From Nintendo Maps to YouTube DVD collections

April 1 is typically one of the most annoying days on the Internet, as just about everyone feels the need to subject us to their not-so-clever “OMG I JUST PWN3D U!” pranks. But fortunately, Google is a lot cleverer than most typical Internet denizens and routinely comes up with some of the more amusing pranks every year around this time. In this slideshow we’ll guide you through Google’s top April Fools’ Day pranks of 2012, including Nintendo-style Maps, Morse Code Gmail and multitasking Chrome (relive Google’s 2011 April Fools’ collection.)

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8-Bit Google Maps for the original Nintendo
Google has worked hard over the years to make its Maps application the most detailed and up-to-date one anywhere on the Web. But what about users who haven’t bought a piece of electronics since getting a Nintendo Entertainment System back in 1988? Well for those users, Google created an 8-bit version of Maps that makes travelling throughout the world looks like playing “Zelda II.”

The complete YouTube on DVD
YouTube has brought us a lot of fond memories over the years, from Keyboard Cat to Rick Astley to Chris Crocker’s valiant defense of Britney Spears. And now, Google is offering you all your favorite YouTube moments on DVD. As in, all of them, sent to you in several large cardboard boxes. The best feature of this gag is the ability to snail-mail a cardboard thumbs-up symbol to the video creator’s home address.

Morse-Code Gmail
Yeah, touchscreen keyboards are still somewhat awkward to use. So why not switch to a system that gives you just two buttons to work with: A dot and a dash? Yes, Google is going really, really retro and bringing back Morse code for mobile Gmail. Siri is shaking in her boots, I bet.

Rotary Phone website optimization
Sure, smartphones are all the rage today and every business is working overtime to make sure that their website also delivers a top-notch mobile experience. But what about the .00001% of the population that still relies on rotary phones to make their calls? How will you reach this key market group of bitter misanthropic Luddite shut-ins? Google’s Mobile Ads team has the answer as it’s designed a program to “to help you prepare for the return of rotary,” whenever the heck that might happen.

Interplanetary Analytics
While most Google pranks utilize retro technology for laughs, the Analytics team has decided to launch us into the future with an Analytics system designed for interplanetary space travel. As a test example, Google asks you to imagine that you have “a chain of taco stands and [have] noticed many users visiting your website from the Mars outpost” meaning that you might want to “make a business case to begin expanding your business to serve Mars colonists.”

Self-driving racing cars
This certainly takes the human element out of your typical NASCAR race. The good news about this is that fiery race car crashes will no longer result in the tragic loss of human life. The bad news is that one of America’s most popular competitive events will be reduced to a driving version of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. Progress has its drawbacks…

Google Fiber bar
For the uninitiated, Google has been building out a high-speed fiber network in Kansas City that will deliver average download speeds of 100Mbps to area homes within the next year. The company has also apparently been building the Ultimate Fitness Bar that will help you win bicycle races and other feats of athletic glory.

Google Street ‘Roo
Google’s Aussie team decided to chip into the April Fools’ Day fun by creating the Google Street Kangaroo to provide you with real-time traffic updates via its mounted head camera. Of course, the ‘roo’s live updates aren’t for those with motion sickness since its camera work is best described as somewhat bouncy. At any rate, who doesn’t love looking at a cute marsupial with an oversized camera attached to its head?

Google Chrome two-mouse multitasking
Multitasking is a staple of modern life, so much so that we often have difficulty jus… oooo, I just got a new high score in “Angry Birds Space!”… uh, as I was saying, multitasking is pretty important to the modern work environment. As such, Google has given Google Chrome the ability to handle not just one, but two mice! Wow! Now you can try to do your work while… ooooo, I just finished downloading the new “Game of Thrones” episode on iTunes!

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We want to hear from YOU!
Did Google tickle your funny bone again this year? Or do you long for the days of Flugelhorn Feline? Let us know in the comments!

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Whittaker says CEO Larry Page took his eye off innovation to chase Facebook
Computerworld – A former Google executive has said the company is so focused on advertising and its increasing rivalry with Facebook that the search company is going off track.

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James Whittaker, who for nearly three years was an engineering director at Google until he left to work at Microsoft last month, lashed into Google CEO Larry Page and what he called the “new Google” in a lengthy post on Microsoft’s blog.

Whittaker said he used to love working at Google and was an enthusiastic evangelist for the company. That all changed, he said, when the company stopped focusing on innovation and technology and turned to capturing advertising and going after the world’s biggest social network, Facebook.

