The feature, which serves users relevant information when they are most likely to need it, without them having to search for it on their own, was introduced last year as part of the Jelly Bean version of Android. Since then, evidence pointing to a Chrome-based version, and even an iOS version has been spotted.

Now, it appears Google is even going so far as to test Google Now right on the Google homepage. After being tipped by someone named Florian, Alex Chitu at Google Operating System points to a Google test page with source code suggesting the feature could make its way to the homepage.From Chitu’s post:

“Get started with Google Now. Just the right information at just the right time.” That’s how Google introduces the new feature. “Google Now uses your Home location to show relevant information like weather, traffic conditions, and nearby places,” explains Google. You can edit the home location, work location and the current location. Another feature lets you track your favorite stocks.

Google, of course, tests features all the time, and few every become actual features. That said, Google Now appears to be a big part of Google’s overall strategy. The company has talked about making search faster by pushing info to users when they don’t even realize they need it for years, and with Google Now, we’ve begun to see this strategy implemented. It only make sense that Google wants to get the feature in front of as many users as possible. I can’t think of a better way to do that than by making it part of the immensely popular Google homepage.

But we’ll see.

Starting next week, logged-in users will see a new look to the homepage. It’ll put more videos from individual channel above the fold, replacing the one-video-per-line current format with one that puts multiple videos on each line.

Currently, here’s what the YouTube homepage looks like for logged-in users. The channels they subscribe to get one video per line in the recent activity stream:

And next week, users will see more videos, side-by-side, on each row on the homepage:

YouTube has also changed how updates from channels are displayed on the homepage. If a user has been watching a bunch of videos from a series, they may see an update telling them to watch the next episode in the series.

Also:

Also, to help someone find the next best thing to watch, we’re looking for patterns in how viewers use YouTube. We know that a lot of fans come back to watch every single video from their favorite channels, regardless of whether those videos were uploaded yesterday or last year. For those most loyal fans, we want to make sure that their favorite channels are always up top so they never miss a beat. And for those fans that watch mainly from their subscriptions, we’ll move their other recommendations further down so they can always see their favorite channels first.

These improvements will rollout next week, and YouTube says that there are more coming “to make the homepage smarter.”

On April 16, 1853, the first passenger train service went between bori Bunder in Mumbai and Thane, covering a distance of 24 kilometers (21 miles), hauled by three locomotives, Sahib, Sindh, and Sultan, according to T. Stanley Babu’s “A shining testimony of progress” (as cited on Wikipedia).

According to the article, “This was soon followed by opening of the first passenger railway line in North India between Allahabad and Kanpur on March 3, 1859.”

On Monday, Google ran a worldwide doodle honoring mathematics pioneer Leonhard Euler.

Now, that’s a reality. Starting today (in the U.S.), users can click on a download icon at the bottom right-hand side of the image and a high-res version of the image will now be theirs to use in whatever way they please. Although the downloaded image removes the Bing search box and other noise, a Bing watermark is still present at the bottom right corner.

In order to download the image, Bing says that you have to connect with Facebook. Other than pushing the Bing/Facebook partnership, there’s really no other reason for this. It’s not pushing the activity to your Timeline or anything.

Bing has also put another button in that bottom right-hand corner, an intersecting arrows icon that lets you take the image fullscreen (which gets rid of everything except for the actual search bar).

While the redesign hasn’t been confirmed by the official YouTube blog, that doesn’t mean YouTube (and Google) aren’t above testing new features without announcing them first. With that in mind, what would a potential new YouTube homepage look like? Take a look, courtesy of the aforementioned Google Operating System blog (not affiliated with Google or YouTube):

Compared with the current one:

If you use Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Internet Explorer 8+, open youtube.com in a new tab, load:

* Chrome’s JavaScript console (Ctrl+Shift+J)
* Firefox’s Web Console (Ctrl+Shift+K)
* Safari’s Web Inspector (how to do that?)
or
* IE’s Developer Tools (press F12 and select the “console” tab)

and paste the following code:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=nH7tBenIlCs; path=/;
domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

Then press Enter and close the console. To go back to the standard UI, follow the same steps, but use the following code:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=; path=/;
domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

If you’re an inexperienced user who got intimidated by those instructions, it’s understandable. That being said, there isn’t anything in those four lines of code that will break your browser, so you can rest easy if you’re worried about messing up your computer. Give it a shot and see what you think of YouTube’s potential replacement homepage.

It should be noted that most Twitterers won’t ever see the new homepage, unless they logout of course. But, the new layout isn’t for the "everyday Twitter user", it’s meant for the non-tweeting crowd, or those that don’t see the use for it. Recently, WebProNews featured an article, "The Average American Still Unfamiliar With Twitter", which discussed this very topic. It seems as though Twitter hopes the new homepage will help herd in some of the non-Twitter users.

Do you think the new homepage will help get new users? Tell us.

Twitter Search – Is Twitter competing with search engines now?

