YouTube

Google is presenting the first-ever Google TV Hackathon Weekend for television-loving Android geeks later this month.

The Internet giant announced today that it is collaborating with the Silicon Valley Android Developers Group and the London Android Group to host two simultaneous TV Hackathons with the goal of creating new experiences for Google TV.

The SVAndroid Hackathon is taking place at Google TV headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., and tickets are $20, but purchasing options end April 17.

Team ideas will be announced April 20, and the following day is “devoted to building, with breaks for demo sessions, Q&As, and a hangout with Google TV developers,” according to the Official Google TV Blog. The teams will present ideas to judges April 22 for the chance to win tickets to Google I/O and other prizes.

The Londroid Hackathon is occurring at the Google Campus in London, United Kingdom. It will run concurrent with the Mountain View event to gather Android devs throughout Europe.

“We will kick things off bright and early on Saturday, April 21, with introductions and background information on developing for Google TV. Teams will power on through Saturday night so that we can do a round of presentations and prizes at lunchtime on Sunday,” explained Google TV Senior Developer Advocate Paul Carff on the Official Google TV Blog.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Google is attending this year’s annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, but the movie-making industry is anything but excited about the Internet giant’s presence.

According to The New York Times’ blog, the dinner is a large Hollywood affair equipped with buffets, banquets, and after-parties, where entertainment stars, media moguls, and famed celebrities alike gather to party the night away and mingle with the country’s most powerful politicians.

Google’s Eric Schmidt is a fresh face on this year’s guest list, but many show business executives, still scorned by the defeated antipiracy legislation earlier this year, are perturbed that the executive chairman plans to appear.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based Company’s role in conquering the hotly-debated legislation, coupled with Schmidt’s co-hosted pre-event party with The Hollywood Reporter in Washington on April 27, is just salt on the wound for many media executives.

The Los Angeles Times even noted the party does not “go unnoticed in the community.”

Expand
Expanding
Close

.

Besides the Scobelizer spotting Google Glasses on co-founder Sergey Brin (above), we are hearing some additional information about the project. First, the brand was changed from “Project Wingfront,” which was the name of the project in the [x] labs. As it graduated to public knowledge, Google needed a more general-purpose name. I am told this decision was made in the past month.

Additionally, my understanding is that there has been a lot of strife in the Wingfront group over the past few months. Product people complain that they need time to iterate and perfect the experience, while management wants to get these into the outside world as soon as possible. Some strong tensions in the group are getting even more heated as more people are brought in.

The glasses shown off in the video and on the Plus page is only one of many prototypes worn in the [x] labs. I am told that there are clip-on models that attach to normal glasses, as well as ones built into full-fledge sunglasses that I previously detailed (here and here).

But most importantly, when can we buy these things?
Expand
Expanding
Close

On the Google Investor Relations website, Google’s Chief Executive Officer Larry Page just published his “2012 Update from the CEO” to give an update on the state of the company since taking over as chief and “reorganizing the management team” around the company’s core products.

In the letter, Page talks a lot about one of his biggest efforts during the last year: Google+. While noting, “We have a long way to go,” he said the service now has 100 million active users and the company has implemented more than 120 Google+ integrations with services like search and Android.

Last April, I began by reorganizing the management team around our core products to improve responsibility and accountability across Google. I also kicked off a big clean-up. Google has so many opportunities that, unless we make some hard choices, we end up spreading ourselves too thin and don’t have the impact we want. So we have closed or combined over 30 products, including projects like Knol and Sidewiki. In addition, we gave many of our products, such as Google Search, a visual refresh, and they now have a cleaner, more consistent, and beautiful look.

Addressing concerns over changes made to privacy policies and search in recent months that have “generated a lot of interest,” Page explained the company’s incentive to “do the right thing”:

We have always wanted Google to be a company that is deserving of great love. But we recognize this is an ambitious goal because most large companies are not well-loved, or even seemingly set up with that in mind. We’re lucky to have a very direct relationship with our users, which creates a strong incentive for us to do the right thing… We have always believed that it’s possible to make money without being evil. In fact, healthy revenue is essential if we are to change the world through innovation, and hire (and retain) great people..

The full letter is below…

Expand
Expanding
Close

[youtube=http://youtu.be/9jGvCdthQso]

YouTube now automatically allows short 1080p videos to convert to 3D.

The video-sharing platform just announced on the official YouTube blog that it is expanding a beta feature released last year, which gives users the option to convert YouTube videos to 3D with just a click of a mouse. Since the beta launched, creators have converted hundreds of thousands of videos to 3D.

The popularity of the feature encouraged YouTube to implement 3D viewing in the Quality settings under the gear icon on the YouTube player.

“Then pop on your 3D glasses and see YouTube in another dimension (like the video above),” explained Technical Staffer Deb Mukherjee and Software Engineer Chen Wu in the blog post.

The Googlers even recommended watching “YouTube Rewind 2011” to get the full YouTube 3D experience (below).

Expand
Expanding
Close

YouTube announced a new licensing agreement with Paramount Pictures today that will bring 500 new rentable movie titles to its video-sharing platform and Google Play.