Google changed so much after Page took over the company’s reins from former CEO Eric Schmidt last year that he said his last three months at Google were a “whirlwind of desperation.”
Google Plus

Google did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.

Whittaker said he realizes that Google always has been an advertising company but under Schmidt’s leadership, employees were focused on innovation and were lauded for developing new technologies.

“From this innovation machine came strategically important products like Gmail and Chrome, products that were the result of entrepreneurship at the lowest levels of the company,” he wrote in his blog post. “Maybe the engineers who actually worked on ads felt it, but the rest of us were convinced that Google was a technology company first and foremost…”

Then Google executives realized that they had missed the opportunity on social networking. They saw that Facebook had an enormous user base and had become a major competitor for online advertising, Whittaker wrote.

“Larry Page himself assumed command to right this wrong,” wrote Whittaker. “Social became state-owned, a corporate mandate called Google+. It was an ominous name invoking the feeling that Google alone wasn’t enough. Search had to be social. Android had to be social. You Tube, once joyous in their independence, had to be … well, you get the point.”

He added that suddenly all innovation had to be focused on social. “Ideas that failed to put Google+ at the center of the universe were a distraction,” Whittaker said.

It’s not surprising to hear that Google is so focused on making all of the company’s products and services connect with Google+. Page made that strategy clear last fall when he said he wanted to use Google+ to change the entire company.

“Our ultimate ambition is to transform the overall Google experience, making it beautifully simple, almost automagical, because we understand what you want and can deliver it instantly,” Page said last October. “This means baking identity and sharing into all of our products so that we build a real relationship with our users.”

According to Whittaker’s blog, this plan wasn’t a positive shift for the company.

“I think [Whittaker] is saying that the Google he knew was one that drove hard to develop innovative new products for the sake of serving users,” said Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group. “The old Google just tried to push out cool new things for users, and the advertising riches followed. This new Google seems to be trying to channel its efforts to satisfying advertiser, not user, needs. I’d argue that this approach will be less successful over the long term.”

He added that Google’s obsession with Facebook isn’t healthy for the company. “Google has to get used to the idea that they can’t be everything to everyone,” said Olds. “They can’t have all the toys in the store.”

This isn’t the first time that a Google executive has publicly aired his grievances with the company.

Microsoft today used the latest privacy flap involving Google to again blast its rival’s behavior.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal accused Google and several other online advertising companies of circumventing the privacy protections built into Apple’s Safari browser, and enabled by default on iPhones, iPads and Macs.

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In a response to a request for comment from the IDG News Service, Rachel Whetstone, Google’s senior vice president for communications and public policy, called the newspaper’s charges a mischaracterization, denied the code embedded in websites tracked users, but admitted that the code installed other advertising tracking “cookies” on users’ iOS and OS X devices.

“We didn’t anticipate that this would happen,” Whetstone said, “and we have now started removing these advertising cookies from Safari browsers.”

Microsoft used the brouhaha — not Google’s first over privacy — to again ding its rival.

“This type of tracking by Google is not new,” said Ryan Gavin, Microsoft’s head of marketing for its Internet Explorer (IE) browser, in a Friday blog. “The novelty here is that Google apparently circumvented the privacy protections built into Apple’s Safari browser in a deliberate, and ultimately, successful fashion.”

Gavin also took the time to pitch IE9 as an alternative, arguing that Microsoft’s browser “respects your privacy.”

Microsoft and Google have different ideas on Do Not Track, the label for ways browser users can set their applications to block advertisers’ efforts to track their movements and record their behavior on the Web.

IE, along with Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari, supports the Do Not Track HTTP Header, an initiative promoted by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and several privacy advocacy groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). That effort relies on websites and advertisers to modify code on their end to respond to the Do Not Track request.

IE9 also includes a different feature, dubbed “Tracking Protection,” that uses third-party-published lists to selectively block sites and content embedded in Web sites.

Google’s Chrome does not support the Do Not Track header. Instead, the browser leans on a plug-in called “Keep My Opt-Outs” that blocks targeted ads produced by several dozen companies and ad networks that hew to self-regulation guidelines set by the online advertising industry.

Microsoft and Google have regularly butted heads over privacy.

Two weeks ago, Microsoft ran a three-day campaign in several major newspaper with advertisements claiming IE9 was superior in protecting users’ privacy. At the time, Google countered with a blog post that characterized Microsoft’s claims as “myths.”

Today, the EFF and other privacy groups called on Google to straighten up.

