Google and Amazon to Put More Books on Cellphones

In a move that could bolster the growing popularity of e-books, Google said Thursday that the 1.5 million public domain books it had scanned and made available free on PCs were now accessible on mobile devices like the iPhone and the T-Mobile G1.

Also Thursday, Amazon said that it was working on making the titles for its popular e-book reader, the Kindle, available on a variety of mobile phones. The company, which is expected to unveil a new version of the Kindle next week, did not say when Kindle titles would be available on mobile phones.

“We are excited to make Kindle books available on a range of mobile phones,”

said Drew Herdener, a spokesman for Amazon.

“We are working on that now.”

Google’s move greatly expands the number of e-books that are available for reading on the go. The Kindle currently offers about 230,000 titles.

But the public domain books available through Google Book Search are not likely to be the most popular titles, as they are older books for which copyrights have expired. In contrast, the Kindle library includes scores of newly released books, including many current best sellers.

Google said it would like to make other books available on mobile devices in the future, including out-of-print titles and current books it scans with the permission of publishing companies..

“This is our first step, but it is an important step,” s

aid Frances Haugen, product manager for Google Book Search.

Unlike the version of Google Book Search for PCs, which displays scanned images of book pages, the mobile version simply displays text, allowing users to download printed material more quickly over wireless networks.

Several book reading programs are already available for the iPhone and other mobile devices, including Stanza from Lexcycle and the eReader from Fictionwise. They are quickly growing in popularity.

But just as camera phones have not replaced digital cameras, smartphones are not likely to replace dedicated e-book readers like the Kindle or the Reader from Sony, analysts said. These specialized devices have screens about the size of a paperback book and use a technology that does not require backlighting, which makes them easier to read in most light conditions. They also have longer battery life.

While mobile phones are good for quick access to reading material, their backlighted screens are “terrible for long-form reading,” said Evan Schnittman, vice president for global business development at Oxford University Press.

“It hurts the eyes. The pages of a book are the size they are because of hundreds of years of experience of what works best.”

Still, over time, the market for reading on cellphones could grow, especially as new, more capable mobile devices become available.

“Consumers will trade a certain amount of quality for convenience and cost,”

said Michael Gartenberg, an independent technology analyst.

Google reveals Chrome extensions plan

Google has published its plan to build into Chrome what is arguably its most requested feature: the ability to accept extensions that can customize how the open-source Web browser operates.

And guess what? Google's dependence on advertising notwithstanding, one of the extension examples the company points to is the ability to block advertisements.

The Chrome extensions document, spotlighted Saturday by Google programmer Aaron Boodman, doesn't include a timeline, but it does shed light on why the project is a priority for Chromium, the open-source project behind Chrome.

"Chromium can't be everything to all people,"

according to the document.

"User-created extensions have been proposed to solve these problems: the addition of features that have specific or limited appeal; users coming from other browsers who are used to certain extensions that they can't live without; bundling partners who would like to add features to Chromium specific to their bundle."

When Google launched Chrome three months ago, it promised a Chrome extensions framework. Extensions are a popular feature of Chrome's most likely rival, Mozilla's Firefox, and one very popular extension is AdBlock Plus.

And AdBlock makes a specific appearance on the list of extension uses that Google said it would like to support eventually:

• Bookmarking/navigation tools: Delicious Toolbar, StumbleUpon, Web-based history, new tab page clipboard accelerators.

• Content enhancements: Skype extension (clickable phone numbers), RealPlayer extension (save video), Autolink (generic microformat data--addresses, phone numbers, etc.)

• Content filtering: AdBlock, Flashblock, privacy control, parental control

• Download helpers: video helpers, download accelerators, DownThemAll, FlashGot

• Features: ForecastFox, FoxyTunes, Web Of Trust, GooglePreview, BugMeNot

Demand for extensions is real.

