:: 2imprez-A Ethical Hacking Guide ::: January 2010

Google Real-Time Search

Google launched a real-time search service that that aggregates recent news articles, blog posts and messages from Twitter, FriendFeed, Jaiku, Identi.ca, MySpace and Facebook.

Google tries to find the keywords that are suddenly popular in recent news articles, blog posts, Twitter messages. The most popular 10 keywords are available at Google Trends and they trigger a real-time search OneBox.

"When they are relevant, we'll rank these latest results to show the freshest information right on the search results page. Try searching for your favorite TV show, sporting event or the latest development on a recent government bill. Whether it's an eyewitness tweet, a breaking news story or a fresh blog post, you can find it on Google right after it's published on the web," explains Google.

Here's an example of real-time search results page for [Google]:

Surprisingly, Google sorts the results by date, so you won't be able to use the service to find popular tweets, news articles that are frequently referenced, you'll still find spam messages and re-tweets. There are plenty of search engines that aggregate messages from micro-blogging services (Twingly, FriendFeed), but none of them managed to rank the results by relevance.

In May, Marissa Mayer discussed the significance of Twitter for Google:

"What's really happening in Twitter is that there are a lot of clues in it in terms of what's happening that's interesting overall. It's similar to what we see in Google Trends, where people will often type what they're interested in into the search box, and we can make some predictions off of that. So we are interested in being able to offer, for example, micro-blogging and micro-messaging in our search. Particularly in Blog Search and possibly in Web Search."

Google Chrome Extensions Gallery, Chrome Beta for Mac and Linux

Google launched an extensions gallery for Google Chrome and added support for extensions in Chrome 4 Beta (Windows and Linux only). Google also released the first beta version of Chrome for Mac, but it doesn't have support for extensions.

The extensions gallery includes 371 extensions. You shouldn't expect to find complex extensions, toolbars, download managers: Chrome extensions are lightweight, they have a minimalistic interface and few of them are customizable. There's a Gmail extension that displays the number of unread messages from your inbox, an extension that lets you subscribe to feeds, a Google Reader notifier, a Google News button, an ad-blocker, a Google Tasks button, extensions for StumbleUpon, Picnik, eBay, WOT, Twitter and Facebook.

Most extensions add small icons next to the address bar so you can perform certain actions by clicking on the icon. They're similar to Google Toolbar's buttons, but Google Chrome's extensions can also modify web pages. The browser has built-in support for Greasemonkey scripts and many extensions are obtained from bookmarklets and user scripts.

"We wanted to make extensions easy to create and maintain, while preserving Google Chrome's speed and stability. Extensions on Google Chrome accomplishes all these goals: they are as easy to create as web pages, easy to install, and each extension runs in its own process to avoid crashing or significantly slowing down the browser,"explains Google. In Google Chrome, you don't have to restart the browser to install an extension or to disable an extension.

The first beta version of Google Chrome for Mac doesn't include all the features that are available in the Windows version, at least not yet. "In bringing the Mac version of Google Chrome from its developer stages to a beta standard, we returned to the core principles of the Chromium project and focused on delivering rock-solid depth in a few critical areas for the browser, rather than a breadth of features that are rough around the edges. This first beta release for Mac does not yet incorporate extensions, bookmark sync, bookmark manager, and cookie manager," mentions Google.

The Linux version is more mature and it includes support for extensions. "At Google, most engineers use Linux machines, so we certainly heard loud and clear how much they wanted Google Chrome for Linux. Just like Google Chrome for Windows and Mac, we focused on speed, stability and security, but we also wanted a high-performance browser that integrated well with the Linux ecosystem. This includes tight integration with native GTK themes, updates that are managed by the standard system package manager, and many other features that fit in natively with the operating system where possible."

Google Quick Scroll

Google Quick Scroll is a Google Chrome extension that helps you find the best matches for your query when you click on a Google search result.

"Quick Scroll may appear on the bottom-right corner of the page, showing one or more bits of text from the page that are relevant to your query. Clicking on the text will take you to that part of the page. Quick Scroll appears only when it is likely to be useful."

The extension uses the snippet generated for a search result and tries to locate each excerpt, but this approach isn't always successful because some snippets are obtained from meta tags or from the Open Directory Project.

Google Quick Scroll is one of the many Chrome extensions created by Google. To install them, you need Google Chrome 4 Beta (Windows, Linux).

Instant Answers in Google Suggest

Google's search suggestions started to include instant answers for Math calculations, unit conversions, currency conversions, weather information, simple facts, local time, package tracking, word definitions and more. That means you no longer have to click the search button and open a new page to see the results: the answers are displayed instantly.

"This kind of information will appear in Suggest either above or below the suggested search terms for a variety of queries. For example, you can type "delta 140" to see the flight status. You can also quickly discover the current time, figure out how many Euros you'll get per dollar, or even brush up on metric conversions," explains Google.

My only issue is that Google's answers can't be copied. If you try to select the suggestion, you'll notice that the answer is not added to the search box, so the only way to copy the result is to open the search results page.

Some of the instant answers are available even if you don't use Google's homepage: check the search suggestions from Firefox, Chrome, IE 8 and Google Toolbar.

Top Google Apps in 2009

Here's a list of my favorite Google services that were launched or were significantly improved in 2009.

10. Google Public DNS - a DNS resolution system that doesn't offer too many features, but it's free and fast. Very fast.

9. Google Fast Flip - a service that lets you quickly browse news. It's easy to use and it's a better way to discover interesting news articles than Google News.

8. Google Squared - an innovative way to dynamically generate collections and facts about each item. It's an extension of Google Sets and you can use it to create lists.

7. Google Wave - an online platform for collaboration in real-time. While there are many interesting features in Google Wave, Google's implementation of the Wave protocol is too confusing and difficult to use.

6. Google Translate added new languages, made it easier to find web pages written in other languages and to translate web pages in real-time. You can now use Google Translate in Gmail, Google Docs, Google Groups and many other Google services.

5. Google Maps aggregated information about locations in place pages, started to show more search results and to use its own mapping data in the US. Google also launchedGoogle Maps Navigation, "internet-connected GPS navigation system with voice guidance. It is part of Google Maps for mobile and is available for phones with Android 1.6 and higher." Unlike other navigation apps, Google's Android app is free, but it's limited to the US.

4. Google Image Search added many advanced search options: color filter, size filter,Creative Commons search and an option that lets you find similar images. There's also a great Android app that helps you search the web visually: Google Goggles.

3. Google Search added a toolbelt with many options that help you refine search results: you can restrict the results to forums and recent web pages, find pages shared by your friends, view page thumbnails and explore related searches. Other changes include a redesigned homepage with bigger buttons and less links, Google Suggest as a standard feature and more sitelinks.

2. Android, Google's mobile operating system, had 3 major releases and it's now used by more than 20 devices. Companies like HTC, Motorola, Samsung bet on Android and there are many cool applications that are only available for Android: Goggles, Sky Map,Google Navigation.

1. Google Chrome, the most innovative Google software released last year, continues to be a trendsetter when it comes to simplicity and great performance. It now supportsthemes and extensions, it has a bookmark sync engine and you can download native versions for Linux and Mac. Chrome is the most significant component of Chrome OS, a browser-centric operating system for notebooks, and a strategic project that helps Google push the web forward. Even if that means improving Internet Explorer.

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