There is an online version of the US debt clock which keeps track of the debt on a real time basis and also features a whole slew of metrics such as the debt per person, the amount of debt held by foreign countries, private debt per citizen (think credit and mortgages), and so on. Click here to see the clock being updated in real time. Absolutely staggering stuff. Makes me want to decrease my allocation to US equities…

Over the past few months, cybercriminals have been using blackhat SEO techniques to manipulate search rankings. When it first began, they were marginally successful at following Google Trends to find buzzy search queries and elevating a newly created targeted webpage.

But after a short period of time, these same gangs appear to have become disturbingly effective. Last week, when researching a news story, I found the top five results all led to fake scareware pages.

Obviously if Google fails to do something about this manipulation, users will lose trust and the good ole days of Google will be over fast. A Googler speaking on condition of anonymity told WebProNews a ranking change is pending that tackles spam of this kind. Once the change goes live, users shouldn’t see it “nearly as often.”

A report from security company PandaLabs identified over a million links targeting malicious webpages ranking for auto part searches. Google noted that many of the phrases mentioned in the report were rare. A phrase like [1989 Nissan Pickup Truck Engine Check Light Troubleshooting], for example, only appears on attack sites set up by spammers, which explains why Google brought back so many attack sites in response to it and similar queries.

Google’s response seems also an admission of how difficult it is to provide fresh, timely search results while simultaneously combating spammers. Part of the appeal of Twitter to many people is the platform’s ability to provide real-time information; the live Web works remarkably well there so far because Twitter’s set up isn’t very conducive to spam (yet). At least Twitter has to some extent control over accounts.

Google, on the other hand, cannot control for content appearing on the Web at large, and historically its famous algorithm performed better than any other at weeding out spammy webpages and malicious results. Unfortunately, that was a version of the Web that was more static. The live Web presents entirely new challenges manifesting as the first major weakness the search engine has faced.

The company naturally didn’t have a comment on the recently pondered “link velocity” ranking factor. Search engine optimization experts have identified the speed at which organic links appear as a possible important influence.

Link velocity therefore aids in explaining how blackhatters were able to manipulate search results by dropping enormous amounts of link spam into comment and discussion areas of social sites. The freshness or buzzy nature of a query also aided in this pursuit, and cybercriminals merely have to follow Google Trends and Google News to know which keywords and phrases to target.

The final Space Shuttle flight to NASA’s orbiting Hubble Space Telescope is set for blast off on May 11 at 2:01PM EDT from Launch Pad 39 A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This will be NASA’s 5th and final shuttle mission to service and upgrade Hubble. The stakes could not be higher for this action packed, dauntingly complex and long delayed mission. It’s certain to be “High drama at the High Frontier” for this flight designated as SM-4 (Servicing Mission 4).

Hubble has suffered “significant deterioration” in its science capabilities since the last servicing mission (SM-3B) conducted in March 2002, according to Ed Weiler, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, DC. The seven year gap between servicing missions is “twice what it should be”, says David Leckrone, Hubble project scientist at NASA Goddard in Greenbelt, MD. “We need surgery to get back to 100%”.

On average NASA dispatched servicing missions to Hubble at roughly three year intervals. The long delay is a direct consequence of the destruction of Space Shuttle Columbia on re-entry in February 2003 and the death of the entire seven person crew of men and women. Indeed this final servicing mission was outright cancelled in 2004 as “too risky” by then NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe in the wake of the Columbia tragedy. The subsequent NASA Administrator Mike Griffin reinstated the mission in 2006 after exhaustive further analysis and development of a new plan which includes simultaneously placing a back-up shuttle on Launch Pad 39 B if required to mount a quick response ‘launch on need’ rescue mission.

The overriding goal plain and simple for the SM-4 astronaut crew launching aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis is to save Hubble from near term death and extend the operational science gathering lifespan by around 5 years to about 2014 and perhaps even a few years longer if critical components continue to function says Preston Burch, Hubble Program manager at NASA Goddard. NASA hopes for some overlap in operations with Hubble’s successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) set for launch on 2013.

