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Google’s quest to take over the world continues as the search engine giant announces (via Reuters) lower prices on their cloud services as it ramps up to take on Amazon’s AWS own cloud service.
While the majority of Android users might still be a version or two behind despite some impressive upgrade numbers for KitKat, Google appears to be prepping the first update to KitKat with Android 4.4.1. A look at our analytics shows hits from a number of devices running 4.4.1 originating from Google’s home turf in Santa Clara, California. Above we can see a huge increase in hits from 4.4.1 devices over the last week.
Among the devices are both phones and tablets including the Nexus 4, Nexus 5, and Nexus 7:
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As Google releases its newest platform version numbers for December we’re giving a warm welcome to Android 4.4 KitKat and its first appearance. Arriving on the board at 1.1%, it’s an impressive feat for Android’s newest software considering it’s still only on a handful of the devices it’s actually available for outside of the Nexus 5. When Ice Cream Sandwich debuted back in December of 2011, it was only at 0.6% at the end of January. Jelly Bean saw a similar result as it released in August of 2012 and made its debut at 0.8%.
Oh the weather outside is…not yet frightful but the deals have already started and the holiday season is moving into full swing. With Black Friday and Cyber Monday now behind us, it begs the question what goodies you purchased over this holiday weekend? Did you grab a new tablet, smartphone, Chromebook, HTC One, LG G2, Galaxy S 4 or something else entirely?
If a Glass Explorer friend has been making you jealous while you wait impatiently for your chance to get hold of the gadget, now would be a good time to buy them a drink. Selected Glass Explorers have been given the opportunity to purchase a second headset for a friend in an email from Google, reports Glass Almanac.
Explorers were given the opportunity to invite up to three friends in September, but this is the first time Google has allowed them to actually purchase a second Glass. Explorers will also be given the chance to trade in their own units for the second generation model, but it’s not yet known what – if anything – this will cost.
There’s still no news on when Glass may go on public sale, beyond a widespread assumption that it will be sometime next year.
Via TNW
Google has now added the Play Music app to the MyGlass page, allowing Glass users to use voice controls to play music through the device. The announcement was made by Google engineer Stephen Lau on Google+.
The Play Music APK was first spotted in the Glass XE11 update last month, and users were able to side load the app, but it was not officially listed by Google at the time. Now it is. As we explained then:
Once the app is loaded, simply say “OK Glass, listen to,” then the name of a song, artist, album, or playlist. A card will then pop up with results and allow you to specify what to play. A new card also stays pinned for further music control, including Play, Stop, Skip, Rewind, and volume control …
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98BIu9dpwHU]
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos shocked Charlie Rose on Cyber Monday Eve (great timing for the PR-savvy retail giant) by showing him the future of delivery services – autonomous drones that will pick up and deliver wares from fulfillment centers. From which we can conclude that Charlie Rose doesn’t read 9to5Google, where the concept is old news.
We mentioned way back in February that Google was already working on drone delivery services:
Along with Glass, Google will have an opportunity to demonstrate other upcoming and Google X projects like driverless cars and mini-drone delivery systems at its stores.
We reference it again when the company launched the trial of its ‘Google Shopping Express’ same-day delivery service to Bay Area residents:
Google, in the long run, plans to use self-driving cars and flying drones as means of delivery.
9to5Google also heard this service was coming, and we have some more somewhat wild information on the program. Google, in the long run, plans to use self-driving cars and flying drones as means of delivery. We also heard Google’s delivery project came from the Google X incubator headed by cofounder Sergey Brin.
Clearly there are a lot of hurdles to jump on the way to this vision (privacy, theft, accidents, visual pollution, etc, etc). but it’s equally clear that these two Silicon Valley heavy-weights are prepping to battle in the skies above.
Google might have gotten there first, but Amazon definitely wins the PR battle so far: a short concept video for a service which doesn’t yet exist, and which even optimistically it doesn’t expect to launch for a couple of years, got everyone talking about them. Including Charlie Rose. Video below …
If you’ve been looking for a good book these days, Google just made selecting your next novel a little easier with a special Google Books sale. The Cyber Monday deal is good on over 100 bestselling books, with discounts up to 75% off the cover price.
We’ve already had a glimpse at Google’s Cyber Weekend extravaganza with deals on games, books, music, gadgets, magazines and TV series. However, even with our Cyber Weekend announce post earlier today, a new post with a broken down list of ALL the deals Google is hosting over the weekend was in order. Below you’ll find a list of all the hardware, software, subscription, music and game deals you will find from Goog this weekend. Credit goes to The Verge for compiling the full list but hit the Google Play link below to get your shopping groove on.
