FT Chronicle

Google has reached deep into its wallet and handed over a massive grant to the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia and a number of other sites. The $2,000,000 donation will be used to make Wikipedia easier to use, says the charity.

“Wikipedia is one of the greatest triumphs of the internet” said Google co-founder Sergey Brin. “This vast repository of community-generated content is an invaluable resource to anyone who is online”. The two organizations have partnered a few times before, but this is the first direct cash transfer between them.

Wikipedia normally depends on tens of thousands of tiny donations from its users to keep it going – holding a yearly funding drive that recently brought in $8m. Google has previously donated to other projects, including Mozilla’s Firefox browser.

WASHINGTON – Google Inc. plans to build a handful of experimental, ultra-fast broadband networks around the country to connect consumers to the Internet and ensure that tomorrow’s systems can keep up with online video and other advanced applications that the search company will want to deliver.

The Google project, announced Wednesday, is also intended to provide a platform for outside developers to create and try out all sorts of cutting-edge applications that will require far more bandwidth than today’s networks offer.

The company said its testbed fiber-optic networks will deliver speeds of 1 gigabit per second to as many as 500,000 Americans. That would be roughly 50 to 300 times faster than the DSL, cable and fiber-optic networks that connect most U.S. homes to the Internet today, at speeds typically ranging from 3 megabits to 20 megabits per second.

Google envisions systems that will enable consumers to download a high-definition, full-length feature film in less than five minutes; allow rural health clinics to send 3-D medical images over the Internet; and let students collaborate with classmates around the world while watching live 3-D video of a university lecture.

Google’s announcement Wednesday also came as welcome news to public interest groups that have warned that broadband connections in the U.S. are far slower and more expensive than those available in many countries in Europe and Asia. Ultra-fast networks now available in the U.S., such as the university-backed Internet2 project, aren’t available to consumers, as Google’s systems would be.

In a statement, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, a trade group, said the cable TV industry has invested $161 billion over the past 13 years to build a nationwide broadband infrastructure that is available to 92 percent of U.S. homes.

And Verizon Communications Inc. said the Google network will mark “another new paragraph in this exciting story” of broadband growth. Verizon has been building a super-fast fiber-optic network, called FiOS, that offers speeds of up to 50 megabits per second and has run a field test experimenting with speeds of up to 10 gigabits — 10 times faster than what Google is proposing.

Google will seek input from communities that might be interested in getting one of its test networks. The company said it is too soon to say how much the networks will cost to build, but stressed that it does not intend to apply for any of the $7.2 billion in funding for broadband included in last year’s economic stimulus bill.

Google said it is prepared to sell access directly to consumers at prices that are competitive with existing broadband services, but would consider letting Internet service providers or local governments sell their own services over the Google network.

From the artists Andrew Bell and Google’s Android™ platform arrived Android mini collectibles series 01.

Series one has twelve different designs in blind-boxed cases of 16. There’s a few super-rare editions scattered in those cases too. Standing 3 inches tall, they’re perfect for sitting under your monitor.Be on the lookout for some super rare chase editions. Each vinyl figure stands 3” tall and features a rotating head and arms.

Series 1 will be available later this month right here in an online Android collectibles shop and in specialty retailers.

WASHINGTON – “In an interconnected world, an attack on one nation’s networks can be an attack on all,” warned US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as she urged Beijing to look closely into the recent hacking attempts on Google’s China division. The attacks had earlier led Google to threaten to pull out its entire operations in the country.

“We look to Chinese authorities to conduct a thorough investigation of the cyber intrusions… We also look for that investigation and its results to be transparent,” Clinton said in a speech at the Newseum journalism museum in Washington on Thursday.

Google had earlier detected what it called a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China”. The company said that the attack primarily targeted the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights advocates.

Google reacted strongly to the cyberattacks, but did not directly implicate the Chinese government. The search engine giant however announced that it would stop acceding to the government’s request to censor local search results and even considered pulling the plug on its entire China division.

Two days later, the Chinese government issued an official statement underscoring its commitment to maintaining a hold on online search results. “China welcomes international Internet enterprises to conduct business in China according to law,” stressed foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu.

Agence France-Presse

BEIJING–China arrested more than 5,000 people in a crackdown on Internet pornography in 2009, officials said, vowing tougher online policing in the new year as a key element of “state security”.

China maintains strict censorship of the Internet to curb what the government deems to be unhealthy content including porn and violence — an effort that has become known as the “Great Firewall of China”.

