Google

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ReutersTV posted this video of Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt speaking at the RAND Corp.’s “Politics Aside” conference in Culver City on Nov. 19. During the 32-minute-long interview, Schmidt discussed Google’s position on free speech, privacy, and described the process of removing potentially inappropriate user-generated content on YouTube.

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As the television race heats up, Google said it is working on an open alternative to Apple’s AirPlay—a technology first introduced in iOS 4.2 that allowed users to share photo, audio, and video to the Apple TV.

Google had a similar streaming product to the Apple TV this summer—the Nexus Q— that allowed for sharing of content via an Android device to the TV. However, the product flopped and didn’t see the light of day for many customers. Additionally, in Google’s move to try to compliment streaming to the TV, the folks at YouTube launched an AirPlay-like feature last week that allows users to beam YouTube videos from their Android device straight to the television.

Speaking to GigaOm, Google Product Manager Timbo Drayson made it clear that Google has big plans in the space and wants to move forward. “We really want to move the whole industry forward,” Drayson told the publication.

How will Google move the industry forward? It may just partner with as many partners as possible. It worked with Android, so why wouldn’t it work here? Drayson said Google is “actively working with other companies” to implement a new AirPlay-like standard. Remember, Google also has its Google TV platform that this could play nicely off.

Furthermore, GigaOm examined how Google plans to move past just beaming video:

And it’s not just about remote control functionality and beaming a video from your mobile phone to the TV we are talking about. The new protocol makes it possible for data to flow in both directions, Drayson explained, which would enable developers to build second-screen experiences that correspond to what’s happening on live TV as well. Also on the roadmap: beaming content from your laptop to your TV screen.

Related articles

• YouTube’s Android app now steams video to Google TV from Android device (9to5google.com)

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Google just gave itself a pat on the back by detailing how Google Consumer Surveys efficiently polls anonymous web users and helps to analyze voter preferences.

“So how’d you all do in your first election with us?” wrote Googler Brett Slatkin on the official Google Politics blog, “Pretty spectacularly.”

FiveThiryEight’s Nate Silver, a media-dubbed “high priest” of polling, called Google Consumer Surveys the “No. 1 most accurate poll online and the No. 2 most accurate poll overall,” according to Slatkin, while the Pew Research Center said Google’s surveys will “likely be an important addition to the research tool kit available to pollsters.”

The surveys run across the web and subsequently earn websites money for showing them, and web surfers can then anonymously submit their responses, and the cropped data gives publishers, such as Texas Tribune, Denver Post, etc., as well as political campaigns, academics, start-ups, and marketers, detailed research to better improve their products.

In related news, Google does more than collect data; the Internet giant also supplies it. Eric Hysen, of the Google Politics and Elections team, said the search engine saw “unprecedented digital engagement in this election on Google and across the web” during the 2012 U.S. Elections.

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[tweet https://twitter.com/googlemaps/status/269499168354091008]

As noted on the Google Maps blog, Google continues to update maps with new aerial, satellite, and 45-degree imagery for many cities in the U.S. and abroad. Google’s most recent addition to maps is a new collection of 45-degree imagery for 60 new cities—40 in the U.S. and 20 internationally— in places like Switzerland and Luxembourg. That brings the total number of cities with updated aerial and satellite imagery in Maps and Google Earth up to 164 cities in 108 countries. Google walked through a few of the recent updates, such as the Space Needle in Seattle and Bridges in the Sky art installation in Austria, but also provided a full list of cities with new high resolution imagery (below):
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Google just announced on the Official Gmail Blog that Gmail users would have new options when searching within their inbox starting today. Users can now find emails by size by searching for “size:5m” or “larger:5m”, for instance, to find emails larger than 5MB. Google is also rolling out new date search operators, including: “older_than”, “newer_than”, and exact match.

We’re always looking for ways to make it faster and easier for you to find your messages using search in Gmail. So starting today, you can now search emails by size, more flexible date options, exact match and more… These changes go hand in hand with other recent enhancements to search such as the improved autocomplete predictionsand a field trial for instant results from Gmail, Google Drive and more as you type.

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Yesterday, we told you about the updated YouTube apps for Google TV and Android that bring a new synced experience, but today Google announced two other big new features for Google TV: Voice Search and PrimeTime.

On the Official Google TV blog, Google walked us through the new features that will roll out to LG devices first starting this week. The most notable new feature is the addition of voice search, allowing users to not only perform Google searches with their voice, but also open apps, press play on a YouTube video, or speak a command, such as “CNN”, to navigate directly to a channel.

