Google blocks access for users outside the U.S. to public domain books, much to the dismay of some. To make matters worse, the reasons behind this policy were something of a mystery – until now. A post on the Inside Google Book Search blog explained the company’s thinking.
Doctor Google To The OR Please
The British Medical Journal published a research paper on the benefits of using Google for researching medical conditions, but anyone who has been reading Dilbert creator Scott Adams’ blog since March already knew this.
Google Adsense Banning Users With Google Domain
Ionut Chitu, one of the most proficient bloggers out there, just got banned from Adsense because he uses the word Google in his blog’s domain name: googlesystem.blogspot.com.
Google Feels The Need For Speed
At Google, speed is important. The company’s home page is well known for its quick-to-load simplicity, and a study found that although users claimed to prefer 30 search results per page, their limited patience was better suited to 10. The company has also established that a 30% cut in the size of the Google Maps home page corresponded to an immediate 10% increase in traffic.
Google Eats The Worm
In a major screw-up that has nothing to do with Tequila, Google sent out the Kama Sutra worm to 50,000 video email subscribers. The worm also known as W32/Kapser.A@mm was mistakenly sent by Google’s video team on Tuesday night.
Polygons on Google Maps and Google Earth
Google Earth was recently updated with the ability to draw polygons in the free version, and Andreas Bovens points out that this feature is now available for Google Maps as well…like for this sample overlaid with a KML/ KMZ file.
Boring Google Earth US Election Maps
Not sure if anyone else noticed this or not but did you catch the graphics that are being used by ABC news and Good Morning America etc… to show the results of the election?
Google Buys Legal Troubles
Knowing that their online video service could not compete with YouTube, Google purchased the company to eliminate competition. They received a surprise bonus in the form of copyright infringement lawsuits filed by owners of pirated videos.
A Chat With Google’s Eric Schmidt
Dan Farber has a good summary of John Battelle’s chat with Eric Schmidt at this week’s Web 2.0 Summit.
Google Trademark vs Blogger
Google cut off Ionut Alex. Chitu’s only current option of making money from his blog, Google Operating System, by disabling his AdSense.