The T-Mobile G1 Google phone is set to start hitting the markets soon, and with this hanging in the air other companies are stepping up Android development. Motorola announced they too will have an Android phone, putting the focus on social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook which will be optimized for the smart phone.

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With a name like Dr. Larry Brilliant you almost wonder if Google is joking when they talk about fighting Aids or Sars. No, they aren't, at least not this time. Google.org's executive director is Dr. Brilliant, and he is part of Google's latest push to insure the business market by fighting real threats to real people. Google's maneuverings, as I have covered in previous blogs, border on a meditation of post-humanism. If there is a problem, Google seems willing to tackle it.

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Google is again in the news in relation to co-founder Larry Page's attempts to promote Google's "Free the Airwaves" campaign. Larry Page claims that the FCC's unlicensed "white spaces" tests were rigged, and they don't accurately represent whether wireless signals will interfere with television carrier signals. The purpose of this statement is to address concerns that the FCC is not allowing people access to public domain, and that the regulatory commission is instead favoring corporations. In the battle of the giants, it is intriguing to see Google (now watched with a certain amount of skepticism as to their motive) and the familiar vilified FCC going toe to toe over this issue.

So what is Google trying to do exactly? Vinton Cerf, the 'father of the Internet' works for Google as their "Internet evangelist." Net neutrality is a major theme for Google, even if complaints are leveled against them to the contrary. The thought of Google evangelizing the Internet, or anything for that matter, must mean an underlying vision or belief system. The constant "do no evil" mantra at the heart of Google's mission statement is certainly no different from any conventional religion, but this is not at all similar to what most businesses do in order to profit.

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Does Google know what the future of computing looks like or are they just ensuring we move in some forward direction? The announcement of the Google phone's release, while receiving lackluster responses in some regards, shows a glimpse of some plan. Computing has long been the domain of the home, but as technology advances and we become more mobile, it is likely to be the case that we no longer require Microsoft and the old way of doing things. This raises some ethical questions as to how much we want to put ourselves into the hands of Google, but also what exactly we will be doing with our newfound computing.

The Google G1 phone, in combination with Android, offers versatility in function. The Open Source movement, which is powerful enough in its own right (i.e. Open Office) to destabilize entrenched giants (i.e. Microsoft) is theoretically at the core of Android. Developers will have license to play, and this means the Google phone is going to go forth and multiply. Conceptually, the Google phone doesn't seem to offer as much as the Mac phone, or at least it's not blowing the other smart phones out of the water. However, Android is where the Google phone is getting its real meat from and needless to say developers are going to flesh out programs for the smart phone that Google may not have even considered.

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Sometimes Google news has the tendency to get a little weird. One of the reasons I enjoy blogging about Google is that the company consistently surprises. It almost feels like I'm living in a speculative fiction narrative: a major corporation decides offshore data centers in international waters are the way of the future. Now all we are missing are cybernetically enhanced pirates and artificial intelligences behind the whole mess.

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It is increasingly clear that there is a "Google backlash" going on. Customarily wary, and with good right, of the penetration of a company into a market (or all markets), people distrust the motivations and intentions of that company. Google's acquisitions and projects range the gamut, striding ever more toward the façade of an even more omnipresent corporate presence. Yet, it is difficult to point Google out as being a vast grasping evil.

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Some of you may wonder why it is that I decided not to rush out and post a reaction to Chrome. Well, first off everyone else is doing it. That much goes without saying because it's pretty hot news. I wanted to wait and see what cropped up though, as well as test the browser for myself. I gave it a nice run through and I feel like it passed some hurdles, but tripped up on others.

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Exciting news for Google watchers: the Android developers announced their content distribution system. This means that with the release of the Android we are going to have the opportunity to explore what it can do. As a gateway for programs, free or for purchase, Android users will be able to really open up the functionality of their phones. This is going to change the very nature of how we use our phones.

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Google has been doing a lot with its ad schemes, focusing on ever more intricate ways of marketing. It's capable of casting its net for a large harvest or a concentrated one. Still, the Internet represents only a small harvest in comparison to that which lies in the great ad ocean of television. Google is now beginning to penetrate that market though, according to an interview with Keval Desai, the program manager for Google's TV ad efforts. With Google making the jump off the Internet and into our TVs they are no longer conforming to "search engine" box they started in. Google is most assuredly an ad-based company, but why then the side projects and technologies?

