YouTube announced a new licensing agreement with Paramount Pictures today that will bring 500 new rentable movie titles to its video-sharing platform and Google Play.
“With the addition of Paramount, we now have five of the six major studios and over ten independent movie studios offering nearly 9,000 movies for rent to millions of people around the world,” announced Director of Content Partnerships at YouTube Malik Ducard on the official YouTube blog.
The United States and Canada will have access to the new catalog over the next few weeks. A sampling of Paramount Pictures’ featured movies through Google include “Hugo” for $3.99, “Transformers” for $2.99, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” for $2.99, and “The Godfather” for $2.99.
“Many of you, like me, use Google Contacts to manage your personal address book. If that’s the case, then starting today we’ll include this contact info on your friends’ Google+ profiles — for your eyes only, of course,” announced Product Manager Sean Purcell on Google+.
Thus, Gmail and Android users’ Google Contacts are now integrated with the social network. For example: If a coworker has a new number recently stored in Google Contacts, it will automatically sync with Google+ in the “Details from Google Contacts” section. Purcell also provided a visual example of the new feature in the above image.
The Chrome Web Store now offers a trending section for the hottest apps and improved methods for finding the perfect extension.
Today’s automatic update allows users to view apps and extensions ranging from “warm” or “on fire” in the new “Trending” view of the Chrome Web Store. App subcategories were also included, such as “Music & Radio” under “Entertainment.”
The widely popular “Instagram” iOS app is now available for Android devices at Google Play.
The iTunes-friendly version showcases 30 million users and holds Apple’s 2011 iPhone App of the Year crown. The Android community patiently waited for a Google variant, and now it can finally propel mobile snapshots to the retro days with snazzy filters and effects.
“Today, we’re excited to bring you Instagram for Android,” announced Instagram on its official blog. “We’ve been meticulous about translating the Instagram experience to the Android platform. The Android app offers an extremely familiar Instagram experience when compared to the iOS app.”
The Android rumor mill is quick to debate the authenticity of recently surfaced image leaks (above) that have an albeit-slim “Nexus Tablet” association.
The Android Community(via PocketNow) dissected the rendering and concluded the tablet boasts standard buttons and Ice Cream Sandwich-specific apps on the display, which means the leak is a potential Nexus Tablet rendering.
Reports fail to mention, however, that the slate in question looks uncannily similar to a first-generation Apple iPad (right). With that said, the image leak could easily be fabricated with a few spare Android tablet shots and a copy of Photoshop. Oh, and PocketNow’s absent source attribution begs the question of legitimacy.
Amazon finally nixed AmazonWireless.com‘s beta mode by officially launching the website with two new advantages for the online retailer’s customers.
AmazonWireless first launch in July 2009 as a beta to ease the process of buying cell phones while allotting the best value for top devices. A new benefit for the website is “AmazonWireless Best Price Guarantee.” As the name indicates, Amazon now promises the best cell phones prices with service from the main carriers.
RadioShack’s “Trade & Save” app is now on Google Play and helps a user determine an old Android device’s worth for optimum trade-in value.
The app will also offer to buy the device, while providing the free prepaid shipping label, in exchange for a RadioShack gift card for use in-store or online. The gift card is sent by mail.
Google announced today that its live traffic pattern service will now include roads, not just highways.
“Starting today, if you’re planning a trip for which you anticipate traffic, you can find out what typical traffic is like on these arterial roads, rather than just on highways,” explained Google Maps Software Engineer Szabolcs Payrits on the official Google Lat-Long blog.
Drivers can type their starting and ending points into Google Maps to get directions, but they must enable the traffic layer in the upper right-hand corner, and then click “change” in in the legend to view Typical Traffic on regular roads.
Verizon just knocked $150 from the HTC Rezound’s sticker price.
The carrier is now offering the Android-based smartphone for $49.99 with a two-year contract. That’s a great deal for a 4G device showcasing a 4.3-inch Super LCD screen, 720p HD display, dual-core 1.5GHz processor, 8-megapixel rear-facing camera with a dual LED flash, and Beats by Dr. Dre.
According to Droid-Life, the HTC Rezound is also eyeing an Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade in the next couple of weeks, which is just one more reason to take advantage of today’s sale.
Go to Verizon’s website to check out the details (a zip code prompt is required).
Samsung is making headlines this quarter with show-stopping commercials that critics claim vastly surpass all of Apple’s advert offerings.
