Google

Attention, Marijuana Harvesters: If you are using your fields to grow pot, the cops may use utilize Internet technology to nab you. Dean Brown, a Wisconsin man found that out the hard way when the Racine County Sheriff's Department used the mapping ... software Google Earth to locate his marijuana fields in nearby Mount Pleasant. Ironically, Brown made it easy for the police -- by wearing the location as a necklace. He had a GPS unit around his neck, which police used to discover the coordinates of the drug field. From there, Racine's finest plugged the coordinates into Google Earth and were able ... (view more)

Search giant Google continues to wow investors and investment professionals alike as the company's value continues to grow by leaps and bounds. As of last Friday, October 20, 2006, Google Inc's stock price surged to a nine-month high. That day on ... the NASDAQ stock market, the company's shares closed at $459.67 US per share -- an increase of $33.61 US per share or 7.9 percent. The increase created over $10 billion US in shareholder wealth, which brought the 8-year-old Google's total market value to $143 billion US. (Source: mercurynews.com ) $600 for Google Stock? Industry analysts are ... (view more)

Google has forayed into the word processing industry by releasing a test version of Google Docs ... (view more)

Announced last week, the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) is the newest post-secondary institution to join Google's controversial library project -- a venture that strives to provide user access to various library collections and digital ... reference materials. The project, dubbed Google Book Search, utilizes the same technology as the company's main search engine and allows users to wade through millions of publications by searching for a particular phrase or topic. Google's project was launched last year with five renowned libraries participating: Harvard University, Stanford University, ... (view more)

Google's newest billion-dollar deal with online video innovator YouTube.com is the latest in a series of attention-grabbing headlines that feature the prominent search engine giant. These headlines are no doubt benefiting Google, but may be forcing ... the company's rivals to loose their competitive edge. And no competitor is feeling the heat as much as Yahoo. Yahoo, a veteran of the online world, and still very popular, and is currently battling perceptions (and possibly realities) that it is continually being beaten by Google. The past quarter has been financially devastating for Yahoo. In July ... (view more)

Google is at it again! The company is seemingly on a quest to buy the entire Internet. And that trend continued with its recent purchase of the video sharing website YouTube.com for $1.65 billion in stock. When a corporate buyout takes place, the ... new owners generally attempt to change or compromise their shiny new acquisition in some way. However, that won't be the case with YouTube, according to Google's press release: "YouTube will operate independently to preserve its successful brand and passionate community." Representatives of both Google and YouTube have already made comments about the ... (view more)

Google's ambitious book scanning project has the company embroiled in yet another lawsuit -- this time, from a number of literary organizations. Currently, the Google project returns snippets of content contained in books after a search is run on ... the Google search engine. Those who are interested in reading the entire book have the option of purchasing it or obtaining it through a library. (Source: siliconvalley.com ) Google's project presently includes titles from seven libraries including the libraries of Harvard University and Stanford University. Google says that anyone who does not want ... (view more)

Late last week, Google released a significantly redesigned version of its RSS Reader, aptly named "Google Reader." The new design improves Google's previous Reader, which was criticized for its unconventional format and instability when it was ... introduced last October. (Source: eweek.com) What is an RSS Reader? Google is promoting it's newly revamped product as "your inbox for the web," which is a great way to think about how an RSS (Rich Site Summary) reader works. An RSS Reader is, quite simply, a software application or a hosted service that collects syndicated content (such as news content ... (view more)

Not long ago, "Google" was added to the Oxford English Dictionary as a verb -- a move that signalled Google's dominance in the search engine industry and recognized the fact that the word "Google" is sometimes synonomous with "search" or "find" when ... it comes to online activity. However, the company has recently come under attack for copyright related issues. On Tuesday, Google posted a blog entry entitled "Our Approach to Content" defending their practices. The blog, authored by David Eun, VP of Content Partnerships, notes Google's vision of organizing world-wide information and making it ... (view more)

Just in time for the holiday shopping season, Google plans to upgrade its product search capabilities via its main search engine. A Google official publicly revealed the news early last week at the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance (PESA) Summit in ... San Francisco. (Source: pcadvisor.co.uk ) How Will the Upgrade Work? According to analysts at Bear Stearns ... (view more)