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Marvell could not quite wait for Consumer Electronics Show 2012 to spill the beans this on its huge GoogleTV win. The ARM-based processor company will have its Armada 1500 chipset at the heart of upcoming GoogleTV 2.0 solutions.

Most of the processor details are below, but the big news is that Google is going with low cost/low heat ARM processors for its next-generation set top boxes rather than Intel, who dropped out of the set top box market.  With Marvell, Google should be able to compete on price with Roku, AppleTV and the other players in the market, and more importantly, it should be able to persuade TV manufacturers to include the low cost chips into hardware designs.

Marvell boasts that the Armada 1500 does 1080P 3D, as well as Flash – even though Adobe’s long-term plans outside of the desktop market are murky at best.

It does not appear that Google will build its own devices (although, the image above makes for interesting conversation), but it will continue to OEM out Google software. In a statement, Mario Queiroz, VP, Product Management Google TV said: “The Google and Marvell teams have been working closely together to bring our combined software and chipset technologies to market to grow the Google TV ecosystem of manufacturers and devices. Marvell-powered Google TV solutions will enable powerful products to be brought to market at attractive prices.”

Eric Schmidt recently said Google hopes to have GoogleTV embedded in the majority of SmartTVs by the summer of 2012, so this is a very aggressive rollout plan.  We expect to hear much more at CES, where most consumer electronics companies release product plans for the upcoming year.

Another interesting tidbit: GoogleTV appears to be fully underneath its YouTube wing with media contacts listed for YouTube press people. The full press release is available below.
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Google searches for “browser” no longer reveal the Google Chrome homepage, because the globally popular search engine decided to apply a penalty against the browser’s website after coming under fire for its sponsored post campaign.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company actively fights paid links and junk content under its Webmaster guidelines. However, earlier this week, SEO Book’s Aaron Wall noticed a Google search for “This post is sponsored by Google” displays over 400 websites written by Google marketing campaigns.

Bloggers were found posting low-quality content related to Google Chrome to promote Google content, and at least one of the posts had a hyperlink to the Chrome download page. Hyperlinks can help a website rise in Google search results through Google’s PageRank algorithm.

According to The New York Times, Google penalized JC Penney, Forbes and Overstock last year due to paid links and similar guidline violation issues. Search Engine Land suggested that Google should penalize its own Google Chrome download page to be fair.

Well, that is exactly how Google responded.

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Google acquired 217 patents from IBM, according to SEO by the Sea. Google’s most recent acquisition of patents from IBM, completed in the last week of December, comes after acquiring patents last summer. SEO by the Sea discovered the acquisition from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and we do not know the exact details currently. Google will most likely send out a letter giving exact figures soon.

Of the 217 patents, 188 were granted. Twenty-nine of them are patents pending that have been published.  The patents Google acquired range from video conferencing to instant messaging. Some of the noteworthy patents include modifying web pages for mobile devices, collecting data from NFC, rendering a section of a webpage, transferring webpages between mobile devices, voice based keyboard search, and a “computer phone.”

Last summer, Google acquired Motorola Mobility for its 17,000 published patents and almost 7,500 pending patents. The acquisition is still going through, but Google put up $12.5 billion for the company. Google continues to strengthen its patent portfolio to protect itself from lawsuits.

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Today is the last day to take advantage of Google Music’s blowout MP3 sale that has lasted for about a week now. Google is offering popular albums for only $4.99 and popular tracks for only $0.49. The lineup Google offers is pretty good, ranging from Lil Wayne to DeadMau5. Sadly, the sale does not include every offering on Google Music, but it has a decent list that you should browse through. Songs purchased will be saved to your Google Music locker and can be downloaded as an MP3. What are you waiting for?

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SEO Books (via Search Engine Land) discovered today that a Google search for “This post is sponsored by Google” reveals that Google may be sponsoring over 400 pages worth of publications who have written about Google Chrome. This is interesting, because Google has never allowed paid links inside their search results. The discovery has not been confirmed with Google — probably due to most of the Google staff being off today for the holiday — but this seems to be real nonetheless.

Search Engine Land pointed to one page where there is a direct link to download Chrome, and a link that poses as a video that connects to Google Chrome’s download page. Under that, you will find a “Sponsored by Google” disclaimer. We will keep you posted.