Hubble has set “A Standard of Excellence” says Ed Weiler since the first servicing mission (SM-1) in 1993 when astronauts installed new instruments and corrective optics for the flawed primary mirror. Now however, “Hubble currently has only 3 working science channels. The Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC-2) is 15 years old and getting a little bit long on the tooth and will be replaced on this mission” adds David Leckrone. After SM-4, Hubble will have 14 channels, 11 of them new. Weiler stated that if all goes well, “Hubble will be at the apex of its science capabilities and will never have been better”.

During the scheduled 11 day flight, four highly trained astronauts will conduct 5 back-to-back spacewalks (or EVAs) in a bold attempt to repair, refurbish, and replace science instruments and vital equipment to ensure that Hubble is at the cutting edge of science discoveries into the next decade.

The mission will put in place state-of-the-art technology that improves the telescopes discovery power by 10 to 70 times. Astronauts will install two new science instruments and repair two inactive ones, install new thermal insulation blankets and batteries, replace all 6 gyroscopes, perform maintenance on critical subsystems and components and attach a docking mechanism for a potential future de-orbit mission or Orion capsule docking. The result will be six working, complementary science instruments with discovery capabilities far beyond what is now available and that will contribute significantly to the expansion of human knowledge.

The seven member astronaut crew for STS-125 is a mix of veterans and first time space flyers for what will be the 126th shuttle flight. Indeed, three of the astronauts flew together on the last Hubble servicing mission including repeat Shuttle Commander Scott Altman, lead space walker John Grunsfeld (an astronomer on his 3rd trip to Hubble), and fellow Hubble spacewalker Mike Massimino.

This will be the first spaceflight for Shuttle pilot Gregory Johnson and Mission Specialist Megan McArthur who’s job is to grab Hubble with the robotic arm on Flight Day 3 and berth it safely and securely in the cavernous shuttle cargo bay. Rookie Mission Specialists Michael Good and Andrew Feustel round out the team of 4 spacewalkers who will work in alternating teams of two.

SM-4 blast-off was suddenly postponed from last October 2008 when a circuit in the crucial data handling unit which commands and controls all the science instruments and communications relay unexpectedly failed barely two weeks prior to blast-off. Due to the ensuing lengthy launch delay NASA officials opted to destack the shuttle components and I was fortunate to be on hand and photograph the rollback of Atlantis off Launch Pad 39 A and back into the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB).

Hubble cannot function without the data unit known as the Science Instrument Command & Data Handling Unit (SIC &DH). Luckily the team was able to switch Hubble operations over to the built in back-up redundant “B” side command unit. In fact as Ed Weiler pointed out, it was quite fortunate that the unit malfunction occurred before the launch attempt or the entire repair effort could have been for naught. This allowed the team to check and certify a partially disassembled ground spare SIC &DH unit which actually had never been flight qualified. And it has taken a Herculean effort by all involved to conduct performance testing and get the data handling unit ready and primed for installation on this mission as one of the top priority goals.

NASA managers gave the ‘Go’ for STS-125 launch following the customary Flight Readiness Review (FRR) last week on April 30 after assessing the risks of the mission and determining that the shuttle’s equipment and support systems are ready for flight. The back-up shuttle Endeavour sits on standby at Pad 39 B ready to fly within about a week in the unlikely event an emergency rescue mission is necessary due to irreparable damage to the heat shield tiles or other problems. Atlantis cannot fly to the International Space Station as a ‘safe haven’ for the human crew and has limited life sustaining supplies.

With Atlantis lift off now just 4 days away, launch and training preparations are in their final stages and the crew has entered the standard pre-launch quarantine. The crew is scheduled to arrive in Florida on Friday afternoon May 8 and the launch countdown begins at 4 PM, events which I hope to report on.

I won’t make the intro long. So here’s what’s I want to post. There are times before where I receive an instant message from an unknown Yahoo! ID. Well, simply, that was spamming. I suspect the spammers were able to get my email address from forums or at the Yahoo! Chatrooms. But then lately (I believe it started last year), I am receiving “wierd” IMs from my yahoo buddies (those are my friends). The first one, as I recalled, was in a different language (Korean or something). I then asked that friend if some one else was using here computer. She told me nobody’s using her PC aside from her, I suspected an account hacking.