In an unscientific CNET News poll about why people don't use Chrome, about 19 percent pointed to the lack of an extensions feature. And on Google's issue tracking site for Chromium, a Chrome extensions feature is the top-requested item.

"Of all the Firefox plug-ins, this is the one essential one,"

said Firefox user Ole Eichhorn.

"Chrome is faster until you factor in all the cruft that gets downloaded as ads, then it isn't faster anymore. When Chrome supports AdBlock, it will be the winner, but until it does, Firefox is the only choice."

In its document, Google described some of its goals for Chrome extensions. The extensions should silently update, just like Chrome does. They should be isolated for security reasons and only get access to resources it's entitled to use. Installation should be easy, taking only two clicks.

They should permit rich user interface options--rich enough to implement some parts of Chrome as extensions, Google said. Among the interface options should be "toolbars, sidebars, content scripts (for Greasemonkey-like functionality), and content filtering (for parental filters, malware filters, or AdBlock-like functionality)," Google said. Some interfaces will require the user to grant specific permissions, such as "access to the history database" or "access to mail.google.com," Google said.

Google will play a major role in extensions, providing a central service that can be used to issue updates and to blacklist "malicious or harmful extensions" so the browser won't use them.

"It's likely in the future we may want to provide a consumer front-end which would allow users to more easily find the most popular, highest quality and trustworthy extensions,"

Google also said.

Google Chrome : Download Offline Installer

Google Chrome is a newly introduced web browser by Google and its getting very good feed back, even i like i it personally.

You may download this from Google Home Page or for further details check our related posts. But while downloading, you may be able to download only 474kb Setup file which download online or via internet.

Gear up guys, here I'm giving you a link from where you will be able to install Google chrome Offline. No Need of internet connectivity for installing.

Download Google Chrome Offline Installer

Reports Of A Google gPhone Surface Again

The Google phone lives. Sort of. Maybe. Perhaps. Although it's still not clear that the much-ballyhooed device actually lives at Google facilities.

The latest news on the Google phone stems from some comments made by Google executives at Allen & Company's Sun Valley Conference. A reporter for The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Google executives talked of the company making "its own branded mobile phone as a replacement for the iPhone." The story then took off this week, embellished soon by a report that the Ammunition Design Group could be working with Google to build the "gPhone."

Google hasn't comment on the latest reports. But in the past, Google has dismissed reports that it planned to make its own phone. Instead, the company has promoted its Android program and it's Open Handset Alliance, which bring together several companies said to be working on Android handsets. T-Mobile, for instance, has said it plans to unveil an Android phone by the end of the year.

Many Android developers like the idea of a handset from Google that would compete with Apple's iPhone. Such a project, however, would likely have to pass muster with Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, who also sits on Apple's board of directors. Instead of a Google-branded handset, there's likely to be a number of Android phones from a variety of developers and cellular service providers. In a sense, they will all be Google phones and will feature Google's search engine.

The most precise sighting of the Google phone appeared in the Boston Globe last summer. Various developers and venture capitalists said they had seen the device, which was being developed at Google's Cambridge facility. Users could scroll through icons horizontally and at least one version featured a small tactile QWERTY keyboard rather than a touch screen, the reports said.

A tactile QWERTY keyboard would likely appeal to business IT types, who generally favor the precision of tactile keyboards over touch screen keyboards for e-mail usage.

Google faces 'Street View block'

Google's plans to launch a mapping tool in the UK could be referred to the Information Commissioner.

Street View matches photos of locations to maps, including passers-by who were captured as the photograph was taken.

Privacy International, a UK rights group, believes the technology breaks data protection laws.

"In our view they need a person's consent if they make use of a person's face for commercial ends,"

said Simon Davis of the group.

Street View has already been launched in the US and includes photos of streets in major American cities. Photographing of areas in the UK, including London, is believed to have started this week.

Some individuals in the US have complained about their images being used and Google has said it removed their presence on request.

The company has said it had begun to trial face blurring technology, using an algorithm that detects human faces in photographs.

