Google’s Sundar Pichai recently sat down with Forbes to talk about the Mountain View company’s ambitions in China, its relationship with Apple, and what its overall vision looks like. Some interesting quotes from Google’s Android and Chrome head have surfaced as a result, and among other comments, Pichai took a moment to respond to constant criticism from Apple that Google is in the business of monetizing its users. Pichai also touched on Google’s aspirations in China as well as the sponsored ad program it is testing in Google Play…
Google announced last night that the web interface for Google+ has received a facelift, bringing many visual cues from the company’s Material Design language. The new design sports a hamburger menu that slides in from the left side, a bright red toolbar at the top of pages, and a floating material-y circle in the bottom right that should look familiar to those using Google’s latest mobile operating system…
Today we’re excited to announce the new and improved Google+ experience for mobile web. We focused on making everything faster, more beautiful, and more intuitive. To check out all the new updates, visit plus.google.com on your phone or tablet’s browser. As always, we’d love to hear what you think!
This update brings the app up to 2015 standards, but there’s a still a lot of disparity between Google+ on different platforms. We have a newly redesigned web interface that is now closer in functionality to the Android app (but not quite the same), an iOS app that is unique in its own ways, and a desktop experience that is completely different than the mobile apps. Hopefully we’ll see a more unified experience over time.
Google paid developers a total of $7B in the past 12 months from a mix of app sales and in-app purchases, the company says, closing in on the record $10B payout recently announced by Apple.
Re/code also reports that Google is testing sponsored searches in the Play Store, enabling developers to pay to have their apps show up at the top of searches. Sponsored Play Store searches will work in exactly the same way as they do in the company’s main search engine: developers bidding for keywords, with sponsored apps appearing above organic search results, flagged with a small Ad tag …
According to a new report out of The Wall Street Journal, Google’s YouTube unit posted a revenue of nearly $4 billion in 2014, but did not earn a profit of any kind. The $4 billion in revenue during 2014 is up from $3 billion in 2013. YouTube accounted for about 6 percent Google’s overall sales last year.
In an effort to remedy remaining unprofitable, YouTube is planning to launch a new ad-targeting system later this year, the WSJ says, though details remain unclear. …
Google today has announced that it is introducing a way to automatically convert Adobe Flash-based ads to HTML5. Google says that eligible Flash ad campaigns, both existing and new, will automatically be converted to HTML5 when uploaded through AdWords, AdWords Editor, and a variety of third-party tools.
If you’re a user of Google Play Music, you probably know that you can store your own music on Google’s servers for streaming from your various devices, but now Google has announced that the amount of songs that you can store for free has been increased, up to 50,000 songs from 20,000. While many of Google’s competitors charge for this kind of service, Google has long offered the ability to store several thousand songs for free—and now they’re upping the limit.
The two competing lunar robots, Astrobotic top, Hakuto bottom
Google’s Lunar XPrize competition, to be the first team to take a robot to the moon, looks like it will come down to a head-to-head race between two competing robots–one American, one Japanese.
While five teams were awarded prizes for achieving key milestones along the way to the final goal, two of the robots appear set to get there first, jointly commissioning the same SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to carry them to the moon in the second half of 2016, with a race across the lunar surface determining the winner … Expand Expanding Close
The often hard to come by Nexus 6 is now available directly from Amazon. Previously only available via third-party retailers on the site, which often increased prices due to availability, the Nexus 6 is now available on Amazon and ships directly from the site’s warehouses. Before tonight, the Nexus 6 was only available from Motorola and Google Play.
Just days after Google’s Sundar Pichai announced the company’s new Inbox email app would arrive for Google Apps customers soon, today an invite system is launching to allow for exactly that.
Like the invite system that is currently being used to allow new users to download the Inbox email app, Google is today allowing Google Apps for Work admins to request service access for their users. Google said it will let in only select users that request access as it works to get feedback from early adopters and improve the experience: Expand Expanding Close
Last May, Google was hit with an class-action anti-trust lawsuit over several of its Android and Search practices. The case centered around the idea that Google was forcing Android handset manufacturers to make its search engine the default on all their devices, as well as pre-load apps such as YouTube. These practices, in turn, drove up the price of Android devices. Reuters reports this evening, however, that a federal judge has dismissed the lawsuit due to a lack of evidence from the plaintiffs.
Last year, the Italian government gave Google 18 months to reform its tata collection policies and change the way it stores and treats that user data. The Wall Street Journal reports today that Google has now agreed to allow the Italian government to perform spot checks at its Mountain View headquarters. The regulator will get quarterly updates from Google and have the ability to send someone to Mountain View for “on-the-spot checks.”
