Odyssey Online

Google and Microsoft answer…

Further, there is more (here from the New York Times) about Apple restricting what developers can do with the product, putting the breaks on reverse engineering.  Of course Apple’s answer is that it is providing a flexible platform that is all about user convenience…with the caveat that the gears are Apple’s–you own the chassis, not the engine.  Maybe this isn’t an issue, but at $250 a pop plus it sure feels like we are moving away from a garage friendly environment for developing computing to one that is thoroughly proprietary, off limits proprietary.  Human beings are at more liberty when they operate in a context of understanding…you could investigate analog technology, you could investigate HTML.  Within investigation comes curiosity, to answer curiosity there is imagine.  There is frankly something insidious about the iPad…

Google has shut down its China search service after a contentious year with the Chinese Government. News coverage of this here, here, and here.  Analysis of the implications from the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and Foreign Policy. Atlantic Wire has a useful round-up of other commentaries on Google’s decision…

…Odyssey Online is going on another short hiatus, while yours’ truly is off at a conference. Back next week with lots of spring time blogging!

…CNN.com has an interesting piece on whether Google Wave and Google Buzz are destined to merge into one product, or whether they represent cross purposes with Google’s corporate structure…

…Charles Arthur has published a very interesting piece in The Guardian on Google’s algorithm. He argues that Google is its algorithm, and makes an interesting argument about what this means for the company at this point in time…

…today’s Onion is also featuring a brilliant parody on Google and that word which must not be uttered in Google’s presence (ergo, privacy…the Onion does feature adult language and themes…)

…AtlanticWire has gathered a number of articles about the gloves coming off and the lawyers coming out in Google v. Microsoft.  Just as intense as Canada v. U.S.A. Sunday (…okay the hockey game was a lot more fun…)

…also a short interesting piece from the Washington Post that makes a case for what Google had in mind with Google Buzz, and why they put it out before it was ready…

…while this article from PC World is largely about Microsoft, it does give current browser share numbers. In a word, more good news for Firefox and Chrome.

One of the real joys of Firefox are the add-ons. Recent news on new Youtube add-ons for Firefox has just come down the pipe…for an overview of Firefox add-ons see the notes for a presentation back a year or two ago, but still current in terms of the add-ons as concept, and the add-ons it covers.

For information on what Chrome is and how Google is positioning it to be a web-based operating system, see these powerpoint notes for a presentation I did last December. Even though it’s a powerpoint it will still provide commentary on what Google is up to (warning, some sardonic comments about Google along the way…)

…they might be going straight to the Bloody Mary’s in Mountain View.  Firstly there is the continued negative reaction and bad press surrounding Google Buzz (this is CNN’s version of the poison), and the Washington Post is reporting that the Google book settlement, amidst criticism from just about everyone, is back in limbo…

Karen Coyle has insightful commentary on the DOJ’s latest assessment of the Google Book Settlement…

…Google Buzz is certainly proving to be an interesting bee. It is Google’s social networking software that is built right into G-mail. This merging has been called Simple Genius and a Facebook killer (more on the killer stuff here).  However, no sooner did buzz leave the hive that it was discovered to have serious privacy problems, serious vulnerability to hackers…these issues chronicled here, here, and here.  My advice? Leave Google buzz until spring and read instead:

• Spring Without Bees: How Colony Collapse Disorder Has Endangered Our Food Supply by Bill McKibbon
• Buzz About Bees: Biology of a Superorganism by Jurgen Tautz
• A Keeper of Bees: Notes on Hive and Home by Allison Wallace
• Robbing the Bees: A Biography of Honey, The Sweet Liquid Gold that Seduced the World by Holley Bishop

Siva Vaidhyanathan is one of the most articulate and most provocative commentators on Google.  Recently on his blog, the Googlization of Everything, he has published a number of commentaries on the China hack of Google…long but well worth the time to read them, they make an interesting case that the situation is not a simply question of resistance to censorship, but rather the culmination of numerous complex legal, business, and security issues.

…reported by CNN, China responds to the allegations about hacking Google…