Originally posted on December 19, 2006 @ 4:19 pm

Space – The Google Frontier? Boldly googling where no one has googled before? It’s starting to look that way, as the relationship between Google and NASA heads for orbit right here on earth.

Taken from the official NASA and Google press release:

NASA Ames Research Center and Google have signed a Space Act Agreement that formally establishes a relationship to work together on a variety of challenging technical problems ranging from large-scale data management and massively distributed computing, to human-computer interfaces.

As the first in a series of joint collaborations, Google and Ames will focus on making the most useful of NASA’s information available on the Internet. Real-time weather visualization and forecasting, high-resolution 3-D maps of the moon and Mars, real-time tracking of the International Space Station and the space shuttle will be explored in the future.

According to NASA Administrator Michael Griffin “The agreement between NASA and Google will soon allow every American to experience a virtual flight over the surface of the moon or through the canyons of Mars.”

Griffin added “This innovative combination of information technology and space science will make NASA’s space exploration work accessible to everyone.”

The chances of me ever getting to go up into outer space are probably one in a million, so this news totally rocks.

Will Google ever cease to amaze us? I don’t think so. I’m expecting even more exciting news on the Google front for 2007.

Originally posted on December 22, 2006 @ 2:19 pm

A disgruntled ex-employee of a wireless communications company has been convicted after Google Search records showed that he used the search engine to find information on disrupting the company’s systems.

Matthew Schuster began work as a computer technician for Alpha Computer Services in Wausau, Wisconsin in 2000. Schuster provided technical support for a wireless Internet system called CWWIS and also was a paying subscriber to CWWIS for his home.

However, after being fired in May 2003, he used customer information to hack into the wireless network to ensure he had free access to it.

He additionally used Google to search for information on disrupting wireless systems. Searches which were provided in court as part of the prosecution.

It’s probable in this instance that service records from Alpha Computer Service were used, which showed user behavior and searches on their network.

However, it does demonstrate increasing concern over privacy issues, not least the fact that search engines such as Google can assign personal names to recorded behavior, if subscribed to their services.

A recent CNET report on privacy also showed Google do receive requests for personal information from legal authorities but refuses to provide any information on how this may be used.

Overall, it continues to raise tensions that ISP’s are collecting far too much personally-identifiable data, which may work against individual privacy concerns.