Google gives five easy tips to stay safe on your mobile

With more and more Indians logging on to Internet through their mobile phones, security has become an important issue. Google has given a few simple tips to help families ensure that their mobile experience on an Android is safe. A study, by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) says that by the end of March 2014, there will be 155 million mobile internet users in the country; a rise of 19 percent from 130 million in December 2013. Although urban India accounts for more than 80 per cent of this usage, a larger portion of India’s population is also seeing increasing usage.

 

Google Tips

 

Lock your device. All Android devices can be locked to prevent access by children and unauthorized users. Just use a PIN, password, pattern or even your face (through facial recognition) to unlock your device. How? In your phone settings, scroll down to “Personal” then tap on “Security” followed by “Screen Lock”.

 

Accessing safe content. Just like on your computer, you can filter out mature content by enabling Safe Search in Google Search and YouTube on your mobile. While no filter is 100% perfect, turning on this feature helps hide inappropriate content from search, such as in videos, playlists, shows and films. How? In Chrome, scroll down to “Settings” at the bottom of the Google Search page, then select “Search settings”. In YouTube, select “Settings” followed by “Search” and then “SafeSearch filtering”. When you’re in the Google Search app, go to “Search settings” at the bottom of the page, then select “Accounts & Privacy” to turn on the filter.

 

Create profiles for all your family members. If you’re on a tablet with Android 4.3 or higher, you can create restricted profiles that limit the access that other users have to features and content on your tablet. This means you can share your device without sharing all your content.

 

How? In your device settings, select “Users & Profiles”, then click “Add” and select “Restricted Profile”. Once you’ve done that, you’ll need to choose the apps you want to add to the account.

 

Filter apps available to your family. Google Play filters apps based on different maturity ratings and gives you control over the types of apps that can be downloaded to your device. All you need to do is select the rating that is right for your family. How? In the Play Store settings, select “User Controls”, then tap on “Content filtering”.

 

Locate a missing device. Using Android Device Manager, you can locate your handheld device on a map, delete your data remotely, or call your phone to make it easier to find. How? Install and open the Android Device Manager app, choose the right device and then select on one of the options: “Ring”, “Lock” or “Erase”.

Google’s paid link settlement plan will lead to fresh wave of abuses, claims Euro rival

Analysis England football managers, who have dynamite news to expose, sometimes wait until late on a Friday afternoon to release juicy details to the press before speeding away from any supposed scandal in their 4x4s. Google attempted a similar PR stunt late last week when it surprised complainants in the European Commission’s lengthy antitrust case, by publishing the ad giant’s latest offer that looks highly likely to bring an end to competition chief Joaquin Almunia’s probe.

Brussels‘ vice president has already struck a settlement dealwith Google based on the company’s third round of concessions that it tabled late last month. The agreement itself stops far short of massive fines and admittance of wrongdoing being imposed on Google under a proposed Article 9 route that Almunia has said will help to quickly restore competition in the fast-moving search market. But the move has stirred up criticism among high-ranking EC officials, who question the planned soft treatment of a multinational that commands up to 90 per cent of the search market in Europe.

Google, for its part, has insisted that it would make “significant” changes to how its search biz operates in the 28-nation strong bloc, while the original complainant in the case – UK-based price comparison site Foundem – has said that the latest proposals would simply bring about a new form of abuse.

Confidence trick?

The controversial sticking point is Google’s demands that rivals pay for some links to display on its search engine alongside its own competing services, which has been accepted by Almunia, despite repeated protests.

On Friday, Foundem said:

Google’s third set of proposals suffer from exactly the same fundamental flaw as its previous proposals. Remarkably, they do not offer one word directed at ending or curtailing its abusive search-manipulation practices. Instead, Google proposes to continue these practices entirely unabated.

The one so-called concession that Google offers is the addition of rival links. But, because rivals are forced to pay for these links, they are nothing more than a confidence trick. Under the guise of an attempt to partially dilute the anti-competitive impact of Google’s systematic self-preferencing, Google is actually trying to get away with introducing an entirely new and extraordinarily lucrative form of abuse;

one that, due to the economics of over-subscribed auctions, would force Google’s rivals to hand Google the majority of any profit generated from these links.

The Blighty company, which was founded by Shivaun and Adam Raff, claimed that most links – under the proposed settlement deal – would have to be paid for. Foundem argued that Google had “no objective justification” for chasing payments from competitors so as to have a chance of being displayed as alternatives alongside Mountain View’s own services.

