next three years.
This would basically mean that the value of apps sold would be greater than the value of CDs sold in 2012 ($13.83 billion).
According to the same study, downloads of mobile apps to handsets will leap from slightly more than seven billion in 2009 to nearly 50 billion in 2012, representing a YOY growth of 92%.
The figures are pretty much in line with other forecasts, such as research2guidance’s prediction that the worldwide smartphone application market will grow from $1.94 billion in 2009 to $15.65 billion by 2013.
GetJar had commissioned independent consulting firm Chetan Sharma Consulting to look into the global mobile apps market, in order to analyze the potential and real value of the mobile apps market worldwide, using first-hand data.
According to the study, by 2012, off-deck paid-for apps will be the biggest revenue generator, accounting for almost 50 per cent of all apps revenue. By comparison, in 2009, on-deck apps available from mobile operators accounted for over 60% of all apps revenue, but this will fall significantly to just under 23% by 2012.
The average app selling price for apps in North America was $1.09, significantly higher compared to that in developing markets such as South America ($0.20) and Asia ($0.10).
According to the study, revenue opportunities in Europe are set to soar from $1.5 billion in 2009 to $8.5 billion in 2012, while in North America the figure will rise from around $2.1 billion to around $6.7 billion in 2012.
Currently, apps are most popular in Asia, with the region accounting for 37% of global downloads in 2009. However, while Asia had the highest number of downloads, users in North America spent the most money on apps, accounting for over 50% of revenue.
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