Author

Élyse Betters

Report: Google, Microsoft to directly compete with Amazon’s EC2 cloud

Élyse Betters May 17 2012 - 12:51 pm PT

Google and Microsoft are directly targeting Amazon with their new clouds that are allegedly in-development.

According to GigaOm’s Derrick Harris, who cited unnamed sources familiar with the plans, Google is developing a cloud computing offering that will give Amazon’s EC2 cloud a run for its money. More sources claimed Microsoft is even working on an IaaS platform that will either release or announce before Google’s offering. The sources further elaborated and said Google should lunch its service for renting virtual server instances by the latter half of 2012, while Microsoft scheduled its announcement for June 7 in San Francisco.

GigaOm explained:

Although Google declined to comment on whether the offering is indeed on the way, an IaaS cloud would make a lot of sense for the company. It already has a popular platform-as-a-service offering in App Engine that is essentially a cloud-based application runtime, but renting virtual servers in an IaaS model is still where the money is in cloud-based computing. Google also has an API-accessible storage offering — the aptly named Google Cloud Storage — that would make for a nice complement to an IaaS cloud, like Amazon’s ridiculously popular S3 storage service is for EC2.

Microsoft clearly got the message on where developers are spending in the cloud, too, which is why it’s reportedly expanding its Windows Azure cloud to compete with Amazon more directly than it already does. That means the ability to rent Windows and Linux virtual servers by the hour as well as, it has been reported, support for Java on the PaaS side of Azure. The speculation that Microsoft will make these moves at some point is nothing new, and tweets last week from a Microsoft analyst saying “Infrastructure as a Service is on the roadmap” only stoked the flames.

Check out the full scoop at GigaOm.com.

Expand
Expanding
Close

And the official 2012 Google Doodle winner is….

Élyse Betters May 17 2012 - 10:49 am PT

Dylan Hoffman of Caledonia, Wisc., is the 2012 United States Doodle 4 Google National Winner.

According to Google’s Vice President of Project Management Marissa Mayer, the second-grader’s “Pirate Times” doodle, featured above, will go live on the U.S. Google homepage May 18. Hoffman entered his illustrated response to this year’s “If I could travel in time I’d visit…”, and then he landed the No. 1 spot and won a treasure chest of prizes, such as: a $30,000 college scholarship; a Chromebook computer; and, a $50,000 technology grant for Prairie School. His doodle will also appear on the Crayola 64-crayon special edition box this fall.

The annual contest received a record 114,000 submissions, while millions of public votes helped determine the winner. The full list of runner-ups is available on the official Google blog, and each winner will receive a $5,000 college scholarship.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Study: Adults choose Web over TV, YouTube ads more efficient than cable ads

Élyse Betters May 17 2012 - 7:41 am PT

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rD_WcGtA3C4]

Google collaborated with advertising research company Nielsen to conduct a series of new cross-media studies for television, and they discovered over one-third of adults opted for broadband Internet over cable TV.

The search engine’s six cross-media studies looked at viewership patterns and campaign effectiveness across television, YouTube, and the Google Display Network. The results indicated 31 percent of 18-to-49-year-old adults are “light TV viewers” who are “more efficiently reached with cross media campaigns on YouTube and the GDN than with TV alone.”

Google’s Advertising Research Manager Sheethal Shobowale took to the official Adwords Blog to further elaborate:

“At the end of 2011, several signs seemed to indicate that younger viewers were watching less TV and spending more time online. In fact, broadcast only/broadband homes have increased 22.8 percent since Q3 2011. We conducted a series of new cross-media studies for TV and six YouTube/GDN campaigns to find out if this trend would continue, and how it might impact advertisers in 2012. […] Overall, the results suggest that adding YouTube and the GDN to your TV network campaigns improves effectiveness in several powerful ways…”

Check out Google’s infographic below and video above to learn more.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Google reinvents search—again—with Knowledge Graph (Video)

Élyse Betters May 16 2012 - 11:34 am PT

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mmQl6VGvX-c]

Google just made searching the Internet much more tailored—again—by announcing its new Knowledge Graph that identifies the relationship between words in a query.

