China Google Earth Mystery Solved, As Expert Explains Xinjiang 'Structures' Are Actually Factories

originally appeared in The Huffington Post from LiveScience:

Buildings captured in a mysterious set of satellite images in the Chinese desert are probably just factories or commercial warehouses, not secret military facilities, experts say.

The images created a stir when an ex-CIA analyst told Wired.com that he had found mysterious structures in the desert around Kashgar, a city in China's remote Western desert that is part of the Xinjiang province. The site includes several large buildings, including a large U-shaped building. Some of the buildings at the site are nearly 350 feet (106 meters) long. In the wake of China's recent anti-satellite tests, it's not surprising that speculation exploded.

But the area is probably part of an initiative to develop the region into a major manufacturing or economic center, not a secret military base, said Stefan Geens, a technologist and geospatial blogger who has spent months in that area of China documenting its development.

"Kashgar was chosen as a special economic zone," Geens told LiveScience. "That means Shenzen-style development," he said, referring to the major industrial city in China that builds much of the world's products.

Armchair analysts

In general, more and more amateurs have taken to Google Earth to uncover mysterious structures, said Susan Wolfinbarger, an image analyst for the Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights Project of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Earlier this year, a physicist used satellite imagery to identify geological mining activity in the desert in China. Other researchers have used such images to reveal the mysteries of Angkor Wat and even track the course of Guantanamo Bay over time, Wolfinbarger said.

To understand what's going on in an image, analysts look for rail, road or power lines, look at the footprint of the building, and they may even analyze the shadows cast by the buildings to infer their height, said Stuart Hamilton, the GIS program director at the Center for Geospatial Analysis at the College of William and Mary.

But figuring out what people are using those buildings for is trickier than just understanding the infrastructure.

"This is really a classic example of you have two things going on. You can see quite clearly what the land cover is, but land use is a much more difficult problem," Hamilton told LiveScience.

No big secret

China announced its plans to build a special economic zone in Kashgar a few years ago, and has taken on a number of projects — from creating high-speed rail lines to the razing of the ancient Islamic buildings in the heart of the city — in order to achieve that goal, Geens said.

In fact, the region in question is located next to the rail lines and the airports, making it even more likely that the structures are industrial factories, Geens said.

In addition, some of the roads are partially covered in sand, and construction-related vehicles can be seen in some of the satellite images, suggesting the area is still being built, Hamilton said.

It's also unlikely to be a secret site because it's quite close to a major population area, and there are no barriers, towers or enclosures that would indicate a Chinese military operation, Hamilton said. While one structure in the complex somewhat resembles a helicopter testing area, there's no reason it would necessarily be related to military activities, he added.

What's more interesting is how quickly people decided these sites were mysterious in the first place, Geens said.

"People are so fascinated by the amount of the data in Google Earth and the transparency it affords them," he said. "I think it sometimes just goes to people's heads."

Kim Jong Un's Thank-You Note to Google's Eric Schmidt (spoof)

originally appeared on Forbes:

Following the Google Chairman’s visit to North Korea, which concluded last Thursday.

Dearest Kindred Overlord,

Such a pleasure! Never in Righteous History was there a more considerate houseguest. (Americans do have a rep for being sorta rude, especially when indefinitely detained.)

I admit it. Before you arrived in Pyongyang, I was feeling kind of lonely. Like a member of Google Plus. But oh, Supreme Commander of the Search Monopoly, the minute you arrived I Felt Lucky. Granted, I was holding three royal flushes at the time. But truly you are like a Big Brother to me. Heck, you launch products; we launch rockets; but we both piss off governments. And hate Facebook.

And how similar our rational world views! Be sure to spread word of my 19 holes-in-one, as I will about the “Skype-crushing potential” of Google Hangout.

Alright, as with most houseguests, your visit started out a tad awkward. Really, I had planned to take down the Death-to-Sworn-Enemy-U.S.A. banners. But how kind you were to break the tension with your favorite joke. “Privacy.” A classic! (And my buddies are still reeling from “don’t be evil,” with your adorable air quotes gesture.)

Thanks for folding the hand towels. And for your guidance re: monitoring every act of millions of civilians, while building a global rep for anti-trust. But remind me: where/when can I get my paws on them cool Google glasses thingies?

Oh, before I forget, I’d like to place an order for two million self-driving cars. They’d be perfect for my fake city without people! (Related thought: what’s scarier, the DMZ or the DMV?)

And the Android house gift—love it! Still, I’m starting to think a mobile network might work better with multiple phones. Must be the wine talking. (Note to Committee: investigate what it’s saying.)

Only one gripe: now that you’ve shown me YouTube, I can’t get that damn song out of my head. “Da da da…Gangnam Style,” lolz. But c’mon, a Korean racking up a billion hits? I could just introduce you to my chief of secret police!

His name is Todd.

Finally, thanks for reassuring me I’m not too young to run a regime. I hadn’t realized the Glorious Founding Overlords of half the world’s technology are still in puberty.

Let’s cut to the chase. You’re right. It’s time for economic change. How urgently our Proud Courageous Citizens need advanced broadband infrastructure for widespread Internet access. That, and perhaps rice.

And so I declare: from now on, all North Koreans shall have Internet! And forever they shall enjoy the same right as all Westerners, to obsessively Google themselves—or in this case, me. (Which is healthier?)

Oh, and don’t listen to the press, who call your visit a reckless stunt. We both know the truth: the press is dead. Only in your country, they’re dying a slower death.

Long Live Technology! Long Live the Doodle! Long Live the Cult of Personality!

Fondly,

Kim Jong Un

Sent from my iPhone. Excuse any typos or atrocities.

Google unveils Zavers, a new digital coupon based on your phone number

originally appeared in VentureBeat:

Google will be showing off a new digital coupon product tomorrow that lets you more easily redeem coupons targeted to your interests.

Google announced the product, called Zavers by Google on Friday, but said it will be showing off the product first-hand to visitors of Google’s booth at the annual National Retail Federation (NFR) Convention & Expo in New York, which starts tomorrow and runs through Tuesday.
Google is investing a lot of resources into e-commerce, and so it’s easy get confused by the various projects it is working on. Google has already launched something called Google Wallet, but that is a virtual wallet that lets you pay with your mobile phone from an account that is linked to a major credit card company. It uses NFC technology, which lets you scan your phone next to an in-store reader to pay for something.

