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Google’s Other Social Network Mimics Facebook

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Although fairly unknown within the US and Europe, Google’s other social network orkut is just as popular in India as Facebook is within America.

Over the Christmas holidays the orkut team rolled out a minor update to the social network which should help them compete against Facebook (who has gained tremendous popularity upon the Asian sub continent).

Have you ever wanted to comment when your orkut homepage shows that a friend you haven’t seen in a while just got married? Or maybe when someone you know just got to a new phase in a game you really like as well?

So have we! And we’re now happy to tell you that now you can comment on virtually any update coming from your friends on orkut, such as when a friend joins a new community or changes his relationship status[.] (Official orkut Blog)

Truth be told this update should have been rolled out from the very beginning (note: I was a huge orkut fan way back in the day), although might help the social network retain its prominence within India whose enormous market share dwarfs places like America.

Despite failing to gain popularity in the US, orkut is probably Google’s best shot at thwarting Facebook’s rise globally (at least in the east), and hopefully the search engine giant continues to pour resources into orkut instead of axing it like Google Wave.

Originally posted on December 27, 2010 @ 4:10 pm

Windows Phone 7 Gaining Momentum?

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After many weeks of speculation, Microsoft has finally revealed the sale numbers of their Windows Phone 7 smartphone which has been heavily promoted by carriers online as well as off.

They also were able to confirm how much developers are in love with Windows Phone 7 as one can tell by the size of their app marketplace.

What we see as well is that people like the new design and the different approach that we’ve taken. On the developer side, our tools are really good and leverage the skills they already have. Developers are validating that the tools make it easy to make great apps and games quickly – we have more than 4,000 apps in our marketplace. With more pouring in daily, this is an enviable pace for any new platform. […]

Another is phone manufacturer sales – phones being bought and stocked by mobile operators and retailers on their way to customers. We are pleased that phone manufacturers sold over 1.5 million phones in the first six weeks, which helps build customer momentum and retail presence. (Microsoft News Center)

Note: Emphasis mine.

Windows Phone 7’s app store numbers are impressive, especially considering the fact that they are competing for the attention of developers, most who have limited time and resources to dedicate towards mobile platforms.

Although Microsoft still has a long ways to go before they will catch up to iOS and Android, they should easily surpass Blackberry by next year (which isn’t good news for RIM).

As far as their sale numbers go, I have to agree with RWW that sales to manufacturers do not equal consumer sales, which means that this figure at best is a little misleading.

A far better measurment would be activations, which both Google and Apple are using to determine adoption rate for Android as well as iOS devices, respectively.

Activation amounts aside, the fact that Microsoft has actually convinced carriers to buy over a million Windows Phone 7 devices is impressive nonetheless.

Originally posted on December 21, 2010 @ 1:24 pm

Google Chrome Is Now Better, Safer, Stronger (Flash)

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After dethroning Safari earlier this year, Google has been steadily stealing market share away from its rivals by building a browser that is not only fast and stable, but extremely secure as well.

Now it looks like the search engine giant is going the extra distance by ensuring that your privacy information within Chrome is not only protected from malicious flash sites, but also your computer as well.

As one of the engineers working on Chrome’s sandbox, I’m happy to announce that we’re bringing Chrome’s existing sandboxing technology for web pages to the Flash Player plug-in in Chrome for Windows. The sandbox adds an additional layer of protection to further guard against malicious pages that try to hijack your computer or steal private information from your hard drive. Based on this groundwork in the beta, we’ll be bringing the sandboxed Flash Player to Chrome for Mac and Linux in future releases as well. (Google Chrome Blog)

Google also included a few extra features like Google Instant within the omnibox (which doubles as a url box and search box) as well as support for WebGL as a bonus (a key ingredient for specific 3D hardware acceleration technology that will probably benefit Chrome OS netbooks).

These additional security features may help Google to convince even more users to switch away from their current browsers, as well as make it harder for Internet Explorer to curb the defections.

Originally posted on December 16, 2010 @ 1:00 pm

Wikileaks Documents Now 100% Accessible

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Despite all the controversy surrounding Wikileaks, the whistle blowing organization has only released a fraction of the files available to them to the public, creating an on going nightmare for the US State department who thus far has been unable to shut down the site.

Unfortunately for the US government, it looks like a Norwegian newspaper has secured access to all 250,000 cables minus the encryption, which means that world may soon hear more embarrassing secrets contained in the documents.

In cooperation with Svenska Dagbladet, Aftenposten has so far had access to about 2000 documents, which until now has been the background for the issues Aftenposten published. Ole Erik Almlid, news editor of Aftenposten, says it has worked a long time to access the documents to the newspaper.

– We have worked long to get the documents, but it would be wrong of me to tell who is the source. We have not paid for the material, which we have gained access to no conditions. It is we who decide what to publish and how we should handle it, “he said. (Aftenposten)

While other news organizations have received access to the files, most of those were encrypted, giving Wikileaks control over the speed (and sometimes type) of information leaked to the public.

Despite their eyes being able to view all of the cables unrestricted, the news organization is promising to not release information that can endanger individuals lives or expose private information about specific individuals.

They will however report on news deemed interesting to the public, which could spell more embarrassment for the US State Department.

(Hat Tip: RWW)

Originally posted on December 22, 2010 @ 8:48 pm