In a massive blog post on the official Google Blog, Google’s Senior Vice President of Engineering Amit Singhal announced the new feature, while explaining search has historically been about matching keywords to queries, but that is not the ideal approach in the modern era of search.

According to the Singal:

“Take a query like [taj mahal]. For more than four decades, search has essentially been about matching keywords to queries. To a search engine the words [taj mahal] have been just that—two words.

But we all know that [taj mahal] has a much richer meaning. You might think of one of the world’s most beautiful monuments, or a Grammy Award-winning musician, or possibly even a casino in Atlantic City, NJ. Or, depending on when you last ate, the nearest Indian restaurant. It’s why we’ve been working on an intelligent model—in geek-speak, a “graph”—that understands real-world entities and their relationships to one another: things, not strings.

The SVP further described how the Knowledge Graph helps Google decipher ambiguous language. The feature’s methodology determines whether a user meant Taj Mahal the monument or Taj Mahal the musician when searching “Taj Mahal,” and then it displays a more narrowed list of search results.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Google exec slams Facebook’s advertising method after GM pulls $10M ads

Élyse Betters May 16 2012 - 9:43 am PT

Google’s product leader for display ads business, Jason Bigler, took to Twitter yesterday to announce his not-so shocked reaction over General Motors, ya know—the nation’s third-biggest advertiser, slashing its $10 million Facebook campaign budget to zilch.

The Wall Street Journal’s Dennis K. Berman told the world via the micro-blogging service that GM pulled its $10 million advertising campaign from Facebook because “the ads didn’t work.” Bigler obviously agreed with the reporter’s sentiments.

Google’s ad boss has a reason to jump on the Facebook-bashing bandwagon, though. After all, his company operates its own social network that directly competes with Mark Zuckerberg’s widely-popular website. However, amid the Twitter trash-talk, there just might be some actual truths to Facebook’s potentially flawed campaign techniques when compared to Google’s advertising methods.

According to Business Insider:

Google’s perfect online ad product is the search ad. Search ads are perfect because the people paying for the ads know that the people looking at the ads want to see them. Consumers go on to Google and search for products or information about products, and Google shows them ads from the company that makes that product (and ads from its competitors). There is no guesswork in the targeting of Google ads. The same cannot be said for Facebook ads. Facebook ads are targeted the old-fashioned way.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Samsung loses $10B market value due to Apple order rumor

Élyse Betters May 16 2012 - 8:22 am PT

Samsung’s shares dipped more than 6 percent yesterday, erasing $10 billion from the manufacturer’s market value, due to a rumor that claimed Apple ordered large amounts of chips with rebounding Japanese chipmaker Elpida.

According to Reuters, Taiwan tech website DigiTimes reported that the Cupertino, Calif.-based Company requested huge orders for dynamic random access memory chips with Elpida’s Hiroshima, Japan plant. Unnamed industry sources said the order fastened about 50 percent of the factory’s total chip production.

Samsung is the world’s foremost DRAM manufacturer, but its shares subsequently fell 6.2-percent to around $1,100 USD after the piping hot rumor circulated the blogosphere. The abrupt plunge is the stock’s 9-week low and sharpest daily fall in almost four years. SK Hynix is the second-largest memory chipmaker after Samsung, and its shares closed at 9 percent, which is a 20-week low and steepest slump in nine months.

Expand
Expanding
Close

LG flaunts Optimus UI 3.0, an ‘unobtrusive and simple’ overlay for ICS devices (Photos)

Élyse Betters May 16 2012 - 6:35 am PT

[slideshow]

LG announced this morning that it developed a new LG Optimus 3.0 overlay.

The press release claimed Optimus UI 3.0 is “unobtrusive and simple” to use, and its primary design function has speed in mind. For example, a new memo function called “Quick Memo” allows users to jot notes on the screen in a “more convenient” method, and then users can share the scribblings through text messages, email, or social networks.

“With smartphone hardware becoming more and more similar, it’s important for manufacturers to differentiate their products from the competition through the user interface,” said President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company Dr. Jong-seok Park in the presser.

