google

All too often adverts you see online are your past come back to haunt you. Advertisers use tracking cookies to capture the web history of users and monitor usage of a particular site. That information is used to serve up adverts most likely to influence you.But I discovered earlier this week that some advertising companies let you opt out of that tracking. Read on to find out how to free yourself from tracking.First, though, consider why you may want to. There are two ways of looking at this. Either you believe the advertisers who say well-targetted ads are actually helpful to users, or you think it best that your personal information stay that way.After all, the information ad firms gather can be enough to identify individuals.

A new search engine launched yesterday. Cuil (that's "cool", phonetically) is today's buzz word on the web, primarily because the Cuil's founders - Tom Costello, Anna Patterson, Louis Monier and Russell Power - are respected search experts. Patterson, Monier and Power are former Google employees, and comparisons with the 300lb gorilla of internet search abound.Michael Arrington at TechCrunch compares sizes. At launch, Cuil boasted an index of 120 billion webpages.

Google's latest service, Knol, has just launched, intended as a repository of knowledge for everything from literature to DIY.In the words of its creator, it's meant to be "the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read".We predicted at the start of the year that Knol would kill off Wikipedia, mainly by choking off its hold on the top spot for search results. The motivation?

Is pornography as American as apple pie?

Google is planning to release tools that let internet users know if their service provider (ISP) is tampering with their internet connection - for example by throttling access to popular bandwidth-heavy sites.It is the latest round of the net neutrality debate. Net neutrals like Google say the the internet should be a straightforward commodity.

Not breaking news, but still worth checking out, Google have released a series of 'artist themes' for the personalised iGoogle pages.

Some legit names have contributed, including Airside, Nigo, Jeff Koons and John Maeda.

Although some of the others are a little questionable, Lance Armstrong, Jackie Chan and Coldplay!?

If the embedded video doesn't show, you can see it here:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3950885883135205573

YouTube is announcing a new feature called "Insight," which gives video creators a way to see where there video is being watched (there's a cool map of the world with countries that light up) and when (is your video a Monday-morning-at-the-office-hit?)

From the NY Times coverage:

...YouTube executives suggest that marketers can use the tools in several ways. A movie studio might run several versions of a trailer to see what is catching on where, and if a humorous spot is catching fire in Texas, might start running that trailer as a TV ad in the state.

A political campaign could test spots of a candidate discussing the environment or the economy; if an environmental spot is popular in Pennsylvania, that might help decide what the candidate stumps about there.

Google.org wants “to use the power of information and technology to address the global challenges of our age: climate change, poverty and emerging disease. In collaboration with experienced partners working in each of these fields, we will invest our resources and tap the strength of Google’s employees and global operations to advance five major initiatives."

Theses five initiatives are to develop renewable energy cheaper than coal, accelerate the commercialization of plug-in vehicles, predict and prevent emerging threats, inform and empower to improve public services and to fuel the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises.

Sounds all good, especially because the director is Dr. Larry Brilliant who just happened to be the 2006 TEDPrize winner who was approached by both of Google’s founders after they heard his passionate speech at TED. More here.

Via alldaybuffet.

"I wanted to collect various popular and obscure GUI's with the intention of starting to analyse and compare them," he remembers. "Three and a half years later I'm nowhere near finished." Swiss based Marcin Wichery is a GUI designer at Google, he's put together this rather nice site.

Dell is running tests with Google to see if it will install the firm's software on its products. Dell said it was evaluating Google's search tools, both for the web and for documents stored on the PC.

The move would make Google the default search on millions of new computers, as it tries to expand its business and attract more users. It also could help firms chip away at the dominant position of Microsoft, which is also developing search tools.

At the heart of Microsoft's success was its agreement with computer manufacturers to make its Windows software the default operating system on new PCs. Once the software is on the computer, the majority of users do not bother with alternatives, analysts said.

Google is looking to tie up more agreements with manufacturers giving it greater access to computer users and revenues from advertisers. The search firm already has deals with Hewlett-Packard, Gateway, Sony, Apple and Toshiba. "We can confirm that we are running a test with Google that could include a Google-powered home page, Google desktop search and a Google Toolbar," said Dell spokesman Bob Kaufman.