In its revised offer – which is a hefty 93 pages long. Google has proposed a so-called “Rival Links Auction” system specifically to manage the appearance of competitive products on its search engine. Interestingly, it is doing this separately from the company’s AdWords biz. The settlement deal, if finalised by the EC, will only be legally binding for five years, so Google is effectively putting a mechanism in place that will presumably be active just to cover the period when its commitments will be scrutinised by Brussels’ officials.

However, the Rival Links Auction will still be expected to comply with the AdWords’ “quality principles” criteria. An independent monitoring trustee will be expected to police the entire process to check that breaches of the commitments offered by Google do not occur.

That individual will be hired by the commission but draw their salary from Mountain View. In a key passage that has been waved through by Almunia, the multinational added: Without prejudice to the monitoring of Google’s compliance … of the commitments, the Monitoring Trustee’s functions shall not include the power to review or resolve individual complaints relating to the ranking of websites in Google’s Search Results or the examination of Google’s Web Search algorithms.

In a modern world that relies so heavily on “googling” for stuff, the ad mammoth refuses to have its precious search algorithm tinkered with, which perhaps reveals more about the power of Google then it does the relative strength of any regulator attempting to curtail the company’s unswerving dominance of the online market.

Another brick in the wall?

Meanwhile, rivals jockeying for position on Google’s search engine will face tough border controls. For example, the company will – under the planned settlement – have a powerful hold over local search. Under that proposal, competing vertical search outfits would be outright shunned if their service fails to show, say, a restaurant in a local area that is specifically queried by a netizen.

Google said it would warn the commission and monitoring trustee before implementing such measures where it finds particularly poor relevance results within rival links. It added that Brussels’ competition officials could only intervene where the relevance of such a rival’s inventory has improved to a “sufficient degree for the relevant queries or classes of queries” for it to then justifiably be resubmitted into the tailored bidding system.

On pricing, Google said:

The amount to be paid by a given Rival Vertical Search Site that obtains a click from the Rival Links as a result of participating in the Rival Links Auction will be the minimum amount necessary to maintain its position within the Rival Links ranking, as determined by the Rival Links Auction (which may be an amount that is significantly lower than its bid, subject to paragraph 20). For illustration, if the site selected for the first Rival Link had bid €0.25 and the site selected for the second Rival Link had bid €0.19 and the two sites had the same pCTR [predicted click-through rate], then the first site would only pay €0.19 per click.

On Friday, Google’s top lawman Kent Walker claimed that the company was making big concessions to how it operates in Europe. He highlighted plans to change Google’s AdSense terms to make it easier for publishers to place ads on their sites from multiple providers. Software outfits will face fewer restrictions to Google’s Adwords API terms by allowing providers to build tools for admen to manage campaigns across platforms, said Walker.

He also spoke of “new rules” relating to how Google scrapes website content and then uses it in vertical search services it owns. Finally, Walker tried to put a positive spin on the planned changes to Google’s search user interface by claiming that it offered “significant prominence” and “valuable screen space” to its foes. Under the proposal, Google said it would publicise the search services of three of its competitors alongside its own results. But gripes about paid links continue to overshadow the entire planned settlement deal.

Almunia has dismissed these concerns, however. He told The Register recently that claims that a new form of abuse could appear on Google’s search pages were unfounded. “I’ve heard some voices saying that ‘well, Google will not pay and the rivals will pay.’ It’s not true – it’s the same treatment,” he said.

Panda Update coming Within a Week

Late last night Matt Cutts was on stage at SMX talking about Penguin and Panda updates. When asked about Panda updates and when will be the next one, Matt Cutts confirms a Panda update will be coming this Friday or Monday at the latest. Cutts also said that they are in a heated battle with spam, trying to take down spammers and people trying to abuse the system.

In an effort to decrease web spam Google said there would be one VERY large Penguin update before the end of the year. This isn’t that helpful but is interesting that there are additional large updates out there that we all can be waiting for. Let’s be honest though, if you’re doing everything right and not spamming the world… you should be good!

Cutts also confirms that they’ll be taking down 1-2 very large link networks in the coming weeks. they’ve been tracking them and studying them over the past couple months and they are about to take action. Additionally Cutts joked around about the increase of spammers and some of the tricky ways they are going after large organizations, exposing vulnerabilities and security flaws in sites. Make sure your site is secure.

Matt Cutts recommended using the “Fetch as Googlebot” tool to make sure that you’re seeing your site as Google is seeing it. There are many sites with spam on there sites that can’t see the links that they are showing (referenced a University on their main page in live example of spam) where you couldn’t see unless you went into the code. Google bot shows that a Top 50 University has “cheap viagra pills” on their main page.

