Just a couple of hours after we ran the story about the new ‘Leap” motion controller, SEO demigod, Matt Cutts, Tweeted the video. .ditto204616640602701825 {background: #000000 url(http://a0.twimg.com/images/themes/theme10/bg.gif) no-repeat;padding: 20px;}.ditto204616640602701825 a {color: #383838;}p.dittoTweet {background: #fff;padding: 10px 12px 10px 50px;margin: 0;min-height: 48px;color: #000;font-size: 22px !important;font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;line-height: 30px;-moz-border-radius: 5px;-webkit-border-radius: 5px;}span.metadata {display: block;width: 100%;clear: both;margin-top: 8px;padding: 12px 0px;height: 65px;}span.metadata span.author {line-height: 20px;color: #333;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;}.tweet {font-size: 24px;}span.metadata span.author img {float: left;margin: 0px 7px 0px 0px;}a:hover {text-decoration: underline;}span.timestamp {font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 12px;display: block;color: #999;margin: 10px 0 0 0;line-height: 25px;}span.timestamp a {color: #999;text-decoration: none;}span.timestamp a > span {display: inline-block;width: 16px;background-image: url(http://images.ientrymail.com/socialditto/everything-spritev2.png);background-repeat: no-repeat;}span.timestamp a.twitreply > span {background-position: 0px 3px;}span.timestamp a.twitreply:hover > span {background-position: -16px 3px;}span.timestamp a.favorite > span {background-position: -32px 2px;}span.timestamp a.favorite:hover > span {background-position: -48px 2px;}span.timestamp a.retweet > span {background-position: -80px 3px;}span.timestamp a.retweet:hover > span {background-position: -96px 3px;}p.indent {margin-left: 20px;}.at-name a, .at-name a:visited, .at-name a:hover {color: #999;text-decoration: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: normal;}.dittodownarrow {width: 0;height: 0;border-left: 20px solid transparent;border-right: 20px solid transparent;border-top: 20px solid #EEE;margin: 0 0 0 73px;} !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id))}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); Follow @mattcutts Matt Cutts @mattcutts Minority Report-like UI interaction? Yes please! http://t.co/AuxHZX14 New product from @leapmotion 4 hours ago via Tweet Button · powered by @socialditto  Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite If you haven’t seen the video, you should. If it works as well as advertised we could see some incredible innovations utilizing this technology. If I could only get my hands on that Google money. Matt Cutts is also pretty in with the ladies, and could even give Zuckerberg a pointer or two about spending money. Who knew. As you can see from the video, the Leap is amazing. And saying that it has “Minority Report like interactions” is not far from the truth at all. Right now they are taking applications for developers, and I really wish I was a developer, cause this thing will have some really cool uses. Leap has received over a thousand requests from developers, but they are expecting that number to grow exponentially now that it is getting some major news coverage. Their plan is to sift through the applicants in the next few months, starting off with developers in the fields of medicine , gaming, engineering, science, research, and education… I just want to type on an invisible keyboard.

Google Docs is pretty amazing. It’s a fully functional word processor on the Web and I, like many Web users, count ourselves among its users. If you find yourself liking Google Docs an awful lot, Google bets that you’ll like Google Drive just as much. It’s the same thing, but it’s bigger and supports more file types. What’s that? You’re just fine with using Google Docs. Sorry, my friend, but you have very little choice in the matter. TechCrunch has found the official Google Drive documentation that details the various roll out phases that will be coming to the platform. We’re currently in the opt-in period which allows users to opt-in to Google Drive at their own leisure. I’ve already taken them up on the offer since I needed a replacement to store audio files of podcasts that I record. After this period of relative freedom will come a period of structured freedom. When you visit your Google Docs page, it will ask you to switch over to Google Drive. You can opt-out at this point to keep using Google Docs, but Google doesn’t specify how long this opt-out period will last. All we know is that after Google announces the Scheduled Release track, users will have one week to opt-out. What if you don’t opt-out during this time? Google will take your apathy as a big go ahead to move you into Google Drive. After this happens, you will no longer be able to opt-out. It kind of stinks, but hey, you had your chance. Besides, the upgrade to Drive isn’t so bad. Google Drive offers 5 GB of free storage compared to the 1 GB that users had under Google Docs. I also find it to be more versatile in ways that Google Docs never was. Of course, there’s the concern that Google will own you after switching to Drive, but we’ve already tackled those concerns head on. There is something to be said about user choice here though. Google should give people as much time as they want to decide on whether they want to opt-in or out. You should also be able to opt-out if you find that Drive isn’t too your liking. All new Google account holders will be signed up for Google Drive as well removing any choice that you may have thought you had. There’s going to be a lot of people complaining about this move. To them, I say just opt-out. Google isn’t forcing you into Google Drive unless you let them. To those who have already upgraded and found that they don’t like it, just use another service like Dropbox or Mediafire. The beauty of the Internet is that there are multiple options to get things done – Google is just one of many.

