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The Sub-$200 Moto G Smartphone Is Google’s Answer To Android’s Laggy Low-End
When Google bought Motorola there were plenty of theories about why it wanted the mobile maker. Patents, being named chief among them. But today’s launch of the low cost Moto G smartphone suggests the strategy was -- or has certainly become -- multi-faceted. Google is using Motorola to chide and school its Android OEMs on what it takes to make decent budget handsets. Read More
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Google Challenges Apple’s Dominance In Schools With Google Play For Education, Now Shipping
Google is no longer the best-kept secret in education -- that is, if Google's presence in any market is ever "a secret." Over the last year or so, the search giant has been quietly expanding its footprint in education and is moving quickly to capture a greater share of the K-12 market. Read More
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Gmail Users No Longer Need To Download Attachments, As Google Drive Gets Baked Into The Inbox
Google is releasing yet another update to Gmail today, which sees deeper Google Drive integration coming to the company’s email platform. Now users will be able to skip the whole process involved with downloading email attachments, and instead view and save their files directly to Google Drive – without leaving their inbox. This change comes only a day after Google rolled out new… Read More
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Chrome On Windows To Start Rejecting Extensions From Outside The Chrome Web Store In January
Starting in January, Google’s Chrome browser will not allow you to install extensions that aren’t hosted in Google’s own Chrome Web Store. While Google had recently increased its security measures for keeping malicious extensions out of Chrome by adding additional warnings and disabling silent extension installs, the team clearly felt that it had to go a step further to keep… Read More
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Google Glass Gets Easier Access To Calendar Info And Directions To Home And Work, Kills Long Press
As Google gears up to expand its Glass Explorer program, it also continues its regular pace of Glass software updates. This month's update (X11) isn't all that big, however, and only introduces two features -- a new setup tutorial and an easier way for Android users to start a screencast from Glass. Read More
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Google Says Its Mystery Barges May Be Used As Interactive Space Where People Can Learn About Its Technology
Google has issued a statement (finally?) about its months-long mystery barge project. The barges, which are anchored in both Portland, Maine and San Francisco, have been the topic of intense interest since multiple reports surfaced last month. A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch that the barges are ‘an interactive space’ to teach people about its technology: Google Barge … A… Read More
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New Google Maps For Desktop Brings Back Pegman, Adds Waze Data And 3D Earth Tours
Google today launched an update to its new Google Maps for desktop that brings traffic data from Waze to the desktop for the first time (it’s already integrated into the mobile Maps apps). This integration will bring information about traffic incidents, construction zones and road closures from Waze, which Google acquired earlier this year, to Google Maps on the desktop. In addition, this… Read More
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Google Updates Its Octane JavaScript Benchmark, Adds Asm.js And TypeScript Tests
Google debuted version 2.0 of its Octane benchmark suite today, a set of 17 tests that measure how fast a browser can execute JavaScript code. The first version of this benchmark launched just over a year ago. In this new version, the team put an emphasis on tests that measure latency, but Google also added tests for a number of new JavaScript technologies. Octane 2.0 now measures how well the… Read More
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Android Will Show You Google+ Photos For Incoming Calls Beginning In 2014
Google is making Android's dialer smarter, and it already talked about KitKat features that add automatic caller ID for businesses that Google has in its places database. Early next year, the basic phone dialing app will also pull in your Google+ profile pic to show a call recipient via caller ID, according to Android Central. It's an option that's on by default, too, so long as you've verified… Read More
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Google+ Adds Restricted Communities In An Effort To Court Business Users
Many businesses have now adopted tools like Yammer or Podio, but Google+ also wants a piece of this social enterprise action. While Google's social network started courting enterprise users more than a year ago by adding restricted posts and a number of other business features, it's going a step further today by launching restricted communities. This adds an extra layer of security on top of the… Read More
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Google’s iOS Search App Gets Hands-Free Search, Improved Google Now Notifications And Reminders
Google today launched the latest version of its Search App for iOS, which now includes improved support for Google Now reminders and notifications, as well as hands-free search using the “OK Google” command. The company first announced that iOS users would get Google Now push notifications support during an odd press event in the Google garage in September, and the company has been… Read More
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Google Launches Virtual Field Trips Via New Google+ Connected Classrooms Feature
Field trips generally venture only as far afield as the local heritage village, where you're likely to catch pilgrim 'Ezekial' behind the butter churning hut sneaking a modern-day cigarette. Google wants to offer a more far-reaching experience, with a new Connected Classrooms initiative that lets classes take "virtual field trips" using Google+ Hangouts. So instead of learning about pioneer times… Read More
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Dear Google, What’s Wrong With You?
