Google

When talking about potential applications for Google Glass, the ability to use facial recognition is one area that we’ve seen discussed in many patents and projects from Google and others. Today, SelfScreens.com points us to perhaps the first facial recognition Glassware available with info on a new app dubbed MedRef for Glass that was recently created at a medical hackathon. The app, which was designed to allow doctors to pull up info on patients with Glass by simply recognizing their face, is being made available to download by its creators who also discussed the app in detail on their blog.

The app lets you find and create patient folders by voice, add photo and voice notes, view previous notes, and also find patient folders by facial recognition! Very exciting.Some people I talked to said hospitals are full of very busy people, often with their hands full, working with a lot of information – so Google Glass making it wearable is especially looked forward to there!”

One of the developers also gives us a walkthrough of an early build of the app in the video above showing how doctors can quickly notes about a patient that will be called up later when Glass recognizes the patient’s face. 
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We recently delivered a comprehensive summary of everything we know about Google’s rumored Motorola X Fon, and today is looks like a device labeled Motorola XT1058 has appeared in official FCC filings as discovered by AndroidGuys.com.

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Google today is showing off a new way for content creators online to provide content recommendations to readers viewing their site through mobile devices. The new content recommendations feature is not so surprisingly powered by Google+ and will allow users to access related content for the page they are currently visiting through a small notification that appears as they browse. To access the recommendations, users can enable the feature on Android devices running 2.3.3 and above and also on iOS devices running Chrome or Safari on iOS 5 or later. Site owners can implement the feature by dropping in a single line of code.

Google explained how it creates the recommendations based on Google+ activity and also showed the new feature in action in the video above posted to its Developers YouTube channel:
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(Businessweek / Peg Korpinski)

In our continuing series Talking Schmidt we bring you the most insightful lines from Google Chairman Eric Schmidt.

Schmidt, who is promoting his new book The New Digital Age, spoke with NPR over the weekend on the Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! program in a rather lighthearted appearance.

NPR host Peter Sagal asked the executive chairman how much Google knew about its users at the top of show, which prompted Schmidt to admit, “Well, as much as you’ll let us know.”

Schmidt also mentioned that the company really doesn’t quite know the definition of evil, from its famous slogan “Don’t Be Evil,” and that he thought it was “the stupidest rule ever” when he joined the company.

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I’m not going to lie, this is a bit depressing. Among other boilerplate-type of answers to good questions that Wired’s Steven Levey threw at him, Sundar Pinchai said:

What can we expect from I/O this year?

It’s going to be different. It’s not a time when we have much in the way of launches of new products or a new operating system. Both on Android and Chrome, we’re going to focus this I/O on all of the kinds of things we’re doing for developers, so that they can write better things. We will show how Google services are doing amazing things on top of these two platforms.

We’ll be on hand this week to see exactly what that means.

Some other tidbits from the interview: On Firefox OS: “It isn’t surprising. If we don’t do ChromeOS, someone else will”. On Google-branded hardware: “Any hardware projects we do will be to push the ecosystem forward”.
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Android Police’s Ron Amadeo has the details on the new syncing, matchmaking, notifications, game invites, achievements, leaderboards, and integration with other Google services that are inside the new Gaming APK that is being rolled out to devices.

Fresh out of Google HQ, we’ve managed to score a copy of the newGoogle Play Services v3.1.36, which is very slowly rolling out to devices right now. For comparison, the current Play Services that most people have is v3.0.27. 3.1 is a massive update – the strings file, for instance, has more than doubled from 300 to 700 entries. This is how Google is pushing out all the shared files for Google Play Games.

To make a long story short, there is a lot of new stuff here and most of it has ties to Google Plus. Shocking, I know.

Update (3:24 ET): I’m back online. are you?

Wait, the Drive icon on the Apps Status Dashboard changed again! What does this one mean? pic.twitter.com/eMcd5bTZXK

— Gabe Rivera (@gaberivera) May 10, 2013

If you are having issues with Google Drive, you aren’t alone. We’ve just lost our access to our online documents though our local sync seems to be working fine. Google’s Apps status page just went code orange indicating they are investigating the issue. Now let’s start talking about how safe your documents are in the Cloud.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TkKJR38nEgE

You may not want an HTC First Facebook Android phone but your mom probably does. So AT&T and 9to5Google are giving you a chance to win one with no contract or obligations (You can also get one ON CONTRACT for $1).