“You need to make a pro-privacy offering to restore your users’ trust,” wrote Peter Eckersley and Rainey Reitman, the EFF’s technology projects director and activism director, in an open letter to Google. “It’s time to commit to giving users a voice about tracking and then respecting those wishes.”

The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) was harsher, calling Google’s actions “unacceptable.”

“We are severely disappointed that Google and others choose to place tracking cookies on Safari browsers using invisible form submission,” said Justin Brookman, director of consumer privacy, in an email. “We are perplexed how this decision evaded Google’s internal design and review process. After several recent missteps — and two new reboots on privacy-by-design — this should never have happened.”

The Safari bungle was only the most recent in a series from Google.

Last month, the company demoted the search ranking of Chrome’s download page after bloggers revealed a pay-for-links scheme that Google attributed to a rogue operation run by a marketing firm it had hired.

Google promised to keep the search penalty in place for at least 60 days, a move that one metrics vendor used to explain the January downturn in Chrome’s usage share.

Computerworld – Google yesterday patched 15 vulnerabilities in Chrome, paying $6,000 in bounties to bug hunters who reported some of them, and updated the browser to version 16.

The one new feature in the upgrade that Google called out was multi-user synchronization of bookmarks, passwords and apps.

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Google last refreshed Chrome seven weeks ago on Oct 25. Google produces an update to its “stable” channel about every six to eight weeks, a slightly more flexible schedule than rival Mozilla’s every-six-week pace.

Six of the 15 vulnerabilities patched Tuesday were rated “high,” the second-most-serious ranking in Google’s system, while seven were labeled “medium” and another two were tagged as “low.”

Google paid $6,000 in bounties, or less than a fourth of what it laid out in October, to five researchers for reporting seven bugs. The eight other vulnerabilities were uncovered by members of Google’s own security team, developers who contribute to the open-source Chromium project — which feeds code to Chrome — or were ranked low and so not eligible for a bonus.

The company has paid just over $180,000 so far this year in bounties to outside researchers.

Several of the bugs, including a pair attributed to independent researcher Arthur Gerkis — who earned $2,000 for his work — were found using Google’s memory error detection tool, AddressSanitizer. Released in June, AddressSanitizer can detect a variety of errors, including “use-after-free” memory management bugs like those reported by Gerkis.

Four of the flaws were related to Google’s parsing of PDF documents — the browser includes a built-in PDF viewer, eliminating the need to launch Adobe’s free Reader application — while two others were found in Chrome’s processing of SVG (scalar vector graphics) images.

Per its usual practice, Google blocked access to its bug tracking database for all 15 vulnerabilities to prevent outsiders from obtaining details that could be used to craft exploits. Google typically opens up the database weeks or even months later, after it’s sure a majority of users have had their browsers upgraded by Chrome’s silent updating process.

Google usually includes only a handful of obvious changes in each Chrome upgrade, and held to that practice yesterday: The sole feature it touted was the option to add additional users to Chrome so that several people could use the browser on a shared Mac or PC, but keep their synchronized content — bookmarks, passwords, installed apps, and more — separate.

The multi-use sync debuted in early November in a beta of Chrome 16.
Chrome 16 allows multiple users
Chrome 16 can now separately sync bookmarks and passwords for several people who share one computer.

According to Irish metrics company StatCounter, Chrome accounted for nearly 26% of all browsers used last month, enough to pass Firefox and take second place behind Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE).

Another measurement firm, U.S.-based Net Applications, still had Chrome behind Firefox, but projections based on its data showed that Google’s browser would jump Mozilla’s no later than May 2012.

Chrome 16 can be downloaded for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux from Google’s Web site. Users already running the browser will be updated automatically via the browser’s behind-the-scenes service.

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I am currently engaged with mentoring some young technology start-up businesses.  What strikes me about these companies is that they spend the majority of their time utilising their skills to deliver their product.  They are agile, knowledgeable and very hungry to succeed and to create.

When do they find time to “learn” new emerging technologies?  They seem to have learnt it “on the fly” as they go along – such is the pace of technology at the moment.  With cloud computing, mobile computing and social media now becoming the current “bubble”, I realised just how easy it is for anyone in IT to become out of date quite rapidly.

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There is an old saying which says “use it or lose it” and I will add “use it, grow it and keep your eyes open to what is happening around you, always”.   In this process we must keep learning.

