Jordan Kahn

Google announced on the official Google News blog three new features coming to the U.S. edition of the site, including: new larger images on the main news page; real-time updates that will cover only the latest content; and new integration with Google+ content.

The realtime coverage page provides access to “every news story as soon as they become available to Google News.” The page will also include “Google+ Discussions” to the right, which will even display on the refreshed News homepage. The discussions will only appear to those signed into to Google+ and will consist of comments from journalists, politicians, and those in your Circles currently discussing breaking news.

The Google+ discussions, new realtime coverage page, and larger images will roll out over the next week, but you can upgrade now (here). Google also provided the following instructions to turn off the Google+ integration:

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Alongside the introduction of its new Samsung Galaxy S III, the company briefly talked about a music player accessory/companion product called the “S-Pebble.” The device is a refresh of Samsung’s old pebble MP3 player line, and it apparently has a 17-hour battery life and 4GB of built-in memory. However, it is not really an accessory for the Galaxy other than its pebble-blue and marble-white hyper glaze color schemes.

The S-Pebble will go nicely with Samsung’s new Scan and Match feature baked into its Music Hub service offering over 17 million songs. We do not have all the details on the feature, but it certainly sounds a lot like Apple’s iTunes Match service that matches your personal library of songs with songs stored in the cloud. The feature appears to be included in the cost of Samsung’s $10 per month fee for access to the Music Hub streaming service.

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Update: Samsung just announced the Galaxy S III, and it will launch the device at the end of this month in Europe. Get all the specs for the new Samsung Galaxy S III here, and head past the break for the full press release.

Samsung execs are about to take the stage in London to unveil the next-generation Galaxy device, which we are expecting will be called the “Galaxy S III” after the company let the name slip earlier this month, but we will have to wait a few more minutes to find out.

Last month, we got a look at what reports claimed were leaked specs of Samsung’s next flagship Galaxy device, but today the company is in London to officially unveil it. Last week, Samsung dropped the “Galaxy S III” name during its earnings call, but there still a possibility it will début with a different name when Samsung execs hit the stage in less than 20 minutes. The company already confirmed its 1.4GHz Exynos quad-core processor, but we will update you with all the specs and a live gallery of images from the event as it happens.

Samsung’s full press release for the device is below:

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

There are more than a few tools online to help you learn a new language, but none are as effective as immersing yourself in another country’s language by actually traveling there. Since we all do not have the time to do so, Google’s Creative Lab is providing a similar immersive experience through a new Chrome extension that employs the Google Translate API for translating certain text on any given webpage.

Available through the Google Chrome store, Google teamed up Use All Five to create the “Language Immersion for Chrome” extension and to currently provide options for translating a page into a mix of “Frenglish, Spanglish or even Tagaloglish.” However, all 64 languages supported by Google Translate are available. You can also roll over words to hear them pronounced, or click them to translate to English.

Within the extension, you will be able to filter the level of immersion with a sliding scale going from “Novice” to “Fluent” as you become more comfortable with any given language. A video demo of the extension in action is above.

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For quite a while, Android users on many carriers in a handful of countries have had access to direct carrier billing for apps. Google is rolling out the option today to all content available through Google Play including music, movies, and books to certain carriers in the United States and Japan. While direct carrier billing is available to AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile (everyone but Verizon who operates its own Android store), Google’s announcement seems to indicate the expanded service will launch first on T-Mobile in the United States with Sprint coming soon. It will also roll out to Softbank, DoCoMo, and KDDI customers in Japan. You can check out a full list of countries and carriers that support direct billing here.

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According to a report from Reuters, a judge in Mannheim ruled against Microsoft today in an ongoing patent dispute with Motorola Mobility by ordering the company to remove its Xbox 360 and Windows 7 products from German retailers. In response, Microsoft claimed that Motorola is unable to enforce the court’s decision due to a prior ruling granting Microsoft a preliminary injunction in a U.S. court:

“Motorola is prohibited from acting on today’s decision, and our business in Germany will continue as usual while we appeal this decision and pursue the fundamental issue of Motorola’s broken promise.”

Today’s ruling means Judge Holger Kircher has decided Microsoft broke contracts by using video-compression software covered in Motorola patents in its Xbox and Windows products. As noted by Reuters, the ITC last week ruled that Microsoft infringed on different Motorola patents covering both video compression and wireless technologies. European Union regulators have apparently started several investigations on how much Motorola charges competitors to license its patents because of the court’s decision and previous complaints from Apple, Microsoft, and others.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=x5KKQx04yD0&start=510]

Update: Scalado won’t confirm publicly what partners use its technology, but we’ve managed to confirm with a source close to the situation that RIM is using Scalado’s Rewind technology in BlackBerry 10.

