Google Tries Something Retro: Made in the U.S.A.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Etched into the base of Google’s wireless Nexus Q home media player, introduced on Wednesday, is its most intriguing feature.

On the underside of the Magic-8-ball-shaped device reads a simple laser-etched inscription: “Designed and Manufactured in the U.S.A.”

It has become accepted wisdom that consumer electronics products can no longer be made in the United States. During the last decade, low-cost China labor and looser environmental regulations have virtually erased what was once a vibrant American industry. Since the 1990s, one American company after another, including Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Apple, have become design and marketing shells, with huge work forces deployed at contract manufacturers in Shenzhen and elsewhere in China.

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Google’s Q links a TV or home sound system to the Internet cloud in order to play video and audio content downloaded from the Internet. The engineers who led the effort to build the device, which is based on the same microprocessor that is found in Android smartphones, and which contains seven printed circuit boards, said they had been able to almost completely source components from manufacturers in the United States.

Google was able to find a company to make the metal base in the Midwest and another supplier for the molded plastic components like the case in Southern California. Semiconductor chips are more of a challenge. In some cases, the chips are made in the United States, but then shipped to Asia to be packaged with other electronic components.

Google did not take the easy route and encase the Q in a black box. The dome of the ball-shaped case is the volume control — you twist it — a feature that required painstaking engineering and a prolonged hunt for just the right bearing, said Matt Hershenson, an engineer, who is a member of an a small team of consumer product designers who have worked together at companies such as Apple, General Magic, Phillips N.V., Web-TV and now Google.

read the entire article here
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/technology/google-and-others-give-manufacturing-in-the-us-a-try.html?pagewanted=all

Police in a small Texas town are investigating the shooting of a female couple who may have been targeted.

The women were found lying in "knee-deep" grass in a park in Portland, Texas, early Saturday. Mollie Judith Olgin, 19, was pronounced dead at the scene. Her girlfriend, 18-year-old Mary Christine Chapa, was hospitalized with a single gunshot wound to the head. Chapa was listed in critical but stable condition on Monday.


The women were believed to have been shot sometime late Friday or early Saturday.
Investigators told KRIS-TV that the women likely "walked with their assailant down a trail into knee-deep grass, where they were shot with a large caliber handgun."

According to the Corpus Christi Caller Times, a resident who lives adjacent to the park "heard two loud bangs just before midnight Friday but thought they were firecrackers."

more here
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/texas-teen-lesbian-shooting-151041847.html

The Miami-Illinois language was considered by some to be extinct. Once spoken by Native American communities throughout what’s now the American Midwest, its last fluent speakers died in the 1960s. Decades later, Daryl Baldwin, a citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, began teaching himself the language from historical manuscripts and now works with the Miami University in Ohio to continue the work of revitalizing the language, publishing stories, audio files and other educational materials. Miami children are once again learning the language and—even more inspiring—teaching it to each other.

Daryl’s work is just one example of the efforts being made to preserve and strengthen languages that are on the brink of disappearing. Today we’re introducing something we hope will help: the Endangered Languages Project, a website for people to find and share the most up-to-date and comprehensive information about endangered languages. Documenting the 3,000+ languages that are on the verge of extinction (about half of all languages in the world) is an important step in preserving cultural diversity, honoring the knowledge of our elders and empowering our youth. Technology can strengthen these efforts by helping people create high-quality recordings of their elders (often the last speakers of a language), connecting diaspora communities through social media and facilitating language learning.

The Endangered Languages Project, backed by a new coalition, the Alliance for Linguistic Diversity, gives those interested in preserving languages a place to store and access research, share advice and build collaborations. People can share their knowledge and research directly through the site and help keep the content up-to-date. A diverse group of collaborators have already begun to contribute content ranging from 18th-century manuscripts to modern teaching tools like video and audio language samples and knowledge-sharing articles. Members of the Advisory Committee have also provided guidance, helping shape the site and ensure that it addresses the interests and needs of language communities.

Google has played a role in the development and launch of this project, but the long-term goal is for true experts in the field of language preservation to take the lead. As such, in a few months we’ll officially be handing over the reins to the First Peoples' Cultural Council (FPCC) and The Institute for Language Information and Technology (The LINGUIST List) at Eastern Michigan University. FPCC will take on the role of Advisory Committee Chair, leading outreach and strategy for the project. The LINGUIST List will become the Technical Lead. Both organizations will work in coordination with the Advisory Committee.


more here
http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/endangered-languages-project-supporting.html

http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/

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Are government-backed hackers trying to compromise your Gmail account? If so, Google wants to warn you. In an online security blog post, the company has said it will start issuing warnings for users it believes are being targeted by "state-sponsored attacks" on Chrome or Google's web services. According to Google, the message "Warning: we believe state-sponsored attackers may be attempting to compromise your account or computer. Protect yourself now" will appear for a subset of users who it believes "may be a target" for malware, phishing, or other attacks. We're not sure exactly where the "protect yourself now" link leads, but the post recommends users set stronger passwords and update software and plugins.

Overall, the company is maddeningly vague about what's going on. Vice President of Security Engineering Eric Grosse says Google "can’t go into the details without giving away information that would be helpful to these bad actors, but our detailed analysis — as well as victim reports — strongly suggest the involvement of states or groups that are state-sponsored." That's likely to refer to a trojan like Flame or the almost certainly US- and Israel-created Stuxnet, but it still doesn't explain how Google decides when to deploy the warning. It's also interesting to see this right after Google starting warning users in China when their searches might be censored. We're not sure whether this is a solid warning or more of a political statement, but we'll certainly be watching for it in the coming weeks.

more
http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/5/3066290/google-state-sponsored-malware-attack-warning