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Customers have a reason to be mad at Google. They promised a product and for some, failed to deliver. This is more than just a breach of service; it's a breach of trust. The truth is that Google can afford to fix its mistakes, but it's getting an acute dose of reality and sharp backlash. Nobody can complain when their free Gmail account goes out, but people that pay for the service with the bells and whistles have all the right in the world.

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'Net neutrality is a hotly contested topic. The proponents for 'Net restriction claim it will grant more choices to the consumer, and will help deal with growing bandwidth problems. Those that support 'Net neutrality claim it restricts innovation, and defiles the freedom the Internet is widely known for. Regardless of the arguments, an undeniable change in the way we access the Internet is coming in the form of broadband throttling or, as in the case of Time Warner and some other telecom giants, charging for bandwidth use in excess of that which is allotted monthly.

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An interview with David Liu, founder of the gOS Linux distro project, reveals that Google worked with his team in developing the new $199 computer to be sold at Wal-Mart. The computer contains gOS, which is built off of Ubuntu, and is aimed at a target audience that would benefit from what it has to offer, but really wouldn't know much about Linux. The computer's low end approach to easy computing also means that it relies heavily on low-resource gadgets from Google that help streamline its operation.

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We are lucky to be around to see what happens when you mix politics and the Internet. A lot of attention is given to how the Internet changed the way we look at politics. From Sen. Obama's fundraising efforts to Sen. McCain's daughter's campaign trail blog, the Internet is shaping up to be an even more potent political tool than television or radio. YouTube certainly fueled this fire by allowing at-demand access to speeches, but the search features for specific speeches is less than perfect. Google claims to have given that a boost with one of their latest search tools: a gadget that searches political speeches for specified text.

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I wanted to believe, I really did. When I first saw the buzz about the new alternative to Google, Cuil, I looked into it optimistically. Cuil states a mission of not wanting to invade your privacy on searches, and touts very intelligent search functions, but so far in toying with the engine I feel unsatisfied. That is a poor place to start for a web searcher looking to combat the Colossus that Google represents.

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Google’s recent addition of Knol shows willingness to combat such web entities as Wikipedia for web supremacy. Wikipedia, oft a subject of debate as to its impartiality and accuracy, is still a popular site to find facts and data. Knol seeks to take away the anonymity of Wikipedia’s author base and instead put experts into the spotlight, creating a sort of blog relationship with an encyclopedic function.

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Viacom’s battle with Google has its feints and thrusts, but it seems that Google is maintaining something of an upper hand. Despite privacy concerns, millions of viewers will remain anonymous during the analysis of their viewing habits, something I have said has its pros and cons: Viacom gets valuable viewing data for market trends, which is ordinarily hard to obtain, and the viewers don’t get scrutinized by a media mogul.

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Google's YouTube is probably a stomach ache for the company. Recently I wrote about Sen. Liebermann and his demand that YouTube take down videos. Now Google finished a court date with media giant Viacom over copyright violations. The net result: Google has to surrender 12 terabytes of data on user searches. Already people are talking about the implications of this, and whether it is an invasion of privacy. In my opinion Viacom is getting a large test run of Google Ad Planner, the new marketing tool released by Google.

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Google’s versatile tool belt of utilities continues to expand out of their Google Labs. Rather than just being our search engine or our email, we now have the Swiss Army knife; a tool set called Google Apps offered by Google for a nominal fee (or free if you want limited functionality) that can really change your IT environment. In the process of looking at Google Apps for municipal government use I learned the following things that can apply to your IT department:

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What does Google have in common with punk rock and video games? Google joins music and video games as targets of Senator Joe Lieberman. Sen. Lieberman believes Google is playing host to “terrorists” by allowing al-Qaeda videos to remain on YouTube, saying that they are in direction violation of YouTube's terms of service. Google defends its decision to leave the videos up by claiming that they are valuable articles of information.

On the one hand Google has a strike against it: Google has been accused of helping China censor what the people read. On the other hand Google is attempting to invoke the Constitution. Maligned as Google might be for working with China's repressive regime we have to keep in mind China is not America. America has stated rights and freedoms.

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A long weekend closes. I am weary and beat. My calves feel like somebody has been punching them, and I haven't had a chance to shave. This, in effect, is what some of us have to go through when we want to reconfigure any sort of server environment the hard physical way: yanking cables, moving racks around, and generally just working oblivious to the passing of time.

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