Authorities in December offered rewards of up to 10,000 yuan (1,465 dollars) to Internet users who report websites that feature pornography.

According to figures published by the ministry of public security late Thursday, 5,394 people were arrested last year under the Internet porn crackdown, and 9,000 illegal porn-related sites were shut down.

The ministry, in a statement on its website, did not specify if all of those arrested were later prosecuted.

It said it would “strengthen punishment for Internet operators that violate the laws and regulations” in the coming year and “severely punish operations that have serious problems with harmful information”.

China has blocked several social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Citizens can only gain access to such sites by using proxy servers.

Last year Beijing threatened to sanction major websites, including search engine giants Google and Baidu, alleging that pornography and other material that could corrupt young people was turning up in search results.

Authorities effectively cut off Internet access in the far-western Xinjiang region after deadly ethnic unrest erupted there in July.

The government says terrorists, separatists and religious extremists used the Internet, telephones and mobile text messages to spread rumours and hatred as the violence broke out.

Earlier this week, limited access to state-run news websites was restored.

Well here you have it folks, honest-to-goodness picture of the Google Phone… AKA, the Nexus One. As you can see by the photos, the design of the device is largely similar to those we’ve seen, but the graphic on back is slightly different, and that piece of tape is covering a QR code (how very Google of them). Just like we’ve heard before, the updated OS features new 3D elements to the app tray, as well as an extended amount of homescreens, though it looks like the lock screen / mute is the same as in Android 2.0.1.

The phone, which first broke cover on the weekend has already got the tech industry in a flurry over when it will be available and how it will supposedly change the industry.

Google has started allowing an added automated language translation feature into its worldwide search service.

The new “translated search” tool allows people do a direct search from Web pages written in different languages and then obtain results in the searcher’s preferred tongue.

The feature has been available at the Google Translate service, but is becoming part of the California-based Internet firm’s popular main search engine.

The tool can be found in a menu revealed by clicking on “Show Options” at the top of a Google search results page.

Search keywords are translated into languages that appear relevant, such as French and Dutch for a query about Belgium, and Web pages found are presented in the searcher’s language.

Searchers can look for Web pages written in any of 51 languages. The tool will display results from as many as five languages at a time, according to Google.

Google has announced that all handsets running Android 1.6 will now be able to get Google Maps Navigation for free.

The news opens up the free GPS software beyond the Android 2.0 operating system and currently the only handset available, the Droid by Motorola.

The new release, which aims to take on services from TomTom, Garmin and Navigon will, as long as you have a data connection, let you route your way around the US using the same Google Maps functionality, however, with a more traditional style GPS experience.

The release also includes the new Layers feature, which lets you overlay geographical information on the map. View My Maps, transit lines, Wikipedia articles about places, and more says Google.

Yahoo! announced a partnership with Facebook, a social networking site on Wednesday which will enable users of Yahoo to share content with their friends through their Facebook account.

Visitors of Yahoo!’s homepage will see a full “news feed” of Facebook activities and also, can leave comments in Yahoo! articles by their Facebook account and send content from Yahoo sites to Facebook.

Yahoo hopes to achieve two goals with the partnership, says Cody Simms, senior director of product management: “Making Yahoo stickier and helping syndicate content.”

Yahoo hopes each time users send photos, comments, and other content back to their Facebook feed, it will entice onlookers to click through to Yahoo sites.

“You’re seeing the beginning of a move toward that consolidation,” says Josh Bernoff, who follows social media in his role as senior vice president of idea development at Forrester Research. “Strategically, Yahoo understands that allying itself with the most powerful social network is going to be more successful than trying to win with an ID of its own,” he says.

The Yahoo-Facebook alliance may deal the strongest blow to OpenID, a movement to create a non-proprietary standard for identity and authentication on the Web.

Some advocates for OpenID challenge the use of Facebook as an ID by millions of Internet users.

The five-year agreement, which includes no financial compensation, will begin to take effect in the first half of 2010.

GreenPeace calls for Microsoft  to commit in cutting its own absolute carbon emissions now. Microsoft and other tech giants like Google and IBM should also be using their money and influence to speak up for strong international and US Climate legislation. Instead Microsoft is funding the US Chamber of Commerce anti-climate lobbying.

It’s time Microsoft spoke out on climate — and the time is now (no seriously, right now).

via GreenPeace