Google’s Play Store Cyber Weekend deals are now live with some excellent savings on games, movies, bestselling books, TV seasons, movie deals and in-game discounts!
During a talk at the LISA ’13 conference in Washington D.C earlier this month, a couple members from Google’s Macintosh Operations team explained how the company has been forced to develop its own set of tools to manage its fleet of roughly 43,000 Macs. The reason, according to Google engineers Clay Caviness and Edward Eigerman, is that Apple isn’t doing a great job at supporting its enterprise management tools. As the first slide of the presentation (pictured above) puts it, “While Apple won’t do much for you, there are tools out there you can use to keep your machines secure, up to date and useful.”
“We don’t use any of Apple’s tools to manage the Macs. Apple arguably produces two tools, Mac OS X server… and Apple Remote Desktop. It kinda breaks down when you get it over 50, 100, 200 machines that you’re managing… we’ve sort of lost their attention as far as enterprise management tools.”
During one slide (pictured above, right), Google uses the red line to represent the release of the iPhone while noting Apple’s remote desktop “hasn’t had a major revision to it since 2006.” To avoid using Apple’s management tools, Google has either developed its own tools or is using open source tools for everything from configuration, to package management, monitoring system levels and more. Google announced during the talk that one of the imaging tools it developed, CanHazImage, will soon be hitting open source. 
While Google mentioned during the presentation that it supports four desktop OS platforms (OS X, Windows, Linux, and Chrome OS) internally, it also said these days employees that want to use a platform other than Mac OS X “have to make a business case” to do so. Compare that roughly 40k monthly actives from Macs reported during the presentation to the 42,162 full-time employees at the company (not including Motorola). The Googlers also noted that the company managed to update from 10.7 to 10.8 for 99.5% of its fleet in 8 weeks and it’s currently trying to accomplish the same for 10.9 Mavericks.
You can watch or download the full presentation here.
Google’s support for Chromecast is still fairly limited even as the promise of more apps continues to be on the horizon. Thankfully, the apps that do support Chromecast are some of the most notable and widely used across the web: YouTube, Google Play Music, Google Play Movies, Netflix, Pandora, Hulu Plus, and as of the last week, HBO Go.
Google has been adding a ton of new features to its new Google Maps preview on the desktop ahead of a broader roll out. It recently added real-time incident reporting from Waze in new countries and also added a new 3D Earth Tours alongside a revamped StreetView. However, up until now, we’ve still had to deal with the old Google Maps embed that allows us to interact with small embedded Maps on websites and elsewhere. Good news: Today Google announced it’s rolling out a brand new Google Maps embed that users can embed via an HTML snippet from the new Google Maps preview.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VunSqD1MOjE&w=560&h=420]
There are a hundred different ways to tackle the question of what Motorola’s goals are for releasing a sub $200 smartphone into the wild. Motorola stated at their Moto G launch in Brazil that they wish to introduce a “premium experience at less than 1/3 the price of high-end phones.” In that regard and judging by the tech blogosphere first thoughts, Motorola has certainly accomplished what they set out to do.
A new report courtesy of the folks at ReadWrite is shining light on the steps and process Google’s engineers undertook to optimize Android 4.4 KitKat before its introduction to the world.
As Google’s engineers believed they reached a “feature parity” point, they turned their attention to performance and optimization, something that began with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and “Project Butter.” The hope was that Android would be faster, more reliable and devoid of the crashes that plagued many Android users.
On its Official Apps blog, Google has just announced that within the next few months, it will be revamping the sign-in page for Google Apps accounts. The interface will now be consistent between all Apps services, including Gmail, Calendar, Drive, and any other tools. Google says that it is doing this to improve security and make it easier for users to switch accounts.
Early next year, the sign-in page for all Google Apps customers will be updated to be consistent across all Google Apps services. In other words, the sign-in page for Gmail will now be identical to the sign-in page for Google Calendar, Google Drive, or any other Google Apps service. This change will improve security and make it easier for users to switch between accounts.
Details are scarce at this point, but Google says more information will come in the next few months.
Acer has just announced its new C720P Chromebook, a touchscreen variant of the C720 model that it introduced earlier this month. The C720P will be available in early December from Amazon, Best Buy, and the Acer Store for $299.99.