If you happened to catch the highlights from RIM’s unveiling of BlackBerry 10 this morning, you probably noticed that slick new camera app with the ability to “rewind” time and capture the perfect expression of each person in the image. If you thought it looked familiar, it was probably because it looks almost identical to the Rewind technology from Swedish mobile imaging company Scalado.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5EcUjwLr9k]

The company has been showing off its tech on Android and other platforms from partners such as Qualcomm and Intel for over a year. A video of Scalado’s Rewind tech is above, and BlackBerry 10’s is in the video above at the 8:30 mark or below at 1:15. Scalado appears to have already partnered with at least HTC for some of its other tech and works specifically with OEMs and developers to implement its apps.

It looks like RIM may have partnered with Scalado to implement its tech, which would mean BB 10’s coolest new feature is likely headed to Android and other platforms soon. We reached out to Scalado and will update if we hear back.

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Following IDC’s report this morning that highlighted Apple’s continued growth among mobile phone marketshare worldwide, while coming second to Samsung in global smartphone marketshare, research firm comScore just released its numbers for United States mobile subscribers for the three-month period ending March 2012.

According to comScore, Apple posted impressive growth during the quarter with 30.7-percent marketshare among smartphone platforms in the U.S (up from 29.6-percent). Increasing from 47.3-percent in December 2011 to 51 percent in March 2012, Android was able to grab the top position for platforms during the quarter. Growth for Android and iOS continues to come at the expense of RIM. The company grabbed just 12.3-percent of the platform market in March, which is down from 16 percent in December 2011. Microsoft also lost marketshare with 3.9-percent, which is down from 4.7-percent…

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Today, research firm IDC published its Q1 2012 report of top mobile phone and smartphone shipments worldwide. While Apple was able to post impressive growth with a high of 8.8-percent of the total mobile phone market (up from 4.6-percent a year ago) and 24.2-percent of the global smartphone market (up from 18.3-percent), Samsung was able overtake Apple for the top spot with a year-over-year change of 267 percent and 29.1-percent of the total smartphone market. Samsung also took the top spot of global mobile phone marketshare from Nokia for the first time since 2004.

Meanwhile, the worldwide smartphone market grew 42.5% year over year in 1Q12, as Samsung overtook Apple for the smartphone leadership position. Vendors shipped 144.9 million smartphones in 1Q12 compared to 101.7 million units in 1Q11. The 42.5% year-over-year growth was 1% higher than IDC’s forecast of 41.5% for the quarter, and lower than the 57.4% growth in the fourth quarter of 2011

In terms of shipments among smartphone vendors, Apple took the second spot behind Samsung up from 18.6 million units in Q1 2011 to 35.1 million in Q1 2012. Apple was only behind Samsung with 42.2 million units shipped, up from just 11.5 million a year ago.

The company does not publicly release shipments from Samsung, and IDC’s number of 42.2 million smartphones shipped during Q1 is significantly more than the 32 million estimated by IHS iSuppli just days ago. If IHS’s estimate were correct, it would put Samsung much closer to the 35.1 million devices Apple confirmed it shipped sold during the quarter.

 

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We reported on 9to5Mac in February that Apple acquired discovery app Chomp and was thought to be using the company’s technology to help improve the App Store and iTunes experience. We later confirmed Chomp’s CEO Ben Keighran and CTO Cathy Edwards already started working at Apple on the iTunes teams. Today, it appears Apple has shut down Chomp for Android with Chomp’s website now only listing links to iOS versions of the app, as noted by GigaOM.

The “Download Chomp” tab in the upper right corner of the Chomp.com now leads directly to the iTunes download page and only iPhone and iPad options are available for searching online. However, when searching for apps on the website, changing the platform to “Android” in the URL still allows you to view Android apps. As we noted earlier, Chomp helps power Verizon’s Android market, so it is unclear what will happen with that partnership going forward.

[tweet https://twitter.com/#!/g_____________n/status/195900431413673985]

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Twitter just announced on its blog that its Android client will get an update today with enhancements made to “discover, search and notifications.” The update does not appear to be live, but it will be available here when it is.

Included in the update is a new “Activity” stream within the Discover tab. The blog post explained:

With this update, you can see Activity on Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android. Activity is a stream of updates that shows which Tweets are favorited or retweeted by the people you follow and which accounts those people follow or add to lists… Activity appears below the redesigned stories in Discover. Now you can tap any story once to see Tweets about a particular trend or news article. You can then read the entire story or join the conversation by replying, retweeting or favoriting related Tweets.

Improvements to search include suggestions for spelling and related terms, and autocomplete for first and last names in the Connect tab.

The update also brings push notifications for Interactions like retweets, favorites, and follows, and settings to manage them. You will be able to get all these new features when the update lands on Google Play shortly.
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While many of the devices on the list have rumored or leaked release dates already, BGR claimed to have Verizon’s summer/fall roadmap that details flagship smartphones being launched later this year.

