Consumer Watchdog took its crusade against Google to new heights Thursday, running ads in New York's Times Square blasting CEO Eric Schmidt on privacy issues.

The group's Inside Google site produced two videos (hosted on YouTube, of course) depicting Schmidt as a creepy maniacal ice-cream truck driver handing out free ice cream to children while conducting full body scans in order to absorb private information through 'Google Analytics.' They sort of have to be seen to be believed.

A shorter version of the video will run 36 times a day for an unspecified length of time in order to promote Consumer Watchdog's campaign for a national 'Do Not Track Me' list, similar to the Do Not Call list managed by the Federal Trade Commission. In singling out Google, Consumer Watchdog highlighted Schmidt's comments to CNBC last year on privacy as well as a more recent report that he advocated giving young people the right to change their names to restore their reputations.

The 9-to-5 workday is dead. And so are vacations, sick days, and weekend relaxation, according to a new study from Outlook add-in maker Xobni.

According to the company, which in conjunction with Harris Interactive surveyed 2,200 American and British adult workers in August, 72 percent of Americans and 68 percent of Britons check e-mail outside of regular business hours. On sick days, 42 percent of Americans check their e-mail, compared with 25.8 percent of British workers.

Xobni also found that there is a gender divide when it comes to e-mail--that 65 percent of men surveyed check their e-mail outside of work hours, compared with 51 percent of women.

Google and AOL announced Thursday that they have extended--and expanded--their global partnership.

The two companies have signed a five-year renewal of their contract that will see Google continue to offer its search services to AOL's 'content network and properties.' Google will also continue to provide AOL with its advertising products across all of the latter's sites.

In addition, Google will now power AOL's mobile search, while AOL will make all of its video content available on YouTube.

The companies have agreed to a revenue-sharing agreement, but they didn't divulge the details of that deal.

It's been two years since the first public version of Chrome appeared, but in some ways, Google's browser remains a novelty.

On Thursday, Google released the sixth stable version of Chrome, though only the second for Mac OS and Linux users. In other hands, it would be called Chrome 6, but Google sees things differently.

To the company, a version number is a passing milestone on an indefinitely long road to improvement. By default, the browser is updated behind the scenes and automatically, downloading new versions and installing them after a browser restart. It sees the practice as similar to how Web applications are updated constantly, usually without the user being involved and often without even being told.

Skyfire's first iPhone app try.

(Credit: Skyfire)

Mobile-browser builder Skyfire is striving to make good on its vow to get a solution for streaming Flash video onto the iPhone--without breaking any of Apple's restrictions against third-party browsers.

On Wednesday, Skyfire submitted Skyfire for iPhone to the App Store, albeit five months after it had promised to follow in Opera's footsteps.

Skyfire for iPhone is modeled after the Skyfire for Android app that debuted in late April. As with that version, Skyfire's iPhone app will contain a video playback button to stream Web video through Skyfire's servers.

Music Unlimited will let people select from a variety of genres.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

BERLIN--Sony announced a new service Monday called Music Unlimited that will turn many of its electronics products into online libraries for streaming music.

'It is a cloud-based digital music streaming service that gives music lovers access to millions of tracks stored and synced with your devices,' said Fujio Nishida, president of Sony Europe, at a press event here. The service 'will be going live by the end of the year,' he said.

Facebook Credits gift card.

(Credit: Facebook)

Facebook Credits is making its way to Target stores, the retailer announced on Wednesday.

Starting on Sunday, Target stores nationwide will feature Facebook Credits gift cards in increments of $15, $25, and $50. The Credits can be used on the more than 150 games and applications available on Facebook. The retailer said cards will also be available on Target.com.

Facebook Credits is quickly gaining ground as an alternative payment option on the social network. It's currently supported by wildly popular Zynga titles, FarmVille and Mafia Wars, as well as Bejeweled Blitz and the recently announced Madden NFL Superstars. Most titles still allow gamers to pay with credit cards, but it's Facebook's hope that eventually, users will buy all virtual goods with Credits.

Madden NFL Superstars after an easy victory.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

Electronic Arts has launched Madden NFL Superstars, which lets players create a fantasy football team and compete with others on Facebook.

The game, developed by EA Sports and EA-owned Playfish, features 1,500 current players from all 32 NFL teams.

I checked out the game this morning. When I first loaded it up, I was given 10,000 points to buy less-capable real-life players. Upon doing so, they were added to my team, which allowed me to play with others.