Stopping learning, even for a few months or a whole year can make a huge difference.  It is like being having a motor car – use it regularly and it works fine (sure it may need a little maintenance), but leave it parked outside for a year unused and the battery will be flat, tires a bit softer, oil a bit tired, the gas will have lost its vitality etc.  (Of course it does depend on where you park it – it may not even be there when you return!)

Learning is the same, especially in IT (and most other professions – like medicine, law, tax etc) we need to keep up to date, and even a few months “out of the game” will render us less sharp, and left with an uphill battle if we want to regain our status.

If “IT” is our career, then we need to learn on a regular basis, via personal learning, e-learning, books, attending classes, or as I am realising, by working with very sharp entrepreneurs who are leveraging the three technology areas listed above without even breaking into a sweat.

What are your experiences of keeping yourself in the best shape you can?

Google just found another digital billboard for online ads: its Chrome Web browser.

I just started noticing the ads on one of my computers yesterday, and I’m not the only one to see them. Right now, the ads tout Google’s Chrome OS-powered Chromebooks, which not coincidentally happen to be on sale for the holidays.

The ads don’t interrupt ordinary Web browsing by pushing aside Web page content and don’t compete with regular Web page ads. Rather, they appear in a yellow-tinted box at the top of the new-tab page in Chrome.

That page is typically a mere way station for users on their way to other destinations, but it’s getting more important as a hub for Chrome Web Store apps and as the home screen for Chrome OS.

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The ad reminded me most of the occasional promotions Google puts on its otherwise spartan Google.com home. They’re not obnoxious flashing distractions, but they stand out against amid the uncluttered field.

You can’t blame Google for wanting to take advantage of a chance to make money. But as the Spiderman saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility.

When Google launched Chrome in September 2008, it made it clear that the browser was a secondary mechanism for making money. The company wanted people to see Web pages faster and to enable programmers to build more advanced Web applications–like Google Docs, for example.
Google Chrome logo

And as we’ve seen since then, Google likes using Chrome as a vehicle to bring new Web-app features to market–a new experimental interface to let Chrome extensions use a speech-to-text conversion, for example–and to encourage would-be Google standards such as SPDY networking, WebM video, and WebP images.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that Chrome’s new-tab page ads will likely remain like Google’s home-page ads. They’re chiefly used to promote Google services, and occasionally to offer important information such as links to natural-disaster response pages. But Google doesn’t sell the ad space the way Yahoo does with its main page.

There’s nothing stopping Google from plastering its entire browser with ads. But the moment it did so, it would start annoying users who already have plenty of other strong choices in the browser market right now. And in the long run, I believe Google will make a lot more money using browsers to advance Web services and to drive people to Google search ads than it will selling banners in its browser.

Google’s Android 4.0 operating system is more than just another upgrade.

Android 4.0, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich, marks the start of a new era for Google’s mobile platform. The release ushers in the biggest changes the software has seen since the launch of Froyo in 2010 — maybe even Eclair back in 2009. Nearly every facet of the OS has been made over, and the very core of the Android user experience has been completely reimagined.

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The more you use Ice Cream Sandwich, the more you realize just how radical a change it represents.

(Note: For the purposes of this review, I’m focusing on the smartphone side of Ice Cream Sandwich. At the time of this publication, the software had not yet been made available on any tablets.)

Getting to know Ice Cream Sandwich

The first thing you notice when you start using Ice Cream Sandwich is that Android suddenly seems a lot more friendly. While the OS has always been powerful and versatile, simple human relations weren’t exactly its strong suit.
Now, powering up an Android 4.0 device (in my case, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, which I’ve been testing for several days) is like running into an old college buddy who’s evolved into a slick professional. He has the same smarts, the same heart and soul you’ve always appreciated, but now he really has his act together — and he’s dressing better, to boot.

At a glance, Ice Cream Sandwich seems similar to the Android of years past. You have five home screen panels that hold any combination of app shortcuts, folders and live functioning widgets. Each is made up of an invisible grid that, like previous phone-based versions of Android, can support as many as 16 shortcuts (four across and four down). But beneath that basic shell, ICS is a whole new game.

You can practically see the fresh paint everywhere you look in the system. Gone are the harsh green and black colors of yore, replaced now with a soft blue-and-gray-based scheme. System icons are more brilliant, with bright colors and three-dimensional textures. New transitions and animations are sprinkled throughout the OS, adding subtle but important layers of polish.
Android Ice Cream Sandwich
Ice Cream Sandwich provides a new favorites tray that stays in place at the bottom of the screen. Click to view larger image.

