ReadWriteWeb

If you're interested in Google's Dart as a potential replacement for JavaScript, you might want to take a peek at Dart Synonym. The Web app was hacked together by Aaron Wheeler and Marcin Wichary of Google to "map common JavaScript idioms to Dart."

Wichary is best known for his playable Pac-Man Google doodle. Wichary and Wheeler were curious about Dart, and decided to check out the language and libraries during a Dart hackathon with the team.

Microsoft gloated on its official blog today about the oodles of coverage of Google's new privacy policy. The post uses the word "discussion," but it only linked to the vigorous freak-outs in which many sites engaged. It mentions "concerns and worries" and "lack of choice," but it never explains what Microsoft is talking about. The central thesis is that "Google... made it harder, not easier, for people to stay in control of their own information."

The post then goes straight to the list of Microsoft products to which Google users can switch: Hotmail, Bing, Office 365 and Internet Explorer. How are these products better for users' "own information" than Google? Well, they don't read it to target ads. What else do they do with users' information? No explanation here. "We've left the light on for you. :)", VP Frank X. Shaw writes. You have to hand it to Microsoft for being so forward, but by rushing to the sales pitch, this post misses a huge opportunity to be informative. Is that because the information might be more complex than Microsoft (and the press) would care to admit?

Google's Blogger has found a way to handle local government takedown requests similar to the way Twitter now does. It will now start redirecting readers to country-specific top-level domains (TLD) instead of the usual blogspot.com domain. It does so based on the location of the user's IP address, just as many other Google services do. This gives Google the "flexibility" to comply with removal requests according to local laws.

But don't start your knee-jerking just yet (as so many did with Twitter's local compliance policy). This is a way around censorship. Would you rather Blogger and Twitter be blocked in some countries outright? As Google Operating System (the original purveyor of this fine story) points out, the content at the "blogspot.com" domain will continue to exist. "Content removed due to a specific country's law will only be removed from the relevant ccTLD," Google explains in its support document.

Google updated its privacy policy on Tuesday. It replaced more than 60 separate policies with a single one that treats Google users and their data as the same across all Google services. Reactions were shrill. "The End of 'Don't Be Evil'" was trotted out for the umpteenth time. The Washington Post quoted privacy experts saying, "There is no way anyone expected this." My, that sounds terrible!

But it's not true. Everyone watching should have seen this change coming. Google executives have maintained for so long that their new direction is one unified Google product. The new policy doesn't track any new data. It doesn't change the user's settings. Users can still export all their data and leave Google forever. All this does is change perception.

Google Earth released version 6.2 today. It patches up some of the choppy textures it used to have, so it now looks like a smooth, realistic surface - no more "quilt effect." The texture improvements are now in all versions of Google Earth, including the mobile versions. This update also adds Google+ integration. Screenshots from Google Earth can be shared with Google+ circles with a new "share" button.

In a telling display of Google's new unified product approach, the Google Earth annoucement encourages users to "upgrade to Google+." Google wants to be considered all one service, and a Google+ "upgrade" spans across all its sites and applications.

Google VP of Product Bradley Horowitz announced today that Google+ will now be available to teens. Previously, the social network was exclusively for adults over 18, but now anyone with a Google Account can use it (13+ in most countries).

This policy change comes with new safety features for teen users. They will get a warning pop-up before posting publicly. Only people in teens' circles can contact them by default. If a stranger joins a Hangout in which a teen is participating, the young person is temporarily removed and asked if they want to rejoin.

I just hosted the first ReadWriteWeb Google+ Hangout, and it was a blast. Vic Gundotra stopped by to say hello, and then the guests and I got to know each other a little bit by talking about how we're liking Google+ and Google's new direction so far. I've got my issues with Google+, and I've published some rough words about it recently, so I knew a RWW Hangout would attract some lively conversation. I didn't know how right I was.

Unfortunately, our do-it-ourselves recording didn't work out, or I'd post the whole thing. Maybe our new friend Vic can talk to somebody and get us On Air capabilities, so we can record (winky face). I promise we'll use it. I'd love to do this again. I'll do my best to recap how it went and what we learned.

Google has some ideas how to make the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) a little bit faster. Earlier this week, Google's Yuchung Cheng wrote about some of Google's research and ways that the "make the web faster" team suggests improving TCP. This includes things like increasing the initial congestion window, reducing the initial timeout for TCP, and using a new algorithm for loss recovery. According to Gooogle, this would decrease network congestion and boost page load speed significantly.

Google Maps added public emergency alerts today for weather, earthquakes or other public safety concerns. Users can browse all active alerts at google.org/publicalerts, and relevant alerts will also appear on normal Google Maps searches depending on the query. Clicking through an alert on the map displays more info from the organization sending the alert.

Alerts from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Weather Service and the US Geological Survey (USGS) are included in the service. In normal Google Maps searches, alerts are shown based on their severity, the user's location and the search query.

While the tech world gasped at Apple's quarterly earnings, Google announced a total overhaul of its privacy policies, which are now just one privacy policy. "We're getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that's a lot shorter and easier to read," Google's new policies website says. As Google's leaders have made abundantly clear, Google is working towards one unified product, and the new privacy policy and terms of service reflect that.

The new policy takes effect on March 1. It's mandatory for all Google users. While there is no "opt-out," there's no such thing as opting out of a privacy policy for any Web service you use; the major change here is just that Google is now one service. Users' privacy preferences are unchanged, but the new arrangement makes it easier for Google to bring user data across its services. Google is steaming ahead toward integrating search, email, YouTube, social and work, so it's getting the legal ducks in a row to make the new Google one continuous experience.