Google Maps Goes 3D with GPU-Hungry OpenGL [Google]

By Roberto Baldwin Oct 14, 2011 5:02 PM 12,858 31

Hey movies have 3D, why not throw that winning technology at Google Maps. Beginning today, Google is testing WebGL technology with their maps.

Google says that the implementation of OpenGL will make zooming, rotating and tilting smoother than the current method of displaying map information. The technology renders vector-based 3D images using a computer's GPU. OpenGL doesn't require additional software, but does require that the browser have it installed. Currently Firefox beta and Chrome are the only two browsers capable of using the Google Maps OpenGL beta.

You can test the new Google Maps by clicking on the "Want to try something new?" button in the lower left hand corner of the Maps page. Take note, if you have what Google describes as a "low-end integrated GPU," you won't be able to partake in the test. That means my fancy new MacBook air with an i7 processor won't work. [Google via Tom's Hardware]

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MMS Almost Works on Google Voice [Google Voice]

By Adrian Covert Oct 14, 2011 6:12 PM 5,674 9

The lack of MMS support causes much gnashing of teeth for those of us who use Google Voice extensively. Now, Google has started the process of addressing this shortcoming...for Sprint Android users.

Any MMS message sent by a Sprint user can be received to a Google Voice inbox, or email inbox. No doubt this is a limited development, but Google's promise to expand this feature to other carriers and services make it something to keep an eye on. [Google via PhoneScoop]

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Actually, Google Might Still Buy Hulu [Hulu]

Hulu's owners might still consider a sale of the company—or some sort of equity transfer—to Google, a source close to the transaction process tells us.

In a press release issued late last night, Hulu's equity owners News Corporation, Providence Equity Partners, and Disney announced a "decision to terminate the Hulu sale process."

But the fact is that Hulu might still end up going to Google.

From the beginning of the Hulu sales process, sources told us that Google was "hanging around the hoop" and that Google has "some big ass ideas" for what it can do with Hulu.

Since then, these sources have told us that while Hulu suitors like Amazon and DISH Network submitted bids approaching $2 billion, Google bid much more - something in the range of $4 billion.

But that bid came with special conditions, which have been previously reported.

Hulu's parent companies told suitors that they would sell the site, its subscription service and the rights to exclusive content for at least two years. But Google wants more content for a longer period of time, and perhaps other concessions as well.

Rumor has it that Larry Page personally flew down to Los Angeles to make Google's case.

The source close to the process says that, despite the press release, what Hulu's parents have actually decided to do is no longer consider a sale of Hulu, the subscription service, and 2-years of rights.

Now they plan to fully consider Google's offer – or at least figure out some way to give Hulu management and Providence Equity Partners liquidity.

"What [Hulu's owners] decided was that [they should] stop the process and settle down and deal with everyone's expectations [for liquidity]. If there were further discussions [wither Google] then we would subsequently engage in that. It wouldn't be an auction or whatever."

"The Google thing is not off the table."

Republished with permission from The Business Insider

We reached out to Hulu for this story and did not hear back. The YouTube/Google PR guy keeps saying we're going to get on the phone at some point.

Our sources asked to remain anonymous because they aren't supposed to be talking to reporters about this whole thing and who wants to get canned?

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Why Google+ Will Never Beat Facebook [Google Plus]

By Sam Biddle Oct 11, 2011 10:30 AM 35,650 178

Google+'s traffic is taking a long slide down the shitter, having lost last month's entire 1269% traffic spike. Reading this forced me to remember it exists. Google+ is simply worse than Facebook. And you know what? It'll never catch up.

There's nothing complicated about Plus' meteoric hype party and subsequent thud. It goes like this:

(Almost) everyone loves Facebook.
(Almost) everyone loves Google.
Google says they've got a Facebook replacement.
We all go wide-eyed—could it be better than Facebook?
Google+ is invite-only.
We love feeling cool and having an invite.
We fool ourselves.
We get bored.

We arrived at that last step some time ago, struggling to make use of a social network that just wasn't interesting enough to force us to care once the mantle of exclusivity was lifted. Google+ is fucking boring—so much that we had to write a long article just trying to figure out how to use it.

