Google is marking any LGBT-related query this month with a rainbow-colored banner under the search box.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based Company is once-again celebrating LGBT Pride Month, as it has down for the last five years in a row, by adding a bit of color to its search.
U.S. President Barack Obama declared June as LGBT Pride Month for 2012. The month-long stance is against discrimination and violence toward the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community, with promotion for equal and civil rights.
Sony’s latest Google TV devices, which unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, are now available for pre-order and will hit stores July 22.
The NSZ-GS7 Internet Player is a set-top box that you can hook up to your TV. The NSZ-GP9 is a Internet Blu-ray Disc player with Google TV (available later this year). Both come with a redesigned Bluetooth remote control with a backlit QWERTY keyboard, a touch pad, and a three-axis motion sensor for gaming. It can be used as a universal remote to control other connected devices, too. You have access to tons of content – movies, shows, music, games – which you can find through Google search technology. And there are thousands of apps downloadable from the Google Play Store. Basically, we’ve improved our hardware. Google TV has made enhancements to its software and continually updates it.
Sony said its latest offering will hit shelves July 22, while the Official Google TV Blog announced the manufacturer started pre-order sales for the devices today in the United Kingdom and the United States, with plans to expand them to Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico, and Netherlands. The Google TV team further revealed partners and developers would dish the latest on Google TV at the Google I/O conference this week.
The live stuff is available at developers.google.com/io, while the press release and another video is below.
Google unveiled its “Project Re: Brief” ad campaign in March, which re-imagined four classic commercials, and now the company has published an hour-long documentary of its marketing venture on YouTube.
The four re-imagined classic commercials are Coca-Cola’s “Hilltop” from 1971, Alka-Seltzer’s 1972 commercial, Volvo’s “Drive it like you hate it” from 1963, and Avis’ “We try harder” campaign from 1962. Google’s in-house advertising team and several other agencies— including the creators of the original campaigns—re-created all the ads. Each video is available on Google’s Project Re: Brief website.
“Re: Brief is not just about the ads themselves. It’s also about the creative process behind them: bringing ‘old school’ advertising legends and technologists into the same room to create digital ads that consumers love as much as they loved the iconic campaigns of yesterday,” explained Project Re: Brief Lead Aman Govil on the Official Google Blog. “To share this experience, today we premiered the documentary film Project Re: Brief, directed by Emmy winner Doug Pray, at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity—also available on YouTube.”
Govil continued:
The documentary follows the story of the five art directors and copywriters who made the original ads as they come out of retirement to “Re: Brief” their classic campaigns: Harvey Gabor (Coca-Cola’s “Hilltop); Amil Gargano (Volvo’s “Drive it like you hate it”); Paula Green (Avis’ “We try harder”); and Howie Cohen and Bob Pasqualina (Alka-Seltzer’s “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing”). While major shifts in technology have reshaped the advertising business, as we learned from our heroes of the past, the basic tenets of storytelling haven’t changed. We found these icons’ ideas, wisdom and passion for great advertising inspiring and hope you do as well.
The South Korea-based Company is making it easier than ever to jump ship from iOS to its Galaxy line with the Easy Phone Sync app. The software is free to anyone purchasing a Samsung Galaxy device, and it quickly installs on any Galaxy product, PC, or Mac.
In the most straightforward manner, it transfers media, contacts, content—and all that other stuff packed into handhelds—from iTunes to an Android-powered tablet or phone by Samsung. Users can also manage their content through iTunes to maintain preferences during the sync process.
For more information on Samsung’s plan to pilfer iPhone users from Apple, check out its newest marketing strategy that NewGeekGuide detailed earlier this week.
One Wall Street analyst is calling into question Google’s co-founder, Larry Page, and his health, due to the executive’s notable absence from the company shareholders’ meeting on Thursday.
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, who bequeathed his CEO title to Page in April 2011, told shareholders that the chief executive “lost his voice.” Schmidt further revealed Page would not attend the Google I/O developer conference next week or Google’s Q2 earnings call next month (as seen in the video above). Page will, however, maintain his post duties and continue an active role at Google while his voice recuperates over the next few weeks.
According to Canada.com, a Google representative explained that Page was “asked to rest.” No more information on the CEO’s mysterious voice condition is available at this time, but JP Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth debated Google’s excuse for Page in a note to investors today:
Samsung let New Yorkers experience the all-new Galaxy S III at a release event in Manhattan earlier this week, but it seemed the company’s primary goal was to announce a fresh, cutting-edge marketing campaign for its latest Android offering.