I then asked some “pro” regarding this and they told me that most probably, this was caused by a malware or a “worm”. I asked my friend to do a virus scan. She wiped out her hard drive and made a fresh install. Since then, there were no more “spam” from her.

However, another buddy got “infected” by this and sends out IMs also on a different language. But lately, I was surprised because one of my buddies were sending me IMs (in English) regarding a “diet pill” (sample of the message below). I thought he was just promoting something. But when almost 5 buddies were sending the message, I was alarmed that they might be infected by a worm or malware.

Yesterday, I asked my brother if he was receiving messages like that and he said yes. I the asked if he received one from me, I believe he said no but when I came to office, he had sent me an email with a message coming from me. We talked in the morning and the message was timestamped at 10:35 in the evening.. I left home 10 in the evening.
Before the message reach you, your “buddy” will first “buzz” (hitting ctrl+g on yahoo messenger client will buzz or shake the other contacts IM window to get attention) you and then send out the message. If you could notice in the image, the buzz was made 10:35:01pm and the message was sent at the exact same second. With the length of that message, it is imposible to type it in split second, unless you copy – paste very quickly. The worst thing is, I am using Pidgin, an opensource, multi platform/protocol (you can have AIM, Gtalk, YM, IRC, multiple accounts on same protocol) instant messenging client. And this program doesn’t have the “buzz” feature. I am sure my wife didnt’ use YM cause she knew about Pidgin. (Thought I’m not going to make this long??)

So the question is, is my account being “hacked”. Was someone able to figure out the passwords of these users (including me) and then send spam to all our contact on our list? Or it is a worm the controls not the IM client, but the connection itself so it can send messages and command without opening an IM windows and execute a feature (the “buzz”) even if it is not supported by your client. Most probably it is a worm or malware.

I tried searching the net but not enough info. My brother gave me a link to a forum (on a different language). But when I try google’s transaltor, it is filtered in our office. So my resolution is to do a full system scan. Also run anti-malware/spyware scan. Then reformat and reinstall everything (which I will be doing anyway since my partitioning sucks), and delete any programs I downloaded from the net that I don’t need (well, those are clean programs, but I don’t need it).

Another question is, how did I get that malware/worm. Honestly, I don’t know. There are actually 3 computers at home. Two desktops and a laptop. The other desktop, is owned by my wife’s sister. I used to secure that computer but my wife’s nephew wants to do it “his way”. I turned of file and print sharing then. However the laptop was being used by my father-in-law and other people. File and print sharing is active on that one. In any case, some worm/malware can penetrate other computers on the network even if file and print sharing is off. And there are viruses, worms, and malware on the other desktop.

The laptop’s LCD is broken, and I already disconnected the other desktop from the network. Maybe this time, everything will be fine after reinstall.

Lesson to learn: Don’t trust everything on the net (websites/files/etc.) and always do a system scan (anti malware/spyware etc….) once in a while. And buy a good router with good firewall settings (that’s what I’m going to do).

Despite its early launch woes, the touchscreen BlackBerry Storm appears to be selling strongly, coming in a No. 3 on NPD’s list behind the Curve and the iPhone 3G.

After the Storm comes the ever-popular BlackBerry Pearl—which, like the Curve, is available on all four major U.S. carriers—followed by the Android-powered G1 on T-Mobile.

So, how did the Curve manage to overtake the iPhone 3G? Well, as the NPD group notes, availability on all the big carriers always helps (the iPhone is, of course, still only on AT&T), as well as its $99 (with a new two-year contract) price tag. Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless probably helped boost Curve sales with its “buy one, get one free” promotion, according to NPD.

And here’s a potentially worrying trend for Apple: the NPD found that RIM’s share of the smartphone market rose a solid 15 percent to a full 50 percent, while both Apple and Palm (which didn’t land a handset in the top 5) both saw their shares fall 10 percent.

Of course, it could be that smartphone shoppers are holding off on both iPhones (given that a new model might be announced as early as next month) and Palm handsets (seeing as the red-hot Pre will likely go on sale in a matter of weeks).

