Computer Research

YouTube Reinstates Video Appearing to Document Prisoner Abuse

Google-owned YouTube reinstated a video appearing to document prisoner abuse at a Russian prison camp. The Wall Street Journal writes:

<<Lawyer Robert Amsterdam posted the video to YouTube in December with the explanation that the 2006 footage comes from a prison camp in Yekaterinaburg and was discovered by Lev Ponomarev, co-founder of the Moscow-based Foundation for Defense of Rights of Prisoners.

The six-minute clip includes scenes of a troop of men in camouflage uniforms and helmets marching into a building and then beating unarmed individuals with clubs. (...)

YouTube removed the video last week after a user flagged it on the site as not being appropriate for all viewers.>>

YouTube then removed the video after users flagged it as inappropriate for all users, the Wall Street Journal reports. The video is painful to watch and appears to show how authorities can become sadists in certain circumstancs. Removing evidence of this brutality however only helps those abusing their power. YouTube seems to have realized this and restored the video. “Having reviewed the case, we have restored the video,” the Wall Street Journal quotes a YouTube spokesperson, who also says, “We are committed to preserving YouTube as an important platform for expression of all kinds, while also ensuring that the site remains a safe environment for our users.”

Previously, in November 2007, Reuters reported YouTube cancelled the account of an Egypt anti-torture activist.

[Thanks Search-Engines-Web.com.]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: YouTube Reinstates Video Appearing to Documen ... | Comments]

Google Sites Launched

Google released Google Sites, allowing you or a whole team to build websites with documents, photos, presentations and more. This new service, which was spawned from the Google-acquired JotSpot suite, just works with a Google Apps account, though.

If you don’t have a Google Apps account, try signing up for one. If you have one, log-in to your domain management dashboard and click the “Add more services” link, where you can then add Sites.

Creating a site

When you create a site, you’ll first configure site title, topics, theme and more. I’m creating a dummy site for Samplonia Inc’s software downloads. Once saved, the page is (optionally) public on an address like sites.google.com/a/outer-court.com/samplonia....

Editing pages on the site

If you’re logged in to Google as administrator, then you will see an Edit button above pages (among other buttons, none of which appear for normal visitors). Hitting the wiki-style Edit button transforms the page you’re looking at into a what-you-see-is-sort-of-what-you-get editor. Nothing so far is revolutionary as similar content management systems have been around for many years (the press release, in true press release style, makes you think Google just invented the wheel), but the implementation is quite usable.

Admin view

Admin view while editing

What the visitor sees

When you create a new page, you can select from different page types (web page, dashboard, announcements, file cabinet, and list), and each type may have more sub-types (e.g. a list can consist of action items, issues, a unit status, or a custom list). Using a list -> issues page, I’ve created a todo list for the sample site.

Creating a todo list using the list page type

Many more options are available from Google Sites. There’s:

• the ability for editors in the team to add comments to a page
• the ability to add attachments to a page
• an automated site map, showing the hierarchy of your site’s pages
• an alert feature you can subscribe to, sending you an email when the page changed
• a revision history for pages so you can see what was changed on a page in the past
• the ability to customize the sidebar, e.g. by adding a countdown widget
• a built-in site search which doesn’t include the usual lags of having Googlebot index the site first
• sharing options for the site, with an interface similar to the sharing tab of Google Docs
• customization options for fonts and colors, as well as the ability to change the theme later on
• and more...

Google also presents a couple of use-cases so you can see what can be done with Google Sites.

The feedback so far

Some of the early comments Google Sites received in the forum were mixed. Ben says, “I’m so disappointed that it’s just for creating intranets, and is not after all a replacement for the very basic Google Pages.” He adds: “I also wish it was a public wiki rather than a private wiki – i.e. I wish people could sign-up themselves, without having to be invited, and could view edit history without having to login.”

Beussery notes that Google still seems to be fixing bugs right now. Pau Tomàs comments that Google Sites “needs more integration with the other Google Apps. For example offering a list of the available Docs when inserting into the document instead of having to paste the URL of the doc.” David Mulder wonders why people call Google Sites a wiki, as he considers it more of an “advanced intranet tool”.

Elsewhere at the Google Operating System blog, Simon comments (line breaks removed): “I’ve given Sites a try and it looks as easy as using Blogger. As usual, Google is ’starting simple’ but there’ll be more to come I’m sure. We’ve used Blogger for a community organisation which doesn’t have a lot of web expertise but Sites may be the way to go for collaborative content generation. Meanwhile, I’m wondering if there’s potential for a ’family intranet’.” And Ephilei wonders: “So will this be a total replacement for the Google Page Creator which hasn’t seen an update in about a year?”

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch argues Google Sites is a relaunch of JotSpot which took 16 month. He says it may not be a SharePoint killer yet, but that “Google Apps constitutes 2-3% of Google’s total revenues. Some point soon, its going to start hurting Microsoft.”

[Thanks Jérôme Flipo and everyone in the forum thread!]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Google Sites Launched | Comments]

New Google Health Screenshots

Google released a couple of Google Health screenshots, like the one below:

Google’s Marissa Mayer says Google Health enables users to “collect, store, and manage their own medical records online.”

You can compare this Google Health version with previously surfaced screenshots.

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: New Google Health Screenshots | Comments]

Duplicate events with GooSync

Both my wife and I have Windows Mobile phones, and we use Google Calendar for our calendars.  GooSync allows us to wirelessly sync our calendars with our phones.  My wife and I both have GooSync accounts, which sync to our own Google Calendar accounts.  The permissions on some of the calendars has been setup so either one of us can add events.

There appears to be a bug where events are getting duplicated, seemingly on every sync.  From looking at the duplicated events, they are being created from my wife's phone.  Maybe it is caused because these events were created by my account, and maybe GooSync can't handle this.

It looks like I am not the only person having this problem.  Here are several forum posts: (1, 2, 3).  There doesn't appear to be any official response to these reports.

I spent 30 minutes removing the duplicates.  Ideally, Google would offer SyncML access to calendar accounts.  Then, I could get rid of this third party from the process. 

Google Docs Redesign

Parts of Google Docs (Google’s office suite including web-based text editor, spreadsheets and presentations) just received a slight interface revamp. As I’m seeing this on two different computers with two different log-ins, it’s probably not just a limited test, but currently being rolled out for all – do you see it already?

The Google document editor toolbar is one of the most heavily changed parts of the interface. I’m happy Google made some of the buttons easier to recognize. For instance, in the old interface differentiating between the font size vs font family picker always took an extra second or so; same for the font color vs font background color tools, which were easy to confuse.

Also, the document editor save button now moved to the toolbar, with a more traditional disk item. The spellcheck button is now also in the toolbar, moved from its previous position in the bottom right of the editor. The “Also editing now” message – in case there is someone editing along with you when you open the document – moved a bit to the right. Printing is now also available as button, meaning you can print from the file menu, by pressing the button, or by clicking the Print link on top... a little too much, I think.

The Google Presentations editor toolbar and other parts of Google Docs received a rebrush as well.

I kinda like these interface rollout surprises, though that’s also because the design choices made are arguably for the better. As there is no way for you to opt-in to the changes, I wonder how people using this tool everyday would feel once a design revamp makes things worse. With desktop software, at least you can decide whether or not to upgrade to the next version, something not commonly possible in web apps (though it’s not impossible to implement, and has been partly implemented in web apps like Gmail).

[Thanks Jérôme Flipo!]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Google Docs Redesign | Comments]