Zavers is quite different. It lets you visit your favorite retailer websites, and save digital coupons to your accounts, according to the announcement. You can then shop for those products and check out as usual. Redemption occurs in real time, Google says, with savings automatically deducted at checkout when shoppers provide their rewards cards or phone numbers. Manufacturers only pay when a product is moved off the shelf.
Since transactions are stored in the cloud, it give manufacturers a real-time look at the pace of redemptions, and easier ways to target and plan coupon policies to maximize profits, according to Google.

According to the statement:
Unlike traditional media, Zavers’ real-time data gives manufacturers new ways to measure coupon redemptions and analyze consumer preferences so they can manage distribution, tailor campaigns, and optimize budgets for maximum ROI. Zavers also offers access to an extensive network of manufacturer coupons, opening up new retail revenue streams.…Zavers by Google is growing fast. This month we are thrilled to welcome New York’s Original Grocer, D’Agostino, as the latest partner in our retail network. In the coming months, we will be announcing partnerships with a number of other major retailers.

Manufacturers or retailers searching for more information can find it at g.co/contact.zavers.
The Zavers product follows the acquisition by Google of digital coupon company Zave Networks in 2011.

Google: Dominance, Growth and Cheap Valuation

originally appeared on The Motley Fool on NBC News:

Google has been one of the tech industry’s incredible growth stories.  Since going public in 2004 for $85, shares have increased in value by an outstanding 770%, and many analysts and investors (myself included) think there are even more gains ahead.  When the company reports earnings on Jan. 22, the market will be looking for signs that signal just that.

Google has grown to be the world’s largest Internet company, and their mission is to organize all of the world’s information and make it accessible and useful to everyone.  The next two largest competitors in the search segment are Yahoo with a market cap about one-ninth of Google’s, and Microsoft, whose Bing search engine is gaining popularity. These two companies made a deal in 2009 with the goal of challenging Google’s dominance.

Under the deal, the companies will maintain their own branding, however Yahoo search results say “powered by Bing.”  Microsoft then pays Yahoo 88% of the revenue it gains from Yahoo searches.  According to comScore, the results of their partnership have been mixed, with Bing up but Yahoo down.  For the month of November 2012, the latest month with data available, Google took a record 67% of all U.S. search traffic, followed by Bing’s 16.2% and Yahoo’s 12.1%.  Look for Google to address their rising market share and possibly for plans to reach their 70% market share goal during the earnings call.

Google has grown by leaps and bounds over the past decade, branching out from being just an online search company by entering several other segments.  For instance, in recent years they have launched an email service (Gmail), mapping services (Google Maps and Google Earth), a finance site (Google Finance), a mobile software platform (Android), its own web browser (Chrome), a social network (Google +), and a tablet computer (Nexus).  These ventures have added to one another in the same way that Apple’s products have.  I certainly know more people with a MacBook, iPad, iPhone, and iPod than I do with just any one of those.

By the same method, many people who use Gmail also use Google’s search engine, Google Finance to check stock quotes, and Google Maps to get directions. The company also has partnership deals with such companies as eBay, which makes Google the exclusive provider of text-based ads for eBay outside of the U.S., and with Dell, which pre-loads Dell’s PC’s with the Google toolbar as well as a co-branded homepage.

Google has grown its earnings tremendously (see chart below), and analysts seem to think this will continue.  The consensus calls for $39.84 per share when the company reports next week, so Google currently trades for 18.6 times 2012 earnings, which is a bargain considering two things: cash and growth.  First the cash: Google has a stockpile of $44.6 billion in cash.  So, excluding cash the market values Google’s business alone at $198.6 billion.  In other words, of Google’s share price ($739.99 as of this writing), only $604.38 of that represents Google’s business and future growth, and the rest represents cash in Google’s bank accounts.  So, the business itself trades at only 15.2 times earnings, which sounds much cheaper.

Additionally, Google’s earnings are forecast to grow to $46.31 and $54.84 per share in 2013 and 2014, respectively.  This implies annual earnings growth of 16.2% and 18.4% for the next two years.  I would anticipate a jump in share price if the company’s numbers and future outlook reflect similar numbers when they report.  A P/E ratio of 15.2 is far too low for a company that is still growing like this!

To sum it up, Google has a lot going for it that should translate into earnings growth in the year ahead.  In addition to being absolutely dominant in the online search segment, they are gaining market share in the tablet PC, operating system, smartphone, and social networking segments.  More importantly than the 2012 earnings numbers themselves, investors should pay close attention to any updates given by the company on these new frontiers of Google’s business, as they will be key drivers of growth over the next several years and beyond.

Google Gains From Creating Apps for the Opposition

originally appeared in The New York Times:

For many people, smartphone shopping comes down to a choice of Apple’s iPhone or one powered by Google’s Android software.

But now consumers can get an iPhone and fill it with Google.

Google has become one of the most prolific and popular developers of apps for the iPhone, in effect helping its competitor make more appealing products — even as relations between the companies have deteriorated.

While some of its Internet services were built into the iPhone from the start, Google has stepped up its presence in the last eight months, pumping out major new iPhone apps or improving old ones. It also has expanded efforts to hire developers to make more such apps.

A maps app Google released in December has been the most downloaded program for the iPhone for much of the last month. The company has cranked out a YouTube app, an iPhone version of its Chrome Web browser and better software for gaining access to its Gmail service. Two dozen iPhone apps from Google are available on Apple’s App Store, with variations for the iPad.

Google’s strategy may look self-defeating at first. But analysts and technology executives say it is simply acknowledging the obvious: that there is an enormous market of avid iPhone users it wants to reach, an audience that is a target for ads and that can yield a bonanza of data that will allow Google to improve the online products that produce much of its profits.

Google’s support for the iPhone also looks like a win for Apple, which, after all, makes money when it sells an iPhone that is used to gain access to Google services.

But potential risks lie in Google’s growing presence on Apple’s devices, especially when it comes to apps that replace basic functions like Web browsing, maps and e-mail.

IPhone users who spend much of their time in Google apps could deprive Apple of valuable data it needs to improve its own online services like maps. And those apps could help Google build a deeper connection with users that makes them more likely to switch entirely to Android smartphones later.

“The best way to recruit users to those devices is to get them using the services,” said Chris Silva, a mobile analyst at Altimeter Group, a tech industry research business. “Find them where they are, get them using the services and ramp them up so when they have devices equivalent to the iPhone, they are already in the market.”

Stephen Stetelman, a real estate agent in Hattiesburg, Miss., is a prime example of an iPhone user whose loyalties are divided between Apple and Google. The first thing Mr. Stetelman, 25, said he did when he got a new iPhone two weeks ago was to download all of Google’s major apps, including Gmail, Chrome and Google Maps — all of which he said he considered better than the comparable Apple apps that came with the phone.

