Poking fun at Barak Obama’s recent Google hangout and the greater Google Plus, late night comedian Jon Stewart called Google Plus “that thing on top of Gmail that you can’t make go away”.
We told you last week that President Obama would be joining Google+ users for a live Hangout tonight at 5:30 p.m. ET from the White House. You can tune in to the live stream of the interview and Q&A session above.
Yesterday Google’s Vic Gundotra posted on Google+ about the unusual circumstances of hosting a live hangout from the White House:
“Team is nervous tonight. A lot of unusual circumstances that make this broadcast even more challenging. (You just don’t walk into the West Wing of the +The White House and set up computer equipment!)”
In order to spread its message and keep developers in the loop, the fabulous Android development team launched an official Android Developers page on Google+. The team said it is launching the new website to connect with developers and build quality apps for the Android ecosystem.
We’re focused on working with you – Android developers – to help make your apps and games successful within the Android ecosystem. We’re looking forward to finding out what you want to hear from us – so let us know how we can best help you build awesome Android apps in the comments below.
The team encourages developers to add the page to their Google+ Circles to keep on top of news and to join Google+ Hangouts.
This is a pretty cool website out of Google. It is neat to see a one-stop place for Android developers to get their news and communicate with others in the similar field. Google also made an Android Developers website as a way to stay on top of code changes and tutorials, but we are sure the Google+ profile will keep all of that aggregated. You can read the full introduction post after the break.
Google dismissed its Kenya Country Lead Olga Arara-Kimani, along with a “technical guy in Zurich,” over the recent Google-Mocality scandal.
The information is not officially confirmed by Google. However, Kenyan blog NairobiTech reported Olga was “picked for the fall,” because a “sacrificial lamb has to be found for the brand name to weather the storm.”
The firings coincide with a Jan. 27 Google+ post by Europe and Emerging Markets Product and Engineering Vice President Nelson Matto:
We’ve concluded our investigation into the serious allegations about our use of data from Mocality’s website in Kenya. We’re very sorry this happened. We’ve taken appropriate action with the people involved and made changes in our operations to ensure this doesn’t occur again.
Ever since the original iPhone redefined the smartphone and Android became popular, carriers in the United States were caught flat-footed and they have constantly been whining about an undesired network impact caused by data-hungry owners of iPhones and Android devices.
While U.S. carriers are to blame for their years-long reluctance to upgrade their infrastructure and prepare for the inevitable surge in traffic, wireless operators elsewhere have mostly been able to mitigate the issue. Nevertheless, with 700,000 Android devices being activated each day, and the rising popularity of Google’s platform in Japan, it was only a matter of time before Japanese carriers faced similar hurdles as their U.S. peers.
According to a Reutersreport citing a local newspaper story by the business daily Nikkei, Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo said a recent network outage is to blame for a heavy surge in traffic caused by some data-centric Android apps that move large chunks of bits through its cellular network. Specifically, the carrier made claims that VoIP apps disrupted the service and is now requesting that Google do something about it:
After leaked advertisements and many rumors, Google finally announced on Jan. 9 that Sprint would be the second carrier to host the Galaxy Nexus. Roughly close to a month has passed, and we have not heard anything out of Sprint or Google in terms of launch. However, finally this weekend, Google posted the official sign-up website for those looking to order the Galaxy Nexus on the Now Network.
The Sprint version of the Galaxy Nexus is unlike the Verizon version due to it Google’s Wallet technology and a faster processor. Last month, we exclusively told you that Verizon would not have Wallet because of its own wallet-like technology in development.
As some background, the Galaxy Nexus should be the first LTE device on the Now Network. It will rock 32GB of storage, along with a 4.65-inch 720P HD screen, 5-megapixel camera, 1GB of RAM, and Android 4.0. There is no word on a launch date, but if you are interested—we suggest going ahead and signing up. (via Android Central)
Late last week we told you that the U.S. Justice Department apparently had evidence that Google, along with Apple, Adobe, Intuit, Pixar, Intel, Walt Disney and Lucasfilms, entered “no-poach” agreements as part of an antitrust investigation from 2010. U.S. District Judge Lucy H Koh made a statement yesterday at the U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., confirming the companies must face a lawsuit. According to the report fromBloomberg, Koh said she would allow plaintiffs to re-file their complaint even if an initial request by the defendants to dismiss the claims is granted.
