Week Ahead: Intel Nehalem EX vs. RISC, SF New Tech, Google I/O

May 26, 2009


Inspite the shorter week because of the Memorial Day long weekend, this week still end up being incredibly busy. Here are some of the events our team of reporters will be following:

  • Tuesday: Intel is having a “deep dive” briefing on it’s Nehalem EX server chip for the very high-end server market. We’ll stay in San Francisco for the SF New Tech event featuring Belgian startups.
  • Wednesday: Again in San Francisco for Google’s developer conference (I/O). We have signed up for the enterprise and Android media roundtables on Wednesday, but expect more coverage on other Google “properties” like Gmail and the Chrome web browser on Thursday. We’ll also attend Alioscopy 42” HD LCD display with autostereoscopic 3D demonstration event at Autodesk’s new Gallery of Design at One Market “Landmark Building.”
  • Thursday: Still at Google I/O and we’ll also follow what’s happening at the Wall Street Journal’s D conference where a lot of the leaders in tech (except perhaps for Arianna Huffington:) will be speaking since Wednesday.
  • Friday: We’ll try to catch up with serial entrepreneur Philippe Kahn (now involved in anything using sensors) at the University of California Santa Cruz where he’ll be giving a talk on innovation.

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GMail Gets Automated Translation Option; 41 Languages Supported

May 19, 2009
Gmails translation feature will let people converse in their own language

Gmail's translation feature will let people from around the world converse in their own language

I have mixed feelings on the usefulness of Gmail’s new translation feature launched today: would I do business or have a relationship with someone I can not communicate with?

Personally I won’t. And I know I will receive a lot of flak because of what I just said.

Yes, I’m cutting myself off from probably most of humanity that don’t either speak English, French or Spanish or a mix of all three i.e. Italian, German (French is the most Germanic of the all the romance languages)…

Should I care? For my line of work (tracking innovation in Silicon Valley), not really. For my personal enrichment, sure!

Anyway, Google’s automatic message translation feature – which is an extension of Google Translate service – would definitely come in handy for people learning a language (although I’m not sure you can see the translated email before sending it), or absolutely needing to do business in a foreign language or just for fun or in my case, when family members just don’t speak the same language but still want to communicate which each other (yes, I admit, it happens!).

Here’s how it works (from Google):

Simply enable “Message Translation” from the Labs tab under Settings, and when you receive an email in a language other than your own, Gmail will help you translate it into a language you can understand. In one click.

If all parties are using Gmail, you can have entire conversations in multiple languages with each participant reading the messages in whatever language is most comfortable for them.

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Hit “Reply All” By Accident? Gmail Now Has Undo Send

March 20, 2009

undo_send

I can not count the times I had this immediate sense of panic when an email went out too early; because of a typo, the wrong recipent or worse, a “reply to all” instead of a simple “reply.”

However, I know I’m not the only one!

According to a recent survey, 87 percent of executives reported they have mistakenly sent or received an email or other electronic message. Plus all the emails that I’m not supposed to receive; and no, these are not spams!

Google’s Undo Send is no Recall

Anyway, Google is trying to help us all by rolling out an experimental feature in Gmail Labs called “Undo Send.”

This new feature gives you a five-second window to make sure the email goes out the way you wanted it to. Just hit “Undo”and your message will return to draft form, allowing you to correct typos, add in forgotten info, or set the right distribution list.

However, this is not to be confused with recalling an email. “Undo Send” holds – just holds – back your message for the brief moment when you’re most likely to notice a mistake.

But wait, there’s more. The Gmail Labs team has more of these “rapid-fire experimental rollouts,” including a “Preview” feature for YouTube, Picasa and Flickr photos and videos attached to an email. Full details on “Preview” here and “Undo Send” here.

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Yahoo Mail Is The Largest Yahoo Property With One Third Of All Visits

March 5, 2009

When you think of Yahoo’s most popular properties, you might think of the omnipresent front page or Yahoo News, or even its search engine.

You would be wrong. Yahoo Mail leads the pack with a third of the site’s traffic followed at a bit of a distance by the front page and then search.

This data comes from Hitwise, which examined February traffic to the site and identified the top 10 properties.

What it found is Mail is a huge draw. Yahoo runs the Internet’s top Web-based mail service with 56.5 percent market share. Microsoft’s Windows Live Mail is second with 19.1 percent and Google’s Gmail comes in third with 10.8 percent share.

And it is growing. Yahoo Mail saw a 3 percent traffic increase in February while visits to Windows Live Mail were down 25 percent. Watch out for the dark horse, though. Gmail’s visits were up 88 percent.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Google Says Worldwide Gmail Outage Blocked Accounts

February 24, 2009

Search giant Google said Tuesday that a technical problem prevented worldwide users of Gmail and Google Apps from accessing their accounts early Tuesday morning.

Outage lasted for 2.5 hours

Outage lasted for 2.5 hours

The company said the outage began at 1:30 am Pacific Time (9:30 am GMT) and lasted about 2.5 hours. The problem is now resolved and service restored, Google said an hour ago on a blog post.

