Google for a while now has been allowing businesses in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, France, Ireland, and New Zealand hire photographers through its Business Photos program in order to capture 360-degree Street View-like imagery for the inside of retail stores and other businesses. The feature allows users to get a 360-degree, interactive tour of a business without ever leaving Google Maps. Today, Google announced it is expanding the program to seven new countries for both photographers and businesses:
Robert Scoble isn’t mincing words on Google Glass. He thinks it will be big, big, big. His review after having Google Glass for two weeks reads like he’s had an epiphany and the only thing preventing these from ruling the universe is Larry Page’s inability to price these things as low as $200. His 6 points:
1. I will never live a day of my life from now on without it (or a competitor). It’s that significant.
2. The success of this totally depends on price. Each audience I asked at the end of my presentations “who would buy this?” As the price got down to $200 literally every hand went up. At $500 a few hands went up. This was consistent, whether talking with students, or more mainstream, older audiences.
3. Nearly everyone had an emotional outburst of “wow” or “amazing” or “that’s crazy” or “stunning.”
4. At NextWeb 50 people surrounded me and wouldn’t let me leave until they had a chance at trying them. I haven’t seen that kind of product angst at a conference for a while. This happened to me all week long, it is just crazy.
5. Most of the privacy concerns I had before coming to Germany just didn’t show up. I was shocked by how few negative reactions I got (only one, where an audience member said he wouldn’t talk to me with them on). Funny, someone asked me to try them in a bathroom (I had them aimed up at that time and refused).
6. There is a total generational gap that I found. The older people said they would use them, probably, but were far more skeptical, or, at minimum, less passionate about the fact that these are the future, than the 13-21-year-olds I met.
It is important to keep in mind the context of his perspective. He’s a uber-geek who spends his life immersed in technology. Some people will find the idea of wearing a computer on your face unsettling and there undoubtedly will be backlash. The wow factor will wear off and they will have to produce some value. Right now image and video taking are the key apps. As Scoble mentioned, other apps are coming fast and furious.
And, no, I don’t believe they won’t be $200 (unless there is a subsidy like phones). If Google is charging developers $1500/pop, there is no way Google can make them for $200, at least in the near future.
All of those disclaimers aside, I really do see a lot of opportunity for Google here. They’ve thought forward and this bet on the future of technology is going to change things. Expand Expanding Close
Google not only escaped criminal prosecution in Germany after its Street View cars were found to be capturing private wifi traffic, but it has now pretty much walked away scott-free as the Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information fined it just €145,000 ($190,000).
The pointless fine (reported by Engadget) could probably be paid with the change found buried in the seats of the Streetview cars … Expand Expanding Close
Amazon announced today in a press release that it is lowering the price of its the largest tablet in the U.S., the Kindle Fire HD 8.9″. The price of the entry level WiFi only model drops from $299 to $269, while the 4G variant will now sell for $399 (down from $499 previously). In addition, the company is also rolling out the device to a handful of new countries including: the UK, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, and Italy.
The 8.9-inch tablet includes a1920x1200, 254 ppi display, TI OMAP4470 processor, 1GB of RAM, Custom Dolby audio and dual stereo speakers, 10 hours of battery life, and of course access to Amazon’s ecosystem of content.
German prosecutors investigating the Street View Wi-Fi data-cropping scandal just announced they are no longer going after Google.
Bloomberg reported this morning that the public prosecutors office in Germany apparently could not find any criminal violations during its two-year-long probe into the Street View matter:
German prosecutors will drop a criminal probe into whether Google Inc. illegally gathered wireless-network data for its Street View mapping service, two people familiar with the issue said.
Prosecutors in the city of Hamburg didn’t find criminal violations, according to the people, who declined to be identified because the matter hasn’t formally ended.
Google’s Street View is a service highlighted in Google Maps and Google Earth that offers panoramic views of streets, but the global plotting venture ran into hot water when complaints surfaced in 2010 that it allegedly poached unencrypted Internet data from wireless networks for roughly three years.