Judge Koh’s decision yesterday will result in Google and the other companies having to provide a detailed account of the agreements made with other companies. They must also allow lawyers to take depositions. One lawyer representing the plaintiffs, Joseph Saveri, said, “We get to see what really happened,” claiming the case could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. Google provided statements to Bloomberg claiming they have “always actively and aggressively recruited top talent,” while the others have declined to comment.
Rep. Edward Markey, a prominent U.S. lawmaker on privacy issues, announced earlier this week he was concerned with Google’s new privacy policy, and he further addressed his worries on Thursday by calling for a probe into Google’s handling of consumer data.
Google’s offerings include its globally popular search engine, Gmail, YouTube, Search plus Your World, Google+, and more, which are streamlined under the merging of 60 privacy policies intended to “mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.” The unified policy’s primary objective is to assemble and integrate information from across Google’s products and services as a single throng of data that the Mountain View, Calif.-based Company can use to target advertising dollars.
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Markey released a Jan. 26 statement contending that the new policy changes should allot premium consumer control, and in the meantime, he plans to ask the Federal Communications Commission to investigate if such options exists for Google users:
“All consumers should have the right to say no to sharing of their personal information, particularly when young people are involved. Google’s new privacy policy should enable consumers to opt-out if they don’t want their use of YouTube to morph into YouTrack. Consumers – not corporations – should have control over their own personal information, especially for children and teens. I plan to ask the Federal Trade Commission whether Google’s planned changes to its privacy policy violate Google’s recent settlement with the agency.”
As 9to5Googlereported last October, the search Goliath appears to be on a spending spree since 2011. Having reported holiday quarter earnings, the company filed its 10-K with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday. The document, available online at the agency’s website, specifies that Google spent $1.9 billion dollars acquiring 79 companies throughout last year.
The sum includes cash and stock and is nearly double the $1 billion they spent on 48 acquisitions in the previous year. For the entire 2011, the number of full-time employees at the company ballooned 33 percent to 32,467 Googlers. Just do not count on the company satisfying its appetite for acquisitions anytime soon, as the filing reads:
Acquisitions will also remain an important component of our strategy and use of capital, and we expect our current pace of acquisitions to continue.
So, has Google put its acquisition money to good use?
Google’s social network Google+ is now open for teenagers, according to Google’s Vice President of Product Management Bradley Horowitz’s announcement in a post today. Everyone who is old enough for a Google Account (13-years-old and up in most countries) can now sign up for Google+. The executive boasted the many security and privacy features of Google+ that help establish the difference between friends, acquaintances and strangers— a must for underage users.
Between strong user protections and teen-focused content, it’s our hope that young adults will feel at home (and have some fun) on Google+. And of course, we do have at least one thing in common with our newest users: we’re both busy growing up.
The Google+ service, he argued, has “awesome features that teens really want” whilst encouraging safe behavior “through appropriate defaults and in-product help.” In addition, abuse-reporting tools are easy to find and use, Horowitz noted. Details on age requirements on Google Accounts are available here. Teens can also get more information on Google+ safety features in the newly launched Google+ Safety Center, with interesting resources available for educators, teenagers and parents.
It would appear that Android backers are finally giving up their practice of carpet-bombing the market with countless models that offer little differentiation. Thus far, this served the Android camp well as the resulting media coverage diverted spotlight away from Apple’s iPhone and helped mainstream smartphones built around Google’s platform. Earlier this month, Sony Ericsson made public plans to release fewer phones in 2012 and now Taiwan-based handset maker HTC is following suit.
The company will focus on quality and so-called ‘hero’ devices rather than waste time and energy developing a multitude of models, most of which have short shelf lives. This will help cut development cost and boost HTC’s bottom line that took a hit in the crucial holiday quarter amid the iPhone 4S march.
