Created in response to a Google Ideas request — a think tank that provides tech solutions for social issues — made by Middle Eastern activists, Shield aims to allow small site owners to “serve their content through Google” in order to withstand malicious DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks and not go offline.
Read: Google’s Project Shield helps small websites stand up to DDoS attacks | Engadget.
Gmail and Google Docs now can handle handwriting input in dozens of languages, even if you don’t have a touch screen. Read: Handwriting support hits Gmail, Google Docs | Internet & Media – CNET News.
Rostelecom, the country’s state-controlled telecom service, has been charged with creating a search engine to compete with the likes of Google, as well as well local search-engine leader Yandex, which is based in the Netherlands, according to Reuters.
Read: Russia Launching New Search Engine Sputnik to Compete With Google | Mashable.
Google turned 15 years old on September 4. Though the search and internet giant is still far and away the go to site to find answers to all of life’s questions, the latest major update to Google’s search algorithm, Hummingbird, ensures it can remain the leader as the company enters its third decade.
Read: Google Hummingbird: A Sophisticated, Intuitive Search Tool | Information Space
Socratic Is Creating a Textbook for the World, One Teacher Video at a Time | AllThingsD
Socratic today announced that it has raised $1.5 million from Spark Capital, Betaworks, John Maloney, Terrapin Bale, Chris Dixon and David Tisch. The company (formerly known as Vespr) aggregates and organizes video lessons (first, high school and college content; today, just chemistry and physics) so teachers and students can use them as resources.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Google lead coalition for cheaper internet [to the developing world] | The Bookseller
Cross-industry coalition aims to provide cheaper access in developing world, but analysts say service lacks support from ISPs.
Scribd Founder Envisions Google Glass-like Wearables For E-reading
“If we’re going to build hardware, the thing we want to do is build reading goggles, so you can do hands-free reading,” Adler says. “It’s a little bit of a crazy idea, and I think it’s a long way away for us, but there is already a number of e-readers out there, and I don’t think people need yet another device.”
Google today announced the launch of Web Designer, a new tool for building interactive HTML5 sites and ads. The company first hinted at this launch in June, but had been quiet about it ever since. Web Designer, which Google calls a “professional-quality design tool,” is now officially in public beta and available for download for Mac and Windows.
The new engine, called Hummingbird, is the first change to Google’s core algorithm since the launch of Caffeine in 2010. Hummingbird, said Amit Singhal, Google senior vice president and one of its earliest employees, affects 90 percent of searches with Google worldwide.
Singhal was careful to note that while page ranking and indexing are bound together in a search engine, Caffeine focused more on the ranking side of the algorithm. Hummingbird is more about indexing.
Read: Google Search now powered by a Hummingbird | Internet & Media – CNET News.
Google has added a new comparison tool to its search results that allows you to compare two things with a simple search query.
The new search option is super easy to use. Just type the two things you want to compare and let Google do it’s thing. Currently, searches work for nutrition info, celestial objects, and a few other things.
Read: Google’s Comparison Tool Compares Two Things Quickly | LifeHacker.
Girls made up more than half of the finalists at Google’s Science Fair, the largest in the world. From turning banana peels into plastic to diagnosing skin cancer, here were a few of our favorite projects.
3 projects are reviewed including producing bioplastic from banana peels, diagnosing melanoma, no human help necessary and a better way to predict the spread of tumors.
Google Street View is a great way to explore parts of the world you’ve never visited. And thanks to Google’s European team, it’s now one of the easiest ways to explore a facility you’re not exactly allowed to just stroll through whenever you want. Google’s panoramic cameras were given access to CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, letting anyone poke around the gigantic machinery and the facility’s endless network of tunnels.
Read: You Can Now Explore the Large Hadron Collider on Street View | Gizmodo.
infophile 