A privacy complaint was subsequently filed in Germany in 2010, but Google has now reportedly sidestepped any fault in that particular country. It has, however, run into penalties across the world for its handling of inquiries.
The Federal Communications Commission, for instance, found the search engine did not break any laws, but it slapped the Mountain View, Calif.-based company with a $25,000 fine earlier this year for obstructing its investigation.
As promised yesterday, Samsung just unveiled the Galaxy S III mini in Frankfurt, Germany.
The Jelly Bean-powered handset features many of the same specs as the original Galaxy S, but the most noteworthy include a 4-inch WVGA Super AMOLED display, dual core 1GHz chipset, support for Wi-Fi, NFC, and Bluetooth 4.0, and a 1,500 mAh battery. It also features a 5-megapixel VGA front-facing camera with LED flash, 720p video recording and playback, 8GB RAM, and MicroSD up to 32 GB.
The S III mini essentially packs the S III experience into a 4-inch screen at a presumably more pocket-friendly cost; however, Samsung did not announce details on pricing and availability. Check out the presser and gallery below for more information on this practical smartphone.
There were rumors earlier this month that Samsung had a mini, 4-inch version of its flagship Galaxy S III device in the works when the press received invitations to an event including the words “something small will be really big.” According to a report from Engadget, citing a translated Korean news story, Samsung’s Mobile chief JK Shin has confirmed a 4-inch S III is to be unveiled tomorrow in Frankfurt, Germany. Engadget later confirmed with Samsung PR, and the image above comes from MobileGeeks.de (which also provided the specs below). According to Samsung PR, it sounds like the device will indeed have the “Mini” branding:
“we’ll unveil the 4 inch Galaxy S III Mini in Germany on October 11th.” Expand Expanding Close
Google announced today on the Official Gmail Blog that it is adding improved support for languages with a number of new input tools that provide one-click access to language and keyboard layouts. According to Google, 100 virtual keyboards, transliteration, and IMEs are included in the update. The introduction of the new tools means Gmail now supports typing in 75 languages:
Finding the right words can be difficult, especially across languages, and once you choose them, finding a way to typethem can be even harder. Try emailing family in Germany, chatting with friends in China or adding a Russian business partner’s name to your contacts and you may find yourself limited by the language of your keyboard…That’s why today we’re adding more than 100 virtual keyboards, transliteration and IMEs—collectively called input tools—in Gmail. These tools enable you to type in the language and keyboard layout you’re accustomed to, making it easy to keep in touch with family, friends and coworkers from any computer. You can even switch between languages with one click. Expand Expanding Close
Motorola Mobility apparently yanked all tablets and most smartphones from its German store.
According to the company’s online German store (translated), just three devices are available for purchase: the Motorola Razr I, the Motorola Razr HD, the Motorola Gleam+. Meanwhile, there are absolutely no Motorola tablets for sale through the website (translated).
Tech news website ZDNet first noticed the lacking selection of Android-powered devices from Google-owned Motorola, and it blamed the insufficient stock on “aggressive and successful litigation” against the company in recent months:
The mobile hardware maker has suffered a series of defeats in German courts after the firm was accused of patent infringement by software giant Microsoft. However, Motorola recently batted one victory to the back of the cage proving that Microsoft’s litigious advances were not fool-proof.
A German regional court ruled earlier this week that a patent belonging to the Redmond, WA.-based company was not infringed by Motorola. In spite of Motorola’s recent victory against Microsoft’s claims, the previous injunctions remain in place.
Apple also had a hand to play in the ongoing playbook against Motorola after the phone maker infringed a European patents belonging to Apple, a software feature described as a ‘rubber-banding’ patent.