HTC UK chief Phil Roberson toldMobile Magazine today:
Tablets powered by Google’s Android software are picking up steam. Even though Apple’s iPad maintained its market lead throughout fourth quarter of last year, Amazon’s dirt-cheap Kindle Fire device that costs just $199 helped Android gain share. This is the gist of the latest survey by research firm Strategy Analytics that was released this morning.
Global tablet shipments reached 26.8 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011— up 150 percent from 10.7 million from the year-ago quarter. Global tablet shipments hit 66.9 million units throughout 2011— a 260 percent increase from just 18.6 million units in 2010. Looking at how tablet vendors performed throughout Q4 2011, the survey recorded a 39.1 percent share for tablets powered by Android. Even though it is a record for tablets driven by Google’s software, Apple sold 15.43 million iPads during the holiday quarter for a healthy 57.6 percent share. This left the remaining 3 percent for tablets outside the Android/iOS tablet duopoly, with Microsoft-driven devices holding onto 1 percent share of the market.
These statistics compare to a Strategy Analytics’ survey for the September 2011 quarter that depicted a 27 percent share for Android tablets in Q3 2011 (up from 2.3 percent in Q3 2010) and 67 percent for iPad (down from 96 percent in Q3 2010). It is fair to assume that Android tablets gained momentum thanks, in no small part, to the success of the Amazon device that launched Oct. 15, 2011. Still, the iPad is still king of the hill as some analysts expect its lead to maintain throughout 2012.
Strategy Analytics Research Director Peter King opined:
Google released updates today to three of its popular Android apps: Google Maps, Goggles, and Listen.
Google Maps was updated with a small new feature called “night mode” that will help you better navigate through tunnels. There is not much word on how exactly this feature will work, but it sounds cool nonetheless.
Google Goggles was updated to version 1.7.1 with a long list of updates. Goggles will no longer store inaccurate locations for queries in search history and it will not crash when loading large bitmaps. The app also features the usual performance enhancements and will now show the description field for user-submitted results.
Lastly, Listen’s update is small. It fixes an issue where Listen would improperly take audio focus from other apps while in the background. You can download these updates from the Android Market. (via Android Central)
Google Offers, the search giant’s deal-of-the-day website that launched six months ago, is now expanding to five new cities in the United States. Beginning today, people in Charlotte, Kansas City, Milwaukee, San Antonio and Tampa can take advantage of the Offers website to subscribe to great deals in the aforementioned cities. According to a post over at the official Google Commerce blog, these deals include $11 for a beer tasting, growler bottle, souvenir glass and soft pretzel at The Olde Mecklenburg Brewery in Charlotte ($22 value), $5 for $10 of food and drink at Arthur Bryant’s Barbeque Restaurant in Kansas City, $5 for $12 toward burgers, brews and more at Sobelman’s Pub & Grill in Milwaukee, $10 for $20 of fine sandwiches, pasta, steaks and more at Liberty Bar in San Antonio, and $5 for $10 of Greek cuisine at Louis Pappas Market Cafe in Tampa. You can subscribe to these and other deals via email at google.com/offers or through the Wallet app on the Galaxy Nexus smartphone on the Sprint network.
Google is adamant on accelerating work on its Google+ social network. By doing so, the company has already stepped on people’s toes. An upcoming Q&A feature from Google does not seem to be aimed squarely at Quora, a popular question-and-answer website, but the Quora people understandably cann0t be too happy about this development. See, according toVentureBeat, the search company is trying out a new capability called “Ask on Google+” allowing you to ask friends about the topics you are searching for. It is akin to Facebook Questions, with one huge advantage: One accesses it easily at the bottom of one’s search results:
Click the link to ask your friends any question related to restaurants, movies, how to make friends on Google+, or other topics. Your question will automatically be posted to your Google+ stream for your friends to answer.
