Tag Archives: google

Google cozies up to developers with Google+ Sign-In

Google is making it easier for app developers to connect with users on its social network through Google+ Sign-In, a new feature that allows people to sign into third-party apps using their Google+ credentials.

The authentication system lets Google+ users sign into outside apps with their existing user name and password, and includes Google’s two-step security verification when logging in from a mobile phone. The user’s Google+ info is automatically pulled into the app with the tool, which is available to Android, iOS and Web application developers.

"It’s simple, it’s secure and it prohibits social spam," said Google+ product management director Seth Sternberg Tuesday in a blog post.

The sign-in feature is aimed at making Google+ and Google’s developer platform more widely used, while other social networks like Facebook and Twitter already offer easy access to outside apps.

The feature works like this: If a person is signed into Gmail, YouTube or any other Google service, the user can sign into the outside app with the same credentials. The person then lands on a Google+ permissions page outlining the data that the person is sharing with the app, which can be customized.

Google is highlighting Sign-In’s content-sharing controls as a major feature of the service. The functionality rests on the premise that users might want to share certain types of app content with some people in their network but not others.

People might want to share things, for instance, like high scores on a gaming app with the world, but keep other things, like data from a fitness app, to themselves, Google said.

The sharing controls are also designed to encourage more engagement with apps on Google+. When Google+ users share an app that uses Google+ Sign-In, friends will see a new kind of "interactive" post in their Google+ feed. Clicking on the post will take the person inside the app where he can buy, listen to or review what was shared, Google said.

Google+ Sign-In is also designed to simplify the app installation process across desktops and mobile devices. When Android users sign into an app on the desktop, they can install the mobile version of the same app on their Android device with a single click, Google said.

Google seems to be positioning the Sign-In service as an easier way for Google users to engage with apps and to better target who they are sharing with on Google+. The feature also functions similarly to how people can already sign into apps using their Facebook and Twitter credentials using those social networks’ developer platforms.

Still, Google’s Sign-In developer platform comes more than a year-and-a-half after Google’s launch of its Google+ social network.

Developers currently using Google+ Sign-In include OpenTable, Flixster, the Guardian, and USA Today. Tuesday’s rollout is an initial release, Google said. "We’re just getting started," said Sternberg.

Source: http://www.infoworld.com/t/application-development/google-cozies-developers-google-sign-in-213545

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Apple iOS development extended to Visual Studio

Developers using Microsoft’s mainstay Visual Studio IDE on Windows will be able to build native Apple iOS mobile applications via version 2.0 of the Xamarin development platform, which is being announced Wednesday.

Leveraging the Mono .Net runtime, Xamarin, from the company of the same name, enables development of cross-platform mobile applications for Apple iOS, Google Android, and Microsoft Windows via C#. Developers can leverage Visual Studio using the Xamarin.iOS for Visual Studio feature within version 2.0, though having a Mac on the network for the purpose of software builds is required.

Xamarin gets .Net developers on board with mobile development, says analyst Jeffrey Hammond, of Forrester Research. "The chief strength of the Xamarin approach is that it leverages a lightly tapped resource in the mobile space: .Net developers," Hammond says. "We see more C# and Java devs in enterprise IT than any other programming language. Xamarin gives at least one of these developer pools a way forward into the mobile-first age."

Hammond also sees Xamarin’s cross-compilation approach as viable, noting music service Rdio’s use of Xamarin. "The Rdio app is a good example. I doubt most customers who use it have any idea it’s written in C#. That’s really the barometer: If the customer doesn’t notice and the experience is ‘good enough’ to meet expectations, then as far as I’m concerned, it’s a lower-cost way to go cross-platform that is more maintainable in the long run."

Also part of version 2.0 is Xamarin Studio, which is the company’s own IDE for native mobile development. The Xamarin Component Store, for adding third-party libraries to applications via a few lines of code, is featured as well. Developers can add native UI controls and design themes. In addition, Xamarin is offering Xamarin Starter Edition, a free tier intended to make it easier for developers and businesses to get running with Xamarin.

