Twitter is reportedly planning to kill off its #Music service, just six months after launching it, according to AllThingsD. The #Music mobile app was an iOS hit when it first launched, but download levels are now “abysmal,” according to AllThingsD’s sources. Although Twitter has continued to add …
This article was written on March 22, 2011 by CyberNet.
I’ve been getting at least a dozen emails a day asking when the CyberSearch extension would be getting updated for Firefox 4, but I have some bad news for everyone. Our extension was made possible thanks to Google’s Web Search API, but they deprecated it back in November 2010 in favor of a new JSON Custom Search API. From a developer’s point of view this kind of thing happens all the time… old technologies are replaced with new technologies. Generally these improvements are for the better, but in this case they put some restrictions in place for anyone using the new API:
Usage is free for all users, up to 100 queries per day. […] Any usage beyond the free usage quota will fail if you are not signed up for billing. Once you have enabled billing, you will be billed for all requests at the rate of $5 per 1000 queries, for up to 10,000 queries per day. If you need additional quota, please request additional quota from the console.
The CyberSearch extension basically performs a query every time you pause for a second while typing in the Firefox address bar. I’d estimate that the 100-query limit they are imposing will be hit by our extension every second given that there are over 80k daily users. So it would likely cost us thousands of dollars a day to keep this running… assuming Google would even approve a rate limit as high as what we’d need. Since we don’t make any money off the extension you can see how that isn’t really feasible.
So why is CyberSearch still (intermittently) working for some people? Google’s blog post from last November says that they are in the process of phasing out the older APIs, and as a result they are “tightening up the enforcement of the rate limits” as time goes on. Unfortunately that means you will likely see the extension inconsistently working, and that has been the root cause of 99% of bug reports being submitted to us. In my tests about half of all requests being made would return an error saying the extension exceeded the rate limit quota.
Thanks to everyone who provided support and troubleshooting during the development of CyberSearch! It was a fun ride, but unless Google changes their policy this will have to be the end of the road.
Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com
So you want a Star Wars poster featuring all the characters, but Jar Jar Binks and kid-Anakin keep polluting the scene? I feel your pain. But a new print by artist Max Dalton and put out by Spoke Art has you covered. It has all your favorite heroes…from episodes IV-VI and nothing else.
The second iPad mini will include a Retina upgrade and the iPad 5 will not have TouchID as was previously rumored, according to KGI Securities analyst Mingchi Kuo. These and a bevy of other predictions were released today in advance of the Oct. 22 iPad event to be held in San Francisco. The event will […]
Alt-week 10.19.13: A bird’s eye view of Grasshopper, cyber poaching and why you probably need more sleep
Posted in: Today's Chili Alt-week takes a look at the best science and alternative tech stories from the last seven days.
Rockets. Just the word sounds exciting. Rock-et. SpaceX’s vertical-take-off-and-landing Grasshopper is how many of us here at Engadget vicariously live our unfulfilled engineering dreams, so any …
With all of the focus on the imminent unveiling of a certain next-generation Nexus smartphone, another of Google’s bestselling products could soon be set for a wider launch of its own. The company has begun lifting restrictions on the official Chromecast apps and is now allowing iOS and Android …
In their ongoing teardown of Play Store 4.4, Android Police have found multiple mentions of a “Play Newsstand” that could turn out to be a one-price news subscription service similar in structure to Play Music All Access. This could give users unlimited access to premium news content for a monthly subscription fee. The code also […]
Hey remember Twitter Music
Some of the technical details behind Google’s Project Loon were revealed in a recent video explaining the inner workings of one of its global Internet antenna balloons. Network engineering lead Cyrus Behroozi popped off the top half of one of the bulbous shells to point out the various parts of its two main components: a […]