Ben Charny

When Google first introduced its 3D Warehouse in late April, the company said it was only trying to bring 3-D to the masses. What it specifically wasn’t doing was creating a MySpace-Sims-like virtual world/game, no siree, representatives said at the time of the warehouse’s debut. Yet, one encounters a lot of the raw materials for […]

Google’s nascent 3-D experiment is enabling a bit of a problem for some: Google Earth pollution. First off, there is the litany of Web developers using Google Earth to bring attention to pollution. PlanetHazard, for instance, lets you search for things like the top 10 polluters in Arizona or the proximity of a top polluting […]

Google’s rung up new relationships with two important Asian cell phone operators. It’s also introduced a cell phone compatible version of one of its features, an RSS reader. Japanese mobile operator KDDI, the nation’s second largest wireless operator, says its customers will get better access to Google’s services starting in July. Google confirms the deal, […]

It appears that Google’s promotional deal with movie studios is at least a double feature. The search engine has already helped promote Sony Pictures Entertainment’s “The Da Vinci Code” with a daily ‘Code’-themed puzzle contest in the weeks leading up to the premiere. Since that promotion ended, Google’s begun trumpeting another film, “The Break-Up,” a […]

There’s plenty of Google fallout from a bombshell lawsuit alleging telephone behemoth AT&T helped the National Security Agency illegally monitor millions of its customers. To catch some people up, electronic privacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation sued phone behemoth AT&T in January. As part of its suit, it uncovered documents attributed to Mark Klein, a former […]

Google’s introduced new tools so Web-based software developers can more easily bind their work to Gmail, Google Maps and other Google features. The free Google Web Toolkit is a nexus between applications relying on AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), a method of building interactive Internet features that immediately process a user request, and Java, Sun’s […]

Microsoft is set to unveil a new business-class search tool that competes with similar features from rival Google. What Microsoft’s uncorking is really a much more serious effort to sell businesses the hardware and software with which to improve how well employees search both the Internet and corporate intranet networks. It’s estimated that some workers […]

The Google employee benefits-at-a-glance handout is a jaw-dropping experience for anyone who’s ever wished the boss would uncork a few more perks. Aside from providing free lunch and dinner, “Google 401(K) Plan contributions can be up to 60 percent of salary, accompanied by a generous Google match with no vesting schedule!” “New moms and dads […]

That’s not just any ordinary yellow that Yahoo’s using to make its “Web search” box stand out on its new look Web site, unveiled May 16. It’s goldenrod. “The gradient and color makes it visually pop,” Tapan Bhat explained. Having just emerged from an intensive effort to overhaul Yahoo’s front page for the first time […]

Microsoft’s apparently set to soon step up its efforts to capture some of the low-end enterprise search market from nemesis Google, according to an industry source. Microsoft’s expected to announce some initiative along these lines possibly as soon as May 17. Theories abound as to what’s to be unveiled. Perhaps Microsoft is augmenting many of […]