All Google is doing currently is emailing them through Google Webmaster Tools about this situation. Make sure you’re checking GWT for emails from Google, it could be a lifesaver and be expecting a Google Panda update this Friday the 15 March or Monday 18 March.

Google Glass

Wearable smart-devices represent the next stage in mobile computing and Google Glass is the most hotly-anticipated gadget in that space. It is not an extension of your Android smartphone or tablet, but is a whole new gadget in itself that can perform various day to day tasks, without you ever moving your hands.  The computing headgear unveiled at a Google launch event in 2012 has created lot of excitement. However, though most have read and heard about the Google Glasses, there are only a few who know what it can exactly do. So, here is a look at seven cool features of Google Glass.

What would it be like to wear Google Glass? Google answered that very question Wednesday morning, posting a lot more information about Project Glass, including the user interface, through a series of photos and videos. You can see the UI and some of the features of Glass here, although the images don’t quite capture the exact experience. The headset doesn’t actually have lenses in front of your eyes, just a small screen (viewable via a mirrored glass block) above and to the right of the wearer’s right eye.

As such, the point-of-view images that show a large action window in the center of the field of view are a little misleading. Still, the photos, posted on Google’s Project Glass website, show more about how Glass works than any photo of the hardware could convey.

Google Glass won’t likely be available to consumers until 2014.
2012: Google develops ‘smart glasses‘
2012: Google’s augmented reality glasses

This video shows even more: Commanding the headset is as easy as uttering the words “OK, Glass,” a clever use of real-world speech to engage the device’s listening mode. SEE ALSO: How Google Glass Could Change Advertising. Once engaged, Glass is capable of taking photos, recording videos, looking up answers on Google, showing reminders (such as for a flight) and sharing whatever you’re looking at — either via messaging or through a Google+ Hangout.

As Google co-founder Sergey Brin himself revealed previously, Glass will also have an automatic picture-taking mode, snapping pics at a preset intervals (such as every 5 seconds). Google also launched a contest with its own hashtag (#ifihadglass), challenging anyone to come up with creative uses for Google Glass that can be explained in 50 words or fewer. Winners will get the chance to buy their own, along with developers, when they become available. The price: $1,500, plus tax. Are you impressed with how Google Glass works? Let us know in the comments.

Explore the Grand Canyon with Google Maps

Whether you’re planning an upcoming hike, or want to learn more about the Earth’s geological history, Google Maps can help. Today, we’re releasing panoramic imagery of one of the world’s most spectacular national monuments: the Grand Canyon. These beautiful, interactive images cover more than 75 miles of trails and surrounding roads, making our map of this area even more comprehensive, accurate and easy to use than ever before.

Take a walk down the narrow trails and exposed paths of the Grand Canyon: hike down the famous Bright Angel Trail, gaze out at the mighty Colorado River, and explore scenic overlooks in full 360-degrees. You’ll be happy you’re virtually hiking once you get to the steep inclines of the South Kaibab Trail. And rather than drive a couple hours to see the nearby Meteor Crater, a click of your mouse or tap of your finger will transport you to the rim of this otherworldly site.

This breathtaking imagery collection was made possible with the Trekker. Our team strapped on the Android-operated 40-pound backpacks carrying the 15-lens camera system and wound along the rocky terrain on foot, enduring temperature swings and a few muscle cramps along the way. Together, more than 9,500 panoramas of this masterpiece of nature are now available on Google Maps.

So no matter where you are, you don’t have to travel far or wait for warmer weather to explore Grand Canyon National Park. Check out some of our favorite views on our World Wonders site where you can find more information, facts and figures about the Grand Canyon, or in the updated Street View gallery, and happy (virtual) hiking!

Top 11 Rules of Social Networking

Social networking is the process of making connections and building a network, one person at a time. You make a connection with one person and you are then exposed to all their connections and so on and so on.

Social networking has been practiced for centuries but the development of the Internet has enabled social networking to explode with possibilities. With sites like Facebook, Pinterest, Google Plus, Twitter and many more, we can connect with people all over the world.

Along with the benefits of social networking come responsibilities. There are accepted rules and actions necessary for effective social networking. These rules and actions will define your conduct. Your conduct will be the deciding factor as to whether your social networking skills will be successful.

Do Build Relationships — Building Relationships is the foundation of a successful business. Get to know your clients and let them get to know you. Form a bond based on trust and respect. Be sincere and genuinely show interest in helping your clients find the solution they are seeking. Gone are the days of pushy salesmen and intimidation tactics.

