Google did it again, well i heard about it an year back in news when an engineer at Google had figured out a way to track exact location of a cell phone user without the authorization or knowledge of cell phone network carrier. It did seem like hoax and still does because if Google can do such a thing without the knowledge of cellular network carrier then its a big privacy concern as Google is not CIA and its not a Govt entity as i am sure Govt. and Intelligence agencies can do that without our permission but if a private company does it then its violation of my privacy. BBC does talk about it and you might want to read it as well.

Any how getting back to the new product Google just launched called Google Latitude. As the name suggests Google Latitude helps you track your friends location either via web or thorough your cell phone.  For cell phone users first you have to install Google Maps and there you will get an option to first allow to share your location with any one of your friend. If you friend is using Google Maps on his phone or is on his computer using Google Map he would be able to find out where you are and in return can send you an sms or call you up. The two sided communication needs Google Maps to be running 24/7 which is quite expensive on a cell phone as i only open Google Maps when i am looking for some location rather then keep it open for the sake of opening it does cost bandwidth.

Though the information shared is also not known to be 100% accurate and my guess is that the information is tracked with the help of your cell phone internet connection maybe its IP , server and provider of course that can be easily traced which can give an approximate location and bypass the cellular network carrier.

Unfortunately i could not test it as that application is so far restricted to 27 countries only in which Pakistan is not yet included. I would love to know if some one in US could check it out and give a feedback.

This is getting more and more exciting, feels like our Tech crowd is coming to life. Thanks to Google & Blogger.com there is an upcoming get together at Lahore called “Lahore Blogger Meet up”. Historically speaking this is the second blogger get together in Lahore, the first one was arranged by BuzzVines on 14th August 2007 with a controversial “I still love Pakistan” campaign (yeh it was me :P )  and this one organized by Google Pakistan and you are invited if you:

• Want to learn what blogging is?
• Have a blog but how can I earn from it?
• Am earning by blogging but very little; how can I increase my earnings?
• Am a pro-bloggers and want to share my secrets on how to setup & earn from blogging…
• Want to see what kind of ppl are bloggers ;)
• Networking & socializing…
• Other:

So who is coming up, well i am going to drop by as its on Sunday so i ll probably utilize my lay around tv time to a more productive socialize & pro-bloggers meet up, apart from that i have heard Pakistan’s pro bloggers are going to make a keynote on their success story :

1. Sizlopedia.com (Saad Hamid)
2. PinkWool.com (Maryam Nasim)
3. Sizzledcore.com (Haris Nadeem)
4. For Beginners: Blogging & how to start earning from it? (Badar Khushnood)
5. For Advanced Users: Tools for professional blogging! (Badar Khushnood)

Time & Venue:

• Date: Sunday, November 23, 2008
• Time: 3:00pm – 6:00pm
• Location: Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS)
• Town: DHA
• City/Country: Lahore, Pakistan
• Registration: Registration is FREE but the seats are limited.

Blogger Meetup Imp Links

1. Facebook Event Page
2. Registration for Bloggers Meet up

What others are saying

• BuzzVines Lahore Blogger Meetup
• Lahore Met Blogs – Lahore Blogger Meetup
• Light Within – Lahore Bloggers Meetup

In a surprise move Google just launched there new browser Chrome. The word meaning “photographic transparency”. Google Chrome is an open source browser which is quite interesting and looks & feels allot like Apple’s Safar. They have done a nice job and i think i might be the one who would betray firefox and switch to Google chrome reason being they build a very simple yet elegant browser which is fast does not take much of the computer resources and of course is fitted with some of the great and very important features required in browsers for this era.

On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn’t the browser that matters. It’s only a tool to run the important stuff – the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go. 

So people what are you waiting for jump in and try out Google Chrome, its download link is on and you can simply download Google Crome from here. It will import all your web settings, history , passwords so no need to give it a second thought.

8 things that i loved about Google’s Chrome

1. Its supper fast yes even faster then Mozilla, actually it looks & feels allot like Apple safari even its rendering engine is webKit which is used by Safari.
2. The default page is not Google.com or MSN.com or mozilla.com like most browsers who promote there crab for the sake of it, rather its a usefull page that shows thumbnails of your most recent and most visited websites nice…
3. It helps you create application shortcuts which is one kool feature my most fav i.e. you can make shortcut of any website on your desktop for e.g. go to gmail create application shortcut using chrome on your quick launch or desktop and when you open that shortcut gmail will open showing your inbox… really nice check it out how to do it
4. Stealth mode browsing, dont want to keep history or any record of the websites you visit then browse in incognito Mode, no records no history all stealth.
5. Web history & Bookmark manager suck in most browser either they are jumbled up in a side bar or a pop up loved they way Google presents it simply nice.
6. Try downloading from Chrome or visit the Download history page rest you will know why you love it.
7. All my websites works perfectly in Google Chrome, if you website works fine in Safari it will work fine in Chrome, also they support validation and w3c which they mentioned in FAQ if your website is not working fine.
8. Chrome website inspector study the code & markup really kool

Google is running a stealth product or testing a new kind of user interface for searching the web.

SearchMash.com apparently does not represent any link to Google unless you go into there privacy policy which states about its connections with Google.The thing different in search Mash is the user interface and some minor modification & organization of search results.

The user interface is packed with a bunch of smart features like grabbing more then 10 results a page with the help of more results bar which pulls up more results with ajax thus not loading another page and not loosing the previous 10 results. Hiding description of the results further helps in cleaning up the page and finding with the titles of the results only. Sidebar is another addition which instead of Ads shows results from Google Video, Wikipedia, Blogs & Images.

Another interesting feature is a flash based interface for Google search or Search Mas, though the interface is not as flashy and futuristic it should have been but its quite interesting. Take a look here