Google

<a href="http://recode.net/2015/05/27/google-confirms-buy-button-is-coming/">Image via Re/code</a> 

Speaking at the Code Conference in California, Google’s chief business officer Omid Kordestani confirmed that the company is in fact planning on adding a “buy” button to search results. This feature has been rumored for several months and is a way for Google to compete more seriously with the likes of Amazon and eBay.

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Gartner today released the results of a report on worldwide smartphone marketshare in Q1 2015 (first three months) which most notably found that Android’s hold on the smartphone OS market dropped 1.9% while Apple’s iOS saw it’s third consecutive quarter of gains. The research firm attributed Android’s loss largely to Apple’s newfound success in China – where Android saw a 4% decline over its share of that market last year –  on the back of the larger-screened iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, as well as increased differentiation and ecosystem lock-in through offerings like Apple Pay and Apple Watch.
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 Google’s App Indexing technology isn’t exactly the most exciting thing to discuss, but so long as the majority of the company’s revenue still comes from search (it does), it is imperative that they figure out how to make their main business work on mobile where the eyeballs are going. So the company announced that today App Indexing is coming to iOS apps, starting with Chrome and Google Search.

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The long-running dispute between Oracle and Google over whether Java application programming interfaces (APIs) used within Android were protected by copyright has taken another strange turn, with the Justice Dept urging the Supreme Court not to hear Google’s appeal.

The legal battle is over whether small sections of code originally written by Oracle’s predecessor, Sun Microsystems, can be used under the ‘fair use’ exemption to copyright laws. Google argues that it used only small code snippits, did so mostly for consistency and offered to pay royalties; Oracle argues that the code is its intellectual property, and the royalties offered were too low … 
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Stephen and I are off to Google I/O 2015 this week (the first time we’ve sent 2 people – for double the coverage!) but we wanted to preview what we we’re excited about this week. I’d run through the list of expectations but Chance already made 90% of the list when the sessions were launched. Go check it out. Here’s what I’ve been hearing…
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Earlier this month Google released two new Chrome extensions—Color Enhancer and Animation Policy—aimed at making it easier for those with disabilities to interact with the web, and today it’s taking its accessibility efforts much further. The company this morning took the wraps off Impact Challenge: Disabilities, a $20 million grant program from Google.org, the charitable arm of Google tasked with supporting nonprofits changing the world for the better through the donation of grants, technology, and the knowledge of Googlers looking to give back.

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Google’s existing Nexus 5 and Nexus 6 handsets

With Google reporting falling revenues from its Nexus devices, and having seemingly abandoned the original concept of an affordable vanilla device in favor of more expensive devices, the future of the product line was looking a little uncertain. But a new rumor says that Google will indeed be continuing the Nexus program – and not just with one new smartphone, but two.

Android Police cites a “reliable source” in suggesting that Google is partnering with two different manufacturers: with LG for a 5.2-inch smartphone code-named Angler, and with Huawei for a 5.7-inch phablet code-named Bullhead … 
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Today we’re getting a look at an upcoming new version of the Google Photos app courtesy of some screenshots obtained by AndroidPolice. The app features a new Assistant mode that appears to replace the old Autoawesome feature with a more manual editing experience, as well as something new features and tweaks to the overall user experience.
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While Google has been working hard to become a more diverse company, you don’t necessarily see much diversity in image searches. Carry out a neutral search on Google Images for terms like man, woman, face or hand, and the vast majority of search results show white people.

The World White Web project aims to change that, by the simple mechanism of asking people to share images of people of color, which boosts their search rankings in Google, increasing the racial diversity of search results … 
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Launched in September 2008, Google’s Chrome browser is now dominant in its share of the desktop web browser market, with approximately 1 in 4 Internet users interfacing with the web using the browser. What many Chrome users probably don’t know, however, is that it’s actually based off the open source Chromium browser, also developed by Google. Up until today Chrome for Android differed from its desktop counterpart in that it’s codebase wasn’t open source – meaning, the code for the app wasn’t publicly available for other developers to view, modify, and build upon. That changed today.

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Following the recent rebrand of Google’s Webmaster Tools to “Search Console,” the Mountain View company has now announced that it is introducing new reports to help app developers get better insight into how their indexed Android app is performing in search…
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While Google’s ad business is definitely in a transition phase, largely due to the shift away from personal computers towards mobile handsets, Google’s Senior Vice President of Ads & Commerce Sridhar Ramaswamy says that the company is handling this move well. Selling ads to advertisers may be harder with more of those ads ending up on mobile devices with smaller screens than notebooks and desktops, meaning more difficulty for customers to complete purchases, but Google is definitely taking steps toward slowing the rapid decline in ad prices.

According to a recent report from The Wall Street Journal, while Google is making several moves to make advertising more valuable, the market’s more recent move to larger-screened devices has helped significantly…
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Earlier this month, Google began sending the first invites to users for its Project Fi wireless carrier initiative. Users receiving invites have been rare so far and this evening Google sent an update email to those who requested an invite at launch. Unfortunately, the email being sent to users today doesn’t include an invite, but rather only an update on the process of the rollout.

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Google today updated its Hangouts Chrome app with an entirely new interface. Perhaps more notably than that, the app has support for Mac OS X users in addition to the trio of Windows, Linux, and Chrome OS. The UI has been refreshed to be more similar to the Android version of the app, a trend that has been increasingly common for Google services over the past few months.

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Earlier this week, users discovered an issue with Google Maps that centered around typing in a racial slur and being directed to The White House. This evening, Google has issued an apology on its official Maps blog. The company says that it is “deeply upset” by the issue and is currently in the process of fixing it.

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Have you ever seen a product or service in a YouTube video ad and wished it were easier to learn more or purchase it? Me neither, but Google believes its new TrueView for shopping ad format will result in stronger results for advertisers looking to drive increased interest and sales. 
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