“It’s a little ironic,” Mr. Stetelman said. “But I think honestly the grace of Apple is in their design and in their hardware. As far as online services and applications and stuff, I think Google is still top of the line.”

People like Mr. Stetelman make executives at Apple nervous. Early in the iPhone era, Steven P. Jobs, the company’s former chief executive, who died in October 2011, did not want Apple to approve any apps for the device that replaced its core functions, one former senior Apple employee said.

Apple executives have long believed that they would need to build up many of the same services that Google offers to compete long-term in the mobile market, according to this person, who did not want to be named to avoid jeopardizing relationships.

Eventually, under scrutiny from federal regulators, Apple softened its stance and began allowing apps for the iPhone, like Web browsers, that competed with important built-in apps.

Natalie Kerris, a spokeswoman for Apple, declined to comment for this article.

Apple has moved to reduce the presence of Google services in apps that come installed on its phones. Last year it removed the YouTube app — one that Apple created for the earliest iPhones so they would have access to YouTube videos. It also stopped using Google data to power its mapping application.

Instead, Apple began using its own maps service, which has been widely criticized for mistakes, including misplaced landmarks and inaccurate addresses. Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, issued a rare apology last September for its maps product and later shook up the company’s management ranks, in part because of the problems.

Apple’s decision to stop including Google’s services on its devices forced Google to quickly ramp up its own software development for Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS.

While Google had engineers devoted to iOS projects, it had to hire outsiders to help quickly design a Google Maps app for the iPhone.

That app appears to be a huge hit. Widely praised by technology reviewers, Google Maps for the iPhone was downloaded more than 10 million times in the 48 hours after its release last December, Jeff Huber, a Google senior vice president, said in an online post at the time.

Other Google apps are among the most commonly used on the iPhone. Last November there were 11.8 million unique users of a new Google-created YouTube app for the iPhone in the United States, and 6.4 million users of its Google Search app, placing them both in the top 20 list of iPhone apps with the biggest audience, according to Nielsen.

In October, Google updated its search application for the iPhone with voice capabilities that more closely resembled those of Siri, the often-maligned virtual assistant included in the iPhone.

Google also bolstered its efforts last year to hire more iOS developers, many of whom might be unlikely to consider working for the company because of its focus on promoting the Android operating system on mobile devices.

Last July, Google bought Sparrow, a Paris-based start-up that made a popular app for using Gmail on the iPhone, and moved some of its engineers to Silicon Valley.

Last December, it began posting Web ads to recruit iOS developers, providing a link to a Q.&A. on the subject with the headline, “Wait, Google has iOS mobile apps teams?”

Chris Hulbert, a freelance programmer who spent three months working for Google in Australia last year, wrote a blog post in which he compared working on iOS apps there to “working behind enemy lines.”

Google said it had not changed its strategy on Apple devices, but rather was continuing to build apps for all devices.

“Our goal is to make a simple, easy-to-use Google experience available to as many people as possible,” said Christopher Katsaros, a Google spokesman. “We’ve developed apps for iOS for some time now, and we’re delighted to see the recent enthusiasm for them.”

Unlike Apple, Google makes its money not from selling phones but from selling ads that appear on those phones. So it cares less about which phone a consumer uses and more about whether that consumer uses Google apps — and shares data with Google and sees Google ads.

When a consumer uses Chrome on the desktop at work, for instance, then opens the same tabs and continues using Chrome on phones elsewhere, Google knows much more about that consumer’s behavior, including the consumer’s location and the searches. The company’s hunger for such data has, of course, raised privacy concerns.

Chetan Sharma, an independent mobile analyst, says Google’s focus on iOS should concern Apple. “It just pushes Apple to up their game in software,” he said. “They’re kind of behind.”

Google's ultrafast Internet draws start-ups to K.C.

originally appeared in USA Today from The Associated Press:

Inside a small bungalow on the street separating Kansas City, Kan., from its sister city in Missouri, a small group of entrepreneurs are working on their ideas for the next high-tech start-up, tapping Google Inc.'s new superfast Internet connection that has turned the neighborhood into an unlikely settlement dubbed the "Silicon Prairie."

The home on State Line Road is one of several start-up-friendly locations that have sprouted up in Kansas City in recent months. The catalyst is Google Fiber, the search-engine giant's fiber-optic network being tested in the Kansas City area that advertises speeds of up to a gigabyte per second — a rate that massively exceeds the average Internet speeds at homes hooked up with cable modems.

The advantage here for start-ups is simple: A fast Internet pipe makes it easier to handle large files and eliminates buffering problems that plague online video, live conferencing or other network-intensive tasks. Though the Kansas City location presents challenges for start-ups, including the ability to raise money outside the traditional Silicon Valley venture capital scene, entrepreneurs like Synthia Payne believe it's the place to be right now for up-and-coming tech companies.

Payne is one of those entrepreneurs hoping to launch her start-up dream — an Internet subscription service for musicians who want to collaborate online — on the cheap. She shares the State Line Road house, known as the "Home for Hackers," with other start-ups under a deal that allows them to live rent-free while they develop their business plans.

Google's network was attractive, Payne said, because her business plan "is dependent upon really good, really fast Internet."

"Without this on-ramp here I probably would have found it very difficult to come here," said Payne, who in December moved from Denver to develop CyberJammer.

Residents here were thrilled when Google announced last year that Kansas City, Kan., and neighboring Kansas City, Mo., would be its test bed for Google Fiber. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company spent months and unknown sums installing optical fiber around the area. Google provides the full gigabit service for $70 a month and its own cable-TV like service for another $50. A slower Internet connection is free on a monthly basis after a $300 installation fee.

The first homes were installed with fiber optics in the fall, with more "fiberhoods" planned in stages over the next several months. Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas City, Kan., remain Google's only fiber market, though the company has said it plans additional roll-outs. Many in the tech industry believe Google's move could ultimately force broadband providers to accelerate their networks to compete. Making Internet access faster would give the company more opportunities to attract traffic and sell more advertising — the main way Google makes money.

The "Home for Hackers" and its unique business pitch is the brainchild of local web developer Ben Barreth, whose property was among the first wave of houses to be fiber-wired and is a block away from the Google Fiber offices. "Hackers" who pass Barreth's application process and show a real intention to work on a viable project can live there rent-free for three months. Since starting the home in October after cashing in his Roth IRA and putting a down payment on the $48,000 home, Barreth has gotten applications from nearly 60 people seeking a spot in the home.

"The whole start-up thing in Kansas City is like this huge growing beast," he said. "It's got this crazy momentum."

