Google self-driving car 300,000 miles -- and counting

(Credit: Google)

Google screws around with a lot of far out, even cockamamie projects -- well, because it can and it's fun. Two good reasons that few can fault.

And it's also a good way to push the proverbial tech envelope. So it is that Google's update about the company's self-driving car project suggests this is turning into something more than Sergey & Larry's homebrew experiment.

 Our vehicles, of which about a dozen are on the road at any given time, have now completed more than 300,000 miles of testing. They've covered a wide range of traffic conditions, and there hasn't been a single accident under computer control.

Though Google said it was "encouraged by this progress," the company also cautioned that "there's still a long road ahead" (pun intended, apparently). The next big challenge: snow-covered roadways, interpreting temporary construction signals, and an ability to "handle other tricky situations that many drivers encounter."

 As a next step, members of the self-driving car team will soon start using the cars solo (rather than in pairs), for things like commuting to work. This is an important milestone, as it brings this technology one step closer to every commuter. One day we hope this capability will enable people to be more productive in their cars. For now, our team members will remain in the driver's seats and will take back control if needed.

Miles to go, though, before we learn when this technology might become ready for prime time for the rest of the driving public or whether Google intends to license it out.

Twitter feed for spare Olympic tickets back online

A Twitter feed that alerted fans when spare Olympic tickets become available has been reinstated.

When the first events began, Olympic officials faced criticism over the number of seats remaining empty at events. One enthusiast, Adam Naisbitt, was so frustrated by the system that allowed games fans to buy up the spare tickets that he came up with his own alternative, the BBC reports.

Naisbitt set up a Twitter feed,@2012TicketAlert, which tweets information about spare tickets as soon as they are released. The feed leans on details gathered by his software from the official Olympics Web site, and has been used by hundreds of games fans to buy tickets.

However, the feed ran in difficulties on August 2 when the 2012 London Games' official ticket agency, Ticketmaster, updated its Web site. The move was an effort stop any ticket touts snapping up spare seats, and blocked external programs from accessing the site, according to the BBC.

Google spreadsheets gains lockdown feature

Google has added a new feature to its spreadsheet product that enables users to lock down particular sections.

According to Google, the feature, called Protected Ranges, is intended to stop cells being modified accidentally when several users are working on the same spreadsheet.

Protected Ranges creates designated sections of a spreadsheet that cannot be changed by users that don't have editing rights.

The feature works like this: highlight the cells you want to lock down, right-click to bring up the menu, and then choose "Named and protect range." Then, click "protect" and "done."

Users can also set permissions for who has access to the document, from the ability to just view it through to full editing rights.

Protected ranges are not the only update Google has made to its spreadsheets: it is also now possible to add new colors and patterns to cell borders and the find and replace function has also received a revamp.

Users can also search using patterns -- called "regular expressions" -- to find cells that have the same features: for example, "^[A-Z]+" would result in a list of all cells that begin with uppercase letters.

Earlier this month, Google said it was retiring Google Listen, Google Apps for Teams and Google Video for Business as part of an effort to streamline its services.

Samsung gives Apple the 'boot' in defense

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- One way Samsung hopes to show a jury that its products differ from Apple's is something as simple as turning them on.

The devices, that is.

In the fifth day of trial here today, Samsung spent some time booting up three different devices -- two phones and one tablet -- to make the case that consumers know what they're getting before they even start using a gadget.

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That's an important consideration given claims by Apple, brought out in its opening statements and in its complaint at large, which says Samsung's devices are so similar that people could end up mistaking a Samsung device for one made by Apple.

To make its point, Samsung booted up one of its Droid series phones, the Droid Charge, and the original iPhone to show the court how the two differed. Where Apple's first iPhone booted up just like it does today -- with a metallic Apple logo -- Samsung's splashed a title screen with its logo, then went to an animated video with sound that boomed out a robotic "DROID."

Samsung then attempted to point out just how many steps were involved before users would see the home screen of icons, something Apple has accused Samsung of copying. For the Droid Charge, that included turning on the device, unlocking it, and hitting a software button to pull up a list of applications.

"It's only after all these steps that the consumer gets to the application screen," Samsung counsel Charles Verhoeven argued to Susan Kare, one of the designers of the early Mac icons.

Kare had been on the witness stand for Apple earlier in the day, arguing that numerous interface elements, though mainly the iconography and general home-screen layout, infringed on Apple's design patent on the original iPhone's home-screen. Apple says Samsung copied this look in nearly a dozen of the accused devices.

Samsung carried the boot defense to Apple's next witness, Russell Winer, the chair of the Department of Marketing at New York University's Stern School of Business. Russell had been called on to discuss the look and feel of the devices, particularly what Russell referred to as "blurring," where there is a degree of similarity between different devices.

Samsung's Verhoeven countered Winer's claims that Samsung's devices, particularly the company's Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet, were causing blurring, by pointing out differences. That included the start-up of the device, where once again the tablet flashed up Samsung's logo and the actual name of the device.

One thing that's unclear so far is how many customers would actually turn a device on or off before they purchase it, or somehow make it through packaging without seeing which company the product was from. Apple, for its part, has hung much of that argument on a Samsung-led study of 30 Best Buy stores in three different states, which found that many customers had, in fact, returned some of Samsung's Galaxy tablets, believing they were iPads.