“With the addition of Paramount, we now have five of the six major studios and over ten independent movie studios offering nearly 9,000 movies for rent to millions of people around the world,” announced Director of Content Partnerships at YouTube Malik Ducard on the official YouTube blog.

The United States and Canada will have access to the new catalog over the next few weeks. A sampling of Paramount Pictures’ featured movies through Google include “Hugo” for $3.99, “Transformers” for $2.99, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” for $2.99, and “The Godfather” for $2.99.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Google+ now displays Google Contacts data in friends’ profiles.

“Many of you, like me, use Google Contacts to manage your personal address book. If that’s the case, then starting today we’ll include this contact info on your friends’ Google+ profiles — for your eyes only, of course,” announced Product Manager Sean Purcell on Google+.

Thus, Gmail and Android users’ Google Contacts are now integrated with the social network. For example: If a coworker has a new number recently stored in Google Contacts, it will automatically sync with Google+ in the  “Details from Google Contacts” section. Purcell also provided a visual example of the new feature in the above image.

Expand
Expanding
Close

[youtube=http://youtu.be/QUPtHsNdoBw]

Samsung is making headlines this quarter with show-stopping commercials that critics claim vastly surpass all of Apple’s advert offerings.

Television analytics firm Ace Metrix dubbed the Galaxy Note’s “The Best of a Phone and Tablet” commercial by Samsung (above) as the “Most Effective Ad” in Q1 2012.

“Q1 is arguably the most important quarter for advertising, as the Super Bowl, Oscars, and awards season in general drives the advertising agenda,” said Ace Metrix Chief Executive Officer Peter Daboll in a press release. “[…] Samsung’s top-ranked ad was particularly brilliant because it conveyed innovation and information without a narrator.”

The Android-based device’s ad garnered a 686-point score, which gave Samsung the No. 1 spot on the Top 10 Most Effective Ads list. Samsung released nine ads in Q1, and three were heralded as the most effective technology ads for the quarter, earning between 686 and 636 points each.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Sony plans to expand Google TV-based set-top-boxes to Europe starting this September.

According to GigaOM (via machine-translated Les Echos), Sony France Marketing Director Stephane Labrousse said a set-top box will sell in France for €200 ($266 USD) and another box with a built-in Blu-ray player will go for €300 ($399 USD).

Aside from a France launch, Les Echos indicated a simultaneous release in Spain, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Google TV is currently only available in the United States, but Sony announced at Las Vegas’ 2012 Consumer Electronics Show that two Google TV-compatible set-top boxes would go international within the year.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Google, which seems to give every department a mission for today, has a bunch of great stuff (like every year):

Besides the 8 bit maps, above, we have:

Google Chrome multitask:

LLCoolJ makes a special appearance to explain Tap, the new Morse Code Keyboard for Android devices (Japanese version):

Google Self Driving NASCAR Racing:

Google Jargonbot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dP_Et8-pQNo

YouTube comes to DVD…

Fiber Bar for Kansas City:

Also, Google’s Really Advanced Search, weather control, Interplanetary Analytics, GoRo, Google Street Roo, underwater image search (Chinese), and Voice for Pets.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KhZKNZO8mQ&feature=youtu.be]

I was just thinking about something like this.

By the way, is that LL Cool J at the end?
Expand
Expanding
Close

In case you were worried that 8-Bit Maps were the only new release today, fear not. Google is releasing the Google Racing Autonomous NASCAR racing team in a variety of flavors, including Android, YouTube, and Chrome.
Expand
Expanding
Close

[youtube=http://youtu.be/90MIiBvXYcw]

World—meet Google Consumer Surveys: Just when it looks like Google has extended its reach into every dark corner of the Internet, the search engine launches a new service to reap more cash online.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Google gave a testimony to Congress last year claiming it earned two-thirds of its mobile revenue from iOS devices, but now it seems as though the company’s estimate might have been low.

Google made less than $550 million in revenues for Android between 2008 and 2011, while making four times as much revenue during the same period with Apple products that employ Google services like Search and Maps.

According to The Guardian, the settlement offer provided yesterday by Google to Oracle depicted Android’s revenue streams. Settlement discussions ordered by Judge William Alsup were derailed when Oracle rejected Google’s low offer to pay royalties on Android if alleged patent infringements deem true in court.

Reuters reported yesterday that the settlement stems from a 2010 lawsuit where Oracle claimed its Java-related patents were infringed by Android. Oracle acquired the intellectual property in question when it purchased Sun Microsystems in 2010.

Expand
Expanding
Close

[youtube=http://youtu.be/YR_tckUfcEc]

Daria Musk is a singer-songwriter that joined Google+ last July and went from zero followers to over 1 million with the help of Hangouts in less than 8 months.