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Developer Robert Muth successfully ported MAME to run natively inside of Google Chrome’s Native Client, after it saw a similar port run on the iPad roughly a year ago. For those unfamiliar, MAME is an emulator application that can recreate vintage video games to make them playable on newer platforms. Finally, you will be able to get your PacMan to load within Chrome.

Muth was able to achieve the port in a matter of four days, but explained that it was rather challenging. Head to Google Developers and learn the technical details regarding how this was achieved. In addition, for those unfamiliar with Native Client, Google breaks down the basics for executing the code. (via Engadget)

The port of MAME was relatively challenging; combined with figuring out how to port SDL-based games and load resources in Native Client, the overall effort took us about 4 days to complete.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDPJ-o1leAw]

Just a few years ago, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer owned the browser market with three quarters share and the only real alternative was Mozilla’s Open Source Firefox.  However, in 2008, Google noticed Apple’s WebKit Browser engine and built their own Chrome browser.  In late 2009, Chrome started to break out of the “other” category in StatCounter’s figures and started its rise to what will likely to be the world’s most used desktop browser in 2012.

A few months ago, Chrome passed Firefox and if you look at the slope of the graph over time, it looks like Chrome’s rise is still accelerating.  Even if it only grows at its 2011 rate and IE continues to fall at its 2011 rate, Chrome will pass Internet Explorer in late Summer 2012 according to Statcounter’s numbers.  Below, I have extrapolated IE and Chrome’s 2011 numbers over the first half of 2012…

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David Lawee, Google’s mergers and acquisitions chief, recently attended a GarageGeeks event at a rusty garage in a Tel Aviv Jaffa port to meet with Israeli startup owners seeking cash for ventures.

GarargeGeeks is an “Israeli based not-profit physical and virtual space for innovative and creative people to introduce, network, expose, create, brainstorm, innovate and build,” according to its website. “People that take part in the activities come from different disciplines such as electronics, software, mechanical, art, design, music, hacking and gaming.”

The organization essentially holds monthly events to promote building non-commercial projects and introduce local businesses to multinationals while located in Israel’s Holon Industrial Zone. The event’s garage is a 100-square meter space with machinery tools, electronic components, software developments and raw project materials.

“I’ve met about 100 Israeli companies in two days and that’s, like, super-efficient,” said Lawee to Bloomberg between corporate conversations at the speed-dating-style event. “When you make a connection with an entrepreneur who’s really excited, whether you do a deal with him or not, that’s kind of the juice of the job.”

Two weeks later, Google initiated a funding program for Israeli entrepreneurs as part of a recent acceleration in United States’ technology companies backing startups in late 2011.

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CrunchFund partner and TechCrunch contributor MG Siegler made quite the stir over the past few days, when Google removed his Google+ image that showed him raising his middle finger. Once Google removed the image, Siegler uploaded the photograph a second time, only to be removed again. The second time, Google provided the following explanation to Siegler:

As the first point of interaction with a user’s profile, all profile photos on Google+ are reviewed to make sure they are in line with our User Content and Conduct Policy. Our policy page states, “Your Profile Picture cannot include mature or offensive content.” Your profile photo was taken down as a violation of this policy. If you have further questions about the policies on Google+ you can visit http://www.google.com/intl/en/+/policy/content.html, or click the “Content Policy” link located in the footer of Google+ pages.

Google explained that this is not directed just towards Siegler. Google revealed that it reviews every user’s profile when it is first created, and that all profile pictures are reviewed. Siegler himself wrote a post on the subject, and then later followed up. Marketing Land pointed to the rule Seigler broke that some might call debatable:

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In a clearing up the “confusion” around Andy Rubin’s recent numbers releases (here and here), the Verge spoke to a Google source on what constitutes an “Android device activation.”

We’ve now gotten some additional clarification from trusted sources on what Google considers an “Android device” for the purposes of counting activations (which would presumably apply to every activation count Google has released in the past). It’s actually really simple: you need to activate Google services on the device. In all likelihood, Google’s counter actually jumps the moment you sign into your Google account on the phone or tablet, whether that be the first time you turn it on or when you’re prompted after jumping into something like Gmail or the Android Market. And as Rubin says on Google+, it only happens once per physical device.

It turns out that Google is only counting activations it activates (I know!). It is not counting devices that use Android code, because it does not have control over -or no way of- counting like the Kindle Fire or Barnes and Noble Nook (I know!).

Perhaps Amazon, who is very transparent with its Kindle numbers, could help Google out there.