Google announced today that it has made some improvements to autocomplete predictions in Gmail. Specifically, they will now take into account the actual content of your emails. “For example, you might now get lax reservation or lax united as predictions after typing ‘lax’ if you have received an email with a flight confirmation for your trip to Los Angeles in your inbox recently,” explains Gmail software engineer Isaac Elias. Google says it will be rolling out the improved autocomplete feature in English over the next several days. More languages will come in the next few months. It won’t be available in Google Apps at first, but will be sometime in the future. Last week, we saw Gmail get some new Google+ integration. This includes new Google+ profile picture displays for your Circles, and Circle support in search and filters. You can now find messages from specific circles by typing circle:[circle name] in the search box. You can also find mail from circled contacts by searching with has:circle. In addition to that, if you conduct a contact search, results will now feature the contact’s profile picture, along with the emails.

Google’s YouTube, launched in 2005, has hit 72 hours of video content uploaded per minute, in a steady ascent. By 2007, users were adding six hours of video per minute – by January of 2009, that number hit 15 hours, by March 2010, 24 hours, by November of that year, 35 hours, and so forth. YouTube has been having some copyright infringement problems since its inception, with record labels and movie studios suing over the platform’s lack of better control over what its users upload. YouTube recently lost a court case in Germany over 12 unlicensed songs a user uploaded to its server. The plaintiff had urged YouTube to install better upload filters in an attempt to stop illegal content streaming. Though, now with the 72 hour per minute ratio, the logistics of this of thing just become more complicated. Also, if new filters are enforced, this could delay upload times for YouTube. This would definitely be a hit to the service – a main reason why some users steer clear of other video hosting sites, like Vimeo, is because of the long processing times. And Facebook’s filters flag anything found to be copyrighted, and promptly deletes it. A YouTube clip is processed very quickly, and an anti-infringement endorsed filter would likely hinder this to an unknown extent, with copyrights having to be cleared. On the other hand, if a random user is monetizing an unsigned artist’s content on YouTube, which happens all the time, this is also a bad thing, which would warrant longer wait times. As of now, video content can be posted faster than real time – meaning, an hour long clip can be put online in ten minutes, so there’s no way some oDesk employee in Tangier might have pre-screened it. It is evident that it will likely be a while for YouTube and Google to sort out the most efficient balance regarding how its content is legally uploaded.

Google not only provides decent internet search, reliable email, wacky self-driving cars, and augmented reality specs, but now it’s in the real estate business. Mashable reported today that Google is loaning out 22,000 feet of its New York City office building to CornellNYC Tech while the school’s campus on Roosevelt Island is constructed. NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Google CEO Larry Page spoke today at a press conference to announce the deal. So not only do CornellNYC Tech students basically get to go to school at Google, but Google’s not even going to charge the school rent to use the offices for the entire five and a half years that it will take to build the school’s actual campus. Page said that the value of the office space that the school will be using is about $10 million, which is a little surprising it’s not higher given New York’s famously exorbitant real estate market. Towards the end of 2010, Google purchased the office building at 111 Eighth Avenue for $1.9 billion, a sale that was deemed the most expensive purchase of a single building in the United States for that entire year. The full area of the building is 2.9 million square feet, so Google will probably not even notice that the CornellNYC Tech students are there. The Google office space should be properly renovated in order to accommodate classes for the upcoming fall semester.

Aaron Wall at SEOBook commissioned an art project, which features a number of Lego art-style pictures of various Google employees and SEO celebrities, as well as some Google update-specific pieces. We already looked at Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt (who was portrayed again as an evil ice cream man). Here are the artist’s renditions of Matt Cutts and Amit Singhal, the two most recognizable faces behind the Penguin and Panda updates: Matt Cutts graphic by SEOBook.com Matt Cutts graphic by SEOBook.com Amit Singhal graphic by SEOBook.com Cutts and Singhal have both called the Penguin update a success. Here are the Penguin and Panda pics: Penguin Update graphic by SEOBook.com Panda Update graphic by SEOBook.com Even the old school Florida update made an appearance in the project: Florida Update graphic by SEOBook.com Then there’s the “Google Got Caught Pushing Illegal Drugs Update”: Google AdWords Drugs Update graphic by SEOBook.com I don’t think that was Google’s official name, but it refers to when Google had to forfeit $500 million as the result of a settlement with the Justice Department in relation to ads for Canadian pharmacies. The investigation behind this had authorities tracking a fugitive to Mexico, and he had advertised the unlawful sale of drugs using AdWords.