Source: http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/apple-ios-development-extended-visual-studio-213127

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How Cloud Computing Is Helping Green Businesses

cloud computing

Cloud computing, or the practice of using remote servers to store data and software, is changing the way the world does business. The cloud can be accessed from anywhere where there’s an internet connection, and therefore allows business data to be stored and continuously updated in one, central location. This guide to cloud computing explains the technology in further detail.

But what has this got to do with green business practices? Well, Microsoft has invested in a study that found “small and medium-sized businesses can reduce the impact of their activities on the environment by taking advantage of cloud technologies.”

However, others disagree, and the National Data Center Energy Efficiency Information Program’s factsheet states that in 2006, Data Centers used 61 billion kWh of electricity (equivalent to 1.5% of all U.S. energy consumption) and that the amount of energy consumed by data centers is set to continue to grow by 12% per year.

So which is true?

While data centers do consume massive amounts of electricity (and frequently use energy sources high in carbon, according to Greenpeace’s 2010 report), Google is going a long way towards offsetting this energy consumption. It’s also impossible to ignore the fact that the use of cloud computing technologies does reduce costs and lead to more flexible working practices for grass-roots green initiatives.

A 2010 study from Microsoft, Accenture and WSP Environment and Energy found that moving business applications to the cloud could cut the carbon footprint of the smallest and least efficient businesses by as much as 90%. Additionally, another recent study by cloud computing app provider Salesforce showed that their customers produced 95% less carbon, on average, than those running equivalent software on their own servers.

Cloud computing technology makes small businesses more efficient in several ways

1. Reducing power consumption by decreasing hardware requirements.
When a small business utilizes the cloud rather than having an in-house server, they will only need an internet connection to access their resources. This will dramatically reduce their power consumption and in turn, their energy bills.

2. Reducing the reliance on natural resources such as paper by digitalizing documents.
Going paperless eliminates the need to print out pages of resources and therefore decreases waste.

3. Limiting resource redundancy.
When small companies run their own servers, idle time is a considerable problem. Small companies almost never use 100% of their computing power, 100% of the time. This means that most of the time, the server is idle, using power while not doing anything productive. Cloud technology means that small companies only use the technology (and energy) they actually need.

Although huge data centers have a long way to go before fulfilling their green potential, on the whole they are aware of their responsibilities towards the environment. Using cloud computing technology allows small, green businesses to work more efficiently and become more eco-friendly, and gives green start-ups the kick start they need to get off the ground.

Source: http://www.greenerideal.com/business/0220-how-cloud-computing-is-helping-green-businesses/

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Cloud computing the way forward, says researcher

Cloud computing will be the key platform for most applications in the coming decade, according to a senior researcher.

Gordon Bell, principal researcher in the Microsoft Research Silicon Valley Laboratory, said training in cloud computing would be ‘super important’ in the coming days.

Cloud computing has not been made use of very well by the computing community, he said.

“Many of the people are not even aware of the fact that they come across many of the cloud computing applications in their activities. Within a short time, cloud will be the platform for most of the applications,” Bell told Gulf Times.

Cloud applications would be used for real monitoring in many areas that would improve the services dramatically.

Highlighting certain services, Bell said traffic and transportation would be one area where cloud computing would have a big impact.

“Cloud will enable traffic sensor data to identify each car as a special entity and will have specific Internet-protocol (IP) addresses. The cloud platform will be the modern equivalent of the traffic infrastructure. Wherever you are, you will be able to connect with the cloud. This will enable traffic and other applications lot more intelligent and smarter.”

Another area of the extensive use of cloud could be in the health sector, Bell said. He said he himself was using many applications on his body to measure the pulse and other body movements, and added: “Cloud computing is the right platform to make use of many of the health applications and devices. It can be used to monitor heartbeat or the amount of sleep of a person and many more at the real time.”

He said the self monitoring health devices would result in huge advancement in human development.

