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Google made a big announcement today for new content arriving for users of its $35 Chromecast HDMI streaming stick. The latest additions to the lineup include the WatchESPN app, Major League Soccer via the MLS Matchday app and MLS LIVE premium services, photos and video from Google+ apps, as well as TV and video content from the Crunchyroll video service:
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Police investigate when someone reported an apparent axe-murder spotted on Google Street View

Ben Lovejoy Jun 3 2014 - 6:57 am PT

Police in Edinburgh, Scotland, were called out to investigate when someone using Google Street View thought they’d spotted an axe-murder, reports the Independent. The series of images apparently showed someone being struck with an axe and the assailant walking away from the lifeless body on the ground.

The scene turned out to be a prank by a couple of quick-thinking mechanics who said they had 20 seconds to think of something to do when they spotted the Google car approaching.

“It was in the spur of the moment,” Dan Thompson said. “It seemed like the obvious thing to do so I threw myself on the ground and Gary [Kerr] grabbed a pick-axe handle from the garage.

“We only had about 20 seconds – it was all we could think of.”

The way that Google stitches Street View images together, which often leave visible breaks, added to the illusion, seeming to show a chopped-off hand.

The pair of jokers said that fortunately the two police officers who turned up to check it out saw the funny side.

They were already pretty certain it was a joke because one of their colleagues gets their car serviced here. They thought it was a really good laugh and in five minutes they were gone.

Certainly beats mooning or a couple getting amorous.

Android 4.4.3 introduces new Dialer app with refreshed interface

Chance Miller Jun 2 2014 - 5:46 pm PT

Earlier this afternoon, Google posted factory images for the latest build of Android, Android 4.4.3, and as the update starts to rollout over the next few days, we’ll definitely start to hear of some of the changes. One of the updates in Android 4.4.3 appears to be to the dialer app. The dialer interface has been refreshed to introduce some of the lighter colors and general interface qualities that we’ve seen in other Google app updates. Back in April, Google itself leaked this interface in a tweet on the Nexus account.

Google+ for iOS updated with Stories and photo filters

Mark Hearn Jun 2 2014 - 1:21 pm PT

Last month, Google updated its Google+ app for Android with a set of new visually stimulating features known as Stories and Movies. While that latter launched with parity across multiple platforms, Mountain View just released Stories for iOS today. Now available to download on devices running iOS 6.0 or later, this new feature takes pictures, videos and location tags and rolls them into a stylish trip summary without the need of a third-party photo editing software.

Further maintaining the update’s photography-centric theme is the addition of a new photo editor equipped with new filters and creative tools. These should help you snap the perfect shot of your pet, baby, lunch or whatever else people are posting to social networks these days. However, if any of said items are found offensive, Google+ members can now report abusive communities directly from their iOS-powered devices. If you haven’t pulled down the update yet, head on over to the App Store and check it out.

Google planning to spend more than $1 billion on satellites to bring internet to unwired areas of the globe

Chance Miller Jun 1 2014 - 6:14 pm PT

According to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, Google is planning to spend more than $1 billion to expand internet access to unwired regions of the world with a fleet of satellites. According to “people familiar with the matter,” Google this time around is hoping that it can overcome financial and technical problems it has faced in the past with this goal.

Report: Google Search to get always-on listening, improved in-car functionality as part of ‘KITT’

Chance Miller Jun 1 2014 - 12:34 pm PT

Earlier this year, a report emerged claiming that Google was looking to further expand the capabilities of its “Ok, Google” functionality. Android Police has now published yet another report on this topic, detailing more features that Google will soon incorporate into Google Now. The earlier report claimed that Google was looking to add the ability to say “Ok, Google” anywhere within Android, no matter what app you were in at the time. Now, Android Police, is reporting that soon, you will be able to say “Ok, Google” and activate Google Now even when the device is turned off, with some caveats.

Google shutting down Motorola’s U.S. manufacturing plant ahead sale to Lenovo

Jordan Kahn May 30 2014 - 9:31 am PT

Motorola Mobility, still owned by Google until the sale to Lenovo completes, announced today that it’s closing the Texas-based manufacturing plant that it opened in May of last year to build its Moto X smartphone. The plant, which employees approximately 700 employees, is said to be closing its doors by the end of the year, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal:
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Google’s XSS game tests your web security IQ (update)

Mark Hearn May 30 2014 - 9:13 am PT

Google has openly stated that it takes web security very seriously, but the company might be playing around a bit by releasing a browser-based challenge created to test developers’ understanding of XSS. Allegedly made by Google’s security team, the game features six levels that resemble real world applications vulnerable to XSS. Players are tasked with finding a level’s problem and exploiting its weakness.

