In the latest example of free hosting services not being forever, Google is planning to close down its Google Video service.

Originally the service was due to close to visitors on April 29th with another two weeks for users to download their videos (until May 13th). Those dates have now been scrapped but it’s obvious the direction this is heading in. So, if you need to, save any videos you have on there while you still can.

When the closure happens, anyone who has linked to any content on Google Video or has embedded videos on their pages will end up with a bunch of links that don’t work or that redirect somewhere else.

Google is wealthy and could easily keep this service running so those pages and videos are online ‘forever’. But it’s a commercial company and primarily concerned about its image and business plan.

If you want a sustainable presence online in the longterm, get proper web hosting, run your own website and link to your content on there. That way, you are in control and really building something for the future.

You won’t be handing over rights in your content or suddenly have the rug pulled from under you at a few weeks notice. How long before Facebook goes the way of MySpace?

Meanwhile, Amazon’s cloud continues to be down for some customers.

Crash 2.0: Amazon battles to restore confidence in cloud computing as web chaos continues into second day Daily Mail.

‘At a computer conference in Alexandria, Virginia, Stefan Savage, a computer security expert who led the “Sneakey” project, surfed the photo-sharing website Flickr and found pictures that clearly showed peoples’ keys, even if personal information in the shots had been blurred out.

In one demonstration, the team cut duplicate keys after analysing images taken on a mobile phone. In another, they used a telephoto lens to take pictures of a set of keys on a cafe table from the roof of a university building.’

The Guardian: Copying keys from photos is child’s play

‘Scientists have devised a cheap and simple method of turning water into rocket fuel using solar power in a development that could generate a new source of green energy for the home and workplace.’

The Independent.

Safari is the web browser for Mac users and Apple just brought out a version for Windows.

As I remember the horribly invasive player that is Apple Quicktime for Windows, I was in two minds about whether to try Safari. But I did…

Well it’s a piece of junk so far. When I start it, the top menus have white text on a white background, so I can’t see or do anything.

OK so it’s a beta. It may be fixed next time. Maybe it’s some quirk of my system. But I can’t remember the last time I tried beta software and it presented me with a bug as stupid as this one.

So safari has been uninstalled. I’ll stick with Opera and Firefox.

Other reviews say it seems like a ‘rushed if not a botched’ job.