The house has been full since mid-December with Payne and two others. One of the rooms also is reserved for fiber tourists who want a place for a day or two where they can download anything faster than they could elsewhere.

"The hope is that these start-ups will move their operations to Kansas City and this will really bless Kansas City, bring jobs and taxes and we'll build a really cool tech scene," Barreth said.

A few homes away from the "Home for Hackers" is the headquarters of the Kansas City Startup Village, which was started by local entrepreneur Matthew Marcus and where Mike Farmer, founder of mobile search app Leap2.com, has his offices. Farmer said Google Fiber brought attention to Kansas City's start-up culture, "because it sort of ignites the imagination about what you can do with that sort of bandwidth capability."

"Most every week I meet one or two or three people that are looking to come in from out of town," he said.

Despite the growth, it remains a challenge for startups to raise money from Kansas City, Farmer said. Silicon Valley venture capital groups in particular want startup entrepreneurs to be nearby in California, he said.

"I've had some really incredible conversations with some big name VCs, and their first statement is that when you're in this early stage you have to be here, right next to us," he said. "That is a hurdle."

Andy Kallenbach recently launched FormZapper.com, an online forms management site, and also has offices near the "Home for Hackers." He said Kansas City has no aspirations to be the next Silicon Valley and may never have a "Facebook or a giant consumer-level company that takes over the world."

He said it may also be "better for us" that it's more difficult to raise money in Kansas City.

"The hardest thing about a start-up is execution, OK? A lot of people can go out and raise money and get money for an idea or for some product or they can come up with some awesome presentation. But it doesn't matter if you can't build something that people will use," Kallenbach said. "I think here in Kansas City you have to at some point put your money where your mouth is. You have to 'do.'"

Aaron Swartz, Internet Activist, Dies at 26

originally appeared in The New York Times:

Aaron Swartz, a wizardly programmer who as a teenager helped develop code that delivered ever-changing Web content to users and who later became a steadfast crusader to make that information freely available, was found dead on Friday in his New York apartment.

His uncle said that Mr. Swartz, 26, had apparently hanged himself, and that a friend of Mr. Swartz’s had discovered the body.

At 14, Mr. Swartz helped create RSS, the nearly ubiquitous tool that allows users to subscribe to online information. He later became an Internet folk hero, pushing to make many Web files free and open to the public. But in July 2011, he was indicted on federal charges of gaining illegal access to JSTOR, a subscription-only service for distributing scientific and literary journals, and downloading 4.8 million articles and documents, nearly the entire library.

Charges in the case, including wire fraud and computer fraud, were pending at the time of Mr. Swartz’s death, carrying potential penalties of up to 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines.

Aaron built surprising new things that changed the flow of information around the world, accruing to a professor at the Cardozo School of Law in New York who served in the Obama administration as a technology adviser. She called Mr. Swartz a complicated prodigy and said [the] graybeards approached him with awe.

Mr. Swartz' uncle said he would remember his nephew, who had written in the past about battling depression and suicidal thoughts, as a young man who looked at the world, and had a certain logic in his brain, and the world didn’t necessarily fit in with that logic, and that was sometimes difficult.

The Tech, a newspaper of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, reported Mr. Swartz’s death early Saturday.

Mr. Swartz led an often itinerant life that included dropping out of Stanford, forming companies and organizations, and becoming a fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics.

He formed a company that merged with Reddit, the popular news and information site. He also co-founded Demand Progress, a group that promotes online campaigns on social justice issues — including a successful effort, with other groups, to oppose a Hollywood-backed Internet piracy bill.

But he also found trouble when he took part in efforts to release information to the public that he felt should be freely available. In 2008, he took on PACER, or Public Access to Court Electronic Records, the repository for federal judicial documents.

The database charges 10 cents a page for documents; activists like the founder of public.resource.org, have long argued that such documents should be free because they are produced at public expense. Joining that founder’s efforts to make the documents public by posting legally obtained files to the Internet for free access, Mr. Swartz wrote an elegant little program to download 20 million pages of documents from free library accounts, or roughly 20 percent of the enormous database.

The government shut down the free library program, and the public.resource.org founder feared that legal trouble might follow even though he felt they had violated no laws. As he recalled in a newspaper account, I immediately saw the potential for overreaction by the courts. He recalled telling Mr. Swartz: You need to talk to a lawyer. I need to talk to a lawyer.

Mr. Swartz recalled in a 2009 interview, I had this vision of the feds crashing down the door, taking everything away. He said he locked the deadbolt on his door, lay down on the bed for a while and then called his mother.

The federal government investigated but did not prosecute.

In 2011, however, Mr. Swartz went beyond that, according to a federal indictment. In an effort to provide free public access to JSTOR, he broke into computer networks at M.I.T. by means that included gaining entry to a utility closet on campus and leaving a laptop that signed into the university network under a false account, federal officials said.

Mr. Swartz turned over his hard drives with 4.8 million documents, and JSTOR declined to pursue the case. But a United States attorney, pressed on, saying that stealing is stealing, whether you use a computer command or a crowbar, and whether you take documents, data or dollars.

Founded in 1995, JSTOR, or Journal Storage, is nonprofit, but institutions can pay tens of thousands of dollars for a subscription that bundles scholarly publications online. JSTOR says it needs the money to collect and to distribute the material and, in some cases, subsidize institutions that cannot afford it. On Wednesday, JSTOR announced that it would open its archives for 1,200 journals to free reading by the public on a limited basis.

The founder of public.resource.org said that while he did not approve of Mr. Swartz’s actions at M.I.T., access to knowledge and access to justice have become all about access to money, and Aaron tried to change that. That should never have been considered a criminal activity.

Mr. Swartz did not talk much about his impending trial, a close friend, said on Saturday, but when he did, it was clear that it pushed him to exhaustion. It pushed him beyond.

Recent years had been hard for Mr. Swartz, she said, and she characterized him in turns tough and delicate. He had struggled with chronic, painful illness as well as depression, she said, without specifying the illness, but he was still hopeful at least about the world.

Cory Doctorow, a science fiction author and online activist, posted a tribute to Mr. Swartz on BoingBoing.net, a blog he co-edits. In an e-mail, he called Mr. Swartz uncompromising, principled, smart, flawed, loving, caring, and brilliant.

 The world was a better place with him in it, he said.

Mr. Swartz, he noted, had a habit of turning on those closest to him: Aaron held the world, his friends, and his mentors to an impossibly high standard — the same standard he set for himself. Mr. Doctorow added, however, It’s a testament to his friendship that no one ever seemed to hold it against him (except, maybe, himself).

