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Tag: gmail

  • Big Data Storage now Available on Google’s Storage Platform

    Big Data Storage now Available on Google’s Storage Platform

    google-cloud-bigtable

    Google just launched a data storage service that will allow multi-national corporations and big organizations to run big data analysis on its cloud service.  

    Google Cloud Bigtable is not an entirely new service, as Google has been using it internally for years to manage its core services, such as Google Analytics, Gmail, and Google Search. 

    Finance companies can use the new service to store petabytes of trading data for analysis of emerging trends. The service can also be used to store sensor data from internet-of-things monitoring system.

    Other industries that stand to benefit from the service as well include energy firms, digital advertising firms, telecommunication companies, biomedical industries and other data-intensive corporations.

    The Bigtable Google Cloud service is a hosted NoSQL data store. Users can read and write data using the application programming interface (API) for Apache HBase.

    Users can use the cloud service with existing Hadoop software since the Bigtable can be accessed through HBase commands. The Hadoop is an open source data processing platform that allows users to work with extremely huge sets of data. The Bigtable will also work with other Google cloud services, including Google Cloud Dataflow and Google BigQuery.

    Google fully runs the service offering encryption of data for security and backup through data replication. Additional storage is automatically provided as data grows.

    The pricing for this service will depend on a number of things such as amount of storage used, number of nodes deployed, and network usage. The service is still in beta and those interested in using it can sign up for a free trial.

  • Users Complain of Spotty Google Talk Services

    Google spends an awful lot of time and money advertising some of their services, and Google Talk, featured on Gmail and Google+, receives a large percentage of that attention. Yet any users who attempted to use Google Talk on the east coast of the United States and around the world during one day last week disappointedly met only dead air.

    The service drop occurred just before 7AM EST, and continued for the next six hours. During that time, none of Google Talk’s VoIP services or video conferencing capabilities were available. Google hopped on their sites to report that they were aware of the problem, and that it was impacting a majority of their users. They promised swift action, which then took much of the day to materialize.

    Issues like these are one of the only things keeping VoIP companies from expanding their dominance even further. People need reliable telephone service, and many Google customers are businesses. Losing voice, chat and video services for more than half a day could be devastating if the timing is poor.

    VoIP-List.com: extensive catalog of voip providers, available software and hardware resources.

    The timing of the Google Voice crash was also quite strange in that it occurred on the same day that Twitter crashed for several hours. Of course they couldn’t be related, but that’s millions upon millions of dissatisfied users.

    Before Twitter went down, reports were surfacing there that the Google Talk delays were seen not only in the United States and the UK, but actually all around the world. Google did not give a reason for the issue, only promising to resolve it expediently. Hours later, they were able to solve the problem.

  • Information Leaks at 99.7% of Android Smartphones

    Researchers at the German University of Ulm have uncovered a vulnerability that exposes most of the Android mobile operating systems to attacks that may stole the personal data stored in the memory of the smartphone.

    The discovered vulnerability allows attackers to obtain authentication data needed to access the calendar function, the contacts and other information stored on Google servers.

    The blame for this security flaw is the poor implementation of an authentication protocol called ClientLogin used by all versions of the Android operating system, including the recently released Gingerbread 2.3.3.

    At each login, the relevant information to access Google Calendar and Contacts applications are sent in unencrypted format, with the possibility to be intercepted before reaching its destination, which can then be used to access the personal data of the targeted user for 14 days.

    Attacks carried out by stealing the authentication data are very easy, especially if the users targeted are connected to an unsecured wireless network, such as those found in public places. The systematic obtaining of the authentication data from multiple users is possible by creating a Wi-Fi access point with same SSID identification code as one of the nearest public network, where mobile visitors are already configured to connect automatically and the new entrants have no reason to doubt the security of the network.

    In most cases the applications installed on Android phones are configured to automatically synchronize with Google’s servers as soon as an Internet connection is available. While the syncing with such a hotspot phantom probably it would fail, the initiation of the operation being sufficient for attackers to obtain authentication data for any of the applications that have tried to contact Google’s servers.