A lot of movement has been happening on the Glass team this month in Mountain View. In January, the project graduated out of the company’s Google[x] experimental projects lab and into the hands of ex-iPod-head Tony Fadell—although still being lead more directly by Google’s Head of Glass Ivy Ross. But with this change, it appears as if Google is doing—as is fairly common at the company—a bit of shuffling in the engineers who are working on the project…
Yesterday, Google announced that it was expanding support for Inbox to iPad, Safari, and Firefox users, but curiously left out from the expansion was Google Apps for Business and Education users. In a tweet recently, however, Google’s Senior Vice President of Android, Chrome, and Apps Sundar Pichai said that Inbox support will begin to roll out to Apps users “imminently.”
Google today, in a post on its Inside Search blog, has revealed a new interface for browsing news on its mobile website. Starting now, when you search for a topic, you’ll see a “carousel” of recent articles regarding your query that you can horizontally scroll through. The carousel contains articles from a single source of information.
Google today has started rolling out an update to the Google Docs app on Android with a few new enhancements. First off, the update adds support for selecting, cutting, copying, and pasting text, images, tables, and charts in Office Compatibility Mode. The update also adds the ability to insert links into Google documents.
The US government is seeking to have more regulatory control over the digital realm, and many tech companies are taking a stand. Google is definitely one of those, taking to its Public Policy Blog today to tell the world about proposed changes to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41, a procedural rule that sets limits on search warrants. The Advisory Committee on the Rules of Criminal Procedure, at the request of the Department of Justice, is proposing a big change to this rule, and Google says it could be a “monumental” threat to constitutional rights.
Google is working on a new social network community called Tablescape for sharing photos of food, according to a new report from Android Police with additional information from El Androide Libre. The service is somewhat of an extension of Google+, but with heavy optimization for users looking to share and browse photos of food.
Google today has kicked off its fifth annual Science Fair in conjunction with LEGO Education, National Geographic, Scientific America, and Virgin Galactic. Starting today and running through May 18th, students between the ages of 13 and 18 can submit projects to Google across a variety of scientific fields for a chance to win one of a handful of prizes. Possible topics include biology, computer science, anthropology, and any other scientific field.
Google this afternoon has begun rolling out a major update to the Play Music app on iOS. The update packs a handful of new features and enhancements, including a totally refreshed Material Design interface, and for the first time, an iPad optimized interface, as well.
As Apple prepares to bring its new smartwatch to the market, an extensive profile of Jony Ive from The New Yorker (you can find more over at 9to5Mac) has revealed how the Cupertino company sees Google Glass. But it wasn’t Ive, Apple’s design head, that made the comments. Rather, Apple CEO Tim Cook was very straightforward in saying that Google’s head-mounted display was putting a wearable in “the wrong place,” and that “glasses were not a smart move.” Expand Expanding Close
Google acquired the popular email client Sparrow back in 2012 and announced that the entire team would be joining Google to work on Gmail. Since that acquisition, Sparrow apps received only a handful of updates and have been seemingly neglected in favor of Google’s new Inbox initiative. Over the past few days, however, Sparrow appears to have received the final nail in its coffin as it has been removed from both the Mac App Store and iOS App Store (via TechCrunch).
Google Fiber has been instigating the growth of fiber Internet in the United States for a few years, and now AT&T is feeling the heat more than ever. Announced at midnight last night, AT&T said it’s finally ready to start selling fiber Internet services in Kansas City and its surrounding areas (via The Kansas City Star). The company finished the rollout of 1Gbps “GigaPower” service in Austin late last year, and now it seems it’s finally time for AT&T to live up to its promise to bring the service to other cities around the country…
Google announced its Project Zero initiative in the middle part of last year, and now the Mountain View company is making some amendments to the rules for disclosure of bugs it finds in vendors’ software. There has been a 90-day deadline in place since the launch of the program, and that seems to be working well according to a post on the Project Zero blog, but the company says that it has taken into consideration “external feedback around some of the corner cases” and made some changes. Expand Expanding Close
Google has today pulled the mobile apps for its Helpouts service from the Play Store and the App Store (via TechCrunch), less than a year after they launched. The service, which allows you to offer on-demand real help to others in live time for a price (or for free), is seemingly no longer available on mobile despite the fact that the apps only launched in April of 2014. Expand Expanding Close
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Google’s Android and Chrome lead comments on Apple relationship, China, Google Play ads
Google’s Sundar Pichai recently sat down with Forbes to talk about the Mountain View company’s ambitions in China, its relationship with Apple, and what its overall vision looks like. Some interesting quotes from Google’s Android and Chrome head have surfaced as a result, and among other comments, Pichai took a moment to respond to constant criticism from Apple that Google is in the business of monetizing its users. Pichai also touched on Google’s aspirations in China as well as the sponsored ad program it is testing in Google Play…
Expand
Expanding
Close
Google+ mobile web interface gets a facelift in latest update
Google announced last night that the web interface for Google+ has received a facelift, bringing many visual cues from the company’s Material Design language. The new design sports a hamburger menu that slides in from the left side, a bright red toolbar at the top of pages, and a floating material-y circle in the bottom right that should look familiar to those using Google’s latest mobile operating system…
As per Danielle Buckley‘s Google+ page:
This update brings the app up to 2015 standards, but there’s a still a lot of disparity between Google+ on different platforms. We have a newly redesigned web interface that is now closer in functionality to the Android app (but not quite the same), an iOS app that is unique in its own ways, and a desktop experience that is completely different than the mobile apps. Hopefully we’ll see a more unified experience over time.