Other features include: an unlock function that allows users to drag anywhere on the screen; a preset Pattern Lock that enables the most frequently used function to automatically open; an easier method for organizing the primary applications, a new Voice Shutter for capturing images through voice commands; a camera feature for shooting the best picture within multiple images; an Icon Customizer that allows users to set their own images as icons and shortcut; and a Download category for the main menu.

The Optimus UI 3.0 is initially slated for Ice Cream Sandwich devices, because it debut on the LG Optimus LTE II that unveiling this week in Korea, and then it will roll out to the LG Optimus 4X HD in June.

LG’s full press release is below.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Chrome Stable release will make tabs, browser preferences accessible everywhere

Élyse Betters May 15 2012 - 8:56 am PT

[youtube=http://youtu.be/-WCASaYzUYs]

This morning’s Stable release of Chrome will soon allow access to open tabs across multiple devices in different locations.

The feature has been available in Chrome Beta since early April. It enabled users logged into Chrome to open browser tabs on one device while permitting access to them on separate devices from within the “Other devices” menu on the New Tab page.

“Say you’ve found an awesome recipe on your work computer while… ahem… working hard at the office. But when you get back home, you can’t quite remember if it was two teaspoons of baking soda or two teaspoons of baking powder,” wrote Software Engineers Raz Mathias on the official Google Chrome Blog while detailing the latest feature. “Wouldn’t it be cool if you could pull up the same recipe on your home computer with one click?”

Expand
Expanding
Close

A ‘First Look’ at the HTC Desire C [Video]

Élyse Betters May 15 2012 - 8:27 am PT

[youtube=http://youtu.be/yJFsC08IZoQ]

Smartphone manufacturer HTC unveiled its latest mobile market contribution, the HTC Desire C, along with an official promotion video this morning.

The reel, dubbed “First Look,” only gave a brief glimpse of the device’s HTC Sense 4.0 interface, while this morning’s presser and website addressed a few of the informational gaps. The handset highlights Beats Audio technology, Sense integrated with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and a “powerful battery.” It also boasts a 3.5-inch HVGA touchscreen, 5-megapixel camera, and 25GB of Dropbox for two years, and will sell alongside a second, NFC-capable variant.

The HTC Desire C will debut in red, white, and black through T-Mobile, Virgin Media, Three, Vodafone, Orange, O2, Phones4U, The Carphone Warehouse, and Tesco Mobile in the United Kingdom.

Meanwhile, Engadget got ahold of T-Mobile UK to confirm pricing details: Pay-monthly users can have the handset free as long as they pay £15.50 a month for two years, and Pay-As-You-Go users can get the Android smartphone for £169.99. Both options become available in early June.

The full press release is after the break.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Google follows an email’s epic journey with ‘The Story of Send’ [Video]

Élyse Betters May 15 2012 - 7:42 am PT

[youtube=http://youtu.be/5Be2YnlRIg8]

Google released an animated video today that explores what happens to an email once the “send” button is clicked in Gmail.

The cartoon visually depicts a digital message’s journey as it travels past servers, cables, hard drives, even underground pathways equipped with vampires, from a user’s inbox to another’s mobile device.

The interactive timeline, dubbed “The Story of Send,” is meant to detail Google’s safety, security, and low energy footprint within its data centers as they handle billions of emails each day. While the HTML 5-based documentary provides an illustrated, advertised view of the process, visitors can get a more in-depth look by clicking on the informational tidbits, promotional videos, and photos embedded within the animation.

Check out the feature’s advertisement reel above, or just visit the website. You can even take a peak at 9to5Google’s video screen capture below.

Expand
Expanding
Close

LG demonstrates Google TVs with motion controls, 3D tech

Élyse Betters May 15 2012 - 7:07 am PT

[youtube=http://youtu.be/PfMYY7_ogUA]

LG displayed its Google TVs at Internet Week New York yesterday, and Venture Beat met with the company’s Georg Rasinski, director of home electronics brand management, for a brief demonstration on the G2 Series.

