Logging The Cyber World

Tags: Google, google plus, search engine land, search results, social network

The long-standing and persistent accusation that Google unfairly uses its search engine to promote its other online services is once again in the spotlight, triggered by new social search functionality the company is rolling out this week that more tightly links its search engine with its Google+ social networking site.

The complaints have come from different quarters, including competitors and industry experts, and have focused on various arguments, but at bottom all charge Google with using its dominant search engine to deliberately boost Google+’s popularity, by giving Google+ pages and profiles an artificially prominent position in result pages.

More here

Tags: android, comscore, ios, samsung, US mobile market

The latest comScore report shows that Android is still dominating U.S. mobile subscriber market share ahead of Apple’s iOS.

The report, which measures mobile market share for the U.S. during a three month period ending November 2011, provides an average among over 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers.

According to comScore, 234 million Americans age 13 and over used mobile devices in the three month period, and 91.4 million of them are smartphone owners. Android-based devices took the lead position with 46.9 percent share in the smartphone market. Apple took second place with 28.7 percent, followed by RIM (16.6 percent), Microsoft (5.2 percent) and Symbian (1.5 percent).

Daily Tech

Tags: android, Google, mobile, mobile wars, motorola

Google just announced that it is acquiring Motorola Mobility. The search and online advertising company is buying the company for approximately $12.5 billion (or $40 per share), in cash. The price represents a premium of 63 percent to the closing price of Motorola Mobility shares last Friday. Google had about $39 billion in cash at last count.

Here’s the other important part of the PR (the why, and what happens to Android now):

The acquisition of Motorola Mobility, a dedicated Android partner, will enable Google to supercharge the Android ecosystem and will enhance competition in mobile computing. Motorola Mobility will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. Google will run Motorola Mobility as a separate business.

More on Techcrunch

Tags: google 1000 new patents, google patents, IBM, purchased patents, trademark office

Google Inc. said Friday that it has purchased technology patents from International Business Machines Corp. as the Web-search giant stocks up on intellectual property to defend itself against lawsuits.

“Like many tech companies, at times we’ll acquire patents that are relevant to our business,” a Google spokesman said in a statement.

The purchase was reported earlier by the blog SEO by the Sea, which said Google in mid-July recorded the acquisition of more than 1,000 patents with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The patents involve the “fabrication and architecture of memory and microprocessing chips,” computer architecture including servers and routers and online search engines, among other things. SEO stands for search engine optimization, or the practice of structuring websites and content so they rank well on search engines like Google.

More on Wall Street Journal

Tags: android, apple, blackBerry, iphone, RIM, smartphone

Nielsen has posed the question “Who is winning the US smartphone battle?” and has answered it in two ways. Then the company put it all into a nice chart to help you understand, which you can see below.

The first answer is Google’s Android, if we’re looking at smartphone OS market share. The second is Apple’s iPhone tied with Research in Motion’s BlackBerry, if we’re looking at smartphone manufacturer market share.

Read more techspot.com

Tags: Dick Costolo, facebook, Google, twitter, Zynga

Twitter’s chief executive, Dick Costolo, says talk of a $10bn (£6.2bn) acquisition of the messaging company by Google is “just a rumour” and that the site is already making money.

Speaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Costolo asked whether Google could afford a $10bn acquisition – following rumours that this was the price being considered by the search engine firm for the messaging startup. “People write that stuff all the time … I don’t know where these things come from, it’s just a rumour.” He fell short of an outright denial, however.

Costolo also suggested that Twitter, which started operations in February 2006, will this year introduce a new method of making money, to add to its existing roster of promoted tweets, accounts and trends. However, he did not specify what that would be.

More on Guardian.co.uk

Tags: android, apple, motorola, Nokia Corp, samsung, symbian os, Verizon

Google Inc.’s (GOOG) Android toppled Nokia Corp.’s(NOK) Symbian as the world’s most widely used smartphone operating system in the fourth quarter, according to a pair of studies released Monday, underscoring the rapid changes sweeping through the mobile space.

Shipments of Android-based smartphones surged sevenfold on-year to 33 million worldwide, driven by strong sales from handset makers such as South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (005930.SE) and Taiwan’s HTC Corp. (2498.TW), research firm Canalys said. That growth gave Android a 33% share of the worldwide smartphone platform market in the fourth quarter, ahead of Symbian’s 31% and Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) iPhone operating system with 16%.

In the U.S., Android was also the top mobile platform for the period, ranking above that of the popular iOS from Apple Inc. (AAPL) that powers the iPhone. Android also bested the BlackBerry platform from Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM) for the quarter, Canalys found.

The competitive dynamics may shift in the first quarter of this year, when the iPhone makes its debut on Verizon Wireless in the U.S. Verizon (VZ) has been a key backer of Android.

More on Wall Street Journal

Tags: company acquired, Google, groupon, local businesses, special offers

Internet search giant Google is thought to have bought Groupon, a discount an offers website, for around $2.5 billion (£1.6 billion), according to rumours emanating from Silicon Valley.

Google and Groupon are said to have been locked in discussions for weeks over a possible deal, although neither company has commented on the latest speculation.

Groupon – which offers users discounts and special offers at shops and businesses in their local area – only launched in 2008, but is valued in excess of $1.3 billion, and reportedly generates revenues of more than $50 million per month.

News on Telegraph

Tags: Google, google tv, intel tv, internet tv, sony tv

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) — Google is working with Intel and Sony to develop a new class of internet-enabled televisions and set-top boxes, according to the New York Times.

The effort, known as Google TV, has been under way for several months and is based on Google’s Android software which is currently available in certain smartphones, the Times, citing people with knowledge of the project, reported on Wednesday.

Logitech International is also involved and is developing peripheral devices, such as a tiny keyboard.

“The partners envision technology that will make it as easy for TV users to navigate Web applications, like the Twitter social network and the Picasa photo site, as it is to change the channel,” the Times reports.

Full details at Wired.com

Tags: captions, deaf, speech recognition, Videos, youtube, youtube features

YouTube is making the tens of millions of videos it hosts more accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing by putting automatic captions on them.

The Google-owned company said this use of speech recognition technology is probably the biggest experiment of its kind online.

Previously captions were only on a small amount of content.

“A core part of YouTube’s DNA is access to content,” said the firm’s product manager Hunter Walk.

More on BBC News