Google

When Google announced its $3.2 billion acquisition of Nest, many users reacted strongly to the idea of Google having access to their information and data, despite both companies claiming that they wouldn’t share any information. The WSJ published a report last month, however, claiming that Nest and Google eventually planned to share some user data between each other. This report only led to even more privacy uproar. Now, a handful of hackers have taken matters into their own hands and have developed a tool to prevent any user data from be sent back to Nest or Google (via Forbes).

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In a blog post on its official enterprise blog today, Google announced that it is opening up its collection of Google Earth data to businesses. Businesses and governmental organizations will now have the ability to purchase imagery collected by Google and use them for whatever they need. Since it launched 9 years ago, Google Earth has built up an incredible collection of image data, and it only makes sense for the company to continue to profit off of it.

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New Scientist reports that Google is now using Street View cars to detect methane leaks from corroded pipes, landfill sites and other sources.

Sensors strapped to the top of the cars have mapped hundreds of methane leaks around Boston, New York’s Staten Island and Indianapolis […]

Methane leaks are a triple threat: they can cause explosions, accelerate the growth of global warming and waste money. A study last year found that US methane emissions are 1.5 to 1.7 times higher than current estimates, a discrepancy that has been attributed to hard-to-detect leaks …

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Vint Cerf, Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist and general co-father of the Internet, stopped by The Colbert Report on Comedy Central to discuss the origins of the Web as well as where Cerf sees the Internet going forward.

During the conversation, Cerf noted that “about 3 billion people are online right now,” a number which is unimaginably larger than what the Internet was intended for when it was being developed for the military and academia, and Cerf says we have another 4 billion people to go with expanding online access.

While Colbert comically recommended dropping free AOL CD’s to developing countries to promote the Internet around the world, Cerf pointed seriously to the role of the smartphone in spreading Internet access to third world countries.
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If you have ever wondered how many Bitcoins you can afford with your American dollars, you can now turn to Google. Following in the footsteps of Bing and Yandex, Google has partnered with CoinBase to add a Bitcoin currency conversion tool to its search results. 
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The ability to flag content on the Google Play Store as inappropriate, a feature long available on Android, has recently hit the Web version as well. The link to do just that can now be found on the web interface under Report within the Additional information section of the content’s description. While the feature is likely targeted toward apps that may violate some policy or have a lower-than-appropriate content rating, it does extend to other media like books, music and TV shows, and music distributed on the Google Play Store as well.

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Google on Tuesday announced one of the most highly requested changes to Google+ since the social network debuted over three years ago: no more naming restrictions. Google+ users are now free to use whichever name they desire, whether it is a real name, online pseudonym or combination of the both. 
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Google announced on Tuesday that it has appointed Alan Mulally to its Board of Directors. Mulally served as Ford President and CEO between September 2006 and June 2014, retiring from his post on July 1st. Mulally, who was appointed on July 9th, is serving on Google’s Audit Committee. His knowledge and connections in the automotive industry could be valuable towards the company’s self-driving car initiatives.
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Google has announced a new online training course called Developing Android Apps: Android Fundamentals, featuring Google Developer Advocates Reto Meier, Dan Galpin, and Katherine Kuan. The course delivers step-by-step training on how to develop Android apps, including some of the best practices for Android development and mobile development as a whole. All of the course materials are available for free through the educational website Udacity. 
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Google has released an updated version of the Google Chrome application for iOS today, bringing at least one interesting new feature to the app: mobile websites that have Cast support will now work with all of your Cast-capable devices. It’s unclear how the feature works at the moment, but according to the release notes, developers are going to need to add support to their webpages before they can take advantage of the feature.

Also, as will likely be praised by iOS users everywhere, the version 36.0.1985.49 update goes the way of Google Hangouts and finally gets rid of the infamous “lip” located at the bottom of the app icon:

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Google today announced a new initiative it is calling “Project Zero,” a broad attempt at reducing the number of internet users that are harmed every day by a variety of different types of targeted attacks. Google believes that everyone should be able to use the internet without constant worry that attackers might use software vulnerabilities nefariously, and due to that, the Mountain View corporation has assembled a team of experienced security researchers to help improve security across the internet.

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The massive employee wage-fixing antitrust lawsuit between several Silicon Valley companies is only getting more interesting. An email exchange involving former Google CEO Eric Schmidt surfaced last week, shining light on Mountain View’s attempt to prevent Facebook from poaching its employees. 
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Google’s vision (sorry) of smart contact lenses that monitor glucose levels in diabetics are one step closer to reality as it signed a commercial licensing deal with Alcon, the eyecare division of the pharmaceutical giant Novartis.

The lens uses sensors to measure the glucose content of tears and transmit that data to a smartphone app that automatically alerts users if their levels are too high or too low. Google reported back in January that it has completed several clinical trials, and that it would be partnering with other companies to manufacture the devices … 
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Here’s what the Google Play Store is likely to look like when it gets its ‘Material Design’ revamp based on the new look and feel of Android L. Google has already started rolling out the new design language on the web in the form of new pages for Docs, Sheets and Slides.

The screenshots were obtained by Android Police, which says that the redesign of the Play Store is “well underway” … 
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After becoming available to all Android users back in December, Google this evening finally launched its popular Ingress game on iOS. The game originally launched in a closed beta all the way back in 2012, but has slowly been expanding to gradually larger audiences ever since.

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