Google

Rumors of when we can expect a Moto X successor have been around for a while now, but now Droid Life is reporting that the device will be released on Verizon in late September. The blog claims that its sources are currently hearing that Verizon is planning to launch the device on September 25th.

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Image via <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-05-01/tech-hubris-the-silicon-valley-antitrust-hiring-conspiracy#p2" target="_blank">Bloomberg</a>

A judge has rejected a settlement that was reached earlier this year between employees of Google, Intel, Apple, and Adobe and their respective companies, CNBC reported today. According to reports from the courtroom, Judge Lucy Koh ruled that the settlement was not high enough and should actually be $380 million.

The lawsuit was brought against the tech giants in question by current and former employees who believed (correctly) that their employers had created agreements to avoid attempting to hire engineers from one another. The idea was that if no competitors were making offers, each company was free to pay its employees whatever it wanted without having to worry about them jumping ship for a better offer.

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Google today rolled out an update to its Android Device Manager app that bumps it to version 1.3.8. For those unfamiliar, Android Device Manager is Google’s solution for those who have lost or misplaced their phone or tablet and need to locate it. Today’s update is relatively minor, but there is one feature that will be incredibly e helpful, should you misplace your device.

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Google says it has been testing changes to its search algorithms that will give secure, encrypted websites — as shown by HTTPS in their URL — ranking preference over those that do not. Google as a company prioritizes security, and as more and more webmasters are adopting HTTPS, the company hopes that this change will push more webmasters to do the same.

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There will be some nervous faces in Amazon’s headquarters as Google today partners with rival booksellers Barnes & Noble to extend the Google Shopping Express service to books, reveals the New York Times.

Starting on Thursday, book buyers in Manhattan, West Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area will be able to get same-day deliveries from local Barnes & Noble stores through Google Shopping Express, Google’s fledgling online shopping and delivery service …

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Google this afternoon, as part of its Update Wednesday regiment, started rolling out an update to the Play Music app on Android. The update bumps the app to version 5.6.1616 and includes several interface tweaks and new features. For one, the update adds a newly-skinned 4×1 widget, as well as a new 1×1 widget that allows you to instantly listen “I’m Feeling Lucky” radio. For those unfamiliar, the “I’m Feeling Lucky” feature provides an infinite stream of music that Google thinks you will like.

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Things are getting interesting for Google on the legal front. Not long after the ‘right to be forgotten‘ ruling and the messy fallout from that, a Hong Kong court has ruled that the company is responsible for auto-complete suggestions where they could be said to defame.

MyBroadband (via The Loop) reports:

A Hong Kong court has ruled that a local tycoon can sue Google Inc for defamation because searches for his name on Google suggest adding the word ‘triad’, Hong Kong’s notorious organized crime groups.

Searches in both English and Chinese for Albert Yeung Sau-shing, the founder and chairman of Hong Kong-based conglomerate Emperor Group, will automatically suggest phrases related to organized crime using Google’s ‘autocomplete’ function.

On Tuesday, the High Court of Hong Kong dismissed Google’s argument that it was not responsible for the autocomplete suggestions related to Yeung and that the court did not have personal jurisdiction over the U.S. search giant … 

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Photo: ibtimes.com

Samsung and Apple just announced that they have agreed to drop all patent suits against each other in countries outside the United States, Bloomberg reports. The two companies will drop suits against each other in Australia, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Netherlands, the U.K., France and Italy. This agreement does not include any licensing agreements, though. This has no effect on United States battles either.

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During the summer of 2013, the line-up of Google Play Edition devices grew incredibly quickly, with devices available from HTC, Motorola, Samsung, and Sony. Last month, however, the selection of devices dropped to just three: the Moto G, Galaxy S4, and HTC One (M8).  Now, this evening, Google has removed the Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition from the store without any replacement in sight.

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Google announced today that it’s adding support for non-Latin characters in email addresses in Gmail. That means that email address names that contain accented characters or those that are written in a script like Chinese can now be both sent and received from Gmail:
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As first reported by the Kansas City Star, several cable companies have started bumping up their internet speeds for customers, free of charge, in order to better compete with Google Fiber in Kansas City. Both Comcast and Time Warner announced changes for their internet packages.

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Last week, reports started to emerge claiming that the charging contacts on the LG G Watch were causing skin irritation for many users. Dubbed #CorrosionGate, it was clear this issue was going to need to be addressed by LG at some point. Now, the company has started rolling out an OTA update, bumping the software from build number KMV78V to KMV78Y, to address the issue.

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Google may not be buying Spotify, but a top executive from YouTube is jumping ship from the Google-owned company to the subscription music service giant. Re/code reports that Shiva Rajaraman, whose title was Director of Product Management at Google (YouTube) according to his LinkedIn, is leaving Google/YouTube several years with the company to take a new role at Spotify. The report notes that Rajaraman’s role at YouTube encompassed managing the development of YouTube’s yet-to-be launched music streaming service, and his new position at Spotify employs him at what will likely be a major competitor to YouTube’s delayed service.

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Google’s Cultural Institute – which puts online materials previously only available to visitors to particular museums, archives and institutes – has taken on its biggest challenge yet. Google is working with Europeana to bring online the collections of more than 2000 museums, archives and institutes.

It’s a tremendous undertaking to bring Europe’s rich cultural heritage online, one that can only be achieved by both private and public effort. As this collaboration shows, both Europeana and Google share similar visions – allowing people around the world to explore Europe’s cultural and scientific heritage from prehistory to the modern day …

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Well, that was an anti-climax. After all kinds of speculation about why Google was building floating structures on a set of barges based in San Francisco and Portland, with Google finally revealing in not too much detail that they were to become “interactive spaces where people can learn about new technology,” it turns out that at least one of them is being sold for scrap.

The Portland Press Herald reports that the 250-foot Google barge that has been sitting in Portland Harbour since last October is now being sold and the container building sitting on it will be scrapped … 
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Much discussion on Internet policy has been prompted since the European Union Court of Justice ruled in May of this year that it is an individual’s right to request Google remove sensitive information from search results. Since the ruling on the Right to be Forgotten, as it is often called, Google has established a web page dedicated to taking such requests and begun removing data from its search results as requested although that hasn’t been without further complaints from EU regulators.

For its part, Google has shared its criteria for information removal and announced an the establishment of an advisory panel of experts for fielding concerns throughout this fall over the policy and its implementation. Today the search giant has shared the dates and cities of when that advisory panel will host in-person public discussion on the right to be forgotten. Check below for the specifics:
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And so the saga continues … In the short time since the EU ruled that individuals have the right to be forgotten when sensitive information found in search results is considered “outdated or irrelevant,” we’ve seen what is probably best described as the makings of a damn good sitcom. (Note to networks: if you make it, I want my ten percent.)

We first had the amusement of deleted links being reported by the media, bringing the stories back into the limelight. We then had Google describing the impossible position in which it has been placed, being asked to make “difficult and debatable judgements” based on “very vague and subjective tests.”

This was followed by the EU rapping Google’s knuckles for doing it wrong, and we now have a bipartisan British governmental committee disagreeing with the EU and agreeing with Google that it is being asked to “enforce the impossible” … 
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