According to the Mannheim Regional Court in Germany, Motorola Mobility does not infringe on a Microsoft patent enabling a “method and radio interface layer comprising a set of application programming interfaces (APIs).” The patent, which Reuters described as allowing “applications to work on different handsets,” is considered a rare victory for Google’s Motorola. Throughout its countersuits, Microsoft has been able to win three patent cases against Motorola in Germany. As noted by Microsoft-funded blogger Florian Mueller, “Microsoft should actually thank Motorola for this initiative, which at this stage has been far more productive for Microsoft than for Google.”
Microsoft is expected to appeal the decision, as usual, but the Judge Voss did not go over the reasoning behind the ruling during the announcement. Microsoft’s associate general counsel David Howard provided a statement to Reuters:
Google has updated its Books app experience on Android, which already features over 4 million books in the United States, Canada, Germany, Australia, Italy, France, Korea, Spain, and Japan. The latest version of the app introduces a number of new features including: highlighting, dictionary, notes, and new “Places” info cards.
In addition to including dictionary definitions when tapping on words, Google highlighted some of the new features in a post on its official Android blog:
Starting today, when you come across an unfamiliar geographic location—a faraway city or distant mountain range—you can tap on the location to learn more about it. You’ll see an info card with a Google Map and the option to get more information by searching on Google or Wikipedia.
Also in the update is the ability to translate words and phrases to a number of currently supported languages. Other features include: Expand Expanding Close
The Tetris for Android app, normally $2.99, is free today on the Amazon Appstore as part of the online retailer’s “Free app of the day” series. Today’s free app —an iconic tile-matching puzzle video game originally released in 1984 via a range of platforms— is available to Android users in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain.
Google is serious about its Nexus 7. So serious that it is advertising the product on its front page—something that it rarely does for anything. The short animation appears below the search bar and tells searchers that” The Playground is open – The new $199 tablet from Google”.
Google’s Nexus 7 is now available in more countries worldwide. The ASUS-made pure Android experience launched in France, Germany, and Spain this weekend. Pricing is theoretically the same as in the United States, but it makes for a higher cost with the Euro-premium. The 8GB model is priced at €199 and the 16GB model at €249, as The Vergefirst noted.
Google updated its availability page with the change. The chart is formatted weird, for some unknown reason, but it does display the added regions:
The Nexus 7 originally launched in June in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. It saw a huge amount of pre-orders and initial sales, causing availability issues due to demand. The situation has since improved.
Our friends in Germany reported that the local Google Play Store is now showing movies for both purchase and renting. This already surpasses Amazon’s reach and makes a bit of headway in matching Apple’s iTunes Store reach. Usually the Play Store follows rentals in YouTube. German users: Ja or nein?
Amazon officially confirmed this morning that it would open its Appstore to international users for the first time since launching in the United States last year. The countries in the initial international rollout scheduled for “this summer” include the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. Amazon is inviting developers to visit its developer portal to begin localizing and preparing their apps for distribution in the new countries. It also noted developers would be able to select specific countries and set prices by market, but developers will by default have their apps made available internationally.
As part of the announcement, Amazon also explained it would introduce two new changes to the Amazon Mobile App Distribution Agreement that benefit developers. Most importantly, developers will now earn 70 percent of paid app sales starting July 1.
According to a report fromReuters, 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.
YouTube must implement filters to stop Germany-based users from uploading videos that contain content held by music-royalty collector GEMA.
GEMA represents over 60,000 German artists. The organization sued Google’s video-sharing platform over 12 temporarily uploaded music videos that failed to pay a licensing fee for their content, but YouTube claimed it holds no legal responsibility. Hamburg’s state court found YouTube not in violation of copyrights on Friday, but said the service bears responsibility for the uploaded content.
YouTube currently offers copyright holders software that allows them to identify recordings for which they hold copyright, enabling them to flag the content as infringing their rights. The Hamburg court ruled that once an alleged violation is flagged YouTube must now apply the software to the recording to prevent further copyright infringements. The court also told YouTube to install a new program that filters uploaded videos for possible copyright infringements according to key words — such as musicians’ names and song titles — to catch versions of a song that only sound somewhat different, such as live recordings.