“We are launching the biggest marketing campaign in Samsung’s history,” bragged Chief Marking Officer Tom Pendleton.
He then discussed “never been done before” executions for the S III strategy, including 50 kiosks and 40,000 interactive posters that will surface around the country over the next few weeks. They will serve as stations for S III users to download free music, eBooks, and other content directly to their smartphones via Near Field Communications.
NewGeekGuide already spotted two of Samsung’s interactive posters. The first ad is located in New York City’s Lower East Side and offers a free Goodie Mob and CeeLo Green song (as seen in the picture above).
The second ad is live at Port Authority in Manhattan. It is a giant screen, which is the size of a wall, and it shows dozens of Samsung Galaxy S IIIs rotating in air. Upon touching the screen, the display transitions to a different scene with three big Galaxy S III selections. Each option features downloadable content. A huge crowd surrounded the interactive poster, so it was hard to get a close look or take a picture.
Samsung is clearly taking interactive and marketing to a completely new level this summer; it even plans to run a 3D advertisement before blockbusters in 55 theaters across the United States. The ad is actually a Kinect-like game that detects audience movements as each viewer works together, waving their hands in the air, to control a large S III on the cinema’s screen.
DroidLife just posted the above screenshot that confirms “Jelly Bean,” otherwise known as Android 4.1, as the next candy-flavored version of Google’s mobile operating system.
The website first spotted the news in the XDA Developers forum, where a user posted a similar image for the unlocked Galaxy Nexus available on Google Play. One cannot help but wonder if Jelly Bean will unveil at the Google I/O conference that is just around the corner.
Wirefly listed Samsung’s new Galaxy S III with 4G LTE to new and existing Sprint customers for just $149.99 on its website, which is currently one of the lowest price tags available.
Sprint offers the base model of the Galaxy Nexus successor on its website for $199.99, but it previously revealed that “overwhelming demand and limited supply” could cause the smartphone to ship late.
Meanwhile, T-Mobile sells its version for more bread than the main carriers: the 16GB model costs $279.99 after a $50 rebate. AT&T and Verizon Wireless now list pre-order prices for the 16GB Samsung Galaxy S III at $199.99.
Another third-party retailer, Amazon, offers the 16 GB Ice Cream Sandwich-powered smartphone for $189.99 to new AT&T customers, where as those eligible to upgrade only need to cough up $149.99. The deal comes with free two-day shipping.
Samsung let New Yorkers experience the all-new Galaxy S III today at a release event in Manhattan, while the company reiterated its goal to “win over” the competition’s user base (ahem, iPhone 4S users) with this latest Android offering.
Chief Marketing Officer Tom Pendleton and Chief Product Officer Kevin Packingham were on stage this afternoon to celebrate the S III’s launch on all the major U.S. carriers. They also unveiled their marketing strategy, with a few numbers on mobile sales. The executives revealed that Samsung sold 61 million devices in the United States—just add another 80 million for the worldwide sales. They further pinpointed the S III as the fastest-selling pre-order smartphone in the company’s stateside history.
The Galaxy-branded smartphone boasts many impressive features, such as Ice Cream Sandwich OS, but the South Korea-based manufacturer focused on the S III’s uniqueness, 2100 mAh battery, 4.65-inch high-definition screen, 2 GB of RAM, LTE capability, and integrated sharing options.
“We want to show you five things no other phone can do,” added Packingham, while touting the S III’s bevy of highlights.
The chief explained how the Galaxy Nexus successor packs an “All Share Group Cast” feature for sharing documents and media anytime or anywhere. Meanwhile, the “Share Shot” tech specifically—and automatically—streams photographs to friends, but “S Beam” is available for those who want to send large video files or even contacts with just one tap. Next up is the “Smart Stay” feature, which maintains screen brightness, so users are never again interrupted by a dimming display. The last showcased feature is the “Pop-up Play” that allows S III owners to do multitask such as watching video and texting simultaneously.
Nuance just released a significant update to its Swype keyboard software that it acquired last year.
The entire UI is revamped. Users can still quick-swipe for input, but the keyboard now offers multimodal support with the option to press keys and initiate Nuance’s “Next Word Prediction” technology. Swype’s built-in dictionary actually learns over time and crops words from emails and texts for easier communication. Users also have the ability to handwrite or trace letters, words, or symbols, or they can click the Dragon Diction button to launch integrated voice-recognition.
The latest version of Swype is now in beta, but it is not compatible with all Android devices.
Google Play is offering a spontaneous collection of deals today for apps, music, and books through its “Longest Day of the Year” sale.