With Twitter’s inclusion of search, on the homepage, they’ve now made Twitter useful… even for those who refuse to tweet. WebProNews’ Chris Crum wrote an article about this very topic, and here’s his take on what might happen with Twitter search:

"When a new user comes along to discover Twitter for the first (or even second or third) time, they’ll see that search box. They’ll say to themselves, "What is this? I thought Twitter was just some pointless way to tell people what I am having for breakfast. It’s a search engine now?" Then they will start to understand that there is more to gain from Twitter than what they previously thought."

You might be asking, "What is the big advantage to a Twitter search versus, let’s say Google?" The answer is simple. With Twitter, you get real-time results (which is the next big thing in search). Twitter even highlights this aspect on the new homepage with the following header:

But, don’t think for a second that Google doesn’t know they’re late to the party, in regards to real-time search. Google’s own Larry Page has even stated:

"I have always thought we needed to index the web every second to allow real-time search.  At first, my team laughed and did not believe me.  With Twitter, now they know they have to do it.  Not everybody needs sub-second indexing but people are getting pretty excited about real-time."

Will Twitter be able to lure some searchers away from Google? Let us know what you think.

Trending Topics… umm… I mean Popular Topics

By now you’ve probably noticed that Twitter has added "popular topics" to the homepage. But, these aren’t your everyday, profile page, trending topics. With these you can now see what’s popular right now, today and this week.

If you’re still unclear what the popular topics are about, Twitter offers the following description :

"Twitter looks at every incoming tweet, then ranks the popularity of certain words or phrases in real time. Click any of the popular topics below to see what people are saying about them right now."

The new popular topics, coupled with search, seems to be a strategy that Twitter is employing hoping it leads to new users. @Biz had the following to say about this on the Twitter blog:

"…demonstrating the power of Twitter as a discovery engine for what is happening right now through our Search and Trends often awakens a sense of wonder which inevitably leads to a much more compelling question, "How do I get involved?""

What are your thoughts about the new "Popular Topics"? Tell us.

Popular Topics / Search Results Pages

Let’s say you want to see why "Apple Claims New" is a popular topic, so you click it. You’re then taken to a re-vamped results page, with an added element. Twitter now displays a description of why the topic is popular.

This new description will come in very handy when those odd terms creep up into the popular topics. Below, you can read Twitter’s description of this new addition:

"Twitter looks at every incoming tweet, then ranks the popularity of certain words or phrases in real time. Click any of the popular topics below to see what people are saying about them right now. Some topic descriptions are sourced from What The Trend."

Besides the new description, the results pages are pretty much the same… but they do sport the new updated design. I do wish Twitter would’ve incorporated the FriendFeed sort of ajax auto-refreshing thing they do, that could be turned off and on, of course. (It should be noted that the search results pages look identical.)

Do you find the new descriptions helpful, or distracting? Let us know.

Twitter’s New Search Tips

Upon clicking a popular topic, or doing a search, you’ll notice a new feature in the column, a "Search Tip". Sure, these tips aren’t anything to write home about, but they do highlight some of the underused search operators. I’ve included a few examples of them below:

"Use source: immediately before a particular Twitter source (like a desktop or mobile app) to find tweets posted via that client. Example: weather source:tweetie will find tweets containing "weather" and entered via Tweetie."

"Use until: immediately before a specific date to find tweets sent before and until that date. Example: ftw until:2009-07-16 will find tweets containing "ftw" and sent until date "2009-07-16" (year-month-day)."

Do you currently use any Twitter search operators? Tell us.

Twitter’s Sign up Page

Twitter’s sign up page is probably my biggest complaint with the new design. Why didn’t Twitter update the sign up page with the new look? Isn’t this page the most important to them? It’s the one that brings in the new users.

The sign up page seems very dull and boring when you compare it with the new look. They could’ve at least changed the color scheme to match, but maybe since this page is working well for them, they didn’t want to change it. Personally for me, it feels very disconnected from the new modern look they got going on.

Should Twitter update the design of the sign up page? Tell us.

More Work Ahead

Even though the new Twitter homepage looks great, @Biz is quick to add that they still have a lot of work to do:

"We have a lot of work to do when it comes to the quality of our search results and trend analysis but repositioning the product to focus more on discovery is an important first step in presenting Twitter to a wider audience of folks around the world who are eager to start engaging with new people, ideas, opinions, events, and sources of information.

We’ll likely continue to make changes to the Twitter home page as we respond to feedback and ideas. We’re eager to see if encouraging a sense of wonder and discovery leads to a better first impression of Twitter."

What are some changes you would recommend for the Twitter homepage? Let us know.

If you want to know my thoughts on iGoogle as a social media entity, read my article here. Suffice it to say, I think it is an ideal place for Google to create a central hub for its own social products and features.

Unsurprisingly, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore are involved. I hear Kutcher’s up to 2 million on Twitter too, by the way. Oprah must not be an iGoogle user though, because she is MIA, although, I guess it would be more appropriate if she joined the initiative much later. It could certainly do a lot for iGoogle usage though. You’ll probably recall her quite heavy influence on Twitter.

With the iGoogle showcase, Google not only allows you to view the homepages of these celebrities, but add their gadgets to your homepage "a ala carte." For each celebrity, the gadgets are listed with links to add them to your own iGoogle page.