But Privacy International says it has doubts about the technology.

It has written to the search giant and asked for technical information about the system.

If the group does not get the answer it seeks within seven days, Mr Davies said it would write to the Information Commissioner seeking a suspension of the service in the UK.

"We've spoken to Google in the past about this and received a snide response telling us to look more closely at their blogs.

"We've been told by engineers at Google that the technology is not ready to be deployed."

In the US it is legal to take photos of people on public streets. But Mr Davies believes that because Street View is being used for commercial ends anyone in the UK who appears in the photo needs to grant his or her consent.

Google has said it complies with all local laws.

In a letter to Jane Horvath, senior privacy counsel at Google, Mr Davies said that Google's track record on deploying technology designed to protect privacy was patchy.

He said: "I recall the promise made by Google to the FTC [Federal Trade Commission] during the Doubleclick acquisition that "crumbling cookies" would be developed.

"We have seen no evidence that this technology has been deployed. In response to concerns expressed at the time of our 2007 internet privacy rankings, Google also promised a "privacy dashboard" to help consumers understand the functionality of their user settings. This technology has not appeared."

Privacy International has also asked Google about "the steps, if any, that you have taken to consult the public over the use of their images for what is, in effect, a commercial purpose".

Mr Davies added:

"Google likes to think of itself as a global player. In reality it is acting like an irresponsible adolescent.

"It's time for the company to take responsibility for its actions and to do the right thing."

Apple Drops Price Of MacBook Air

Apple has quietly dropped the price of its fastest MacBook Air, the company's thinnest and lightest notebook, by $500.

The price reduction appears to be the result of a $100 drop in the price of the 1.8-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and a $400 reduction in the price of the 64-GB solid-state drive. The deluxe model is now priced at $2,598. The price of the base model with a 1.6-GHz processor remains unchanged at $1,799.

As early as last week, the faster notebook was priced at $3,098, according to a blurb found on Google's search cache. The item was uncovered by the Apple-enthusiast site MacRumors.com. The processor upgrade was cut to $200 from $300 and the solid-state drive to $599 from $999.

It's not unusual for computer makers to drop prices as component prices fall over time. Apple chief executive Steve Jobs unveiled the Air in January at the Macworld conference in San Francisco.

The size and weight of the Air, which has a 13.3-inch display and full-size keyboard, placed the machine in a class of its own. The notebook weights 3 pounds and is three-quarters of an inch thick at the hinge, tapering to 0.16 of an inch at the opposite side.

The thinness of the notebook was achieved in part by a miniaturized 65-nanometer Core 2 Duo processor that came from Intel's older Merom line. The processor is 60% smaller than the typical Merom chip and uses less power while delivering comparable speeds. The processor, however, is significantly slower than the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors used in other new notebooks. Performance is not necessarily an issue with Apple as it customizes its operating system to maximize performance out of any processor it uses.

Apple also was able to shave off inches from the MacBook Air by relying on a slimmer solid-state hard drive and eliminating its CD/DVD optical SuperDrive altogether.

Google Talk comes to the iPhone, iPod Touch

Google is making its Google Talk instant-messaging application available for Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch.

One of Google's software engineers posted the news in a blog on Wednesday.

"In addition to sending your friends Gmail messages from your iPhone, you can now chat with them while you're on the move, too!"

Adam Connors, of Google's mobile team said in the blog.

The application doesn't require any software to be installed or downloaded. Instead it works within the phone's browser, so users can simply go to the site www.google.com/talk, sign in, and start chatting.

Connors pointed out that there are a few differences when using Google Talk on the iPhone versus a computer. For one, to receive messages, the application needs to be open on the Safari phone browser. When users navigate away from the Google Talk window in the browser, their status is set to "unavailable."

That said Google has tried to keep the experience close to what users experience on their desktop or laptop computers. They can select contacts from a quicklist, search contacts, and manage conversations.