It is currently unknown if the ruling will be appealed.
Google’s cloud-based email service has been available to Germans over for seven years, but they are just now getting the official Gmail domain.
A local businessperson previously held the domain, which forced Google to provide “googlemail.de” addresses to users in Germany. However, according to a recent story by The Financial Times(translated), the Gmail trademark and domain were effectively transferred to Google earlier this month.
There are no further details regarding the settlement.
Toshiba unveiled the new 13.3-inch-display AT330 tablet in Germany, and it has one very unique feature: a TV tuner.
Techfokus said the Japanese electronics manufacturer showcased its latest device at Toshiba World 2012 in Bonn. The Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich slate employs a Tegra 3 quad-core CPU, but its most interesting highlight is a TV tuner and an antennae that extends from body…
Rubin made the announcement through Google Plus (and Twitter) and noted:
…and for those wondering, we count each device only once (ie, we don’t count re-sold devices), and “activations” means you go into a store, buy a device, put it on the network by subscribing to a wireless service.
Google’s latest public figure was just 550,000 devices a day that was noted by Chairman Eric Schmidt in Germany earlier this year and confirmed a few times, most recently at LeWeb last week.
To put it in perspective, 700,000 devices a day is almost 5 million every week, or 21 million a month, or over a mind-boggling 250 million a year.
As a comparison, Apple announced 1 million iPhone 4S’s sold in the first day of sales and topped 4 million in the first week (after some pent up demand and a week of preorders).
Motorola Mobility this morning scored a major win in Germany as the Mannheim Regional Court ruled against Apple in one of the patent infringement lawsuit that the maker of the Razr phone filed against the Cupertino firm in April of this year. Interestingly, Motorola’s counsel Quinn Emanuel also beat Apple’s motion for a preliminary injunction against Samsung products in the United States and is representing Motorola in another Apple lawsuit involving iCloud.
As part of the ruling, first reported by the FOSS Patents blog, Motorola won an injunction against infringing Apple products, meaning the original iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, the original iPad 3G and iPad 2 3G. The court decision follows a default judgment against Apple last month, scheduled to be discussed again in early February.
The ruling involves the European Patent 1010336 (B1) – the European equivalent of the U.S. Patent No. 6,359,898 – which covers a “method for performing a countdown function during a mobile-originated transfer for a packet radio system” and was declared essential to the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) standard. This is the first “substantive ruling” as the injunction is “preliminarily enforceable” against Ireland-based Apple Sales International in exchange for a bond unless Apple wins a stay, FOSS Patents explains. How can Apple fight back?
Following Motorola winning a possible injunction against Apple mobile products in Germany, Apple has told a German court it is set to lose $2.7 billion if it rules in favor of Motorola regarding a patent case related to an “emailing syncing patent”, according to a report from Bloomberg(via BusinessInsider). Apple has reportedly requested the court to demand Motorola provide $2.7 billion in collateral in the event the judge sides with Motorola. Bloomberg reports:
German courts often require the winning side in a case to post collateral if it wants to enforce a ruling while the other side is appealing. The amount reflects the losses the party is facing when forced to comply with the ruling. If it wins the appeals, it can seek damages and can make use of the collateral held for that.
While we have no information about how exactly Apple has come to that figure, the judge hearing the case apparently doesn’t agree with Apple’s valuation: Expand Expanding Close
Announced at IFA this year, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 has yet to make its way into our hands, most likely due to on going legal battles. Tonight we have good news however; the Galaxy Tab 7.7 passed through the desk of the FCC this afternoon, giving us pretty nice diagrams of the device. There’s no indication of carrier bands in this instance. We’re sure there’s more to come, but in the mean time check out our hands-on of the Galaxy Tab 7.7 after the break:
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