Television analytics firm Ace Metrix dubbed the Galaxy Note’s “The Best of a Phone and Tablet” commercial by Samsung (above) as the “Most Effective Ad” in Q1 2012.
“Q1 is arguably the most important quarter for advertising, as the Super Bowl, Oscars, and awards season in general drives the advertising agenda,” said Ace Metrix Chief Executive Officer Peter Daboll in a press release. “[…] Samsung’s top-ranked ad was particularly brilliant because it conveyed innovation and information without a narrator.”
The Android-based device’s ad garnered a 686-point score, which gave Samsung the No. 1 spot on the Top 10 Most Effective Ads list. Samsung released nine ads in Q1, and three were heralded as the most effective technology ads for the quarter, earning between 686 and 636 points each.
Sony plans to expand Google TV-based set-top-boxes to Europe starting this September.
According to GigaOM (via machine-translated Les Echos), Sony France Marketing Director Stephane Labrousse said a set-top box will sell in France for €200 ($266 USD) and another box with a built-in Blu-ray player will go for €300 ($399 USD).
Aside from a France launch, Les Echos indicated a simultaneous release in Spain, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Google TV is currently only available in the United States, but Sony announced at Las Vegas’ 2012 Consumer Electronics Show that two Google TV-compatible set-top boxes would go international within the year.
The Department of Justice plans to share settlement money with law enforcement agencies that participated in an investigation about Google distributing online advertisements from Canadian pharmacies illegally selling prescription drugs to Americans.
According to the Associated Press (via Boston.com), the agencies that participated in the investigation include Rhode Island state police, National Guard, attorney general’s office, North Providence police, and East Providence police.
Google ponied up $500 million last year to settle the investigation. The DOJ detailed the settlement’s particulars on its website. Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney Peter Neronha scheduled a news conference for this afternoon to discuss the money’s distribution between agencies.
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Hulu Plus is now available on seven Android tablets with a new user interface.
The “Hulu Plus” app is available on Google Play with an improved experience for the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime, Asus Eee Pad Transformer, Motorola Xoom, Motorola XYBoard 10.1, Toshiba Thrive, Acer Iconia, and LG G-Slate.
“This is just the beginning of our Android tablet rollout,” announced Hulu on its official blog.
Hulu is a flash-based service with ad-supported on-demand streaming video of television shows, movies, webisodes, and trailers from a variety of content suppliers, including NBC, Fox, ABC, CBS, and Nickelodeon. Hulu Plus is the $7.99 monthly subscription variant that officially launched in 2010 and allots subscribers an expanded content library. Like the free version, Hulu’s videos showcase commercials.
World—meet Google Consumer Surveys: Just when it looks like Google has extended its reach into every dark corner of the Internet, the search engine launches a new service to reap more cash online.
DuckDuckGo entered the search engine game in 2008, and it is averaging almost 1.5 million average direct queries per day and announcing system upgrades less than four years later.
The technology is simple: DuckDuckGo gathers results from crowd-sourced websites, such as Wikipedia and direct-competitor Bing, to display a host of search findings. It started as a privacy-conscious alternative to Google.
The chart to the right illustrates DuckDuckGo’s momentum. It just passed the 1 million mark last month, jumping from 630,441 average daily queries in January 2011 to 1,041,493 in February. Current calculations place the search engine at 1,468,690 average daily queries.
Due to the search engine’s success, Founder Gabriel Weinberg announced two major projects underway today that include better programming and speed. The company is even open sourcing more heavily and improving entry points.
“For speed, just this week we upgraded our whole caching system, which should significantly speed up a lot of queries,” wrote Weinberg on Hacker News. “This change should equalize a lot of the location differences, which is the main issue. In some parts of the world we were way slower.”
Google made less than $550 million in revenues for Android between 2008 and 2011, while making four times as much revenue during the same period with Apple products that employ Google services like Search and Maps.
According to The Guardian, the settlement offer provided yesterday by Google to Oracle depicted Android’s revenue streams. Settlement discussions ordered by Judge William Alsup were derailed when Oracle rejected Google’s low offer to pay royalties on Android if alleged patent infringements deem true in court.
Check out the video above to hear this performer’s awe-inspiring story. It looks like YouTube isn’t the only Google service turning-out stars these days (ahem—Bieber). The official Google Ad Words blog also highlighted Musk in a post today about how to go global with Google+:
Just when the tech-world is seemingly about to explode with apps—apps for Android, apps for iPhone, apps for set-top boxes, apps for computers, apps for Facebook—Google adds to the bubbling pot with Google+ Hangout apps.
