Is Google damaging your brain? Not quite

Is Google damaging your brain? Not quite

There can be two reactions to the new Google Instant that offers search results even before the complete search term is typed. One is wow. The other is fret about what it is doing to us. A London-based author says Google, by offering quick information, is affecting our capacity to store information. He argues that the search engine deprives our brain of daily calisthenics, and it could remedy that by making search difficult. 

Google damanging brain by giving instant info

Author Nicolas Carr says internet is depriving our mental faculties of regular workouts

London: An author has claimed that Google is damaging the brain of its users by providing information almost instantly, leading people to lose their intellectual capacity to store information. Nicolas Carr, the author of The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, claimed that the web was depriving our mental faculties of the regular workouts they need. He said that the internet meant people now found it harder to concentrate, for example when trying to read a book.

Facebook beats Google as top internet destination in America

US web surfers are spending more time socialising on Facebook than searching with Google, according to new data from researchers at comScore.

In August, people spent a total of 41.1 million minutes on Facebook, comSore said Thursday, about 9.9% of their web-surfing minutues for the month.

That just barely surpassed the 39.8 million minutes, or 9.6%, people spent on all of Google's sites combined, including YouTube, the free Gmail e-mail program, Google news and various other content sites.

Google, the genie of our future, tells us what to do

I actually think most people don't want Google to answer their questions," said the search giant's chief executive, Eric Schmidt, in a recent and controversial interview. "They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next." Do we really desire Google to tell us what we should be doing next? I believe that we do, though with some rather complicated qualifiers.

Science fiction never imagined Google, but it certainly imagined computers that would advise us what to do. HAL 9000, in 2001: A Space Odyssey, will forever come to mind, his advice, we assume, eminently reliable - before his malfunction. But HAL was a genie in a bottle, something we imagined owning or being assigned. Google is a distributed entity, a two-way membrane, a game-changing tool on the order of the equally handy flint hand axe, with which we chop our way through the densest thickets of information. Google is all of those things, and a very large and powerful corporation to bot.

Google's real-time search page challenges Bing, Twitter

You can narrow the search to find out what people are saying on various subjects in different locations

New York: Google is digging deeper into real-time search, with a new search page that displays only results from timely sources, like updates from Twitter and other social networks.

Google is the default search engine for most people searching most topics. But as the real-time web exploded, other search engines, like Twitter's and Bing, became more useful for those who wanted quick access to just those live updates.

Google's Gmail moves towards free phone calls

San francisco: Google is adding a free e-mail feature that may persuade more people to cut the cords on their landline phones.

The service unveiled on Wednesday enables US users of Google's Gmail service to make calls from microphone-equipped computers to telephones anywhere in the world.

Gmail gives more time to undo 'send'

Techies warn that since it is part of Labs, it is still in testing and may not always work

New York:

Google has increased the window to undo a sent email from five seconds to 30 seconds, during which your can hit the 'undo' button, Mashable reported on Monday.

Google to bring intelligence to dumb gizmos

Amit Singhal, one of only 4 'Google Fellows' in the world, says back-end innovations will make phones and PCs more 'intelligent'. But a 'personality'? That's still a long shot

NEW DELHI: The mobile phone may soon be your best friend in need, but even Google can't give it a personality, according to Amit Singhal, the Indian in charge of keeping up Google's search experience and one of only four 'Google Fellows' in the world.

Keeping an eye: Google will use spy drones for street mapping

German company says it has supplied mini drone and hopes to deliver dozens more soon to search engine giant

New York:

Google is said to be considering using a fleet of drones to captures images for its Street View services.

Street View is an add-on to Google offers photographs of locations taken by Street View cars that are equipped with a camera.

Builders drag google into defamation case in HC

Internet bigwig Google India Private Limited (GIPL) is embroiled in a case of defamation. However, the leading search engine company says it has been dragged into the legal battle without enough cause.

Seeking the quashing of a complaint filed by a developer in Pune and the bailable warrant issued by a court there, they have said in their petition in the Bombay high court that the company is not responsible for the content put out by users on their blogs. Justice JH Bhatia admitted the petition on Tuesday.

Google under probe in South Korea data collection

Seoul:

The South Korean police raided the offices of Google Korea on Tuesday as part of an investigation into whether the company illegally collected and stored personal wireless data.

Google under probe in South Korea

Seoul:
South Korean police on Tuesday raided Google Inc's Seoul office on suspicion that Google had illegally collected data on users. Google has been preparing since late last year to launch its "Street View"
service in South Korea and data collection was related to the launch

Media owners wince as Google, Apple prepare for mobile advertising battle

LONDON:

Mobile users are confronted with an epic showdown beteen Apple and Google. iAds, Apple's bid to run advertisements inside apps, is expected to make its UK debut in September.

Google has adopted what its chief executive, Eric Schmidt, calls a "mobile first" approach, prioritising investment in a medium that has become "fundamental to everything we do".

Google pulls the plug on Wave

Despite being a great concept, application failed to attract interest

San Francisco:

Google on Wednesday said it would cease to develop its freshly launched Wave communications platforms that aimed to liberate people from the constraints of traditional email.

Google plans Facebook rival

New York: Internet giant Google Inc is in talks with several makers of popular online games as it seeks to develop a broader social networking service that could compete with Facebook, says media report.

Yahoo Japan turns to Google search

Tokyo: Yahoo Japan, the largest internet portal operator in Japan, will adopt Google's search engine, refusing to follow Yahoo Inc in choosing Microsoft as a partner.

Yahoo Japan, which uses Yahoo Inc's search technology, and Google together will control almost all of the search market in the word's second-biggest economy.

Monsoon mania grips Mumbai on Google

Netizens flocking to search engine for rain related information, reveals Google Insights

Monsoon mania has gripped netizens of India. According to Google Insights, the search trends for the monsoon have been quite erratic in the last 90 days and even Mumbai's interest in the rains has seen a tremendous increase in this period.

Now, Google worth one billion page views a day

Analysts say the new features are already in use by rival search engine Bing. There are now over 10bn pictures on google image search

London:

Now, Google is worth one billion page views a day as the new image searches can show upto 1,000 images per page.

Google's cash hoard hits $30 bn

July 19, 2010

Only Microsoft and Cisco have a bigger holding among non-financials in S$P 500

David Wilson. New York

Google Inc has piled up too much cash for its own good and out to start buying back shares, according to Clayton F Moran, a Benchmark Co analyst.

Pakistan leads in online sex search

July 15, 2010

Washington: They may call it the 'Land of the Pure', but Pakistan ranks as the top country to proportionally search for certain sex-related terms on the web. The country that banned 17 websites to block offensive and blasphemous material is the world's leader. in online searches for pornographic material.