Technology

Google Maps Provides Maps for Biker

Welcoming the National Bike Summit which is held in Washington, Google Maps provides a special maps for the cyclist or biker.

This service would ease the cyclists to find a route when lost. “Anyone who has ever tried biking around San Francisco knows how important the information in order to avoid a hill with a height of 200 feet and the streets of the city, to be more freely,” said Google Maps Product Manager Shannon Guymon, as quoted by Cnet, Wednesday (10 / 3 / 2010).

Some previous Google Maps users already have created their own cycling maps for specific cities such as New York and Minneapolis. It seems to push Google to create a map of cycling.

For this service, Google’s got most of the data from the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. Google Maps for the biker challenge provides information on cycling routes in 150 U.S. cities.

Biker can find a special cycling track in these cities and take advantage of available routes for bicycle travel becomes more secure and comfortable.

New Chrome Browser Can Translate Website

In addition to improving privacy controls, the latest version of the Chrome browser offers website translation feature automatically.

For now, the latest version of Chrome is still in beta. With this translation feature, every web page visited by the user will be translated into certain languages. Not only that, this browser will offer the opportunity to set specific privacy controls on individual property websites.

This means, the additional capacity embedded Google in browsers can allow web users to access and understand the contents of the web with access to a particular language. For example, the user can understand the English language website in Arabic on the access. Such information is quoted from the Telegraph, Tuesday (2/3/2010).

By implanting a new innovation on the browser, Google is attempting to not less than competitors Internet Explorer (IE) produced by Microsoft. As is known, at the time almost in unison, Microsoft provides a ‘browser Ballot’. This feature is the way Microsoft took the hearts of the user’s browser by giving the freedom to use a browser other than IE.

Google Changes iPhone Application to Open Source

A few weeks ago, Google bought reMail, a popular iPhone application which is taken from Apple App Store. Today, Google is making the application in open source.

“After looking at several options to make reMail available in several forms, we decided to make it in open source code. Application is now available in the Google Code as remail-iphone under the Apache 2.0 license,” said Gabor reMail maker Cselle.

“Along with the many people who like mobile email, I hope the developers are interested in making contact with an email application and can use the reMail code as a starting point ,” he said as quoted Cselle Web Pro News, Saturday (6/3/2010).

Cselle has documented the source code so developers can quickly begin to develop ideas that they have.

“If you love and want to develop reMail, I also include a list of several potential projects with tips that can be implemented,” said Cselle.

Keep Chromium Up To Date

Chromium is the Open Source project behind Google Chrome. Chromium and Google Chrome have many similarities and it is usually the case that new features are integrated into Chromium first before they make they way into the Google browser.

One problem that Chromium users experience is that the web browser does not come with an automatic update option, at least not when it comes to the snapshot builds that are often uploaded to the ftp server several times a day.

It is highly impracticable to download and install new Chromium builds manually which is why Chromium Constantly Bleeding Edge has been developed.

The third party software has been designed to automatically query the Chromium server for the latest build. The version that is retrieved that way will be compared to the Chromium version installed on the computer system the program is executed on.

A newer version will be automatically download and installed. This process is handled in the background without user interaction. The only user interaction is required if Chromium is not installed on the computer system (which will trigger the standard setup) or if the operating system or security software display warnings during the download or installation.

The program has a size of only 50 Kilobytes. It should be added to the startup items or task scheduler in Windows so that it will regularly check the latest builds on the server against the local build.

Popular Firefox Add-Ons And Their Google Chrome Equivalent

Google’s Chrome web browser has developed into an interesting competitive browser that brings several new features to the table that Firefox does not including better security thanks to its multi-process system and speed thanks to its faster engines. But there are also elements that Firefox is currently having the advantage with the most important being one add-on support. Many Firefox users have grown accustomed to some add-ons which is one of the reasons why they are not making the switch to Google Chrome, or any other browser.

This situation is slowly changing with the release of the Google Chrome extensions repository, an official website hosted by Google that lists extensions for the web browser. Not all extensions are listed on the page however like streaming media downloaders who are not allowed according to the terms of service. Users can however find them on other websites that review and publish Google Chrome extensions. More »

Google DNS Helper

The news about Google’s new public DNS service seems to have ebbed down a bit after the initial announcement which can probably be attributed to the fact that reviews of the service where not all favorable. The two biggest points of criticism were privacy and speed. Some users do not want to use Google DNS servers believing that Google would be able to track them even more thoroughly than before. Speed on the other hand was tested by many users and some reported better response times while other reported the opposite. More »

Google And Privacy

Privacy is a big issue on the Internet these days and companies like Google have to put a lot of effort into convincing or reassuring Internet users that they do care about the individual user’s privacy.

A recent post at Google’s Privacy blog explains Google’s approach to privacy in the form a presentation that lists the data that is collected by various Google services and how that data is used by Google to improve their services.

Data that is stored by Google is divided into the three groups log data, account data and other information. Log data is stored when users who are not logged into a Google account perform searches or use the Google Chrome browser. More »

Google Browser Size

Google Browser Size is a new web service that has been published by Google Labs that can be used to visualize the browser window sizes of users visiting a specific website.

The service will display transparent information on top of the website that has been loaded visualizing how much of the website visitors see without having to scroll. This is done by displaying percentages on the screen and using colors to differentiate the different groups from each other. More »

Google Nexus One Phone Support Page Surfaces

Google prepares for Nexus One launch

Eagle-eyed Google-lovers spotted a Google support page for the incoming Nexus One phone yesterday, before it was promptly taken down by Google.

In the past two days, news concerning the phone has emerged at an alarming rate, suggesting that the handset’s release can’t be far away.

Google has already trademarked the Nexus One name, and has received FCC approval for the phone. More »

Google Chrome Keyboard Navigation

Computer users sometimes run into situations where they won’t or can’t use a computer mouse. Think of a netbook or notebook for instance. Those computer without a computer mouse most of the time and the touchpad replacement or substitute sometimes does not really cut it. Keyboard Navigation is a Google Chrome extension that aids the user in navigating the Internet in the Google browser without a computer mouse. More »