Tech Olive

Good news for all the bicycle junkies like myself. Google Maps now has added bicycle directions on top of the car, walking, and public transit options. Not only that, but Google Maps also features bike trails, bike lanes, and bike-friendly roads. Google has partnered with Google Rails-to-Trails “to provide information on bike trails in more than 150 cities.” Thanks to Google, there won’t be any excuse for you not to bust out that two-wheeled piece of hardware.

[Press Release]

Epic Vid of the Week is a new weekly series that showcases an awesome video that we or our readers discover. Some you may have seen before and others you may have not. If you’ve discovered any videos that are worthy of an Epic Vid of the Week title, let us know!

I’m sure we’ve all seen a clip or two of Jimmy Kimmel’s Unnecessary Censorship and I guarantee you’ve at least seen the one where The Count likes to do naughty things to anything he comes across. This specific Sesame Street montage is one that many people haven’t seen, and it’s by far one of the best.

Epic Vid of the Week is a new weekly series that showcases an awesome video that we or our readers discover. Some you may have seen before and others you may have not. If you’ve discovered any videos that are worthy of an Epic Vid of the Week title, let us know!

So we’ve all been in this situation before. The printer decides to act up and the only thing to do really is to smack it into oblivion…

We could’ve seen this coming from miles away, but a Florida resident by the name of Eva Hibnick has filed a legal complaint on behalf of all 31.2 million Gmail users. The complaint mentions that Google broke the law when they allowed their social networking service, Google Buzz, to share private data without the user’s consent, as well as not giving users the option up front whether or not to use Buzz in the first place.

Google has been making incremental changes to improve the privacy of the service ever since its release, but apparently that wasn’t enough.

Google has declined to comment for now, as they have yet to review the case.

via [SF Chronicle]

A small social networking site that you might have heard of, known as Facebook, has surpassed Yahoo to take over the second position as the most visited website in the world. Web analytics firm Compete.com brings us the proof. Facebook’s traffic for the month of January was 133.62 million visitors. Yahoo’s was 132.00 million. Of course, the guys over at Mountain View still have the gold medal for most visitors and they definitely won’t give up that spot easily.

via [Mashable]

So it’s been roughly a week since the official launch of Google’s social media service, dubbed Buzz. We’ve all probably had our opportunity by now to check it out and give it a go. What do you think about it so far? Vote below and discuss in the comments!

Google has announced a Twitter competitor, dubbed Google Buzz. It’s completely integrated into the Gmail service and uses your Gmail contacts as “followers.” Buzz can connect with other web services, like Twitter, Picasa and Flickr, and will eventually support Facebook Connect. One of the cool things is that anything in Buzz can turn into a conversation. Comments and activity show up in your inbox in real-time. You can also give an item the “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” to either show more of it or hide it for future reference. In other words, Buzz will learn what preferences you want and what kind of items you like most. Of course, Google Buzz will also be fully functional on mobile devices.

Google is rolling out Buzz today and should hit everyone by the end of the week.

[Google Buzz]

Six years ago yesterday, Facebook was started at Harvard University by Mark Zuckerberg and a few of his college mates. It was then available to other universities and eventually anyone with internet access could get a Facebook account. 400 million people, in fact, are using Facebook. They’re also celebrating their birthday by rolling out a new redesign of the homepage, which, if you’re like me, probably won’t go over too well, seeing how the last redesign pissed a lot of users off.

Happy Birthday Facebook! You’re now one of the most popular time-killers on the internet.

[Mashable]

Good news for all the sports fan out there. Hulu just added the NFL Network to their TV catalog. Fox, ABC and NBC have joined together and added eight shows from the NFL Network channel, as well as highlights from past seasons for every NFL team. Check out all the cool new stuff by following the link below.

[Hulu]

You might be enjoying the free insertion fee on up to five listings per month, but you now have something more exciting to look forward to. eBay announced today that they will introduce free auction listings and reduced insertion fees on fixed-priced items in the United States. Starting price for auctions that are 99 cents or lower will be eligible for the free insertion fee. Then, when your item sells, you’ll pay a flat 9-percent final value fee. If the item doesn’t sell, you don’t pay anything.

For those power sellers out there, eBay has something for you as well. Insertion fees will be as low as 3 cents per listing for 30 days. For eBay Store subscribers, there are various subscription options depending on the size of your business. eBay says that a seller with 250 listings per month would save $80 a month or $960 a year in just insertion fees alone.

via [TechCrunch]