Google

Google is today rolling out a new version of its web search to make it more obvious how to search for a specific page within a website.

Search for a company or website by name and Google has long displayed a list of popular links within that site. For example, search for Samsung and this is what Google will show you:

If the page you’re after isn’t shown, you can click the ‘More results from’ link to open up a site-specific search – but most people didn’t notice it. In the new version, a site search box will pop up right underneath the main link, with greyed-out text letting you know that will search within the site – as in the YouTube example shown. Type in your keyword(s) and Google will take you right there.

Websites with their own search engines can also include code that tells Google how to access it, in which case the site’s own search facility will be used.

The new page is appearing on google.com today, and is likely to reach other countries soon.

Google Play offers discount on Nexus 5 + LG G Watch bundle in GB, IE, FR, DE, AU, KR, JP

Jordan Kahn Sep 5 2014 - 6:51 am PT

Google is offering a new bundle through Google Play in some countries that offers a discounted price for customers that purchase both a Nexus 5 and LG G Watch. Discounts vary with local currencies, but discounts general range from $100 in Australia to £60 in the UK.

We reached out to Google to find out where exactly the deal is available, and it offered up a full list of countries: GB, IE, FR, DE, AU, KR, JP.

You can head over to Google Play now if you’re in a participating country to take advantage of the deal.

Motorola’s long-awaited circular Moto 360 smartwatch launched, available today for $250

Ben Lovejoy Sep 5 2014 - 4:08 am PT

Motorola has finally officially launched its much-leaked circular smartwatch, the Moto 360. Pricing has been set at $250 with a leather strap, and it goes on sale in the U.S. at noon today ET . If you want it with a silver or black metal strap, you’ll have to wait until sometime in the fall and pay $300 – or buy it today and add the metal strap later for $80 …

Airbnb providing select hosts with Nest smart thermostats in new partnership

Zac Hall Sep 4 2014 - 10:39 am PT

Speaking of Nest, lodge booking service Airbnb announced a new partnership with the Google-owned company today. As part of the partnership, Airbnb will be providing some Airbnb hosts with the Nest smart thermostat for use in locations available on the booking service.

We provided selected Airbnb hosts in the US with the Nest Learning Thermostat with features such as Auto-Away which turns down the heat when a host or guest is not home, and can be controlled from anywhere in the world with a mobile app – perfect for travelers! And with Nest’s MyEnergy service, hosts can easily track their energy consumption and improve their home’s efficiency.

Our community is passionate about environmental sustainability. In a recent study on the environmental impacts of home sharing, we found that Airbnb guests in North America use 63 percent less energy than hotel guests. This partnership with Nest gives our hosts more control over their home’s energy consumption, with technology that is both beautiful in design and good for the planet.

The partnership focuses on the Nest thermostat’s ability to be controlled remotely and save energy. Nest says it already has a list of some homes using the Nest Learning Thermostat for potential bookers to browse.
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Google reaches $19 million settlement with FTC over unauthorized in-app purchases by children

9to5 Staff Sep 4 2014 - 10:26 am PT

An ongoing investigation conducted by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that has accused Google — and other major tech companies — of making it too easy for children to make in-app purchases is finally set to come to a close for the Mountain View-based company.

Google has reached a settlement with the FTC that will see it pay out at least $19 million to parents billed for unauthorized in-app purchases by children. The FTC order also requires Google to change its mobile app billing practices to ensure that parental consent is properly obtained before charges are applied.
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Nest Protect smart smoke detector updated w/ Steam Check, Safety History, more

Zac Hall Sep 4 2014 - 7:49 am PT

Shortly after Google acquired Nest, Tony Fadell’s company behind the smart thermostat and smart smoke/carbon monoxide detector, the company ran into a patch of unrelated issues with its Nest Protect product launched months earlier with reports of false alarms from many users and an issue with the ‘wave to dismiss’ feature touted as a key benefit of the product. A soft recall later followed remotely disabling the dismiss feature after a safety bug was discovered followed by a reduced price once it went back on sale.

While the ability to motion to dismiss an alarm is still disabled as the company works toward better implementing it reliably, current and future Nest Protect owners will benefit from new features delivered through a software update for the product. Steam Check, a feature that takes advantage of the device’s humidity sensor and an advanced algorithm, now allows the Nest Protect to distinguish smoke from steam by determining the presence of moisture. Steam from hot water shouldn’t be a reason to panic, and the Nest Protect says this feature will reduce the number of false alarms for users.
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Founder of Luxottica Leonardo Del Vecchio finds Google Glass ’embarrassing’

Stephen Hall Sep 3 2014 - 4:04 pm PT

Image via WSJ

The founder and chairman of Google’s biggest and most important Google Glass partner, Luxottica, says that he would actually be embarrassed to be “going around” with the Mountain View company’s wearable device on his face (via WSJ). Why might this be interesting? As you may recall, Google made a partnership with the huge Oakley/Ray-ban parent company earlier this year and is supposedly planning to eventually release frames in collaboration with them.

