Motorola XT912 Leaked – Not the “X-phone”

A few weeks ago Google’s CFO told us that Motorola won’t release any products that will “wow us” by Google’s standards, as the company is still stuck with its old pipeline of products, that were planned since around 18 months ago. And now we get this leak about a new Motorola phone that looks much like a Nexus-styled smartphone with round edges.

The phone’s codename seems to be XT912, and it seems very unlikely that it would be the X-phone. While I think the phone doesn’t look too bad (I’d buy it if it came with Android 5.0, and I was going to buy a new phone soon), there’s also not much that unique about it. It also seems to be made out of regular plastic, and I’d prefer if it was made out of some kind of metal, or at the very least polycarbonate (unibody) or (very) hardened glass.

The phone is supposedly going to have an S4 Pro processor with Adreno 320, or possibly even an S600 (I would hope so because S4 Pro is getting old), 2 GB of RAM, and “only” a 720p AMOLED display that could be 4.3″ or 4.5″, which makes me think that the phone isn’t really meant as Motorola’s flagship device for this year, but more of a mid-range phone, or some kind of “intermediary” flagship.

The OS looks a lot like stock Android, which makes me happy, because I think this is exactly the thing Motorola needs to do to get back on track, and be loved by the Android community once again. Google should put stock Android on all of Motorola devices from now on. All of Motorola devices should be Nexus-like devices. The phone does look to have some extra Motorola widgets, but I wouldn’t mind that so much. I think it’s a very good way to differentiate without changing the core of Android.

I would also expect these devices to get at least 18 months of updates, just like the Nexus devices, although I really wish Google would make the upgrade cycle 24 months. That should mean about 4 major upgrades instead of just 3, like for Nexus devices. Since they are owned by them and not by others, it should be easier to do that, too. The only question is if they will want to support them for that long.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013 | 0 comments | Read More

Google hit by $7m Street View fine in US

Google has agreed to pay a $7m (£4.6m) fine for collecting people's personal data without authorisation as part of its Street View service.In a settlement with 38 US states, the internet giant agreed to destroy emails, passwords, and web histories.

The data was harvested from home wireless networks as Street View cars photographed neighbourhoods between 2008 and 2010.

Google said it was pleased to have resolved the issue.

"We work hard to get privacy right at Google. But in this case we didn't, which is why we quickly tightened up our systems to address the issue," the firm said in a statement.

"The project leaders never wanted this data, and didn't use it or even look at it. We're pleased to have worked with Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen and the other state attorneys general to reach this agreement."

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced the legal settlement.

"Consumers have a right to protect their vital personal and financial information from improper and unwanted use by corporations like Google," he said.

"This settlement addresses privacy issues and protects the rights of people whose information was collected without their permission."

As well as agreeing to delete all the harvested data, Google has also been required to launch an employee training program about privacy and data use which it must continue for at least ten years.

It must also launch a public service advertising campaign to educate consumers about how to secure their information on wireless networks.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013 | 0 comments | Read More

Google Launches Open Course Builder

Google launched an open source course building web application for the growing list of K-12 and big-name universities developing online classes. The barebones website is a lightweight way to bring course material online, track student engagement (with web traffic and surveys), and evaluate performance. “We want to use this launch to show that Google believes it can contribute to technology in education,” says Google’s Director of Research, Peter Norvig.

Course-builder came off the back of an experimental Google class, “Power Searching with Google,” which went out to schools across the country to educate students on the more advanced features of Google for online research. The power-searching course “was a strong success and also generated some technology that we thought would be useful to share with the world,” says Norvig. “We feel that by sharing the code that we’ve generated, we can impact more people in the education space. There is a lot of experimentation going on in the industry at this point, and we felt that contributing an open source project would be a beneficial starting point that could help everyone.”

Google is hoping that big-name universities, such as Stanford and MIT, who have started to put their courses online for free, will adopt the technology.

There are many websites, such as Udemy, that have long offered services for individual users to create (and get paid) for their own classes. Universities, however, are looking for an in-house solution, and a common code-base to evolve custom courses could be helpful.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012 | 0 comments | Read More

Two Nigerian Varsities Shine at Google's Online Marketing Competition

 Google has announced Thursday that 2 Nigerian universities; University of Lagos and University of Ibadan have emerged finalists in the 2012 edition of its annual Google Online Marketing Challenge (GOMC).

According to Obum Ekeke, Google's Regional Program Manager for University Programs & Outreach in SSA, the 2 universities were part of the 11,000 students from 86 countries/territories such as the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, South Africa. "The competition this year was very stiff, and being one of the teams to make it to the semifinals and finals is no little feat". The students and their lecturers put in their best and have been rewarded by this announcement".

