Skip to Content

Great gifts for geeks, hand-picked by Download Squad
AOL Tech

Posts Filed under: Google

Madonna, Phish, Neil Young Videos Banned from YouTube



Madonna, the star whose BlackBerry addiction might just have had something to do with her recent unsuccessful marriage, has recently been banned from YouTube after Google and the singer's label, Warner Music Group, failed to reach a content-sharing agreement.

Maddy isn't the only celeb supposedly prevented from having their content posted on the site, as all other Warner artists -- everyone from AC/DC, Bjork and Josh Groban to Phish, Neil Young, and T.I. -- have similarly been recipients of the ban hammer, at least for the official Warner Music videos (believe us, there's plenty of other random videos of all those bands still alive and well on YouTube).

It's unclear exactly why the ban is being put in place, and whether it's Warner or Google that is ultimately responsible for the tiff, but the repercussions will likely be that streaming the Material Girl's classic '80s videos will be a little harder -- but not much. There are certainly plenty of other music video sites out there these days. [From: Silicon Alley Insider]

Research Reveals Most YouTube Viewing Done at Work

Work Most Popular Place to Watch YouTube
We promise not to tell your boss, but we know your dirty little secret. You spend a good chunk of your day at work watching viral videos on YouTube, don't you? DON'T YOU?!?

Sorry, all we're trying to say is we have the research. We have the proof that you most likely are wasting your employer's time with videos like those on this list. According to Nielsen, 65-percent of you watch videos during work hours (defined as 9am-5pm Monday to Friday). Granted, 35-percent watch during the period of 12pm-2pm, which we assume means you're watching on lunch break, but there is a significant amount of video watching being done outside the midday break.

The Nielsen study reinforces just how great an investment YouTube was for Google. Predictably, YouTube topped the list of destinations for online video with over 5 billion streams, spanking second place Fow, coming in with a lowly 250 million views. [From: Ars Technica]

Google Doubles Street View Coverage

Oh Street View, how we love reporting on your stories. Whether you're violating peoples' privacy, making neighborhood shame international, or acting as a stage for performance art, you've always been entertaining. But useful? That question we're not so sure of, but however useful it may have been before, the aerial satellite image service is now twice-so, with Google having just doubled the amount of coverage the service covers in the nation (and abroad).

As you can see in the picture above, the expanse of low-res photography has grown hugely since the site launched. Google released a number of new streets yesterday, including some for the first time in Maine, West Virginia, North Dakota, and South Dakota. That should make some virtual sight-seeing a little easier, but is this service actually useful? How many of you have actually used the street view to help you find out where you're going, or has its availability made you more likely to visit Google Maps? As much as we think Street View is cool, we're just not sure there's really a point to it. [From: Official Google Blog, via Mashable]

Google Announces Top Searches of 2008


Right on the heels of Yahoo!'s top search announcement last week, Google has posted its annual year-end Zeitgeist report, revealing the year's most popular searches by country.

Not surprisingly, President-Elect Obama took first place in the United States' fastest rising general searches, with former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin taking seventh. Interestingly enough, though, Palin was the fastest rising search globally, while Obama was placed at number six. The Beijing Olympics also held a place in both the US and global rankings, taking eighth and second, respectively.

These findings, according to the New York Times, bring up questions of personal security in the Internet age and demonstrate the degree to which Internet surfers give away facts about themselves.

Which site do you use most often for Internet searches?



"It would be very scary if we could play back every search we made," West Point professor Lt. Col. Greg Conti told the Times about Google's analytical tools. "Those can be tied back very precisely to an individual."

Google Book Search Updated With Magazines


The folks at Google have added several magazines to their searchable book cache, complete with decades' worth of archives, the Google Blog says.

Having already scanned what seems like thousands of articles up to this point, Google's developers have included -- in the Book Search -- titles such as Ebony, Popular Mechanics and Men's Health. Our friends over at Download Squad are talking about problematic past attempts to archive magazines online. Of course, Google's operation -- unlike that of Mygazines Online -- is entirely above board, the company having negotiated with its featured titles' publishers.