Do Participate and get involved — Setting up your social pages and sitting back to wait for connections will not suffice. Answer questions, ask questions, comment on people’s posts, retweet, and really interact. You have to take the time to participate in conversations, take an interest in people’s opinions, get involved with events and commit to putting in the time needed to bond with your connections.

Do Share Helpful Resources — Always be looking for helpful information and resources to share with your friends and followers. Be as helpful as you can. Let people know they can rely on you for help and information and they will come to rely on you and your business for more.

Do be Honest — Always be upfront with people and do not offer them solutions you cannot deliver. If you cannot provide what they need, direct them to someone who can. This will strengthen their trust in you and expand your networking circle.

Do Update Frequently — Visit your social sites daily and keep your posts new and fresh. But do not post so much that people start to ignore you or delete you. There is no set rule on posting frequency. All cases and sites are different but try to post at least one to three times per day.

Do Complete your Profile — If your profile is left undone or incomplete, it will do certain damage to your social networking. An incomplete profile appears unprofessional. People will think you are trying to hide something. The trust will be significantly diminished. People will more likely connect with you if you provide complete profile information.

Do Not Lose Control — You must, at all times, retain your composure and not let your emotions rule your behavior. If someone loses control, keep calm and reply with respect and courtesy, but do not let the person intimidate you. Be strong, yet well-mannered. In most cases, you will be able to “bring down” the person and they will have a stronger opinion of you. Of course, there are some people that just will not adhere to common courtesy and you just have to eliminate them from your network.

Do Not get too Personal — If you are networking for your business, people do not want to hear how you cleaned your toilet or what movie you are watching, etc. Be professional and post only helpful, interesting items. Adding a little humor is effective as well but be very cautious not to post anything inappropriate or offensive. People have different levels of humor and sensitivity so keep the humor light and acceptable.

Do Not Connect with Everyone — Anytime you get a friend request or follow be sure to check out the person. Do not just connect with everyone so you can have a larger network. Learn to be cautious and how to decipher legitimate requests from hackers and spammers. This brings us back to the completed profile. I never connect with anyone who has no information at all in his profile. If the person does not want to share who he or she is, that is a big red flag. Also be sure to verify any links, downloads, photos, attachments, etc.

Do Not Share too Much Information — People do not need to know when you are going on vacation or when you are home alone, etc. Be cautious and use common sense. Building your business does not require you to share your privacy and vulnerabilities.

Do Not Post Without Proofreading — Be sure to check your spelling, grammar, etc. Even posts that you feel has nothing to do with business need to be properly written because everything you do in the social networking world will affect your business. Maintain professionalism, courtesy and respect no matter how trivial you feel your post or response.

Without social networking, more than likely your business will not survive. Take advantage of the power and possibilities the Internet provides. But always be aware, cautious and courteous when connecting, posting and building those ever-important relationships.

Google Plus VS Facebook

Some month ago Google launched its most awaited and highly anticipated social networking site and has 900 millions users all across the globe in its development phase.

This is not first time for Google to have a Social Networking site, before the boom of Facebook was Orkut which in early stage did work well but then because of its limitations and lack of variations it could not stand in comparison to Facebook. But, it’s too early to conclude between Facebook and Google+.

Google+ Features : In order to use Google +, you need to have a Google account, though it doesn’t necessarily mean you need to have a Google Mail account. Once you set-up your Google account, you can use your address book to invite people to your network and use that as a starting point.

Circles: Google has come up with the concept of circles “+” you can create a circle of contacts that are family, friends, work friends, former co-workers and so on. With these groups or circles you can define who gets to see what kind of updates. That time Facebook doesn’t offer the ability to control who sees what goes in our life that we share online, But now Facebook also have these facilities.

Hangout: This just might be the killer feature of Google + effort. It is essentially group video chat done right. You click on the Hangout button and invite members of a certain group by sending them a notification. Google is replacing its current plugin-based Gmail video chat system with Hangouts in India, allowing its users there to chat with up to 9 people at a time (or just have a 1:1 chat like before). If there is no one around, all I could do is hang about without much drain on the system waiting for someone to show up. So theoretically I could invite all members of circle and have a quick video chat. In the demo at least, Hangout felt intuitive and easy to use (Google uses its own video codec and not Adobe Flash for this feature).