The Google Online Marketing Challenge is a global competition that was established to help prepare students studying courses such as advertising, e-commerce, integrated marketing communication, management information systems, marketing or new media technologies in the area of online marketing. It gives the students an opportunity to compete on an international stage.

"We are very delighted that Nigerian Universities are rated amongst some of the best in this competition and congratulate the schools, the lecturers and the students. We will continue to support Nigerian universities as they prepare the students to take on the future" said Juliet Ehimuan Google Nigeria Country Manager.

The students and lecturers whose teams made it to the Finalist and Semi-Finalist categories are: Finalists teams from Africa: University of Ibadan, Nigeria Team: Akomolafe Oladeji (Lecturer), Oladipo Oluwaseyi, Olukayode Didunoluwa Olamide, Oyeside Olalekan, Alagbe Olarenwaju, and Aiyelari Temilolorun

University of Lagos, Nigeria Team: Adeyanju Olusiji Ayoade (Lecturer), Longe Olubusayo Anuoluwapo,Obanor Chukwuwezam, Babalola Hisa, Abdussalam Mariam Oluwakemi, and Fadeyi Ayoola Idris.

Sunday, August 19, 2012 | 0 comments | Read More

Google announces new search tools

Google is making some changes to its most well-known product: search. The tweaks, updates and beta projects are all part of Google's attempt to make searches faster and more relevant.

 For starters, Google is bringing its Siri-esque voice search feature to the iPad and iPhone.

 The company expects to roll out an update to its free Google Search app later this week with the new feature, which uses speech-recognition technology to understand spoken, natural language search requests.

 Though it has not yet been approved, Google said it is working with Apple to get the app out.

 Depending on how you phrase your question or request, the app will bring up text answers and images or play YouTube videos.

 The app also can give answers specific to your location, such as movie times or weather. For example, "Play the sleepy kitten video" should automatically bring up and start playing a video of said exhausted feline, and "What's the weather here next week?" will show a weather report for that exact period.

 The version of this search-by-voice feature was already available for Android 4.1 users, and Google says it will be available for older versions of Android at some point in the future. There also are some subtle changes coming to English versions of the search engine around the world, starting Thursday.

 Auto-predict, the sometimes amusing feature that shows popular search terms that start with the words you are typing, will be joined by smarter, more relevant suggestions.

 The feature works by tapping the company's knowledge graph, which is a database of more than 500 million "objects." An object can be anything in the real world, such as a location, public figure, movie, sports team or company.

 For example, a search for "Luxor" will suggest the Las Vegas casino, the city and the original Egyptian temple in search field.

 Another new feature is the knowledge carousel -- a collection of frequently mentioned results for certain search terms that will appear as a row of thumbnail images at the top of the screen.

 A search for famous astronauts will bring up images of relevant people, along with dates of birth and death.

 Clicking on one of these links updates the page's search results to show links about that person. It also works for other things such as locations, museums, animals or albums. The final feature announced Wednesday is a beta project that loops your Gmail account into the search results.

 When the feature is on, Google will search the Web as well as all the e-mails in your account and include a list of relevant e-mails or contacts on the side of your screen. For some common queries, Google will parse the e-mails to isolate key bits of information, much like travel app TripIt.

 A search for "my flights" will pull flight information for upcoming trips you may have booked, and present it along with data from the Web, like an updated flight status.

 The feature has been tested by several thousand Google employees, and now the company is opening up the trial to a test group of a million.

 Anyone can sign up to try the feature at g.co/searchtrial, although it will only work on the main Google.com site in English.

 These tweaks are the survivors of a huge number of experiments Google has done for search.

 In 2011, the search team conducted 58,000 experiments on search and made 530 tweaks to how search works. Google says it has found more than 30 trillion unique URLs on the Web, crawls 20 billion sites a day and processes 100 billion searches every month.

 Amit Singhal, Google's senior vice president of engineering, said the changes bring Google one step closer to his dream of being like Capt.

 Kirk on "Star Trek" and using the starship computer to find out anything he needed to know.

 "The destiny of search is to become that 'Star Trek' computer," he said.

Thursday, August 09, 2012 | 0 comments | Read More

Apple, Google moving apart -YouTube not on new iPhone, iPad

 Apple Inc. said Google Inc.'s YouTube won't be included in the next version of the soft-ware used in the iPhone and iPad, the latest evidence of escalating competition between the two companies.

Apple has featured YouTube as a core application since the iPhone debuted in 2007. As Google has pushed into the smartphone market, the relationship between the companies has frayed.