It's not complicated, mind you—and that's even more damning. Google+ is a simple website that's still totally puzzling. It provides no justification for its own existence. It exists because Google proclaimed it ought to, and that'll never be enough. As our Mat Honan put it in his attempt to help figure out what the hell Google+ is, "It's all white space and open air, inviting lengthy discourses. And the lengthy discussions tend to attract blowhards." This was always true: Google+ was best at being a place to talk about Google+.

When you try to move beyond the Hey, I'm not using Facebook! How does this work? dimension of Google+, you find there's no reason to stay. The site's worse than irrelevant: it's redundant. There's no niche, no small slice to serve, no tight community of geeks in need of a petri dish. There's nothing unique or even welcoming about Google+ at all, no special area that gives you something Facebook can't. Its a clean clone, an inferior, whitewashed Facebook—and there will never be a point in being friends with someone in two places.

Aside from indulging privacy paranoids and irritating tech contrarians, Facebook is simply better at every single thing Google+ attempts. Say what you want about its advertising, its privacy settings, its absurd redesigns—Facebook is stellar at what it sets out to do. It murdered photo sharing services, decimated the use of Instant Messaging, is in the ring with Twitter, and, of course, is where all your friends are. And for a social network, we want to be where our friends are—we don't want to experiment with Google's bright sterile waiting room. Zuck's just doing it better than Google.

Google+ has a news feed—Facebook's is better.
Google+ has a wall of some kind—Facebook's is better.
Google+ had "Circles," which illicit erections across the internet for some reason—Facebook stole the idea and made Lists, which are the same thing.

And that last one's crucial. No matter what Google+ might have on Facebook, Facebook can always take. They stole Twitter for statuses, they ripped AIM and Skype for Facebook Chat, and they'll ransack whatever few nuggets of worth lie in Google+ as well. They'll always be ahead. It's an impossible fight: whatever Google+ can do, Facebook either already is doing better or will do just as well. Nobody's going to move to the apartment next door just because the walls are painted whiter. Google+ will lie fallow, its grave a simple marble obelisk next to Wave's byzantine crypt.

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The U.S. Government Demands that Google Hand Over Email Data from a Wikileaks Volunteer [Wikileaks]

By Adrian Covert Oct 11, 2011 9:07 AM 7,301 27

According to NBC Bay Area, the Federal Government issued a secret court order to Google and ISP provider Sonic.net to handover account data from Jacob Applebaum, a Wikileaks volunteer who they believe was involved in the leaking of classified docs.

No party involved with the matter is saying much, but it brings back an issue which has lingered around Google for the better part of five years. With all the data they hang onto, there's always the threat that some governing body will demand to see it, despite Google's loose promise to keep data somewhat private. Whether or not Google can fend off, or even attempt to fend off, these court orders will be worth paying attention to, as it will give us an idea of how Google's stance towards privacy has or hasn't changed.[NBC Bay Area]

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Google Engineer Calls Google+ a Pathetic Afterthought [Google]

By Casey Chan Oct 12, 2011 12:02 PM 41,895 133

When Google+ launched, it was exciting! A new Facebook! Better! Purrrty! But then everyone forgot about it. Folks at Google forgot too. Last night, Steve Yegge, a Google engineer, accidentally posted a rant about Google to his public Google+ profile. It's revealing and absolutely rips Google+. It's also true.

Yegge covers a bunch of topics, mostly focusing on how Google just simply doesn't understand platforms. He praises Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and even Facebook for "getting it" when it comes to platforms, how long term growth in a product requires that product to be a platform for others to develop more products on. But he thinks Google just doesn't understand how to do that. Yegge wrote:

Google+ is a prime example of our complete failure to understand platforms from the very highest levels of executive leadership (hi Larry, Sergey, Eric, Vic, howdy howdy) down to the very lowest leaf workers (hey yo). We all don't get it. The Golden Rule of platforms is that you Eat Your Own Dogfood. The Google+ platform is a pathetic afterthought. We had no API at all at launch, and last I checked, we had one measly API call.

