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Google's New Calendar CL2

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the ajax-in-action dept.

pvt_medic writes "Google is apparently working on its own calendar (CL2) program to integrate with Gmail. The closed beta is ongoing with about 200 participants - people involved are not allowed to invite outsiders to see the calendar and are under strict rules not to share any details with outsiders. Here are some leaked photos of the CL2."

24 of 250 comments (clear)

  1. Why? by Pranjal · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does anyone even use an online calendar? Why not use the one on your phone, PDA, laptop? What benefit does one get from using an online one?

    1. Re:Why? by Chris+Pimlott · · Score: 5, Interesting

      How about dynamic calendar subscriptions?

      Select your classes from a schedule and have each period from now until the end of the year added for you. If the Prof gets sick, your calendar is updated automatically. Subscribe to your local concert club's schedule and see who's coming. Mark a show you're interested on and get automated notice when it's postponed.

      Add some classification and filtering (which GMail is already well known for) and now you can just click the "Entertainment" tab and see all the movies, concerts, shows, book signings, lectures, plays, etc going on in the upcoming week.

      This could be really cool.

    2. Re:Why? by gmuslera · · Score: 4, Interesting

      One word: integration. A good standalone calendar is ok. But if you can get the map where you have an appointment, the exact text of the email that triggered it, a fast search to find anything remotely related to the topic, instant chatting with the people in the meeting if you need to ask something, etc as pale examples of what all combined could be used, you have far more. Of course, google based means that you must access internet to access all of this. A portable pda could be superior if you are on the run and without that access. But now even cellphones have access to gmail and related sites, so in many places access to that information can be done in several ways, and for all will be the same.

    3. Re:Why? by KronicD · · Score: 2, Interesting

      try Sunbird. its pretty good :)

      --
      "Those who would give up Essential Liberty, to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
    4. Re:Why? by wfWebber · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well, if we're lucky they'll throw their efforts into OpenSync, a very good effort to make a standard for exchanging data between (among other things) calendars and pda's.

      And you can always "upgrade" your pda to Linux ;)

      --
      Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway. -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum
    5. Re:Why? by modecx · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Do you have any idea how many people would cream their pants at this idea? Hell, even the soccer coach could have a calendar that all of the soccer moms could subscribe to. I would have killed for this during college. My god, if Google's baby is anything like this, it will blow everything good that Google has done up until this point clear out of the water. Everything.

      --
      Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
  2. The great mysteries of Google. by keilinw · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Google never ceases to impress me. It seems that they always have something new up their sleeves. Earlier today I was reading about a program called, "Wrightly" (also posted on /.) that is supposed to be the killer Google Word Processor App that everyone's been talking about.

    Anyway, what I really find amazing is Google's ability to find and promote those technologies that we would never have heard of. For example, Picasa and Google Earth. I played with Google' Earths previous self (KH) but I didn't want to pay $30 or whatever they were charging... and I would have passed Picasa off as yet another cheap knock-off.

    I'm not saying that these are great programs in anyway, but they sure are great for free stuff... and that really amazes me -- Google really does have an aptitude for providing quality "free" software.

    Matt Wong

    http://www.themindofmatthew.com

  3. Could be handy by svunt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm a student who uses campus computers at times, I work in an office, and I divide the little time that remains between my own home and my partner's. Between all of these points, any sort of synchronisation with a diary app is extremely unlikely, and with assignments, work events & a social life (yeah, right) all slipping randomly from my mind, I can see the value in this. Sure, an actual diary might be an idea, but I'm used to logging on to my gmail account every time I sit at a desk, whereas over the past few years I've tried half a dozen times to get into the habit of using a proper diary, and I fail miserably, usually after writing and promptly forgetting to check a single entry.

  4. Re:Security? We've heard of it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Even funnier is that if you take the images into gimp and change the levels to make all the colours really dark, what looks like a username stands out quite legibly in two of the images.

    Hope you don't work at google, solomanj :)

  5. Execute Only? by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Will Google let people use their application logic without requiring we store our personal data on their servers (subject to cracking, government requisition, backup tapes "lost in the mail", etc)? For that matter, how easy is it now to connect our own Jabber networks to Google's version?

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  6. Re:yippeee by nicolas.kassis · · Score: 1, Interesting

    yep and with the aquisition of that Web Office compagny the are going to buid one hell of a office suite.(Can't remeber the name right now) This looks like a all out assault at Microsoft. I like it. Google has the power to fight Microsoft on this one. Only thing is I don't know how I would like all my personal and work stuff to be hosted on a remote machine. I guess Google servers a little more secure than my personal computer. But hey I really wonder how long it will take before corporate espionage stories come out of this.

    Nic
    ======
    Homepage
    blog
  7. Re:Too much stuff by NitsujTPU · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually, I'd say that they have always been a company focused on a few things. They've hired a good number of good scientists.

    Some of this stuff requires fairly complicated techniques from the realm of research.

    Need an example. Get the calendar to sufficiently put a short summary of everything that's going on in its cells by extracting that data from your email.

  8. BlackBerry by SecretAsianMan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Anyone else here think that Google should throw some cash at RIM to get CL2 and GMail doing full wireless sync with BlackBerries? I would gladly pay money for that feature.

    --

    Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.

  9. Fry, origami by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Once all of the google apps are out of beta, the office apps, chat, blogger, search, etc. the origami frier will be activated. a portable wifi terminal, able to access all google tools all of the time. This is especially obvious considering google's work towards city-wide wifi in philly, and work towards creating their "own internet". With the fewer resources required to create such a "dumb" device, everyone will have one.