Google Play Music app now allows you to edit & share playlists; Rdio gets gapless playback

Ben Lovejoy May 30 2014 - 4:15 am PT

Two Android music apps have received small but useful updates. Google Play Music now allows you to edit the name and description of your playlists, and to share them with others, you can now do this from within the app rather than having to login to the website. You can also pin subscribed playlists and dismiss items from Listen Now, and the Thumbs Up playlist is sorted by recency.

Rdio, meantime, gets gapless playback – a feature many had requested for live concerts, classical music and comedy shows. Some UI improvements have been made along the way.

Both Google Play Music and Rdio are free downloads from Google Play.

Android Device Manager updated with new guest-mode feature

Chance Miller May 29 2014 - 1:13 pm PT

Over the past few months, Google has greatly beefed up its Android Device Manager service, partly due to legislation in many states, and partly due to increased competition from Apple’s new Activation Lock service. Today, Google has updated its Device Manager app to version 1.2.

Google: Digital Creative Agency Fred & Farid replaces Macs w/ Chromebooks

Jordan Kahn May 29 2014 - 11:08 am PT

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Google loves to highlight its work getting Chromebooks into the hands of business customers and a lot of the time that also means a switch from Windows and Microsoft Office products to Chrome OS and Google Apps. It’s not as often, however, that we hear about companies that decide to replace their Macs with Chromebooks. Today Google published a guest blog post from CIO of digital creative group Fred & Farid Group about the company’s decision to do exactly that, replace Macs with Chromebooks for around 60 percent of its employees:

Macs are a popular choice among the creative team. But I soon realized not everyone needs a Mac, especially the 60 percent of our employees who work in office roles like marketing, sales, IT, and administration. We recently rolled out 10 Samsung Chromebooks in a small pilot and plan to have 200 employees on Chromebooks by the end of the year. Our decision to adopt Chromebooks wasn’t based solely on price — though we expect to save a significant amount compared to deploying Macs — but also a desire to have faster collaboration. When you have a Chromebook, you think less about downloading stuff to your hard drive and more about sharing information in the cloud. With Google Drive, we’re able to store, sync and share all our important files easily, whether it’s when we’re on our Chromebooks or on our phones and tablets on the go.

Like with those switching from Windows, relying on mostly Google Apps is one of the reasons the company decided Macs weren’t necessary for many of its employees: We use Google Hangouts for all our voice communications — we don’t even have phone lines in our offices anymore. In the Paris office alone, we conduct more than 50 Hangouts each day. Of course, we also use Drive for document sharing and Calendar for scheduling.

More on the Google Enterprise Blog here.

Future Nest products may not need new hardware, could be just apps, says Fadell

Ben Lovejoy May 29 2014 - 5:41 am PT

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If you love the idea of smart home technology like Nest, but are concerned about the cost of replacing half the appliances and devices in your home, Nest CEO Tony Fadell has some good news. Speaking at the Re/Code conference, he said that while “you need new hardware to allow things to flourish,” there are many things that could be done with software alone.

Just like your smartphone has many many apps on it, we think there [could be] many apps in your home but you don’t necessarily need new hardware …

Google says its workforce diversity is “miles” from where it wants it to be

Chance Miller May 28 2014 - 4:47 pm PT

In a post on its official company blog, Google, for the first time ever, broke down the diversity of its workforce. The company said that it was originally reluctant to share this type of information, but now realizes it was wrong and has decided to be more candid about the issue. Google says that it is not where it wants to be in terms of the diversity of its workforce.

Google Camera for Android updated w/ new cropping options, picture timer

Chance Miller May 28 2014 - 2:07 pm PT

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Google has just released an update to its Camera app on Android, as part of its “Update Wednesday” regiment. The update bumps the app to version 2.2 and adds several new features. One of the biggest new features is the ability to shoot photos in either 4:3 or 16:9 cropped resolutions. Although, it’s important to note that the cropping affects the total resolution of the image. So if you were to shoot in 16:9 on a Nexus 5, the resolution maxes out a 6MP. This changes depending on the phone you’re using, of course.

Google has also added the timer feature back to its Camera app with this update. The company removed it earlier this year, for some odd reason. The picture timer allows you to choose either 3 and 10 second timings for taking an image.

The update also adds new modes for shooting panoramas, including a fisheye setting. There’s also now a small settings icon on the first launch.

Google’s Camera update is available on the Play Store now.

Key leader of Egyptian revolution rejoins Google in preparation for possible business venture

Ben Lovejoy May 28 2014 - 5:59 am PT

Former Google marketing exec Wael Ghonim, who was one of the key leaders of the Egyptian revolution, has rejoined Google as an entrepreneur-in-residence in Google Ventures as preparation for a possible new business venture, reports Fortune.

Ghonim realized the power of social media to mobilize protestors in Egypt, and was a strong voice for the power of peaceful protest and non-violent civil disobedience. He is best known for creating the We Are All Khaled Said Facebook page to draw attention to a young Egyptian tortured to death by the country’s police.

