Today the world is moving from eBooks to interactive ebooks. But there are several users who aren't fully aware of the technical terms and functions of the browsers and Web. To aide such users, Google has released an interactive online guide illustrated by Christoph Niemann and put it up for public access at http://www.20thingsilearned.com. So if don't know what TCP/IP is or what a Cookie is, you now know where to go and look for an answer.

Web technologies used in everyday life while browsing the web are most of the time not visible directly to an average users. For them it's just a computing marvel. Google's Chrome Team has scripted to explain the complex concepts like Cloud Computing, IP Address and DNS, Web Apps, etc. in a simple manner. Built on HTML5, this online interactive book will certainly make you aware about the current day web browsers and what' s being used on the current generation of Web.

Even though you've been reading on and using the web quite profusely, there's no harm in checking out this nicely illustrated interactive book.

You may have noticed the new Google search interface, which features a new left-hand navigation (left sidebar) and a modified Google logo which looks pretty cool. The new side panel highlights the most relevant search tools and refinements for your query, making it easier to find exactly what you�re looking for.

Internet major Google has said it has received four content censorship requests this month from the Indian Premier League, the administrative body of the Twenty20 cricket tournament.

After being present in the mobile phone industry as just a software manufacturer, Google has finally decided to take the plunge and make its first very own mobile phone to compete with the likes of Nokia, Samsung, Apple and BlackBerry. Its weapon of choice? The Nexus One. Manufactured by HTC for Google, the Nexus One has, by far, one of the most impressive specifications list you can find in a smartphone. Or should I call it Superphone, as Google does.
The Nexus One comes armed with Qualcomm's finest 1GHz Snapdragon processor, a 3.7-inch, 800 x 480 pixel AMOLED display, a 5 megapixel camera, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, GPS and runs on the latest and greatest Android 2.1 operating system.

Orkut is still one of the biggest social networking sites in India and Brazil, and obviously will get more focus from Google, lest they lose out to Facebook, which they will in near future.

However, to keep up with the latest trends, the Orkut team has now released a Orkut app for Android devices. The new app adds some nice features, which tie in nicely into the Android OS.



For example, you can add your friends as live folders to your Android home screen and you will be able to browse the friends list even when you do not have access to data networks. In addition to that, users can also upload photos to Orkut albums and receive scrap notifications from their friends.

You will of course be able to send scraps to friends and others, add your friends to your contact list, or send them an email too.

The Orkut app is currently available in the Android Market, just go to the market and search for "orkut" and follow the instructions to install the app to your device. More information is available at the Official Orkut and Google Mobile blog.

The online video market continued to grow in December, as nearly 178 million U.S. Internet users watched 33.2 billion videos in the month a lone, said comScore last week. When broken down, the numbers mean that 86.5 percent of total U.S. Internet users watched online videos and averaged 187 videos per user. The average length video watched was 4.1 minutes, up from 3.5 minutes in a report from last March.

Google sites account for 13.2 billion videos, or almost 40 percent of the total. More than 134 million people watched more than 13 billion YouTube videos, averaging 97.1 videos per user.

Hulu had a record-breaking month.

"Hulu ranked second with more than 1 billion videos viewed, an all-time high for the property, and representing 3.0 percent market share," said Andrew Lipsman, in the report. The site saw 44.1 million unique visitors in December; each spent an average of 2.2 hours watching 22.9 videos.

Although Hulu came in second for total videos viewed, the site came in sixth place for most unique visitors. Not surprisingly, Google topped the list and was followed by Yahoo, Fox Interactive Media, CBS Interactive and Microsoft sites.

One of the key core competencies of a publication is the process of selecting �all the news thats fit to print�.

No one can read every news story. Instead of even trying to consume everything, we all have a process we go through for discovery of news, information and topics of interest to us. We have sources we trust for our news and information. It may be a printed paper or magazine, a website, tv news, facebook or twitter updates, or some combination of everything we have access to.

No matter how we get information there is one certainty, there is a finite number of sources we will use.

When someone selects google news as their destination for news discovery it is probably at the expense of another destination or product who aspires to be a �discovery destination�. But lets pretend it is just an incremental source. That for a while at least a consumer will both go to Google News and to the website of their local paper. What is the branding message the consumer is receiving ?

When that newspaper allows itself to be included in Google News it becomes a de facto endorsement of Google News as an acceptable and probably preferable �discovery destination� . The branding message to the consumer is �I dont need to go to the newspaper homepage. Everything the newspaper has is referenced here in Google News. So if there is something of interest to me from the local paper, Google News will send me to their site. I don�t need to go to both sites any longer. I can just go to Google News.

Thats not good for the publication brand and business. They just lost their position as a trusted source where real people make decisions on what content they think their readers will want to discover � to an algorithm.

But wait it gets worse.

When that consumer goes to Google News, it lists the number of sources. You immediately become one of 2,172 articles. It is never good for a brand to be considered one of 2,000 plus sources. Ever. That makes you a commodity. All that promotion you did saying how good your reporters are ? On its way to becoming worthless. To the consumer there are 2,000 other people able to do the same thing (even though there really arent 2k sources, thats not what the branding message they get from Google)

And the bad news will keep on coming.