With half the world's population soon owning a cell phone, the opportunity to reach more people on the Web via a mobile device is huge. Google recognizes this as a big advertising opportunity. As a result, the company has launched several initiatives to make sure it gets a piece of the action.

It's already adapted its Web search, mapping service, and advertising tools to work on cell phones. And it even bid in a U.S. auction of wireless spectrum to help ensure rules requiring open access on those networks were achieved. The company has even gone so far as to develop its own mobile operating system, known as Android, to ensure that its applications and services are tightly integrated into mobile devices.

Now Use New & Improved Google Reader

Google Reader is indispensable for Google users who like to keep tabs on Web sites of their choice. To make things even easier for Reader users, Google has now simplified the way feeds are added.

Explaining the functioning of the new and improved Google Reader on its blog, Ionut Alex Chitu said that earlier, users needed to click on "Add subscription" and then either type either the address of the site or enter some keywords. After entering some keywords like [Google blog] or [new scientist], Google Reader would display a list of results mostly obtained using standard Web search.
Here, Google Reader would display the list of Web search results, in the process, filtering Web pages that didn't have feeds. The approach worked well in most cases, except for when search results included pages from Wikipedia or YouTube, sites with irrelevant feeds.

Now when a user enters a navigational query in the 'Add Subscription' box, Google Reader will directly subscribe to the top result. An example cited by Chitu is if you say type [new scientist], Google Reader will automatically subscribe you to New Scientist's feed, but that's not the case when you enter a more general query like say [scientist].

Google plans new Internet measurement tool

Google is expected to unveil a tool Tuesday that measures Internet use to help advertisers identify the best places to buy ads that will reach its target audience, according to a report Monday on the Wall Street Journal Web site.

The measurement tools, which will be offered to advertisers and their agencies for free, will compete with services offered by established leaders Nielsen and ComScore. While those services base their estimations on selective surveys or customer panels, Google's results would be based on data collected from Web servers, providing a deeper and broader picture of Internet behavior, the newspaper reported. By giving away the new tool, Google could attract more advertising business.

The news follows Google's announcement last week that Google Trends had unveiled a new service that lets users type in specific domains and compare basic traffic information about any .com site using nothing more than organic user searches. Included are daily traffic numbers in users (sent from Google search), where in the world the users are coming from, and related sites that were either searched for or visited in that same session.

After news of the planned service hit the Web, ComScore shares fell $1.69, or 6.1 percent, to $26 after-hours trading. Nielsen is a privately owned company.

Google's KML Format Approved As Open Standard

Google on Monday gave up control of its Keyhole Markup Language, or KML, in order that the file format used in Google Earth and Google Maps could become an international standard.

"Starting today, Google no longer controls KML,"

said Michael Weiss-Malik, KML product manager at Google, in a blog post.

"The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), an international standards body, has announced the completion of KML's standardization process. KML has become an OGC Standard, and the OGC will take responsibility for maintaining and extending it. This transfer of ownership is a strong reflection of Google's commitment to open standards. Fundamentally, our interest is not to control information, but rather to encourage its spread."

The OGC includes 345 companies, government agencies, and academic organizations from around the world with an interest in geographic data standards. In addition to Internet companies like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, the organization counts as members the likes of Boeing, NASA, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, to name a few.

KML was initially developed by Keyhole Inc., a geospatial visualization company that Google acquired in 2004. KML files define an XML schema for displaying and describing geographic data in two or three dimensions. Microsoft added KML support to its Virtual Earth geospatial application last October.

In a statement, Ron Lake, chairman and CEO of Galdos Systems, a geospatial infrastructure software and services company, said he was glad to see KML become an OGC standard.

"We believe that this is a major step forward for the OGC and for the entire geographic information community, as it provides the first broadly accepted standard for the visualization of geographic information,"

he said.

Standards battles can often be quite contentious, as has been Microsoft effort to get its OOXML specification accepted. KML, however, appears to have won approval without opposition, perhaps because Microsoft has already decided to use the file format.

