Rock in Rio, a series of music festivals held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (and later in Portugal, Spain and other countries) will be live-streamed this year on YouTube in 24 different languages, Google made it known in a blog post. Headliners include Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Katy Perry, Elton John and Stevie Wonder. The rock fest is running from September 23 through October 2 so don’t forget to tune in to a live stream over at the Rock in Rio YouTube channel.
Those of you that crunch numbers using Google Docs: The company has just added a cool new feature to the spreadsheets editor – merging cells vertically. In addition to the existing horizontal merging functionality, this new feature allows for some pretty complex layouts. Just drag the set of cells, hit the down arrow next to the merge icon and select Merge vertically. You can also assign headers to sets of rows. Why would anyone want to merge cells vertically? Google offers an example:
In the spirit of the NFL season, let’s say you want to host a football tournament for your friends. To make it easier for them to cast their votes on the winning team, you organize the NFL teams by conference and division in a Google spreadsheet. After applying vertical merges to all of the conference and division headers and horizontal merges across the team names in each conference, you’re ready to share with your friends for the tournament!
Google Apps customers can now roll revert changes to contacts for up to a month.
Google announced customers who host their domain on Google’s servers are now able to take advantage of the Contacts interface which has been available in consumer Gmail for some time. Users of Google Apps for Enterprise will notice that adding new contact information now defaults to “Work” instead of “Home”. Thanks to the prettified interface, you can quickly add email addresses to groups, and pick from a contact’s multiple email addresses to use on a group-by-group basis. Most importantly, the new Contacts manager lets you undo contacts import and go back in time up to a month in order to salvage deleted or merged contacts.
No, we did not photoshop that arrow in. In an effort to push Google Plus, which just went into public beta today, Google is now literally pointing to the Plus link with an arrow. Also, below the search box you will find a link to signup. With Google’s 1,100,000,000 pageviews a day (according to Website Outlook, so we’re not sure how accurate that really is) they’re bound to bring in some traffic. What are you waiting for; sign up!
Google rolled out nine new features pertained to its social thing dubbed Google+. Per the official blog post by Google’s head of engineering Vic Gundotra, the service is no longer in limited beta. Beginning today, everyone can join the party at google.com/+ – no invitation required. Yes, Facebook’s worst nightmare comes true just three months following the service’s introduction.
Next up, Google’s search expertise comes to Google+. The big search box now returns relevant people, posts and web content. The popular Hangout feature has gotten lots of enhancements. For example, developers can now take advantage of the new Google+ Hangouts APIs to write more integrated, immersive apps. Google-created Hangout extras (still rough around the edges) include screensharing, sketchpad, Google Docs integration and named hangouts. Give it a try by clicking the “Try Hangouts with extras” link in the green room.
Even more interesting, it is now possible to broadcast a hangout for the world wide web to see. They call it Hangouts on Air and even though you can broadcast and record your session, there’s still that nagging nine-per-hangout limit. Of course, an unlimited number of people can be spectators of your live broadcast.
Another cool addition: You can join a hangout from your mobile phone, by finding an active hangout in the Stream of the Google+ app and tapping “Join”. This works on Android 2.3+ phones with front-facing cameras, but Google said iOS support is “coming soon”. The aforementioned features will be rolling out globally over the next day (not days, per usual), Google said.
Last, but not the least, Dave Girouard, a Google Apps guy, announced on Twitter that Google+ is coming to business and education customers soon, indicating that Google+ will be rolled out to Google Apps users. “New stuff on G+ today that biz/edu will love! Working hard to bring G+ to Google Apps in the very near future!”, his tweet reads. In our opinion, this could be a game-changer in the social media landscape, probably putting Facebook on the defensive – especially when Google begins selling and promoting Google+ apps on the Apps Marketplace.
Google has posted more information on their Android Developers Blog this afternoon shedding more light on prepping Honeycomb apps for the release of Ice Cream Sandwich. Ice Cream Sandwich is due out in the coming months, as confirmed by Eric Schmidt. Google outlines the main problem that needs to be addressed is that Honeycomb apps are set to be on a larger screen, and since Ice Cream Sandwich will be on smaller screens there needs to be changes.