Granted, it is nowhere near as complete as Quora and it lacks the basic component, a Q&A engine. In its current implementation, asking stuff on Google+ from your search results simply puts up an overlay window with a pre-populated Google+ post related to your search query. For example, if I were searching for “2012 Android smartphones,” clicking the “Ask on Google+” link would create the “Hi there! I have a question about 2012 Android smartphones…” message. You can edit the message, select your audience, or add a location, photo, video or URL. The folks with whom you shared the message will not be able to select from custom choices like with Facebook Answers. Still, it certainly does not mean crowd-sourcing answers from your Google+ friends will not take some allure off Quora and similar services— quite the contrary.
Newsweek‘s Dan Lyons reported today that Apple’s “thermonuclear war” on Android smartphone manufacturers is fading fast, while a new rumor surfaced among the suits’ lawyers claiming the company spent $100 million on its initial set of claims against HTC.
“Who knows if it’s true, but if so, Apple didn’t get a lot for its money,” wrote Lyons on his RealDanLyons’ blog Jan. 23.
Apple’s legal claims are abruptly junked left and right, and its only minor victories to date are so inconsequential that Android device makers can dance around the momentary obstacles with just a few minor tweaks to products, explained the Newsweek reporter.
The technology giant’s case against HTC with the International Trade Commission began in February 2010, when the Cupertino, Calif.-based company wanted the ITC to block HTC from importing products into the United States. The case originally had 84 claims based on 10 patents, but it was dwindled down to only four claims by the time a judge became involved, according to Lyons.
The rulings —for the most part— were a score for HTC. One patent was invalid as Apple did not have a rightful claim to it, and HTC did not infringe upon two of the other patents due to Apple apparently not implementing them into its products. In other words, Apple did not have a right to seek an injunction, because ITC injunctions can only occur if it is provable that both parties are “practicing” the patent in question, which Apple could not demonstrate against HTC…
When Google+ first launched, a good majority of people went crazy when they saw you could not use nicknames on the service. Luckily, Google is about to change that. Google’s Bradley Horowitz made a post on Google+ today, announcing that users will soon be able to add a nickname next to their full name in the coming days. You can see this modeled above with blogger Louis “Luigi” Gray.
The setting will appear under Edit Profile, where you can select your name by clicking on “More options.” It is worth noting that this will change your name across all of your Google Profiles.
For names that Google has deemed unacceptable, you can challenge it for personal use by providing the following information to the review team:
Android just announced on Google+ that new songs from artists Drake, Mary J. Blige and the band Maroon 5 are now free in Android Market for all United States users until Jan. 31. Android also reminded users that every track syncs from Android Market to their Google Music accounts, as well.
Detailed information regarding the select songs is available below.
Each day, Google’s YouTube video sharing service clocks in more than 4 billion views, a blog post over at the official YouTube blog revealed Monday. The figure represents a 25 percent increase in the past eight months as the number of people who visit YouTube soared to 800 million a month. People are now uploading about 60 hours worth of video to the service every minute, a 25 percent increase over the 48 hours of video uploads a minute in May 2011. The video above is a sample of a new interactive collection of “what happens in a YouTube second” available at onehourpersecond.com.
Yet, only 3 billion YouTube videos a week are monetized with various adverts that appear when users click on clips. Google acquired then-young startup YouTube in 2006 for an astounding $1.65 billion. The Mountain View, Calif.-headquartered Internet giant committed considerable resources to making professional content available through the video sharing service to better pursue its broader entertainment strategy centered around Google TV, a software-based project that drives set-top boxes and networked HD TVs from participating partners.
Google announced last night that it would be discontinuing a number of its services in the coming months because they “replicate other features, haven’t achieved the promise we had hoped for or can’t be properly integrated into the overall Google experience.”
Two things jump out at me regarding these closures:
Google is channeling its lab-like smaller products into features of Google Plus. It almost feels like if it isn’t Android or Search (both recently got heavy + integration), it will soon be part of Google Plus.
