Jake Smith

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Coming up tonight on Charlie Rose, Mark Zuckerburg has made comment that “Google is building their own little version of Facebook”. While that was certainly a hit towards Google, Zuckerburg was happy to give props to Amazon and Apple as partners.

Amazon and Apple “are extremely aligned with us,” said Zuckerberg. “We have a lot of conversations with people at both companies just trying to figure out ways that we can do more together, and there is just a lot of reception there.” Meanwhile, “Google, I think, in some ways, is more competitive and certainly is trying to build their own little version of Facebook,” Zuckerberg said.

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TechCrunch reports that Google Ventures has invested in Kevin Rose’s new Milk Inc. Milk is a new iOS app lab that focuses on churning out a couple of new apps a year. The first app done by Milk, called Oink, focuses on letting users rank and rate items around them — rather than taking the Foursquare approach to just checking into a location. The app currently seems to be off to a great start. Milk raised $1.5 million in funding in April.

Google Ventures has invested $200k into Milk, now giving Milk a total of $1.7 million in funding. Google Maps is currently heavily embedded into Oink, and Milk helps to add more Google functionality later on.

With the recent changes to the design of Google Reader, some of you may be delighted to hear about a new plugin called Reeder for Chrome. Reeder for Chrome uses inspiration from the Reader Mac and iOS apps (not the same developer) to give Google Reader a nice, new, slick look.

The plugin is almost exactly like the Reader apps. It has an All Items tab, Starred Items tab, and a section showing all of your groups. When you click a story you’re brought to how much of the content the source provides, and then you can click the link to open a new tab. Of course you can also add feeds. Sadly, it doesn’t load the story inside of the Reader window like Reeder for Mac does. Download here.

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Atari has released their “Greatest Hits” collection to the Android Market. The app is available for $.99 and includes a nice selection of titles available to play. Titles include Missle Command, Asteroids, Battlefield, and Centipedes. And if you’re a huge Atari fan, you can download all 100 games for $9.99.

Check out the trailer after the break:

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A new web service called Rokker.fm uses YouTube’s vast music library to stream music to users for free. The service is very sleek (still in beta), and reminds us of Spotify and Grooveshark. Since it uses YouTube, Rokker also displays the video in a tiny spot in the bottom right of the page.

If you’re interested in buying the song you’re listening to, you can purchase it through an Amazon link on the website. Rokker also gives you the ability to signup for an account and manage playlists. Here’s to Google not blocking it!

Rokker.fm also plans to release both a Mac and iOS app to Apple’s App Store. Check out screenshots of the apps after the break:

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Google is looking into offering a paid cable subscription model WSJ reported today. The move would put Google at competition with cable providers, and bring new technology to the Google TV. In September, Google brought on former cable-TV executive, Jeremy Stern, to look into adding the subscription model to the platform.

The report says that Google has already begun talking to Walt Disney, Time Warner, and Discovery Communications — but no final decisions have been made. Besides Google TV, Google also has the opportunity to incorporate cable streaming into YouTube, but that is not on the table right now says the report. Google’s fiber network would help with the delivery of the content, which is expected to roll out in Kansas in 2012. We look forward to seeing this story develop.

Digitimes is reporting that the rumored 10.1-inch Kindle Fire, due out later this year, will now feature an 8.9-inch screen. Digitimes uses supply chains as their source, and says that a 10.1 inch tablet may be in the timeline however — just not this year.

Amazon is likely to change its product roadmap by shifting the display size of its next-generation Kindle Fire to 8.9-inch instead of 10.1-inch as originally planned, according to sources in Amazon’s supply chain. Following the launch of the 8.9-inch tablets, Amazon may also release 9.7- to 10.1-inch models in 2012, said the sources.

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Verizon just confirmed in their Droid RAZR teaser above that the device goes on sale November 11th at 11 AM for $299.  11:11:11 at 11 AM…cute.

The Nook Color is getting a $50 price slash, which brings the e-reader tablet to $199 — Android Central found today. Along with the price slash the Nook Color will be receiving a new software update 1.4 that brings Hulu Plus and the music streaming services Rhapsody, MOG, and Grooveshark to the tablet. All of the music streaming apps come with free trials, and Pandora also comes pre-loaded.

With the price slash, the Nook Color is a certain buy for the upcoming holiday season and it also comes in at a nice Kindle Fire competitor. But how about the Nook Tablet?

Engadget has discovered internal documents that reveal that Barnes & Noble is launching a new Nook Tablet on November 16th for $249. The Nook Tablet will be an upgraded version of the Nook Color, and will be a direct competitor to the Kindle Fire. The Nook Tablet reportedly packs a 7-inch VividView screen, 1.2GHz dual-core OMAP4 processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, a microSD expansion slot, roughly eight hours of battery life with WiFi switched off, and Wi-Fi.

The Nook Color is apparently “everything the Nook Color [does] + the best in HD entertainment”, says Barnes and Noble. So how does this stack up to the Kindle Fire (which is $50 cheaper)? The Nook Tablet will feature double the storage and double the RAM.

HTC and Verizon have just announced the rumored HTC Rezound (formerly Vigor) at their event in New York City. The HTC Rezound is available on Verizon for $299 with two year contract, featuring Android 2.3, Verizon LTE, a 720P 4.3-inch display, 1.5-GHz processor, and 1GB of RAM. You can notice the Beats Audio branding on the back of the device, in which headphones are includes. This device is sure to go head-to-head with Samsung’s Nexus Prime. Sadly, the Rezound won’t get Ice Cream Sandwich until early Q1 of 2012.

