Google Video: Copyright Violation?

It seems that some people uploaded DVD rips and other illegal ripped copyrighted movies/tv-shows to Google Video. And whats even worse... Google published them! Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Family Guy, Daily Show, Matrix Reloaded, Matrix Revolution, Phantom of the Opera, Scarface, and many more can be found.

It turned out that everyone in U.S. can play them (Google Video Player required) in fullscreen (double-click on video) from start to the end (click on play whole video). Natually, the quality of the videos are poor, especially in fullscreen. But still good enough to be viewed by everyone without paying for it.

Google will have to react fast and soon before it get widespread and cause damage to Google's reputation.

Google Earth is Now FREE

Thats right. Free version of Google Earth is out now. Google Earth is based on Keyhole software made by Keyhole Inc., which recently brought by Google Inc. Google Earth is a world imagery software that "combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to put the world’s geographic information at your fingertips." It connect to remote servers across the Internet and download the imagery, maps, and information to the software which put them together in visual context.

I tried it out myself and I love it. It is as good as Keyhole software but with more features like 3D buildings. Definitely worth a 10 MB download.

Internet Explorer 7 Screenshots

As some of you know, the next version of Internet Explorer, IE 7, is still under development. Microsoft revealed the IE 7 at Gnomedex and someone got pictures of IE 7 in action.

Not bad look for IE, but clearly it has long way to go.

Google Maps Hack

I am a huge Google fan, and one of my favorite feature offered by Google is the Google Maps. It is still in beta stage but it already has huge impacts on the internet.

Because of Google Maps's XML nature, it is incredibly flexable. You can get the information from Google Maps and modify it in any way you want it. Many sites already started taking advantage of easily modifiable mapping information. Those type of sites are called Google Maps Hack because they "hacked" the Google Maps to get what they need.

Here is the list of all Google Maps Hacks that I know of so far:

• Geobloggers: Where Flickr meets Google Maps.


• Google-Yahoo Traffic-Weather Maps: Traffic and weather reports on the map.


• HousingMaps: Show houses/apts for sale or rent on the map.


• Movies Showtimes: Show movies showtimes on the map.


• Cheap Gas: Show where the cheapest gas are.


• 4ppl.com: Show where members of 4ppl are.


• gCensus: Show United States's Census information on the map


• Foundcity: Show your pictues and text messages on the map.

There was one more that I know of, but GMerge was taken down dues its illegal use of copyrighted satellite images. GMerge created wallpapers out of satellite images of any location you desire. It was a very good hack, but too bad it is short-lived.

If you already found more that are not on the list, please let us know by commenting here.

There is also a collection of GreaseMonkey scripts for Google Maps as well. (Scroll down to Google Maps)

Google Maps is just a baby, and yet it make profound impacts on the internet in terms of information sharing and usability. This is just a beginning for Google Maps, and I strongly believe it has a great future and will never cease to amaze us.

GooglePal

Seem that Google might be offering an online payment service like Ebay's PayPal.

From Google Blogoscoped:

Gary Price of Search Engine Watch quotes a Wall Street Journal article, saying Google has plans to offer PayPal-like services in the future. Some believe the code name for the project is “Google Wallet.”

I am a paypal user and a google fan. I would love to see Google do something like that.

Google Wallet? The name could be better... Maybe GooglePal or PayGoogle? ;)

Firefox Trademark Troubles

Seems that someone in Mozilla made a big "oops" with Firefox trademark.

From the article:

Although it maintains a policy -- which was recently criticised by many developers of the Debian Linux distribution -- on how its trademarks are used, it does not appear to have registered the Firefox name in Germany and Australia. In the United States and United Kingdom, the foundation has applied for the trademarks but approval is still pending.

First "m/b", then "Phoenix", then "FireBird", and now "Firefox". Whats next if they decide to change again?

There are some lively discussion regrading this on slashdot.

Ugly Post

*gasp* Firefox users are ugly!

From the article:

Elitist online dating website Beautifulpeople.net is excluding Firefox users. Alternative browser users report being given the cold shoulder by the site, which prides itself on only allowing pretty people (as voted by its existing members) to join.

When web developers will ever learn how to use the web standard? Geez...

Email Linkify Script

This is my second GreaseMonkey script: The Email Linkify script.

Its sole purpose is to find what look like unlinked email addresses on webpage and "linkifed" them with mailto links. It follows the same concept as the Linkify script but for email addresses only.

Features(v0.1):

• Search for email addresses with ip address, words, and tlds.
  
• Linkify them into mailto links

Screenshots:
Without Script
With Script

Tested on wide range of various web pages including forums and discussion boards.

Please post any bugs or comments you have about this script here or send email to me.

Also, if you want the linkified email addresses to have envelopes, you must install Email Linkify script first before installing Mailto Envelope script, so they can be run in the right order.

PC World's Product of the Year: Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox just bagged another award... this time, the award is PC World's Product of the Year 2005.

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=node/view/15805

This is one of the biggest awards and Mozilla Firefox won it. This is a great news for the Mozilla community and for users who want to break away from Internet Explorer.

Two big thumbs up for Mozilla Firefox.

Deer Park (Firefox 1.1) Alpha 1

Mozilla just released the first alpha version of Deer Park (codename for Firefox 1.1). The second alpha version will be released this month of June.

Remember, this is just an alpha version which mean it is one step away from beta and two steps away from final (gold). the alpha version is for testing and developement among developers only. But since it is open-sourced, everyone can be a developer. So naturally, the alpha version is released to the public.

When it reach beta, it will be for testing and bug-reports from general community (non-developers) to see what bugs that need to be fixed before final.

According to the roadmap, it seem that the developers are hoping to release Firefox 1.1 before the end of this month or at the beginning of next month. EDIT: New Roadmap

Boy, I'm excited about this. I'm keeping my eyes on this one.