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Title says it all.  Andy Rubin just tweeted some more Android numbers and they are pretty impressive.  In the two day Christmas period, 3.7 million Android phones were activated.  Compare that to 1.4 million on an average two day period.

Another comparison: After 16 months without releasing a phone, Apple sold 4 million iPhone 4S’s in the first week of release.

The Android Freight Train continues to roar.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSsJtzPng5U&feature=player_embedded]

Google accelerated advertising for its social network by showcasing Jim Henson’s The Muppets in a new commercial about the Google Plus Hangouts feature.

The Muppets performed an impromptu band session as they rocked out to a cover of  “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie through a Google Plus Hangout. Google explained that Hangouts are the “best way” for users to say: “I’m online and want to hangout!”

A Hangout lets users “chill with friends that are scrolling the web,” “use live video chat,” or “coordinate plans.” In other words, the feature is essentially a hyped-up video conferencing capability through Google Plus. The multi-person video chat tool allows up to 10 participants to hang out for free.

Google recently released a trio of new television commercials that promote its social network by featuring Hangouts with the Muppets, NBA announcers, Steve Kerr, Spero Dedes, Bill Walton, Kenny Smith, and Jon Barry. This is not the first time Google collaborated with the The Muppets to advertise one of its products. There was another Muppets Hangout Nov. 7, and the search engine giant celebrated the 75th birthday of Muppet creator Jim Henson by forming an interactive Muppets’ logo for Google.

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The United States Patent and Trademark office delivered a final rejection to Google at the expense of Oracle.

According to Groklaw, the USPTO issued the rejection Dec. 20 in the reexamination of Oracle’s U.S. Patent No. 6,192,476. Each claim of the patent was subject to reexamination, including Claim 14, which was the only claim asserted by Oracle in the litigation.

The USPTO rejected 17 of the 21 claims in the patent of discussion, including seven of the patent’s independent claims. Any response by Oracle seeking an appeal or reconsideration of this action is due Feb. 20.

Continue reading past the break for more background information on the Oracle vs. Google patent claims.

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It looks like Google tripled its spending to keep its search engine the default choice in Mozilla’s Firefox browser. The usually well-connected Kara Swisher reportedt on the AllThingsD blog that Google had to up its spending, because the other contenders, namely Microsoft and Yahoo, were looking to replace the default Google.com choice in Firefox with their own search products.

It is worth noting that Yahoo’s search engine is powered by Microsoft’s technology. Furthermore, although Chrome recently surpassed Firefox as the second most frequently used browser in key markets, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer remains the leading web browser. The Windows maker also teamed with Mozilla on the “Firefox with Bing” initiative a few months ago. It is reasonable to assume that all those factors combined have led Google to outspend its rivals to keep its search engine the default choice in the Firefox browser.

According to Swisher:

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We sat down with Google Enterprise Vice President Amit Singh in his Mountain View office this week to discuss the direction and plans of the Google Enterprise team.  While he did not share the all-important revenue numbers with us, he did shine a light on Google Apps’ impressive growth across all of its markets.

Singh was a two-decade alumnus of Oracle when he came with many, many others to the GooglePlex last March to help Dave Girouard and the Enterprise Team sell to big business.  Oracle announced this week very disappointing earnings that has thrown the stock price off almost 15 percent.  Meanwhile, Google Apps is growing like gangbusters; Perhaps Singh’s timing is good.

9to5Google: Hi, Amit. I assume we’re here to talk about your big GM announcement.

Singh: We have no big announcements today but look forward to a whole assortment of announcements in mid-January.  We tend to announce new customers after implementation rather than after sign up. Here’s a hint: we’re growing very big in South America…and Asia, where we’re building three monster data centers in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore that should all be online in the next 12-18 months.

9to5Google: Speaking on that, Apps has had a pretty solid year.  It seems like you have a big announcement almost every week and new features added to Google Docs every day.

Singh: It has been incredible across the board. We are seeing double the daily signups and about 5,000 organizations per day vs. 3,000 per day at the beginning of the year [those numbers also seems to point to bigger signups] and a lot of those are paying users.

9to5Google: You mentioned the new Hong Kong data center and it appears that Google’s plan for China is to deal with Hong Kong’s system.  But what about users in China? Certainly international organizations have to be wary of Google’s relationship with greater China.