Then again, never underestimate BlackBerry, which still has some of the best smartphones in the business and has price and availability on its side, whereas the cheapest, AT&T-only iPhone 3G remains at a somewhat lofty $199 (with contract). By: Ben Patterson

Google first introduced Quality Score years ago, but changes they rolled out in August of 2008 recently increased visibility of the score in the AdWords interface and via their API, and a great new video by Google Chief Economist Hal Varian has pushed the discussion to a fever pitch.

Part of the appeal clearly is the fact that it’s a numeric value judgement Google is making about our keywords and account configuration. Like PageRank before it, as a search community we’ve proven the ability to go slightly bonkers about Google numbers that indicate and/or drive our success.

But just how important is Quality Score, and how significantly should it factor into the way PPC campaigns are managed?

It turns out Quality Score actually is a big deal, one that you ignore at your own risk and expense. The reason boils down to its inclusion in two formulas that Google uses to determine where (and if) your ads appear and how much you pay for clicks.

The first is the formula for Ad Rank. This is the math that decides which ads appear in the top slot, which sit in position #2, and so on all the way down to the point at which ads don’t get shown at all. The formula is:

Ad Rank = MaxCPC x Quality Score

Right there we see the importance of Quality Score. It’s equally as important as your bid in terms of when and where your ads are positioned. It’s the sweat-equity of PPC. A chance to out-gun the big spenders with your wit, savvy, charm and hard work.

So if your keyword earns a Quality Score of 20 and your nearest competitor earns only a Quality Score of 10 for that same keyword, your $2 MaxCPC will earn you a higher Ad Rank (and display position) than your competitor’s $3 MaxCPC. Your Ad Rank = 40 (20 x 2) while their Ad Rank = 30 (10 x 3).

If two competitors have similar or equal bids, obviously the higher Quality Score will earn a higher position.

And since there are often more advertisers than available display slots, the Ad Rank impact of Quality Score in many cases is the difference between an displaying and not displaying at all.

A discount card or a tax?

After Quality Score is used to determine the position of your ad, it is used again to calculate how much you’ll pay for each click.

The formula for your CPC on any keyword is based on the Ad Rank of the advertiser who scored just below you and your Quality Score.

Actual CPC = (Ad Rank just below yours ÷ Quality Score) + $0.01

Using the previous example, our Ad Rank was 40 while our competitors’ Ad Rank was 30. Our cost-per-click is then calculated as 30/20 + $0.01 or $1.51.

For every point (or fraction of a point) our Quality Score goes up, our cost-per-click goes down. And each rise in our Quality Score literally costs us less money on every click.

Assuming that the average Quality Score is 7 (which is our experience), earning a Quality Score of 10 is like getting a 30% discount. If your Quality Score is 5, then you’re paying a 40% per-click premium.

These are quite approximate values, because the numbers Google reports to us as Quality Scores aren’t the actual numbers they use in their calculations. We can assume they have much more precision than they share, and their numbers may or may not be exactly proportional to those they show us.

Click-through-rate drives Quality Score

There is no doubt Quality Score plays a critical role in your success with the keywords you buy. That part of the ‘hype’ is real.

But there is a challenge in sorting out all the claims of what to do about it. Google has listed the elements considered in their Quality Score calculation, but they have not precisely defined the role of each in their calculations.

As Google’s Dr. Varian says in his video, click-through-rate (CTR) is the largest component of the Quality Score calculation. Get a better CTR than your competitors and you should get a better Quality Score.

The CTR on the specific keyword is most important, but CTR is also tracked for each target URL and for the entire account—which means earning a high CTR for one keyword can have a broad positive effect.

The most direct and effective way to improve your CTR is by writing better text ads, and testing them to prove they’re better. Narrowing the breadth of keywords in any ad group so that all the queries those keywords attract are well suited to the text ads the ad group contains is also a very reasonable strategy.

Note that a great CTR from one keyword may be a lousy CTR for another. I don’t believe there are any absolutes so you can’t tell how good your click-through-rate is without knowing those of your competitors. You just have to strive for the best you can achieve.

Google has made clear that Quality Score is computed in real time and takes into account the search query and geography of the searcher. So if you get great CTR from New York and lousy CTR from Kansas, your Quality Scores should react accordingly.