As showcased in the video above, the LG sets feature—among many things—a speedy dual-core CPU, motion control technology through the “Magic Remote,” and passive 3D. They also run Google TV 2.0 with a customized home screen and 3D interface, as well as immediate access to apps and bookmarks.

The sets will be available next week through retailers like Amazon in 47-inch and 55-inch models at $1,699 and $2,299, respectively.

LG’s full press release for the two Google TVs is available [here] as a PDF.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Verizon to launch LTE in horde of US cities May 17

Élyse Betters May 11 2012 - 6:43 am PT

Verizon is expanding its LTE rollout by giving the green light on May 17 for many northeast cities in the United States.

PC World tested 3G and 4G wireless data transfer speeds last month for the top four carriers —both indoors and outside with multiple devices across 13 major cities in 130 testing locations— and discovered some surprising results: AT&T won the 4G crown. It clocked the fastest speeds in all but four cities when compared to other 4G network providers. With that said, AT&T may soon lose its place as Verizon vastly continues to increase LTE presence in the country.

Check out Verizon’s full rollout list with each presser linked below:

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple to judge: Samsung intentionally ‘spoiled’ documents

Élyse Betters May 11 2012 - 5:24 am PT

Apple filed a motion in the Northern District of California on May 1 that claimed Samsung ruined documents it needed to submit for the discovery process in a “spoilation of evidence,” according to the legal jargon that described the act. NetworkWorld elaborated:

In effect, Apple wants the Judge to instruct the jury as follows:

1. Samsung had a duty to preserve relevant evidence, failed to do so, and acted in bad faith in failing to meet its legal duty.

2. The jury may infer that documents Samsung failed to produce would have been advantageous to Apple’s position.

3. If the jury finds Samsung liable for infringement, they may presume that the infringement was “intentional, willful, without regard to Apple’s rights.”

Apple’s motion doesn’t pull any punches, accusing Samsung of spoilating “vast quantities of relevant evidence in blatant disregard of its duty to preserve all such evidence.” Consequently, Apple writes that strong adverse inference instructions are required.

A hearing on Apple’s motion is scheduled for June 7, with Samsung’s reply brief due by May 15. However, Samsung said the claims are without merit, and it wants the due date extended to May 29. It is also seeking to have the matter’s hearing pushed to July 10, 2012, but Apple wasted no time and quickly filed a reply on May 7 that asked Samsung’s motion to be denied.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Bing launches final redesign, says users prefer site over Google

Élyse Betters May 10 2012 - 11:17 am PT

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySwn_1o8zfs]

Earlier this month, Microsoft’s search engine Bing unveiled a new style that looks strikingly like Google’s homepage user-interface, but today the Redmond, Wash.-based Company branched from the design and announced a host of new features.

The redesign is still very Google-esque, but the notable aspect to this change is that Microsoft is continuing to make jabs at its primary competitor all the while conducting an obvious rip-off. The Windows-maker even detailed to users in a Bing blog post that its search relevance and quality surpassed Google’s when all signs of branding were removed from the search engines’ homepages:

From the outset, we knew that serving relevant results that were equal to or better than the other guy was table stakes. To track our progress, we conducted tests that removed any trace of Google and Bing branding. When we did this study in January of last year 34% people preferred Bing, while 38% preferred Google. The same unbranded study now shows that Bing Search results now have a much wider lead over Google’s. When shown unbranded search results 43% prefer Bing results while only 28% prefer Google results. What this means is that in 3 years we’ve made some real progress in core relevance and search quality, and while search is becoming so much more than just web results, having a rock solid foundation is important for the future of Bing and search more generally.

Screenshots are available below.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Google plans to develop Game Center-like app

Élyse Betters May 10 2012 - 7:53 am PT

Apple introduced Game Center, an online multiplayer social gaming network, in 2010 that allows app users to invite friends, start multiplayer games, track achievements, and compare scores on a leader board, and now reports claim that Google is looking to develop a similar system for Android.

While not naming any sources, Business Insider claimed Google is developing a native Android app similar to Game Center, but the publication detailed Apple’s offering as “an app on the iPhone that connects players in most of Apple’s iOS games.” However, that description is selling the network short. Game Center comes standard with the current iOS, and Apple announced in February that the service would soon integrate with Mountain Lion, which is set for a late summer 2012 release (image, above).

