Just days after we posted news about Google’s acquisitions that position it to make a large impact on HTML 5 video development, suspicion is floating around the tech world that Microsoft is planning a big announcement for Internet Explorer 9, the next installment of their declining browser.

If Microsoft intends to keep their commanding share of the browser market, they will need to continue to adapt to web standards. At their MIX 2010 developer conference in Las Vegas, experts predict that Microsoft will unveil a new IE version that takes into account HTML 5 elements, including support for vector graphics like SVG.

Even with IE 8, the current version, Internet Explorer is still far behind competitors like Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Opera. If ever there were a time for Microsoft to make a game-changing play, that time is now.

Source: Webmonkey

Continue reading: Microsoft may soon step up its HTML 5 game

Topeka, a city of 120,000 in America’s Midwest, has changed its official name to Google, Kansas. Before you update your maps, however, take note. The new name is only temporary and will revert back at the end of March.

Topeka made the change in hopes of boosting its chances to become a test site for Google’s “Fiber for Communities” program. The Mountain View company is currently looking for a guinea pig to test a fiber optic Internet service capable of speeds up to 1 gbit per second.

Google hopes to provide service to 50,000 and 500,000 people as part of the trial, making Topeka a perfect match. If the Kansas city isn’t picked, at least it won’t be stuck with the new name.

Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: American city changes name to Google, Kansas

Website owners should always be concerned about the latest news and developments with the web browser wars and Web standards. Decisions made by these third parties can directly affect how your website is presented to your viewers and whether you need to make adjustments.

Our original post centered around Apple and Google’s unwillingness to adopt the open Theora format, citing its inferior performance quality to the proprietary and patent-laced H.264. This is still the case with both Apple and Google producing browsers that support the video tag from HTML 5 but do not support Theora. Youtube has added support for it, but it does not work in Mozilla Firefox, which, as an open source browser, cannot distribute H.264 technology.

It seems dismal, and Microsoft has still added little to the discussion, although they have at least joined it. All of this, however, might be about to take an unusual turn for the better. The Theora format was created by On2 Technologies and then released as open source later. On 17th of February, their stockholders approved a merger with Google and possibly future development on open video formats. This could be good for all parties in the end.

Source: On2 Technologies

Continue reading: The HTML 5 video debate revisted

A recent study conducted by researchers at Harvard reveals that Google may be earning as much as $500 million a year from typosquatting. How could this be so?

Recall that typosquatting is the registration of misspelled domaina to siphon traffic from more popular websites. The study tracked the 3264 most popular websites and found that each one had an average of 280 typosquatting domains.

While Google itself doesn’t own any of these names, the registrants often display Google AdSense advertisements on the typo-names. The researchers behind the study suggest that as many as 60% of these rogue sites display the Mountain View company’s ads, so Google is indirectly benefiting from trademark infringement.

Continue reading: Google may be benefiting from typosquatting

These days, it seems like Google runs everything. From Google Desktop to Google Search to Google WiFi in some areas, the company is in a position to collect all sorts of data about its users. The fears of privacy advocates will not be put to rest any time soon, however. In a keynote address to the Mobile World Congress today, Google CEO Eric Schmidt stated bluntly:
…[W]e can literally know everything if we want to. What people are doing, what people care about, information that’s monitored, we can literally know it if we want to, and if people want us to know it.

Fortunately, Google isn’t in the habit yet of collecting and analyzing all our personal data. But in my opinion, we should be wary.

Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: Google CEO: "[W]e can literally know everything if we want to"

The Problem: You have a frequently visited website and use Google Analytics to gather important statistical information about your users. Unfortunately, every time a user accesses your main page, it takes longer load whenever they have to download the urchin.js file that Google’s server sends.

The essentially technical problem is that the user not only has to connect to your server to download your content but also has to contact Google’s server to download urchin.js. This takes more time and increases your page load time.

The Solution:Host urchin.js locally on your server. That way, the user never has to connect to Google’s server for anything. The only issue to resolve is what to do when Google updates their urchin.js. Fortunately, a thoughtful user has created a script, complete with instructions, that will periodically get the new urchin.js file from Google. Now you will have a faster site and still know whether or not people are actually visiting it.