In a talk in 2007, Mr. Swartz described having had suicidal thoughts during a low period in his career. He also wrote about his struggle with depression, distinguishing it from sadness.

Go outside and get some fresh air or cuddle with a loved one and you don’t feel any better, only more upset at being unable to feel the joy that everyone else seems to feel. Everything gets colored by the sadness.

When the condition gets worse, he wrote, you feel as if streaks of pain are running through your head, you thrash your body, you search for some escape but find none. And this is one of the more moderate forms.

Details of Eric Schmidt’s North Korea trip revealed

originally appeared on SlashGear via The Washington Post

We’ve reported over the week about the North Korea trip currently under way by Google‘s Eric Schmidt and former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. Today, some information about the trip has been revealed detailing urges for less restrictive Internet and cell phone policies in the nation. Richardson will be holding a conference at the Beijing airport tomorrow.

The delegation is composed of nine individuals and does not include any press. The group is reported to have appealed for humane treatment of a detained tourist who was arrested last year. Likewise, they are encouraging the nation to implement a moratorium on rocket launches, which have caused tension and sanctions.

The trip itself is a private humanitarian effort, with Schmidt joining it of his own volition, not on behalf of Google, as is usually the case. He’s reported to have joined the delegation out of curiosity about various issues with North Korea, but has not personally stated his reasons for going. Richardson is a frequent visitor to the nation.

The U.S. government has been fairly critical of the trip, stating that it is taking place during a period of tension following North Korea’s last rocket launch in the past weeks. The US State Department’s spokeswoman offered this statement. Frankly, we don’t think the timing of this is particularly helpful, but they are private citizens and they are making their own decisions. They are not carrying any messages from us.

Critics of Google Antitrust Ruling Fault the Focus

originally appeared in The New York Times:

One of the more surprising conclusions drawn by the Federal Trade Commission when it dropped its nearly two-year antitrust investigation into Google last week was that Google, far from harming consumers, had actually helped them.

But some critics of the inquiry now contend that the commission found no harm in Google’s actions because it was looking at the wrong thing.

Instead of considering harm to people who come to Google to search for information, Google’s competitors and their supporters say that the government should have been looking at whether Google’s actions harmed its real customers — the companies that pay billions of dollars each year to advertise on Google’s site.

In its reports, the F.T.C. did not detail how it defined harm or what quantitative measures it had used to determine that Google users were better off.

But interviews with people on all sides of the investigation — government officials, Google supporters, advocates for Microsoft and other competitors, and antitrust experts and economists — show that many of the yardsticks the commission used to measure its outcomes were remarkably similar to Google’s own. Not surprisingly, they cast Google in a favorable light.

At issue were changes that Google made in recent years to its popular search page. Google makes frequent adjustments to the formulas that determine what results are generated when a user enters a search. Currently, it makes more than 500 changes a year, or more than one each day.

Users rarely notice the changes in the formulas, or algorithms, that generate search results, but businesses do. If a change in the formulas causes a business to rank lower in the order of results generated by a search, it is likely to miss potential customers.

What customers are now seeing reflects changes in the format of Google results. For certain categories of searches — travel information, shopping comparisons and financial data, for example — Google has begun presenting links to its own related services.

People close to the investigation said that Google had presented the F.T.C. with the results of tests with focus groups hired by an outside firm to review different versions of a Google search results page. After Google acquired ITA, a travel search business, in 2011, it began testing a new way to display flight results.

The company asked test users to compare side-by-side examples of a results page with just the familiar 10 blue links to specialty travel sites with a page that had at the top a box containing direct links to airlines and fares.

People who reviewed the Google data said tests with hundreds of people showed that fewer than one in five users preferred the page with links only. Users said they liked the box of flight results, so Google reasoned that making the change was better for the consumer.

There is a deep science to search evaluation, according to a senior vice president who oversees Google’s search operation, said in an interview on Friday. A lot of work goes into every change we make.

But the changes were not better for companies or alternative travel sites that were pushed off the first page of results by Google’s flight box and associated links. By pushing links to competing sites lower, Google might be making things easier for people who come to it for free search. But it also is having a negative effect on competitors, shutting off traffic for those sites.

Drawing fewer customers as a result of Google’s free links, those competitors are forced to advertise more to draw traffic. And advertisers who aren’t competitors have fewer places to go to reach consumers, meaning Google can use its market power to raise advertising prices.

There might be no consumer harm if Google eliminates Yelp, said one Microsoft advocate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the likelihood of further interactions with the F.T.C. But advertisers certainly are harmed.

Google’s suggestion that the correct way to measure the benefit of a design change was through user appreciation seemed to strike a chord with the commission. In its statement explaining why it took no action against Google on search bias, the F.T.C. said that the documents, testimony and qualitative evidence the commission examined are largely consistent with the conclusion that Google likely benefited consumers by prominently displaying its vertical content on its search results page.

F.T.C. officials said they considered data from a wide range of sources — those with interests aligned with Google as well as against it. The officials also bought quantitative data about Internet usage and conducted interviews with experts who were independent of all sides.

None of the data was taken strictly at face value, according to the director of the F.T.C.’s Bureau of Economics, said in an interview. We kick the tires hard on all of the data we receive.

While some of Google’s competitors might have suffered when Google made changes to the way it generated and displayed search results, the F.T.C. said, the totality of the evidence showed that any negative impact on actual or potential competitors was incidental.

The five commissioners at the F.T.C. voted unanimously not to pursue a case accusing Google of using unfair competition to enhance its search business. One of those commissioners, however, warned that there was little to prevent Google from misrepresenting the value of the changes it made to its search methods.

That commissioner, a Republican who criticized the F.T.C.’s decision not to seek a court order preventing Google from certain actions, said, Nothing in this ‘settlement’ prevents Google from telling ‘half truths’ — for example, that its gathering of information about the characteristics of a consumer is done solely for the consumer’s benefit, instead of also to maintain a monopoly or near monopoly position.

Google’s interest in maintaining its market dominance — it accounts for about 70 percent of all searches in the United States — goes beyond its dedication to improving the experience for users, of course.

The F.T.C. chairman, said that while some evidence suggested that Google was trying to eliminate competition, that was not necessarily illegal. Some may believe the commission should have done more in this case, because they are locked in hand-to-hand combat with Google around the world and have the mistaken belief that criticizing us will influence the outcome in other jurisdictions, he said.

The commissioners also appeared to view Google’s changes to its results pages as a design issue as much as an antitrust one. Product design is an important dimension of competition, the commission wrote, and condemning legitimate product improvements risks harming consumers.