Stefan Geens, who publishes the Ogle Earth blog, said in an e-mail message that Google's decision to give up KML for standardization signaled a transition from frenetic development to more careful, considered innovation, which will include input from other developers.

"As for the competitive edge over Microsoft -- that comes from having had the first-mover advantage,"

he said.

"It will take awhile before Microsoft's implementation of KML rendering catches up with Google on the more esoteric features, and until then people will regard Google Earth as a kind of reference/gold standard, which I'm sure suits Google fine."

Google says that there have been 350 million downloads of Google Earth. A Microsoft spokesperson wasn't immediately able to provide a figure for Virtual Earth. A comparison of the search terms "Google Earth" and "Virtual Earth" using Google shows 43,500,000 and 7,010,000 results, respectively. Using Windows Live Search, a "Google Earth" search finds 21,400,000 results, while a "Virtual Earth" search returns 4,290,000 results. Google Trends shows significantly more searches being done for "Google Earth" than "Virtual Earth."

Pentagon bans Google map-makers

The US defence department has banned the giant internet search engine Google from filming inside and making detailed studies of US military bases.

Close-up, ground-level imagery of US military sites posed a "potential threat" to security, it said.

The move follows the discovery of images of the Fort Sam Houston army base in Texas on Google Maps.

A Google spokesman said that where the US military had expressed concerns, images had been removed.

Google has now been barred from filming and conducting detailed studies of bases, following the discovery of detailed, three-dimensional panoramas online - and in particular, views of the Texan base.

"Images include 360-degree views of the covered area to include access control points, barriers, headquarters, facilities and community areas,"

said the defence department in a statement quoted by AFP news agency.

It said such detailed mapping could pose a threat.

Google spokesman Larry Yu said the decision by a Google team to enter the Texas base and undertake a detailed survey, had been "a mistake".

He told the BBC that it was "not our policy to request access to military installations, but in this instance the operator of the vehicle with the camera on top - which is how we go about capturing imagery for Street-View - requested permission to access a military installation, was given access, and after learning of the incident we quickly removed the imagery".

Individuals and governments

Military officials are currently looking into exactly what imagery is available - though it may not be able to order its removal if images are taken from public streets.

Among the popular mapping services offered by Google are Street View, which allows web users to "drive" along virtual US landscapes with ground-level views, and Google Earth, which offers detailed satellite and 3D images of locations around the world.

In this case, it was imagery offered on Street View that caused the concern.

But both have provoked complaints - from individuals depicted in the images and from governments concerned that satellite images could compromise security.

Gary Ross, a spokesman for the US Northern Command, told AFP that although such services could be useful, "there has to be a balance".

But Mr Yu said Google would listen to concerns about privacy and security.

"We try to have a compliant image removal policy - not only relative to the military but to consumers also,"

said Mr Yu.

"If people have concerns, they should contact us."

Google Unveiling Orkut Apps To The Public

After several months of testing, Google is planning on releasing the first batch of (hopefully) many Orkut apps to the public.

(Orkut Official Blog) Starting this month, we're enabling developers to make their social applications available to orkut users. We'll start ramping up to more than 50 million people over the next few weeks.

To prepare for this growth, we're now accepting social applications. For a while now, developers have been able to write, test, and play with applications on orkut. Later this month, however, we're going to start rolling them out to orkut users. OpenSocial developers can submit their completed applications (deadline: Feb. 15).

While Google is silent on the total number of apps being tested in the Orkut Sandbox, those with access can test (and check out) a variety of applications over at the OpenSocial Directory.

It will be interesting to see which applications make the cut, although I am hoping that the Orkut Facebook App is approved, not to mention the various chat programs (especially Google Talk, although the greasemoneky version looks better in my opinion).

Google's earnings miss raises worries

SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc.'s top executives say all is well at the Internet search leader despite a rare earnings disappointment, but investors are worried something is amiss.