Speaking at SMX West, Nicholas Fox, Director of Product Management at Google characterized the focus on CTR as the primary driver of Quality Score as relying on the “wisdom of crowds”—if lots of people “tell” Google that an ad is “high quality” by clicking on it, then Google believes it’s a high quality ad.

The non-CTR factors

It is my belief that most of the other Quality Score factors—including all the forms of relevance and the landing page items—are only seriously meaningful before a particular keyword has a well established CTR track record. In other words, Google use these factors to provide clues about the potential performance of a keyword that hasn’t yet proven itself. But once it has, they’ll go with the actual results.

The one exception is that landing pages which are deceptive, entirely unrelated, extremely slow or have other shady characteristics can lead to what is in effect a Quality Score penalty. Conversely, reasonably relevant and generally standard or even hyper-optimized landing pages can’t help Quality Score. In fact, Google has confirmed that landing page quality is not a factor when Quality Score is used in the Ad-Rank formula.

In my view the bloggers and tweeters out there who suggest that every keyword must be in the text ad and on the landing page, or that super-narrow ad groups, or any other non-CTR “secrets” are the way to achieve high Quality Score are mistaken. Like the SEO “keyword density” crowd of yesteryear, they’re reading more into the tea leaves that is there to be read.

Life in a Quality Score world

It wasn’t long ago that paid search managers could afford to ignore Quality Score in AdWords. Not Anymore. Today your low Quality Score keywords are lowering your volume and ROI, and your high Quality Score keywords are boosting your results.

You can monitor the Quality Score of your keywords easily in the new AdWords interface, and in a few of the better paid search management tools. By: Craig Danuloff

It is miserable that after the first hi the context of the “China’s automobile market the sustainability of the rebound,” the critical juncture, the imminent Shanghai Motor Show has become the aim of mutual anxiety Pupil. Whether vehicles or standing in the eyes of buyers, as a constituent of the worldwide A-class auto display not long before the Shanghai auto display is a untainted promotion and new stage display, and became the top and smaller forecast follow-up in 2009 the development of China’s automobile market indicator. Therefore, the high wants of Chery Auto adept to stand representing the voice of the most of vehicle prices: The exhibitors do not play untrue wish to buyers in the auto display to glimpse the genuine goods, so as to stimulate utilisation, the new vehicle display will be recorded in the short period to achieve.

In latest years, Shanghai and Beijing Auto Show to buyers to purchase the issue of the marvellous effect of appealing the vigilance of auto manufacturers at dwelling and overseas, with full affray in the Chinese automotive market, the new vehicle has been running more than 100 will each year as numerous as are needed by the Motor Show the best arena for interaction and marketing. The more time in the doldrums, trading arena considerably more valuable. Thus this year’s Shanghai International Motor Show, the dimensions of a record annals, public displaying locality of 170,000 rectangle meters, an boost over the preceding 20%. Exhibitors in supplement to Fiat, Renault and a little number of businesses, the coefficient of the international automotive monster reached at the view, and conveyed an unprecedented 13 world’s first car. Six household automobile the “predators” accumulated for the first time. Show the stage has been set up, if from the virtual to genuine, automotive businesses in every corner of the stage of labour in secret.

First of all, in high-end auto show can help boost morale and sales and become the important demands of exhibitors. First quarter of this year, although car sales are bright spots, but the obvious characteristics of the structure of growth – sales growth has been largely affected by the policy model is the largest low-emission cars, high-end model compared to its profit and commercial vehicles is much lower, economic efficiency has not improved and therefore the industry. How to improve the “low-end models and selling high-end models in the sales downturn,” the state, is standing in the various vehicles on the main show. So many cars prices shown in the auto show “+ high-end products” of the face to Japanese car as an example, high-class Japanese cars are still at the Shanghai auto show Mitsuo focus Accord, Camry and the Angels will be the biggest rivalry Aspect.