    Given the facts that you probably are in the 99%-area of vulnerability, it’s good to know how you can protect:
    1. Temporarily disable the function of synchronizing contacts and calendar (Settings, Accounts & sync, choose the current account – and there uncheck Gmail or ActiveSync synchronization for contacts and calendar). Reactivate the sync when you’re confident that there aren’t any eyes that spies your traffic;
    2. Use as less as possible the free WiFi connections;
    3. Take a quick update to the newer version of Android;
    4. Even if more expensive, choose to synchronize via 3G.

  • Google Introduces Gmail Call

    Starting yesterday, Gmail users can call any phone right from Gmail. The new service is integrated into the web-based email client and enables to call anywhere in the US and Canada for free and get low rates for other countries.

    According to Gmail Blog, calls to the U.S. and Canada will be free for at least the rest of the year and calls to other countries will be billed at our very low rates. “We worked hard to make these rates really cheap, with calls to the U.K., France, Germany, China, Japan—and many more countries—for as little as $0.02 per minute,” said Robin Schriebman, Software Enginee at Google.

    Dialing a phone number works just like a normal phone. Just click “Call phone” at the top of your chat list and dial a number or enter a contact’s name. If you have a Google Voice phone number, calls made from Gmail will display this number as the outbound caller ID. And if you decide to, you can receive calls made to this number right inside Gmail.

    “We’ve been testing this feature internally and have found it to be useful in a lot of situations, ranging from making a quick call to a restaurant to placing a call when you’re in an area with bad reception,” said Schriebman.

    Google is rolling out this feature to U.S. based Gmail users over the next few days, so they will be ready to get started once “Call Phones” shows up in their chat list (they will need to install the voice and video plug-in if they haven’t already). But according to Schriebman, Google is working on making this available more broadly.

  • Free high definition content is the future as viewers grow accustomed to the new "normal" television


    The head of the UK’s Freesat digital service believes viewers will begin to resent paying for HDTV as increasing numbers regard it as the new “standard”.
    Emma Scott, managing director of Freesat, which launched in May, said there were already over 10m HD ready TV sets in UK homes.
    But at the time of Freesat’s launch only around 5 per cent of those HD ready homes were actually watching television programmes in high definition – and by subscription.
    Addressing the Broadcast Digital Channels Conference 2008 earlier this month, she said consumers and retailers wanted HD content– but it was the broadcasters that had taken a while to catch up.
    “Free HD is a long term opportunity for broadcasters and for Freesat,” she said. “HD is not a gimmick, it’s a new standard for television and one which every broadcaster I’ve met would love to deliver its content in.
    “I do not believe that HD will remain a long term income driver for pay platform operators – consumers will resent paying for something they see as the ‘new normal’ television if it isn’t premium sport and movies, which they already ‘expect’ to pay for.”
    Freesat offers subscription-free high definition channels and services once viewers have made a one-off payment for equipment.
    It expects to have up to 200 channels by the end of this year, including two high definition services – BBC HD and ITV HD – both available for free.
    Scott said that only with the launch of Freesat, a joint venture between the BBC and ITV, was HDTV really free for anyone who wanted it.
    She pointed to the rise in popularity of HD in the US, saying that the 35 per cent of homes now watching in HD were increasingly loyal to the networks they watched – and sought out HD programming, even if they wouldn’t normally watch the genre.
    “And with 1m Sony Playstation3s and an increasing number of Blu-ray players sold – both of which allow you to watch HD content via an HD ready TV – there are an increasing number of homes who will never want to switch back to just normal, ‘standard’ definition content.”
    Citing other popular examples where consumers get free access to products and services – such as Gmail, YouTube and Skype – she said Freesat hoped to be as successful in broadcasting.
    “So, in a world where there is widespread availability of digital technology, consumers increasingly expect their media for free,” she said.
    “But just being free isn’t enough for Freesat. Freesat will be the best of free, and is only going to get bigger and better.”