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Rest easy folks…Amazon’s Kindle Fire no longer blocks access to Google’s Android Market website through the built-in browser. The Kindle Fire saw some criticism recently for redirecting market.android.com to Amazon’s AppStore. The move raised many eyebrows; however, yesterday’s OTA update addressed the controversial issue. Nevertheless, there is still no way to download applications from market.android.com. Users can only browse the catalog.

The concern at hand can be viewed as a matter of principal. Does one want a company regulating the content viewable? It might make the process less confusing for some users, but others question whether Amazon has the right to regulate. GigaOm pointed out that users still receive a security certificate warning, but at least Amazon has rethought this strategy. (via GigaOm)

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Clay Caviness, systems administrator on Google’s internal Macintosh Operations team, just announced on Google+ that the team will begin releasing a selection of scripts, tools, and utilities used internally. The goal is to help other Mac administrators, and the team is releasing the first set of items today for “managing and tracking a fleet of Macintoshes in a corporate environment.”

The first tool is an application usage module for crankd – a Mac administration tool used to execute scripts and Python code related to network and system activity. Administrators can find the Application Usage tool here. Also announced today was a simple facter script that will allow administrators to “create facts from the database.”

Caviness promised to release more Mac specific tools, scripts, and utilities over time. (Simian?)

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Caption contests are everyone’s favorite, even if they’ve been overused, and Google has decided to do one of its own. As you’d expect from the world’s search monster, it challenges you to describe a bunch of illustrations that depict people using Google search.

Available at the Inside Search site, the contest invites you to:

Come up with your most creative caption illustrating what these characters are searching for on Google. You can also vote for your favorites and share them with friends!

The company teamed up with artists Matthew Diffee, Emily Flake, Christoph Niemann, Danny Shanahan and Jim Woodring to come up with a bunch of funny cartoons that all share a a common twist – characters running Google searches. Upon submitting your caption, it should appear on the site. You can then share it using a unique link or vote on other submissions. It’s a nice little time-killer, go ahead and give it a try.

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Intel has had little luck putting its chips into smartphones and tablets, as the devices continue to rely predominantly on silicon designs based around Britain’s ARM Holdings technology. Its easy to see why: ARM-licensed chips built by the likes of Nvidia, Qualcomm, Samsung and Texas Instruments are famous for their efficiency in terms of CPU performance versus power consumption.

Nevertheless, the world’s largest chipmaker is hoping to turn the tables with the Medfield platform: a 32-nanometer Atom processor for tablets and smartphones. Google and Intel announced a partnership at the Intel Developers Forum 2011 in San Francisco that promises to put Medfield chips in Android devices beginning January 2012.

Intel unveiled a reference design today for Android smartphones using the Medfield architecture. According to Technology Review, prototype hardware is speedier than today’s flagship smartphones without taxing the battery heavily. Medfield-driven Ice Cream Sandwich smartphones and tablets, performance-wise, should be able to play Blu-ray-rated high-definition video, stream to the tube over a wireless network, and take up to 10 8-megapixel images in burst mode. Do not mistaken the above image for an iPhone 4S, because it is just a reference prototype design meant as a guidance for OEMs looking to incorporate Intel’s chips into their products.

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Rubin made the announcement through Google Plus (and Twitter)  and noted:

…and for those wondering, we count each device only once (ie, we don’t count re-sold devices), and “activations” means you go into a store, buy a device, put it on the network by subscribing to a wireless service.

Google’s latest public figure was just 550,000 devices a day that was noted by Chairman Eric Schmidt in Germany earlier this year and confirmed a few times, most recently at LeWeb last week.

To put it in perspective, 700,000 devices a day is almost 5 million every week, or 21 million a month, or over a mind-boggling 250 million a year.

As a comparison, Apple announced 1 million iPhone 4S’s sold in the first day of sales and topped 4 million in the first week (after some pent up demand and a week of preorders).

The Freight Train continues to roar.
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As part of their 2011 Zeitgeist, Google ranked the Kindle Fire “as the fastest selling gadget of 2011,” followed by Apple’s iPhone 4S. The Kindle Fire has seen explosive growth since it was released earlier this fall. It topped charts as Amazon’s best selling product — breaking their records — and it is top selling at retailers such as Target. With great sales numbers and interest, the Kindle Fire would see many search hits.  The rest of the list makes sense, as well:

1. Kindle Fire
2. iPhone 4S
3. Sidekick 4G
4. HP TouchPad
5. HTC Thunderbolt

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