Today is more commonly known as “Summer Solstice” for the Northern Hemisphere, which is when the longest period of daylight occurs, and Google is celebrating by slashing prices. A slew of popular apps are now just 99 cents each, “beach reads” are $1.99 a piece, and many famous albums are marked at $2.99 a title.
A selection of the discounted apps includes Draw Something and Shazam Encore, while albums span everything from the Rolling Stones’ “Brussels Affair” to Rihanna’s “Loud.” Books are more sparse, however, with “Endure” by Carrie Jones and “Summer Days” by Susan Mallery. But, hey—a deal is a deal.
Samsung is updating its television lineup with the Samsung ES8000 LED TV. It features a dual core processor, slim bezel, and U-shaped stand. The television goes up to 55-inches and displays a more intuitive user-interface with an emphasis on voice interaction, facial recognition, integrated camera controls for multi-video conferencing, and multitasking.
“Let’s say you are watching a movie on Netflix and want to check in on the hockey highlights, just toggle from Netflix to one of my favorite apps, NHL Game center, and come right back to the movie without having to quit the app and launch another app,” said Samsung America President of Consumer Electronics Division Tim Baxter at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year.
Samsung’s all-new 55-inch flat screen will début later this year with the Smart TV platform on board. The product’s pricing details and release date are currently not known, but the South Korea-based Company fully detailed its television and Web-based platform that allows users to find, control, and experience their set and media by way of Smart Interaction, Smart Content, and Smart Evolution.
The unlocked Samsung Galaxy S III has not officially released in the United States, nor have pricing details, but at least one seller on eBay is offering the 16GB version for just $649.99.
The listing offers free standard shipping to the United States and Canada with a 30-day money back guarantee, and the top-rated seller has near-perfect feedback based on thousands of reviews. Hurry and purchase this off-contract device now, because the eBay page indicates “limited quantity available.” PayPal is the only form of payment accepted.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office just granted Project Glass a patent that protects the trackpad feature of Google Glasses.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin appeared with his wife, Anne Wojcicki, on California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom’s Current TV show last month to briefly let the politician demo a pair of Google Glasses. During “The Gavin Newsom Show” interview (above), Brin gave the world a glimpse as to how the space-age spectacles work.
Viewers immediately noticed a trackpad-like control on the right side of the augmented-reality glasses, but the USPTO just protected the feature by granting Project Glass a patent for the trackpad. The patent covers a sensor device, for either side, that tracks gestures and finely controls the heads-up display. The Mountain View, Calif.-based Company also detailed several gestures that work with the trackpad—such as scrolling, tapping, or flipping—to provide visible, semi-transparent options.
Google wants to stop YouTube-MP3.org from ripping audio within YouTube’s videos.
TorrentFreak obtained a June 8-dated letter where the Mountain View, Calif.-based Company threatened to take legal action against the conversion website, which, according to Google’s numbers, rakes 1.3-million daily visitors.
Google’s video-sharing platform is free and provides content that is embeddable or accessible through its API, while YouTube-MP3.org is free, pulls audio from YouTube videos, and then converts those files into downloadable MP3s. Apparently, despite the API that gives developers access to many features, pirating any sound directly violates YouTube’s Terms of Service agreement.
The leaked letter addresses the website’s owner, Philip. In the warning, YouTube’s Associate Product Counsel Harris Cohen cited the platform’s terms for API, where he maintained that separating, isolating, or modifying “the audio or video components of any YouTube audiovisual content made available through the YouTube API” is strictly prohibited.
Cohen threatened “legal consequences” for YouTube-Mp3.org, and he gave the website a week to comply. TorrentFreak spoke with Philip, who said YouTube does not want to negotiate. He also mentioned Google immediately blocked his website’s servers from accessing YouTube.
Google’s Vice President of Product Management Bradley Horowitz announced a Google+ partnership with Flipboard and teased an enterprise version of the social network at Le Web 2012 in London this morning, but he also demonstrated Hangouts…on an iPad.
According to TheNextWeb, the Flipboard partnership will stream Google+ feeds into the app as part of the Mountain View, Calif.-based Company’s new Google+ APIs that now sport limited availability for developers. The integration will also allow Flipboard users to get access to posts, media, and other data without visiting Google+ directly. Other social networks on Flipboard include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr.
Horowitz further demonstrated Google+ Hangouts at the conference with an iPad. TheNextWeb’s Jamillah Knowles was on-hand to ask the executive why he chose Apple’s tablet over an Android device for the conference, but his response was vague (as heard in the audio clip above).