Check out the video above to hear this performer’s awe-inspiring story. It looks like YouTube isn’t the only Google service turning-out stars these days (ahem—Bieber). The official Google Ad Words blog also highlighted Musk in a post today about how to go global with Google+:

Expand
Expanding
Close

Just when the tech-world is seemingly about to explode with apps—apps for Android, apps for iPhone, apps for set-top boxes, apps for computers, apps for Facebook—Google adds to the bubbling pot with Google+ Hangout apps.

Google Product Manager Amit Fulay announced on Google+ today the first implementation of apps in the social network’s standout multi-person video chat feature:

Expand
Expanding
Close

Google just launched a new feature called “Account Activity” that sends account-holders monthly encrypted reports about their signed-in frittering across the Web and Google services.

Once a user opts-in to the feature, Google will confirm and then send the first monthly report (see image below). The full-report gives Account information, such as locations, browsers, and platforms employed while Internet surfing.

The report also gives Gmail specifics, like most contacted addresses and to-and-fro message counts, and it breaks-down other Google services’ particulars, including Web history with users’ top searches, types, and queries, and a personal YouTube report on uploaded video activity and viewers’ location data. Users can also delete old reports or browse previous months as they begin to pile up.

Expand
Expanding
Close

[brightcove vid=1532728417001&exp3=88243316001&surl=http://c.brightcove.com/services&pubid=88246127001&pk=AQ~~,AAAAFIvhCZk~,7xyzJ_9_m5Guzgt0rNZvDtr2oxJKW81f&w=586&h=512]

Epson America announced it is now shipping the world’s first Android-powered wearable display—the Epson Moverio.

With Google’s impending entry into the glasses space, Epson’s $699.99 offering is essential due to its 80-inch perceived projection display, Dolby Mobile surround sound, Wi-Fi connectivity, 6-hour battery life, 1GB of built-in storage, and 4GB microSDHC with accompanying slot.

Google’s mobile platform powers the track-pad controller and allows a user to watch YouTube or Vimeo videos, play apps and games, browse the Internet, and more. According to Epson America’s Director of New Business Development Anna Jen, there is even support for side-by-side 3D technology:

“The Moverio BT-100 see-through display is poised to significantly impact not only the way people interact with content for personal enjoyment, but the development of content for future applications – from virtual training platforms to a new way to interact with 3D CAD environments to visualizing 3D design renderings.”

The Epson Moverio BT-100 is now available through Epson’s retail website, select resellers, or by pre-order through Amazon. The Tokyo, Japan-based electronics manufacturer also recommended a few apps that take full advantage of its latest achievement, such as Netflix, Pandora, Amazon Kindle, and the Angry Birds suite.

The full presser and additional promo shots are below.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Google added its Google Play service to the black navigation bar found at the top of its search engine.

The “Play” link seems to only appear for users logged into their Google account. Moreover, the Mountain View, Calif.-based Company is likely rolling out the addition, because some users claim they are unable to see the new icon in the Google bar.

It is worth noting the link still does not appear on Google’s main search page—despite being signed-in.

UPDATE: The “Play” link now appears on Google’s main search page whether or not a user is signed-in.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Princeton University’s Office of Information Technology recently polled 150 students who tested Google Apps’ Gmail and Microsoft Office 365 and results showed only two preferred the latter.

According to The Daily Princetonian, the undergraduate student government is collaborating with OIT to move the student body from its current email server Webmail to either Google Apps or Microsoft Office 365.

Google Apps is a cloud-based productivity suite that features several Web application user-interfaces similar to traditional office suites—like Microsoft Office 365. The services vary per edition but generally include Docs, Gmail, Calendar, Talk, Sites, Groups, Video, and Marketplace. Its popularity among students and educational institutions is rapidly increasing due to enhanced sharing features, accessibility, and cost.

Google Apps for Education is just one edition that offers 25 GB of storage space per user for free through K-12 schools, colleges, and universities with up to 30,000 users. Forty-million active users currently use Google Apps, and according to US News & World Report, 61 of the Top 100 schools have switched to the educational service.

USG IT Committee Chair Josh Chen said the University’s polled students prefer Gmail due to its “many benefits and no drawbacks.” Meanwhile, U-Councilor Lily Alberts said the poll’s results likely attribute to the student’s prior familiarity with Gmail during pilot testing. The group of 150 students piloted the two options, and those students came from a pool that replied to an earlier campus-wide email.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Reports surfaced in China that claim Apple plans to integrate Baidu into iOS next month as the country’s possible default search function—suggesting iOS aims to become less dependent on Google’s services.

According to Chinese news website Sina Tech (machine-translation):

Sina Technology News on March 26 morning news, according to informed sources, Apple iOS operating system next month will be formally introduced Baidu search, Baidu and Apple between cooperation component in the China region.

Google’s Susan Creighton revealed last fall that two-thirds of the Mountain View, Calif.-based Company’s mobile search comes from Apple iOS devices.

Meanwhile, recent speculation claims Apple is moving to an in-house Mapping solution that would replace Google Maps. The firm also recently removed its publish to YouTube option in QuickTime for Mountain lion. If these latest rumors deem true, Apple’s move to Baidu would further indicate a significant effort to reduce Google’s presence in iOS.

Expand
Expanding
Close