More on the ‘Is Google Evil?’ Debate (New York Times)
The question of Google’s evil was in the air around The Times on Thursday. Just after I pushed the save button on the post that posed the question whether Google violates its “Don’t be evil” motto , I sat in with the Times editorial board (that is, those who write the unsigned comments on the editorial page) for a meeting with Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive and also a member of ...

'No concrete plan' for Google server farm in Austria: spokeswoman (AFP via Yahoo! News)
Google has "no concrete plan" to build a new European server farm in the north of Austria, despite buying land there, the US Internet search engine giant said Saturday.

Google Unplugs Lively as Hype Fades Over Virtual Worlds (New York Times)
Online virtual worlds were dealt a heavy helping of reality this week. First off, Google announced that its Lively experiment will shut down at the end of the year. The Web-based portal to all things virtual only started in July, making this one of Google’s shorter experiments.

Google lets users edit search results (Everett Herald)
SAN FRANCISCO -- If Google delivers useless search results, just erase them and you won't see them again. That's possible under a new system Google Inc. unveiled Thursday.

Google to shut down virtual world at year-end (Concord Monitor)
Not all Google Inc. endeavors turn into gold. Lively, a virtual world the internet giant launched less than five months ago, will be shut down at the end of the year so Google can focus on its bread-and-butter search business.

Google SearchWiki Is Back. Here’s How To Kill It For Good. (TechCrunch)
Cheers were heard across the Internet earlier today when Google's new SearchWiki search interface inexplicably vanished . Perhaps, just maybe, it was gone for good. Or at least when it returned it would have an opt out feature. Nope. Neither. It's back and it's still impossible to get out of it short of logging out of Google entirely. Lovely comments like the one above now scar Google's ...

Even Google scales back on holiday fun (Reuters via Yahoo! News)
Internet search giant Google Inc is known for hosting the most extravagant holiday parties in Silicon Valley, often drawing crowds of over 10,000 and prompting some employees to post ads for party dates on classifieds Website Craigslist.

LIFE Posts Archive On Google; Says Blogger Infringement A Low Priority (PDNonline)
Time Inc.’s picture brand LIFE is taking a giant leap into the digital future by making its vast photo archive available for free public perusal on Google.

Debating the Vices and Virtues of Google (New York Times)
The question on the table is “Google violates its ‘don’t be evil’ motto.” You can vote “yes” or “no” yourself in the comments below. But first read some of the arguments put forward in an Oxford-style debate on the question held this week in Manhattan by Intelligence Squared US , a project of the Rozenkranz Foundation that runs a series of such discussions.

Google Relies On Akamai To Stream YouTube Live; 700,000 Concurrent Viewers (TechCrunch)
Speculation was rampant the last few weeks that Google had to rely on a third party content delivery network to make the YouTube Live live concert stream properly at scale. Despite the fact that Google has it's own quite impressive CDN, streaming live video (as opposed to progressive downloads, which YouTube has historically relied on) is hard stuff. And expensive - you have to license ...