Google also explained that questions, such as “how to tie a bow tie,” would bring up instructional videos on YouTube. Part of the new voice search experience is a new visual search results page:

Try “search movies with Jeff Bridges” and see results in our new, more visual search results page.

Google is also introducing a new app called “PrimeTime” in the update that is essentially a rebranding of the old TV & Movies app it added last year:
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Today, alongside the launch of Nexus 4 and Nexus 10, Google is officially making the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean SDK available to developers. Included in the release are the lock screen widgets, the Daydream interactive screensaver mode, enhanced support for external displays, and more. Developers can download the Android 4.2 platform from the Android SDK Manager. Google also has an overview of what’s new on its website and an API overview here.

The full release notes from Google (via the Android Developers Blog) are below:

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The LG Nexus 4 just became available in the United States, but the Google Play store already sold out of the 8 GB and 16 GB models.

Check it out: 

• $299 8 GB LG Nexus 4
• $348 16GB LG Nexus 4

Google made the Nexus 4 and Nexus 10 available to customers in the U.S. through Google Play at about 11:45 a.m. today. The 16 GB model was the first to sell out at around noon, while the 8 GB model ran out of stock at about 12: 10 p.m.

Like the U.S. variant, the United Kingdom’s Nexus 4 also sold out within 30 minutes of going live earlier this morning.

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Google is out today with its latest Transparency Report where the company officially reports the number of requests it receives from government organizations to remove or hand over data. Today’s update to the report includes data for government requests from January 2012 to June 2012 and shows requests for access to user data have steadily increased.

For the United States, Google received 7,969 requests during the time period, of which 16,281 user accounts were specified. Google also explained that it sometimes received “falsified court orders asking us to remove content.”

This is the sixth time we’ve released this data, and one trend has become clear: Government surveillance is on the rise. As you can see from the graph below, government demands for user data have increased steadily since we first launched the Transparency Report. In the first half of 2012, there were 20,938 inquiries from government entities around the world. Those requests were for information about 34,614 accounts.

The report showed that requests around the world for the removal of content also continued to increase:
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Many reports are coming in that Chinese users are having trouble accessing a number of Google’s web products. There is no word on the exact cause of the service disruptions, but The Wall Street Journal noted Google’s Transpareny Report website shows “a precipitous drop in traffic in China starting more than eight hours ago,” although the site doesn’t list the services as completely inaccessible in the country. Google provided a statement to WSJ confirming the interruptions do not appear to be on its end:

“We’ve checked and there’s nothing wrong on our end,” a Google spokeswoman said in a prepared statement.

The Washington Post reported “Users with special VPN (virtual private network) services,” which many Chinese users take advantage of to access banned sites like Facebook, are still able to access Google’s services. 
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Google announced on its Enterprise Blog today that it would officially make its Google Apps Vault service available to Google Apps for Government customers. Google head of eDiscovery Jack Halprin made the announcement, noting federal, state and local agencies in the United States can “now purchase Vault to help meet their compliance needs.”

Google Apps Vault helps protect organizations of all sizes from legal and compliance risks through advanced message archiving, retention and eDiscovery capabilities. It provides the ability to quickly search, identify, preserve and export information in response to litigation, investigation, compliance audits, or Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Apps for Government users interested in finding out more can go here. 
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Google officially started rolling out its new gigabit fiber Internet and TV service in Kansas City in July. Google asked households in the various “Fiberhoods”, which are made up of 800 or so residents each, to sign-up, but the service has not yet rolled out to businesses. Now, as reported by GigaOm, businesses are going as far as purchasing residential homes in the city to take advantage of the $70 per month Internet plans:

the startup community wasn’t willing to settle — and since most of them worked from their homes, coffee shops or communal space anyhow, it wasn’t a big leap to decide to find a house in an area slated for fiber and move in.

Tyler Vanwinkle of Leap2, a mobile search company, said his company was already based near a neighborhood slated to get fiber and a friend of his owned a house there. So he talked to his friend about renting space for the company in the house, now dubbed the Hacker House. “Google fiber the speed is phenomenal but it’s only residential,” he said. “Since we were interested in renting the house as office space and so were some of our friends, this has evolved into this common bond of entrepreneurship.”

GigaOm also noted many other startups and businesses in the city are considering making the switch to residential to gain access to Google’s new Internet service. The company originally said it would provide more information on offering the service to businesses at a later date, but has yet to do so.

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The Berlin Wall fell 23 years ago today, and Google’s Cultural Institute is celebrating the anniversary by releasing an online collection of related exhibitions.

