YouTube Gaming, the platform the company first unveiled back in June to bring live gameplay broadcasting to YouTube, is today expanding to new territory including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland.
Silicon Valley Business Journal reports that YouTube has acquired a massive new office park near its current San Bruno headquarters. The Bayhill Office Center comes in at 553,328-square-feet and consists of five buildings. YouTube paid $215 million for it, which comes out to around $388 per square foot. Youtube acquired the space from Hudson Pacific Properties, which purchased it from Blackstone Equity Office just last year.
Google today has announced that it will begin “exploring” the expansion of Google Fiber to three new cities. The company announced in a blog post that it will begin working with city officials in Louisville, KY, Irvine, CA, and San Diego, CA to plan the launch of Fiber. The announcement of Fiber coming to San Diego makes it the largest city for the service to date. Previously, San Antonio was the largest city with plans for Fiber.
After adding support for a new cross-platform video chat service through its Facebook Messenger mobile apps, Facebook has now announced that the feature is rolling out to all worldwide.
The feature first launched back in April for users on iOS and Android in Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Laos, Lithuania, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Poland, Portugal, the UK, the US and Uruguay. Today, Facebook said the feature is now rolled out globally “with the exception of a few countries” that it’s still working on:
Quick update on video calling in Messenger: we’re happy to share we’ve now rolled out the capability globally, with the exception of a few countries we’re still working on improving quality for.
You can check out the new Facebook Messenger video calling feature through the latest versions of the iOS and Android apps.
Google announced today that its rebranding its Google Shopping Express service while expanding the same day delivery service to new markets and merchants. While announcing the new shorter “Google Express” name, Google announced that the service is now available in Chicago, Boston, and Washington D.C. After first rolling out the service a year ago, it’s now accessible to more than 7 million people.
Google also noted some of the big merchants it’s added support for in recent months, including alcohol delivery in the Bay Area, making for a total of 16 new shopping options through Express:
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Update: Google has confirmed on Google+ that it does plan to open the Explorer program in the US for a period of time on April 15th.
Google has been slowly opening up its Google Glass Explorer Program to more people, but it’s about to let anyone in the US join the program and purchase Glass, at least for one day. TheVerge posted the document above showing what appears to be an upcoming Google Glass “Explorer Program Expansion,” or at least a proposal for one, that would see Google selling Glass for the usual $1500 through Google.com/glass to anyone in the US that wants one. That opposed to the waiting list that Google is currently taking sign ups for.
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AT&T just revealed its 4G LTE now blankets over 150 million people across the United States, more than doubling where it stood at the end of 2011 in terms of people covered, and now it plans to push full steam ahead by expanding to 103 markets total, with more expected by the end of 2012.
The carrier further noted its 4G LTE coverage is “part of the nation’s largest 4G network” that services 3,000 more 4G areas than Verizon currently does (although much of that is slower HSPA 4G).
Moreover, as AT&T’s 4G LTE coverage continues to widen, customers can access 4G speeds “outside of 4G LTE areas on the nation’s largest 4G network, unlike competitors, whose smartphone customers fall back to slower 3G technologies when outside of LTE coverage.”
4G LTE expansions announced today:
Today’s expansion notice comes just two days after the carrier also announced its 4G LTE network would light up in Daytona Beach, Fla. Denver, Colo., Louisville, K.Y., Milwaukee, Wis., Provo-Orem, Utah, Tacoma, Wash., York, Pa., and Washington D.C.
This article is cross-posted on 9to5Mac.
Get the full press release below.
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Verizon put out dozens of press releases today announcing expansions and additions to its 4G LTE network. The majority of the additions and expansions will kick-in April 19.
Additions:
LaGrange, Georgia, Macon, Georgia, Brunswick, Georgia, Cattaraugus-Allegany Counties (New York), Dodge City, Kansas, Great Bend, Kansas, Garden City, Kansas, Hays, Kansas, Pierre, South Dakota, Ocala, Florida, Provo-Orem, Utah.
Expansions:
Southern Illinois, East and Southeast of Des Moines, Iowa, Wichita, Kansas, St. Louis, Missouri, Southwest Missouri, Columbus, Ohio, Cleveland, Ohio, Boise-Nampa, Idaho, Ft. Collins-Loveland, Colorado, Salt Lake City-Ogden, Utah.
Cross-posted on 9to5Mac.com
As noted by Digital Reader, the Amazon Appstore has begun to roll out to more countries worldwide including UK, Canada, South Africa, Venezuela. The Appstore offers a wide variety of Android apps, for those of you who don’t find the Market enough. To install the Appstore on your Android device, hit up this link. I think it’s safe to say that most countries are now on the list.
Let us know how it goes.
Google has just signed a deal to lease a new Sunnyvale campus that, as Silicon Valley reports, will be the company’s “largest presence in Silicon Valley outside of Mountain View”.
The deal could see GOOG moving up to 2,900 employees for the long-term onto the new campus that totals 715,000 square feet at the Technology Corners complex at 11th Avenue and Innovation Way in Sunnyvale. This contributes to the over 1.9 million square feet of real estate the company has already committed to this year.
“As we continue to grow, it’s important to find space for our future employees close to our headquarters,” said David Radcliffe, vice president of real estate and workplace services for Google. “That’s why we’ve leased space at Moffett Park’s Technology Corners.”
Google has good reason to expand their presence in the Valley. The report notes Google plans on hiring more new employees this year than ever before with an additional 6,000 new members joining the team worldwide. Other companies, notably Apple, have been buying up land with big plans to accommodate their own growing employee base.
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