Concerns about how the feeble U.S. economy might affect Google contributed to a nearly 20 percent decline in the company's stock during January.

Now, it looks like February will begin on a sour note. Google shares dropped by more than 6 percent from their Thursday closing price of $564.30 after the company released fourth-quarter results that missed analysts' expectations.

Precisely what caused the letdown is likely to be a matter of intense debate in the next few days.

"There is a lot to scratch my head over about in this (report),"

Jackson Securities analyst Brian Bolan said late Thursday.

"I might be up all night trying to figure it out."

Chief Executive Eric Schmidt rebuffed the notion that the economy undercut Google's growth.

"I am happy to say we have not seen a negative impact from the rumors of a future recession,"

Schmidt told analysts in a conference call.

Company co-founder Sergey Brin said in an interview that the company hasn't seen evidence of the recent economic turmoil affecting its business.

"I'm very happy with things,"

Brin said.

"I think things are going really well."

Google earned $1.21 billion, or $3.79 per share, during the final three months of 2007. That's a 17 percent improvement over net income of $1.03 billion, or $3.29 per share, in the same period a year earlier.

It's the first time Google's quarterly profit has climbed by less than 25 percent since the Mountain View-based company went public nearly 3 1/2 years ago.

If not for stock awards given to its employees, Google said it would have made $4.43 per share — a penny below the average estimate among analysts polled by Thomson Financial.

The earnings would have been even lower if Google hadn't benefited from an abnormally low tax rate of 25 percent in the quarter. American Technology Research analyst Rob Sanderson estimated Google would have earned 11 cents per share less if the company had been taxed at its more typical rate of 27 percent.

Fourth-quarter revenue totaled $4.83 billion, a 51 percent improvement over $3.21 billion in the previous year.

In a more important measure to investors, Google retained $3.39 billion in revenue after paying fees to the thousands of Web sites in the online advertising network that fuels its profits.

The net revenue missed analyst estimates by about $60 million.

Google executives said a revision in the company's formula for showing advertising links crimped the fourth-quarter results by reducing the number of revenue-generating clicks. Without providing details, the executives said Google made the change to decrease the frequency of "accidental" clicks on ads.

Total paid clicks in the fourth quarter rose 30 percent from the same period in 2006. In the first three quarters of 2007, Google's paid clicks were rising at a clip of 45 to 52 percent.

Brin and other executives also said Google didn't reap as much revenue as management envisioned from its advertising partnerships with rapidly growing online social networks like News Corp.'s MySpace.

Management didn't quantify the size of the shortfall, but Brin said engineers are addressing the problem.

Google has guaranteed News Corp. payments totaling $900 million during a three-year contract scheduled to end in 2010, so it can lose money if ads on MySpace aren't paying off.

Sanderson said Google's explanations made sense to him.

"I don't think much has changed at Google from yesterday to today. They are still in a sweet spot."

But Google's reassurances didn't seem to placate jittery investors worried that online advertising revenue may taper off as the United States — the world's biggest economy — teeters on the brink of recession.

Google shares rose $16.03 to finish regular trading at $564.30, then plunged $36.90 in extended trading after the fourth-quarter results came out.

Because Google generally only gets paid when Web surfers click on an advertising link, its growth could taper off if consumers become less inclined to click on ads as they curtail their spending.

But Google also could benefit if consumers become more focused on saving money during hard times, according to Jonathan Rosenberg, the company's senior vice president of product management and marketing.

In Thursday's conference call, Rosenberg painted a scenario in which more consumers will turn to the Internet in search of the best deals — a quest that will lead them to Google and perhaps induce more revenue-producing clicks on ads.

For all of 2007, Google earned $4.2 billion, or $13.29 per share, a 37 percent improvement over $3.08 billion, or $9.94 per share, in 2006. Revenue in 2007 totaled $16.59 billion, a 56 percent increase from $10.6 billion in 2006.