Mother’s Day is right around the corner and AT&T is celebrating moms with a fun, shareable video e-card for a special edition of the popular “It’s Not Complicated” campaign. In a new rendition of the commercial that will air Friday through Sunday, mediator Beck Bennett strays from his usual, “what’s better, bigger or smaller?” and instead asks, “who gives the best hugs?” to a unanimous response – mom does! The video e-card can be personalized, offering consumers a simple Mother’s Day themed e-card video, with Beck and the kids, to share with mom via social media (Twitter, Facebook, email). Make your own personalized version of the “It’s Not Complicated, Moms are the Best” video e-card at ATTMothersDay.com.   

You know the rules: To enter, simply follow @9to5Google and retweet this post telling us why your mom would love an HTC First Facebook phone.

We’ll pick the winner on Mother’s Day.

Update: We have a winner!

https://twitter.com/antwonw/status/333672048553508865

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Earlier this week Google confirmed that its head of Google Wallet will leave later this year, and today AllThingsD reports that the company is scrapping its plans for a physical credit card that would accompany its mobile payment service.

Google CEO Larry Page reportedly canned the physical card just last week after being dissatisfied with its reliability due to glitches.

The company was reportedly preparing to demo the physical card, which featured the colorful Google Wallet “W” branding, at Google I/O next week, so it is interesting that this report is surfacing so suddenly.

Larry Page reportedly cited more innovative approaches to mobile commerce from startups like Square, which seems to have solidified his decision to shred the company’s plans for a physical Google Wallet credit card.

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Well-connected Analyst Mingchi Kuo from KGI securities is known for his often accurate predictions (timing notwithstanding) of upcoming Apple products.  He’s got a detailed report out today on the new Nexus 7 that he thinks will be announced at Google I/O and could ship as early as June or July in large numbers.

Perhaps the most interesting bit is that the entry level price will  remain at US$199, with Google likely to lose US$5-10 per unit sold according to the analyst. Why is keeping the same price interesting? Because this thing is getting supercharged according to Kuo:

It will be interesting to see how close to the current display size the new screen is. 1920×1200 is a 16:10 screen ratio just like the current 1280×800 but enlarging it a few points would go a long way in making it more competitive with Apple’s 7.9-inch iPad Mini, and with the shrunken bezel size, Asus could keep the same handheld form factor.

Following weeks of rumors, YouTube has launched a pilot program for subscription-based YouTube channels. Subscription rates will begin at 99¢ per month, but all plans include a 14 day free trial for YouTube channel viewers. YouTube says that a broader rollout will occur in the coming weeks.

Starting today, we’re launching a pilot program for a small group of partners that will offer paid channels on YouTube with subscription fees starting at $0.99 per month. Every channel has a 14-day free trial, and many offer discounted yearly rates. For example, Sesame Street will be offering full episodes on their paid channel when it launches. And UFC fans can see classic fights, like a full version of their first event from UFC’s new channel. You might run into more of these channels across YouTube. Once you subscribe from a computer, you’ll be able to watch paid channels on your computer, phone, tablet and TV, and soon you’ll be able to subscribe to them from more devices.

YouTube channel owners that are interested in participating can fill out a Google-provided form. 

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You can now download at the Play Store with a lot of new features this year:

Research firm Canalys is out today with its latest report tracking worldwide smart mobile device shipments for Q1 with Android accounting for almost 60% of smart mobile devices shipped by OS. That’s compared to a 19.3% share for Apple and approximately 18.1% for Microsoft. Keep in mind Canalys’s report also includes notebooks, in addition to tablets and smartphones, which account for the majority of Microsoft’s share. When looking at tablets alone, Apple continued its lead with 46.4% share in the quarter, although Canalys warned Apple “lost share to its Android-based rivals for the third consecutive quarter.”