Google has now paid Android developers $7B in past 12 months; testing sponsored app searches
Google paid developers a total of $7B in the past 12 months from a mix of app sales and in-app purchases, the company says, closing in on the record $10B payout recently announced by Apple.
Re/code also reports that Google is testing sponsored searches in the Play Store, enabling developers to pay to have their apps show up at the top of searches. Sponsored Play Store searches will work in exactly the same way as they do in the company’s main search engine: developers bidding for keywords, with sponsored apps appearing above organic search results, flagged with a small Ad tag …
Expand
Expanding
Close
WSJ: YouTube planning new ad-targeting system after earning $4B in 2014 without profit
In an effort to remedy remaining unprofitable, YouTube is planning to launch a new ad-targeting system later this year, the WSJ says, though details remain unclear. …
Expand
Expanding
Close
Google AdWords introduces automatic conversion of Flash campaigns to HTML5
Google today has announced that it is introducing a way to automatically convert Adobe Flash-based ads to HTML5. Google says that eligible Flash ad campaigns, both existing and new, will automatically be converted to HTML5 when uploaded through AdWords, AdWords Editor, and a variety of third-party tools.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Google ups free song storage limit to 50,000 songs on Google Play
If you’re a user of Google Play Music, you probably know that you can store your own music on Google’s servers for streaming from your various devices, but now Google has announced that the amount of songs that you can store for free has been increased, up to 50,000 songs from 20,000. While many of Google’s competitors charge for this kind of service, Google has long offered the ability to store several thousand songs for free—and now they’re upping the limit.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Google’s Lunar XPrize competition will come down to 500-metre moon race between two robots
The two competing lunar robots, Astrobotic top, Hakuto bottom
Google’s Lunar XPrize competition, to be the first team to take a robot to the moon, looks like it will come down to a head-to-head race between two competing robots–one American, one Japanese.
While five teams were awarded prizes for achieving key milestones along the way to the final goal, two of the robots appear set to get there first, jointly commissioning the same SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to carry them to the moon in the second half of 2016, with a race across the lunar surface determining the winner …
Expand
Expanding
Close
Nexus 6 now available on Amazon with Prime shipping
The often hard to come by Nexus 6 is now available directly from Amazon. Previously only available via third-party retailers on the site, which often increased prices due to availability, the Nexus 6 is now available on Amazon and ships directly from the site’s warehouses. Before tonight, the Nexus 6 was only available from Motorola and Google Play.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Google opens invite-based Inbox app to Google Apps for Work users
Just days after Google’s Sundar Pichai announced the company’s new Inbox email app would arrive for Google Apps customers soon, today an invite system is launching to allow for exactly that.
Like the invite system that is currently being used to allow new users to download the Inbox email app, Google is today allowing Google Apps for Work admins to request service access for their users. Google said it will let in only select users that request access as it works to get feedback from early adopters and improve the experience:
Expand
Expanding
Close
Judge dismisses class-action anti-trust suit against Google over Android & Search practices
Last May, Google was hit with an class-action anti-trust lawsuit over several of its Android and Search practices. The case centered around the idea that Google was forcing Android handset manufacturers to make its search engine the default on all their devices, as well as pre-load apps such as YouTube. These practices, in turn, drove up the price of Android devices. Reuters reports this evening, however, that a federal judge has dismissed the lawsuit due to a lack of evidence from the plaintiffs.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Google agrees to Italian regulatory checks following data collection privacy investigation
Last year, the Italian government gave Google 18 months to reform its tata collection policies and change the way it stores and treats that user data. The Wall Street Journal reports today that Google has now agreed to allow the Italian government to perform spot checks at its Mountain View headquarters. The regulator will get quarterly updates from Google and have the ability to send someone to Mountain View for “on-the-spot checks.”
