jatiN mahindrA doT coM

Google & Viacom Go At It In Court Over YouTube

About two years ago, Viacom sued Google over videos being uploaded and kept on YouTube. It was a big stink then because of the value of the lawsuit and the technology to follow to help copyright owners locate and remove content either manually or automatically from YouTube. Now, the court documents have been released and things are looking nasty between the two companies. Here is a PDF of the documents...

Gaps In Roads on Google Maps, Don’t Drive Off Virtual Cliff

A Google Maps Help thread reports that although there is a road that completely connects to each other, Google thinks the road has a gap in it. Since Google thinks there is a gap or ending to the road, the driving directions will not take someone all the way around. Here is a screen shot of the virtual gap: As you can see, the satellite imagery shows the road continues on, but Google seems to end...

YouTube Sets Thousand of Videos as Private

Hundreds of YouTubers are complaining that their videos that they are uploading are being set from the public status to private status. Obviously, if you set a video to private, most people won’t be able to see the videos and thus the video views that YouTubers really seek out, will be way down. Liz from YouTube support confirmed the bug in a YouTube Help thread. She said: We’ve seen...

Warning: Google My Maps Bug Can Impact Your Maps

Google Maps Guide, Cecelia, created a Google Maps Help thread warning users not to edit their Google My Maps. The specific issue is with editing the Place Details in the My Maps. If you do edit it now, it may impact the rest of your information on your map. Cecelia said: We are aware of a temporary technical issue with My Maps. Our teams are working hard to resolve this issue. Until everything is...

Google Is Really Leaving China, Well 99.999% Chance

In mid-January Google said they are leaving China after being part of a hack by the Chinese government. Since then, Google has been trying to work out details with the Chinese government to stay. Part of Google’s requirements to stay was to stop or limit the censorship required there, but it appears that Google and China cannot see eye to eye. The Financial Times reported: Google has drawn...

Pi Day Logo from Google, DogPile Does Day Light Savings Time

Today is one of my favorite holidays, Pi Day. Yes, today is March (3), 14th and Pi is 3.1415926. This year, unlike last, Google has a logo. Here is the special Google Doodle for Pi Day: Bing, Yahoo, and the other search engines don’t seem to have a logo for the day. We took the time to change our complete theme for the day, here is a picture: I should note, that although Google did not...

Three New Bugs With YouTube

There are three known and confirmed bugs with YouTube. They include not being able to save changes being made to videos, and issues playing and sharing videos in YouTube Groups and Orkut. Here are the three threads created by Liz from the YouTube team: (1) Known Issue: “Save changes” button doesn’t appear on “Edit video” page: We’ve seen a lot of reports from you...

Google Help Forum Search Adds 3rd Party Content

All of the content published on this site is sourced via discussion forums, that is what makes this site unique from the thousands of other SEO blogs out there. Much of that content is sourced from the Google help forums. So when Google changes something in their help forums, I typically notice. One thing Google recently changes was the help forum search feature. Now, Google is including content...

Chuck Norris Turns 70 Today, No Google Doodle?

Google and Chuck Norris have a long history. If you go to Google.com and search for [find chuck norris] and hit, “I’m feeling lucky” button you will be taken to this result that reads: Google won’t search for Chuck Norris because it knows you don’t find Chuck Norris, he finds you. So it is surprising to see that on the 70th birthday of Chuck Norris, Google doesn’t...

Googlers Testing TV Search Android Enabled Devices With Dish Network

Android powered TV search boxes are being tested by Googlers, according to the Wall Street Journal. Google Inc. is testing a new television-programming search service with Dish Network Corp., according to people familiar with the matter, the latest development in a fast-moving race to combine Internet content with conventional TV. The service, which runs on TV set-top boxes containing Google software,...

Google Maps Adds Bike Directions & Route Layers

A long time requested feature, bike directions, have been added to Google Maps. Both the Google Blog and Google Lat Long Blog have details about the addition. First, here is a video demo: Dark green indicates a trail; Light green indicates a dedicated bike lane along a road; Dotted green indicates roads without bike lanes but are more appropriate for biking, based on factors such as terrain, traffic,...

Google Public Data Explorer, Private Data Soon?

Google announced a new feature named Google Public Data Explorer. What it does is allow you to mash up data from the public sectors into neat charts and graphs. Google explains: With the Data Explorer, you can mash up data using line graphs, bar graphs, maps and bubble charts. The visualizations are dynamic, so you can watch them move over time, change topics, highlight different entries and change...

Google Maps Avoid Tolls Feature May Cost You

There are some reports at the Google Maps Help forum that the “avoid tolls” feature for Google Maps driving directions does not always work right. The issue spans as far as Australia and as close as Pennsylvania. Brian B., a Googler, from the Google Maps help forum said: Just wanted to give an update here that there are folks looking into this “avoid tolls” issue, and I’ll...

Google Wins Patent For Geo-Targeting Ads

Venture Beat reports Google has won the patent for using location in an advertising system, or something called geo-targeting. Let me quote the article: The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office awarded the search giant a patent for using location in an advertising system last Tuesday, which is the emerging business model for most consumer-facing location startups today. Filed six years ago, the patent...

How Does One Remove Info From Google’s Chile Earthquake Person Finder

A few days ago, there was a tremendous tragedy in Chile, a massive earthquake. Google put together a tool to help family and friends locate missing people due to this earthquake. The tool is located at http://chilepersonfinder.appspot.com/. At this tool, you can either submit a case of a missing person or search for a case of a missing person. There are currently about 35,700 records, or missing...