As a newspaper or other information source, you can never discount the very real possibility that Google starts becoming a content creator. Why couldn�t they hire reporters ? Why couldn�t they give their content priority over all others ? More importantly, why wouldn�t they ?

Never happen you say ? See AOL. See Yahoo. Both are now creating original content in huge quantities. I promise you, someday there will be a bunch of Googlers sitting in a meeting discussing how they can generate enough revenue and profits to increase earnings per share by a penny. You can bet someone will pull up a spreadsheet showing the increase in CPMs for original content with the trusted Google News brand on it. It will show that by simply hiring a bunch of reporters to create news, with Google�s traffic and the higher CPMs of original content, we can make a lot of money for our shareholders. You are in denial if you think this will never happen.

It was smart to ride the Google wave of traffic when you were able to sell it all. Things change. Now you can�t sell all your organic traffic, let alone the traffic you get from Google. Now the value equation has shifted. You are endorsing Google News as a discovery destination making their brand stronger by the day. Google News� brand value will increase fast enough on its own. There is no sane reason to allow them to co-opt your brand and use it to accelerate the growth of a business, Google News that will very likely be your biggest online competitor

Update: I want to put a qualifier here because some people think this applies to any or all media companies. It doesn�t. This is meant for media companies that have established brands and brand equity. If you are a startup, you should use Google for everything its worth. It can be very valuable. If you are trying to create or establish a brand, you should use Google.Google News. If you have no revenue, you should probably rethink your choice of professions and /or business, but Google traffic can only help.

For you, every visitor is a good thing and an opportunity to convert that user and build your brand image.

On the flipside if your company name is one of multiple choices that comes to people�s mind when they need the type of information/news/info you provide, then you need to think through just what impact Google.GoogleNews has on your business today and in the future.

Fresh off the unveiling of Apple�s iPad, we have a whole new batch of tablet rumors�this time regarding a Google Chrome-based tablet device. The Chromium Project, the core behind the development of the Chrome operating system, has released a number of mockups and early concepts regarding what a Chrome-based tablet PC might be.

Next to Apple, Google is arguably the most-qualified to launch a tablet device capable of being a game changer. One thing that Apple and Google have in common is that they tend to think outside of the mainstream and are capable of creating paradigm-shifting innovation.

After all of the hype, rumors, and speculation, the Apple iPad is really more of a giant iPod touch than a full computer. While some tablets, like the HP Slate unveiled by Steve Ballmer at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), operate on Windows 7 or some other desktop operating system, the iPad runs the iPhone mobile operating system rather than Apple�s Mac OS X.

An �iPhone on steroids�, as many have dubbed it, may not seem very compelling, but the reality is that the iPad looks to be a very capable device for what it�s designed to do. The fact that it runs the vast library of apps available in the iTunes App Store gives users tens of thousands of free and cheap programs to choose from, and developers will soon create new apps uniquely suited for the iPad form factor.

Based on the early conceptual ideas regarding the Chrome tablet, Google may be taking a completely different, yet equally innovative, approach to the tablet PC. Whereas the Apple iPad revolves around apps�similar to the popular iPhone and iPod touch devices, the Chrome tablet takes a Web-based doc, or file-centric approach.

The very concept of the Chrome OS revolves around creating a Web-centric operating system that sheds all of the excess weight and frivolous features of standard desktop operating system, and provides a streamlined Web browser interface that enables users to interact with Web-based services like Google Docs, Gmail, Picassa, etc.

The tablet C page on the Chromium site has a variety of mock photos depicting what a Chrome-based tablet might look like. It also lists some of the design elements currently under consideration:
Keyboard interaction with the screen: anchored, split, attached to focus.
Launchers as an overlay, providing touch or search as means to access web sites.
Contextual actions triggered via dwell.
Zooming UI for multiple tabs
Tabs presented along the side of the screen
Creating multiple browsers on screen using a launcher

Aesthetics and user interface aside, a Chrome OS tablet may make a better business tool than the Apple iPad for a few reasons. First, many businesses have existing Web-based tools and applications. A tablet that works seamlessly with the Web would be a more natural extension of existing business tools than a tablet PC centered around iPhone apps.

The nature of Google Docs, Gmail, Google Wave, and other tools from Google allow for seamless synchronization between the tablet, the desktop, the mobile phone, and any other platform because the tools and the data reside online.

The fact that the applications and data are Web-based also makes it easier to share data with other users and collaborate�in real-time, or not�with peers, partners, or customers.

Finally, the Chrome operating system is open-source which enables businesses to freely customize it to fit their needs, or develop tools for it that integrate with other systems and improve business processes. Further, they can deploy those tools without having to get approval from Google, and without having to make them available to the general public in the app store.

Don�t get me wrong, the iPad actually has way more business potential than many give it credit for. Once it arrives, I have faith that new tools will continue to be developed to enhance its business functionality even farther. And, let�s face it, the iPad has been officially announced and will be available soon while the Chrome tablet is pure speculation, so the iPad wins in that department as well.

Whether or not the Chrome tablet ends up being a better business tool than the iPad will remain to be seen, if and when a Chrome-based tablet actually exists.