So, if you’ve developed a tablet app on Honeycomb, it’s important that your app do one of two things: prevent installation on smaller screens or (preferably) support smaller screens with the same APK.
Obviously, you could choose to only have your app run on a larger screen, but in most cases we’d imagine you’d want it compatible on both a small or big screen. We’ll save you from getting the code from us, so we’ll direct you to Google’s full post.
First they made a video testimonial featuring a bunch of excited developers. Last week brought us a promo clip they first played back to journalists who attended presser in May. Then came the first official Google Wallet commercial featuring Seinfeld’s George Constanza and his exploding wallet. Today, the search company has officially rolled out Wallet, a mobile payment service.
As you can see from the clip we embedded above, it features Google engineers highlighting the many benefits of paying simply by tapping your phone to a terminal. One thing immediately captures attention: The “hundreds of thousands” of points of sale which support Google Wallet, all MasterCard PayPass terminals. Google promised at the May unveiling they would support more smartphones with an NFC chip in the future, not ruling out a next-gen iPhone. Today, the company wrote in a blog post:
Today, Visa, Discover and American Express have made available their NFC specifications that could enable their cards to be added to future versions of Google Wallet.
If you’re a Sprint customer with a Nexus S 4G device, the Google Wallet app will be delivered as an over the air update. Just tap the Wallet app on your home screen, add your Citi MasterCard credit card or set up a Google Prepaid Card and transfer some funds to it from any of your credit cards and off you go.
Early adopters who set up a Google Prepaid Card before the year’s end also get a $10 free bonus. When you see the Google Wallet logo on a poster, simply scan it with your phone to add the advertised offer or coupon to your Google Wallet account. The below walkthrough by TechCrunch lays out everything you need to know about Google Wallet in Layman’s terms. Good-bye wallet, the phone will take it from here and another from ThisIsMyNext… Expand Expanding Close
The image above is from a series of mock ups courtesy of designer Federico Ciccarese
Coming from a potentially reliable, yet somewhat odd source, details regarding the yet to be announced next-gen Nexus have popped up on Twitter, in poem form.
Twitter user @tfleming223 sent out pieces of a poem he alleged hint at specs and release dates for the forthcoming Ice Cream Sandwich powered Google phone.
The poem (below) hints at a November 3rd launch date on Verizon, Ice Cream Sandwich rather than “ filling your belly with candies, jellies”, and the expected worldphone capabilities with a “GSM or wimax radios inside”. The date would line up with an October/November release of Ice Cream Sandwich, which was was recently confirmed by Eric Schmidt.
A Peet’s Coffee in San Francisco (what happened to NYC?) is showing a Google Wallet logo beneath its original MasterCard PayPass NFC reader.
It appears that there is minimal upgrade to get Mastercard PayPass systems upgraded to be Google Wallet systems. In fact, from the merchant standpoint, it may just be upgraded signage.
That’s good news for Google and its rollout plans. PayPass locations are all over the place and Google wants to hit the ground running.
As of March 2011, more than 92 million MasterCard PayPass cards and devices have been issued for use at approximately 311,000 merchant locations worldwide, including new acceptance environments such as vending, taxis, tollbooths, transit, football/baseball stadiums and golfing events.
In addition to robust deployments at major merchants in the US such as McDonalds, 7-Eleven, CVS, Duane Reade, Sheetz, Hess, Wegmans, The Home Depot, Best Buy, Gulf Oil, Sports Authority, BJ’s, Meijer’s, Whataburger, Tim Horton’s, Shop-Rite, Foot Locker, Sunoco and BP.PayPass has been rolled out in 37 countries. Outside the US, PayPass speeds consumers through the checkout process at McDonald’s (US, Poland, UK), Burger King (Turkey, UK), 7-Eleven (Australia), Starbucks (Turkey, Malaysia, UK), Petro-Canada (Canada) Tim Horton’s (Canada), Boots (UK), Tesco (UK), Carrefour, Cora and Intermarche (all 3 in France) and in many other types of merchants including supermarkets, cinemas, gas stations, fast food and transit.
TechCrunch is reporting that Google Wallet will most likely launch tomorrow, citing the above document being sent to partners. Google said Wallet was on its way in the summer, yet we never saw it. Friday, Google also released a teaser for Wallet (seen after the break) that teased the payment service as coming soon. As it says above, Wallet is launching September 19th, most likely to coincide NFC World Congress which kicks off in France tomorrow.
