Archives

Today's the big day for Bing, the new search engine that Microsoft (MSFT) rolled out today at the All Things Digital conference. Except it isn't. Microsoft issued a press release announcing the new site, and CEO Steve Ballmer walked through the site at the conference. But oddly, the site that Ballmer and the rest of Microsoft has hyped so much this week is still dead. Type in http://www.Bing.com, and all you'll get is white space.

One of Google's (GOOG) most remarkable accomplishments is, undoubtedly, figuring out how to dominate the world of search without advertising its services. In an ad-saturated era, the company that built its fortune by being the world's greatest advertising vehicle did so without buying commercials or billboards or Web banners. It simply built the greatest search engine in history and let word-of-mouth spread the news.

That's what CEO Eric Schmidt told the Financial Times yesterday. In an extensive Q&A with the newspaper, Schmidt reveals that Google (GOOG) seriously considered either buying a newspaper as a for-profit enterprise or hiring a pack of smart lawyers to reconfigure the paper as a nonprofit venture.

It's good to be Google's (GOOG) CEO. Among other things, universities beg you to deliver the season's commencement address. This year, Eric Schmidt sauntered up to the stage at the University of Pennsylvania, where he alternated between trite homilies and mild banter—in other words, gave a commencement address. Schmidt told the assembled students to turn off their computers and assorted devices, walk away from their anal five-year plans, connect with other human beings, and nourish the child within.

As promised, Google (GOOG) has explained exactly what caused yesterday's meltdown and threw millions of Internet users into panic and despair. In a blog post yesterday afternoon, Vice President of Operations Urs Hoelzle claimed that a system error routed a significant share of Google's Web traffic through servers in Asia, backlogging the system and grinding much of Google's services to a halt.

Perhaps you may have noticed the seas boiling red with blood, the whore of Babylon rising, and the Antichrist roaming the Earth, strewing carnage in his wake. That's because Google (GOOG) crashed this morning. Yes, you read that right: Google went down.

When Google (GOOG) tried to expand its Street View service to Europe, the company almost immediately ran into problems. Legions of Britons complained that Street View took photographs of ordinary people in potentially embarrassing circumstances and slapped them on the Web. In one posh township outside of London, a mob of people surrounded a Street View camera car and politely told the driver to take his tripod somewhere else.

After weeks of anticipation, Google (GOOG) is about to finally roll out an updated version of the Android operating system. T-Mobile, which sells the G1 smartphone, will allow customers to download the new OS, dubbed "cupcake" while in development but now known simply as Android 1.5, by the end of next week. T-Mobile's smartphones are about to get a lot smarter.

Google just can't seem to get out of the feds' spotlight. Last year's proposed ad arrangement with Yahoo first attracted concerns that Google was dangerously close to assembling an unbreakable monopoly on search ads, and since then, the federal government has been scrutinizing the company's operations more and more.