Google Reader changes, this guy has opinions

Google's new "Good to Know" website is a resource for everyone to learn more about online security—"whether you're a new Internet user or an old hand," Google says. The site covers a broad range of privacy and security topics.

Good to Know, for example, offers tips for creating secure passwords, reveals how Google uses your location in Google Maps, describes phishing and malware detection, and more. It's a good starter guide to refer family or friends learning about online security or to find out more about Google's privacy and security policies.

Good to Know | Google

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Google Labs, that breeding ground for the wacky, sublime, and sometimes useful experiments that Mountain View's scooter-loving employees are so fond of, is getting ready to "wind down." The software giant announced today that the experimental forum for testing out potential features is being sidelined, in order for the company to focus on bigger picture ideas. Some of the more useful experimentation for properties like Calendar and Gmail will stick around, as will the Labs experiments that eventually made their way into the Android market. Google has promised to keep us all in the loop during the transition, so perhaps we can pick up a few secondhand test tubes for our own collections.Google 'winding down' Labs, likely due to meddling older sister originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jul 2011 02:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Remember the old feature in old Netscape browsers that prefetched links on a page so that when you clicked on it, the page would load from your cache instantly? Google's Instant Pages seems like that.

Here's how it works: You do a Google search. When you click a search result (usually the first one, because Google guesses you want the most relevant link), the resulting page loads almost instantly. So Google takes the time you use to choose a search result and uses that to prefetch a result into your browser's cache, so when you do click it, you'll load it really fast (from local storage).

Google says it only does this when they're very confident that you'll click the result, and then downloads and "pre-renders" it in Google Chrome (executes the Javascript), to save even more time.

It's very, very fast when it's in action, and Google says Instant Pages saves 2-5 seconds for every search. This is on top of the Google Instant feature, which already saved you about 2-5 seconds.

Instant Pages will be available this week in Chrome Beta, but today in Chrome's developer version. The stable version of Chrome will get it in the next few weeks. They're also working on Instant Pages for mobile in the near future.

Canary Chrome build