Google just launched a new feature called “Account Activity” that sends account-holders monthly encrypted reports about their signed-in frittering across the Web and Google services.
Once a user opts-in to the feature, Google will confirm and then send the first monthly report (see image below). The full-report gives Account information, such as locations, browsers, and platforms employed while Internet surfing.
The report also gives Gmail specifics, like most contacted addresses and to-and-fro message counts, and it breaks-down other Google services’ particulars, including Web history with users’ top searches, types, and queries, and a personal YouTube report on uploaded video activity and viewers’ location data. Users can also delete old reports or browse previous months as they begin to pile up.
Epson America announced it is now shipping the world’s first Android-powered wearable display—the Epson Moverio.
With Google’s impending entry into the glasses space, Epson’s $699.99 offering is essential due to its 80-inch perceived projection display, Dolby Mobile surround sound, Wi-Fi connectivity, 6-hour battery life, 1GB of built-in storage, and 4GB microSDHC with accompanying slot.
Google’s mobile platform powers the track-pad controller and allows a user to watch YouTube or Vimeo videos, play apps and games, browse the Internet, and more. According to Epson America’s Director of New Business Development Anna Jen, there is even support for side-by-side 3D technology:
“The Moverio BT-100 see-through display is poised to significantly impact not only the way people interact with content for personal enjoyment, but the development of content for future applications – from virtual training platforms to a new way to interact with 3D CAD environments to visualizing 3D design renderings.”
The Epson Moverio BT-100 is now available through Epson’s retail website, select resellers, or by pre-order through Amazon. The Tokyo, Japan-based electronics manufacturer also recommended a few apps that take full advantage of its latest achievement, such as Netflix, Pandora, Amazon Kindle, and the Angry Birds suite.
The full presser and additional promo shots are below.
Google’s consorted undertaking to virtually preserve the extraordinary life of African leader Nelson Mandela finally went live today.
Google’s Cultural Institute Product Manager Mark Yoshitake took to the Official Google Blog this morning to announce the Nelson Mandela Digital Archive project. The Internet giant gave a $1.25 million grant to the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory of Johannesburg, South Africa last year to help preserve and launch documents and multimedia about Mandela online.
J.K. Rowling’s widely popular Harry Potter series is at-last available electronically.
The author’s own online Pottermore Shop displays all seven titles in ePub format, and prices vary between $8 each and $10 each, per copy. Fans can also purchase the entire series for $57.54.
The ePub files are unprotected and compatible with most Android devices, iOS devices, and any other eReader, tablet, or smartphone that accepts ePub format. In addition, the Harry Potter eBooks are available in Amazon Kindle formats. A full list of compatible devices and reading services is also available on the Pottermore Shop website.
Google added its Google Play service to the black navigation bar found at the top of its search engine.
The “Play” link seems to only appear for users logged into their Google account. Moreover, the Mountain View, Calif.-based Company is likely rolling out the addition, because some users claim they are unable to see the new icon in the Google bar.
It is worth noting the link still does not appear on Google’s main search page—despite being signed-in.
UPDATE: The “Play” link now appears on Google’s main search page whether or not a user is signed-in.
According toThe Daily Princetonian, the undergraduate student government is collaborating with OIT to move the student body from its current email server Webmail to either Google Apps or Microsoft Office 365.
Google Apps is a cloud-based productivity suite that features several Web application user-interfaces similar to traditional office suites—like Microsoft Office 365. The services vary per edition but generally include Docs, Gmail, Calendar, Talk, Sites, Groups, Video, and Marketplace. Its popularity among students and educational institutions is rapidly increasing due to enhanced sharing features, accessibility, and cost.
Google Apps for Education is just one edition that offers 25 GB of storage space per user for free through K-12 schools, colleges, and universities with up to 30,000 users. Forty-million active users currently use Google Apps, and according to US News & World Report, 61 of the Top 100 schools have switched to the educational service.
USG IT Committee Chair Josh Chen said the University’s polled students prefer Gmail due to its “many benefits and no drawbacks.” Meanwhile, U-Councilor Lily Alberts said the poll’s results likely attribute to the student’s prior familiarity with Gmail during pilot testing. The group of 150 students piloted the two options, and those students came from a pool that replied to an earlier campus-wide email.
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