Celebrities featured in the showcase include:

- Al Gore
- Anna Sui
- Demi Moore
- Dave Matthews
- Ashton Kutcher
- Martha Stewart
- Keith Urban
- Betsey Johnson
- Donald Trump
- Katie Couric
- Wyclef Jean
- Kevin Rose
- Rachel Ray
- Andy Roddick
- Queen Rania
- Arianna Huffington
- Anderson Cooper
- Ryan Seacrest
- Deepak Chopra
- Anne Geddes
- Seth Godin
- Vint Cerf
- Tim Ferriss
- Tim Brown
- Dean Ornish
- Tony Hsieh
- Shawn Fanning
- Charles Huang
- Stephen Bliss
- Tina Sharkey

Well, Yahoo’s not an official sponsor, but the message was co-branded with a Rogers Internet message warning customers nearing their monthly bandwidth limit.

Los Angeles-based technology consultant and Network Neutrality advocate Lauren Weinstein was clued in by "a concerned reader" that Rogers was testing its Internet Subscriber Notification Service that uses java script code developed by in-browser marketing firm PerfTech to deliver the Rogers Yahoo Hi-Speed Internet messages.

Weinstein writes, "While Rogers’ current planned use for this Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) and modification system…is for account status messages, it’s obvious that commercial ISP content and ads (beyond the ISP logos already displayed) would be trivial to introduce through this mechanism."

Rogers justified the program by saying it was just a way for customers to keep track of their usage, and noted that there was no interference with the search. They also denied there was any "deep package" inspection going on, or that there were any privacy issues.

But critics say it’s very basic premise – modifying a webpage at the network level – that is disturbing. TechDirt CEO Mike Masnick relates how inserting corporate messages violates an unwritten contract where customers expect their ISPs to remain unobtrusive "dumb pipes."

"[ISPs] feel that they are more important than the content and services you are using. This is what leads to all those network neutrality debates, where the ISPs forget that they’re providing just a pipe and think that they are the most important part of the process and have the right to change how everything else works. "

Masnick doesn’t believe this is justification for Network Neutrality legislation, but Sarah Lai Stirland at Wired expects it "become Exhibit A" among proponents.

Canadian blogger Steven Hodson’s complaints mirror the complaints made in the United States about the current state of the ISP market, which involves lack of competition, too much telco influence in government, and no government oversight:

"The things is that while it is the Americans that seem most worried about this intrusion by the ISP just about every Canadian knows that chances are nothing at all is going to be done to protect the consumer from this type of thing continuing just as nothing will be done about the rampant traffic shaping that is going on."  

Google hasn’t yet responded to request for comment regarding Rogers’ modification of its homepage, but Google’s webspam head Matt Cutts called the event "uncool." Chances are good Google won’t like it, and Cutts calls it the "only chance to see the word ‘Yahoo!’ on Google’s home page in three different places."  

"The specs clearly weren’t written by people with any experience in writing technical standards," writes Tim Lee, an expert author at the TechDirt Insight Community. "While a well-written standard will very precisely specify which behaviors are required, which are prohibited, and under what circumstances, the ACAP spec is full of vague directives and confusing terminology."

Indeed, if you look at the list of members, you’ll notice a trend: it’s all publishers, many of which have had their legal conflicts with Google especially. It consists of the Associated Press, Association of American Publishers, Agence-France Presse, among many, many others.

As described on the ACAP homepage, the standard is intended to become a universal permissions protocol that allows content owners to communicate permissions for access and use of online content. In short, it’s intended as a way for publishers to tell search engines exactly what can and cannot be done with their content.

And while the idea might be acceptable and even have "promise," James Grimmelmann, an associate professor at New York Law School with expertise in both computer technology and law, says the vague, imprecise technical language of it could leave it open for expansive interpretations under the law:

"I’m concerned that the publishers will soon argue that failure to respect every last detail expressed in an ACAP file will constitute automatic copyright infringement, breach of contract, trespass to computer systems, a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (and related state statutes), trespass vi et armis, highway robbery, land-piracy, misappropriation, alienation of affection, and/or manslaughter."

Some might note a hint of sarcasm there.

This is neither; although we didn’t know it was going to happen, it’s actually quite logical that the Google Talk Gadget would gain support for 19 more languages.

Google puts the number at 20, yet I’m standing by my belief that “English (UK)” really isn’t all that different from what we Americans speak. 

The true 19 languages, then, are Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, and Vietnamese.

If you want to use the Google Talk Gadget in one of these languages (or just want to see what it looks like), the company’s own Katya Rogers provided instructions on the Google Talkabout blog. 

“To access the Google Talk Gadget in your language, go to the Google Talk homepage, select your language in the drop-down menu in the top right, and click on the ‘launch Google Talk Gadget’ link,” she wrote.

Rogers then continued, “Or you can simply add the Google Talk gadget to your iGoogle home page.”  This also makes sense, as product integration seems to be an area in which Google’s trying to get ahead.

While Google’s RE<C announcement was frankly astonishing, sometimes it’s nice not to be surprised; the development related to the Google Talk Gadget, though far from groundbreaking, neatly proves this point.