Google Inc (GOOG) News: Sergey Brin’s Test-Tube Burger, Recruiting Local City Experts, Android One-Click Authentication & More

Google’s Sergey Brin: the man behind the test-tube burger (The Guardian)
If Sergey Brin didn’t exist, it might be beyond the wit of anyone to invent him. He turns 40 on the 21st of this month, and can now add his role as the funder of the new €250,000 (£216,000) “test-tube burger” to a host of other wild science-fiction ideas that are turning into fact – including investing in asteroid mining, personal genome analysis and electric cars. And that’s before you mention his role as the billionaire co-founder (with university friend Larry Page) of internet search giant Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), where he’s also helped make the phone software Android one of the planet’s most-used operating systems in just five years.

Google recruiting local city experts (The Malay Mail Online)
Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has launched a new city guide that invites Google+ users to post reviews of local restaurants, sites and businesses in exchange for free swag and access to exclusive events in their area. With little fanfare, the global search engine announced the launch of its Google City Expert programme last week in an effort to create an authoritative and reliable database of “high quality reviews” and rival leading user-generated sites such as Yelp and TripAdvisor. To qualify as a local city expert, users must produce a minimum of 50 reviews and write at least five reviews a month to maintain their status. In exchange, users will receive free swag i.e., “Google-branded items” and invitations to exclusive events in their local area.

Android one-click Google authentication method puts users, businesses at risk (PCWorld)
A feature that allows Android users to authenticate themselves on Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) websites without having to enter their account password can be abused by rogue apps to give attackers access to Google accounts, a security researcher showed Saturday at the Defcon security conference in Las Vegas. The feature is called “weblogin” and works by generating a unique token that can be used to directly authenticate users on Google websites using the accounts they have already configured on their devices. Weblogin provides a better user experience but can potentially compromise the privacy and security of personal Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) accounts, as well as Google Apps accounts used by businesses, Craig Young, a researcher at security firm Tripwire, said during his talk.

English News Today – NSA’s Google: XKeyscore search engine for all private info (English News Today)

Google Search Starts Highlighting In-Depth Articles In New Knowledge Graph Box (TechCrunch)
Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) today announced a new feature for Google Search that highlights in-depth articles related to your search queries. Google says while many users just want a quick answer, its own research indicates that about 10% of people are looking for links to more in-depth stories. Over the next few days, then, the search engine will start highlighting these kind of articles in a new section in its sidebar. It’s not clear how Google will determine that an article is “in-depth,” though chances are it will look for high-quality, long-form stories from a select number of sources. All Google will say is that the results “are ranked algorithmically based on many signals that look for high-quality, in-depth content.” The results, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) says, are meant to “provide high-quality content to help you learn about or explore a subject.”

Google Drive Gets Updated Link Tool For Docs And Slide With Integrated Google Search (TechCrunch)
Here is a small but useful update to Google Drive: the hyperlink tool, which isn’t exactly the most glamorous part of any online editor, now automatically shows you top search results from Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), bookmarks in a document and related files on Drive that you can link to with just a simple click. You only have to highlight the word you want to link, click on the hyperlink icon (or press Ctrl-K if you prefer keyboard shortcut) and off you go. In most occasions, this probably means Google will highlight a Wikipedia article — something many teachers may not be that happy about. The ability to quickly link to bookmarks in the text, though, will surely come in handy for anybody who regularly writes and edits long documents in Google Drive’s tools.