Following the successful removal of Hosni Mubarak and the former regime in Egypt, Time named him one of the 100 most influential people of 2011 …
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Google uses artificial intelligence to boost efficiency of its data centers

Ben Lovejoy May 28 2014 - 4:48 am PT

Google has been using artificial intelligence for a wide range of tasks, ranging from delivering search results to speech recognition, so perhaps it should come as no surprise that Google’s latest AI product was figuring out how to improve the energy efficiency of the very servers used to do all that other stuff.

A Google blog entry spotted by Engadget describes how a Google engineer used his 20 percent time to apply machine learning to predict the real-time energy efficiency of its data centers. Google uses a measure known as Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE): a ratio of total power used to power actually used for computing. In simple terms, if cooling used as much power as computing, the PUE would be 2. The closer to 1 Google can get, the more efficient the energy usage.

Google has already got its PUE down to 1.12 – about twice as efficient as a typical data center – but is using the AI project to try to further reduce the number. By using machine learning to predict the impact of variables like outside air temperature, Google can tweak the setup to minimize power usage.

The days of self-aware machines grow ever closer …

FCC documents for possible LG G Watch uncovered, no mention of cellular radio

Stephen Hall May 27 2014 - 9:39 pm PT

Yesterday, we reported on a rumor from a Korean website claiming that the up-and-coming LG G Watch will include an embedded, unremovable SIM card. While nothing is conclusive, a dig through the FCC website has unearthed some documents making up a filing for what we believe is the upcoming LG G Watch, and—unsurprisingly—there isn’t any mention of Wi-Fi or cellular radios.
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Sergey Brin: Google Glass will be a “commercial product” this year (give or take)

Chance Miller May 27 2014 - 7:29 pm PT

While on stage at the Code Conference, Google co-founder Sergey Brin talked Google Glass with Re/Code editors Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. When asked about the commercial availability of the product, Brin said that he hopes it will be available to all consumers by the end of the year. He remarked that “Google Glass will be a commercial product this year…plus or minus.” The timeline for Glass has been a bit cloudy since its announcement, but hopefully Google finally follows through this time around.

Live blog: Google co-founder, Google[X] leader Sergey Brin at Code Conference

Mark Gurman May 27 2014 - 6:31 pm PT

We’re live on the scene at the Code Conference, and now that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has finished up his interview and demonstration, Google co-founder and Google[X] leader Sergey Brin has entered the hot seat. Re/code’s Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher are interviewing Brin, and you can find our live updates from the interview below:

Google’s Text-To-Speech app updated with support for Indian-English, Polish, Dutch, and Russian

Chance Miller May 27 2014 - 1:43 pm PT

Google this afternoon released a small update to its Text-To-Speech app on Android. The update bumps the app to version 3.1, and while it may not be the biggest update, it certainly packs some useful changes for a handful of users. The update adds support for selecting and speaking text in Polish, Dutch, and Russian. It also improves its already existing support for some English dialects spoken in India.

Report: Google “considering” purchase of Dropcam, Apple has also shown interest

Chance Miller May 26 2014 - 5:36 pm PT

Earlier this year Google acquired smart-thermostat company Nest, and according to a new report out of The Information, the company is not planning on stopping its quest to enter the home automation and security market. The report claims that Google has “considered” acquiring Dropcam, the makers of a system that streams live footage directly to phones and computers.

The report goes on to say that the status of talks and negotiations between the two companies is unclear at this point and that spokespeople for both companies did not reply to requests for comment.

Samsung patent filings show gesture-controlled wearable device with round interface

Chance Miller May 26 2014 - 9:14 am PT

Samsung unveiled a handful of new wearable devices earlier this year, but according to some recently discovered patent filings, the company still has some more ideas in the pipeline. First discovered by SammyToday, Samsung has recently filed for a plethora of patents relating to a new wearable device that strongly resembles the Moto 360 and its circular design. The patents detail a plethora of features about the device, as well as some basic mockups of its design.

‘Right to be forgotten’ ruling in Europe won’t apply to Google in U.S. say commentators

Ben Lovejoy May 26 2014 - 4:26 am PT

A ruling by Europe’s top court that individuals have a right to require Google to remove sensitive information from search results is unlikely to apply in the USA, according to a number of commentators quoted in an Associated Press piece.

But across the Atlantic, the idea that users should be able to edit Google search results in the name of privacy is being slammed as weird and difficult to enforce at best and a crackdown on free speech at worst …

YouTube’s music streaming service reportedly delayed further due to negotiations with indie labels

Chance Miller May 25 2014 - 5:47 pm PT

We’ve been hearing rumors of a YouTube streaming music service for what feels like forever, but according to a report out of the New York Times, the service has hit yet another snag. A report last month claimed that the service was delayed because YouTube and Google were approaching it with a “get it right” attitude and wanted to make the first version of the product as good as its competitors like Spotify and Rdio. This report, however, claims that YouTube has run into licensing troubles with independent music labels.