An accurate rendering of the view from the front door of my childhood home, provided courtesy of Google Street View and the programmers behind the latest Google Chrome experiment.

(Credit: Google)

The official Google blog on Tuesday posted a link to an experimental music video for the Arcade Fire song 'We Used To Wait' that shows off the capabilities of HTML5 with Google's Chrome browser.

I gave it a run earlier this afternoon. After I followed the instructions to close other applications and enter my home address, the video took about 15 seconds to start. My first impression was a flashback of visiting shady Web sites back in the days before pop-up blockers existed: a cascade of no fewer than eight browser windows opened, and trying to close any one of them displayed a message warning that I'd exit the application altogether.

Samsung has an app store for its TVs and is asking developers to make dedicated apps for it.

(Credit: Samsung Electronics)

Samsung Electronics think so. The Korean company is here pitching Samsung Apps, an application platform and marketplace, to media and content providers, as well as individual third-party developers.

Samsung Apps, as the platform is called, has been rolled out in other countries, but the company came here for its first developer conference, called Free the TV Challenge, to introduce its new software development kit to more than 100 developers in the United States.

George Lucas

(Credit: LucasFilm)

Not even the Jedi Mind trick could get LucasFilm to change its opinion on Jedi Mind's name.

The small software developer announced on Tuesday that it has changed its name to Mind Technologies. In a statement, the company said it decided to change its name 'to avoid potential infringement of trademarks owned by LucasFilm.'

Mind Technologies has also redirected its former Web site, JediMindinc.com, to its new MindTechnologies.com.

Mind Technologies' name was just one part of the issue LucasFilm had with the company. It also didn't like that it used 'Jedi' in the name and descriptions of some of its products. In response, Mind Technologies has now removed all mention of Jedi from its offerings. It has also renamed the former Jedi Mouse to the Mind Mouse.

(Credit: Google)

Good news for Gmail users who are deluged by messages and overwhelmed by which ones to tackle first.

Google announced on Monday night a new Gmail feature in beta called Priority Inbox, which sorts incoming e-mail into three sections: 'important and unread,' 'starred,' and 'everything else.'

In a post on the official Gmail blog, Google software engineer Doug Aberdeen said the feature targets e-mail that isn't outright spam 'but isn't very important.' It separates the important stuff from the 'bologna,' or 'bacn,' he said.

Gmail users don't need to set up rules to accomplish the sorting. The feature takes its cues from things like who a Gmail user e-mails the most and which messages are open and replied to rather than being skipped over.

A photo available on NASA's Flickr page.

(Credit: NASA)

NASA is now providing images detailing its early years on Flickr's Commons archive, the space agency announced on Monday.

NASA's new Commons page displays nearly 200 photos taken throughout the venerable organization's early history. They're arranged in three photo sets, including 'Building NASA,' 'Launch/Takeoff,' and 'NASA Center Namesakes.'

The photos available on Flickr aren't available exclusively on that site. In fact, since 2007, NASA has been working with the Internet Archive to display its historic photos. But according to NASA, it decided to bring some of those images to The Commons to both make them more readily available online and give users a bit more 'insight about NASA's history.' A NASA spokesperson said that the organization plans to gradually add more photos to Flickr over time.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Google's Mike Cohen won't be satisfied until anyone who wants to talk to their computer can do so without laughing at the hideous translation or sighing in frustration.

Cohen, a leading figure in speech technology circles, heads up Google's efforts to advance the science of speech technology while applying it to as many products as possible. 'Google's mission is to organize the world's information, and it turns out a lot of the world's information is spoken,' Cohen said, in a recent interview with CNET about the search giant's speech ambitions.

Google is attempting to produce voice-recognition technology that fits in with its view that the computing universe is shifting toward mobile devices and browser-based applications. That is, easy-to-use software that does the heavy lifting at the data center in order to run over the Internet on a mobile device with limited hardware.

(Credit: Google)

Good news for Gmail users who are deluged by messages and overwhelmed by which ones to tackle first. Google on Monday night announced a new Gmail feature in beta called Priority Inbox, which sorts your incoming e-mail into three sections, 'important and unread,' 'starred,' and 'everything else.'

Google software engineer Doug Aberdeen explained in a post on the company's Gmail blog that the feature targets mail that isn't outright spam 'but isn't very important.' It separates the important stuff from the 'bologna,' or 'bacn,' he said.

And users don't need to set up rules to make the sorting happen. The feature takes its cues from things like who users e-mail the most and what messages are open and replied to rather than being skipped over.