The Googler was also obscure in regards to numbers. He noted the 170 million-user base for Google+ as a “stale” estimate, and he would not give specific stats on whether Google+ apps prod interaction. He did mention, however, that Google has dreams for its social network in the enterprise.
Google launched a preview of its PageSpeed Insights Chrome Developer Tools extension last year, but it just released version 2.0 today.
The add-on analyzes web page performance and offers specific suggestions on how to make them load faster. Google Software Engineers Libo Song and Bryan McQuade gave an example on the Official Developers Blog:
For instance, PageSpeed Insights can inform you about an expensive JavaScript call that blocks the renderer for too long, remind you about that new photo on the front page of your web site that you might have forgotten to resize or optimize, or recommend changing the way you load third-party content so it no longer blocks the page load. PageSpeed Insights for Chrome is a Developer Tools extension that analyzes all aspects of the page load, including resources, network, DOM, and the timeline. If you’re already familiar with the Developer Tools, you’ll find that PageSpeed Insights integrates with a toolset you’re already using.
PageSpeed Insights also runs the open-source PageSpeed Insights SDK securely to optimize images, CSS, JavaScript and HTML resources on a website. The PageSpeed Insights extension is available now on the Chrome Web Store.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office first published Samsung’s patent about a dual-display smartphone in September 2011, but now a second patent application on the subject recently surfaced that advances on the previous design.
According to PatentBolt, the two patents detail the device’s functionality by describing how both screens can display several apps simultaneously, such as showing a picture on one screen and chatting in a window on the other panel. The device could further feature capabilities for “television (TV) watching, on-line game service and on-demand video service are communications or applications that may be provided to users,” or even voice communication, SMS, and mobile banking. The dual screens could also seamlessly join to create one larger display.
Samsung’s older patent explained many of the above functions, but a problem with manufacturability weighed down the likelihood of this product ever becoming known. One of the main drawbacks to the original design is its hinge, but a large part of Samsung’s newer patent concerns a better hinge solution.
The strength of the new hinge will allow the unit to stay in place, so the user can consume content while recharging (and without the need for a separate docking station). The entire concept provides “the plurality of display units which rotate stepwise,” according to PatentBolt, by way of an advanced multi-axis hinge. Moreover, Samsung now uses the term “multidisplay” instead of “dual display.”
The South Korea-based manufacture apparently believes consumers need a portable communication device with a “multidisplay.” Its latest patent application for the device filed in Q4 2011 in the U.S., and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published it in Q2 2012.
Google’s reduction of energy use for servers and server cooling.
Google wants businesses to make Google Apps their primary productivity suite, so the company is recruiting at full swing today with a new blog post that discloses a few stats about its energy efficiency.
Google Apps is a Google service that features several Web applications like traditional office suites. The services vary per edition but generally include Docs, Gmail, Calendar, Talk, Sites, Groups, Video, and Marketplace. Its popularity among businesses and academicians is rapidly increasing due to enhanced sharing features, accessibility, and cost.
According to Senior Vice President for Technical Infrastructure Urs Hoelzle on the Official Google Blog:
At Google, we’re obsessed with building energy efficient data centers that enable cloud computing. Besides helping you be more productive, cloud-based services like Google Apps can reduce energy use, lower carbon emissions and save you money in the process. Last year, we crunched the numbers and found that Gmail is up to 80 times more energy-efficient than running traditional in-house email. We’ve sharpened our pencils again to see how Google Apps as a whole—documents, spreadsheets, email and other applications—stacks up against the standard model of locally hosted services. Our results show that a typical organization can achieve energy savings of about 65-85% by migrating to Google Apps.
Hoelzle further explained how lower energy use equals less carbon pollution. The executive supported this statement with an anecdote about the U.S. General Administration. It switched to Google Apps for Government to save $285,000 annually at a 93 percent cost reduction, and it reduced energy consumption by 90-percent and carbon emissions by 85-percent.
Developers Wooga and PopCap recently announced that they are pulling a few games from Google+.
Wooga develops free-to-play browser-based games for social networks and is currently the world’s fourth-largest game developer by monthly active users on the Facebook platform as of April. The Berlin, Germany-based firm confirmed that it took down Monster World from Google’s social network offerings and said more removals are coming.
“We decided to remove certain games from Google+ because we have a much larger following on Facebook and they are active users,” said a Wooga representative to AllThingsD.
According to Social Games Observer, Wooga will further cut Bubble Island and Diamond Dash on July 1. Meanwhile, PopCap Games is a Seattle, Wash.-based subsidiary of Electronic Arts that also confirmed it is eliminating titles from Google+. The company revealed its Bejeweled game would no longer be live starting on Monday.