Dear Google: What's wrong? I ask because last weekend, while in San Francisco, I asked Google Maps for "hot chocolate mission" -- and was promptly directed to an ARCO station in Fremont, 40 miles away. Similarly, last month I searched for "coffee" while in the Embarcadero Center, one of the denser coffee hotspots in America, and was sent to a Starbucks more than two miles away. And it hasn't… Read More
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Google’s Barges Likely Glass Exhibition Spaces, Lease Indicates
The furor over Google’s mystery barges in San Francisco and Portland has reached a fever pitch over the past week. According to our sources the various reports about the barges being showcases for Google’s Glass retail efforts are correct. Today, a report by The Los Angeles Times’ Chris O’Brien notes that most of the reporters going after this barge story have been looking at the… Read More
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Google’s Barge Likely A Modular, Floating Retail Space To Feature Glass
Google caught some attention this past week for mooring a huge barge in SF Bay for mysterious purposes. Rumors have been flying about what that barge could be used for, with some suggesting it’s a floating data center, which Google does indeed have a patent for. But reports from a Bay Area local CBS affiliate and CNET suggest it’s a retail play, and now CBS is reporting (via… Read More
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Apple, Microsoft-Backed Rockstar Consortium Sues Google, Samsung Over 7 Nortel Patents
The Rockstar consortium is an organization backed by Apple, Microsoft, BlackBerry, Ericsson and Sony. It purchased patents off of the defunct telecommunications company Nortel in 2011, in a bidding war with Google. Now, the consortium has filed suit against Google, ASUSTek, HTC, Huawei, LG, Pantech and ZTE over those patents. The suit was filed in a U.S. District Court of Eastern Texas today. Read More
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Google’s Search Results Can Deep-Link To Your Android Apps
It should be clear by now that there's much more at play in Android 4.4 KitKat that some early reports alluded to, and one of the most interesting (to me, anyway) tidbits managed to escape the early leak treatment. Tucked away toward the tail-end of Google's Nexus 5/KitKat presentation was a mention of a feature called App Indexing that should get companies (and the Android app developers that… Read More
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Nexus 5 Launch Likely Coming Today, Here’s What We Know So Far
Google's Nexus 5 is not a real thing yet, but at this point it's a foregone conclusion; Google will update its Android reference smartphone, which comes with the clean stock version of its mobile operating system, and it'll probably do it today. Which is why it makes perfect sense that the leaks are now flying fast and furious. Read More
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NSA Infiltrates Google And Yahoo Networks, Report Says
The National Security Agency has secretly taped the networks of Google and Yahoo to monitor real-time communication, according to newly revealed documents from whistleblower, Edward Snowden [PDF]. “The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, according to documents obtained from former NSA… Read More
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Google Adds SMS Support To Its Android Messaging App As Facebook Axes It
A few days ago, a set of leaked images pointed to some pretty drastic changes to the Google Hangouts Android app, the biggest of which was that users would be able to send SMS messages without having to switch into another messaging application. Well, Vic Gundotra trotted onstage at a Google+ event in San Francisco (after a power outage caused a half hour stream delay, no less) today to confirm… Read More