Bell also spoke about various advancements in technology that could revolutionise the world in the coming years.

He said Google’s effort to produce a ‘video eyeglass’ could become one of the greatest advancements.

“The glass will have a camera, display, microphone and earphone. This can be one of the biggest devices that can happen in the near future,” the expert said.

Regarding the feature of the eyeglass to identify a person with each blink, he said a lot of data needed to be collected and stored about other people to be identified.

“This data base will be the main part of using such a device. It is estimated that in the near future, there will be almost five terabytes of information about an individual available on the cyber world.”

Referring to the research activities at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMUQ) , Bell said the university was supposed to develop a research agenda and create room for new ideas for local companies.

“This is what is generally done in the universities in the US and CMUQ is also going ahead on those lines. The researches will generate new ideas and will help the country in a big way,” he concluded.

Source: http://www.gulf-times.com/qatar/178/details/342397/cloud-computing-the-way-forward,-says-researcher

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Yes, Apple will approve Google Maps for iOS

The tech blogosphere (CNET included) went into a mild panic today over a report in the Guardian saying that a native Google Maps app for iOS would "struggle for Apple approval."

"Sources at Google familiar with its mapping plans say they are ‘not optimistic’ that Apple will ever approve a dedicated Google Maps iOS app," says the story by Michael Grothaus, a former Apple consultant. "Though the app is reportedly in development and should be ready to ship by the end of the year, the sources say their plans are only proceeding in ‘the unlikely event’ that Apple will choose to approve the app."

"This screams of shadiness on Apple’s part, if the report is true," says IntoMobile. "It might be a long time before we see a native Google Maps app on iOS," warns Business Insider.

Well, here’s some good news for everyone — the Guardian’s sources are almost certainly wrong.

At the very least, their concerns are overstated. Because you know who else is worried Apple might not approve their app? Every developer who has ever published to the App Store. It’s a function of Apple’s opaque, ever-changing standards for what qualifies for App Store hosting. A developer can sell an app for years only to find it yanked from the store over some sudden change — it happens all the time. And so it’s not at all unusual that a few employees among the many thousands who work at Google fear rejection from Apple. Fearing rejection from Apple is the default emotional state of developing for Apple devices.

But this is no ordinary app, the Guardian tells us. There are competitive issues at play here. Global software platform geopolitics. Apple’s own Maps product was met with derision around the world; it is simply too proud to let a superior product into its store. "No matter how bad Apple’s Maps are, the company still wants its users to move on from Google — and forget about them," the Guardian says. "This doesn’t bode well for the approval of an official Google Maps app, the source says."

Alas, this view omits the most relevant thing Apple has said about Google Maps in the wake of its Maps fiasco — namely, that people should use Google Maps. In his open letter to iOS 6 users, Apple CEO Tim Cook went out of his way to recommend competitors.

"While we’re improving Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the App Store like Bing, MapQuest, and Waze, or use Google or Nokia maps by going to their Web sites and creating an icon on your home screen to their Web app," he wrote.

If Cook is truly intent on getting users to "move on from Google — and forget about them," this seems to be a rather ineffective way of going about it.

The story’s other piece of evidence is that two obscure apps weren’t selected to be in Apple’s roundup of map alternatives in the App Store. Not that these apps were rejected from the App Store, mind you. Just that they weren’t included in a roundup, possibly because they used Google Maps APIs.

Now, we are not above ascribing dark motives to Apple when it comes to App Store curation. When Apple removed Google’s YouTube as a preinstalled app and failed to include it in a prominent App Store section about video apps, it was hard to resist the assumption that the move was intentional. Neither company would comment for the record. But it’s telling what happened afterward: in the wake of our story the companies exchanged e-mails on the subject, I am told, and eventually YouTube popped up in the video section after all.

Totally unaddressed in the Guardian’s story is the public outcry that would result from the Google Maps app being rejected. During the long period in which the Google Voice app was not available in the App Store, Apple faced regular criticism. The Federal Communications Commission wound up launching an inquiry into the subject. Amid much scrutiny, Apple relented — and no Google-developed app has faced a significant approval delay since. Given the enormous attention the mapping issue has received, Apple could not reject Google Maps without inviting a media circus, public disdain and (likely) Congressional hearings.

