Street View cars record nearby WiFi access-points. The purpose of this is to provide an alternate to GPS. A computer without GPS can scan for nearby access-points, look up their location in Googles database, and figure out its own location. This is similar to the service provided by the company Skyhook Wireless, or by the collaborative effort WIGLE.
Google Map captures the signal strength in the decode. Google can use this to triangulate the location of the device that sent the packet. Street View knows the precise GPS location of the car as it rolls down the street.

Google Dashboard will now display a warning in red if there have been suspicious logins made to any of your Google accounts. Suspicious in this case means a login coming from outside the general geographic location of your normal IP address.

This involves about 2 models and about 233,000 units! The recalled products are VPCF11 Series and VPCCW2 Series notebook computers. This is blamed on a temperature management system in the BIOs, and requires a firmware update.

So far the heat only causes distortion of the keyboard and case, but could cause burns on a user.

Following security concerns, the search giant Google is phasing out the use of Windows, according to employees who spoke to FT.com.

The move away from Windows comes following the hack attack carried out against the company’s China operation earlier this year.

“We’re not doing any more Windows. It is a security effort,” said one Google employee.

“Many people have been moved away from [Windows] PCs, mostly towards Mac OS, following the China hacking attacks,” said another.