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Information Technology News Personalized Home Pages goes iGoogle
Information Technology News Personalized Home Pages goes iGoogle | Personalized Home Pages goes iGoogle |
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| by Stephen Withers | |
| Tuesday, 01 May 2007 | |
  
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(It might be more convenient if www.igoogle.com redirected to iGoogle rather than the standard search page at www.google.com.) While Google Gadgets - such as the clock and calendar that appear on the default iGoogle page - have been available for some time, creating them required a certain amount of skill. Google has now created a form-driven tool to build simple gadgets to display photos, YouTube videos, countdown timers, greetings and other items for display on the user's own iGoogle page or to share with others. "[S]tarting today, without having any programming or web design experience at all, anyone can create Google Gadgets for iGoogle and send them to friends," wrote iGoogle software engineer Sophia Brueckner in the company's official blog. "You can always make changes to your gadget, and you can even set some kinds of gadgets to update automatically so your friends will see a new message daily." Unless users log into their Google accounts, they only see the default iGoogle page. When people are logged in, Google is able to use data stored about that person in an attempt to generate more relevant search results for them. In addition to previous searches, that information includes their geographical location (as optionally set in Google Maps), and perhaps the contents of their Gmail box. While people might not worry too much about an automated process using this information, there is a risk that other parties including government agencies might seek access to it for purposes not envisaged by users.{moscomment} |
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