The Guardian hedges its story as best as possible, noting that Google and Apple are in constant communication and that "policies and agreements can change quickly." But before we start wringing our hands about Apple’s darkly anti-competitive practices, let’s remember which company published an open letter recommending its competitors to the masses.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57545241-37/yes-apple-will-approve-google-maps-for-ios/

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Google Cloud Platform Program Shows Drive To Take Business From IT Giants

Google has a new cloud partner program that shows the company’s drive to go after old IT.

In a blog post today, Google provided some details about it with a link to a list of the technology and service providers that are part of the program.

It’s a short list but here’s what they are offering. Service providers deliver consulting services for the various Google Platform Cloud products. This would include the new Google Compute Engine, Google App Engine, Google Cloud Storage, Google Big Query and its prediction and translation APIs.

Technology partners provide integrations with Google Platform Cloud or use one of its services as a foundation for their products.

Google is hinting that it will use its partner program to pursue customers who want to migrate off legacy solutions.

According to the Google blog post:

For example, Orangescape Technologies, one of our partners, integrated Google App Engine as part of their platform to help United Biscuits, a leading manufacturer of biscuits and snacks in Europe, migrate their legacy Lotus Notes applications to the cloud.

BM Lotus Notes is fair game. But that’s an easier one to pick off. We’ve been seeing that migration for a while.

Interestingly, in the blog post, Google does not give much attention to the technology partners. It mentions Orangescape and Google core products that partners can leverage. But there is no other mention of the partners themselves.

Here are the technology partners just for the sake of showing them:

Google is just getting started with its partner program. Compare it to the Amazon Web Services partner program and you see just how green Google’s program really is. Amazon Web Services has four different partner categories with lots of various resources for customers.

But these are early days. We are still in the phase of maturing cloud infrastructures. In context, it’s a decent enough start. Google has had success with its Google Apps partner programs that it used to help develop its app store. The Google cloud platform partner program may be just the right follow up.

source:http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/24/google-cloud-platform-program-shows-drive-to-take-business-from-it-giants/

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First Look at Google Compute Engine for Video Transcoding

For those of us in the cloud computing world, the most exciting thing that came out of Google I/O this year wasn’t skydivers wearing Glass, and it wasn’t a new tablet. The big news was that Google is getting into the cloud infrastructure-as-a-service space, currently dominated by Amazon Web Services (AWS). Specifically, Google has launched a new service called Google Compute Engine to compete with Amazon EC2.

This is exciting. The world needs another robust, performant, well-designed, cloud virtual machine service. With apologies to Rackspace and others, this has been a single-player space for a long time – EC2 is far and away the leader. Google obviously has the expertise and scale to be a serious competitor, if they stick with it. How does it look?
Early reports are positive. Google Compute Engine (GCE) is well designed, well executed, and based on infrastructure Google has been using for years. Performance is good – especially disk I/O, boot times, and consistency, which historically haven’t been EC2′s strong suit.

But how well suited is GCE for cloud video transcoding? We have some preliminary results, acknowledging that more testing needs to be done. Here are some basic tests of video transcoding and file transfer using Zencoder software on both GCE and EC2.

Raw Transcoding Speed

Performance is our top priority, so Zencoder uses the fastest servers we can find. On EC2, we use Cluster Compute instances, which are fast dual-CPU machines in two sizes: 4XL and 8XL. We compared these with the fastest GCE instance type, which is currently a single-CPU 8-core server.

These tests were done using an H.264 source video at 640×360 and 1280×720 resolutions, and were encoded by Zencoder using the same single-pass output transcoding settings (H.264 Baseline profile, AAC, one-pass Constant Quality transcoding, etc.).