The HTC Rezound will be available at Best Buy and Verizon for $299 on November 14th.

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We’ll have a hands-on of the device when the event ends in just a few minutes. In the mean time, check out the press shots of the device after the break:

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Kevin Fox, a former lead designer for Google Reader, has made an offer to Google on his blog. Kevin offers that he will sign a three month contract to come back to Google to help restore the Reader product after this week’s changes — which he isn’t a fan of by any means. In fact, most people aren’t happy with Google getting rid of old social features to implement Google+.

Kevin says that he will keep with the design changes that Google is making across all products, but will restore and enhance Google Reader to the product it should be. Here’s to the best Kevin.

Google’s Vincent Mo announced on his Google+ profile this evening that users can now +1 Google Plus Photos. The feature is available on the iPhone app and will make its way to the Android app soon. This is a highly requested feature that we’re very happy to see!

I’m super excited to announce one of the top requested features on Google+ Photos: You can now +1 a photo! Click on a photo to open the lightbox photo viewer, and you’ll see the +1 button at the bottom left side of the photo. Click to +1 the photo, or click the counter to see who else has +1’d it. Try it on the photo below! (Photo credit: +Thomas Hawk)

+1’ing a photo is also available in the latest Google+ iPhone app (http://goo.gl/gArY7) and is coming soon to the Android app and the mobile web site.

Thanks, and keep the feedback coming!

The new Android Market version 3.3.11 has begun being pushed to Android handsets. The new update adds a ton of welcomed features, and what seems to be the most welcomed feature is the auto-updating of apps over Wi-Fi — which rids away of having to go back into the Market every time a new update is pushed. 3.3.11 also allows you to select the app being downloaded to automatically set an icon on your homescreen. Other tweaks include voice search inside of the market and a new app drawer.

While you’re waiting for the update to be pushed to your device, you can go ahead and give it a try by downloading it here. We must worn you, though, that the manual install doesn’t work well on tablets and has a few bugs on handsets. Let us know in the comments down south if you’re seeing the update. (via Android Police)

Head on past the break for a full gallery:

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The Galaxy Nexus could launch the week after Black Friday if a timeline leaked by Droid Life stands to be true. Our first look at Ice Cream Sandwich will reportedly launch with Samsung’s Holiday Portfolio after Black Friday, which is the busiest shopping day of the year. Samsung’s Holiday Portfolio most likely includes the Galaxy S II and various other devices.

Verizon’s holiday lineup is sure to be packed with Samsung’s offerings and Motorola’s new Droid RAZR and Motorola’s portfolio. Oh yeah, there’s the iPhone 4S too!

We think you’ll be quite happy with this redesign that was announced earlier this morning. To try it out simply activate it in the bottom left of Gmail.

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Google has posted the following video on their blog today showing off the new Street View feature inside of Google Maps that allows users to view local parks. Google has traveled across the world to add parks from 22 countries. You can check out the full list of parks here.

Do you see your local park on there?

A flier from Carphone Warehouse confirms the Motorola Xoom 2 will be hitting the market before the holidays, Engadget found. Motorola’s next tablet, a successor to the original Xoom, will land for 400 euros with Wi-Fi and 16GB of storage packed in (presumably there’ll be a 32GB version too).

The flier touts the Xoom 2 having an 8.2-inch touchscreen, Android 3.2 (no ICS!), Wi-Fi, and tethering. There’s no word on U.S. availability, but more information will most likely come out about that soon.

It seems about every week that Google is testing out new features inside of Search. Today, Google Operating System discovered a small tweak inside of Search — that is pretty redundant. Google has put new specialized search options in a horizontal view under the search box. Previously it was a feature in the black bar and to the side.

As you can notice, quickly things are getting a bit redundant, but hey, that might be a good thing in this case. That’s three places you can now refine your search!

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Google announced on their blog last week that they’d be redesigning Google Reader, and today the redesign has hit the interwebs. The redesign takes shape like almost every other Google product in terms of color, shapes, and speed.

Google Reader now also features Google+  functionality built in, after turning off friending and following in Reader. Users will be able to +1 a post and then from there have the ability to share it with their Google+ friends. Check it out after the break.

The redesign will begin rolling out to users in the coming days, so hold tight if you’re not yet seeing it. For me, the new redesign is welcomed, because I thought the last one was just plain bleh. Having the new look around Google is giving the company a cutting edge feel.

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YouTube announced on their blog yesterday that they plan on adding more well-known content creators to the video platform in the coming weeks. YouTube’s efforts are to make the website more like a TV network, bringing in well-known personalities from fields outside of the internet.

Today we’re announcing that even more talented creators and original entertainment will soon join YouTube’s existing channel lineup, including channels created by well-known personalities and content producers from the TV, film, music, news, and sports fields, as well as some of the most innovative up-and-coming media companies in the world and some of YouTube’s own existing partners. These channels will have something for everyone, whether you’re a mom, a comedy fan, a sports nut, a music lover or a pop-culture maven.

The channels YouTube hopes to provide will appeal to everyone, as they state above. YouTube says they’re doing this to “broaden their range of entertainment”. The new channels will be due out in the coming weeks.