He goes on about how Facebook murders Google+ as a platform:

Google+ is a knee-jerk reaction, a study in short-term thinking, predicated on the incorrect notion that Facebook is successful because they built a great product. But that's not why they are successful. Facebook is successful because they built an entire constellation of products by allowing other people to do the work. So Facebook is different for everyone. Some people spend all their time on Mafia Wars. Some spend all their time on Farmville. There are hundreds or maybe thousands of different high-quality time sinks available, so there's something there for everyone.

Our Google+ team took a look at the aftermarket and said: "Gosh, it looks like we need some games. Let's go contract someone to, um, write some games for us." Do you begin to see how incredibly wrong that thinking is now?

And he's totally right. We don't think Google+ will ever beat Facebook. Never, ever, ever. But Google needs to take this advice and learn from it. Learn from mistakes like Google TV. Learn from success like Android. Learn from weirdness like Wave. Learn it all! And then maybe they can compete (or do something else). We love Google and it's obvious Yegge does too, he just wants them to get better. Read his whole post (where he reveals stuff about Amazon and Jeff Bezos) here. [Hacker News via Silicon Filter]

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Google Is Working on a New Programming Language Called Dart, but Will It Be a Javascript Killer? [Google]

By Adrian Covert Oct 10, 2011 10:08 AM 7,287 23

Google apparently thinks parts of Javascript kinda suck because they're now working on a new web programming language called Dart that's meant to remedy and simplify the more problematic aspects of the coding process.

Dart is being designed as a programming language that's easy enough for any programmer to pick up and run with, but powerful enough to scale up to massive projects. Currently in an early preview mode, the language runs one of two ways: in a virtual machine, or as an app that's been compiled and translated to Javascript. Cnet says that they plan to directly incorporate the language into Chrome as well.

While Google isn't directly saying that this is a Javascript competitor, the fact that they're calling this a new programming language and not a supplement to Javascript, seems to indicates that they'd like for Dart to someday compete directly against the standard. [Dart via Google Code via Cnet]

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Walk All Over Major Cities Without Leaving Your Family Room with Google Maps Area Rugs [Furniture]

By Jack Loftus Oct 9, 2011 1:00 PM 72,470 18 Who has tim to actually visit places anymore? Not me. Too much stuff to do that doesn't involve curiosity or exercise. That's why these Google Maps "Worldwide Carpets" area rugs are so perfect.

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The Government Is Taking a Closer Look at Google Eating Motorola [Google]

When ginormous companies try to buy gigantic companies, there's always cries about monopolies, anti-trustiness and all those nasty words. So it's really no surprise that the Department of Justice is now making a "second request" for more information about Google swallowing Motorola.

Google, to their credit, is still confident that the deal will still go through, saying:

While this means we won't be closing right away, we're confident that the DOJ will conclude that the rapidly growing mobile ecosystem will remain highly competitive after this deal closes. We'll be working closely and cooperatively with them as they continue their review.

But that's what they're supposed to say! The WSJ reports that the DOJ isn't saying that they'll block the deal but rather there are antitrust issues that are worth a second look. $12.5 billion dollars, Google making Android and Motorola making Android phones, yeah it all seems like fair grounds to ask for more information. We'll see what comes out of this closer look in time. [Google Public Policy Blog via WSJ]

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Where Were You When Google Was Born 13 Years Ago Today? [Google]

Anyone notice the party that is going on at Google's website today? In case you forgot, September 27th is the date Google chose for their birthday.

It's an arbitrary date selected in 2005 to celebrate Google's September milestones. Google first registered Google.com on September 15, 1997 and the company was incorporated on September 7, 1998. Instead of either one of those two dates, Google selected the 27th because they're Google and they can.

It's hard to believe the search engine is now officially entering the troubled teens. I remember when Google first launched. I was enjoying a fast university internet connection and using both Alta Vista and Yahoo as my main search engines. With Google's minimal interface and lightning fast search results, I was a convert from day one. [Google.com]

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Watch Congress Ream Google Right Here, Right Now [Watch This]

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt—and his company's many detractors—are about to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee as to whether its search practices violate antitrust law. And you can watch the whole parade right here.