Google starts replacing damaged Nexus 5 phones for free

Chance Miller Sep 3 2014 - 2:07 pm PT

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Google, according to several user posts on Google+, has recently opened up a replacement program for people who damage their Nexus 5. While the company has yet to officially announce this program, users are reporting that if you have a damaged Nexus 5, Google will offer a one-time replacement for free.

Google-backed Calico launching $1.5 billion research center with goal of extending life

9to5 Staff Sep 3 2014 - 11:13 am PT

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While it is impossible to escape mortality entirely, Google-backed life sciences company Calico reportedly has plans to launch a $1.5 billion research and development center with an underlying goal of extending the lifespan of humans. The future San Francisco-based aging research center, to be built in partnership with biopharmaceutical company AbbVie, is said to focus on drug discovery and development for diseases such as neurodegeneration and cancer.
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Google satellite exec Greg Wyler reportedly leaves the company after just a few months

Chance Miller Sep 2 2014 - 3:59 pm PT

Google has not been quiet in its efforts to build a network of satellites that provide Internet access to the users below. A report earlier this year pegged the company as planning to spend more than $1 billion on satellite programs, while it also acquired satellite imaging company Skybox for $500 million this summer. According to a new report out of The Information, however, Google’s satellite efforts have just taken a big hit.

Google Maps and Bungie team up to promote upcoming ‘Destiny’ console game

Stephen Hall Sep 2 2014 - 3:22 pm PT

The next big probably-hit from the famed game studio behind Halo is about to be released, and to help promote it Bungie has teamed up with Google Maps to create a virtual world built to resemble that of the one in-game. It’s called Destiny Planet View, and you’ll find the way you navigate the first person shooter’s worlds within the new website to be very familiar.

Google rebrands Google Enterprise with friendlier ‘Google for Work’ name

9to5 Staff Sep 2 2014 - 11:24 am PT

Google on Tuesday announced the rebranding of its Enterprise products and services group to a friendlier “Google for Work” name that should resonate better with small businesses and anyone using Google services, such as Maps, Search, Chrome, Android and Cloud Platform, to perform their day-to-day work. Google chairman Eric Schmidt emphasized that the change was made to empower anyone, including a sole developer in his or her basement, to have an impact.
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Xiaomi claims to have sold 40,000 budget smartphones in India in 4.2 seconds

Ben Lovejoy Sep 2 2014 - 5:52 am PT

[tweet https://twitter.com/hbarra/status/506728176358133763]

Chinese Android manufacturer Xiaomi may be trying to compete at the high end of Android devices with it’s iPhone-inspired Mi 3 handset and unsubtley-named Mi Pad, but it isn’t neglecting the low-end of the market. Its Redmi 1S just launched in India and, according to a tweet by former Google exec and now Xiaomi Global VP, sold 40,000 units in 4.2 seconds …
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Google announces September 15 event in India for likely launch of Android One

Chance Miller Sep 1 2014 - 8:11 am PT

Google today has started sending out invites to the media for a September 15 event in India. The invite teases that the event is for “an exciting new product announcement” and promises more details closer to the date of the event. Obviously, with it being held in India, the first thing that jumps to mind is that we will hear more details regarding Android One.

Six reasons why Google’s autonomous car director thinks public sale is still five years away

Ben Lovejoy Sep 1 2014 - 4:27 am PT

Google’s self-driving cars may have notched up 700,000 accident-free miles without anyone needing to press the big red Stop button, but project director Chris Urmson’s personal deadline to have the cars on sale to the public is still five years away, reports the MIT’s Technology Review.

Most tech-heads know that the cars rely on inch-perfect modelling of the specific streets they will use, the cars unable to drive anywhere else, but the piece revealed that this is just one of the challenges ahead …
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HERE offline map app arrives on Android for the first time, initially on Samsung Galaxy phones only

Ben Lovejoy Aug 29 2014 - 5:24 am PT

HERE, the competitor to Google Maps initially available only on Windows Phone, has arrived on Android for the first time. Initially, the beta version of the Android app will be limited to Samsung Galaxy smartphones.