‘Spearheaded by Google and Amazon, the commoditization of the tablet market has happened far quicker than that of the wider PC market,’ said Canalys Senior Analyst, Tim Coulling. ‘Profit margins are being squeezed and vendors without a low cost structure will find it hard to compete. A solid range of must-have accessories and a software and services strategy are vital as vendors will increasingly need to make revenue around their devices.’

When it comes to smartphones, the report has Android at roughly 75.6% of shipments with around 32% of those shipments coming from Samsung. We know Apple sold around 37 million iPhones in the quarter but, as always, we warn that the stats from Canalys don’t include shipped vs sold data. 
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Google just announced a nice bit of API code that will allow developers to to make it easy for readers of websites to download files to their Google Drive account.

Adding a Save to Drive button on your website is easy. You simply have to include the script and HTML tag below:

<script src="https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js"></script>
<div
 data-filename="My Statement.pdf"
 data-sitename="My Company Name"
 data-src="/path/to/myfile.pdf">
</div>

It isn’t hard to see how this could come in handy.

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Google has provided these incredible animated GIFs illustrating the Earth’s landscape changes over the decades for Time‘s Timelapse project.

The images show deforestation in the Amazon of Brazil, glaciers retreating in Alaska, and lakes drying up in Las Vegas sprawls as well as other landscapes.

Check out more illustrations below…

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Google has updated its Android Translate app with a new Phrasebook feature to store some translated phrases that users want to keep quickly accessible. Phrasebook can easily sync via your Google Account’s login credentials.

When you’re traveling in another country, you want quick access to your favorite translated phrases—whether it’s “Where can I find a museum?” or “Do you know where the bathroom is?” Google Translate lets you save these translations in your Phrasebook, but you still could not easily access them on the go from your phone or tablet. Starting today, you can automatically sync the phrases in your Phrasebook to your Android device using the Google Translate mobile app, so you can carry your most useful phrases with you wherever you go.

 Additionally, Google has added support for 16 new languages for camera-input translations.

Last but not least, this latest release of Google Translate for Android sees a significant improvement to the camera-input feature. You can now use camera-input to find translations in 16 additional languages: Bulgarian, Catalan, Danish, Estonian, Finnish, Croatian, Hungarian, Indonesian, Icelandic, Lithuanian, Latvian, Norwegian, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, and Swedish.

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After reports last year that Google Wallet’s co-founding engineer Rob von Behren had left the company to join competitor Square, Google today confirmed it has now lost another important employee related to its mobile payment efforts.

Google provided the following statement to VentureBeat, confirming that Osama Bedier, who was up until today chief of the company’s Google Wallet business, will be leaving the company “this year to pursue other opportunities.” Bedier joined Google back in 2011 after leaving eBay.

“We can confirm that Osama Bedier has decided to leave Google this year to pursue other opportunities,” said spokesman Nate Tyler. “He’s achieved a lot during his time here and we wish him all the best in his next endeavor. “

Google made a point of noting that it remains committed to making payments easier for users despite Bedier’s departure:
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Steve Jobs welcomes Eric Schmidt at Macworld Expo 2007 (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

In our continuing series Talking Schmidt we bring you the most insightful lines from Google Chairman Eric Schmidt.

Schmidt, who is promoting his new book The New Digital Age with his coauthor Jared Cohen, recently spoke alongside his coauthor to Nathan Gardels of the Global Viewpoint Network.

When asked about the role of technology and social networks in creating change in government, Schmidt replied, “Even dictators care about their reputations.”

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Google introduced an update today to its Google Admin console for managers of Google Apps like Gmail, Calendar, and the like.

Businesses, governments, and schools should appreciate the changes to Google’s admin console.

The new features include improved navigation, more customization, and a more accessible domain.

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Google has just started pushing out an “XE5” software update for Google Glass users today and with it comes a number of new features in addition to fixes and performance enhancements. Phandroid points us to the full changelog for the update, which includes incoming Google+ notifications for direct shares, comments, and +mentions, the ability to comment and +1, incoming Hangout notifications, new crash reporting features, and much more.

With the update Glass users can also now “Long-press to search from anywhere in the UI,” access international number dialling and SMS, as well as view a new recipient-list mosaic. A full list of new features on the XE5 Google Glass update is below:
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