YouTube Sucking In More Viewers

"There are no competing destinations to YouTube if you are measuring by volume,"

said Mike Goodman, a Yankee Group analyst. All together, Americans viewed nearly 9.5 billion online videos in November, with 2.9 billion viewed at YouTube. Fox Interactive Media ranked second with 419 million videos viewed, followed by Yahoo with 328 million, and Viacom Digital with 304 million.

Step aside, boob tube. Online videos are becoming the primary form of media entertainment for many people. Web surfers spent about an hour more per month watching videos in November compared with January, according to the latest comScore Video Metrix.

Specifically, they watched an average of 3.25 hours, or 195 minutes, of online video during the month, representing a 29 percent gain from 2.52 hours, or 151 minutes, watched in January 2007.

The average online video runs about 2.8 minutes, giving the average viewer time to consume 69 of these productions.

Google sites captured the largest online video audience with 76.2 million unique viewers, followed by Fox Interactive Media with 46.3 million and Yahoo sites with 37.3 million.

YouTube Rules

Most of the viewers trekking to Google sites, of course, actually went straight to YouTube , a big tent destination that is home to everything from purloined TV shows to battle scenes shot in Iraq to customer service protests to political messages from candidates.

Thanks to its billion-dollar investment in YouTube, Google's share of the online video market is edging past 30 percent and still climbing. In November, its share had increased by 2 percentage points from October, according to the comScore statistics.

The YouTube fan base also appears to be more devoted to the Web site: comScore found that 74.5 million people viewed 2.9 billion videos on YouTube.com -- averaging 39 videos per viewer. This compares with 43.2 million people who viewed 389 million videos on MySpace -- an average of nine videos per viewer.

Rising Tide

"A rising tide lifts all boats,"

said Mike Goodman, an analyst with the Yankee Group, referring to Google's effect on the online video environment. Unlike search and many of the applications it has developed in house, Google bought its way into this particular industry niche, but has since managed to leverage its investment well.

"There are no competing destinations to YouTube if you are measuring by volume,"

Goodman said. He doesn't anticipate the site losing its appeal even as Google incorporates it into its various advertising initiatives.

All together, Americans viewed nearly 9.5 billion online videos in November, with 2.9 billion viewed at YouTube. Fox Interactive Media ranked second with 419 million videos viewed (4.4 percent), followed by Yahoo with 328 million (3.5 percent), and Viacom Digital with 304 million (2.6 percent).

Google Gets Into Philanthropy Game

Google Inc.'s philanthropic arm is making more than $26 million in new grants and investments in organizations and companies devoted to causes that the Internet search leader believes will help make the world a better place.

The financial commitments announced Thursday are the largest made by Google.org since the Mountain View-based company launched its altruistic effort with $90 million in funding in 2005.

Pasadena-based eSolar Inc., a startup specializing in solar thermal power, is getting the most money from Google.org so far - $10 million investment.

Google.org also is contributing toward fighting health and environmental threats, improving public services and supporting small businesses. The foundation also plans to back efforts to accelerate the use of plug-in hybrid vehicles, which can be recharged from a regular home socket.

The philanthropic arm evolved out of a commitment made by Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they took their company public in August 2004.

The men, now both 34, committed to creating a foundation that

"may eclipse Google itself in terms of overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world's problems."

Google has pledged to donate 1 percent of its prized stock and 1 percent of its steadily rising profits to Google.org. Those assets are currently worth about $2 billion.

Other foundations are much larger, but Google.org has attracted tremendous attention because of its connection to one of the world's most powerful companies as well as an unusual structure allowing it to operate as a corporate division rather than a separate nonprofit entity.

The hybrid approach lets Google.org make money off investments like the one it made in eSolar, as well as lobby politicians.