There will be grandstanding! Lawyer speak! An angry Yelp CEO! And probably a whole lot of old politicians killing time until their next nap. It's all here, helpfully annotated by the Sunlight Foundation, starting at 2pm EST (read: nowish):

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Google Wallet: The Future of Money Is Here, Sorta [Google]

"Whoa, how did you do that?" I didn't say anything when the clerk at Duane Reade—or was it Walgreen's?—asked me how to pay. I just smashed my phone into the PayPass terminal. Money poured out of my Nexus S, and into somebody's corporate coffers. Magic!

But then I still had to tell the dumb credit console whether I was paying debit or credit. And then I had to wait for my receipt to print out, all ten miles of it. Which made my attempt at being a mysterious stranger with mysterious magical technology quickly disappearing into the night fail miserably since it would've been mad awkward to stare directly into each other's eyes for 45 seconds without saying a word.

Google Wallet is clearly a close-up glimpse at what the seamless, slippery future of money looks like—MasterCard is an appropriate enough vector for a technological Mark of the Beast, I suppose—but it's still very much in 2011. Friction abounds.

If you're unfamiliar with Google Wallet, read this, or here's the rough rundown. (Really rough, since Google Wallet's a lot of little things, banded together.) Google Wallet is an app that lets you pay for things using your phone, either by tying your credit card(s) or loading up gift/pre-paid cards. That's the software side. Using an NFC chip embedded in a phone, you tap a pay terminal. No swiping your card. That's the hardware side. On the online side, it'll seamlessly combine digital coupons that you collect—either from Google Offers or merchants themselves—and loyalty cards.

The perfect theoretical—literally frictionless!—transaction looks like this: You snag a Google Offer for $1 off a Frappucino at Starbucks. (Or if you don't have an offer on tap, Google Shopper will show you a bunch nearby.) You go to the nearest Starbucks—pinpointed by Google, of course—and order your terribly sweet concoction. When you go to pay for your drink, you open the Wallet app, punch in your pin and tap the payment console with your phone. Instantly, your Google Offer coupon is applied, you've paid for your drink, and you've racked up points on your Starbucks loyalty card. And the receipt's on your phone. That whole scene? That's why tapping a Google Wallet phone is potentially more convenient than a plastic card. Not the lighter wallet. Deal + payment + loyalty in one tap.

What Google Wallet looks like today, though, is different. The Wallet app will hit Nexus S 4G phones on Sprint today—and only those phones for now. (Google promised an NFC sticker to enable non-NFC-packing phones to use Wallet, but isn't saying anything else about it—specifically, when we might see one—now.) The system exclusively uses Mastercard's PayPass terminals, deeply limiting the number of places you can use Wallet, though Google announced today it's licensing NFC specifications from Visa, Discover and AmEx. (Basically, the only place it's useful to me is in NYC cabs, since I don't shop at American Eagle or Macy's or practically any of the other big box stores partnering with Google.) And, to top it all off, it's only Citi Mastercards that currently get the full benefits of Google Wallet—for now, to pay with anything but gift cards, you've basically gotta charge a pre-paid Google Card with money from your bank account through Google Checkout. All things that highly constrain just how convenient Google Wallet actually is today.

So my experience using Google Wallet is very much what I expect it to be for most people out of the gate: a novelty, mostly. At least after I loaded it up with money, which seems weird, like giving myself an allowance, because I couldn't use it with my Wachovia credit card. I couldn't use it with Google Offers, either, since I couldn't find one for any of the stores that take Google Wallet. And I couldn't use it with loyalty cards, since I don't use have them for anywhere but independent coffee shops far, far away from Google and Mastercard's radar. Which nixes half of what's actually convenient about Wallet, since tapping after punching in your pin is no easier than swiping, in most cases.

You know where it was awesome though? In an NYC cab. Trying to dig your wallet out of your ass pocket while you're sitting down, ripping the right credit card out of your wallet, trying to figure out where to swipe it, fumbling around with the card to get the stripe facing the right direction, going through the right number of menus, swiping at the correct speed, finally, and paying the damn cabbie after he tries to convince you his credit card terminal is broken is like, um, annoying. Google Wallet fixes that.