“PopCap has decided to suspend Bejeweled Blitz on Google+ to redeploy our resources to other adaptations of Bejeweled. Certainly, Google is a valuable gaming partner for PopCap and EA, and we’ll continue to develop for Google platforms,” explained a PopCap spokesperson to AllThingsD.
Amazon just bulked its Kindle app for Android, iOS, and its Cloud Reader by adding children’s books, comics, and graphic novels that were previously exclusive to Kindle Fire owners.
The apps now offer over 1,000 titles for children with features like Text Pop-Up, which help to improve and simplify the reading experience, and Kindle Panel view for comics and graphics to allow panel-by-panel viewing. A few of the literary additions include Brown Bear, Curious George, Batman, and Superman.
Android tablet owners, or those with Cloud Reader on a widescreen display, will also notice the ability to customize their reading experience with new margin and line spacing controls. The update also brings side-by-side viewing of two pages in landscape mode. Meanwhile, iOS users have a new Search option to locate content by title or author.
Google released sworn denials (PDF) on Tuesday from nine Googlers who claimed they had no knowledge about data mining in the Street View mapping project.
Google Street View is a service highlighted in Google Maps and Google Earth that offers panoramic views of streets. It launched in 2007 in the United States and expanded to many cities and rural areas worldwide. The project ambitiously maps the world’s streets with photographs, but the plotting venture allegedly cropped unencrypted Internet data from wireless networks for roughly three years until 2010.
Google’s Street View automobiles gathered sensitive information, including private dispatches, as it roamed many boulevards, avenues, roads, highways, lanes, and thoroughfares across the globe. Tuesday’s unveiled declarations by nine Google engineers featured redacted names and titles, while it explicitly disclosed that the Mountain View, Calif.-based Company employees did not know about the misconduct. The Googlers were in the dark, because either content collection was not a part of their job, or they did not assess given project documentation.
It eventually became publicly clear that Street View gathered unencrypted information, like emails and Internet searches beamed between personal computers from within homes, thanks to German regulators who began to probe the mapping service in their country. When the findings came to light, Google fingered a nameless engineer as being solely responsible for the action, which resulted in a Federal Communications Commission inquiry.
The search engine did not break any laws, the regulatory body found, but it did obstruct the investigation. The F.C.C. fined the company $25,000, despite the sworn documents having been originally provided as part of the inquiry into Street View.
Japan-based DeNA announced that its “Rage of Bahamut” app became the No. 1 grossing game on both Android and iOS yesterday, while earning roughly the same revenue per day from each mobile platform.
The game’s success pokes holes in recent findings from Flurry, which claimed revenue generated per active user is four times greater on iOS than Android. The analytics firm noted that for every $1 earned on iOS, a developer could expect to earn about 24-cents on Android.
“Contrary to what we read, we’ve been very happy with Android monetization. There is not a big discrepancy between the two now,” said DeNa Director Neil Young to TechCrunch.
Rage of Bahamut is a free trading card game that lets users battle either through a live single or multiplayer action mode against a “database of battle hungry foes.” It is on the Google Play Store and boasts a 4-star rating on nearly 11,000 reviews as of press time.
TechCrunch further elaborated:
The game had the top slot on both platforms yesterday, but Kabam’s Kingdoms of Camelot took back the #1 iOS slot in the U.S. this morning. […]Young says Rage of Bahamut is seeing some impressive revenue numbers per day per user. In casual games, you usually see an average revenue per daily active user of a couple cents to 10 cents per day on mobile. The better games can get to 15 to 25 cents per day per daily active user. But Young says Rage of Bahamut has been able to do 4 or 5 times that. He didn’t say how much revenue overall the title is earning, but we’ve seen dual platform hits like Draw Something earn anywhere between $5 and 10 million per month through in-app purchases and advertising.
Those numbers are welcomed news for developers with growing concerns about mobile platforms lacking solid business models that encourage monetization.
With Hot Searches in Google Trends, you can see a list of the fastest rising search terms in the U.S. for a snapshot of what’s on the public’s collective mind. To create the Hot Searches list which is updated on an hourly basis, an algorithm analyzes millions of searches in the U.S. and determines which queries are being searched much more than usual.
The updated section now highlights the key word for queries with rich images and links to related reports for the most searched news in the United States. It also details how many folks Googled each spotlighted tidbit during the last day, while scaling back the amount of content it shows. Google previously displayed 20 results, but now it only shows a few Hot Searches (as indicated in the top image).