Google Compute Engine vs. Amazon EC2

Using default Zencoder settings, both types of EC2 instance are faster than GCE. The economics are a bit closer, and there isn’t a clear winner between 4XL EC2 instances and GCE. So GCE is a viable option for transcoding where cost is a higher priority than raw speed, though AWS customers can make use of Reserved Instances and Spot Instances for further cost reductions.

We noticed that the 16-core EC2 instances were roughly twice as fast as GCE 8-core instances when under load with 6 simultaneous transcodes. Given the similar clock speeds, but half the number of cores, this is what you would expect. However, if Google adds similar 16 core machines, they could have comparable transcoding speeds.

Transfer Speeds

When transcoding video in the cloud, network I/O is almost as important as CPU. This is especially true for customers working with high-bitrate content (broadcasters, studios, and creatives). So how do GCE transfer speeds compare to EC2?

To test this, we ran four sets of benchmarks:

Amazon S3 to Amazon EC2
Amazon S3 to Google Compute Engine
Google Cloud Storage to Amazon EC2
Google Cloud Storage to Google Compute Engine

We did this by testing the same 1GB video file stored on Google Cloud Storage (GCS) and on Amazon S3. Transfer was performed using 10 HTTP connections. (Zencoder does this by default to optimize transfer speeds, and it can dramatically speed up large file transfers over HTTP.)

GCE vs EC2 Transfer Speeds

This is interesting. We expected Amazon-to-Amazon transfer to be fast, which it was. But we also expected Google-to-Google transfer to be fast, which it wasn’t. In fact, it appears that GCS is slower than S3, and GCE transfer is slower than EC2, such that even if you’re using Google for compute, you may be better off using S3 for storage. Transfer was 2.3x faster from S3 to GCE than from GCS to GCE.

More Tests Needed

Consider these results preliminary. Further testing needs to be done to take into account more variables, such as:

a) Instance-to-instance differences. This is especially true for file transfer, which can vary widely based on network conditions and instance variability.

b) Additional applications. These benchmarks only cover transcoding, which is a CPU-bound benchmark. Other applications are limited by disk, memory, etc., and these tests don’t speak to anything other than transcoding.

c) Scalability. Scalability is extremely important for anyone using the cloud for video transcoding. More tests are needed to see how GCE compares with EC2 when it comes to enormous scale – tens of thousands of servers (or more). At what point do users run into capacity issues? Performance problems? Design limitations? Instability?

Exciting Future for Cloud Infrastructure

Even though EC2 wins in these early tests, we’re excited about Google Compute Engine. To be a serious competitor for high-performance transcoding, Google needs to add larger instances with faster CPUs. But adding new instance types is easy. Nothing prevents Google from doing this. What is hard is building a robust, performant, feature-complete, scalable cloud platform, and Google seems to have succeeded. If Google is committed to this product and developers for the long run, the cloud virtualization world may have just gotten a second legitimate player.

source: http://blog.zencoder.com/2012/07/23/first-look-at-google-compute-engine-for-video-transcoding/

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Google unveils ultrafast wired home project

The Google Fiber superfast broadband network will be available starting in September, with one-gigabyte per second speeds — about 100 times faster than most current Internet subscriptions.

The wired home project will allow people to replace cable television and Internet with a single subscription to be controlled by a Google tablet computer, which will be offered for free.

"Google Fiber is 100 times faster than today’s average broadband," Google vice president Milo Medin said.

"No more buffering. No more loading. No more waiting. Gigabit speeds will get rid of these pesky, archaic problems and open up new opportunities for the web. Imagine: instantaneous sharing; truly global education; medical appointments with 3D imaging; even new industries that we haven’t even dreamed of, powered by a gig."

The packages offered will include not only Internet but "regular TV, the kind you could only get from your cable provider," as well as on-demand programs, Medin told the kickoff event.

Google said it was offering a full ultrafast Internet and television package for $120 a month, with waived installation fees and a free tablet. It also will offer Internet only for $70 a month.

It will also offer free Internet at the current speed of five megabytes per second but will charge an installation fee.