Google’s flavor will allegedly include a social-based achievement system, as well as a leader board. The similar client would poise Google as a legitimate contender in the exploding mobile games market. Developers who build Android games use a variety of third-party solutions, like the iOS-compatible OpenFeint, but Google wants to create its own native app in the wake of Apple’s popularity with gaming.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Facebook announces App Center for all platforms and devices

Élyse Betters May 9 2012 - 2:33 pm PT

Facebook just announced that it is launching a new App Center—but it is not just for Facebook apps.

9to5Mac reported for months that Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg and company were planning a web-based alternative store to Apple’s App Store and Android’s Google Play dubbed “Project Spartan.” Speculation said the project is a framework for apps that would use social hooks, while working inside of Facebook’s ecosystem.

It seems those reports are ringing true, because the highly-anticipated HTML 5-based App Center will give Facebook users access to iOS, Android, web, mobile web, and desktop apps. Interestingly, Facebook reiterated that it is not competing directly with Apple or Google, because the App Center will send users to both the iOS and Android platforms. For example: If you are visiting Facebook’s App Center on an Android Device, and then enter Words with Friends, or one of the many Facebook-compatible games, you will soon beam to that app’s Google Play page for installation. The same holds true for iOS users.

“In the coming weeks, people will be able to access the App Center on the web and in the iOS and Android Facebook apps. All canvas, mobile and web apps that follow the guidelines can be listed. All developers should start preparing today to make sure their app is included for the launch,” explained Software Engineer Aaron Brady in a Facebook Developer’s blog post.

Expand
Expanding
Close

YouTube announces Next Vlogger winners

Élyse Betters May 9 2012 - 10:07 am PT

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL7527E02D85D19A68&feature=player_embedded&v=KH29FKSVII0]

YouTube’s Next Vlogger is a development program that provides mentoring and promotion to vloggers (a.k.a. video bloggers) to bulk the video-sharing platform’s quality content offering, and the contest just announced its 16 winners. According to the official YouTube Creator Blog:

Not only is vlogging one of the most popular forms of expression on YouTube, but selecting Next Vlogger also resulted in more applications than we’ve received for any previous Next Creator program. Bravo! Although, that still left us with some tough decisions… After much debate and many sleepless nights, we’re excited to introduce you to the 16 Next Vloggers.

In total, the winning vloggers already have more than 125 million views. Now, they will participate in three months of trainings through Google+ Hangouts, including advice from YouTube content creators iJustine and Natalie Tran from communitychannel. They will also receive $5,000 of video equipment and $10,000 of promotion. For those that did not win, YouTube is offering Creator Workshops available on the YouTube Creator Events website. Attendance is done through Google+ Hangouts on Air from the YouTube Creators page.

Videos from each of the winners are available below (and above).

Expand
Expanding
Close

NPD: Android holds 61 percent of total US smartphone sales in Q1 2012

Élyse Betters May 7 2012 - 11:37 am PT

Google’s Android controlled nearly two-thirds of the United States smartphone market in the year’s first quarter.

According to CNET, market research firm NPD Group placed Android’s U.S. market share at 61 percent, which is a dramatic gain from the holiday quarter’s 49 percent.

Meanwhile, Apple’s iOS slid from 41 percent in Q4 2011 to 29 percent in Q1 2012. It is assumed Apple’s October iPhone 4S launch boosted the holiday sales, but Android eventually reclaimed its Q3 2011 crown once the new year settled.

It is worth mentioning that advertising research company Neilsen measured the two smartphone OS manufacturers in March and placed Android at 49.5-percent and iOS at 32 percent for Q1 2012.

This article is cross-posted on 9to5Mac.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Google boasts 2012 WWW conference contributions

Élyse Betters May 7 2012 - 10:39 am PT

Google just announced, well, boasted, about its involvement with the 2012 World Wide Web conference that occurred last month.