Secondly, China’s vehicle charges have been came across bottlenecks – if to elaborate its own emblem vehicles market share, as well as how to accomplish higher whole margins from the low-end to high-end emblem transition will be a large-scale display on the household enterprises play a trading permit . Following self-reliance in 2008 after the down turn in emblem market share, sales capacity of engine vehicles throughout the first quarter did not convey up the corresponding share of China-made vehicles to improvement, its own emblem share proceeded to drop, and still more sales in the front strip is a more low-end brands. Therefore, the display displayed the identical number of manufacturers of high-end market for its own emblem vehicles, the collective dispute to the monopoly of joint-venture brands. Automotive Group is not only the first time in six household and commenced the Shanghai auto display has not ever taken part in preceding term paper, Changhe, Yong-yuan rate and other vehicles will furthermore be the first time exhibitors, proposes to display to conceive their own emblems to enhance its market place against Japan and Korea University, Germany and the United States Department of the best opportunities.

The Chinese market will have a protected haven for the winter, has become the agreement of the world’s vehicle charges to the Shanghai auto display vehicles at dwelling and overseas as an opening to rate the layout of a new around has started. We seem that display is not the significance itself, but in the backdrop engrossment and projection of the tremendous China market, particularly in this market has been the issue of the hardworking signal. Perhaps, a couple of days before, head individual of the localized vehicle businesses to comprise the very broad outlooks of the most of exhibitors: anticipate to be adept to drag a vehicle display, I am aghast that this wish was too high value. However, after the world’s foremost auto display of the position is not good, the sales of the mainstream market is very depressed. Show hardworking in China is distinct from the mainstream automobile market will be echoed in the vitality of the Chinese automobile market and promise, boosted by the household automobile commerce and buyer confidence. Valuable in the present buyer self-assurance in the market, occasionally more significant than money. By: Professional editor working for frbiz.

1. iPhone lite: This phone would be a cheaper and thinner version of the existing iPhone to target customers who doesn’t require all the features on the iPhone. This up to some extend explains why the Cupertino Company had been acquiring PA Semi, Arm and PowerVR licenses.

2. Media Pad: This new product could be something like the Amazon candle, but with a larger screen and would likely support the present functionalities of the touch and the iPhone. Media Pad in all probability have a virtual keyboard. Media Pad could possibly be the reason why Apple place orders for the 10-inch touchscreen.

This latest rumors ruled out the possibility of Apple developing a CDMA compatible version of the iPhone. Apple COO and Interim CEO  Tim Cook earlier did rule out the possibility of manufacturing CDMA compatible iPhone citing that the technology would be wiped out in a matter of years. These is all good news, but we have to wait for Apple to open its mouth.

Now, however, a new study in the Journal of the Geological Society throws all of that into question. The asteroid impact and the dinosaur extinction, argue the authors, may not have been simultaneous, but rather may have occurred 300,000 years apart. That’s an eye-blink in geological time, but it’s a relevant eye-blink all the same, one that occurred at just the right moment in ancient history to have sent the extinction theory entirely awry. (See pictures of meteors striking the earth.)

The controversial new paper was written by geoscientists Gerta Keller of Princeton University and Thierry Addate of the University of Lausanne, in Switzerland — and both researchers knew that challenging the impact doctrine would not be easy. The asteroid charged with killing the dinosaurs, after all, left more than the Chicxulub crater as its calling card. At the same 65-million-year depth, the geological record reveals that a thin layer of iridium was deposited pretty much everywhere in the world. Iridium is an element that’s rare on Earth but common in asteroids, and a fine global dusting of the stuff is precisely what you’d expect to find if an asteroid struck the ground, vaporized on impact and eventually rained its remains back down. Below that iridium layer, the fossil record shows that a riot of species was thriving; above it, 65% of them went suddenly missing. (Read about China’s dinosaur fossils.)

But Keller and Addate worried that we were misreading both the geological and fossil records. They conducted surveys at numerous sites in Mexico, particularly at a spot called El Peñón, very near the impact crater. They were especially interested in a 30-ft. layer of sediment just above the iridium layer. That sediment, they calculate, was laid down at a rate of about 0.8 in. to 1.2 in. per thousand years, meaning that the entire 30 feet took 300,000 years to settle into place. (See pictures of Mexico’s swine flu outbreak.)

Analyzing the fossils at this small site, they counted 52 distinct species just below the iridium layer. Then they counted the species above it. The result: the same 52. It wasn’t until they sampled 30 feet higher — and 300,000 years later — that they saw the die-offs.

“The mass extinction level can be seen above this interval,” Keller says. “Not a single species went extinct as a result of the Chicxulub impact.”

