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Google's Lively is a Web-based project similar to Second Life. This shows a re-creation of Google headquarters, complete with the T. Rex skeleton.

Google on Tuesday plans to unveil an online 3D social arena called Lively, the Internet giant’s take on Second Life. But Google wants it to be part of your first life.

Second Life requires users to download and install a separate “client” software package that taps into the online world. Lively also requires a download and installation–Windows only for now–but then people can use Internet Explorer or Firefox to enter the virtual world.

“It’s integrated with the Internet. It’s not an alternate destination,” said Niniane Wang, Google’s engineering manager for the project. “Our intention is to add to your existing life.”

Integration with the ordinary Internet takes several forms. For one thing, you can pipe in content hosted elsewhere on the Internet, including photos or videos. For another, you can embed your Lively area into your blog or, using widgets Google has written, on MySpace and Facebook Web pages. And you can e-mail your friends a normal Web address to get them to join.

With Lively, you can set up you own online spaces–rooms, grassy meadows, desert islands, or, in the demo version I tried, simulated Silicon Valley office parks. You can change the clothing or form of your avatar (that’s your online incarnation, for those of you who missed the Second Life hype). And of course you can chat, do backflips, shake hands, and give high-fives.

The idea is to bring a better social dimension to online interaction, Wang said–something more sophisticated for expressing oneself than an emoticon on an instant-messenger status line.

“We think there is a desire to socialize in this way,” Wang said, suggesting that’s why Second Life got so much attention when it blossomed in popularity a couple years ago. “We hope this product will help them do that.”

Integration with the Internet is indeed a significant departure from the Internet, but much of the Lively sales pitch will sound–how to put this politely–familiar to those who’ve already read virtual worlds press releases from years past.

I had a number of burps and hiccups using Lively in my demo on a somewhat elderly but by no means ancient laptop, problems Wang said weren’t widespread. When it’s working correctly, it took a little while to master the controls for moving the perspective and my avatar around.

After that, the novelty wore off even more rapidly than with Second Life. I’m sure it would have been more exciting with somebody else to talk to than a mock-up of Google’s T. Rex skeleton, and perhaps if it were a room that I designed myself.

Don’t get me wrong. I remain a believer, overall, in this form of online interaction, however socially stunted it may feel compared with, say, a singles bar. I just think the technology has a ways to go. I found Second Life more immersive, but even so, even the relatively crude communications enabled by e-mail and instant messaging did more to revolutionize my online social interactions.

A few other differences from Second Life: Lively doesn’t have money. It’s designed to be easier to use, with a drag-and-drop interface. And it’s not programmable, at least yet, so you can only select furniture, clothes, hairstyles, and such from the prefabricated catalog Google supplies.

Money and programmability are both items the company is seriously considering, though, Yang said. A Mac OS X client also is a high priority, she added.

Originally posted here:
With Lively, Google tries its own ‘Second Life’

Google’s Documents and Spreadsheets service went down for approximately 45 minutes earlier this morning.

The service, Google’s online productivity suite, went from having some features not working, like the log-out button and the document creation drop-down menu, to coming up with a 404 page.

The downtime calls into question the importance that online Web applications play in business use, as well as how Google’s free document services have come to replace software solutions such as Microsoft Office for some users or teams that use Google’s real-time collaboration features.

As a reminder, outages for Google Results should not result in data loss. Google’s GFS (Google File System) backup method is one of the most rigorous systems used by any data host. As I mentioned in a post from last year, a lost copy of your data on one server is backed up in a dozen other places, so you won’t even notice.

The rest is here:
Google Docs goes down, user data does not

Google’s Documents and Spreadsheets service went down for approximately 45 minutes earlier this morning.

The service, Google’s online productivity suite, went from having some features not working, like the log-out button and the document creation drop-down menu, to coming up with a 404 page.

The downtime calls into question the importance that online Web applications play in business use, as well as how Google’s free document services have come to replace software solutions such as Microsoft Office for some users or teams that use Google’s real-time collaboration features.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

As a reminder, outages for Google Results should not result in data loss. Google’s GFS (Google File System) backup method is one of the most rigorous systems used by any data host. As I mentioned in a post from last year, a lost copy of your data on one server is backed up in a dozen other places, so you won’t even notice.

Update: Google has responded to The Register’s query about this morning’s outage with this statement:

“For a short period this morning, our users had difficulty accessing Google Docs. Some Google Apps users were also affected … We have now resolved the problem. We know how important Google Docs is to our users, so we take issues like this very seriously.”

The Official Google Docs blog has not been updated with any additional notes, or an explanation of what exactly went wrong, although Google Docs’ help section has some small notes first acknowledging the problem, along with a note to say it was fixed.

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Google Docs goes down, user data does not [Updated]

Google on Tuesday said it is now using an e-mail authentication technology to keep phishers from luring Gmail users to fake eBay and PayPal Web pages in order to steal usernames and passwords.

The technology, DomainKeys, uses cryptography to verify the domain of the sender of an e-mail. It allows e-mail providers to validate the domain from which an e-mail originates, and it enables easier detection of phishing attempts by helping identify abusive domains.

Last October, Yahoo announced that it was protecting Yahoo Mail users with eBay and PayPal accounts from phishing attempts using the same technology.

The DomainKeys technology is covered by a patent assigned to Yahoo. The company released it under a dual-license scheme that allows the companies to use it royalty-free under the GNU General Public License (GPL 2.0), which enabled the Internet Engineering Task Force to approve it as a proposed Internet standard.

Source:
Gmail now blocking fake eBay, PayPal e-mails

(Credit: Google Operating System blog)

Google Maps is starting to roll out a beta of walking directions in addition to driving directions, the Google Operating System fan blog noticed on Monday.

It looks like it’s available to select users in select locations for the time being, and indeed, I can’t access it from my Google account yet. It’s also unclear whether this will get expanded to the mobile version of Google Maps, where the availability of walking directions would certainly help.

This sort of feature can be very useful in cities with lots of one-way streets, like New York, or with parks and thoroughfares that accommodate pedestrians but not cars. Currently, Google Maps directions may suggest an extremely roundabout route when a much more direct one is possible by walking or biking.

Google Maps, which recently expanded its partnership with mapping company Tele Atlas, notes to “use caution when walking in unfamiliar areas,” which is Googlespeak for “don’t blame Larry and Sergey if you get mugged.”

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Google Maps takes steps towards walking directions