Vice President of Engineering Prabhakar Raghavan took to the Official Google Research Blog this afternoon to detail the search engine’s role in the widely popular and annual series. Google was a major supporter of the conference and even sponsored it, coupled with many Googlers having taken an active role through keynotes and papers.

“More than forty members of Google’s technical staff gathered in Lyon, France in April to participate in the global dialogue around the state of the web at the World Wide Web conference (WWW) 2012,” explained Raghavan. “A decade ago, Larry Page and Sergey Brin applied their research to an information retrieval problem and their work—presented at WWW in 1998—led to the invention of today’s most popular search engine.

The new VP further said Mobile Web in the technical program is becoming more apparent as the conference has “evolve[d] over the years,” and then he noted the WWW community is transitioning from a “classic ‘bag of words’ of web pages” to an “entity-centric view.”

Raghavan is Yahoo’s former chief scientist, but 9to5Google reported that he left the position in March to take an executive job at Google amid massive cuts at the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based search engine.

A list of Googlers and their conference contributions is below:

Expand
Expanding
Close

LG to release Google TV-enabled set in US in late May

Élyse Betters May 7 2012 - 7:10 am PT

LG Electronics announced it will release its anticipated Google TV-enabled television set in the United States during late May.

“Production of Google TVs will start from May 17 from our factory in Mexico and U.S. consumers will be able to buy the product from the week of May 21,” said Executive Vice President of LG’s TV business unit Ro Seogho to a group of reporters.

According to Reuters, Seogho further revealed that a launch in Europe and Asia would follow as long as the product performs well stateside.

Earlier this month, 9to5Google also reported LG’s 3D Google TV-enable sets would launch in early May.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Hangouts On Air is now available to all, allows recorded or live broadcasting

Élyse Betters May 7 2012 - 6:45 am PT

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3pmSWh2BQco]

Google launched Hangouts On Air last year to select broadcasters, which allows recorded or live conversations with friends to broadcast, but today the search engine made the popular feature available to Google+ users worldwide.

Engineering Director Chee Chew explained the option’s functions on the Official Google Blog:

Today we’re excited to launch Hangouts On Air to Google+ users worldwide. So if you have something to say—as an aspiring artist, a global celebrity, or a concerned citizen—you can now go live in front of a global audience. With just a few clicks, you’ll be able to:

Broadcast publicly. By checking “Enable Hangouts On Air,” you can broadcast your live hangout—from the Google+ stream, your YouTube channel or your website—to the entire world.

See how many viewers you’ve got. During your broadcast, you can look inside the hangout to see how many people are watching live.

Record and re-share. Once you’re off the air, we’ll upload a public recording to your YouTube channel, and to your original Google+ post. This way it’s easy to share and discuss your broadcast after it’s over.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Galaxy S III debuts Siri-like function ‘S-Voice’

Élyse Betters May 3 2012 - 12:55 pm PT

Samsung just unveiled the Galaxy S III in London, and the new smartphone boasted a ton of new features, such as “S-Voice.” The built-in feature is Samsung’s equivalent of Siri, but it does much more than Apple’s offering. It manages certain functions and is customizable with up to four wake-up commands. For example, set it to respond with the phrase “Wake up,” and it will automatically unlock the smartphone’s screen. The voice-control tech is also integrated with applications, such as the camera app. Just say, “Hi! Galaxy, picture,” and then say “Cheese.” Walah!—The picture is captured. Oh, and S-Voice can even control music.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Galaxy S III TV commercial (Video)

Élyse Betters May 3 2012 - 12:24 pm PT

[youtube=http://youtu.be/2lpLGb1WW8E]

Samsung just unveiled the Galaxy S III in London and has already posted its first television advertisement for the smartphone on YouTube. A few official images for the device were also included on Facebook—check them out:

Expand
Expanding
Close

Samsung Galaxy S III review round-up

Élyse Betters May 3 2012 - 11:31 am PT

The Samsung Galaxy S III is being unveiled in London right now, but the first hands-on reviews have already hit the web. Check out the first-impressions below, and then head over to 9to5Google’s live gallery to get full coverage of the launch event.

Expand
Expanding
Close