9to5Google: Beyond Good and Evil

Google launched the YouTube Elections Hub today so folks have a complete video resource for all-things political until the U.S. Election Day on Nov. 6.

“You can watch all of the live speeches from the floor of the upcoming Republican and Democratic National Conventions, see Google+ Hangouts with power brokers behind the scenes, and watch a live stream of the official Presidential and Vice Presidential debates,” announced YouTube News Manager Olivia Ma on the YouTube Blog. “You won’t need to go anywhere else for the must-watch moments of this election cycle…”

The hub will feature videos from politicians, parties, and well-known media, as well as shared coverage with live and on-demand content from ABC News, Al Jazeera English, BuzzFeed, Larry King, The New York Times, Phil DeFranco, Univision, and the Wall Street Journal.

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In a press release today, the U.S. Department of  Justice said it seized three domains associated with pirating and distributing Android apps. The three seized domain names – applanet.net, appbucket.net and snappzmarket.com – are now in the custody of the federal government and signs are posted from the FBI (below):

“Software apps have become an increasingly essential part of our nation’s economy and creative culture, and the criminal division is committed to working with our law enforcement partners to protect the creators of these apps and other forms of intellectual property from those who seek to steal it,” said Justice Department Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Lanny A Breuer in a statement.

As PC World noted, the websites were not always on U.S. soil. French and Dutch authorities also helped with the enforcement.

It will be interesting to see if the closures curtail pirating or if the actions just move the exploitation underground. The full press release is below. Read more

Google picked up Postini in 2007 to close the gap between its Gmail application and the more enterprise-ready platforms like Exchange and Lotus Notes. The service acts as an intermediary between email servers and the outside world and allows an extra layer of encryption/security/discovery/filtering that helped Gmail become the Google Apps platform many businesses now rely on. However, it appears Google is ready to move on.

Google announced it would integrate/merge Postini’s services into Google Apps/File Vault. For those who use Postini with Exchange or Lotus Notes, Google will be dumping you.

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Interestingly, Google said it would have a solution for Message Encryption that it will announce later this year. From the direction Google is going, we are likely to see that integrated into Google Apps and probably Gmail too. That would be nice.

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