Google Poised to Become Your Phone Company
Nov/09BC
Source: WIRED
Google is set to become your new phone company, perhaps reducing your phone bill to zilch in the process.
Seriously.
Google has bought Gizmo5, an online phone company that is akin to Skype — but based on open protocols and with a lot fewer users. TechCrunch, which broke the news on Monday, reported that Google spent $30 million on the company.
UPDATE: After this post was originally published, Google announced the Gizmo acquisition on Thursday afternoon Pacific Time. Gizmo5’s founder Michael Robertson, a brash serial entrepreneur, will become an Adviser to Google Voice.
It’s a potent recipe — take Gizmo5’s open standards-based online calling system. Add to it the new ability to route calls on Google’s massive network of cheap fiber. Toss in Google Voice’s free phone number, which will ring your mobile phone, your home phone and your Gizmo5 client on your laptop.
Google releases Dashboard privacy tool
Nov/09BC
Source: CNN
(CNN) — Ever wonder what information Google knows about you? With a click or two, now you can find out.
Google released a feature Thursday that lets users see and control data that the Web giant has collected about them. Called Google Dashboard, the service provides an online summary of a user’s Google files — Gmail, Google Docs, Picasa photos and so on — by collecting pre-existing privacy controls in one place.
Dashboard users can review and delete recent Google searches, see recently opened and shared documents and survey their interactions with other Google-powered sites such as YouTube.
Google, which has come under fire from politicians and privacy advocates for its data-collection practices, announced the service with a blog post headlined, “Transparency, Choice and Control — now complete with a Dashboard!”
“Over the past 11 years, Google has focused on building innovative products for our users,” the company said in its official blog on Thursday. “Today, with hundreds of millions of people using those products around the world, we are very aware of the trust that you have placed in us, and our responsibility to protect your privacy and data.”
The advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, which has been critical of the amount of personal data Google stores, called the dashboard a small step in the right direction.
Read more of the article at cnn.com.
Billionaire arrested
Oct/09BC
Raj Rajaratnam, billionaire founder of the Galleon Group, was among six hedge fund managers and corporate executives arrested on Friday October 16th. He was apart of a inside trading case that authorities say generated more than $25 million in illegal profits.