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5,737 'Google' stories January 2009 - June 2014

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Google’s browsers eclipse Microsoft to become the most popular in the U.S.

Chance Miller Jun 5 2014 - 11:02 am PT

Over the past couple of years, Chrome has gained and fallen in terms of browser marketshare. Google’s browser briefly eclipsed Internet Explorer as the most popular browser in the world, but Microsoft quickly regained that crown. Now, Adobe has issued a report claiming that Chrome, on both mobile and the desktop, has finally eclipsed Internet Explorer as the world’s most popular browser.

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Google announces Project Tango prototype tablet, coming later this year for $1024

Chance Miller Jun 5 2014 - 9:24 am PT

Google has just announced a official development kit for its Project Tango. The tablet is incredibly powerful, packing an NVIDIA Tegra K1 processor and 4GB of RAM. It’s also got 128GB of storage under the hood. There’s also all kinds of sensors, insulting motion tracking cameras, integrated depth sending, and LTE. There are three cameras on the back of the device for motion tracking, too.

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AT&T offering $50 Google Play credit with purchase of an Android device

Chance Miller Jun 5 2014 - 8:19 am PT

Last week, Google, Amazon, and Sonos teamed up to offer 6 months free of Google Play All Access and a $50 Amazon credit with the purchases of a Sonos speaker. Now, Google is partnering with AT&T for another deal. Starting today, you will get $50 in Google Play credit when you purchase a qualifying Android smartphone from AT&T. The credit is valid towards anything in the Play Store, such as apps, movies, music, and TV.

Every Android device AT&T sells qualifies, while iPhones Windows Phones obviously do not. The deal is also valid with all of AT&T’s contract options, including two-year agreements and AT&T Next. The deal will run until July 17th and is available on AT&T’s website only, not in stores. A new line of service is required, as well.

AT&T is selling a variety of popular smartphones right now, including the HTC One M8, Moto X, and Galaxy S5. You can read more about this offer on AT&T’s website.

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Smartphone maker Xiaomi continues to grow, outsells Apple in China during Q1 2014

Chance Miller Jun 5 2014 - 7:30 am PT

A new video out of Bloomberg details just exactly how a once unknown Chinese phone company has able to leapfrog the household names in technology and become the sixth largest mobile handset company in the world, and the third largest in China. Xiaomi was founded back in 2010 and went the total opposite direction in terms of strategy from Apple and Samsung. Making Android powered devices, Xiaomi has focused devices with high build quality and excellent performance.

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Google Street View time machine images show the sad decline of Detroit from 2009 to 2013

Ben Lovejoy Jun 5 2014 - 5:55 am PT

WebUrbanist drew our attention to a Tumblr blog that captures the sad decline of Detroit from 2009 to 2013 using images captured from Google’s Street View time machine.

Back in April, Google added a clock icon to the top-left corner of images, which opens out into a slider that allows you to see the same image photographed at different times …
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YouTube for Android update finally adds ability to manually choose a streaming quality

Chance Miller Jun 4 2014 - 7:18 pm PT

Google this evening released a minor update to the YouTube for Android app, bumping it to version 5.7. The update doesn’t add much, but does finally add one long awaited feature. With YouTube 5.7, you can now manually choose the quality in which you want a video to playback.

In previous versions of the app, you could only toggle between HD and HQ. Now, you can choose from 144p, 240p, 360p, and 720p. 1080p support appears to still be missing. The auto option will presumably choose the best stream based on your internet connection at the time of playback. To bring up the quality toggle, click the action button on the upper right corner of a video, then click the settings gear icon.

The update is rolling out slowly to Android devices, so it may take a little while to hit your device. In the mean time, keep an eye on the Play Store.

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Chrome Web Store adds ability to view only apps with Android versions

Chance Miller Jun 4 2014 - 5:33 pm PT

Google, looking to unify its Chrome and Android products, updated its Chrome Web Store today with the ability to filter app results by those that also have an Android counterpart. Along the top of the homepage and on the side of search result pages, you can now narrow the results by “For Android,” in addition to the runs offline, by Google, and free criteria that have been there for a while.