As for the home screen itself, Ice Cream Sandwich provides a new favorites tray that stays in place at the bottom of the screen as you swipe from one panel to another. The tray houses a permanent link to your app drawer along with four customizable icons; you can anchor any shortcut or folder into those spots by simply dragging and dropping it into place.

ICS also introduces a new persistent search box across the top of the home screen. Tapping the main part of the box brings up Android’s universal search field, which simultaneously covers the Web and most content on your phone. Tapping the microphone at right end of the box, meanwhile, brings up Google’s Voice Actions utility, which allows you to conduct a Web search, place a phone call, send a text or email, or get driving directions by speaking into your device.

(Don’t tell Siri, but that’s actually a function Android has had for more than a year.)
The button-free philosophy

Perhaps the most striking shift with Ice Cream Sandwich is its move away from the four physical buttons that have long been Android phones’ most identifiable feature. In fact, the Galaxy Nexus — the flagship Android 4.0 phone — has no buttons on its face whatsoever.
Android Ice Cream Sandwich
Instead of physical buttons, you get three icons at the bottom of the display. Click to view larger image.

Instead, you get a trio of virtual buttons at the bottom of the display: one to go back a step, one to return to your home screen, and one to multitask, or toggle among recently used applications. These buttons will be familiar to Android tablet users; they actually first appeared in Honeycomb, as did an early implementation of the button-free philosophy. But for Android phones, they mark a major shift.

As someone who’s used Android intensely for years, I expected the lack of physical buttons to be a shock. I’m happy to say, though, that I’ve found the adjustment surprisingly painless. It’s really a natural evolution, as the on-screen buttons appear when and where you need them. If you rotate your device to a horizontal position, they move along with it. And if you don’t need them on-screen — say, if you’re viewing a photo or video — they disappear, turning into tiny dots that can emerge when beckoned but stay out of your way otherwise.

That said, the shift in button strategy does change the way you interact with the phone, especially when it comes to the search and menu functions that used to have permanent places on the front of the device. The elimination of the menu function is intended to make Android more user-friendly: Rather than having to press your phone’s menu button to find commands, as you did with previous versions of Android, apps designed for ICS show all your options in a new “action bar” that sits at the top of the screen. The action bar’s commands are context-sensitive, too, so they vary based on what task you’re performing.

When you open Google Voice, for example, the action bar gives you one icon to compose a new text, one to refresh your inbox, and one that holds an overflow list of less commonly used functions (Ice Cream Sandwich’s on-screen equivalent of the old menu button). When you’re viewing an actual message in Google Voice, the action bar changes to give you options to call the person from your conversation or compose a new message to someone else.

This approach is excellent in theory. In execution, however, it has one glaring problem: Ice Cream Sandwich lacks a certain level of consistency with the placement of some key functions. Search, for example, is sometimes an icon in the action bar, and other times an option in the on-screen overflow menu (as is the case in Google Voice).

Even that overflow menu itself moves around somewhat from application to application: On most apps that have been optimized for ICS, it lives within the action bar at the top. But on older apps that have not been updated to reflect the new design standards, it appears squished in alongside the main navigation icons at the bottom. A similar inconsistency occurred within Honeycomb. My hope is that, as the new interface reaches more and more devices, app developers will update their programs to support the new approach.

(With existing phones that have physical buttons, by the way, the physical buttons will continue to function as they always have; you’ll just use those instead of the new on-screen alternatives. The full ICS effect will be seen only on the Galaxy Nexus and subsequent button-free devices.)

The app drawer and home screen customization

Ice Cream Sandwich introduces a newly designed app drawer that puts all of your installed applications and widgets in a single centralized place. The drawer swipes horizontally, with a pleasant scroll-and-fade animation effect as you move from one screen to another. An icon at the top of the drawer gives you direct access to the Android Market as well.

Customizing your home screens is now done right from the app drawer, streamlining a process that used to be far less intuitive. With ICS, you simply touch and hold any app shortcut or widget in the app drawer, and the system automatically shows you a preview of all five home screen panels. You can then drag and drop the item anywhere you want. You can get detailed information about an app or uninstall it while you’re there, too — tasks that used to be buried within layers of settings menus.
Home screen widgets have long been one of Android’s most powerful and distinguishing features, and with Ice Cream Sandwich, they become even more valuable. Following the lead set in the tablet-focused Honeycomb OS (and seen in some third-party launcher replacement utilities), ICS allows you to interact with home screen widgets by scrolling or flipping without having to enter the actual apps.

