Special Update: There is no single Gphone; Android is a fully integrated mobile OS
[Via Engadget Live Blog]
Popularity: 27% [?]
Archive for the ‘Google’ Category
Weekend Round-up Issue II
New phones from Sony Ericsson could be unvelied on November 6, or so sayeth CellPassion. We’ve already seen leaked shots of the W890 and the W380 while the K660 was made official by SE. So really, the only thing to look forward to is the confirmation of the existence and specs on the W890 and W380. Maybe, just maybe, if we’re lucky, SE will unveil more than these three. [CellPassion via Boy Genius Report]
In more rumor-mongering, noises are being made about the Google Phone/OS/Whatever might finally be announced on November 5. It seems that the technology in development is a full-fledged mobile OS with tight integration of existing Google products. The OS will be open and distributed freely under an ad-supported revenue model. Whatever it is, we hope it’s good. This kind of hype is usually only reserved for Apple products. [Via The New York Times]
Firefox has released version 2.0.0.9 and we recommend you download it. The release contains bug-fixes for problems found in earlier versions. Download it here.
The Wall Street Journal now has over a million subscribers for its online edition. Quite a milestone, we must say. A lot of websites, including The New York Times have ditched their pay-for-access models and are now completely free in order to attract more visitors. In such a time, it’s a wonder that WSJ.com has managed to attract such a large subscriber base. [Via Yahoo! News]
Swedish glam-rock band Lamont has collaborated with, wait for it, The Pirate Bay, to freely distribute their music via P2P. Their new album is available in multiple file formats and over 100k users downloaded it on the first day. It’s a sign of musicians finally warming up to the idea of P2P distribution. Besides, a lot of music fans will go out and buy CDs of music that they like. [Via TorrentFreak]
Popularity: 34% [?]
YouTube Videos: Now with overlay advertisements
YouTube will soon start overlaying adverts on videos that users upload. The overlay will be semi-transparent and placed at the bottom of the video which viewers can either close by clicking a cross on it or expand by clicking on the advert itself. Doing the latter will pause the video so that you can watch the ad. Are they really serious? Why would I want to click on an ad and unnecessarily pause the poor-quality video?
Content owners will have the right to decline certain or all ads while advertisers will have to fork out $20 per thousand views, regardless of the number of clicks received. I guess YouTube fellas are smart that way. They know very few people will want to click on ads, so they’re charging per view. Finally, the revenue will supposedly be shared with content owners, although details on that aspect have not been released.
Popularity: 8% [?]
Google goes local in India
Google is trying to win over more Indian users and has launched two services specifically for the Indian market. The Indic On-Screen Keyboard iGoogle Gadget lets users input search queries in 14 different Indian languages via an onscreen keyboard operated by a mouse. People can also add gadgets in their chosen language on their iGoogle page.
Google Indic Transliteration on the other hand, is a virtual keyboard which lets users type in Hindi text using phonetic equivalents in English (on an English keyboard). The typed-in text can then be used in emails, word processors and other applications.
In addition, Google also launched an Indian version of Google Local Search that lets users look for locally relevant information and Google Local Business Center which allows businesses to submit their information to Local Search.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Yahoo better than Google: No wai!
Since 2002, when the University of Michigan first began tracking Google in its American Customer Satisfaction Index, Google has led the pack for e-business sites, which the ACSE defines as portals, search engines, and news and information sites. But this year, Yahoo’s score of 79 beat out Google’s performance at 78.
It must be noted that the survey has a two-point margin of error and so a one-point difference is nothing to write home about. But for Yahoo, this is probably the best news they’ve received in a long time. In case you were wondering, MSN (75 points) is joint third with Ask.com. While MSN has gained just one point, Ask has jumped up by 4.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Google now offers paid storage services
Google has started selling expanded web storage, targeting users with large music, video, and photo collections. The price structure is as follows:
- 6GB storage – $20 annually
- 25 GB storage – $75 annually
- 100 GB storage – $250 annually
- 250 GB storage – $500 annually
According to Yahoo! News,
Google said the storage can be used across several Google products, including photo site Picasa and the e-mail service Gmail. The storage will soon also work with Google Docs & Spreadsheets, which are the company’s word processing and spreadsheet applications.
Prices are kind of expensive but the extra space might be worth the cash for some users.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Google to block copyrighted videos by September
An attorney for Google has claimed that the company is working on a fix that will enable it to block copyrighted videos by September. The system will work with the help of a library of digital video fingerprints that Google hopes to build. When someone tries to upload the video, a computer will check the video against this library and block any material that has been copyrighted.
Google has been under increasing pressure to come with a system that blocks copyright material before it’s uploaded to YouTube or Google Video. Even though YouTube and Google generally do a good job of taking down offending videos after receiving complaints, the videos pop up again and again. Hence, copyright holders are pressing for a system that blocks videos before they are uploaded.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Google marches on towards global dominance; buys out ImageAmerica
An aerial image company, specializing in taking aerial (what else?) pictures of the US has been bought out by Google (who else?). The acquisition will help Google in achieving its nefarious goal of ultimate global dominance with its Google Maps service as the aerial images would be made available to users of Google Maps to augment its satellite imagery. ImageAmerica has equipment worth about $10 million and its own airplane. Google had previously used the services of ImageAmerica when Hurricane Katrina struck two years ago.
The rate at which Google is buying out companies and rolling out services, it won’t be long before they own everything and provide every imaginable service. Except Microsoft and Windows.
Popularity: 4% [?]
WTF: Google accused of hosting pirated movies!
Now, this narrowly missed being our Weekly WTF story. A non-profit group in the States, the National Legal and Policy Center, has accused Google of hosting copyrighted videos, including full-length movies and cable TV programs.
PC World is reporting that the group has released a list of what it calls the Top 50 movies, cable programs and music concerts that Google is hosting on Google Video, including Sony Pictures’ Hollow Man 2 and several episodes of NBC’s The Office.
Will some one tell these guys that Google DOES NOT intentionally host these videos, and that Google Video does not actively monitor the content uploaded by its users.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Google profits don’t live up to expectations
While profits were up 28 percent, they did not live up to the expectations of analysts. The $925 million profits were significantly more than the $721.1 million from Q2 2007 but were surprisingly down from the $1 billion figure from Q1 2007.
Overall sales went up by 58 percent to $3.87 billion worldwid compared to the same period last year. They were also up 6 percent compared with Q1 and Google seems to be happy with it’s numbers for this quarter.
Popularity: 4% [?]