Keller’s and Addate’s species samplings are not, of course, conclusive, and plenty of other surveys since 1978 do tie the extinctions closely to the asteroid. But since the new digs were so close to ground zero, the immediate species loss ought to be have been — if anything — greater there than anywhere else in the world. Instead, the animals seemed to escape unharmed. Other paleontologists, however, believe that the very proximity of El Peñón to the impact site makes the results not more reliable, but less. Earthquakes and tsunamis that resulted from the collision could have wrought havoc on the sedimentary record, causing discrete strata to swirl together and completely scrambling timelines. Keller disagrees, pointing out that the slow accretion of sediment she and Addate recorded is completely inconsistent with a sudden event like a tsunami. (See pictures of animals in space.)

“The sandstone complex was not deposited over hours or days,” she says. “Deposition occurred over a very long time period.”

So if the Chicxulub asteroid didn’t kill the dinosaurs, what did? Paleontologists have advanced all manner of other theories over the years, including the appearance of land bridges that allowed different species to migrate to different continents, bringing with them diseases to which native species hadn’t developed immunity. Keller and Addate do not see any reason to stray so far from the prevailing model. Some kind of atmospheric haze might indeed have blocked the sun making the planet too cold for the dinosaurs — it just didn’t have to have come from an asteroid. Rather, they say, the source might have been massive volcanos, such as the ones that blew in the Deccan Traps in what is now India at just the right point in history. (See pictures of the space race.)

For the dinosaurs that perished 65 million years back, extinction was extinction and the precise cause was immaterial. But for the bipedal mammals who were allowed to rise once the big lizards were finally gone, it is a matter of enduring fascination. By: Jeffrey Kluger

What’s so exciting about an API? The API will allow developers to extend Google Analytics in new and creative ways that benefit developers, organizations and end users. Large organizations and agencies now have a standardized platform for integrating Analytics data with their own business data. Developers can integrate Google Analytics into their existing products and create standalone applications that they sell. Users could see snapshots of their Analytics data in developer created dashboards and gadgets. Individuals and business owners will have opportunities to access their Google Analytics information in a variety of new ways.

For example, how would you like to access Google Analytics from your phone? Now you can, with this Android application from Actual Metrics. How about accessing Analytics from your desktop? It’s here from Desktop-Reporting.

And if you’re interested in seeing how integrating Google Analytics can enhance your own business take a look at these examples. MailChimp has integrated Google Analytics into their email marketing platform and ShufflePoint® provides a service for adding Google Analytics data into PowerPoint® presentations. See how youcalc has created apps that allow you to mashup Google Analytics, AdWords, Salesforce.com and other enterprise data.

Check out more customer examples on our developer site. These apps demonstrate only some of the creative possibilities and we know you’ll discover other interesting ways to use the Analytics API.

So, how does the API work?

The Data Export API is easy to use and provides read-only access to all your Analytics data.  Any data that’s available through the standard Analytics web interface is available through the API. The Analytics API is a Google Data API. This is the same API protocol for Google Calendar, Finance and Webmaster Tools.  If you’ve used any of these APIs, the Google Analytics Data Export API will look very familiar to you.

For the JavaScript and Java programming languages, we’ve provided client libraries to abstract and simplify the process. We’re also working on supporting more programming languages. In the meantime, for any programming language you want to use you can make requests directly to the API over HTTP and access the data in XML.

How do I get started?

There are three key resources you’ll want to use when you start developing on top of the Google Analytics API.  First, all the documentation you need can be found on our Developer site at Google Code. Here you’ll find example code, a developer guide, FAQ, and the complete API reference.

Second, be sure to sign up for the Google Analytics API Notify email group so you get the key announcements on feature updates, code changes and other service related news that relate to the API. (Don’t worry, this will be a low-traffic email list and we promise to only send emails when there is something important that affects developers.)

Finally, you’ll want to become a part of the Google Analytics developer community by joining the Google Analytics APIs Group. This user forum is a great way to share ideas and get feedback from other developers. We also check in on these forums so let us know what you think about the API there, and share your ideas and your applications with us. We look forward to seeing your creativity! By: Nick Mihailovski and the Google Analytics API Team