Ben Charny

Google Reader now lets you share. Introduced in October, 2005, Google Reader is a one-stop Internet site offering access to content from other Web sites, RSS (really simple syndication) feeds or subscriptions. Using the new share feature, Google Reader-ites can share content they get with others. There are sure to be lots of publishers that […]

What suburban Milpitas, Calif., lacks in size, it makes up for in wireless access. Because of a March 22 decision by its City Council, residents of the 14-square-mile patch of Silicon Valley will have two wireless networks to choose from. Internet provider EarthLink, of Atlanta, Ga., plans to charge $20 a month for access to […]

The Google War of 2025 is catalyzed later this year when Sergey Brin and Larry Page have a brilliant new advertising idea. As Brin so-famously soon roars, “Why are there games on the back of a Cheerios cereal box when there could be a car ad?” Advertising absolutely everywhere becomes Google’s new motto. It pulls […]

Internet search provider Google on March 21 began offering a real-time financial information channel to compete with the likes of Yahoo Finance. The feature, called Google Finance, is being offered to the U.S. audience now and will be offered in Europe in the next few days, according to a source. A Google representative did not […]

Can Google still innovate like it used to? A growing number of important voices doubt it. Take for example the reaction on March 21 when Google switched on Google Finance, a Web site to gather real-time personalized financial news and information like stock performance and financial reports. Not a lot of people liked it. Typical […]

Google’s launched Google Finance, its financial news and stock feature that will compete with Yahoo Finance and MSN Money. For now, it’s getting panned, and some critics go as far to suggest Google’s now in some kind of innovation lull. We’ll see. Google Finance is only a beta release, which in essence means its on […]

Joga is an invite-only online community for exchanging videos, photos, scores, news and other items about football. When switched on in the next few days, it’ll be the first tangible results of Google’s partnership with Nike Inc., the athletic apparel maker. This is kind of new for Google. The search company may rake in billions […]

Worried about the Internet’s erosion of your privacy? Take a look at Loki. The free, Web browser toolbar from Boston-based Skyhook Wireless automatically determines your lattitude and longitude, with an accuracy of about 30 meters. Then it mixes that information with commonly-found Internet features. It works by borrowing your laptop’s Wi-Fi antenna to scan for […]

A new search engine provides a free look at The Encyclopedia Britannica, The Financial Times, The New Republic and other providers of premium news and information usually not found in Internet search engine results. Congoo began distributing a Web toolbar this week thats necessary to view the material. Once downloaded, visitors to Congoo get to […]

Porn has helped Google dodge quite a bullet. Google was facing a potentially catastrophic request from the government for a random sampling of the search terms its users enter. The government wanted the terms to test porn filters, and to use the test results as evidence in another case. While it sounds innocuous enough, the […]

“Up-to-the-minute” sports scores and schedules are now available via Google SMS. Check with your service plan before trying this out. Cell phone operators usually charge a few pennies to send and/or receive text messages.

Our Google translator finally arrived in the mail! Now lets see just how good it is at decoding Googleish. We fed the contraption this story written by my colleague Michael J. Miller at PC Magazine. His work is based on an interview with Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt. Schmidt: Personally, he wouldn’t support an […]