According to the report, Verizon Wireless will offer Samsung’s highly anticipated and much rumored Galaxy S3, which the company confirmed yesterday will pack its new 1.4GHz Exynos 4 quad-core processor. The report does not give a release date, but it speculated a summer release based on the roadmap.

Also apparently on the roadmap are multiple Motorola RAZR devices and a new 5-inch HTC device that appears to be a Galaxy Note competitor…

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There is a lot of interesting news coming out of the Google v. Oracle Java trial today. Yesterday, former CEO Eric Schmidt gave his testimony to the court, and today Andy Rubin took the stand where he revealed a slide deck with Google’s ambitions to sell 10 million Android tablets during 2011 and other pieces of information related to Android revenue.

On-hand reports from The Verge point us to a few of the more intriguing statements made by Rubin and others today:

Google Phone:

The image above is of the “original Google phone” concept presented to carriers almost two years before Google finally launched the first Android handset, the T-Mobile G1. The images of the device came up in the trial due to references to Java in the designs. A year later, in May 2007, almost a year after iPhone, Google was still designing Android with a physical keyboard in mind—as noted in Android specification documents during the trial.

Android Revenue:

First, we get a close look at Android revenue numbers for the first time. The numbers come from a quarterly report given by Rubin and others in 2010 that show the company expected revenue from Android to reach $278.1 million during the year.

The forecast was based on increasing the roughly 20 million Android phones in the market at the time to 40 million by the end of the year. Google was also expecting to pull in $158.9 million in Android ad revenue and just $3.8 million from its 30 percent cut of app sales. According to the report, Google forecasted bringing in $840.2 million from Android ads and $35.9m from app sales in 2012.

Subsidized unlimited data plans:

Another interesting document that emerged from the trial shows Google suggested to T-Mobile in 2006 that it would give up its finder’s fee commission for new customers in order to provide Android phones with $10 monthly unlimited data plans. Of course, that plan was never carried out, and the original Android T-Mobile G1 launched with the conventional $25+ plans.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GeY4vuWFJOo]

Today, on the Official Google Blog, the company unveiled its next step for the Google Ideas think tank run by former ‘Twitterer in Chief” of the State Department Jared Cohen. In the post, Google announced it would support the Against Violent Extremism, a new online network created by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. The project aims to bring awareness to the issue of counter-radicalization while forming a “global network of formers, survivors of violent extremism, NGOs, academics, think tanks and private sector execs.” Google Ideas Director Jared Cohen explained:

This is the first time that former extremists, survivors, nonprofits and private sector leaders from around the world are combining forces and using online tools to tackle the problem of violent extremism… Until now, there has never before been a one-stop shop for people who want to help fight these challenges—a place to connect with others across sectors and disciplines to get expertise and resources.

The AVE network will consist of various resources such as videos, literature, online tools and forums, and information about projects related to the network. The website also includes an interactive map highlighting people, events, and resources for specific locations. The network will “spotlight formers as positive role models for youth” and provide a tool for the public to tackle radicalization issues that many rely on government to fix.

Cohen elaborated by outlining the focus for Google Ideas going forward:

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0ee3R3tfdd4]

You probably know by now that Google just unveiled its new cloud service called “Google Drive.” The service integrates with Google Docs online, offers an Android app, and it provides a desktop app for Dropbox-like functionality. In addition, Google announced availability of a Google Drive SDK and 18 web apps that used the SDK to create apps integrated with the service.

Integrating your application with Google Drive makes it available to millions of users. Drive apps are distributed from the Chrome Web Store, and can be used with any modern browser. Plus, your app can take advantage of Google’s sharing, storage, and identity management features.

So, what exactly will the Google Drive SDK allow you to do? Google will allow you to integrate sharing through Drive directly into your apps that manage files such as web app Lucidchart. Google already partnered with 18 apps that have integrated Drive features. The post also explained how Google would let you tap into Drive’s storage and indexing features:

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According to a report from Bloomberg, U.S. International Trade Commission Judge Thomas Pender has ruled in favor (PDF) of Motorola and claimed Apple’s devices infringe on one Android-related patent owned by the company. The ruling is only a partial victory for Motorola’s attempt to receive an injunction on iPhones and iPads, because the judge’s decision will still have to be reviewed before import blocks can be achieved:

ITC Judge Thomas Pender said Apple violated one of four Motorola Mobility patent rights. The patent relates to Wi-Fi technology. The judge’s findings are subject to review by the six-member commission, which has the power to block imports that infringe U.S. patents.

As for the Wi-Fi patent in question (# 6,246,697), Apple spokesperson Kristin Huguet told AllThingsD that Motorola refused to license its industry-standard technology on “reasonable terms”:

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