Interior on the Map.

EveryScape Inc is developing a mapping service which displays interior of the buildings. Google’s Street View doesn’t have this feature. EveryScape employed individual contractors to take pictures of the street. Once an area has been mapped, EveryScape will approach local businesses to having their interiors photographed and listed in the map. EveryScape got more than $11 million from Venture Capital firms, a sign that the idea has a potential.

Build your Own Search Service:BOSS by Yahoo

Yahoo! Inc. today introduced a new open Web services platform, Yahoo! Search BOSS(Build Your Own Search Service). The platform allows third parties a deeper level of access to Yahoo! Search Technology. The platform gives the flexibility to re-rank and control the presentation of Web search results. Yahoo says monetization capability will be added soon to the platform. BOSS is available to any company that wants to participate in the program. Google also offers a similar service called Google Custom Search.

Lively:Google’s Virtual World

After a year and a half of rumors, Google just released its own virtual world: Lively,a web-driven mini-virtual world. With Lively you can create your own virtual space and chat and interact with your friends in rooms you design and stream personal photos and video. At this point Lively doesn’t look like a direct competitor to Second Life a fully user-created metaverse. Lively runs completely in the browser and you use your Google account to log in and create your own avatars. Check out this demo video released by Google.

YouTube Ordered to Give All User Histories to Viacom

YouTube which is owned by Google has to turn over every record of every video watched by YouTube users to ViaCom,a judge ruled. Google was sued by ViaCom in March 2007, for allowing users to upload clips of Viacom’s copyright material. Viacom is a media conglomerate with various worldwide interests in cable/satellite television networks (MTV Networks and BET), video gaming (Sega of America), and movie production and distribution.

Google stops serving ads to anti-scientology site.

Enturbulation, a fledgling site dedicated to promoting activism against the Church of Scientology and all its related organizations, used to serve ads by Google’s adsense ad network to monetize their site. Last month, Google cut off all ads served to Enturbulation. Google’s terms and conditions also prohibit “any action or practice that reflects poorly on Google or otherwise disparages or devalues Google’s reputation or goodwill.”

Banned by Myanmar still donate money

Google has said that it will donate up to $1 million USD to assist victims of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar. Despite being banned by its government,Google has offered to match donations made to UNICEF and Direct Relief International for all donations made at Google’s Support disaster relief in Myanmar page, up to one million dollars. In an effort to control the flow of information in and out of the country, the military government has banned several websites, including Yahoo and Hotmail.

Belgian newspaper sues Google

Belgian newspaper group Copiepresse ask $77.5 million from Googl e in damages for use of their work. In 2006 Belgian newspaper group Copiepresse filed a lawsuit against Google for re publishing their articles online. Google and Copiepresse went into negotiations to settle it out side court. Google News is an automated news aggregator. The service covers news articles appearing within the past 30 days on various news websites.

City demands Google to remove images

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Google map has an additional feature in US only, Street View where any Internet user can glimpse a home from the nearest road. North Oaks a city of 4,500 residents has demanded that Google Maps remove images of North Oaks. Google said the images of North Oaks were removed shortly afterward.

Facebook rejected Google

Google’s Friend Connect is a social network utility which helps site owners to, giving visitors a way to connect with friends from other social networks like Google Talk, hi5, orkut and Plaxo. Facebook was also the part of the network when Friend Connect was launched early in the May. Last week Facebook blocked Google’s Friend Connect service from accessing Facebook members’ data, stating it violates Facebook’s terms of service because it “redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users’ knowledge.

Microsoft’s ‘Telescope’

The WorldWide Telescope (WWT), Microsoft’s response to Google Sky is a Web 2.0 visualization software environment that enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope—bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world for a seamless exploration of the universe. The service, which opened to the public on May 13, lets people explore the cosmos through any computer with an Internet connection. It combines about 12 terabytes of data, including 50 surveys and 1,000 high-resolution studies, with links to astronomy research on sites around the Web. Google Sky leverages Google Maps. In addition to a 3D looks at stars and galaxies, Google Sky offers infrared, microwave, and historical views of the sky.

Image ads on Cellular phones by Google

Google has announced a technology that provides brand images on mobile phones. The technology will provide some sort of image advertisement that has been scaled to fit on the screen of a mobile phone,based on a user’s query. The service is available in 13 countries (Australia, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, the UK, and the United States).

Google spends $72 million a year for free meals

An estimated 9,600 Google employees across multiple offices enjoy free meals 251 days out of the year that Google is open. This equates to $72,288,000 spent per year by Google.This figure is based upon a $30 per day per employee estimate by Aramark Business Dining Services.

Google tackles child porn

Google engineers have adapted a software program to help track child sex predators. The program uses pattern recognition to enable analysts to sort and identify files containing child sex abuse. It was originally developed to block copyrighted videos on the company’s YouTube division.The program will be used by National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to search their systems more quickly and easily as they try to sort and identify files that contain images of child sex abuse victims..

Google, most powerful global brand

Market research firm Millward Brown Optimor produced the rankings based on interviews with more than a million consumers worldwide. For the third year in a row Google grabbed the top spot with a $86 billion brand value. General Electric and Microsoft, came in second and third places respectively. Of the top 100 most powerful brands, 28 of them were technology related, including Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, Oracle, Intel, Dell, and BlackBerry.

Google ads on Yahoo

Google and Yahoo announced a two week experiment to show Google ads on Yahoo searches in US. By partnering with Google, Yahoo is trying to signal it has other options besides succumbing to Microsoft. Yahoo also has discussed deals with MySpace.com and AOL. Yahoo insists it’s worth more than the initial bid of $44.6 billion, or $31 per share, that Microsoft made more than two months ago.

A tool to track refugees by Google

Google launched a new feature on its popular mapping software Google Earth which plots refugee movements worldwide. Users can download Google Earth software to see satellite images of refugee hot spots such as Darfur, Iraq,Colombia and Sri Lanka. According to Google more than 350 million people have already downloaded Google Earth.

Human settlement on Mars by Google!

Virgle Inc., a joint venture by Google and Virgin Group,dedicated to the establishment of a human settlement on Mars, launched yesterday. The Virgle 100 Year Plan’s milestones will include Virgle Pioneer selection (2008-2010), the first manned journey to Mars (2016), a Virgle Inc. initial public offering to capitalize on the first manned journey to Mars (2016), the founding of the first permanent Martian municipality, Virgle City (2050), and the achievement of a truly self-sustaining Martian civilization with a population exceeding 100,000 (2108).

Image based search engine : Otello

Vodafone Showcased its latest idea at CeBIT, an image based search engine. It’s the first image-based search engine that anyone who has a mobile phone with camera can use. Mobile phone users just snap a picture of anything and send it to service number as a MMS message, Otella check the database for information associated with the photo and deliver it to the mobile phone in seconds. The photos that are sent to the search engine don’t have to satisfy any high quality requirements.

Don’t map defense establishments Google

After the discovery of images of the Fort Sam Houston army base in Texas on Google Maps Street view, Pentagon has banned Google from filming inside US military bases. Google maps Street view allows web users to “drive” along virtual US landscapes with ground-level views. After US military had expressed concerns, Google removed the images.

Google is the goal - MicroSoft

Steve Ballmer Microsoft’s chief executive officer has pledged the company would gain share against Google Inc in online advertising and web searching, even if it’s his “last breath” at the company. “So it may be my last breath at Microsoft, but we’re going to be there, working away, building share,” said Mr Ballmer during an interview with Guy Kawasaki. Globally Google dominates search market with 70% market share,while Yahoo and MSN controls 16% and 8% respectively.