Wallet will fix a lot of things, perhaps sooner than you'd expect, even given how slow as the financial industry moves. Because money, infrastructure like this—new terminals in every store—is a scale game. Google's got scale. Its partners, like Mastercard and Visa and Citi, have scale. They're gonna need it to get people on board. But eventually it's going to wash over everything like a wave. It'll be on lots of phones. It'll work with lots of cards and lots of banks. It'll be in lots of stores. And then it'll be just as natural as pulling out a card and swiping. Maybe more, since I have my phone out all the time anyway. Besides, it's obvious this is just the beginning for Google. Google doesn't just want to replace your credit cards—there's a reason they're calling it Google Wallet, not Google Money or Google Cards.

If you've got a Nexus S 4G on Sprint, well, welcome to the future, starting now. [Google, Google]

Update: I didn't really talk about security because I didn't worry about it. Google Wallet's pretty secure. You need a PIN to unlock the Wallet to pay for stuff. So if you lose your phone, without knowing your PIN number, it's useless. The NFC chip itself is locked down hardcore. For instance, the chip is disabled whenever the display is off, so it can't be skimmed. And the secure element is only turned on when the screen is on and Wallet is unlocked and ready for payment.

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Fake Google SIMs, Real Weird Bikes, and Other Stories We Didn't Post [Left Behind]

So much news passes before our collective eyes every day that we couldn't possibly cover it all. Mostly because much of it isn't worth covering! But here are a some borderline tidbits we passed on, just in case.

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Never Mind the Bollocks, London Gets the Google Chrome Zone Store [Google]

Google is hoping that it can talk the British into buying Chromebooks on the High Street. I hope they remembered to replace the $ key with a £ key.

The search giant is testing the Chrome Zone shop-within-a-shop inside the Currys and PC World superstore (no relation to PCWorld magazine) in London's Totterham Court Road. The shop currently only selling the Samsung Chromebook. It's your one-stop-shop for exactly one device.

The mini store's design matches Google's color scheme. Google's head of consumer marketing for the UK and Ireland, Arvind Desikan said that, "We've put a great deal of thought into the design of this Chrome Zone." They've also hired dedicated staff so you won't be talking to the stereo guy while shopping for Chromebook. [TechRadar]

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Does Google's Own CEO Even Use Google+ Anymore? [Google+]

Here you see Larry Page's public Google+ page. And that he hasn't updated it in a month. Now, granted, he could very well be having a Plus Party for his Circles in there, but given the recent drop in public activity... Not a good look. [NetworkWorld]

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Google Earth Reveals Strange Nazca-Like Ruins in Saudi Arabia [Science]

Chalk another one up for Google Earth seeing everything we can't. Australian armchair archaeologist David Kennedy simply fired up the app and managed to rediscover the ancient ruins of structures that rival the Nazca lines in southern Peru.

The lines were originally discovered by British RAF pilot Percy Maitland in 1927, but this is the first time they've ever been seen in all their glory. Kennedy used Maitland's photos with Google Earth to pinpoint their locations. And Google offers really the only high resolution glimpse at them that can be seen by the ordinary viewer. The structures are known to the local Bedouin tribes as being created by "the old men", and are about 2,000 years old. Similar structures, all resembling kites and wheels, have been discovered in Jordan and Yemen—some dating back as far as 9,000 years—and, while scientists aren't certain just what the hell these ruins were for, some conjecture that at least the kite-like ones could have been traps for game animals.

What the rest were for? Who knows. One of the few known civilizations that committed the energy to creating such geoglyphs was the Nazca culture, and their Nazca Lines are the most famous of all. Archaeologists still argue to this day as to the purpose of these designs, some resembling monkeys and others men, some believing that they were creating out of worship for their gods. And sure. Others like Swiss crackpot Erich von Däniken believe they're runways for alien vessels. It's unlikely that these ruins are the work of extra-terrestrials—but then again, who really knows right?—but it'll likely be unclear for years to come.