Noteworthy examples include the Gmail widget, which lets you scroll through messages, and the Photo Gallery widget, which lets you flip through thumbnails of images on your phone. Widgets can now also be resized to take up more or less space on your home screen.

Home screen folders get a makeover with ICS, too, with a fresh new look and highly simplified setup. Creating a folder is now as easy as dragging one app on top of another; you can add or remove more apps by dragging and dropping, and you can change the folder’s name by touching it.
Notifications and multitasking

Ice Cream Sandwich gets a brand new notification bar that houses icons and information about incoming messages and alerts. It’s essentially a prettier and more powerful version of what’s existed in the past.

On the cosmetic side, the new notification area has a transparent gray background with blue and white text, matching the rest of the OS’s revamped design. Functionality-wise, the notifications now support a new system-wide swiping gesture that allows you to dismiss any individual item by flicking it left or right. This is a welcome touch that gives you greater control over what you see.

The Ice Cream Sandwich notifications area includes interactive commands for controlling music playback when the Music app is active. That means you can pause or skip tracks right from the pulldown area, without having to interrupt what you’re doing. Unfortunately, this feature appears to work only with the system Music app at the moment; third-party programs like Pandora are not currently compatible.

Along with the new notification system, Android 4.0 includes a revamped multitasking interface. It’s activated by tapping the new “recent apps” button, located next to the virtual back and home commands. This brings up a scrollable list of all the apps and services you’ve recently opened on your phone, showing each app’s name, icon and a thumbnail of its most recent state. As with the new notifications area, you can tap any item to activate it or flick to dismiss it.

The improvement here over Android’s old system — long-pressing the home key to bring up a small and limited list of icons — is immeasurable. The new multitasking interface is easy to find, fun to use, and a true highlight of the 4.0 platform.
The ICS keyboard and voice input

Google has really gone a long way in improving the system keyboard in Ice Cream Sandwich. Compared to past Android releases, the ICS keyboard is far better at predicting and correcting text, which means you can type quickly and/or sloppily and it’ll almost always figure out what you’re trying to say.
The new keyboard has a few nice bells and whistles, too, like built-in spell checking and a tremendously improved cut and paste system. I tend to be a fan of slide-based keyboards like Swype, but the stock Ice Cream Sandwich keyboard is good enough that I’m actually fine with — and even enjoying — using it.

On the voice-input front, the familiar microphone icon allows you to dictate text anywhere in the system, as it always has — but now, text is transcribed continuously, so words show up as you’re saying them instead of in one big chunk when you’re finished speaking. You can also pause and stop speaking and the system will wait for you to continue instead of stopping the session. (To signal that you’re finished, you press a “Done” button that appears on the screen.)

If the voice input mishears a word or two, error correction in Ice Cream Sandwich is quite easy: The system automatically underlines any words it thinks might be iffy, and then you just tap a word to see a list of likely alternatives and pick a replacement.
You wouldn’t think there’d be much to say about a phone’s lock screen, but with Ice Cream Sandwich, this seemingly simple system component is jam-packed with tasty new treats.

If you don’t set any security options, the default ICS lock screen uses a circular unlock gesture similar to what’s seen in Honeycomb. The lock screen offers a lot more functionality now, catching up with options that some third-party utilities have previously offered.

For example, you can now access and interact with notifications, see album cover art and music playback controls, and jump directly to your camera without ever having to go to the home screen.

Another nice touch: When your phone is locked and you receive a call, the lock screen features a new text-and-reject feature that simultaneously declines the call and sends a message to the person explaining why you can’t talk. You can pick from a list of generic responses or add your own custom message. (You can permanently edit/change the list of default responses by going into the settings section of the Phone app.)
As with past versions of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich gives you the ability to set a security pattern, password or PIN to protect your phone. It also introduces an intriguing new option: facial recognition for phone unlocking. Once configured, all you do is hold your phone in front of your your face. If all goes well, within a second or two, it recognizes your features and unlocks your device.

I found the facial recognition system to be fairly accurate and incredibly satisfying to use. In my tests, the system was able to recognize me roughly 90% of the time, even when I was wearing eyeglasses or a hat or making some silly face (for testing purposes only, of course). The times when it didn’t work were usually when I was in an extreme lighting condition or holding the phone at an unusual angle. But getting your face rejected, while perhaps mildly demoralizing, is not a big deal; you just enter in a backup password or pattern and you’re good to go.

