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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26A6-RO5MoI]

If you’ve ever been on a trip, taken tons of photos and then done nothing with them afterwards, or shot a bunch of video that is still just sitting on your phone, Google has launched a couple of new services aimed at you: Google+ Stories and Google+ Movies.

No more sifting through photos for your best shots, racking your brain for the sights you saw, or letting your videos collect virtual dust. We’ll just gift you a story after you get home. This way you can relive your favorite moments, share them with others, and remember why you traveled in the first place.

Stories will be available this week on Android and the web, with iOS coming soon …

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Ahead of its tradition “update Wednesday” regiment, Google has pushed out a minor update to the Gmail app on Android today. The update bumps the app to version 4.8 and includes some various interface tweaks, most notably in the slide-out navigation menu (via +Gmail)

One of the changes includes profile images next to individual profiles on the slide-out navigation menu, and should you have more than one account, there’s also now a checkmark to better indicate which account you’re currently using. The Settings and “Send Feedback” options have also been crammed into the slide-out panel, whereas they previously were located in the action overflow button in the upper right corner.

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Tom Wheeler — the Chairman of the FCC, the federal commission currently in the middle of a firestorm surrounding net neutrality — today praised Google for its checklist of requirements for cities to meet that are interested in working with Google to roll out fiber networking.

Google’s checklist includes various measures and decisions that help enable the company to quickly add their fiber services to a city or municipality. Wheeler specifically cites this as something that the FCC should look into, as it effectively cuts through red tape and speeds up deployment of faster service:
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There is a United States federal agency that specializes in collecting and cataloguing scientific research papers of all kinds. The NTIS — National Technical Information Service — will serve up files or paper copies of these records for $25 or $73, respectively. The issue, as pointed out by NPR, is that most of these records are available for free elsewhere, and are easier to find with Google than with the NTIS’ outdated website. And so, ever the enemy of a wasteful budget, Tom Coburn has introduced the Let Me Google That For You Act of 2014 to abolish the NTIS.
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The Wall Street Journal reports that Google is purchasing Divide, a company that builds mobile device management software for enterprise customers. Divide confirmed the deal in an announcement on its website saying it will be joining the Android team and that existing customers will continue to be able to access the service (above).

Divide provides a cloud-based service that lets companies and large organizations oversee and manage mobile devices used by employees on their networks. The software can create separate work environments on personal devices used by employees, offers a number of security features, and also supports both Android and iOS:
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Update: In keeping with the square theme, Google has taken this anniversary as an opportunity to join Instagram, hooray! First post is the Rubik’s Cube in video.

This may just be the best Google Doodle yet: a fully-functional Rubik’s Cube! Click on the small cube to open up the interactive version. Click and drag any row or column to rotate it, and do the same underneath or alongside the cube to turn the entire cube … 
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We first heard about Google’s new “Android Silver” program back in April. The service will reportedly be centered around the idea of providing support to customers after they purchase their Android device, including things like 24/7 live support and a new “Never Lost” feature, reminiscent of the iOS Find my iPhone feature. A later report also detailed that Google would partner with Android device manufacturers for the service, perhaps as early as early 2015.

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Photo: USA Today

According to a court filing discovered by Reuters, Apple and Google’s Motorola Mobility unit have agreed to settle their ongoing smartphone patent litigation battle against each other. In a statement, the two companies said that this agreement does not include the ability cross license each other’s patents, but rather the promise to “work together in some areas of patent reform.”

The two tech giants have been battling it out over various patents for several years now, both directly and indirectly. It’s important to note, however, that this agreement is solely between Apple, Google, and its Motorola Mobility unit. This does not apply to any lawsuits between Android device manufacturers, such as Samsung and HTC, and Apple. Although theoretically, it would apply to patents owned by Google that device manufacturers are licensing.

A verdict was reached in the latest Apple v Samsung battle just a few weeks ago, with Apple being ruled as the victor, albeit small. The court ruled that Samsung owed Apple $119 million, which is far less than the $2 billion it was seeking.

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We’ve covered the Chinese search engine giant Baidu before, commonly referred to as “China’s Google”, the search engine is one of the leading sites in web traffic in the country. Looking to further support its title as “China’s Google”, Baidu today made a significant hire. First reported by Technology Review, Baidu has hired Andrew Ng to oversee a new artificial intelligence research lab it is opening in Silicon Valley.

Andrew Ng is a Stanford professor who is most well known for his position at Google, where he was a key component in the company’s “deep learning” field. Ng also cofounded the online education company Coursera.