This is Acer’s first touchscreen Chromebook and is capable of all the normal multi-touch features, such as pinch-to-zoom. As far as specs go, the device is packing an 11.6-inch LED “ComfyView” display with a 1366 x 768 resolution. Acer touts that the device will give up to 7 and a half hours of battery life and boot upon just 7 seconds, thanks in large part to the 32GB SSD. Powering the laptop is an Intel Celeron 2955U, which is based off of the Haswell architecture, as well as 2GB of DDR3 RAM. As you would expect, it supports 802.11a/b/g/n wifi as well.
Along the sides of the laptop, you’ll find USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports and an HDMI connection. The laptop weighs in at 2.98 pounds and is just .78 inches thick.
Finally, Google is offering 100GB of free cloud storage with Google Drive for 2 years and 12 free Gogo wifi passes to anyone who purchases the C720P.
At $299.99, the C720P is a very compelling option for users who want a touchscreen Chromebook and don’t want to shell out the money for a Pixel. I could very well see this being one of the most popular gifts this holiday season.
Google announced today on Twitter that it’s giving away $25 in Google Play store credit & free shipping to everyone that purchases the Nexus 7 through the Play store. That brings the cost down to around the same amount as the $199 deals we’ve seen on 9to5Toys through Walmart, Amazon and others in recent weeks. The deal is only available for those purchasing the Nexus 7 through the Google Play store online in the US and Canada, and the credit will be emailed at the time the device ships.
Holiday Special: $25 Google Play credit and free shipping.*
For a limited time, you will receive a $25 Google Play credit when you purchase a Nexus 7 from the Play Store. Your Google Play credit will be emailed when your Nexus 7 ships.
Also on offer is a free HD movie rental from Google Play with the purchase of Google’s $35 Chromecast.
You’ll be able to find the Nexus 7 for $199 this Black Friday through a number of retailers. Stay tuned to 9to5Toys for all the latest deals.
[tweet https://twitter.com/GooglePlay/status/405408020298874880]
YouTube has been getting a lot of backlash since introducing its new Google+ powered comment system earlier this month. Despite some very vocal users not exactly liking the change, Google provided an update on the new comment system last night and confirmed it’s here to stay. In a post on its YouTube Creators Blog, the company explains that it’s working to combat spam in comments and will soon introduce new bulk moderation tools for creators.
Since we launched the new comments experience on YouTube two weeks ago, we’ve received a lot of feedback from creators on the increase in comment spam. While the new system dealt with many spam issues that had plagued YouTube comments in the past, it also introduced new opportunities for abuse and shortly after the launch, we saw some users taking advantage of them.
To combat the users “taking advantage” of the new system, YouTube is implementing the following updates to help with spam:
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I love good news in the morning and that’s why the opportunity to purchase the Moto G direct from Motorola’s website well before January has us smiling. Our very own Seth Weintraub was able to successfully purchase the device and receive a shipping order for two days. It’s a great surprise from Motorola, especially when the company originally indicated the US would be a part of “Wave 2” and ship sometime after Christmas.
Shortly after a Street View tour of London’s Gatwick Airport, Google has expanded its transit program to encompass 15 other airports, more than 50 train & metro stations – and even allows your virtual trips to take you right onto an airliner at Dubhai.
Google’s blog shows off a small selection of the new locations, including check-in at Madrid airport, arrivals at Tokyo airport, a walk though London’s Waterloo train station and locating your seat on board an Emirates A380 airliner.
The split view, showing both terminal map and Street View walk-thru, is particularly helpful for familiarising yourself with a transit airport in advance of a tight connection …
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Engadget reports that some developers who had registered their interest in the Glass Explorers program are now receiving emailed invitations from Google.
Although third-party developers have been able to develop Glass apps using a cloud-based API, this approached imposed limitations on what those apps could do. Google recently removed these limitations by offering developers an SDK, or in this case a GDK (Glass Development Kit), previewed here …
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Oh Google, you’re so good sometimes when you let the world know that the HTC One Google Play edition isn’t the only device receiving KitKat today. According to the +Android page on Google+, the Samsung Galaxy S 4 Google Play edition is also beginning its Android 4.4 KitKat rollout.
Google has released three new commercials for its Nexus 5 today, all of which highlight a specific camera feature (via Android Central). The first one shows off the HDR+ feature of the device’s camera, while the other two show Photo Sphere and Auto Awesome. The ads are all short, coming in at roughly 15 seconds a piece.
Google is heavily touting the Nexus 5’s camera, though many reviewers said that it was somewhat disappointing. In our own poll, however, people voted the device’s camera just a tad worse than the iPhone 5S shooter, which is arguably one of the best out there.
You can see the ad highlighting Photo Sphere above, while the other two are just after the break.
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