Startup aims for free Wi-Fi in Frisco

SAN FRANCISCO - A Silicon Valley startup is promising to blanket San Francisco with free wireless Internet service, reviving a crusade that crumbled last year after two much larger companies, EarthLink Inc. and Google Inc., scrapped their plans to build a high-speed network for Web surfing.

Meraki Networks Inc., whose financial backers include Google, hopes to complete the ambitious project within the next year by persuading thousands of San Francisco residents to set up free radio repeaters on their rooftops and in their homes. The 21-month-old company is to announce its plans Friday.

The system envisioned by EarthLink and Google would have required installing transmitters on street poles and other public property, a more expensive strategy that also involved more bureaucratic red tape and political haggling.

Since starting its tests about six months ago, Meraki has given away about 500 repeaters — enough to provide high-speed wireless, or Wi-Fi, access to about 40,000 people in San Francisco neighborhoods covering a roughly 2-square-mile area.

After raising an additional $20 million from venture capitalists, Meraki decided it had enough money to set up free Wi-Fi in San Francisco's remaining 47 square miles.

Meraki probably will have to give away 10,000 to 15,000 repeaters, estimated Sanjit Biswas, the Mountain View-based company's chief executive.

Finding that many volunteers willing to set up repeaters figures to be a daunting task even with in a city with a population of about 800,000, predicted Craig Settles, a business strategy consultant specializing in municipal wireless efforts.

"It's tedious work because you have to go from community to community and from door to door," he said. "If you don't have a real community commitment, the access isn't going to be as good as in neighborhoods that are really gung-ho about the idea."

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom plans to help Meraki

"publicize and grow the network without the bureaucracy and politics that challenged our last effort to bring free Wi-Fi to San Francisco,"

spokesman Nathan Ballard wrote in an e-mail. Newsom has been pushing for three years for citywide Wi-Fi.

Biswas thinks Meraki can build a Wi-Fi network in San Francisco for a few million dollars — a fraction of the estimated $14 million to $17 million it would have cost EarthLink to build and maintain its proposed system.

Atlanta-based EarthLink hoped to recover its costs by selling subscriptions to the fastest tier of Internet service. Google, the Internet's search leader, was going to try making money from the project by selling ads on a slower but free version of the service.

EarthLink abandoned Wi-Fi projects in San Francisco and other cities last summer after concluding the business model wouldn't pay off.

Meraki, which spun out from a doctoral project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is using San Francisco as a showcase to prove its communal approach to Wi-Fi can work. The startup then hopes to make money by selling its Wi-Fi technology in less-developed countries looking for inexpensive ways to provide access to the Internet.

A Setback for Google Patent Case

A federal appeals court handed Google Inc a setback in a patent fight on Wednesday, tossing out part of a summary judgment in the Web search engine's favor in a lawsuit filed by Hyperphrase Technologies, LLC.

Hyperphrase Technologies, LLC and Hyperphrase Inc had filed suit in Wisconsin saying that Google infringed on four patents used to make AutoLink and AdSense. The district court in Wisconsin tossed out the case, granting summary judgment in Google's favor.

But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said it partially upheld the summary judgment, partially vacated it and remanded the case.

The appeals court ruled that Google's immensely profitable AdSense did not infringe on Hyperphrase's patents. It handed down a split decision on AutoLink, agreeing that Google did not infringe, as claimed, on one of the Hyperphrase patents. But it vacated a summary judgment in Google's favor on two others and sent it back to the Wisconsin district court.

"The district court's grant of summary judgment is affirmed in part and vacated in part, and the case is remanded,"

the court wrote in its decision.

Michael Kwun, Google's managing counsel for litigation, said he was pleased with the portion of the ruling that dealt with AdSense.

"We're very pleased that the Federal Circuit agreed that AdSense does not infringe any of Hyperphrase's patents. We continue to believe the remaining claims in the lawsuit are without merit, and will vigorously defend against those claims,"

said Kwun.

The case is one of dozens that Google is fighting. Like many high tech firms, it regularly faces patent infringement lawsuits.