Back when Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt was still CEO of the company, Consumer Watchdog put out a video portraying him as an evil ice cream man “collecting your personal information.” In case you haven’t seen it, here’s that: The video was created to be a 15-second Times Square ad. Now, Aaron Wall’s SEOBook has posted the products of a custom art project he commissioned, depicting various Google and SEO figures in Lego art form. Here are a couple of Eric Schmidt pictures from the collection, and in both, he seems to be once depicted as an evil ice cream man: Eric Schmidt graphic by SEOBook.com Eric Schmidt graphic by SEOBook.com Here’s what the artist came up with Larry Page and Sergey Brin: Larry Page graphic by SEOBook.com Sergey Brin graphic by SEOBook.com

Motorola has announced that only some of its Android-based smartphones will be getting updated to the latest version of Google’s operating system, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. In a blog post on Friday, the company acknowledged that many were wondering when their phones might be getting upgraded. They pointed users to their upgrade schedule, where they could see when their device would be getting the latest Android update. They acknowledged that some users might be confused by the lack of upgrades to their specific devices. In response to those concerns, Motorola claimed that “obviously we want the new releases to improve our devices” (emphasis original), and said that “[i]f we determint that can’t be done – well then, we’re not able to upgrade that particular device.” Now, what exactly they mean by “improve” is unclear. Presumably they intend to imply that some devices are too old or lack the necessary specifications to run Ice Cream Sandwich properly. But barring such concerns, it’s hard to imagine any Android device not being improved by upgrading. This issue is made all the more interesting by the fact that Google is about to own Motorola. The deal is expected to close as soon as Wednesday. While it might be in Motorola’s best interest to make people buy new phones, it’s in Google’s interest to make sure everyone has the best Android experience possible. Once the purchase goes through, it will be interesting to see how those to needs intersect, and whether Google decides to light a fire under Motorola’s upgrade schedule.

Last week we brought you news that Google’s purchase of Motorola Mobility had hit a snag with China’s Ministry of Commerce. While regulatory approval for the purchase had been granted in every other country where it was required – including the U.S., Canada, Israel, Turkey, and the European Union – Chinese officials appeared to be dragging their feet, raising worries that the deal might miss it’s second quarter closing goal. Those worries appeared to be unfounded, however. According to the Wall Street Journal, Chinese authorities approved the deal yesterday on the condition that Google keep Android open and that they not discriminate against any handset makers for five years. Following the approval, Motorola filed a form 8-K with the Securities and Exchange commission. According to the filing (PDF), Motorola received word on the 19th that approval had been granted, and stated that “the companies are moving to close the transaction within two business days.” Assuming they maintain that timeline (and there’s no reason to think they won’t), then Google will officially own Motorola Mobility no later than Wednesday, May 23.

The pool of entrants to Google’s 2012 Science Fair has been winnowed down to 90 insanely brilliant finalists from different regions around the world. Winners from each of the three age divisions will compete for the Grand Prize of a $50,000 scholarship, a personal LEGO mosaic, a trip to the Galapagos to visit Darwin’s Living Laboratory, and most likely enough worldwide notoriety that they’ll be fielding job offers from CERN, Fermilab, NASA, or just about any other high-profile science organization. Among those 90 finalists, 13 of them have been nominated for a Scientific American Science in Action Award. The projects that these youngsters are worthy of the most utopia-laden science fiction stories you’ve ever read. A pair of collaborating entrants, for example, Emily and Trevor Wang, are investigating whether a substance collected by bees may have anti-cancer properties. Seriously, how does anybody even think of that? Another fantastic idea comes from Mark Liang, who’s project centers on whether sunflowers can be used to absorb and neutralize a nasty chemical that’s currently been getting dumped into the soil across California. Here, one more in case you weren’t feeling enough inferiority about your middling lifetime accomplishments. Ivan Ang Jie Xiong explored the possibility of using robots to help keep our environment clean. Google posted an interactive map so you can browse through all of the finalists depending on the region they’re in. Go check it out so you can start getting acquainted with your future bosses. [Via Google's Official Blog.]