This means, that if you are searching for, say, a note taking app, you could narrow it down by those that have both a version for Chrome and Android. It’s not a huge feature by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s certainly useful for those who are looking to unify their experiences on Android and Chrome.

You can try it out for yourself on the Chrome Web Store.

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Google Drive experiencing outage, Google investigating

Chance Miller Jun 4 2014 - 8:03 am PT

Update: Google Drive appears to be back up for most users. Google says it will continue to investigate what caused the issue and provide more updates on the Status Dashboard.

The problem with Google Drive should be resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support. Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better.

According to a plethora of tweets, Google Drive is experiencing what appears to be a somewhat major outage. Google confirmed that the service is experiencing issues on its Status Dashboard. Google acknowledged the outage at 10:32 AM, though some Twitter reports note that it started a tad earlier.

It shouldn’t take Google long to restore service, but a 30 minute outage is relatively significant for Google. Keep on eye on the Status Dashboard to see when Google Drive goes back up.

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Satirical Conan video suggests Google’s self-driving car has a few bugs

Ben Lovejoy Jun 4 2014 - 3:55 am PT

[protected-iframe id=”e03354dba6c1b69417ffc4c258ab9702-22427743-8994189″ info=”http://teamcoco.com/embed/v/82656″ width=”640″ height=”415″ frameborder=”0″]

After Google demonstrated a prototype of a purpose-built self-driving car, Conan made a few edits …

Google wanted to show what an autonomous car might look like without any manual driving controls, and to see what people made of it. What Conan made of it was this one-minute amusing video.

The reality, of course, is that Google’s self-driving cars have clocked up 700,000 accident-free miles without anyone having had to use the emergency stop button.

The DMV is looking at the issue of how driving infringements by autonomous vehicles might be handled, and California is close to issuing the cars with driver’s licences.

Google breaks down how much email is encrypted during transit, launches End-to-End encryption tool

Jordan Kahn Jun 3 2014 - 1:29 pm PT

Google wants you to know exactly how much email you send and receive is encrypted during transit, so today it launched a new section in its Transparency Report that does exactly that:

When you mail a letter to your friend, you hope she’ll be the only person who reads it. But a lot could happen to that letter on its way from you to her, and prying eyes might try to take a look. That’s why we send important messages in sealed envelopes, rather than on postcards… Email works in a similar way. Emails that are encrypted as they’re routed from sender to receiver are like sealed envelopes, and less vulnerable to snooping—whether by bad actors or through government surveillance—than postcards.

Google notes that Gmail has always used encryption in transit using Transport Layer Security (TLS), but that doesn’t do much if the email client on the other end isn’t doing the same. Around 40 to 50 percent of emails between Gmail and others aren’t encrypted, according to Google, and it provided the following chart of what services are using encryption:
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Motorola announces Moto Stream hardware for wirelessly streaming music to any speaker

Jordan Kahn Jun 3 2014 - 8:55 am PT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZgHGDGCBfc

Update: The Moto Stream is now live on Motorola’s website. It costs $49, uses Bluetooth and NFC technology to connect to devices, charges over USB, and has a 3.5mm to RCA connector for audio. Motorola also provides a bit more insight into this “DJ experience” it hinted at by describing a software feature called Heist Mode:
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Chromecast now streaming Google+ photos & video, WatchESPN, Major League Soccer, & Crunchyroll video

Jordan Kahn Jun 3 2014 - 8:16 am PT

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

Jordan Kahn May 29 2014 - 11:08 am PT

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

[protected-iframe id=”ee8f89c8e8a919fbb2f5c26911077925-22427743-8994189″ info=”http://player.theplatform.com/p/PhfuRC/9RGhkvepi1us/embed/select/h_PJWCPpI_2K” width=”640″ height=”360″ frameborder=”0″]

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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 …

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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.

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