Google has announced that it has withdrawn it’s search services from China.
Google chief legal officer David Drummond said:

“Earlier today we stopped censoring our search services – Google Search, Google News and Google Images – on Google.cn.

“Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong.”

This move effectively ends the companies involvement in China which may see further critisism surface from their shores.

Today Google announced Google Buzz; its new social networking integrated solution to its current Google Mail platform and the rest of the family.  Whether or not they are trying to recreate similar successes to that of the two biggest players in the arena, Facebook and Twitter, remains to be seen but it definitely seems to have potential.

What is Google Buzz?

As discussed in the video above, Google Buzz prides itself on five key elements:

• Friends/contacts that you have contacted within Google Mail are automatically added to your ‘friends list’
• “Rich fast sharing” allows users to share content from a range of platforms such as Picasa and Twitter – with the added element of fast and high quality content being delivered “how it should be”.
• The choice to share conversations and content publicly or privately between chosen contacts.
• Updates are sent to your normal inbox – no need to miss out on updates because you haven’t logged in for a while.  Once inside your inbox message, you can continue to contribute with content without ever leaving the window.
• Recommendations of friends and content are made to you via “Recommended Buzz”.

Aside from collaborating content from the various Google services, you can also pull data from Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, Blogger and any other linked services within your Google profile (e.g. personal blog).

Google Buzz on your phone

Google Buzz can be located under ‘Inbox’ once you’ve signed into your Google Mail account.

You can also access the service on a compatible phone device by nativating to: buzz.google.com

Image: Microsoft

“At this time we have no reason to believe there is any issue related to Windows 7 in this context”.

Windows 7 actually has a feature built into the OS to attempt to determine the health of the battery powering it, but after claims in the blogging community that either:

Windows 7 is falsely reporting that a battery should be replaced.

or

Even worse, that 7 is actually causing the damage to the battery, which in turn needs to then be replaced.

Head over to the Engineering Windows 7 MSDN blog for a full detailed analysis of the problem in question.

“This data would confirm our point of view that we are seeing nothing more than the normal course of battery degradation over time.” This point is extremely valid, in the fact that if somebody is upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7, but was unaware that their battery was not the healthiest of batteries, the new feature in 7 will inform the end-user of this and recommend changing their battery.  The problem here is that many users are reporting that they either know that their batteries are in good health (either checked the battery or already replaced it recently), or feel that the upgrade process to Windows 7 has in some way damaged the battery.

If you feel that your battery is in good health, then the recommendation from Microsoft is:

… if you believe you are receiving this error and your battery is new or believed to be in great shape we would encourage you to report this to us or your original PC maker. You are welcome to send me mail through the contact form on this page, use the TechNet forum, the Microsoft Answers forum, or visit support.microsoft.com where you can get additional information about how to contact Microsoft assisted support in your region.

A few eagle eyed people amongst us will have notice that Apple have taken their online store, well, offline.

This either happens when the store is set to undergo routine maintenance, or to update the contents of the store with updated or new SKUs.

With recent rumours circulating that new Intel Core i5 and i7 powered Macbook Pro’s have been spotted in the wild, this could be something that greets us once the store is back online.

In the meantime, I’m also hoping (but not kidding myself) that they place a UK price tag on the soon-to-be-released iPad, which has recently had its launch date confirmed (roughly) for release here in the UK.

UPDATE: The Apple online store is now back up and running – The only apparent update so far is that of the release of Aperture 3, the photography software package.

Some may be disapointed not to see any hardware updates, but I think Apple are extremely switched on to knowing how consumers will view activities such as taking the store offline; but they know how the rumour mills work and it can only ever benefit 1 Infinite Loop Cupertino.

Mercedes GP have now officially confirmed that Nick Heidfeld will join the team as reserve and test driver for the 2010 season.

“It’s a great pleasure for us to have signed a driver of the calibre and experience of Nick Heidfeld,” team principal Ross Brawn said.

He joins the ex-Brawn GP team to create an all German line-up for the forthcoming season after originally being linked to a race seat before Michael Schumacher was announced as Nico Rosberg’s teammate.

Moves to subsequent teams, which were rumoured to include new team Lotus, Renault and a return to former team Sauber, failed to materialise which left Neidfeld looking for a seat for the forthcoming season.

“Whilst I would of course have preferred a seat as an active driver, I am really proud to be part of the new Silver Arrows team. I have seen how committed everyone at the team is and I feel the same,” Heidfeld said.

The Apple UK site has the Wi-Fi models due for release in late March, while you’ll have to wait until April for the 3G enabled devices.  It is presumed that these models will ship unlocked just like they will over the pond in the US, but network operators are yet to be confirmed.  Rumours are rife that both O2 and Orange have placed a large number of SIM cards that will be useable only on the iPad device as it uses micro SIM cards.