Google's Android software is now the world's largest operating system for smart-phones, used by Apple's rivals, including Samsung Electronics Co."Their two ecosystems are pulling away from each other," said Carl Howe, an analyst at Yankee Group. "At the end of the day, this is two companies agreeing they just don't want to work together anymore."

Apple also plans to replace Google's maps application with its own in the next iOS release.

Users will see the effects when the next version of Apple's mobile software, called iOS 6, is released later this year. A licence expired that al-lowed the company to include YouTube, said Trudy Muller, a spokeswoman for Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple. As a result, the YouTube app won't come pre-installed on future iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch releases or if a user downloads iOS 6 to existing devices.

"Customers can use You-Tube in the Safari browser, and Google is working on a new YouTube app to be on the App Store," Muller said.

Chris Dale, a spokesman for Google, didn't immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Wednesday, August 08, 2012 | 0 comments | Read More

Google AdSense Daily Earnings Declining Or Fluctuating? Here Is Why

There have been many complaints in the Google AdSense Help forums from publishers complaining their daily earnings are fluctuating and less than they should be.

The answer to why people are seeing huge differences in the past week or so is because Google AdSense changed how they manage the reporting pipeline.

Google AdSense engineer, Guillaume, said, "since May 14, earnings for the current day reported in the interface may now fluctuate, due to a change in the reporting pipeline."

Google has a document explaining the issues, saying that now they show gross click counts before they may discount those clicks due to invalid clicks. The document explains it well:

You might see fluctuations in earnings reflected in your Performance reports due to the lag between gross click counts and invalid click detection. Total clicks are reflected quickly and then adjusted downward for any invalid clicks, which take longer to process.

After clicks occur, estimated earnings are increased based on these recorded clicks. However, processing for invalid clicks is completed after this initial estimate, and the corresponding earnings might then be revised downward in your reports.

This behavior is noticeable mostly for accounts with low traffic volume or a high proportion of invalid clicks.

Please be assured that after these initial fluctuations, earnings eventually stabilize, and earnings are computed in the same manner as they were prior to this change, which was effective beginning May 14, 2011. Note that finalized earnings, which are reported at the end of every month, might also reflect further adjustments.

Sunday, July 08, 2012 | 0 comments | Read More

Google: Gmail and Chrome are number one worldwide

For what seems like an eternity, Microsoft has held the number one spot in several key areas of the computing world. Windows remains by far the most widely-installed operating system, and Office the top-selling productivity suite. But they may now have slipped back to the number two spot in a couple very important areas: webmail and browsing.

According to Google’s numbers, Gmail is now the world’s most popular webmail app with an active user base of 425 million and counting. If Google really has taken over the top spot here, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. With one million new Android device activations every single day and Gmail pushed during the first run, it stands to reason that new users would be arriving in droves. Accounts are also pushed on Google.com, Youtube, in Chrome, and pretty much everywhere else Google pops up online.

Comscore isn’t convinced that Hotmail has been ousted, however. Their data pins monthly unique visitors to Hotmail at 325 million and Gmail at 289 million. It’d be hard to call a Gmail user “active” if they’re not even checking in once a month. There is, of course, the possibility that Comscore’s numbers are off. You’d certainly hope Google knew (and reported) the correct count, but sometimes it’s more important to flaunt the biggest number you can.

And speaking of big numbers, Chrome hit version 20 this week. In addition to no longer being a “teenager,” Google reported that Chrome is now the most popular browser on the web. VP of Chrome Sundar Pichai says there are now 310 million regular users.

The folks at StatCounter won’t be at all surprised by this news. They predicted back in January that Chrome would overtake IE for the top spot, and that the changeover would happen in the middle of this year. Recent numbers from both StatCounter and Commscore showed that the gap was incredibly narrow — and even that Chrome may have squeaked past, but it now looks pretty official.

With 8 of the top 25 most-visited sites on the web (and even more of AdSense and Analytics users) pumping data into Mountain View, it’s hard to imagine that their figures would be off.

Saturday, June 30, 2012 | 0 comments | Read More

Sony announces next generation Google TV set-top box

Google TV was first launched in 2010, but since its launch,it has had a bit of trouble getting the masses to adopt Google TV in the way that Apple TV has. Sony is hoping to change that with the NSZ-GS7, which was originallyannounced at CES in January, with pre-orders starting from today and expected in stores on July 22,  priced at $199.

 Sony has also announced pricing of the NSZ-GP9, which is similar to the GS7 but also includes a Blu-ray player on board for an extra $100 and will launch in time for the holiday season. The GS7 will be the first device to ship outside of the Unites States, coming to the United Kingdom in July and followed later by Canada, Australia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Brazil, and Mexico. The GP9 is also launching outside of the States in all countries mentioned above except for Brazil and Mexico.

The box features a redesigned remote control after the monstrosity of their last attempt. It has general controls and a trackpad on one side and a QWERTY keyboard on the other. It runs on Android 3.2 (Honeycomb) but with I/O just two days away hopefully we’ll see future updates for the platform announced there.

My fellow geeks,my prayer na when e go enter 9ja???Just keep your fingers crossed,i will definitely keep you posted.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012 | 0 comments | Read More

Apple ditches Google Maps software in latest iOS

Apple has unveiled its latest mobile operating system, iOS6, at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference.

The operating system, which runs on its iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices, will no longer include Google Maps software.

Apple will instead run its own mapping app, which has a high-quality 3D mode, on the platform.

Google announced its own 3D mapping software last week on its competing mobile platform, Android.

Both companies have used fleets of planes to capture the imagery, drawing concerns from some privacy campaigners.

Apple's updated iOS software is being released in beta on Tuesday, and will be available for general consumers by the autumn, chief executive Tim Cook said.

It will be a free update for owners of either an iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 or iPhone 3GS - as well as users of the latest iPad, the iPad 2 and fourth generation iPod touch.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012 | 0 comments | Read More

Google banned ads rocket to 134m

Google said that its advertising business was forced to block roughly 134 million malicious and misleading submissions last year. The company reported that its volume of disapproved advertisements more than doubled between 2010 and 2011, up from 56.4 million blocks in 2010 and just 25.3 million in 2008.

 Additionally, Google banned some 824,000 advertisers in 2011, up from 248,000 in 2010 and 18,000 in 2008. Google said that the advertisements were removed for violating the terms and conditions of the Google and AdSense platforms. The terms prohibits ads which are misleading, linked to malware attacks and considered to be spam. "Bad ads have a disproportionately negative effect on our users; even a single bad ad slipping through our defenses is one too many," Google director of advertising engineering David Baker said in a blog post. 

"That’s why we’re constantly working to improve our systems and utilise new techniques to prevent bad ads from appearing on Google and our partner sites." Malicious advertisements have long been an issue for Google and other online advertising firms. Cybercriminals often embed malicious code or other unwanted content within advertising materials in order to bypass security protections and filtering systems.

 Baker noted that the company has also had to ban advertisers for copyright and trademark violations, such as advertisements for counterfeit items. "We find that there are relatively few malicious players, who make multiple attempts to bypass our defences to defraud users," said Baker. "As we get better and faster at catching these advertisers, they redouble their efforts and create more accounts at an even faster rate."

Friday, June 01, 2012 | 0 comments | Read More

Google accuses Microsoft and Nokia of creating patent trolls to weaken Android

Google has accused Microsoft and Nokia of colluding in an attempt to artificially raise the price of mobile phones. The search giant filed a complaint with the European Commission (EC) stating Microsoft and Nokia conspired together to use their patents against competitors and drive up the cost of headsets. "Nokia and Microsoft are colluding to raise the costs of mobile devices for consumers, creating patent trolls that side-step promises both companies have made," a Google spokesperson told V3.

 "They should be held accountable, and we hope our complaint spurs others to look into these practices." Google believes that Microsoft and Nokia entered into agreements with companies like Canadian copyright licensing firm Mosaid Technologies in an attempt to covertly enforce their patent holdings and destabilise the mobile phone market. By giving their patents to third parties, Microsoft and Nokia could perceivably, and legally, charge competitors for the use of their patents through proxy.

 Google argued that Mosaid acquired patents on behalf of Microsoft and Nokia in an attempt to enforce their copyrights in the future. Mosaid has yet to officially do anything with the patents. But Google argued Mosaid plans to and said its complaint is a preemptive strike out of fear that Microsoft and Nokia will enforce patents by proxy and make Android OS unappealing to headset manufactures. Google points to a deal Mosaid made with Nokia in 2011 as proof of collusion. 

The deal included the transfer of 1,200 Nokia-related wireless patents to Mosaid from a company called Core Wireless. Google contends that Mosaid plans to use those recently acquired patents against competitors. "Mosaid believes that revenues from licensing, enforcing and monetising this wireless portfolio will surpass the company's total revenues since its formation in 1975," Mosaid wrote in a press release for the purchase in 2011. 

The complaint comes in the wake of a busy period in software patent litigation. Oracle recently lost a case against Google over the infringement of their Java software platform. While Apple and Samsung failed to come to a compromise over their patent feud.

Friday, June 01, 2012 | 0 comments | Read More