Google Wallet is partnering with MasterCard, Citi Bank, Sprint, and First Data. Wallet will first be available in San Francisco and New York, using NFC and the Wallet app to be able to pay for goods from merchants. Stick with us tomorrow, and we’ll give you all the official details.
An anonymous 4chan user has posted their apparent, and detailed, account with the Samsung Nexus Prime. AndroidandMe has condensed the 4chan post down (seen after the break) to just the interesting key points.
The user says that Verizon apparently passed on the Galaxy S II to sign with Samsung to exclusively offering this next phone, which we expect to be called the Prime. Rumored specs for the device: Samsung’s Exynos dual core CPU clocked at 1.5GHz, 1gb RAM, Super AMOLED Plus 4.65 inch 1280×720 HD display, 16gb internal memory (with sd card slot) is 8.8mm thick, metal body and a 2000mAh battery (the same as the new one that’s being released for the Galaxy S II).
The user also says that the device did feature Ice Cream Sandwich, which he calls nice, but that it is version 2.4.1 and not 4.0. Perhaps they’re holding out on Jellybean?
Check out the other juicy details after the break:
Google Wallet, a mobile payment service announced in May, lets you pay on the go by tapping a phone to an intelligent terminal. If a splashy video tour from Monday is anything to go by, it should forever change – for the better – how we as a society pay for goods and services. Initial implementation requires a MasterCard PayPass terminal which accepts digital receipts and coupons from mobile devices, over the air, and then carries out transactions with financial institutions.
MasterCard today shed more light on a mobile application they’ve been developing in partnership with Google. A quick visit to Engadget which has a cool video tour proves the app works as advertised: Tap a phone to a terminal and that’s it. The app will allow users to set spending limits, set alerts for overseas activity and restrict purchases across categories so, say, your spouse can only pay for dinning, movie tickets and gas, excluding clothes, make up and other impulse purchases.
The app currently works on Sprint’s Nexus S 4G but they are planning on supporting more devices with an NFC chip. The software will also enable MasterCard’s QkR platform for mobile purchasing that supports QR codes, television audio signals encoded with purchase data and even tiny NFC chips embedded into real-world objects, such as fast-food tabletops. These QkR-supported features should be realized across Android, iOS, Windows Phone Mango and BlackBerry platforms, MasterCard promises.
Chrome Web Store, the Google-operated repository of web apps for the Chrome browser, has expaneded to 24 new countries, Google announced in a blog post. The newly supported territories are:
Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
Last month, Google brought Chrome Web Store to sixteen new countries. The nine-month-old store is now available in 55 countries around the world and it hosts web apps which accept in-app payments with a flat five percent fee.
According to Brand Finance, a London-based research firm, Apple is now second to Google in brand value after a 33% increase to overtake IBM, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and GE for the first time. The firm attributes Apple’s success to “innovative design, loyal consumer base and well-executed marketing activities.”
Google, sitting in the top spot with a brand value of almost $48.3 billion was up 9% among the top 30 U.S. brands analyzed by the Brand Finance. Other top companies other than Apple and Google all seen a significant drop including Microsoft down 9% to $39 billion, and IBM and AT&T both experiencing decreases from the year previous. Expand Expanding Close
YouTube has released a simple editor available on the web for users who want to make changes, before actually uploading a video. The editor isn’t anything ground breaking, but adds the ability to add small changes like stabilizing, color changes, and rotation. The new editing features also work on videos that have already been uploaded. If you don’t like changes you can revert back to the original, or upload the changes as a totally new video. We’re sure Google will add more editing features over time, but in the mean time give it a try!
The official announcement by Google regarding Honeycomb for Google TV is just around the corner, and more and more leaks of the OS running on Google TVs are popping up. Today’s leak (seen in the video above) even includes video of the Netflix app optimized for the big screen — score!
You’ll also notice that besides Netflix, other Honeycomb optimized apps are appearing on the Market. A search in the Market for Google TV will return results like, “Fox News for Google TV”.
If you’re feeling adventurous, instructions for installing this latest build on a Logitech Revue are posted over at GTVHacker, but please be aware that this could brick your device. But at $69, it doesn’t seem like as big of a deal. The official announcement should be coming any day now..