Expand
Expanding
Close
Google shuffling engineers on Glass project, ‘new team’ developing next version under leadership change
A lot of movement has been happening on the Glass team this month in Mountain View. In January, the project graduated out of the company’s Google[x] experimental projects lab and into the hands of ex-iPod-head Tony Fadell—although still being lead more directly by Google’s Head of Glass Ivy Ross. But with this change, it appears as if Google is doing—as is fairly common at the company—a bit of shuffling in the engineers who are working on the project…
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Sundar Pichai says Google Apps Inbox support coming “imminently”
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Google introduces new carousel interface in mobile search results
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Google Docs for Android updated w/ Office Compatibility Mode improvements, more
Google today has started rolling out an update to the Google Docs app on Android with a few new enhancements. First off, the update adds support for selecting, cutting, copying, and pasting text, images, tables, and charts in Office Compatibility Mode. The update also adds the ability to insert links into Google documents.
From the Google Apps blog:
The update is available now via the Play Store, although it is a staged rollout and may take a little while to hit your device.
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FBI wants more ‘remote access’ search freedom, but Google doesn’t approve
The US government is seeking to have more regulatory control over the digital realm, and many tech companies are taking a stand. Google is definitely one of those, taking to its Public Policy Blog today to tell the world about proposed changes to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41, a procedural rule that sets limits on search warrants. The Advisory Committee on the Rules of Criminal Procedure, at the request of the Department of Justice, is proposing a big change to this rule, and Google says it could be a “monumental” threat to constitutional rights.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Google reportedly working on new ‘Tablescape’ social network for sharing food pics
Google is working on a new social network community called Tablescape for sharing photos of food, according to a new report from Android Police with additional information from El Androide Libre. The service is somewhat of an extension of Google+, but with heavy optimization for users looking to share and browse photos of food.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Google kicks off annual Science Fair w/ $100k in scholarships & grants up for grabs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAVIkr7HRMk
Google today has kicked off its fifth annual Science Fair in conjunction with LEGO Education, National Geographic, Scientific America, and Virgin Galactic. Starting today and running through May 18th, students between the ages of 13 and 18 can submit projects to Google across a variety of scientific fields for a chance to win one of a handful of prizes. Possible topics include biology, computer science, anthropology, and any other scientific field.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Google Play Music for iOS updated w/ Material Design, first ever iPad version
Google this afternoon has begun rolling out a major update to the Play Music app on iOS. The update packs a handful of new features and enhancements, including a totally refreshed Material Design interface, and for the first time, an iPad optimized interface, as well.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Apple CEO Tim Cook on Google Glass: ‘We always thought it would flop’
As Apple prepares to bring its new smartwatch to the market, an extensive profile of Jony Ive from The New Yorker (you can find more over at 9to5Mac) has revealed how the Cupertino company sees Google Glass. But it wasn’t Ive, Apple’s design head, that made the comments. Rather, Apple CEO Tim Cook was very straightforward in saying that Google’s head-mounted display was putting a wearable in “the wrong place,” and that “glasses were not a smart move.”
Expand
Expanding
Close
Google removes Sparrow email client from iOS and Mac App Stores
Google acquired the popular email client Sparrow back in 2012 and announced that the entire team would be joining Google to work on Gmail. Since that acquisition, Sparrow apps received only a handful of updates and have been seemingly neglected in favor of Google’s new Inbox initiative. Over the past few days, however, Sparrow appears to have received the final nail in its coffin as it has been removed from both the Mac App Store and iOS App Store (via TechCrunch).
Expand
Expanding
Close
AT&T launching GigaPower in Kansas City, exactly matching Google Fiber speed and price
Google Fiber has been instigating the growth of fiber Internet in the United States for a few years, and now AT&T is feeling the heat more than ever. Announced at midnight last night, AT&T said it’s finally ready to start selling fiber Internet services in Kansas City and its surrounding areas (via The Kansas City Star). The company finished the rollout of 1Gbps “GigaPower” service in Austin late last year, and now it seems it’s finally time for AT&T to live up to its promise to bring the service to other cities around the country…
Expand
Expanding
Close
Google adds two-week grace period to Project Zero bug squashing initiative
Google announced its Project Zero initiative in the middle part of last year, and now the Mountain View company is making some amendments to the rules for disclosure of bugs it finds in vendors’ software. There has been a 90-day deadline in place since the launch of the program, and that seems to be working well according to a post on the Project Zero blog, but the company says that it has taken into consideration “external feedback around some of the corner cases” and made some changes.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Google’s ‘Helpouts’ mobile apps are no longer available for download
Google has today pulled the mobile apps for its Helpouts service from the Play Store and the App Store (via TechCrunch), less than a year after they launched. The service, which allows you to offer on-demand real help to others in live time for a price (or for free), is seemingly no longer available on mobile despite the fact that the apps only launched in April of 2014.
Expand
Expanding
Close