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Earlier this afternoon Google announced that it was making several improvements to the billing capabilities of the Play Store, and now the company has updated the entire Play Store app to go along with it. Pushing the version number to 4.8.19, the update adds a few interface tweaks to the app, in addition to the billing capabilities previously announced.

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In Google’s annual Founders Letter, Larry Page revealed that Google was handling more than 100 billion searches a month, but said that the service was still “a million miles” from the service he’d like to see Google become.

In many ways, we’re a million miles away from creating the search engine of my dreams, one that gets you just the right information at the exact moment you need it with almost no effort.  That’s partly because understanding information in a deep way is a hard problem to solve …

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Since the device’s release Google has been selling bumper cases and QuickCover cases for the Nexus 5. Today, the company has further expanded its accessory line-up and added a new Snap Case for the Nexus 5. The case is priced at $29.99 and available in Black, Silver, Aqua, White, and Clear.

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After a brief stint of availability last month, Google Glass is once again available to everyone for purchase. A pair will still run you $1500, but you will also get a free set of Titanium Collection frames for free. Unfortuntely, however, Google has limited the availability to the United States only for the time being.

Google announced the availability of Glass today in a post on Google+. The company says that it is looking to move the product towards a “more open beta,” although it will still carry the “Explorer” branding.

Last week we told you we’d be trying out new ways to find Explorers. Well, we weren’t kidding. We learned a lot when we opened our site a few weeks ago, so we’ve decided to move to a more open beta. We’re still in the Explorer Program while we continue to improve our hardware and software, but starting today anyone in the US can buy the Glass Explorer Edition, as long as we have it on hand: google.com/glass

We’re ready to keep meeting new Explorers, and we can’t wait to hear all your experiences and feedback to continue to make Glass even better, ahead of our wider consumer release.

Head over to the Glass Store to grab your pair – and free titanium frames – today. It’s unclear how long Google will be selling Glass to the public, although it looks like as long as it has it in stock, it will be up for sale. Google sold out of several variants when it put Glass up for sale earlier this year, although it presumably has more units this time around.

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Google today has announced an update to both Glass, as well as its companion MyGlass app on Android. The update coming to Glass itself bumps the device to version XE 17.1, following the release of XE 16 and subsequent minor update last month (via Google Glass Fans).

XE 17.1 appears to be a rather minor update, but still includes some pretty critical fixes for Glass users. Most notably, the update has reportedly considerably improved general performance with the device. The speed of snapping photos has greatly been improved, as has the responsiveness of the TouchPad. The update also reintroduces the ability to share from places from your Android device with Google Maps to Glass.

The update to MyGlass on Android also appears to be minor, with the most notable changes including the ability use MyGlass to enter Wi-Fi passwords and some interface tweaks.

The XE 17.1 update is supposedly rolling out to Glass users now and will continue to do so for the next several days. The MyGlass update should begin to roll out at any time, as well.

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Coming roughly a week after the Nexus 8’s “Flounder” codename was shown off in Chromium’s source code, we now have a reference to the “Nexus 6” (via Florian Kiersch).

The Nexus 6 reference can still be seen on the Code Review page, under the new code section. There is also a reference to the Nexus 8 in the older code. The Nexus 8 is expected to be produced by HTC, as earlier leaks have suggested. The “8” is also likely a reference to the screen size, which would make the Nexus 8 larger than the ASUS-produced Nexus 7. Beyond this, very little is known about the specifications or ETA of the Nexus 8.

The Nexus 6 is also almost entirely a mystery.
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjcHzO3-QEg]
Minuum, one of the more distinctive third-party keyboards available for Android devices, is coming to Google Glass. The keyboard was shown off this morning in a video of the prototype app running on Glass. The second half of the video, however, is far more exciting.
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Photo: Associated Press

The European Union Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that individuals have a right to require Google to remove sensitive information from search results, reports Reuters.

The ruling […] came after a Spanish man complained to the Spanish data protection agency that an auction notice of his repossessed home on Google’s search results infringed his privacy […]

Google says forcing it to remove such data amounts to censorship.

The ruling reflects a 2012 proposal by the EU known as the “right to be forgotten,” in which it was argued that even accurate information may become “outdated or irrelevant” after a period of time has elapsed … 
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Two of Valve’s most recognizable games are now available for the Android-powered NVIDIA Shield, after being teased last week to several online publications. The above crowbar — a tool that is used throughout Half-Life 2 — was sent to AndroidPolice‘s Michael Crider, depicting both an NVIDIA Shield device and the lambda, which represents the Half-Life series.

Besides Half-Life 2, Valve also released Portal for Android today. Both games are on sale at the Play Store for $9.99, though they are only compatible with the NVIDIA Shield.
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