Google asked residents to register to determine the neighborhoods where the project will be introduced in Kansas City, Kansas, and neighboring Kansas City, Missouri.

It was not immediately clear when or if Google would expand the project to other US cities.

Google announced its plan to build an experimental high-speed Internet network two years ago, saying the United States had fallen behind other major nations in broadband speed and access.

"Fast is better than slow. On the web, nobody wants to wait for a video to buffer or a website to load," Medin said.

"Abundance is better than scarcity. There’s a plethora of rich content available online — and it’s increasingly only available to people who have the speeds and means to access it."

Federal Communications Commission chief Julius Genachowski praised the Google effort.

"For the United States to remain globally competitive, we need to keep pushing the boundaries of broadband capabilities and foster testbeds of broadband innovation," he said in a statement.

"Abundance in broadband speeds and capacity — moving from megabits to gigabits — will unleash breakthrough innovations in healthcare, education, business services, and more."

source: http://phys.org/news/2012-07-google-unveils-ultrafast-wired-home.html

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Android and Linux re-merge into one operating system

Android has always been Linux, but for years the Android project went its own way and its code wasn’t merged back into the main Linux tree. Now, much sooner than Linus Torvalds, Linux’s founder and lead developer, had expected, Android has officially merged back into Linux’s mainline.

The fork between Android and Linux all began in the fall of 2010, “Google engineer Patrick Brady stated that Android is not Linux” That was never actually the case. Android has always been Linux at heart.

At the same time though Google did take Android in a direction that wasn’t compatible with the mainstream Linux kernel. As Greg Kroah-Hartman, the maintainer of the stable Linux kernel for the Linux Foundation and head of the Linux Driver Project, wrote in Android and the Linux kernel community, “The Android kernel code is more than just the few weird drivers that were in the drivers/staging/androidsubdirectory in the kernel. In order to get a working Android system, you need the new lock type they have created, as well as hooks in the core system for their security model. In order to write a driver for hardware to work on Android, you need to properly integrate into this new lock, as well as sometimes the bizarre security model. Oh, and then there’s the totally-different framebuffer driver infrastructure as well.” That flew like a lead balloon in Android circles.

This disagreement sprang from several sources. One was that Google’s Android developers had adopted their own way to address power issues with WakeLocks. The other cause, as Google open source engineering manager Chris DiBona pointed out, was that Android’s programmers were so busy working on Android device specifics that they had done a poor job of co-coordinating with the Linux kernel developers.

Source: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/android-and-linux-re-merge-into-one-operating-system/10625?tag=content;search-results-river

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Google Blocks Its Own Analytics by Releasing Add-on

27 May, 2010
Written by Dexter Han
Beijing RayooTech Co., Ltd.

Stung by privacy concerns, Google has released a new add-on which was designed for blocking the information captured from Web sites that use its own Analytics service.

The new add-on for Google Analytics opt-out browser stops the flow of regular data from your computer whenever you were suffering on a website which uses Google Analytics. Websites input the JavaScript code of Google Analytics into their own pages to capture the IP address, browser version, operating system, ISP, and similar items from visiting computers. That data is sent to Google and then accessible through a Website’s free GA account.

The beta version of the new add-on is available for Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome.
Google has released a new tweak to GA’s JavaScript for the further address privacy issues. With the tweak, Website owners could anonymize those visiting IP addresses sent to Google. The new code sent to Google is just a string of the IP address characters, removing the last octet. Due to a website visitor’s general location can be identified by the IP address, this tweak can stop the whole geographic information from being captured.

For these recent gaffes, such as Google Buzz which exposed data without users’ permission, the company has been criticized by the users constantly, and Google Street View, like the company admitted, inadvertently grabbed data from open Wi-Fi networks.

Google still continually faces the problem of data-capturing for its own use, but meanwhile, not marking out people by violating their privacy. To those people who don’t want their private data, even computer data, revealed, the new changes to Google Analytics are good news to them. But to websites, they won’t share the same feeling, I guess.

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