In Google Patent Case, F.T.C. Set Rules of Engagement for Battles

originally appeared in The New York Times:

The Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust investigation of Google focused mainly on the company’s lucrative search business, while its inquiry into the tech giant’s handling of patents seemed an afterthought.

Yet even as Google made only a few voluntary promises on search, it agreed to a legal settlement on patents that the commission chairman, called a landmark enforcement action that applies to huge high-tech markets like smartphones and tablet computers.

The commission action by no means spells the end of the smartphone patent wars, a global conflict in which major corporations including Apple, Samsung and Google have spent billions amassing patent portfolios and then suing and countersuing one another in courts around the world. But legal experts say Google’s settlement with the F.T.C. signals progress in clarifying the rules of engagement in high-tech patent battles, and thus could ease them.

The agreement represents a significant stride forward in reducing the confusion and uncertainty that currently surrounds how these patents can be used, according to a patent expert at the Santa Clara University School of Law.

The commission’s settlement with Google, announced on Thursday, focused on patents covering communications and data transmission technologies that are crucial for the basic operation of smartphones and tablets — what are known as standard-essential patents. (There are many other patents in mobile devices, covering physical design and software features.) The legal gamesmanship of the epic smartphone patent battles, according to economists and technology experts, consumes time and investment that could be better used to develop new products. In his comments on Thursday, the commission chairman pointed to those concerns. Today’s commission action, he said, will also relieve companies of some of the costly and inefficient burden of hoarding patents for purely defensive purposes, savings that we hope can be invested in job-creating research and development.

Under the settlement, Google agreed to license its standard-essential patents to other companies on “fair and reasonable” terms. It also agreed not to seek court injunctions to halt the shipment of smartphones, tablets and other devices that use its standard patents.

The issue arose from Google’s $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility, announced in 2011 and completed last year. Google acquired Motorola partly to defend itself and the smartphone makers that use its Android software after rivals had already loaded up on patents.

With the acquisition, Google picked up 17,000 patents, including many relating to wireless devices that Motorola, a pioneer in the wireless phone business, had pledged to license on reasonable terms. Those commitments were made to technology standards organizations, intended to assure that basic technical innovations are widely available, stimulating growth in the industry.

Over the years, according to the commission chairman, companies took Motorola at its word and developed products assuming they could routinely license Motorola’s patents. But Motorola later refused to license its standard-essential patents and sought court injunctions to stop shipment of rival products.

After Google purchased Motorola, he said, it continued these same abusive practices.

In recent months, the F.T.C. has issued position papers and filed friend-of-the-court briefs, opposing the motions for injunctions using standard patents. The Justice Department and European regulators have echoed the commission’s stance.

Regulators around the world have become increasingly sensitive to just how important technical standards and standards-setting bodies are to the modern system of economic innovation, according to an economist at Harvard Business School.

The threat of court injunctions to stop shipment of products, economists say, is the factor that drives up the cost of patent wars. Because an injunction could be devastating, companies will pay dearly to remove that risk, settling with a plaintiff or spending on patents to build a defensive arsenal.

Some courts have recently resisted granting injunctions based on standard patents. Google’s settlement with the F.T.C., according to a former chief economist in the Justice Department’s antitrust division, helps solidify the move to stop injunctions in standard-essential patent cases, which is great.

A professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said that courts had also been more hesitant recently to grant injunctions in cases that did not involve standard patents. In suits involving smartphones and tablets — amalgams of hardware, software and telecommunications technologies covered by many thousands of patents — judges are sometimes less likely to halt the shipment of a device based on a few infringing patents.

Last month, for example, a Federal District Court judge in San Jose, Calif., denied Apple’s motion for an injunction against Samsung products. In August, a jury in that court found that Samsung products infringed on a handful of Apple design and software patents, and awarded Apple $1.05 billion in damages.

The judge declined to grant Apple’s motion for injunction, essentially saying that Apple’s claim was outweighed by the public interest in keeping Samsung shipments flowing. Apple is appealing the ruling.

The courts seem to be moving toward taking a dimmer view of injunctions generally, he said. That’s a big deal.

Google’s Search Pages Evolve

originally appeared in The New York Times:

Google’s look has changed significantly since it started in 1997. While the search engine originally returned basic blue links to other Web pages, it now also shows ads, photos, maps, answers to questions and other information. While Google says this helps users get the information they want as quickly as possible, some of its competitors say Google is poaching potential visitors to their sites by showing its own content and including eye candy like photos and maps. Antitrust regulators are investigating. Below is a look at how Google search results pages have evolved.

Most Google searches used to return results like this one for "theory of relativity" — a list of blue links to other Web pages. In 2007, Google started what it called universal search by including things like videos from YouTube, which Google owns, in search results.

Shopping searches, like this one for "patio furniture," are one of Google's most lucrative sources of ad revenue. Above search results, it shows ads related to the search, labeled as ads and shaded in beige.

Google started its own comparison shopping service in 2002. This fall, it began requiring that retailers pay for their products to appear there, so Google makes money when someone clicks or buys a product. Antitrust regulators have questioned comparison shopping competitors like Nextag about competition from Google.

When users search for local results, Google shows nearby businesses with addresses, Zagat ratings and Google reviews from its Google Plus Local service. (Google owns Zagat.) Regulators have interviewed competitors like Yelp, whose executives say that Google has filled prime real estate on the search results page with its own listings. In that same search, by hovering a mouse over a listing (in this case, the top result), the right side of the page shows a Google map, reviews and ratings of the business from Google Plus Local and photos of the store, some shot by Google. Below that are links to reviews from other review sites that compete with Google Plus Local. Under the "People also search for" header, users are shown similar listings and photos from Google. Places.

In 2010, Google started plucking answers to common questions from around the Web (like "How old is Barack Obama?") and showing them on the top of search results, so users would not have to click on another Web page and scan to find the answer. This year, Google started showing more information and images about the search topic on the right side. It is part of what Larry Page, Google's co-founder and chief executive, has described as a shift in Google's mission to helping people understand the world, not just find a Web page to answer a query. As part of what it calls the knowledge graph, Google pulls information from around the Web that is relevant to the search. It also shows the most recent post from Barack Obama on Google Plus, its social network.

Google Pushed Hard Behind the Scenes to Convince Regulators

originally appeared in The New York Times:


For 19 months, Google pressed its case with antitrust regulators investigating the company. Working relentlessly behind the scenes, executives made frequent flights to Washington, laying out their legal arguments and shrewdly applying lessons learned from Microsoft’s bruising antitrust battle in the 1990s.

