Google is “happy to announce” the new OCRopus OCR Project, which will focus on the cutting edge of handwriting recognition technology. Expect the Image Understanding and Pattern Recognition (IUPR) research group to do the heavy lifting, though – Google’s role will mostly be that of a sponsor. (The state of Rhineland Palatinate, according to IUPR, is also providing funding.)
Google Marches On, Leads In Search
Searchers in the US made Google their choice in March 2007, as Hitwise reported a 64 percent market share for the search engine.
Google Censors China Olympics Criticism
The motto of next year’s Olympic games in China is “one world, one dream.” Online, the world is actually split up into several countries, each with their own limited view, made possible through national censorship of the web.
Can MySpace Steal Google Users?
Could MySpace really attract a large proportion of users away from Google and other major portals? A new report from JupiterResearch "21st Century Portals: Thriving in the Google-MySpace Era" examines that question.
The report says that 55 percent of the users who are most likely to pay for services could be drawn to an entertainment and communication combination such as MySpace.
About Google Website Optimizer
If you can measure it, you can improve it. The promise of scientific advertising, marketing with measurable results, is now available to anyone. Anyone can Increase conversion rates with the Google Website Optimizer. Any website that has conversion as a goal will benefit tremendously by engaging in testing using this tool.
Google Buys Stake In Maxthon
TechCrunch has broken the story that Google has bought a $1 million dollar stake in the Chinese/Israeli owned Maxthon browser.
The move could represent a significant drop in traffic for Baidu, which is currently the largest search engine in China in terms of market share and Google’s primary competition within the country.
According to some report, Maxthon could account for as much as 25% of Baidu’s overall traffic.
Schmidt: Google’s Beyond Search Now
Just about everyone has an opinion on what Google is and where they are going. A recent interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt with Wired reveals what he thinks Google is and what the future holds for the company.
Papers Get It Wrong About Google
It’s newspaper billionaire versus tech billionaires as the man who would buy the Tribune Company (and dump the Cubs as soon as possible) tells the newspaper industry that Google rips off their content.
Google Peeks At Sohu’s Paper?
It didn’t look good – Google released a new tool in China last week, and the thing bore an uncanny resemblance to a competitor’s product. Now it’s definitely bad – Google has admitted that, because it used "some non-Google database resources," some of Sohu’s technology may have been recycled.
Google Makes Creating Map Collections Easier
Google has added a new feature to Google Maps called MyMaps, which makes it possible, with no programming experience, to create a map with detail. You can place pushpins by just right-clicking on the map, write descriptions on them, even add HTML to include pictures, and save the whole thing to send to a friend. It even had drawing tools for drawing lines or complex areas. I did a simple mashup, listing some favorite places in New York, in a matter of minutes: