New York Stories April 19, 2016
During elections and other major events, Google Trends usually posts interesting statistics and data visualizations based on search results. While not necessarily reflective of today’s New York primary, Bernie Sanders is leading (via The Hill) Hillary Clinton in search interest and other related terms.
New York Stories July 28, 2015
It’s early but we’re here at the Moto ‘Choose a Better Relationship” event in NYC. We’re obviously expecting a new Moto X and Moto G but we’re really excited to see what a better mobile relationship entails. We’re live! Head below for the latest.
New York Stories January 7, 2015
Bloomberg reports that a Manhattan District Attorney is challenging recent moves by Apple, Google and other tech companies by suggesting government pass laws that prevent mobile devices from being “sealed off from law enforcement.” In an interview this week, the government official called it “an issue of public safety.”
New York Stories November 5, 2014
Google recently purchased some premium real estate close to its headquarters in Mountain View, California and it looks like the outfit is trying to expanding its office setup on the East Coast. According to Vornado Realty Trust the tech company has signed a lease for an 180,000 square foot industrial space in New York at 85 10th Avenue that used to be a Nabisco factory.
New York Stories October 24, 2014
The New York City Police Department is about to distribute 41,000 mobile devices under a new $160 million program known as the NYPD Mobility Initiative. Financed by criminal asset funds, the project will equip New York’s finest with 35,000 mobile devices and 6,000 ruggedized tablets will be added to patrol vehicles.
New York Stories August 25, 2014
Samsung posts second ‘Ready to note’ teaser video ahead of next week’s launch of Galaxy Note 4
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txa2wUO6fvg]
Samsung Mobile has posted to its YouTube channel a second teaser video for the Galaxy Note 4, due to be launched on 3rd September at IFA in Berlin, with satellite events in New York and Beijing. Both videos highlight the S Pen that sets it apart from other tablets.
The first video focused on the concept of saving handwriting from being a lost art, while this new one showcases some of the other uses of the pen, from annotating maps through playing games, editing photos to typing on a keyboard.
If an early posting on an Indonesian retail site is genuine, the Note 4 will have a 5.7-inch 1440×2560 Super AMOLED display, a quad-core Snapdragon 805 (with a second version substituting an Exynos 5433) and 4GB of RAM. A separate report says that it will have a 16MP camera with a capacitive touch shutter button.
We’ll find out for sure in nine days on 3rd September.
New York Stories June 23, 2014
Politico has an interesting look at the lobbying Google need to do to ensure that it’s technological plans don’t get outlawed by legislation.
We’ve mentioned before one obvious need for lobbying: ensuring that self-driving cars are legal to use once they are eventually ready to go on sale to the public.
Google’s self-driving car has posed that particular challenge: Twelve states this year alone have explored some new regulation of those vehicles on local roadways, according to data compiled for POLITICO by the National Conference of State Legislatures. And in almost each of those capitals, Google has lobbied intensely to stave off any new, onerous restrictions …
New York Stories April 16, 2014
Earlier this week, a job listing emerged regarding Google Fiber in New York City. This led many people to speculate that Google was working to launch its fiber network in the Big Apple. Fiber rollouts have been sparse so far, with the service only hitting a few markets, including Austin and Kansas City, so the idea of it launching in a city as massive as New York was certainly surprising. Although the company did recently announce a larger-scale rollout to nine new metro areas.
New York Stories April 15, 2014
Job listing hints at Google Fiber plans for New York City
Google recently announced plans to expand its Google Fiber Gigabit internet and TV service beyond Kansas City & Austin to 34 more cities and it looks like it also has plans for New York City. Geek.com points us to a job listing looking for a regional sales manager based in New York that would “manage multiple teams that evangelize Google Fiber services to MDU (multi-dwelling apartments and condos) and large SMB owners.”
You will hire and manage a team that proactively reaches out and and articulates how Google Fiber Solutions can help make their work more productive. You will excel at team development, sales training and market strategy, while cultivating a strong base of new clients and working with fellow technical Googlers to devise solutions to meet customer needs.
Google has slowly been rolling out its Gigabit Google Fiber service starting with Kansas City and Austin since first unveiling Fiber back in 2012. In February, it announced plans for its biggest rollout yet including upcoming launches scheduled for Raleigh Durham, NC, Atlanta, San Jose, CA, Phoenix, AZ, Portland, and many surrounding areas. New York would be a big one to add to the list, but Google has yet to confirm any official plans.
New York Stories April 14, 2014
Not enough space?
Google owns the biggest building by square footage in New York City, the 111 Eighth Avenue building previously owned by the Port Authority and one of the most wired buildings in the world. Google finalized the $1.9B purchase at the end of 2010 and has continued to also occupy office space in the Chelsea Market building across the street.
The WSJ reports (paywall) Google now…
wants to expand further in the city, launching a search for enough space to hold more than 3,000 employees, according to several real-estate executives familiar with the hunt.
The Internet firm has been in discussions with several landlords about leasing at much as 600,000 square feet in Manhattan—about half the size of the Chrysler Building. A space that large would represent a roughly 80% expansion for the company, which first established a small outpost in New York in 2000.
What’s interesting about this expansion plan is that Google hasn’t even filled out its Chelsea offices, still leasing many offices out to other companies and data centers that signed leases before the 2010 purchase.
New York Stories March 25, 2014
In case you’ve missed the countless rumors and leaks on tech blogs in recent weeks, HTC is about to unveil its second generation HTC One that has up until now mostly been referred to as its codename “M8”. If you want to watch the live event taking place in New York in just over an hour from now at 11am ET, it looks like you’ll be able to do so through what appears to be a live stream on HTC’s website here.
It looks like there won’t be many surprises at the event— there’s already a full video walkthrough of the device online— but we’ll at the very least get confirmation of specs, a look at new software features, and hopefully details on pricing and availability. If the rumors are right, HTC might stick with the One branding and simply call the device The New HTC One. In addition to the livestream, we’ll be on hand at the event to bring you updates as they happen on 9to5Google.com.
New York Stories February 27, 2014
Search for Agloe, NY, in Google Maps and the small town will duly appear. Which is odd, as Agloe doesn’t exist, and never has.
BigThink reports that Agloe was one of a number of ‘paper towns,’ places that were invented by early map-makers back in the 1930s in order to catch out rival companies who stole their work.
How do you prove someone stole your map, if that map accurately reflects reality? The answer: add fantasy! Mapmakers had been able to take their competitors to court by pointing out fake places (a.k.a. paper towns) on their maps that were copied from their original work! For this reason, fictitious roads are often called trap streets: because they entrap the company copying them onto their own maps … expand full story
New York Stories February 10, 2014
HTC acknowledges that it needs more than high-end handsets
While HTC technically ended 2013 in profit, the company says that declining margins are likely to see it end the first quarter of this year with a loss. HTC reported a wafer-thin profit of $10M from revenues of $1.4B, the latter figure 28 percent down year-on year. Its global market share of shipments was just two percent.
Reuters reports that the company plans to make a wider range of more affordable phones – the same strategy used by Samsung. Samsung made most of its money last year from a combination of its chip-manufacturing business and low- to mid-range handsets, and has itself come under pressure from low-cost competitor handsets … expand full story
New York Stories February 5, 2014
Now that Google’s Glass Explorer program is open to just about anyone in the U.S. that wants to signup for the $1500 head-mounted computer, we’re bound to see more and more people test the product in new scenarios. Today we get word from a VentureBeat report that The New York City Police Department has invested in a few pairs of the wearable in order to test Glass as a surveillance tool during patrols. expand full story
New York Stories November 12, 2013
In its Explorer Story: Young Guru [through Google Glass], Google shows a lot of new features of the Google Glass upgrade and expected upgrades including the hardware addition of the stereo headphones.
We discussed Google Music hidden in the XE11 update yesterday but we’re seeing the Shazam type of song recognition, and some nice translation work as well.
Can’t wait! via
New York Stories November 4, 2013
If an existing Google Glass Explorer has sent one of their three invitations to you, the good news is you no longer have to travel to Google’s offices in NY or LA to collect your gadget in person.
For the first round of Explorers, Google had insisted on personal collection so that a member of staff could talk them through the product and assist them with setup. Those accepting invitations now are being offered a 45-minute one-to-one on Google Hangouts … expand full story
New York Stories October 1, 2013
YouTube has announced a crowd-sourced music awards show streamed live from New York on 3rd November, with the winning acts chosen by YouTube viewers.
We get it. You love music. From propelling unknown artists to the top of the charts, to cheering on established artists as they reinvent the music video, to remixing and reimagining your own, music fans have turned YouTube into the world’s go-to music destination. Now, to celebrate music fans and the music you love, we’re announcing a new kind of awards show–one powered by you … expand full story
New York Stories September 23, 2013
The New York Times reports that New York regulators will today announce a new initiative that aims to crackdown on fake reviews online. They’ve already reached settlement agreements with a number of companies and issued fines of around $350,000 to companies purchasing and providing fake reviews, many of which are submitted to services such as Google, Yahoo, and Yelp. Fake reviews have always been an issue for Google Play and just about every mobile app marketplace, so perhaps regulators will soon extend their investigation to mobile app stores as well.
“What we’ve found is even worse than old-fashioned false advertising,” said Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York attorney general. “When you look at a billboard, you can tell it’s a paid advertisement — but on Yelp or Citysearch, you assume you’re reading authentic consumer opinions, making this practice even more deceiving.”
Regulators found that US Coachways, one of the companies included in the investigation, had hired freelance writers to write fake reviews on Yelp and other services: expand full story
New York Stories September 9, 2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_JQxm53114
Motorola just released a trio of humorous ads touting features of its Moto X phone that don’t come in other phones. Above, highlights the abilities of the Moto X to respond to voice commands without touching the device. Two more goodies below show the shake to camera and quick look features. Both are great. expand full story
New York Stories June 5, 2013
After sending a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google, and others questioning if the companies could be doing more to prevent increasing thefts of smartphones, State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has now scheduled a face to face meeting with the companies to discuss the issue.
NYDailyNews reports Schneiderman and San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon will meet with representatives from Apple, Google, Motorola, Samsung and Microsoft at a June 13 “smartphone summit” in New York.
Schneiderman wants the same thing that San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón has been pushing device makers on in recent months– a ‘kill switch’ that would render a device inoperable and discourage thefts of devices: expand full story
New York Stories April 25, 2013
Samsung Electronics celebrated the launch of the Samsung Experience Shop today with the grand opening of their newest location in New York’s Union Square Best Buy store. JK Shin, CEO and President of IT and Mobile Business at Samsung, Hubert Joly, CEO of Best Buy, and Tim Baxter, President of Samsung Electronics America hosted an executive grand opening. Samsung also announced an experiential consumer event featuring Bruno Mars to celebrate the launch of this innovative retail concept.
The activities mark the beginning of a nationwide rollout of the Samsung Experience Shop, which will be installed in more than 1,400 Best Buy and Best Buy Mobile specialty stores across the U.S. by early summer. Samsung Experience Shops are beginning to open just in time for the official launch of the highly-anticipated Samsung Galaxy S 4.
Google users will find not only Samsung Android phones and tablets (and cameras!) but Chromebooks at the new store-within-a-store. Full press release follows: expand full story
New York Stories April 11, 2013
Google has been hiring a group of individuals on one year contracts to help the Glass explorers with their upcoming Glasswear we’ve learned. The employees would be based in New York or San Francisco but travel to events throughout the US and eventually overseas. These people will also be manning the retail presence that Google hopes to have in New York, San Francisco and possibly LA by the end of the year.
Glass explorer editions are to begin shipping next month after an initial run of a few thousand.
New York Stories March 13, 2013
Google doubles its Seattle offices in Microsoft/Amazon’s backyard to work on the ‘biggest, baddest’ Cloud platform
Google is blowing up its Seattle presence, already the company’s third largest after Mountain View and New York City, reports the New York Times.
Google plans a major recruiting effort to increase its Seattle-area engineering staff by as much as five times. There is already fierce competition among tech companies for talented engineers, and many of those with skills in cloud computing work at Google’s rivals in Seattle.
“We’re not the first in this rodeo, but we have the history of Google,” said Brian Goldfarb, Google’s leader of cloud platform marketing, who joined the company last year after a decade at Microsoft. “We have the best data centers on the planet. You can’t really give engineers a bigger, badder thing to work on.”