The collection, appropriately titled “The Fall of the Iron Curtain”, features 13 exhibitions comprised of documents, video, and photos from many partners, including: the DDR Museum in Berlin, Polish History Museum, Romanian broadcaster TVR, and Getty Images. 

According to the official Google blog, notable contributions include a video commentary by Harvard professor Niall Ferguson, insights by Cold War history specialist and professor Patrick Major, a personal account of East Berlin life by independent curator Peter Millar, and more.

Check it out: 

• The Fall of the Iron Curtain

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YouTube is all about live streaming lately, and now the video-sharing platform has announced COD (ahem—slang for “Call of Duty”) players can soon stream their gameplay when Activation launches the latest title for its popular franchise next week.

“Call of Duty Elite takes the live streaming experience even further, letting viewers on Elite see the player card of the user that is streaming,” announced Activision in a press release. “With just a couple clicks, viewers can dig deeper to see such information as class loadouts, recent match data, as well as career stats across supported Call of Duty games on Elite.”

The partnership essentially allows gamers to watch exploits in real-time multiplayer Call of Duty: Black Ops II matches for free. The deal is coushiony for Google and Activision, too. The Internet Giant gets engaging content to bulk its website, while Activation lands premium promotion.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II launches worldwide on Nov. 13, presumably at the $60-something price mark, for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Windows PC. The title will also release in North America on Nov. 18 for the new Wii U.

Pre-orders are available at Amazon: 

• Call of Duty: Black Ops II (Amazon Instant Video Credit) | $59
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II [Hardened Edition] (Amazon Instant Video Credit) | $179+
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II Digital Deluxe Edition (Amazon Instant Video Credit) | $59
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II Care Package | $338+

Get the press release below for more details.

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A few notable apps either launched or announced headlining news today, so 9to5Google gathered the most noteworthy ones in a roundup below. Our sister website, 9to5Mac, publishes app roundups on a daily basis, and now we attempt to do the same here for the most important changes happening in the Google Play store. We will also continually update this list throughout the day, so keep checking back for more details.

1. Angry Birds Star Wars
The highly-anticipated (and much-teased) Angry Birds Star Wars is now available in Google Play (video atop). Developer Rovio has long been working with the recently Disney-acquired LucasArts to bulk its popular app lineup with a Star Wars-themed iteration of Angry Birds that brings new creative and play experiences to the franchise.

The latest Rovio title ditches the traditional exploding/flinging Angry Birds for a slew of new bird characters each wielding a unique weapon. The Han Solo bird, for instance, halts enemies with a three-shot space gun. The game also features iconic Star Wars locations, 80 immersive levels, “hours and hours” of gameplay, fresh mechanics, and new level-up capabilities for birds.

Check it out:

• Angry Birds Star Wars | Free
• Angry Birds Star Wars HD | $2.99

Angry Birds Star Wars also landed on the Mac, iOS, Amazon Kindle Fire, and Windows 8 platforms today.

More apps below.

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9to5Google previously detailed a leaked version of Google Wallet that plans to soon introduce a physical Google Wallet card, but a new leak today adds another layer of credibility to the piling speculation.

As noted by TechCrunch, Google let the cat out of the bag again today on its “Eligible Devices” page under the Help section of the Google Wallet website. The page listed all of the Android devices “eligible to download the Google Wallet app for use with the Google Wallet card.”

Last week’s leaked screenshots of the Google Wallet app also called the physical cards “Google Wallet card.” With that said, Google’s Eligible Device page no longer mentions them. It seems Google has promptly corrected its mistake. Hmm.

Check out the updated webpage below. 

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Googler Ami Fischman, a self-dubbed “Watt Wrangler”, just announced a new battery-saving Chrome Stable release.

“We recently enabled GPU-accelerated video decoding for Chrome on Windows,” wrote Fischman on the official Google Chrome blog. “Dedicated graphics chips draw far less power than a computer’s CPU, so using GPU-accelerated video decoding while watching videos can increase battery life significantly.”

Fischman noted test results show batteries last 25 percent longer with GPU-accelerated video decoding switched on. So now, Chrome users on Windows can watch more YouTube videos, as Fischman noted, without worrying about dwindling battery life.

Chrome users can even access website permissions, such as geolocation, much more easily with the new release:

This saves you from having to dig through settings pages to find these permissions. Now, simply click on the page/lock icon next to a website’s address in the omnibox to see a list of permissions and tweak them as you wish.

This latest release also includes an option to send a “do not track” request to websites and web services. The effectiveness of such requests is dependent on how websites and services respond, so Google is working with others on a common way to respond to these requests in the future.

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