Likewise an announcement on pricing and availability of the iBooks app from day one in the UK has yet to be made, but the confirmation for both is surely not that far away.

Photo credit: F1Photos.org

With the final day of testing at Valencia now over, a rumoured 30,000+ fans in attendance were not to be left disappointed as new Ferrari driver, and Spaniard, Fernando Alonso clocked the fastest time across all three days of testing.

After getting strapped into his new F10, Alonso was quickly on the pace and matching times similar to that of his teammate Felipe Massa, who clocked a fastest lap himself of 1:11.722 after testing for the first two days.  With both drivers putting in some impressive laps (although times are unofficial and can be misleading) it looks as though Ferrari have got some real pace.  Alonso went on to finish the final day of testing by clocking a lap time of 1:11.470, almost 2.5 tenths faster than his teammate.

Veteran and race-seat returnee Pedro de la Rosa once again looked to be finding the sweet spot in his new Sauber, but things could have been worse after he and new-boy Nico Hulkenberg touched wheels earlier on in the day.  Sauber’s impressive performances over the past three days seem consistent after having their car finish 2^nd on each of the days.

German, Michael Schumacher, was once again back behind the wheel of his new Mercedes GP W01 car and continued to build on his return drive by shaving over 0.5sec off of his day one lap.

Reigning world champion Jenson Button also got his first taste of the new McLaren MP4-25 since his move from Brawn GP.  After posing for the media and signing some autographs, Jenson managed to clock in a lap of 1:12.951, almost 1.5sec off of Alonso’s lap time.

Vitaly Petrov, the first Russian national to race in Formula One, also made his debut for Renault after Robert Kubica completed the previous two days of testing.

Valencia testing

Day Three

1. Alonso                  Ferrari                1:11.470
2. de la Rosa            Sauber                1:12.094          +0.624
3. Schumacher        Mercedes           1:12.438          +0.968
4. Alguersuari         Toro Rosso         1:12.576          +1.106
5. Button                  McLaren            1:12.951          +1.481
6. Petrov                  Renault              1:13.097          +1.627
7. Hulkenberg          Williams            1:13.669          +2.199

The Formula One roadshow continued to pick up pace today with the second day of testing at Valencia.

It could be fair to say that all eyes were firmly on Lewis Hamilton as he drove his new McLaren MP4-25 for the first time after Garry Paffet did the same on day one.  And Lewis did not seem to disappoint as he clocked his fastest lap of 1:12.256, around 0.5 second down on Felipe Massa’s fastest lap.  Lets not forget that these testing events are for exactly that, testing.  These lap times do not mark as a good indicator of real performance heading into the season; but what can be told from data that Lewis and his team will be reading is that the problems that plagued the MP4-24 for much of last season appear to have gone this time around.

Lewis Hamilton told BBC Sport: “I got out smiling. The problems I had [last year] I don’t have in this car“

Meanwhile, Brazilian driver Rubens Barrichello appears to be impressed so far with the Ferrari, while also being pleased with the progress his new team at Williams are making with the preparations of their new car.

Rubens Barrichello’s (@rubarrichello) Twitter: “the car improved a lot from yesterday.Difficult to compare to others as they might be running less or more fuel.Ferrari seemed very good“

Wednesday testing will see two of the top drivers, Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso, shake down their new cars for the first time.  I for one cannot wait to see some footage of that, testing or no testing.

Unofficial Tuesday test times:
1. Felipe Massa, Ferrari, 1:11.722, 124 Laps
2. Kamui Kobayashi, BMW Sauber, 1:12.056, 96 Laps
3. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, 1:12.256, 108 Laps
4. Robert Kubica, Renault, 1:12.426, 119 Laps
5. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes GP, 1:12.899, 119 Laps
6. Rubens Barrichello, Williams, 1:13.377, 102 Laps
7. Sebastien Buemi, Toro Rosso, 1:13.823, 107 Laps

With only 37 days until the cars line up on the grid in Bahrain, preparations are well under way to test out new designs and components ahead of one of the most highly anticipated seasons in modern times.  This of course is down to events including 2009 World Champion, Jenson Button, joining the 2008 World Champion, Lewis Hamilton, at Vodafone McLaren Mercedes to make it an all British lineup.  Fernando Alonso, widely regarded as the best driver on the grid, joins Ferrari to partner Felipe Massa (who thankful seems to have made a good recovery following the horrific events in Budapest, Hungary).  And of course, Michael Schumacher makes his return to Formula One with the all new Mercedes GP Petronas team (formerly 2009 Constructors Champions Brawn GP).  All this plus many more exciting possibilities makes this season one not to miss!