It did not describe the nature of the problem.

“Lots of people around the world who rely on Gmail were disrupted during their waking and working hours, and we’re very sorry,” said Gmail Site Reliability Manager Acacio Cruz.

Cruz said Google woke up to the problem when monitoring systems alerted technicians that Gmail consumer and business accounts could not get access to their e-mail.

It had earlier this morning published updates to users saying it was working to correct the failing. It noted that some users may be asked to complete CAPTCHA security measures before logging into their accounts.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Google Unveils YouTube Desktop Gadget: With The Outpouring Of Google Apps, Who Needs A Bulky Desktop OS?

December 11, 2008

No need to open the browser anymore: YouTube is on the desktop.

Google announced Thursday the launch of a YouTube gadget for Windows and Linux (not Mac). The desktop window plays videos and lists the most popular videos of the day.

The announcement follows by days the release of a similar gadget for Gmail, Google’s free e-mail program – another in the parade of thousands of gadgets Google and outside developers have made available for use on the Google homepage or a PC desktop.

The YouTube gadget highlighted by the company Thursday works inside Google’s Desktop search software for indexing and sorting through the contents of a PC. This also is true of the Gmail gadget.

With all the desktop pop-ups now available alongside Google’s online calendar and documents, who needs the bulky operating-system environment of Microsoft’s Windows or Apple’s Mac OS X? When asked, Google just rolls its eyes.

Googles new YouTube desktop gadget

Google's new YouTube desktop gadget

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Peek To Add SMS To $80 Mobile E-Mail Device; Expands To India

November 19, 2008

Peek is a cheap wireless e-mail device for non-core techies!

Peek is a cheap wireless e-mail device for non-core techies!

Peek co-founder Rob Gray was presenting this week at the Dow Jones Technology Showcase conference.

From the outside, the Oakland, Calif., startup’s mobile device looks like a very thin Blackberry.

And like its larger cousin, Peek can wirelessly send and receive unlimited e-mails from Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo or AOL (up to 3 though) on the nationwide T-Mobile network. But the similarities stop there.

First, because the Peek device – which got recommended by Oprah – only costs $80 at Target and unlike the Blackberry or the $50 Palm Centro doesn’t require a lengthy subscription (usually 1 or 2 years) to a wireless carrier or a social security number.

However, it costs $20 a month to start using the Peek. $10 more that I would have liked, especially for a device that is limited to email (no voice). “We’re working on adding SMS shortly,” confided Gray.

Peek which is running on an ARM processor, will soon be available overseas, first in India, where Gray sees a huge market for a cheap wireless email device.

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Google Becomes Skype: Video Chat To Come To Gmail

November 11, 2008
Video conferencing inside Gmail

Video conferencing inside Gmail

Google said Tuesday it will roll out a video chat feature inside Gmail in the next couple days that will bring it face to face with eBay’s popular Skype Internet calling service.

The Internet search giant said in a blog entry that as Webcams have become more widely installed on PCs video conversations are the obvious next step for e-mail service Gmail. The integrated voice and video service will be free, though it will require downloading a browser plug-in.

A new “Video & more” menu will appear in Gmail and let people hold video conferences with one another in a small window and enlarge the window to the full screen. Employees of the company in the U.S. and Sweden have been testing the system.

The company said the service will be available for PCs and Macs and will be available in the “next day or so.” It did not say whether “Video & more” would remain in beta.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Google In The Cloud: Company Boasts Of 99.9 Percent Uptime For Gmail

October 30, 2008
Gmail boasts 99.9% uptime

Gmail boasts 99.9% uptime

“We measure every server request for every user, every moment of every day,” Google said on a blog entry today.

And while the reliability of cloud computing has been a hot topic lately, the glitches haven’t been found in the Google cloud’s, at least when it comes to Gmail for consumers and businesses.

The Internet search titan said Gmail has been available 99.9 percent of the time to users. That includes the outage that occurred in August of this year.

“If you average all these data together, including the August outage, across the entire Gmail service, there has been an aggregate 10-15 minutes of downtime per month over the last year of providing the service,” the company said. “That 10-15 minutes per month average represents small delays of a couple of seconds here and there.”

For the small number of people who have experienced disruptions of a few minutes to a few hours, “we are very sorry,” the blog entry said.

The company went on to announced a 99.9 percent service level agreement offering for “premier edition” customers of Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sites and Google Talk.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Google Upgrades Gmail Mobile App For Blackberry and Nokia Phones

October 23, 2008
Gmail for mobile inbox

Gmail for mobile inbox

Gmail for mobile 2.0 works out kinks in the original software – adding speed and reliability in low-signal areas, Google says.

It allows access to multiple Gmail or Google Appls email accounts from the same application, a feature the first version didn’t have.

“You should experience significant raw speed improvement, smoother scrolling and no freezing,” according to a blog entry on the company’s site.

And users can work on e-mail offline.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

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