IDC has just released their second quarter results for tablet and eReader shipments as well as an updated forecast for the remainder of 2011. While Apple continued to dominate with 68.3% of the global market during Q2, IDC expects Apple’s share to fall as vendors bring competitive Android devices to market later this year and early next.
The study reports second quarter tablet shipments worldwide increased 88.9% (303.8% year over year) citing robust demand for the iPad 2 and sales of 9.3 million units, leading the firm to raise its estimates for the remainder of 2011 from 53.5 million units to 62.5 million.
According to an SEC filing made by Motorola today (seen after the break), Motorola was able to get $3 billion more out of Google before they were acquired for $12 billion — even without any other bidders present. But it isn’t that simple.
Today’s report contradicts August’s, saying Andy Rubin actually assisted in the acquisition when he reached out to Motorola first. It was previously stated that Rubin has no knowledge of the acquisition until the buyout was close to being announced. Rubin and company reached out to Motorola to buy patents, after losing the Nortel deal according to the filing.
The story continues as follows: Motorola’s Sanjay Jha told Google that Motorola wouldn’t only sell patents, rather the whole Motorola Mobility sector. Motorola than rejected two of Google’s offers which were $30 and $37 a share respectively, until both companies finally settled on a final price of $40 per share. Google, it appears, was in a hurry to get the deal done and bid pretty close to Motorola was after in order to avoid going to a long, drawn out auction process.
Google has launched Travel search which will debute across select cities today. The new search is the first product to emerge from ITA, a company Google acquired in April. The new Travel search uses similar methods that you’re used to in traditional Google search. As you can see, a simple search like “flights from New York to San Francisco” returns results under the “flights” category.
With the flights category, flights that pertain to your search will be displayed — where you can see the airline and then purchase tickets. Users are then guided to the airline’s website to actually book the flight.
TIMNreports that Google’s head of mobile, Andy Rubin, dropped a bombshell during his on-stage appearance at the Intel Developer Forum, by announcing that all future versions of Android will be optimized for Intel chips top to bottom. Intel also showed off a prototype Android tablet and phone running on the Medfield chip. Medfield is Intel’s fourth-generation mobile Internet device platform based on a 32-nanometer Atom processor.
The news prompted former Engadget editor Joshua Topolsky to observe on Twitter that Google is cozying up to Intel’s x86 platform at a time when Microsoft is adding support – for the first time in its history – for ARM’s mobile platform in Windows 8. Of course, we remember that Intel promised on numerous occasions that we’d see phones running on Intel chips in “early 2012,” even if everyone assumed the company was referring to Windows 8-powered devices. Google here wants to cover all bases with future versions of Android and it’s likely that the announcement will spark more competition between Intel and chip vendors that manufacture mobile chips based on ARM’s processor blueprints.
Back in April, the Wall Street Journalreported that Google was spending a hundred million dollars to commission premium YouTube content from the likes of Creative Artists Agency, William Morris Endeavor and International Creative Management, to name a few. But the search monster’s agenda is likely much, much bigger, per research note issued to clients by William Blair & Company. The research firm believes that “Google is silently buying/licensing hundreds of millions of dollars of professional Hollywood content”. Think $100-$200 million for rights to premium Hollywood content:
Google has the resources and infrastructure to be a big player in Hollywood content. Becoming a major player in the premium-content industry requires a com- bination of capital and technology resources that few have. Google fits the bill, how- ever, with $39 billion in cash, annual free cash flow of $9.4 billion, Android, Chrome, YouTube, Google TV, the world’s largest advertising platform, and Motorola Mobility’s set-top-box business. Lastly, Google has made several key Hollywood hires over the past year to understand content rights.
Hollywood studios could consider going to bed with Google should it subsidize their wholesale fees and at least partially monetize the movies through advertising. Consumers would be given the choice of either watching a pricier, ad-free version or rent ad-supported titles for a lower fee. Stakes are high in this game. The market is worth an estimated $65 billion and just advertising on digital home entertainment is a billion dollar business (see the table after the break).
