Google

It seems that Amazon is finally throwing in the towel with its Fire Phone. After the hype leading up to its launch, Fire Phone has been struggling to stay afloat. It’s best to think of the Fire Phone as a smaller version of a Kindle Fire tablet, but with a few extra gimmicks and features thrown in along with a free year of Amazon Prime.

The Fire Phone may have been a disappointment to the market, but Amazon isn’t giving up on its attempt to push it into the hands of consumers this holiday season. The Fire Phone can now be purchased unlocked and off-contract for only $199 (32GB Version)…

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After going up for pre-order on Amazon in October, the Nexus 9 Keyboard Folio case is now available on the Play Store. The case costs a whopping $129, which for those doing the math, is only $71 less than what HTC was selling the tablet itself for a couple of weeks back.

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Google is giving Ol’ St. Nicholas a run for his money this holiday season because it ALSO knows what people want for the holidays. Rather than getting mail in the North Pole however, Google gets its data via its popular search engine. In data from its Trends platform, it has determined the top trending toys, devices and apparel searches on Google Shopping. An overview from the Commerce blog:

• Game consoles and tablets continue to be the top gifts trending on Google Shopping, but wearable technology such as the “fitbit” is also on the rise this month.
• Certain retro toys are making a comeback this season. Thanks to the new movie “Ouija,” searches for “Ouija boards” are up 300% since October. And queries for “Barbie Dream House” and “My Little Pony” are up as well compared to last month. ⁶
• Cold-weather staples, such as “Hunter boots” and “Canada Goose jackets,” are among the most popular apparel searches, up 46% and 140%, respectively, since October. But “jogger pants” are the newcomer gift this season, up 39% from October. ⁷

But the most important data they pulled, especially if you are a clueless father like myself, is the top 10 Kids’ gifts list. Without further ado, in order:

1. American Girl

2. My Little Pony

3. Paw Patrol

4. Lego Friends

5. Ouija Board

6. Peppa Pig

7. Shopkins

8. Nerf Guns

9. Barbie Dream House

10. Zoomer Dino

Any of this hitting home?
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Google has reached a settlement with former Morgan Stanley banker Daniel Hegglin who sued the tech company behind negative Internet posts that had an impact on his public reputation. The Hong Kong-based businessman took his case to Britain’s High Court to have Google remove web search content falsely identifying him as a murderer, nazi and a pedophile.

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T-Mobile announced today the addition of 14 music streaming services to its Music Freedom program including Google Play Music. First announced at its Uncarrier 5.0/6.0 event in June, T-Mobile’s Music Freedom program allows customers on the network to stream content from supported music services without it counting against a monthly data cap. T-Mobile promised the addition of Google Play Music by the end of the year in August when Google’s subscription streaming music service was voted most wanted by T-Mobile’s customers.
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If you want to check out what deals are available online before you hit the stores on Black Friday, Google has just made the task a little easier with revamped Google Shopping results.

Google Shopping results now include more detailed product information, customer reviews and show which stores have it in stock. Selected products also have 360-degree views … 
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According to recent reports, Google’s Glass Basecamps are officially kicking the bucket. It started with a post on Google+ by Glass Explorer Spencer Kleyweg, who noticed that Google is no longer accepting scheduled appointments to said Glass support hubs. This apparently affects all four of the basecamps, at locations including Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and London.

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Google is currently recruiting Wallet users with payouts and you can now throw deals in the mix as well. The company recently announced its new “Buy with Google” promotion, which offers discounts from a group of retailers including: B and H, Beautylish, CheapTicket, EAT24, Expedia, Fancy, JackThreads, LivingSocial, Newegg, Pose, Rue La La, Vinted USA, Sidecar Ride and Wish.

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Google has started rolling out an update to the stable channel of Chrome OS with a handful of notable enhancements.  The biggest feature for Chrome OS users is the addition of Chromecast support for media files stored in Google Drive. This means that when viewing a media file in Google Drive, a Chromecast icon will appear, allowing users to easily and quickly beam that content to their TV.

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Google, according to a report out of Reuters, has agreed to settle all of its patent litigation with the Rockstar consortium, which consists of a variety of tech companies including Apple, Sony, BlackBerry and Microsoft. The Rockstar consortium paid $4.5 billion for Nortel Network Corporation’s huge patent portfolio in 2011, outbidding Google at the time. The Rockstar consortium originally sued Google and a handful of Android manufacturers in October of 2013, claiming that the companies infringed on seven Nortel patents.

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Google has today launched a new platform that aims to reinvent how content creators on the Internet make money. It’s called Contributor, and it involves readers committing to a certain monthly payment of $1-3, which will in turn give visitors an ad-free browsing experience on some sites. This could potentially be a full-blown alternative to Google’s AdSense, giving publications like this one and others a new form of monetization.

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After a bit of a hiatus, YouTube announced today that it’s bringing back its Music Awards for a second showing. The event is set to take place sometime in March with the Google-owned company dishing out awards to recording artists selected by its viewers. In addition to having a say-so in who receives top honors, fans will also have some type of creative influence over the content being streamed.
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Google, in its continued effort to support developers and users from all across the world, announced today that developers in China are now be able to list both free and paid apps on the Play Store. The company made the announcement via a post on the official Android Developer Blog, saying that the addition of China means that developers can now sign up to be merchants in more than 60 countries. Users in more than 130 countries can purchase apps those apps, as well.

As part of that continued effort, we’re excited to announce merchant support in China, enabling local developers to export and sell their apps to Google Play users in more than 130 countries. Chinese developers can now offer both free and paid applications through various monetization models, including in-app purchasing and subscriptions. For revenue generated on Google Play, developers will receive payment to their Chinese bank accounts via USD wire transfers.

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[googlemaps https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m0!4v1416448266011!6m8!1m7!1s9WgYUb5quXDjqqFd3DWI6A!2m2!1d46.41438376976309!2d10.01394735785013!3f210!4f10!5f0.7820865974627469&w=704&h=400]

Google, in a post on the Geo Developers Blog, today announced the ability for website owners to embed Street View panoramas and Photospheres within their site using an HTML snippet. Google launched this feature for Maps last year, but only today did it add support for Street View and public Photospheres.

Today, we added the ability to easily embed the Street View and Photo Sphere images you find in Google Maps and we’re also enabling the same capabilities programmatically in the Google Maps Embed API. These embeds use the new imagery viewer technology that powers Street View in the new Google Maps.

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Google News founder Krishna Bharat announced in a post on Google+ that the company is rolling out a new “Suggested for you” feature to News search results. Bharat says the goal of the section is to show news specific to you and topics that interest you, as well as local stories (via Search Engine Land).

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Mozilla and Yahoo today announced a joint five-year “strategic” partnership that will see the Firefox browser’s default search engine change to Yahoo. Since 2004, Google has been the default search engine for Firefox, but when the agreement came to an end this year, Mozilla said that it decided to make a change.

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RelativeWave, the company behind the mobile app prototyping software Form, today announced it’s joining Google. The company made an announcement on its website noting that it will continue working on the Form app and as of today make it available for free through the Mac App Store. The app previously sold for $79.
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Google has today announced a new competition for developers interested in the Google Fit health-tracking platform. In an effort to broaden the selection of apps available with Google Fit support and interest more developers, the company is holding the Fit Developer Challenge from now until February 17, 2015.

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