After regulators had pored over nine million documents, listened to complaints from disgruntled competitors and took sworn testimony from Google executives, the government concluded that the law was on Google’s side. At the end of the day, they said, consumers had been largely unharmed.


That is why one of the biggest antitrust investigations of an American company in years ended with a slap on the wrist Thursday, when the Federal Trade Commission closed its investigation of Google’s search practices without bringing a complaint. Google voluntarily made two minor concessions.

The way they managed to escape it is through a barrage of not only political officials but also academics aligned against doing very much in this particular case, according to a professor of antitrust law at the University of Iowa who has worked as a paid adviser to Google in the past. The first sign of a bad antitrust case is lack of consumer harm, and there just was not any consumer harm emerging in this very long investigation.

The F.T.C. had put serious effort into its investigation of Google. The agency’s chairman, has long advocated for the commission to flex its muscle as an enforcer of antitrust laws, and the commission had hired high-powered consultants, including an experienced litigator, and a well-known economist.

Still, the litigator said during a news conference announcing the result of the inquiry, the evidence showed that Google doesn’t violate American antitrust laws.

The conclusion is clear: Google’s services are good for users and good for competition, Google’s chief legal officer, wrote in a company blog post.

The main thrust of the investigation was into how Google’s search results had changed since it expanded into new search verticals, like local business listings and comparison shopping. A search for pizza or jeans, for instance, now shows results with photos and maps from Google’s own local business service and its shopping product more prominently than links to other Web sites, which has enraged competing sites.

But while the F.T.C. said that Google’s actions might have hurt individual competitors, over all it found that the search engine helped consumers, as evidenced by Google users’ clicking on the products that Google highlighted and competing search engines’ adopting similar approaches.

Google outlined these kinds of arguments to regulators in many meetings over the last two years, as it has intensified its courtship of Washington, with Google executives at the highest levels, as well as lawyers, lobbyists and engineers appearing in the capital.

One of the arguments they made, according to people briefed on the discussions, was that technology is such a fast-moving industry that regulatory burdens would hinder its evolution. Google makes about 500 changes to its search algorithm each year, so results look different now than they did even six months ago.

The definition of competition in the tech industry is also different and constantly changing, Google argued.

For instance, just recently Amazon and Apple, which used to be in different businesses than Google, have become its competitors. Google’s share of the search market has stayed at about two-thirds even though competing search engines are “just a click away,” as the company repeatedly argued. That would become the company’s mantra to demonstrate that it was not abusing its market power.

To underline these arguments, Google spent $13.1 million on lobbying in the first three quarters in 2012, up from $5.9 million in the same period in 2011. And Google’s lobbyist in chief, Eric E. Schmidt, the company’s executive chairman and former chief executive, has made himself a Washington insider as a close adviser to President Obama.

Then there were the lessons of the Microsoft case.

Google had the Microsoft case as a template, according to an associate professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Google just had to convince the regulators it was sufficiently different from Microsoft.

One lesson for Google executives was to play nicely with the regulators. Microsoft’s executives were known for their uncooperative demeanors during their tangle with the government. But even Mr. Schmidt, known for speaking candidly, was on his best behavior.

Google, and its lawyers and hired experts, also argued forcefully that this case was different than the one against Microsoft. For one, they pointed out again, the technology world is so different. At the time of the Microsoft inquiry, its software was the main on-ramp to the Internet.

Search today is not a bottleneck monopoly for anything, according to an economics professor at Stanford who studies competition in computing and has worked as a paid expert for Google recently and for Microsoft in the past.

That’s not the same as everyone who wants to do mass market computing has to go through Google, like back then everyone who wanted to do mass market computing had to go through Microsoft, he added.

Microsoft, leading a chorus of unsatisfied Google competitors, said Thursday that it was disappointed in the F.T.C.’s decision.

In a blog post published Thursday night, a Microsoft vice president and deputy general counsel, called the decision a missed opportunity. The F.T.C.’s overall resolution of this matter is weak and — frankly — unusual, he wrote. We are concerned that the F.T.C. may not have obtained adequate relief even on the few subjects that Google has agreed to address.

The VP/General Counsel added that Microsoft remained hopeful that other antitrust agencies, including those in Europe, would take more forceful action against Google.

Harsh criticism of the decision also came from an experienced Silicon Valley antitrust lawyer who represents a collection of Internet companies that complained to the F.T.C. about Google’s behavior.

I’ve been doing this almost 40 years, been involved in scores of antitrust investigations, he said. I’ve never seen anything so incomplete and lacking and even incompetent as what happened here.

The director of the F.T.C.’s bureau of competition, dismissed the lawyer’s comment as silly.

This was a very thorough, very professional investigation performed by very diligent and dedicated staff, he said.

Regulators had anticipated criticism from Google’s rivals and tried to answer the complaints in their news conference.

Some believe the commission should have done more in this case, perhaps because they are locked in a hand in hand combat with Google around the world, according to their attorney. But, he said, We really do follow the facts where they lead. He added, The focus of our law is on protecting competition, not competitors.

A law professor at Columbia who was a senior adviser to the F.T.C. until last summer, said the outcome of the Google case reflected a change in thinking about antitrust enforcement. It used to be like the way we dealt with the mob, he said, who was involved in the agency’s Google inquiry but who emphasized that he was not speaking for the F.T.C.

I don’t believe it’s the position of antitrust agencies to invent competition where there isn’t any, he said. People like Google better than Bing. Microsoft is trying to do everything it can to change that, but people still seem to prefer Google.

Still, some veterans of the technology industry said that even though the agency did not find an antitrust violation, it still was sending a message to Google that it was not off the hook for good.

There’s a long track record of government never really going away, according to a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University and a former chief technology for the Federal Communications Commission who testified as a government witness in the Microsoft case. They will come back.

Europe Likely to Be Harder on Google Over Search

originally appeared in The New York Times:


By some accounts, the United States let Google off the hook when it found that the technology giant had not abused its dominance in the Internet search market.

Few expect the European antitrust watchdog to be as lenient.

The Federal Trade Commission ruled on Thursday that Google had not broken antitrust laws, after a 19-month inquiry into how it operated its search engine. But the European Commission, which is pursuing claims that the company rigs results to favor its own businesses, operates under a different standard.

The agreement with the American authorities, analysts and competition lawyers say, is unlikely to alter the demands of European regulators, led by the competition commissioner, Joaquín Almunia.

We have taken note of the F.T.C. decision, but we don’t see that it has any direct implications for our investigation, for our discussions with Google, which are ongoing, according to a spokesman for the European Commission in Brussels.

