The Google Books project suffered a significant blow today in France as a Paris court found Google guilty of copyright violations. The search giant’s been ordered to stop scanning books, remove information from its database, and pay some hefty fines.
Twitter Gets Hacked by “Iranian Cyber Army”
Twitter was hacked last night, and when users went to Twitter.com, they were presented with a message from someone claiming to be the Iranian Cyber Army. TutorialsTips has posted a video on YouTube showing what Twitter looked like as it was compromised.
Android Crowds iPhone In New comScore Report
In several key respects, the Android platform has almost caught up to the iPhone, according to new statistics from comScore. There are still a lot more iPhones floating around in the great, wide world, of course, but otherwise, Android’s doing extremely well.
Let’s start with the table below. It illustrates that, more than the average smartphone user, Android users do a lot of things other than talk. This is important since it could mean that Android devices aren’t becoming buy-and-forget paperweights; owners actually enjoy using them.
Privacy Group Files FTC Complaint About Facebook
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), along with nine other privacy and consumer organizations, has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charging that Facebook’s recent changes to user privacy settings violate federal consumer protection law.
The EPIC complaint wants the FTC to open an investigation into the changes made by Facebook to the privacy setting of its users and require the social network to restore privacy safeguards.
Google Launches New Transliteration Tool
Google has launched a "new and improved" version of Google Transliteration as a Google Labs experiment. Users can simply go to google.com/transliterate and type in the box to have their words converted to the proper language. There are 17 that are currently supported. Google explains:
Google Apps Wins Over Another Corporation
Whether or not you’ve heard of a corporation called MWV, you’re probably familiar with its products – MWV puts out everything from Coca-Cola packaging to Mead notebooks to asphalt for roads. And now, this giant has entrusted some of the technical aspects of its operation to Google Apps.
Given that MWV has a market cap of roughly $4.75 billion and employs about 12,000 people, this counts as a big – and tough – job. Moreover, those employees are spread out over 34 countries, and as you might expect, English isn’t every individual’s preferred language.
Sony E-Reader In Content Deal With WSJ
Sony said today it will begin offering subscriptions to The Wall Street Journal and MarketWatch on its new electronic reader.
In addition, Sony will also offer subscriptions to the digital version of the New York Post on its e-reader.
Google Earth Makes Leap To Automobiles
The 2010 Audi A8 is a big, expensive car, starting at 4,409 pounds and $74,550. And the 2011 models aren’t likely to be any lighter or cheaper. But the 2011 models will offer something that no other car’s ever had: from-the-factory integration of Google Earth.
Google Tool Shows Where the Eyeballs Go on Your Site
Google has launched a new Google Labs experiment called Browser Size, which is a tool aimed at helping webmasters see how others view their site. Google’s official description of the tool says:
Ever wondered what parts of your site can’t be seen without scrolling? Browser Size shows you what portion of users can see a give spot on the screen. This is not screen resolution but the area available to the browser – as gathered from www.google.com users.
Here is what it looks like:
Twitter Expands Into More Languages
Update 4 : Twitter is now supporting the German language.
Update 3 : Twitter is now supporting the Italian language.
Update 2 : Twitter is now supporting the French language.