Google, of course, is facing fierce competition from the likes of Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, in addition to traditional retailers such as Best Buy (CinemaNow) and Wal-Mart (Vudu). Weighing in on Amazon, Google and Apple, William Blair summed it up nicely:
We believe Amazon’s digital agenda is to gain Prime customers, Apple’s strategy is to sell devices, and Google’s focus is to build a bigger ad footprint.
Now, if Google has in fact been quietly licensing studio content left and right, prudent watchers should expect a splashy announcement alongside GoogleTV 2.0, which is due end of summer, as in any day now. If Google can leverage their pending Motorola acquisition, which makes millions of set-top boxes for other IPTV players, Google could quickly establish an end-to-end Hollywood entertainment delivery platform that even Apple might find difficult to crack. In all, Google has likely found its new $65 billion market, the research note reasons:
The Logitech Google TV console has just dropped to $90 at Tiger Direct (New, free shipping). Interestingly, this box will be upgradable to GoogleTV 2.0, due out in the next month or so. Why is Google/Logitech in such a hurry to get rid of these? Certainly when GoogleTV 2 comes out, they will be worth more to the consumer, won’t they?
I think this also hints that the second round of GoogleTVs will be much cheaper than the first. Expand Expanding Close
This is a Samsung-branded Windows 8 tablet Microsoft is giving away to BUILD attendees today. Wanna take bets on possible actions from Apple? Go past the break for unboxing clips. Image courtesy of MobileTechWorld
The latest in the ongoing patent saga involving Apple, Google, Motorola and Samsung includes an unexpected twist as Samsung goes after iPhone and iPad with a complaint filed before a Paris district court in July. The filing alleges infringement of Samsung’s three technology patents, reportsAFP. The first hearing is expected in December of this year.
Meanwhile, patent expert Florian Müller notes on his blog FOSSPatents that Apple has filed motions to temporarily halt two Motorola lawsuits until Google completes its $12.5 billion acquisition, which shook the technology world last month. Put simply, Apple argues Motorola waived its rights to sue when it transferred patents to Google. Apple wrote:
To further its pending acquisition by Google, Motorola has surrendered critical rights in the patents-in-suit, such that Motorola no longer has prudential standing to pursue this action. According to the publicly-filed Merger Agreement, Motorola has ceded control of the most basic rights regarding the patents-in-suit
As you know, Google has transferred some of the Motorola patents to HTC, in addition to the ones acquired from Palm and Openwave Systems. HTC then used those patents to counter-sue Apple. Back to Apple vs. Samsung…
Financial Timestoday opined that Samsung needs to hit the reset button, predicting a licensing agreement of sorts provided Apple succeeds in blocking Galaxy products in the U.S. next month. Contrary to the reports, the publication thinks “Apple is restricted from taking its chip business to Samsung’s rivals in Taiwan because Samsung offers a complete package of components that other firms cannot match”. However, there are indications that Apple’s been lowering Samsung orders for some time and it’s widely believed the company is eager to take its silicon business to TSMC beginning next year.
In jargon talk, marketeers frequently argue that Android is from Mars and iPhone is from Venus when explaining the different demographics and appeal of the two platforms. Be that as it may, it would be interesting to figure out what apps are people particularly liking on their Android devices. That’s what research firm Nielsen set out to discover in their latest survey that analyzes app trends among U.S. consumers. Based on data obtained from on-device meters on thousands of Android smartphones, Nielsen found out that Google’s own programs dominate the list of most-used Android apps nation-wide.
In addition to Facebook (#2) and Android Market (as expected, it ranked first), the top 10 list based on overall active reach includes Google Map, Gmail, Google Search, YouTube, Adv. Task Killer Free, Angry Birds, QuickOffice Pro and Pandora Radio. Amazon’s storefront app to their own Appstore for Android ranked twelfth.
Gender break down reveals that the Facebook app is more popular with the ladies, reaching 81 percent versus 69 percent for male users. Google+, on the other hand, is more popular with male Android users (15.8 percent active reach) than women (7.2 percent). Google Maps has the highest reach among male Android users, 77.1 percent, second only to Android Market. Twitter, Words With Friends and Kindle apps are more popular with female Android users in the United States.
And while we’re at it, what do you reckon the most profitable apps on Android are? Games? Entertainment? Adult apps? No. It’s weather programs, per research2guidance’s free “Android Market Insights” research note.