Although the archive's current offerings look a little bit too much like a waiting room magazine rack for our tastes, Google does imply that, over time, more and more titles will become available. Regardless, though, reading a 1972 Jet cover story on Al Green is pretty dang cool in our books. [From: Google Blog]

'Father of the Internet' Vint Cerf's Twitter Account Hacked

Father-of-the-Internet's Twitter Hacked
Vint Cerf, Google VP and so-called "father of the Internet," has been hacked. Well not him personally, but his Twitter account.

Spammers hijacked the tech visionary's Twitter account and began pestering his followers with messages linking back to a pair of auction sites. Every minute for several hours messages (many began with variations on "Have you heard about" or "My friend mentioned") were posted until Twitter suspended the account.

Most likely, Cerf will be able to reclaim his account, but it just goes to show that even the smartest among us can't be safe all the time. [From: ZDNet]

Gmail Finally Gets To Do List

Google Finally Gets ToDo ListGoogle has finally addressed one of the biggest complaints about its suite of personal productivity applications -- no task management. A new feature, which can be turned on via Gmail's experimental Labs (go to settings -> 'Labs'), adds a simple task list to your inbox, just under your 'Contacts' list.

Clicking on any empty space in the list allows you to immediately create a new task, and any Gmail message can also be turned into a task by selecting an option under the 'More Actions' drop down menu or with the keyboard shortcut <shift>+t.

Google's new task list is nowhere near as powerful as the Remember the Milk sidebar for Gmail, but if you want a quick and dirty to do list, the new Gmail tasks feature should do just fine. [From: Official Gmail Blog]

YouTube Virus Turns Out to be False Alarm

YouTube Virus Turns Out to be False Alarm
Rumors are flying that YouTube is infecting unsuspecting computer users with a computer virus. Before we go any further, let us just calm your fears -- it's not true. But that doesn't mean it's safe to let down your guard.

It turns out that out-of-date antivirus programs are erroneously labeling clips on YouTube as containing Actns/Swif.T, a particularly nasty piece of malware that urges you to install a software package called Antivirus 2009. Of course, Antivirus 2009 is a piece of spyware, and a notoriously difficult one to remove at that.

Since YouTube generates its own Flash code for playing back videos, it is unlikely that it would host malicious code. Even so, Flash has proven to be quite insecure (as we're sure you've learned from the piles of crap installed on your computer via MySpace pages).

So keep your guard up, and that security software up-to-date. [From: ValleyWag]

Santa's Gmail Inbox Revealed

Santa's Gmail Inbox Revealed

In the vein of the fake Sarah Palin Facebook page, Holy Taco is celebrating the holiday season by poking fun at Santa and all things Christmas.

The Photoshop pranksters at Holy Taco have recreated Santa's Gmail inbox, replete with 419 scam messages and offers for cheap Viagra. Of course, Santa's inbox also has bratty kids asking for a PlayStation 3 and PETA complaining about his enslavement of reindeer.

We don't want to ruin all the fun, so follow the read link to check out the image for yourself. [From: Holy Taco via walyou]

Twitter-Competitor Pownce Closing Down

Pownce Closes, Web 2.0 Bubble BurstingIn case you've been waiting for it, the second Internet bubble might be on the verge of bursting. Banks and mortgages aren't the only things collapsing in the now official recession -- Web 2.0 startups are starting to drop like flies.

The most recent collapse is Twitter-competitor Pownce. The feature-packed micro-blogging service, backed by Digg founder Kevin Rose, was bought up by SixApart, the company that makes the MovableType blogging platform and runs the VOX social network. While Pownce never drew the near the numbers that Twitter attracts, it was still successful in its own right, and this might signal trouble for many smaller services with lesser-known talent behind them. The service will officially close on December 15th.

Pownce was very much a victim of its own hype, the subject of glowing write-ups in the New York Times and other places early on. Unfortunately, it may have been a bit too 'exclusive' for its own good. Besides never getting mass numbers of folks to join, the service didn't really play well with others. Though it packed in more features than Twitter and was, at least at first, more reliable, Pownce lacked the ability to let other applications interact with it. Unlike Twitter, which allows developers to write code that can add items to a to-do list and track packages, among other things.

Switched Video

 



Featured Galleries

AOL Tech Network


Latest Reviews from CNET.com

CNET provides the latest tech news, unbiased reviews, videos, podcasts, software, and downloads, making tech products easy to find, understand and use.

Top Product Reviews

AOL News

Other Weblogs Inc. Network blogs you might be interested in: