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Googleholic for December 19, 2008
Welcome to Googleholic, your sometimes weekly, often infrequent, fix of everything Google.
This week:
- OpenSocial API adds hooks for My Yahoo! and other popular languages
- Picasa 3.1 comes out swinging
- iPhone and Android get optimized search results
- Twitter connects to Google Friend Connect
- Port your Google Webtoolkit app to Facebook in 10 minutes
- YouTube goes HD
- Chromeaholic: Password security and RSS discovery
OpenSocial API adds hooks for My Yahoo! and other popular languages
It's been a busy week for the OpenSocial team. On Tuesday, Yahoo! announced the expansion of its Yahoo! Application platform by allowing developers to use it with My Yahoo! Using the OpenSocial JavaScript API and the Yahoo! Social Rest APIs, developers can put their apps on My Yahoo!
Additionally, Yahoo! has affirmed its commitment to the OpenSocial project. Starting with version 0.9 (we're currently at version 0.8.1), Yahoo! will be adopting the OpenSocial REST protocol and expanding the spec.
That's not the only OpenSocial news. On Wednesday, the OpenSocial team announced support for new client libraries that can be used in conjunction with the OpenSocial REST and RPC protocols. You can now access client libraries for PHP, Java, Ruby and Python. That means you can write an app for LinkedIn or MySpace without having to use Javascript. The OpenSocial developer libraries are completely open source.
[via OpenSocial API blog]
Picasa 3.1 was released earlier this week and the big news is that the "name tags" feature has been rolled out to all 38 languages that Picasa currently supports.
Both the Picasa app (for Linux and Windows users) and Picasa Web Albums now support tags, regardless of what localized version you are using.
[via Google Photos Blog]
iPhone and Android get optimized search results
A few months ago, Google started serving optimized search results for BlackBerry users. This week, they rolled out that support for Android and the iPhone. Now, when you either search from google.com or from Mobile Safari's search bar (or Android's search widget), you'll get optimized results. Pages are automatically formatted to fit the screen -- no excessive zooming or scrolling required -- with mobile-friendly links for maps and local results.
If you prefer the standard Google results, you can still see them tapping "classic" at the bottom of the page.
[via Google Mobile Blog]
Twitter connects to Google Friend Connect
In the Google/Facebook "connect" battle, Google has scored a major grab: Twitter support. You can now use your Twitter profile to sign into a Google Friend Connect site. This means you can instantly find people you follow on Twitter who are also members of that site and send a tweet linking to the new site.
That said, Twitter is also working with Facebook to support Facebook Connect, but Google Friend Connect supports the Twitter API right now.
[via Official Google Blog]
Port your Google Webtoolkit app to Facebook in 10 minutes
Speaking of Google and Facebook, Jared Jacobs writes about the process of porting a Google Web Toolkit app to Facebook.
The process is pretty straightforward and can be done with only two steps. After you port your app to Facebook, you'll want to take some time to remove unwanted scrollbars and ad Facebook User Data support.
[via Google Web Toolkit Blog]
YouTube might have been slow to the HD-party, but the service finally seems to be on track with its HD-rollout. Yesterday, YouTube expanded its HD-push by enabling all HD-videos to automatically load in the widescreen-player if you ciick "view in HD." You can also browse HD-only videos here.
Additionally, YouTube is testing out some new landing pages for Music, Movies and News. Just go to youtube.com/music or /movies or /news and you'll be greeted with the most popular, newest or breaking content from all over the world.
[via YouTube Blog]
Chromeaholic: Password security and RSS discovery
Google's been taking some heat for the password manager built-into Chrome, so the Chromium team has written out its rationale for the system they have in place. It is logical and makes sense, but the commenters don't seem convinced. Personally, I think that Chrome needs to have more visual cues that explain to a user why autocomplete doesn't work on unauthorized sites, for example, rather than risking users enter in retrieval information to a phishing site.
As CNet pointed out earlier this week, a Chromium developer document details how the browser will address RSS and Atom auto-discovery. The implementation looks pretty slick, but there is no indication as to when this support will make its way into the browser itself.
Comments
4
Subscribe to commentsToddDec 19th 2008 9:14PM
...not mentioned in the above ( ??? ) is Android's "Cupcake" development branch:
http://source.android.com/roadmap/cupcake
Real copy/paste, on-screen keyboard, support for Squirrel Fish and addition of video capture are the highlights.
Note that Cupcake is explicitly described as a "development branch", not a software update, so it obviously built for a new handset, other than the G1. Is a safe speculation to say that Cupcake is Sprint's OS build for its pending Android powered Samsung.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/samsungs-android-phone-hitting-sprint-and-t-mobile-by-june/
MattDec 20th 2008 5:18AM
I was wondering when the Googleholic would be back again! I haven't seen it in a while.
Daniel MassicotteDec 20th 2008 3:54PM
Did I hear correct that YouTube is planning on having "pay per viewing" movies on its site?
OneTheyCallGSKDec 22nd 2008 1:55PM
"If you prefer the standard Google results, you can still see them tapping "classic" at the bottom of the page"
Honestly, I just tried the new optimized search results, and I don't see them tapping the classic link at the bottom of the page.
Or did you mean I use my finger to tap the link?