The main claim to fame of the app is that it offers the ability to download entire regions or countries for offline use, in contrast to Google Maps which only allows you to cache areas you have viewed while online. HERE maps currently cover around 200 countries, though turn-by-turn directions are so far limited to about half of these …
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New Chrome beta out with 64-bit default on OS X, refreshed profiles interface

Chance Miller Aug 28 2014 - 4:26 pm PT

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Earlier this week, Google released the stable version of Chrome 37 and now, just two days later, the company has announced the Chrome 38 beta for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The update adds a variety of new features, although, as always, it’s a mystery as to which will make it to the stable version when it’s released.

Project Wing is Google X’s attempt at a drone-based delivery program

Chance Miller Aug 28 2014 - 3:56 pm PT

Earlier this year, Amazon unveiled its plans for using drones to deliver products to customers, and now Google has revealed that it is working on something similar. According to two separate reports from The Atlantic and BBC, the secretive Google X team has been hard at work on Project Wing, a drone-based delivery system, for more than two years.

The idea of Google using drones to deliver goods is something that 9to5Google has reported on for some time now, including as far back as October of 2012, and again a few months later. Google said the following in a statement regarding Project Wing:

Project Wing is a Google[x] project that is developing a delivery system that uses self-flying vehicles. As part of our research, we built a vehicle and traveled to Queensland, Australia for some test flights. There, we successfully delivered a first aid kit, candy bars, dog treats, and water to a couple of Australian farmers.

We’re only just beginning to develop the technology to make a safe delivery system possible, but we think that there’s tremendous potential to transport goods more quickly, safely and efficiently.

Google officially removes authorship from search results

Stephen Hall Aug 28 2014 - 2:22 pm PT

Google has officially announced the end of authorship, a feature within search that gave users an idea of who exactly wrote the content behind the link before clicking it. Paired with a headshot, the name of the content creator was for a very long time shown alongside the number of Google+ circles he or she was in as well as a link to read more content by that author. But as of today—while headshots have been gone for a while—this feature is completely finished and links in search are back to being a bit more uniform.

In-Depth profile of Motorola tracks its rise and fall (and future)

Seth Weintraub Aug 28 2014 - 9:03 am PT

If you want to learn what happened behind the scenes in the tumultuous world of Motorola in the past decade, Chicago Mag does an excellent in-depth feature of the company that is awaiting approval of its sale from Google to Lenovo. Some excellent bits:

Meanwhile, in arguably one of the worst decisions ever made by a major corporate CEO, Zander struck a deal with his Silicon Valley friend Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple. Together their companies created a Motorola iTunes phone, the first phone connected to Apple’s music store. “We can’t think of a more natural partnership than this one with Apple,” Zander said at the time. Named the Rokr, the phone launched in the fall of 2005. Jobs, who introduced it, called it “an iPod Shuffle right on your phone.”

Ouch, a Shuffle…
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Google+ users can now import videos to their YouTube account

Mark Hearn Aug 27 2014 - 10:13 am PT

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFl3duPPG0w]

People can now transfer videos from their Google+ profiles to their YouTube accounts. We recently saw that this was in the works, but Google has officially made it available to everyone. Imports can be saved as public or private just like any standard YouTube video, which this makes this a nifty way to create an extra backup of Google+ instant uploads from your smartphone or tablet.

Pandora Internet Radio lands on Google Glass

Zac Hall Aug 27 2014 - 9:45 am PT

Pandora Internet Radio is the latest service to bring its product over to the Google Glass world. The music streaming service’s Glassware app came out of their Hack-a-thon from earlier in the spring, Pandora says, and was good enough to share with Google and ship.

The Pandora Radio app for Google Glass gives users access to stations with the ability to control them with voice commands or the touchpad. Pandora says the voice commands allow you to select existing stations or even create new stations. Actions including music controls like play and pause require using the touchpad; favoriting and dismissing a track also requires using the touchpad for now.

Users can find the Pandora Internet Radio app on the Google’s Glassware section, and Pandora has more instructions below:
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Google opens registration for ‘Right to be Forgotten’ public meetings in Madrid and Rome

Zac Hall Aug 27 2014 - 8:24 am PT

Just under a month ago Google shared a list of cities where it would host public meetings for the Advisory Council to Google on the Right to be Forgotten following the European Union Court of Justice decision in May that individuals have the right to request Google remove information from its search results. With the first of those public meetings scheduled for September 9th in Madrid, Google is today starting free online registration to attend the meeting.

A limited number of seats will be available for members of the public at each Council meeting. We’re opening up the online registration process today — and you can sign up for the Madrid meeting and the Rome meeting. Registration will remain open until five days before the event. There is no charge to attend.

Rdio and Songza join T-Mobile’s Music Freedom program, Google Play Music coming soon

Zac Hall Aug 27 2014 - 6:42 am PT