Photo: Flickr

Continue reading: Speed up Google Analytics on your server

Yesterday, Google proposed several changes it would like to see made to the DNS system. Chief among them is an adjustment to the protocol that would give authoritative DNS servers the ability to see your IP address. Currently, these name servers can only see the address of your ISP.

The change would allow websites go better tailor content to their users by knowing their approximate location. A person living in Los Angeles, for instance, might be able to visit Google News and instantly get news related to the city without ever configuring his location on the site.

To ease privacy concerns, Google has suggested that as little of the IP address be shown to the DNS server as possible. In layman’s terms, the site might see only the name of your neighborhood or town instead of your home address.

Source | ArsTechnica

Continue reading: Google proposes changes to DNS system

A site map is a single document that links to all other documents within a website. Essentially, it provides an overview of all of the site’s content. Over the years, as website sizes have increased, sitemaps have become instrument in search engine optimization (SEO). Google introduced a tool called Google Sitemaps that allows Web content providers to publish their sitemaps. Other search engines now also support these sitemaps.

The standard format for a sitemap is XML, which lists the data in a format both browsers and other software can interpret. It is also common to provide an HTML version and possibly even a visual representation for human users who actually want to browse the sitemap. Many times it is useful to users if they have trouble finding something on a site or are not even sure what they want to find.

There are many sitemap generators on the market that automate their creation. Some content management systems also have user-created extensions or plugins for sitemap generators. Furthermore, there are some free sitemap generators on the web, such as XML-Sitemaps.com. These typically also include submission instructions so that you can make your sitemap available through Google.

Photo: Wikipedia

Continue reading: Create an XML sitemap for your website

In yet another domain dispute victory for Google, the WIPO has ruled against a cybersquatter and in favour of theMountain View company in a case involving the domain googlenetbiz.com.

As is generally the norm, Google contended that the domain violated its trademark and that it was being used in bad faith. The registrant, an Indian national by the name of Racha Ravinder, might have been able to put up some form of defense. He put the nail in the coffin with his response to the complaint, however, stating, “I will sell my domain googlenetbiz.com for USD 50,000 only, do you buy it.”

By submitting this statement, Ravinder unknowing committed cybersquatting. If the WIPO didn’t have a reason to hand the name over before his response, it did after.

Source | Express India
Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: WIPO rules against cybersquatter

Google recently won a complaint it filed with the National Arbitration Forum over the domain googlemapsrealestate.com. The search giant claims the owner was using the name to operate a Google Maps knock-off and that it violates Google trademarks.

The domain hasn’t be transferred yet and the site is still live. It is an imitation of the recently launched real estate feature on Google Maps. It shows property available in Australia, all the while attempting to look at exactly like Google.

I honestly don’t see why the domain owners in these disputes go so far to irk corporate lawyers when they could invest their time elsewhere and stay out of legal trouble. I doubt the Google Maps knock-off got that much traffic, either.

Continue reading: Google wins domain dispute

Webmasters, take note! Google is now in the process of launching Caffeine, a new search algorithm that will introduce some big adjustments. Among them is a new ranking feature that will change which sites get the top ranking.

Google will now put a great deal more emphasis on how often your site is updated, how fast it loads, how much time visitors spend on your site, and more. The new algorithm will also display fewer search results, but work at twice the speed as its predecessor.

What does this mean for webmasters? Once the new update is completely launched, you may very well see a change in your site’s Google ranking, for the good or for the bad. The new search is more keyword-relevant and gives preference to new content. This will no doubt benefit bloggers and hurt owners of static HTML sites.

Photo | flaivoloka

Continue reading: Google Caffeine

Google has lost a complaint it filed with the National Arbitration Forum requesting ownership of Groovle.com. The Mountain View company argued the domain was confusingly similar to “Google,” but the three-person panel thought otherwise. Out of 65 cases filed with the forum, this is only one out of two the company has ever lost.

Groovle.com is owned by Canadian entrepreneurs Jacob Fuller and Ryan Fitzgibbon. The site offers a customized version of Google search where users can upload a photo to use as their start page. “We thought it would be a cool feature to have a nice photo of friends, family etc., every time you launch your web browser, instead of the very plain Google.com and Yahoo.com page,” Fitzgibbon said.

Source | PRNewswire

Continue reading: Google loses dispute over Groovle.com