I wonder how long it'll take to find the alien structures. [Saudi Aramco World, New Scientist via Geekosystem]

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Does Google Deserve an Antitrust Ass-Kicking? [Google]

Today, Google's going to be grilled, chopped, and fried before Congress, which is digging into the search giant over accusations of anticompetitive mischief. There are two possibilities here: Google's breaking the law, or it's a victim of its own success.

In short, Google's competitors think the search giant is wielding its massive internet hegemony unfairly. If you're Yelp, you're angry that Google Places gets preferential treatment when people search for restaurant reviews. If you're Yahoo!, you're angry that Google Maps is the top result for "maps." Ditto for email, travel, and shopping, which is why executives from Nextag, Expedia, and Yelp are all testifying against Google and its CEO, Eric Schmidt.

The testimony that Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman plans to pitch Congress today lays the general grievances out succinctly:

Google is no longer in the business of sending people to the best sources of information on the web. It now hopes to be a destination site itself for one vertical market after another, including news, shopping, travel, and now, local business reviews. It would be one thing if these efforts were conducted on a level playing field, but the reality is they are not. The experience in my industry is telling: Google forces review websites to provide their content for free to benefit Google's own competing product – not consumers. Google then gives its own product preferential treatment in Google search results.

In response to our objections, Google informed us that it would cease the practice only if we agreed to be removed from Google's web search index, thereby preventing Yelp from appearing anywhere in Google web search results. This, of course, was a false choice. Google's dominant position in the market prevents services like Yelp from exercising any sort of meaningful choice in the matter: it is a choice between allowing Google to co-opt one's content and not competing at all.

In short: Google owns search, companies need Google, Google forces companies to either sit at the kids' table or starve. Companies like Yelp think Google's guilty of anticompetitive behavior because they've lured the internet masses into their corral with only the guise of choice—in reality, we're wandering a fenced-off plantation where Google's stuff is all that matters.

Schmidt puts the company's stance well himself: "Users can and will switch. The cost of going elsewhere is zero, and users can and do use other sources to find the information they want." Unlike Microsoft, which made an Everest of cash because we had zero choice but to buy a PC with Windows installed on it, using Bing or Yahoo! is easy and free. Everything Google offers is free. And if we don't like it, we can use a competitor. Furthermore, the competition is pretty great these days! Don't like Android? Buy Windows Phone. Don't like Google Maps? Use Bing Maps. And so forth. Google is massively popular because, for the most part, they're the best—Hotmail is still a travesty, MapQuest is an embarrassment, and, if only for psychological reasons, Google's search is still considered the gold standard in "what's out there on the internet." Taken this way, Google's being attacked because simply because they're better than everyone else.

And is it so unfair that they'd favor their own products? If they were transparent about it, and still offered the option of clicking elsewhere, I can't imagine it would be. When you go to a McDonalds, you don't whine at the absence of Whoppers. If Google billed itself as a service portal, loathe as I am to use that term, instead of just a search engine, a lot of the griping might lose its basis. Go to Google, expect Google products. If that's the de facto situation, assessing it as such makes the whole thing seem like less of a monopolistic horror.

The Congressional hearing begins at 2 PM EST, in Washington, DC. We'll cover it once it begins, but here's what's going to matter most:

What does Google say about its page ranking?
Google's going to be called out for artificially boosting its own services, instead of just letting the sacred algorithm do the work. Hearing an official response on this, under government pressure, will be interesting, and crucial to the discussion. If Google's gaming the system without telling anyone, it's hard to grant them much sympathy. Google, of course, denies these claims, saying "We rank search results to deliver the best answers to users, and that is the only consideration – not political viewpoints, and not advertising dollars."

What does Google think Google is?
Is Google going to paint itself as strictly impartial search engine, or admit that's become far more?

How hard is the Congressional beatdown?
The attitude reflected in DC might influence the rest of the federal government, including the FTC, which is doing its own investigation of Google. If they come across as sniveling and secretive, they'll have blown a serious moment in the public eye. If they present reasonable, pro-consumer arguments, they'll probably endear themselves with politicos.