Last Wednesday (27 January) Steve Jobs announced the forthcoming, highly rumoured tablet device, iPad.  But what followed on from this announcement, other than the gazing looks of Apple fans and book worms, was that of disapointment in amongst some of the technology fans.

See, many people believe that to merge the gap between smart phones and notebook/desktop PCs there needs to be functionality included any product in between that stops you from wanting to turn on any of the previous devices.  But unfortunately one of these ‘key’ features is that of a camera.  Yes, we all know that the iPhone doesn’t posses such a fantastic camera compared to the vast majority of phones on the market, but it’s what the iPhone itself can achieve in the form of other apps and compatibility with iTunes which, I believe, lead people to accepting this fact as part of the deal – I do.

So with the portability of the camera enabled smart phone in one hand, the other is consumed with the practicality and performance of your PC.  People want to use their cameras for Windows Live Messenger / AIM / iChat; not so much for things such as taking photos of the dog or items they want to put up on eBay.  But it’s clear; there is a distinction between the uses of a camera on a smart phone and that of a PC – that’s where hopefully the iPad can deliver.

With all this being said, has Apple been clever in offering us even more viral marketing for their upcoming product by showing us an iPad with, what appears to be, a camera..?  Could this be a method of generating even more interest in a product that we all know will sell by the bucket load?  Apple surely didn’t think this product would need hyping up even more did they?

According to an Engadget article, they happen to know that Mission Repair have received spare parts that seem to show a space in the would be camera position, and funnily enough, a unibody Macbook camera fits perfectly into it… what’s the chances?!

Whatever it is, I’m sure we’ll find out over the next few weeks in the countdown to launch – but something like announcing a built in camera into the 1G model of the iPad will surely have more people interested in parting with at least $499 of their hard earned money, rather than waiting for future models.

UPDATE: Head over to the Mission Repair blog post for their take on the iPad spare parts shipment (includes photos).

I won’t be trying to proclaim that I have overly achieved anything awesome, or that I have super powers!

My name is Michael Powell, I’m a twenty-something student and e-Comms Marketing Executive for an established local company.  I currently live in Liverpool, UK where I have done for the previous 3/4 years.

Prior to where I am now, I have studied eMedia (inc. web authoring, media critiquing, plus watching a hell of a lot of films), Computing (inc. VB.net, C++, HTML, CSS) and Business – this then led me to deciding to try for a place at university; something which I had not really seriously considered.  After sorting out my UCAS application, and waiting for their responses, I was finally accepted into Liverpool John Moores University in 2007 where I decided to studying BA (Hons) Marketing.

On occasions I regret the choice of subject area as my real underlying passion is in all things technology, computing and geek.  At the time I thought to myself, “keep computers as your hobby, and study business for a career”, which at the time made total sense to me, and still does, but ultimately my main aim now is to try and combine the two into a future career path for myself somewhere within the abyss that is the technology industry.

As part of that course, I am/was required to complete a 12 month sandwich placement year in my current academic year (3rd).  After applying for a range of jobs, I suddenly found myself in discussions with some very lucrative companies, including Microsoft and Disney.  Unfortunately, these are based in London and at that current time I wasn’t prepared to move down to the city for only a 12 month duration (long story short; I was originally from Kent and moved ‘up north’ to Stockport when I was around 12/13 years old).  If the opportunity arose for something more permanent, namely after graduation, then some serious thought would be put in!  So back on track…many people from my course had absolutely no idea what working a full time job would be like. Many of them wrongly assumed it would be all colourful and quite laid back; something I knew it wouldn’t be after working for a number of companies in various roles (e.g. software release technician) prior to going to university.  I now work for a local company in Liverpool working on the e-Comms that are delivered to their database – this mainly includes eNewsletters being created, as well as other traditional media methods such as page adverts.  The other people there are a good bunch to be working with, and I definitely think that this company is on the positives list of working in a smaller company compared to some big corporation which the majority of graduates these days aim to be in by the time they can even do their own washing!

Aside from work and university; I’m hugely into technology (as mentioned before).  From the first time I laid my small hands on an Artari 2600 joystick, to breaking my families first ever 486 desktop computer after corrupting sys files when I was 10 years old, I have had a buzz around this kind of thing. Marketing campaigns and keynotes are my weakness…especially (apologies for haters) Apple products; that’s all I’m going to say!

So far things are going very nicely, I’ve managed to reverse my decision to originally not entertain the idea of a university education, I’m now on course to achieve a 2:1 degree, I have my health (touches wooden desk) and last but definitely not least, a fantastic girlfriend – who luckily lives locally…no expensive train fares here!

So there we have it, I’m twenty-something, living/working/studying in Liverpool, I’m massively into my tech, gadgets, motor racing and football.  That, in a nutshell, is Michael Powell.