Google does note that the facial recognition option is less secure than a pattern, password or PIN; a disclaimer on the phone goes as far as to tell you that “someone who looks similar to you” could potentially unlock your phone with the feature activated. Some users have reported being able to trick the system into unlocking by holding up a photo of the phone’s owner; I tried and was not able to replicate that. I also tested the system with my brother, whom people often mistake for me, but the phone wouldn’t unlock with his face.

The take-home message: Facial recognition is convenient, novel and impressive — and in most cases, it’s pretty secure. But if you really need to safeguard your data and can’t take any chances, it might not be the right choice for you.

Camera and Gallery

Android 4.0 includes a brand spankin’ new Camera app that’s chock full of surprises. The app’s interface boasts some significant improvements, but the added functions are what really steal the show.
One of the high points is the newly implemented support for zero shutter lag. That means you can snap one photo after another in rapid succession without ever having to stop or wait. It’s actually a little strange at first — and can make it somewhat challenging to get your image focused, if you’re moving really fast — but it’s a fantastic feature that makes photo-capturing easier than ever.

The Camera app has a cool single-motion panorama mode, too, that lets you take wide-perspective images. All you do is tap the panorama icon and press the shutter button, then move your camera slowly across the area you want to capture. When you’re finished, you tap the shutter once more, and the software puts the whole thing together into a single seamless image. It works amazingly well.

On the video side, the Camera app now includes a range of live-video effects — distorting your face, for example, or making it appear as if you’re floating in space. They’re more for fun than anything, but I found they provided some light-hearted amusement while video-chatting with friends. The Camera has a few serious new video-related tools as well, including a snapshot-capturing utility that lets you grab still images while you’re recording video.

The new Camera app and the redesigned Gallery app put photo sharing front and center, with a host of on-screen options to send images to any share-ready service. Ice Cream Sandwich also includes native photo and video editing tools. I found the video editing suite to be a bit limited in its capabilities, but the photo editing options are quite robust, with commands for cropping, sharpening, removing red eye, modifying lighting and making a variety of color adjustments. The photo editor can apply quite numerous special effects, too, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Other Ice Cream Sandwich sprinkles

I could write an entire book trying to cover and review everything that’s new in Ice Cream Sandwich. I haven’t even gotten into the revamped system settings menu — it’s far simpler and easier to use — or the new NFC-based “Android Beam” function that lets you share info with other phones by tapping the devices together (cool in theory, but fairly limited in practice at the moment).

You’ve also got random flourishes like the long overdue ability to capture screenshots and the new fine controls for managing and monitoring your network data usage. Many of the system apps are vastly improved as well, including Gmail, Calendar, People (formerly Contacts) and the browser — which now features faster page loading, automatic Chrome bookmark syncing, offline page saving and graphical tabbed browsing.

But you get the picture. Ice Cream Sandwich is more than just another upgrade; it’s a significant new beginning for the Android platform. It isn’t perfect — the software has a handful of inconsistencies and areas for improvement — but it’s astonishingly good. I suspect it’ll go a long way in delighting both hardcore enthusiasts and casual smartphone users.
Bottom line

Android has always been a powerful platform. With Ice Cream Sandwich, its power reaches new heights — and its polish makes the power more palatable than ever.

Along with the usual performance and speed enhancements, some other Google products are also heavily integrated, such as Instant and Instant Previews as well as the +1 button for Google Plus. Image results are much more vivid thanks to a new image carousel that lets users swipe through results.

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Google also promises that services like Google News and Calendar are easier to find and operate within the new Apps menu.

Hopefully the update of this app, free to download from iTunes now, will go much more smoothly than the uneasy initial release of the Gmail app for the iPad and iPhone earlier this month.

However, much like the Gmail app, the Search app still looks like a glorified version of just using Google in a browser. Sure, there are definitely some visual enhancements that one comes to expect from iPad apps in general.

But it’s still not really on par with the bounty of features and attractive graphics seen on Bing’s app for the iPad. Nevertheless, this is still a move in the right direction and reflects that Google is taking building for iOS more seriously these days.

Yesterday the company announced a new feature that not only informs users why targeted ads appear but also provides a little ammo to detonate an unsavory targeted ad. “You can also go to the Ads Preferences Manager to make changes that improve the ads that you’re seeing, including blocking specific advertisers you’re not interested in or turning off ads personalization entirely (of course, you can change your mind at any time),” explains Susan Wojcicki, SVP, Advertising on The Official Google Blog. Being “targeted,” these ads are kind of like mind-readers, showing what Google thinks we would want. “We try really hard to show you ads that are relevant,” explains lead software engineer, Diane Tang in Google’s promotional video. Sometimes, though, Google’s robots don’t quite get it right; certain targeted ads feel creepy and can even venture into hurtful territory. But now, Google’s giving the user a little revenge power, allowing users to delete certain targeted ads. Unfortunately, while the process provides a little catharsis, it doesn’t keep other, similar annoying ads from popping up.

