Élyse Betters

Spring is finally here, and Google announced it wants to clean house again with the seasonal change by killing a slue of products.

“Focus is crucial if we are to improve our execution. We have so many opportunities in front of us that without hard choices we risk doing too much and not having the impact we strive for,” explained Cloud Services Director Matthias Schwab on the Official Google Blog. 

Here is a list of products being nixed:

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Google plans to launch its Street View mapping service in Israel on April 22, but the project is apparently already online.

According to Dutch blog Websonic (translated), Street View images are live in the capital city of Jerusalem, as well as in Haifa, Tel Aviv, Merhavia, Kfar Kama, Nahsholim, and Beersheba. The Street View above is of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, also known as the Western Wall, which is one of the city’s most popular and sacred tourist spots.

For those who live under a rock: Google Street View is a service highlighted in Google Maps and Google Earth that offers panoramic views of streets. It launched in 2007 in the United States and has expanded to many cities and rural areas worldwide. Street View in Israel is significant, because it is the first time Google has published street imagery online from any Middle Eastern country.

An image gallery is below.

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The Samsung Galaxy SIII is due to unveil May 3 in London, but the widely-anticipated smartphone just made an early appearance through Vietnamese blog Tinhte (original page is down).

The leaked device goes by model number GT-I9300. Pictures and video indicate the mysterious smartphone packs Ice Cream Sandwich OS, a 4.6-inch display at 720-by-1184-pixel resolution, a quad-core 1.4 GHz processor, 1GB of RAM and 16 GB of storage, an 8-megapixel camera, and a 2,050mAh battery.

More pictures and a video are below.

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Google released Gmail Meter today, which is a tool for analyzing your inbox that is similar to the Google Account Activity feature launched last month.

The Google Team announced Gmail Meter on the Official Gmail Blog. Google Apps Script Top Contributor Romain Vialard developed the Google Apps Script-powered feature after looking at his sent mail one day and noticing there were many things he wanted to know about his email habits.

The video above explains the tool, but here is a quick run-down: Gmail Meter sends an email on the first day of every month containing statistics about an Inbox for detailing a user’s emailing habits. Some of the data measured regards volume statistics, daily traffic, traffic patterns, email categories, times before first response, word count, thread lengths, and top senders and recipients.

A screenshot for each data measurement is below.

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YouTube is quickly making its video-sharing platform an all-in-one editing tool with its built-in 3D graphics button and other attractive features, but now Google has taken the service up another notch with its new audio editing and mixing options.

The video above explains it all, but here is a quick run-down:

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Hold on to your hats, iHome just turned Android.

The long-time iOS accessory manufacturer unveiled a new line of pocketbook-friendly Android trimmings today.

“The size of the worldwide Android audience and lack of current speaker options gives us a significant opportunity to introduce our products to a new group of consumers,” announced iHome’s Director of Marketing Evan Stein in a press release. “Our new SmartDesign products maintain the high quality and innovation that is synonymous with iHome.”

First up is the iC50 for Android smartphones. It is a $59.99 alarm/radio clock with a microUSB charging cable, stereo audio cable, and 3.5 mm plug:

Wake and sleep to radio (you can also wake to tone). Reson8® speaker chambers and EXB bass enhancement provide great sound that’s perfect for your music, games or apps. Works with iHome Sleep app (free download) to wake and sleep to your favorite music and advanced custom alarms. SmartSlide™ dock with custom micro USB cable for smartphone charging regardless of its charging port location/orientation. Also enjoy FM radio with digital tuning. A microUSB charging cable and stereo audio cable with 3.5 mm plug are included.

An image gallery is below.

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Google announced it is introducing a new initiative today to reinvent online measurement for brand marketers.

“Today at the Ad Age Digital Conference we’re introducing the Brand Activate initiative, a new effort to re-imagine online measurement for brand marketers and—crucially—to help brands turn measurement into action, immediately,” explained Google’s Vice President of Display Advertising Neal Mohan on the Official Google Blog. “We’re working with the industry and supporting the IAB’s Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS) coalition on this project.”

The coalition is committed to developing brand-building online metrics and measurement solutions. Meanwhile, the Ad Age Digital 2012 combines marketing, technology, and media in one place: Chelsea’s Metropolitan Pavilion in New York City. The events start today and end April 18. It is a melting pot of the world’s biggest brands and newest startups.

The conference intends to “connect the dots” between Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley, while highlighting 700 high-level attendees, two days of keynotes, workshops, and networking with celebrated guest speakers.