Faced with nearly $4 billion in possible penalties and restrictions on its business in Europe, Google submitted proposals in July to remedy the concerns of the European Commission, which covered four areas. In its deal with the F.T.C., Google made concessions in two of those areas but was not required to do so in the rest.

A Google spokesman declined to comment on the content of the company’s proposals to Mr. Almunia but said the company would continue to work cooperatively with the European Commission.

The Google case underscores a basic difference between the approaches to monopoly power in Europe and the United States. American antitrust regulators tend to focus on whether a company’s dominance harms consumers; the European system seeks to keep competitors in the market. The Google spokesman has vowed to restore competition to the Internet search business in Europe.

History shows that competition law is applied to monopoly power more stringently in the E.U. than in the U.S., according to the head of the competition practice at Avisa Partners, a consultancy in Brussels, who brought one of the original complaints against Google. Whether the E.U. is right or not is a different question.

He has some expertise in the matter. He is the former head of corporate affairs at Microsoft Europe and watched as that company did battle with regulators over its dominant computer operating system. Microsoft won a lenient settlement with the Justice Department in October 2001, he said, only to be slapped with nearly 1.6 billion euros, or $2.1 billion, in fines and penalties from the European Union from 2004 to 2008.

Google learned from Microsoft’s mistakes. It worked with authorities in both the United States and Europe to reach a deal rather than fight a desperate legal action. That approach appears to have paid off: last month, after a meeting with Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman, the head of the competition practice said that the sides had substantially reduced our differences.

In its deal with the F.T.C., Google agreed to make concessions in two areas that concerned European regulators. In one, it will allow rivals to opt out of allowing Google to “scrape,” or copy, text from their sites. Google will probably offer the same concession to European authorities.

But in a second area of European concern — whether Google deliberately favors its own content in search results — the F.T.C. did not require changes.

The head of the competition practice has also demanded that Google put fewer restrictions on advertising distribution deals, an area his American counterparts did not explore.

The company will make a detailed set of proposed remedies in January. The European Commission will then allow the complainants to review them in a period of what is known as “market testing.” Antitrust lawyers say a final denouement could arrive by spring, depending on how hostile Google’s rivals are to the proposed remedies.

FairSearch, an alliance of Google rivals, accused the F.T.C. of rushing its decision. It said in a statement that closing the F.T.C. investigation with only voluntary commitments from Google is disappointing and premature.

The outcome in Europe may also be affected by Google’s dominance there. Google’s share of the United States search market was 67 percent in November, according to comScore, a digital analytics company, while its share in Europe was 83 percent that month.

Top 10 Ways to Speed Up and Beef Up Your Google Searches

(written by Whitson Gordon on LifeHacker.com)

For all the time you spend online, you probably spend most of it searching for stuff. So why settle for the most basic Google experience? Here are 10 ways to beef up and speed up your Google searches and find stuff easier.

10. Make Use of Google's Built-In Tools

If you know Google well enough, you can find what you're searching for without clicking on a single link. Most of Google's built-in shortcuts are intuitive: to search for movie times, just search for the movie you want to see. To find the release date of a video game, type in release date and the name of the game. Other tricks may be harder to find, so check out our list of the best Google search shortcuts to hone your Google-Fu, as well as the five handy things you can do with Google's new Knowledge Graph feature (which gives you lots of information on a subject in the right-hand side of the page).

9. Make Your Results Easily Scannable

It's hard scanning through a bunch of boring text and links to find what you're searching for. Luckily, a few user scripts can make it easier. Faviconize Google adds small icons next to each result, so you can see what web site its from—really handy if you have a few trusted sites (like, oh, I don't know...Lifehacker?). Locate Multiple Domains highlights sites you specify so your eye is drawn to trusted sites right away. They're both small extensions that can make a big difference in Google's scannability.

8. Endlessly Scroll Through Results

If you really have to dig deep, clicking "Next" on each page can get to be a hassle. Autopagerize is a user script that allows you to keep scrolling and scrolling forever, so you don't have to constantly click next (or back) to move between pages.

7. Make Google Cache Better

Sometimes, you click on a result and the page is no longer there. Maybe it's temporarily down, or maybe it's gone forever. However, you can still access it with Google Cache—just click the instant preview button for that page and click "Cache" to see it. Of course, if you try to follow any links on that page, they could lead to a downed page too, so install Google Cache Comeback—it'll make all those links lead to their cached pages, so you never run into a 404 again.

6. Ditch the Spammy Results

Nothing's worse than finding a great-looking result only to discover its a content farm that's just spewing out links and terms built to show up in search results. Luckily, Google has some protections against this. If you visit a site that isn't useful, when you click the "Back" button, you should see a new "Block" link under that Google result. You can click that to block it from ever showing up in your results again. If the Block link doesn't show up, you can add it to your block list manually, or use an extension like Personal Blocklist to hide them.

5. Turn Off Google's More Annoying Features

Don't like Google's new personal search results? Sick of its annoying instant previews? Some features—like the Search Plus Your World—you can turn off right from your Google Settings (Google Instant Search falls into that camp, too). Others—like the Instant Previews—require a user script or AdBlock filter to turn off. However, no matter what your annoyance, you should be able to find a way to remove it from your view entirely.

4. Highlight Your Search Terms on the Resulting Pages

So you've gotten some results for your search terms, but then once you click on the page, you can't find where it actually used those words. You could just use Ctrl+F to find them, but Google Quick Scroll will do it for you. Just install it in Chrome and get to searching. It'll highlight your search terms on any of the resulting pages without you having to lift a finger.

3. Use Advanced Operators

You've probably heard about searching for multiple terms with the AND operator, but what about more advanced ones? For example, you can search a specific site by using the site: operator, ignore certain sites with the -site: operator, or even search for two words close together with the AROUND operator. Check out our guide to tweaking your search when Google doesn't give you want you want for more ideas.

2. Add Custom Searches to Your Browser

If you really want to speed up your Google searches, why not make them before you even visit Google? You already know you can search from your browser's address bar, but your address bar can do oh-so-much more. Want to search a specific site without typing out the whole site: operator? Use a custom search keyword. Want to search for results from the past year without having to click that option later on? Custom search keywords can do that too. Check out our list of custom searches you should enable right now (and its follow-up list) for ideas.

1. Know When Not to Google

Sometimes, Google just isn't the best search engine to use. If you're looking for something very specific, there might be a lesser-known search engine that suits you better, like the cruft-free Blekko or the data-driven Wolfram Alpha. Google will always have something for you, but if you're not having a lot of luck (or if the results are just taking to long to find), check out our list of other worthwhile search engines and when to use them to keep up on your alternatives.