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It seems with any smartphone announced these days, users are yearning for a white version of the device, and two prime examples are the iPhone and Galaxy S II. Of course, it is not any different when it comes to the newest flagship Ice Cream Sandwich handset out of Google and Samsung, the Galaxy Nexus. Italian publication HD Blog had the chance to photograph the white version of the Galaxy Nexus. As you can see in the gallery below, the back and sides are completely white, while the front keeps the black look. The previous flagship, the Nexus S, follows the same formula.

Specifications for the white version of the Galaxy Nexus will remain the same and still ship in both a 16GB and 32GB version, HD Blog said. The white version will land in Europe (GSM) sometime in the coming weeks. It is not clear if there will also be a white version on Verizon Wireless, but there is always a way to get it in the United States through other channels. Looks good, eh?

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is expanding its antitrust probe of Google to include the inspection of social network service Google+, according to Bloomberg.

The publication sourced two people “familiar with the situation,” and cited “competition issues raised by Google+” as the primary aspect of the FTC’s investigation into whether the globally popular search engine gives preference to its own services. The FTC is also inquiring whether such practices violate antitrust laws, according to Bloomberg, who could not identify its sources due to the investigation’s nonpublic status.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company rolled out “Search, Plus Your World” to its search engine Jan. 10 and dubbed the revision a “personal results” feature that displays Google+ photographs, news and comments when user’s conduct Web searches. The Electronic Privacy Information Center promptly called upon the FTC on Jan. 12 to investigate the recent search changes in a letter posted on its website…

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Google’s AdSense team is tweaking the AdSense adverts’ rendering process on desktop and mobile devices, according to a blog post by the AdSense team. As part of the change, the company noted AdSense would automatically optimize how ad units are displayed on computers, tablets and smartphones. The AdSense backend will sense the type of device a website is being viewed from and it will optimize for the given platform. This includes reducing the number of ads per ad slot and increasing the size of the text to make them more legible and noticeable. In addition, an AdSense advert now features a big button that helps a user select it on tiny screens.

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After being introduced in August, Google just announced improvements to its Gmail offline Chrome app. The first improvement, which the Chrome team called their favorite, is the ability to choose whether you want to synchronize 7, 14 or 31 days worth of mail. The second improvement includes attachment support, keyboard shortcuts, and enhancements when it comes to performance. You can download the Gmail offline Chrome application in the Chrome Web Store.

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If you are a blogger and you are using Google’s blogging service called “Blogger,” you are probably aware of its many limitations compared to WordPress— the de facto blogging standard. Google has been slow to address the many concerns Bloggers users have and has been neglecting the service lately. One of the glaring issues has always been Blogger’s commenting system that leaves a lot to be desired.

Today, the Blogger team announced that threaded commenting is now live in Blogger. Previously, there was no way of telling whether posters put up a new comment or responded to another comment on the thread. Threaded commenting, which is a norm on the vast majority of other blogging platforms, solves this problem elegantly with indentation. A small, but welcome fix. Here is to hoping the team is working on bigger issues as Blogger is definitely crying for some love.

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The search giant today introduced a couple enhancements to Hangouts, the group video chat feature of the Google+ social service. The new look of the Hangouts interface follows the design language used across Google’s many properties on the web. Thanks to the optimized layout, there is now more real estate for the actual live video feed, leading to a better and more immersive user experience.

Besides the revamped look, Hangouts now support screen sharing, which Google said, “Has graduated from Hangouts with Extras.” Hangouts screen sharing is designed to enable anyone to easily share what is on his or her computer screen with everyone in the hangout. Google noted that many other extras would soon graduate to Hangouts.

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A smartphone reference design by Intel.

Handset maker Motorola Mobility, which was acquired by Google, and is subject to approval from regulators in the United States and Europe, said at CES 2012 yesterday that it would release fewer phones in 2012. The company also announced a multi-year strategic mobile partnership with Intel to make Android smartphones powered by the chipmaker’s struggling Atom platform.

According to Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha’s roundtable meeting with reporters at CES yesterday, Motorola no longer sees value in dispersing its efforts by flooding the market with countless devices:

A lot of products that are roughly the same doesn’t drive the market to a new place. […] I made this decision independent of what the others will. We’re doing what we think is the right thing.

Motorola issued a warning last week on fourth-quarter results, and the company said numbers would come in below the $3.9 billion that most analysts expected. As for the Motorola-Intel partnership…

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbtxoCCFbfo]

Nik Software, the company behind Snapseed, the popular image editing app for Apple’s iPhone and iPad, announced yesterday that it will “soon” port the program to Tegra-powered Android tablets running Ice Cream Sandwich for $5 a pop.

Nik Software President and CEO Michael J. Slater said:

We’re thrilled with the success and worldwide recognition of our popular mobile app and are excited to bring the Snapseed experience to Mac users for the first time. By bringing Snapseed to the Mac App Store, we’re able to quickly extend our reach to a worldwide audience of creative amateur photographers while offering our existing mobile users the fully-featured Mac experience they’ve been asking for.

Nik collaborated with Nvidia on the project so expect some snazzy visuals and smooth performance, which is the hallmark of the iOS version. Snapseed sports cool filters and tools like grunge, vintage and drama to make the best out of your photographs. The full list of features follows…

[slideshow]

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC303x2XqWw]

Specs and price are similar to past models, but these are much better looking with an aluminum shell and thinner profile.

Perhaps most interesting (and fitting to the mission of Chrome) is the Chrome Box. It is a Mac Mini-looking ChromeOS device with two separate outputs for lots of Web browsing on up to two monitors.  You do not have to worry about losing an Internet connection on the ChromeBox because you are stationary and hard-wired to the Web. This is going to hit more of the target kiosk/corporate environment than the previous models of ChromeBook.  Samsung would not give a price but mentioned the loss of a display and keyboard/trackpad could save customers around $100.

All three hit stores in April, and we will be looking for a demo.

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YouTube's latest interface that displays video channels upfront versus individual uploads.

The New Yorker’s John Seabrook recently interviewed YouTube’s Global Head of Content Robert Kyncl about the video-sharing service’s future and extensively detailed how YouTube is targeting a $300 billion chunk of the television industry through increased viewership, enhanced content, connected devices, and niche audiences.

Niches, as The New Yorker illustrated, are the future of television. The iconic industry started with just three networks decades ago, and it now features hundreds of cable channels each serving a niche—news, sports, food, weather, music, and more.

“People went from broad to narrow,” said Kyncl to The New Yorker. “And we think they will continue to go that way—spend more and more time in the niches—because now the distribution landscape allows for more narrowness.”

The downside to niches, as Kyncl explained, is cost. Apparently, it is expensive to program niche channels when factoring in various technical costs and the practicality of filling a 24/7 loop. However, with the advent of the Internet, niches are in high-demand, costs are lower than ever, and accessibility is at an all-time high…

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A busy “Press Day” on the show floor of CES 2012 just wrapped up. Today was busy with announcements from AT&T, Intel, Samsung, Nokia, Panasonic, NVIDIA, Sony, and more. While we only covered the Google-oriented side of things, there was also a lot of news around HDTVs. Samsung unveiled it’s’ rocking 77-inch TV that just looks plain amazing, and Microsoft wrapped up its very last CES keynote ever. However, we are here for the Google news.

We will be on the floor tomorrow, showing you cool gadgets and a few hands-ons of the products announced today.  CES is just kicking off so do not go anywhere! Without further ado, here is a round up of today…

NVIDIA and ASUS jointly announce 7-inch Transformer Prime Ice Cream Sandwich tablet, priced at $249 with Tegra 3 processor

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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