  10. Not BY Apple , per se by SmittyTheBold · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Maybe not by Apple, but in this particular case on Apple's OS.

    SubEthaEdit is an awesome collaborative editor.

    --
    ± 29 dB
  11. Synchronization the wrong direction by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Prior to a reliable world wide Internet, manual synchronization between different devices using different programs was a necessary evil. It was, however, a messy and error prone approach.

    What we ought to have now is a server based approach, where all devices access the same version of the data. For now, this implies a browser solution, though a DAV solution or dedicated protocol would be better. Nothing I have looked at is exactly right, but Yahoo Calendar (full version when on a computer, wap version on a cell phone) is getting there.

  12. Re:Why I love the internet. by ZaMoose · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I, for one, question the timing of this "leak". GOOG has been taking an absolute bath on Wall Street due to their unwillingness to play by the Street's stupid quarterly projections "rules", plus their decision to settle that ClickFraud lawsuit for US $90 million. What better way to start getting investors hyped up again than by 1) leaking photos of an upcoming "killer app" and 2) buying an online word processor to finally confirm that they're trying to compete against Microsoft's Office hegemony.

    At least, that's how I read it.

    --
    I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
  13. A Dream: an interactive public calendar by dalutong · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What I have always wanted is a web calendar that I can sync with my desktop calendaring app (preferably via an open standard.) It'd be especially nice if it was acccessible via my cellphone, too. But what I'd really like it to do is this:

    - show my schedule to the public
    - allow me to choose which calendar events I have posted are (in)visible, and with or without description (since I don't - necessarily want everyone to know _what I'm doing then. just that i'm busy.)
    - allow people to select a time range from the calendar and "apply" for that range of my time
    - have me emailed/IMd/otherwise contacted when such an application occurs so I can confirm/reject it
    - then have them notified of the acceptance/rejection.

    I have a pretty busy and variable schedule. It would be nice for me to have my calendar available to me at all times. And to let people figure out what time suits both of us without having to trust that neither of us are forgetting anything.

    Does such a calendar exist?

    *Note: feel free to steal this idea. i know i'm not going to develop it...

    --

    What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
    1. Re:A Dream: an interactive public calendar by cschmidt · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It may be overkill, but check out egroupware. It's PHP based and installs fairly easily on a web server. I use it to sync with Kontact via xmlrpc.

      --

      Who am I to blow against the wind? -- Paul Simon
  14. SyncML please!!! by Xenna · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't think many people are aware of it but a 'new' standard is finally emerging that allows mobile devices to synchronize over the internet. A great number of mobile phones and smartphones (like my Nokia 9300) support this. See the website below for a list of devices that support SyncML. So does the Mozilla Sunbird Calendar...

    List of devices: https://www.mobical.net/mobical/phonesetup/

    What use is an online calendar if it doesn't support online synchronisation?

    I know that Gmail has ignored the wonderful imap standard, so I'm not entirely cnvinced they won't ignore this one.

    So: Please Google, don't be evil, and use the open SyncML standard ;)

    X.

  15. Discussion by u16084 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There has been ALOT of discussion on Calendars, and EXCHANGE. There was a comment made that EXCHANGE is the clear choice (and something only choice) for corporate informational exchange. Well, the company I worked for refused Exchange. What they are using is OpenXchange. http://mirror.open-xchange.org/ox/EN/community// Which is a open sourced version of novells Version http://www.novell.com/products/openexchange/screen shots.html/ For those who need a "Calendar" or "Email" Server without sticking your stuff into google.

    The Open Sourced version is a little hectic to setup as it does not contain an administrative backend, so most of of the work is done through the command line... which is a small price to pay if you compare what is costs for MS Exchange. A Demo could be located here http://www.openexchange.com/EN/product/onlinedemo. html/ and here http://mirror.open-xchange.org/ox/EN/community/onl ine.htm/
    Plugins for OUTLOOK are available, seamless intergration.

    --
    -- I Dont Deserve A Sig I Have Bad Karma
  16. Re:Personal Security by sabNetwork · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wouldn't mind getting a list of one-time use passwords for places that aren't secure enough to enter my real password. It would be possible to implement this so that you could use either your standard password or a one-time use password. This wouldn't complicate things for users who don't wish to use this security feature; they just enter their normal password.

    Google, are you listening?

  17. Google + Federal Gubbermint by hacker · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Does this mean that now, when Google is forced to bend to the pressure of the Current Administration through some laws that will no-doubt be passed to ensure compliance, that the Gubbermint will now be able to see where every person is at any given time, as well as what email they're sending, to whom, and what web searches they're using?

    Oh wait, don't use Google, use Yahoo! to search, or AOL, or MSN... Riiiight, the .gov will just aggregate those search results (that they've already secured access to) through a real-time query and figure out exactly WHERE you sent that email or did that search from, then cross-reference that with your calendar, and figure out exactly what you were doing at the time.

    "It looked like he was at home, because his calendar said he was 'Feeding the cat', but his web search came from an IP outside of the town he lives in. But he has a meeting in an hour at the dentist's office, and he just did a web search for driving directions. We can be sure he'll be there for an hour, and then we can raid his house and search his computers while he's gone. Nobody will ever know!"

    As long as there are ridiculous draconian laws that allow .gov to demand logs and other details from providers, there can be no anonymity. At least so far, my provider is Pro-Privacy, and "Gets It(tm)". It pays to go with one of the little guys sometimes.

  18. Re:Personal Security by Abattoir · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Get a cheap 32M or so USB Flash drive, a copy of Portable Firefox and there you go, all your cookies, passwords and sekrets are yours to keep.