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So, everyone is aware that Java platform maker Oracle is amid a courtroom grapple with Google over whether Java patents were infringed in the search engine’s mobile operating system Android, but not everyone is clued in to the defendant’s intriguing side of the story.

According to Google’s money slides (via ZDNet), the heart of Google’s defense is summarized in three clear-cut points: Java code was free and openly available to the public; Google did not violate any patents or copyrights when developing Android; and, Oracle is disgruntled due to its and Sun’s failed attempts to market a Java-based platform for smartphones.

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PC World tested 3G and 4G wireless data transfer speeds 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.

During average wireless speed tests for 3G networks with the smartphones pictured above, T-Mobile took home the fastest download and upload speed prize at 3.84 Mbps and 1.44 Mbps, respectively. AT&T landed the No. 2 spot with its 2.62 Mbps download speed and 0.85-Mbps upload speed.

The slower 3G network provider reclaimed its pride and rose to fame with its 4G wireless speeds, however. AT&T garnered 9.56 Mbps while downloading and 5.15 Mbps for uploads. Verizon debuted at second with its 7.35 Mbps download speed and 5.86 Mbps upload speed.

The overall winners are named below.

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LATEST UPDATE: Google’s App Status Dashboard, an official website that offers performance information for Google Apps services, claimed earlier today that Gmail’s status went down, but the problem is now resolved less than an hour later.

“Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better,” contended Google.

The service interruption only affected 2 percent of Gmail’s user-base. DownRightNow, a universal monitoring service for the Web that is similar to Google’s Dashboard, described the outage as a “widespread service disruption” that started somewhere between 12:40 p.m. and 12:59 p.m. EST. The service interruption did not seem to affect mail pushing to third-party clients.

Those who tried to access Gmail.com directly found the following “Temporary Error (500)” notice with a “93” numeric technical code:

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I am an Apple devotee, through and through, so much so that I have not even bothered to look elsewhere to satisfy my tech-junkie needs—and yes, that means I have never played with an Android device in my entire life.

Enter the Samsung Galaxy Player 3.6. This Gingerbread-powered media player landed in my lap earlier this week and taunted something more. Unfortunately, due to my inexperience with Android devices, I am left to compare this offering to the next best thing in my mind: the fourth-generation iPod Touch. This should not be a problem, however, as both devices compete in the same product category.

Galaxy Players 4.0 and 5.0 released in 2011 for $229 and $269, respectively, and this week the South Korean-based firm added to the PMP lineup with its Galaxy Player 3.6 for about $100 less at $150. The price is definitely more attractive, but are users just getting what they paid for? Read more to find out.

A gallery of images is below.

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Oakley could soon give Google’s Project Glass a run for its money.

The eyewear maker told Bloomberg that it is developing technology for integrating smartphone elements into its products. The science is only in the preliminary stage, however, as Oakley’s Chief Executive Officer Colin Baden (picture, left) would not even validate plans to launch such spectacles. He did explain his company’s stance on the project, though, while detailing how the public is yearning for a heads-up display:

“As an organization, we’ve been chasing this beast since 1997,” explained Baden. “Ultimately, everything happens through your eyes, and the closer we can bring it to your eyes, the quicker the consumer is going to adopt the platform.”

Colin then described a few features he would like to see in the product, such as voice-controlled display information in conjunction with a smartphone via Bluetooth. The company actually has a few patents in place that detail its vision (available here, and pictured above). Oakley’s augmented-reality glasses would obviously not be cheap for consumers— especially because its initial target audience consists of athletes and eventually the U.S. military:

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The creative mind behind the head-turning Old Spice advertising campaign just joined the Google Creative Lab.

Wieden + Kennedy’s Iain Tait is leaving his executive creative director gig behind and opting for a role that promotes Android, Google+, Chrome, and other Google-branded services. Aside from the slue of YouTube slapstick Old Spice videos, he is also known for his advertising work at Levi’s, Coke, and Nike.

“I’m going to be an ECD at Google Creative Lab in New York,” announced Tait in a blog post. “I can’t believe that I’m leaving W+K. And I can’t believe that I’m about to join Google Creative Lab. The whole thing is kind of unbelievable.”

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Many Google Glasses parody videos are swirling around the Web, but two Israeli-based filmmakers decided to up the ante with a take on “Battlefield 5.”

Nadav Pessach and Uzi Mor created the video above and hosted it on the “There is a Canal” YouTube channel. It features “Battlefield 5” in a much-idealized version of how some gamers expect Project Glass to one-day change the gaming industry. The Battlefield franchise is a series of FPS video games developed by the Swedish company EA Digital Illusions CE and published by Electronic Arts.

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