Huddle: This is a mobile group-chat service that is very much like Beluga, the fast-growing service that was snapped up by Facebook weeks after it was launched and is now said to be part of a major new communications push by Facebook. I think this is a great little feature and frankly, if Google was smart they should be rolling this out to all Google Apps for the Enterprise customers.

Instant Uploads: It has also come up with a new approach to mobile photos & videos. Google calls it Instant Uploads. Take a photo and it uploads to your Picasa or YouTube account and then you can share those videos via Google+ to specific circles.

Sparks: It is a new feature that allows you to create topics of interest and use them as source of information and then share it with various different groups. For instance, I could share results of Top Gear with my petrol head friends. These interest or topic packs offer a lot of content and not surprisingly YouTube videos. Circles, Hangout and Huddle are about personal sharing and personal communications. Sparks on the other hand is devoid of that connection and stands out as a sore thumb.

Except few of the features like Circles, privacy settings and editing a wall post, I didn’t find anything else much different from Facebook. Facebook is a fully developed social network and Google Plus has just emerged so talking about their comparison is pretty irrational.

Facebook Features which still keeps it ahead of Google+

Search: Yes, Google is commonly referred to as the search-engine giant but so far, only other users are searchable within Google Plus, but on Facebook, all public content is searchable.
So, let’s say we want to find reactions to a breaking news story. You can do that on Facebook, while right now, it’s not possible on Google Plus. That’s pretty ironic.

Application Programming Interface: Right now, Google Plus does not play well with other applications. For example, foursquare users can have their check-ins automatically appear on Facebook, but there is no way to accomplish this on Google Plus. Google is obviously working on releasing an API, but it’s not there yet.

Ads: While users probably don’t miss ads on Google Plus at all +” especially the targeted ads that appear in the Facebook sidebar, which often focus on one word a user types in a status report, and then deliver ads for products they have zero interest in + revenue is revenue, and Google is missing out on some serious revenue, with Google Plus approaching 20 million users.

Not running ads during the trial period is understandable, and seeing them appear when Google Plus officially debuts would not be a surprise. But if they don’t appear when the site moves out of beta, well, that would be interesting.

Photo Tagging: Although photo tagging has been known to raise security questions on facebook , it is also the most efficient way to let friends and contacts know when they appear in user;s photos. Overall, the interface to download and organize photos in Google Plus is well organized and easy to use, but the lack of tagging so far.

Games: It is pretty much that Google is working on a gaming platform, and that it will attempt to lure game developers that are unhappy with Facebook’s terms, but it’s not here yet, leaving fans of Farmville, Scrabble, and the like dependent on Facebook, for the time being.

Events and Birthdays: As of now, Google Plus does not offer the ability to organize events, while the feature is widely used on Facebook. Events are social, and should be part of a social network. In addition, the percentage of Facebook users who have avoided awkward conversations due to Facebook’s birthday reminders on its homepage must be staggering. Yet not only does Google Plus have no matching feature +” birthday’s aren’t even part of users Google Plus profiles. While this is certainly a minor issue and no reason to quit Google Plus, it’s also an oversight that should be attended to.

Google Pagerank Update 4th February 2013

Google has begun pushing out new PageRank values to the Google Toolbar. This would make the first Toolbar PageRank update of 2013. Blogs instinct will allow a post dealing with a Page Rank of the latest schedule.

With the schedule of this page rank we can predict or deliver the most powerful moment for our blog to get a high page rank. With this we will explain a little about Page rank themselves. Page rank will not work on a blog that is copy and paste because Mrs. Google will track blog articles are really into Google criteria.

Because Google do not want in fooling by the bloggers, therefore from now on let’s make a blog article Google it meets the criteria in order to get a high page rank. Despite PageRank still being part of the algorithm, SEOs know that toolbar PageRank is often outdated and not that useful.

In addition, there are many other factors part of the algorithm that may or may not be as important as PageRank. Even though, I hope your PageRank values increased and did not decline.

Google Brings Hangouts in Gmail Now in India

Just before launching its latest general update to Google Hangouts, Google also recently announced that it is bringing its new group video chat tool to India. Just like in other countries, Google is replacing its current plugin-based Gmail video chat system with Hangouts in India, allowing its users there to chat with up to 9 people at a time (or just have a 1:1 chat like before).

With today’s larger update, Google introduced a bandwidth slider that allows users to switch of to adjust how much bandwidth they are using for Hangout – something especially important in countries where high-speed connections aren’t all that prevalent. Google also made an audio-only made available with this update (other participants will just see your avatar) and the service already offered an ultra-low bandwidth mode since last year.

Google first introduced Hangouts in Gmail in the middle of last year.