At any rate, we'll know much more (and have much more to say) in a couple of hours, when the eye-squinting and paper-shuffling on The Hill begins. I wonder if Eric Schmidt is staring in a mirror and slapping himself right now. Today it's just a congressional hearing, sure, but if the anti-trust train picks up steam, Google could end up facing a full-blown DoJ investigation. And those usually don't end well.

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Google SMASH: Why No Industry Is Safe [Google]

There's not much Google loves more than playing in other people's sandboxes. Like a Walmart built entirely of zeros and ones, once the behemoth moves into your town, you're officially f*cked. Here's how they do it, and why it matters.

A little recap might be in order, started with Google's latest victim: the lowly travel site. Need a flight to Miami? You could check out the usual suspects, Expedia, Orbitz, Kayak, maybe even Travelocity and its creepy little gnome. Throw some info in, wait a few minutes while they gather all the airline information, and you're presented with the available flights.

It all seemed perfect until Google rolled up with its new Flight Search feature. In addition to the usual "let's fly from point A to point B" flight search, the service quickly, and intuitively, narrows down flight results based on number of stops, airlines, price, connections, and flight times. You can even add nearby airports to your search, and drag your departure and return dates along a calendar to see which days are the cheapest to fly.

None of this is in and of itself groundbreaking. What's different is how easy Google makes it, bypassing the redundant "start new search" hassles of most established travel sites. Bar none this is the quickest and easiest way to find flight. And heaven help the travel sites Google tacks on hotel and car rental options.

Who else has felt this sting? MapQuest was the Magellan of the Internet until Google Maps appeared. But then suddenly Google Map results appeared every time you searched for a business or address. And with Google Map apps being the de facto iOS and Android navigation king, it's exceedingly likely that MapQuest won't ever find itss way back to number one.

Hotmail and Yahoo mail? Totally respectable providers—until Gmail. When Gmail beta launched in 2004, it offered a full 1GB of storage, compared to the paltry 2MB-4MB offered by other email services at the time. Now all a Hotmail handle's good for is a punchline.

Firefox! Everyone loved it, totally wiped the floor with Internet Explorer. And then Chrome came along, sucking up market share like a cracked out Dyson. Search? Well, search goes without saying (miss you, Alta Vista!). Hell, Google's even made itself obsolete; its YouTube purchase crushed Google Video. And once you've cornered the cat video market, you control the Internet.

So Flight Search is just one in a long line of features built (or purchased) by Google to dominate a space. But why do Google tentacles keep reaching farther and farther? And how are they so good at it?

The simple truth: because Google can afford to run those businesses at break-even, or in some cases at a loss. All they care about, other than global domination, is getting people on the internet. Because if you're online, you're being served a Google ad, or providing information that goes into a Google database that helps, yep, sell more ads. Search and ad revenue make up the lion's share of Google's income. And if they suspect for a second that they can get another foothold on your internet usage, you'd better believe they're going to enter that particular dragon. And tear down whoever's in their way.

Even services that at first seem tangential are surreptitiously feeding the beast. Take the Google Fiber experiment. The company is installing a 1Gb /per sec broadband network into a community in order to bring the next generation high speed connection to the masses. How does that help Google? The faster the pipe, the more often people will be on the Internet searching for videos, games, and using their services. Google also talks about developers creating apps optimized for this ultra-fast network, so don't be surprised if some of those apps are for the Chrome Web Store.

Of course Google's giant piggy bank doesn't always yield success. The Google TV could be great if they could get a few networks on board. Wave and Buzz were verifiable busts, and even Google+ seems to be losing steam after a strong start. Android phones are flying off the shelves, but Android tablets are still in their infancy, with a long, long road ahead before they catch up to iPad in either quantity or quality.

But you know what? It doesn't matter. Maybe if Google were a set-top box company or a social network or a manufacturer. But they're not. They're an advertising agency. And every single Google+ account, every last Galaxy Tab, those two Google TVs that they sold: they're all just added value, sprinkles on top of a vast search sundae. And the more pervasive the internet becomes in our lives, the more Google will be, too. Who's their next target? Everything. Everywhere. All the time.