Google is also adding 180,000 square feet to its office in Kirkland, Wash., which together with its Seattle office already houses more than 1,000 employees, making it Google’s third largest in the country after its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., and its office in New York.
Oh, some interesting App Engine Stats were slipped into page 2:
The company says that 250,000 developers use it to run 1 million apps that generate up to 7.5 billion page hits a day.
New York Stories February 28, 2013
Posted via Tweet, Samsung announced this morning that it’ll be live streaming the Galaxy S IV unveiling at Times Square in New York City. Samsung plans on starting the event at 7AM in the Big Apple on March 14th. If you can’t make the trip there though, you can live stream the event on Samsung’s Youtube channel the day of the event.
New York Stories October 26, 2012
Google Senior Vice President of Engineering Vic Gundotra posted some vacation photos to his Google+ (via AndroidCentral) page that appear to have been snapped by a yet-to-be unveiled Samsung Nexus 10. Some information that we learn about the tablet’s camera specs: the image is shot at 2,048-by-1,536 resolution (3.1 megapixels), which is rather low, but that’s likely because Google+ resized the images. It seems unlikely Vic would post images from another device with the camera listed as “Nexus 10,” but we’ll know for sure on Monday when Google is expected to announce the Nexus 10 alongside the new LG Nexus 4 in New York.
Another one of the images is below:
New York Stories October 25, 2012
Apparently, keeping secrets isn’t in Google’s DNA. Following a leak of the LG Nexus 4 this morning, ahead of Google’s press event on Monday, we now get a look at what appears to be the support manual for the rumored Samsung-built Nexus 10 tablet. The Verge pointed us to these pair of images from Korean website Seeko, showing some basic specs for the 10-inch tablet.
It’s not clear if these images are legitimate. Moreover, unfortunately, we don’t learn much from the images. If they are the real deal, it appears the new Nexus 10 will sport a design much different from the current Nexus 7 lineup. As you can see in the images above, the placement of the volume rockers, and other components, line up with the Galaxy Note 10.1, but the sides of the device in landscape orientation appear to have a slight curve. None of the specs listed that we can see are surprising, including: a micro USB port, headphone jack, LED indicator, micro HDMI port, and a back camera with flash. We’ll be at Google’s event in New York on Monday where we hope to get a better look at the new device.
New York Stories June 11, 2012
According to a post on Google’s European Public Policy Blog, the company is forging groundbreaking partnerships with French publishers that it believes “will put France ahead of the rest of the world in bringing long lost out-of-print works back to life.” The agreements, Google claimed, will put an end to roughly six years of legal disputes with several publishers and authors in the country. The deals will also allow Google to continue ahead in its goal to bring the almost 75 percent of books that are currently out of print and unavailable to most. The result is publishers working with Google to “promote and commercialize” scanned copies of out-of-print works:
New York Stories May 21, 2012
Google’s CEO Larry Page announced today that Google will lend a mammoth section of its New York headquarters to CornellNYC Tech, while the Ivy-league university finishes construction on its Roosevelt Island campus.
New York City’s Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Cornell President David Skorton, and Technion’s Director Craig Gotsman revealed the allocation this morning and explained the gesture helps Cornell to work within a stone’s throw of the world’s top tech companies, startups, and entrepreneurs.
“I’m passionate about breaking ground in science and engineering because technology has driven many of the advances humankind has made,” said Page in a public statement. “But we still don’t have enough people working in these areas. It’s why I am tremendously pleased that Google is giving Cornell the office space to get their new engineering university up and running in New York City.”
According to the presser, the arrangement between the parties is a direct commitment aimed at fostering tech talent in New York City. Google will first provide Cornell with the large office space on July 1, 2012 at no cost for “5 years and 6 months or until the completion of Cornell’s campus on Roosevelt Island.”
Cornell can also expand the space to 58,000 square feet over five years.
The full press release is below.
New York Stories April 30, 2012
Google Chrome’s Matt Frost will give keynote at Streaming Media East 2012
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StreamingMedia.com just announced that Google Chrome’s Senior Business Product Manager Matt Frost would give a keynote speech during the 15th annual Streaming Media East conference in New York, which is occurring between May 15 and May 16 at the Hilton. Frost’s presentation will discuss device, operating system, and browser deviation and how it impacts the video-sphere, as well as what producers can do to establish a uniform user-experience. The press release elaborated:
Frost’s keynote will also cover Google’s direction for online media technology and he will address audience questions in a Q&A session after the keynote.