Larry Page is heeding the advice he got from Steve Jobs: “Figure out what Google wants to be when it grows up. It’s now all over the map,” read the biography of Jobs’ interaction with Page. Later, Jobs came to Page with a sharped-tongue warning that Google was making products, “That are adequate but not great. They’re turning you into Microsoft.” Page is now striving for greatness by putting “more wood behind fewer arrows”
Most notably for consumers, Picnik, the Cloud photo editing software, will be discontinued in April.
Picnik: We acquired this online photo editor in 2010. We’re retiring the service on April 19, 2012 so the Picnik team can continue creating photo-editing magic across Google products. You can download a zip file of your creations through Picnik Takeout or copy them to Google+. As of now, the premium service is free to everyone. Premium members will receive a full refund in the coming weeks.
We will likely see Picnik’s features reincarnated in Google Plus —where Google wants users to be storing photos anyway. Google did the same thing to Picasa late last year.
Google also announced that it will close Urchin Web Analytics, the company it bought in 2005 to make Google Analytics cloud service. Google kept the offline product available, but it will discontinue updates and sales, then subsequently direct customers to the Google product.
Urchin: helps businesses of all sizes measure their websites and online marketing. We’re fully committed to building an industry-leading online analytics product, so we’re saying goodbye to the client-hosted version, known as Urchin Software. New Urchin Software licenses will no longer be available after March 2012.
Google’s Skymap App project, which was started by some Pittsburgh Googlers in their 20 percent time, will now be Open Sourced and run out of nearby Carnegie Mellon.
A number of other services were also slated for termination…
We’re told this campaign will culminate in a Super Bowl advertisement next month. It’s always entertaining to see the big boys slug it out. Expand Expanding Close
Facebook held at least two meetings with Vevo —the most recent one occurring within the last couple of weeks— to discuss moving the music video service from YouTube to the social network’s platform.
However, sources told CNETthat the talks are “very preliminary,” and they mentioned there is one year remaining on Vevo’s contract with Google’s YouTube.
Vevo launched in 2009 and offers music videos from Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Music. YouTube helped launch the startup, and subsequently Vevo’s videos appear on the partner’s service, with Google and Vevo sharing advertising revenue.
Vevo features the most extensive catalog of premium music content on the Internet, and it is available in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom through its website, mobile apps, or by way of connected televisions. The service currently powers music videos on artist profiles across Facebook, and its content is syndicates to numerous online websites, including AOL, BET, CBS Interactive Music Group, Fuse.tv and Univision. Moreover, through YouTube, Vevo is accessible in over 200 countries.
Facebook is allegedly interested in an arrangement similar to the one Vevo has in place with YouTube now, which would allow the social network to stream Vevo’s music videos with the two companies sharing profits from advertising revenue…
A tipster over at the Google Operating System blog pointed out a small —but welcomed— tweak in Google Maps that lets you highlight areas of interest based on upon search queries:
When you search for a city or a county or a ZIP Code, Google Maps now highlights the boundaries of what you searched for. If you are zoomed out, the whole area is shaded pink. If you zoom in a bit, it has just a big pink border with grey shading. Zoom in even more and it’s a dashed boundary with grey shading.
In the above screenshot, I searched for Cupertino, Calif., and Google Maps automatically highlighted the city’s area inside the map view, allowing me to visually grasp the size of Cupertino. Note that the highlighting feature does not work in other Maps views, such as satellite. Expand Expanding Close
Google just revamped the look of Latitude, its location-aware service akin to Foursquare. According to a post by Google’s community manager for Google Maps, Danial Mabasa, the new Google Latitude interface can be now accessed on desktop browsers at www.google.com/latitude. As you can see from the above screenshot, it is not much different from Google+. However, upon remembering how the old website looked, it is definitely a major makeover that helps achieve consistent user experience across Google’s key properties.
You can now easily access your friends’ list in the left-hand column or click the wrench icon to customize your personal location history and location settings. Whenever you want to manually update your location, just hit the Update button next to your name and approve your browser’s location sharing prompt. Another cool feature lets you playback your location history (should you choose to preserve it) from a select range of dates by pressing the Play button on the bottom left-hand corner of the map.