Chris Madden is a New York-based illustrator
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Google Wallet Has Gone Back in Time to Torment George Costanza [Video]

Even though it's unclear when Google Wallet will officially debut, Google decided to jump back to 1998 to give George a lesson in why wallets are a thing of the past. You can hear Larry Page's cruel laughter in the background.

The whole bit is from Seinfeld's "Reverse Peephole" episode. George refuses to give up his overstuffed wallet, and he gets back problems as a result. So, you know, I get it. Wallets sucked pre-Google, Inc. But what was George gonna do with his newfound Google knowledge? Hop on Jerry's Twentieth Anniversary Mac and figure out to keep his home phone in his pants? Groundbreaking! [TechCrunch]

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Why Google Needs to Peep at the World's Most Efficient Data Center [Video]

114. That's how many HP EcoPOD server systems it would take to power all of Google.

The problem with traditional, brick-and-mortar data centers is that they require a huge up-front investment of both time and money; they're often under-utilized; and generally cost more money and energy in terms of overhead than actual computing. All horribly inefficient, even if you don't take into account that they cost more than $15 million a year to operate on average. Modular Data Centers, on the other hand, address many of these issues with increased efficiency via smaller footprints, faster deployment, better scalability (since you're only paying for the capacity you currently need, you can add and reduce capacity more easily) and lower operating costs than their brink-and-mortar brethren.

The HP Performance Optimized Data Center 240a, more commonly known as the HP EcoPOD, is the King Kong of Mobile Data Centers—if they were the height of Scrappy Doo. It provides an extremely energy-efficient, high-performance server center with a higher power density, lower operating cost, faster deployment time and a footprint 1/10th the size of the traditional data center.

First, the EcoPOD can be up and running within 12 weeks from the time of the order—up to 88 percent faster than the average 24-month lead times of traditional centers. The entire system is modular—including integrated power, cooling, security, fire suppression, management, and monitoring suites—and it all comes pre-assembled and pretested to the customer's specs directly from the factory. Much like a pre-fab home, it's built via assembly line, which decreases production time.

Built from two, 40-foot shipping containers, the EcoPOD measures just over 45 feet long, 23 feet wide, nearly 21 feet tall, and weighs 425,000 pounds. However, within this minimal space, you can cram as many as 44 industry-standard, 50-server racks—each weighing 3,500 pounds—for a total of 2,200 servers with more than 7,000 server nodes. It can also support up to 24,000 large form factor hard drives. The EcoPOD uses dual, flywheel-based power sources—known as the CleanSource UPS, created by Active Power in Texas and valued at nearly $2 million—that combine for a maximum total of 2.3MW.

They produce average rack power densities of around 44kW and as much as 69kW under the right conditions—versus traditional centers that produce roughly 6 to 8 kW per 42U rack. And because it's so much smaller than a traditional server farm and completely integrated within itself, it requires significantly less site prep and fewer external safety systems.

To keep all this equipment from overheating and melting itself, the EcoPOD employs an advanced cooling system—Adaptive Cooling—that automatically adjusts between three ventilation modes: Free air that uses ambient air pumped in from outside whenever possible, Direct Expansion (DX) assisted (part ambient air, part A/C), or Full DX, based on the server load and environmental conditions. In Direct Expansion systems, the evaporator coil sits in direct contact with the air flow and also acts as the cooling coil. With either mode, more than 3800 cubic feet of air circulate past the servers every minute.

What's more, the EcoPOD boasts an absolutely insane PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) of between 1.05 to 1.3, depending on the server load and which cooling system is active. A data center's PUE measures how much of the electricity it uses actually goes toward computing, rather than cooling or monitoring. Ideally, a center's PUE should be 1.0—all the energy the center consumes goes towards the computers (PUE=total power/IT power). Normally, a Brick-and-Mortar data center averages about 2.4—double that of the EcoPOD! Altogether, the EcoPOD server system costs a paltry $500,000 a year to operate—31 times less than a similarly powered traditional data center.

[HP (.pdf) - HP (.pdf) - Marc Hamilton - DataCenterKnowledge - Trane - The Register]

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