The annual event is also offering presentations by over 100 industry executives including: Google TV, YouTube, Samsung, Roku, EPIX, Boxee, EVO, TiVo, HBO, MTV Networks, Starz Media, AOL Video, CBS Interactive, Hearst Interactive Media, and more.
New York Stories February 10, 2012
A rumor debuted yesterday that claimed Google is currently developing and testing a streaming home-entertainment system in many of its employee’s homes. Today, a new temporary Federal Communications Commission license awarded to Google revealed that the company is testing a “next generation personal communication device,” whether it is connected to the home-entertainment system or not. A total 102 units of this prototype are in employee’s homes across Mountain View, Los Angeles, New York, and Massachusetts’ areas. The request is specifically for the use of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi in the prototype. (via The Verge)
This prototype could also certainly be Google’s new personal HUD glasses that we told you about earlier this week. Our sources said the Google X crew is developing them, and they could ship in a beta like Chromebook did. We also told you that the glasses will sport Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, so today’s FCC request could certainly be the glasses.
New York Stories December 14, 2011
Hop on board an American Airlines flight this holiday season and your pilot will be wielding an iPad as a flight bag replacement but you – a first-class passenger – will be treated with a Galaxy Tab 10.1 to keep you entertained. Keen on bringing balance back to the force, the airliner teamed up with South Korea-based Samsung to offer the Galaxy Tab 10.1 on their premium cabins onboard certain transcontinental flights. Here’s the sales line:
Sit back, relax, and let the new Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 take you to the movies or catch up on your favorite shows. The new device enables a unique viewing experience, featuring a bold and vibrant LCD, with brilliant colors and crisp definition.
Go past the fold for a list of flights serving some Galaxy Tab in-flight entertainment. expand full story
New York Stories August 23, 2011
Wired‘s got some good news for Amazon, Google, Dropbox and anyone else who stores music in the Cloud. The practice is legal and doesn’t infringe on record company rights. Additionally, Cloud companies need not store multiple copies of the same song, so long as each users file is the exact same copy, including MD5 hash (same bit rates, album art, etc).
In a complicated federal court decision Monday (see Threat Level’s write-up), a New York federal court judge ruled that the practice was legal — but only insofar as the single storage method is done for exactly unique copies. So for instance, all people who bought “Stairway to Heaven” as an MP3 from Amazon would have the exact same file (as determined by an MD5 Hash) and MP3tunes could just store a single copy.
However, the ruling makes clear that if MP3tunes scanned a customer’s music collection and found “Stairway to Heaven” ripped from a CD with a slightly different file size, the company could not simply substitute a master copy. Instead, that customer would have to upload the file.
The decision also said that allowing “sideloading” of songs was legal. That was the feature of MP3tunes that let users add songs they’d found on webpages, such as music blogs, directly to their online locker.
New York Stories July 12, 2011
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While Google Offers has been available in Portland, OR for sometime, Google has today launched offers in New York and San Francisco. Google Offers gives users daily deals on local items and services, just like GroupOn, Living Social, and GILT City. To start using Offers, locals can sign up on the Offer’s website or use the Google Shopper Android app.
Google also announced that Offers will be on its way to Austin, Denver, Washington D.C., Boston, and Seattle soon. See any good deals? [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHKum7fidIk] expand full story
New York Stories May 30, 2011
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On the possibility of Apple dropping Google Maps (we’ve heard they aren’t): Mayer says there are 200 million active users of Maps and in June more people will use them on mobile than the desktop. (Although at 100 million iPhones out there, an Apple exodus would put a monster dent in those numbers. Also, new Google Mobile Maps (not iOS) use vector tiles which can be up to 100 times smaller files than the traditional bitmap tiles.
Also, location is getting better as more data is input (learning), especially in big cities like New York with check-ins helping out.
Finally, she expects phones to know what you want before you ask, called ‘serendipity’ or ‘zero-click’.
Full transcript available here.