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Related: Do We Lie to Google?
If a user sees an add that doesn’t sit well with them, clicking the “Why this ad?” link in the ad will give a pseudo explanation of why you got the ad: it can be based on search, a combination of search terms, Web history, or the contents of the e-mail or inbox, for Gmail-related ads.

Related: Why Are the Major Networks Afraid of Google TV?
Related: Mixed Buzz Over Google Buzz
The explanations aren’t too satisfying, as you can see above. But, Google also gives the option to block certain advertisers from showing up, in the Ads Preferences Manager. It will show recent ads that came up on Google search or G-mail, there you can block away the annoying advertisement forever — unless for some reason you change your mind.
Related: Five Tips for Larry Page, Google’s New CEO

Related: Facebook and Google Join Forces to Oppose Privacy Bill
The problem with this, is that it doesn’t change the way Google picks ads. It will still rely on the same algorithm that reads Gmail and remembers Web history, which wouldn’t work for some, like an anonymous friend of The Atlantic’s Rebecca Rosen. Said friend didn’t appreciate Google’s “Save Your Relationship” and “Is He Lying?” ads after a bad break-up with her boyfriend. “This snarky little message in my face really pissed me off!,” the friend told Rosen. And simply blocking the ad wouldn’t really make this problem go away, because another related ad would pop up, too.
The only refuge Google offers is to entirely opt-out of personalized ads completely. But that makes everything spammier. Those who opt in for personalized ads get 10 percent fewer ads than those who receive random advertisements, according to Google. These people are also more likely to click, which is why Google prefers the personalization. But for the recently separated, more unrelated ads might be less harsh than a stream of heartbreak.

Users must be alert about having their real identity from Google+ replace pseudonyms in other Google services

Google’s work to integrate its Google+ social networking site broadly with its other services could raise red flags for users who want to closely guard their privacy.

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Google wants Google+ to be more than a stand-alone social network. It envisions Google+ integrating with most, maybe all, of its Web applications and sites to provide social sharing capabilities and possibly a uniform online identity.

[ Also on InfoWorld: Google+ poised for push into the enterprise. | And check out the slideshow: 10 ways to enhance Google+ | [ Stay ahead of the key tech business news with InfoWorld's Today's Headlines: First Look newsletter. ]

But there is a crucial difference between Google+ and other company services like Gmail, whose users have long been able to use pseudonyms to protect their privacy, if they wish. Google+ currently requires all members to use their real names — a policy on which it has said it will bend, but not how or when.

There may be a risk that people who use their real name in Google+ but use pseudonyms in other Google services may inadvertently expose their real identity by linking Google+ with those services.

Already there are glimpses of how Google+ integrations are altering identity elsewhere on Google. For example, Google has set up a tight integration between Google+ and its Picasa Web photo management service.

For starters, users have to agree to integrate their existing Picasa Web account with Google+ in order to join Google+. If they do so, the displayed user name on Picasa Web accounts becomes the real name used in Google+, replacing the one being used before if different. (The access settings for photos and albums remain the same as prior to the integration, according to Google.)

Without the Google+ integration, Picasa Web users retain the option of using a pseudonym. However, they then can’t have a Google+ account.

Asked for comment, a Google spokesman said via e-mail: “We designed Google+ with privacy in mind, including a number of features that offer users control over what and how they share. We’re always working to provide users with transparency and choice. We’ll continue to do so as we release new features and updates for our products.”

Currently, most Google consumer online services and applications are grouped under a master umbrella account, called a Google Account. It offers individual accounts for Gmail, Docs, YouTube, Calendar, Blogger, Voice, Groups, Reader, and many others.

At this point, Google Account holders can tailor the user name displayed in some of those individual services. For example, one user can have a name shown on his Gmail messages, a different one for his YouTube account and another for a blog published on Blogger. Those names can be pseudonyms.

It’s not clear if options for having different names within a single umbrella Google Account will be maintained as Google pushes forward with the integration of Google+ and other Google services.

Of course, a way to be on Google+ but avoid dealing with its current and future integrations in Google services is to set up a separate Google Account just for it.