Here's a look back at a busy week in Google news stories: IBM aims at Google, Microsoft with new Webmail IBM introduced LotusLive iNotes, an on-demand e-mail, calendaring and contact management system meant to compete with the likes of Gmail and Microsoft Exchange. Similar to a bulletin board system, Google Wave, the brainchild of a pair of twins, lets users create shared, ongoing, real-time conversations called Waves. Pricing starts at $3 per user per month, undercutting Google Apps Premier Edition, which costs $50 per user per year. Google Wave invite-only preview sets off Google Wave mania Google on Wednesday sent out more than 100,000 invitations to developers to preview Google Wave, a new communications and collaboration tool that Google plans to release next year. The application makes it easy for users to share videos, photos and maps.
Google removed the site's home page from its search results in response to a complaint it received under the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act. And big applications vendors like SAP and Salesforce.com are already rallying around it. Google removes The Pirate Bay home page from search results File-sharing site The Pirate Bay was once again in the crosshairs of copyright owners. A search for "The Pirate Bay" Friday turned up a message at the bottom of the first search-results page that said: "In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 7 result(s) from this page. Textscape alleges Google is violating a patent that covers a method for managing a body of text on a computer that was granted to the company in 1998. Textscape says Google's Chrome's browser improperly uses the innovation. Google celebrates 11th birthday PC World writes: "Google has come a long way in its eleven-year history, from its humble beginning as a Stanford University research project in 1998, to the global, multi-billion dollar online presence Google enjoys today." Google eyeing Firefox with Chrome Frame plug-in? If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org." Google, Adobe sued by Textscape over patents Google and Adobe Systems have been sued by a New Jersey company for allegedly violating patents used for processing text, according to recent court filings. Computerworld reports that Mozilla's chief engineer says Google might build a Chrome Frame plug-in for the Firefox browser.
Features include an equations editor and a language translator. Separately, Computerworld reported that Mozilla officials said Chrome Frame for Microsoft IE could result in "browser soup." Google Apps takes aim at students Google hired interns to help it figure out how to make Google Apps more appealing to young people, according to PC World. Google expands search control with new options Google is adding new functionality to a side panel that could provide quicker access to relevant search results. The side panel can be activated by clicking the "show options" button on the search results page. The company is adding options to filter search results by blog and news items to the side panel accompanying search results.
These options will provide users quick access to more relevant sources, said Nundu Janakiram, product manager for search at Google. IDG News Service, PC World and Computerworld contributed to this roundup For more on Google, visit Network World's Google Subnet, an independent Google community.