Tech Readers » Google

Google Advises Developers to Submit Privacy Policies

Mikey Mell — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 08:51:25 +0000

It has been noticed over the past few weeks that the Android and iOS apps being targeted for their treatment of customer data. The growing criticism about the way apps were handling customer data urged Google to become more practical about app privacy.

The search giant has recently added a field for developers to fill out their privacy policy while submitting an app to the Google Play. Google has made this a recommended addition for developers. According to the search giant, the inclusion of privacy policy is currently a developer tool for the time being, but soon these policies will be made available to customers in the Google Play market, so that they can review the privacy policy before downloading the application.

Prior to this, Apple, Microsoft, HP, Google, Amazon and RIM along with other companies, have already signed an agreement with the California Attorney General to expose app privacy policies before downloading. A violation of the agreement, while voluntary on the part of companies, does have a penalty:

If developers do not comply with their stated privacy policies, they can be prosecuted under California’s Unfair Competition Law and/or False Advertising Law.

It seems that the latest initiative took by the search giant is in fact its effort to fulfill this request. The Cupertino-based Apple currently doesn’t disclose privacy policies of apps to customers before download, except for offering a link to the website of an app developer.

However, Google has moved a step further by urging its Android app developers to fill out a privacy policy regarding app at the time of submitting the app to the Google Play market. We can only speculate that Apple will soon take an initiative to urge developers to enter a privacy policy while submitting an app to App Store.

Google Might Let You Buy Movies via Google Play

Mikey Mell — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 08:29:50 +0000

The search giant is in talks with movie studios to start selling movies via Google Play, Google’s recently redesigned hub for exploring and buying apps, movies, books, and music, according to new report.

Consumers can only rent movies via Google Play at the moment, even though they can still purchase digital downloads of films via other retail channels, such as Apple’s iTunes.

Cnet, while citing several unknown sources, reports that the search giant could start selling films somewhere around this summer. However, there are some sources who even claimed that the initiative to sell movies and just renting may perhaps be coming from the studios themselves, as they demanded the search giant agree to sales so as to get access to rentals in the first place.

If the negotiations between Google and film studios come to any solution the deal would certainly open up movie purchases to a massive audience – owners of Android devices. Currently, there are about 300 million Android devices activated all across the globe, as Andy Rubin of Google announced on stage at February’s Mobile World Congress.

For studios, film sales is still a vital business, who have already witnessed a gradual decline in DVD sales as more content is made available via streaming and DVD rental providers, such as Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and Redbox.

In another report related to Google Play, the search giant has announced plans for initiating ebooks sales in France as well.

Google Ready to Open Office in Indonesia

Mikey Mell — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 17:14:26 +0000

The search giant is all set to launch its office in the Indonesia, as the search giant is sending invitations for the official opening ceremony scheduled for March 30. On Friday, the company will officially open its office in Indonesia after a prolonged delay.

The event will be held in the Kuningan district of Jakarta and is hoped to be attended by two ministers, Dr. Mari E. Pangestu, minister of travel & creative economy and Gita Wirjawan, Minister of trade. As far as details provided by the search giant, the pair will talk about the importance of Google’s onset and significance of its presence for the Internet industry in the country.

The Managing Director for Google Southeast Asia, Julian Persaud, is given the task to handle the opening ceremony for the event, where the country head for Indonesia will also be revealed to the public.

Earlier, Daily Social broke the news that Google has hired the former MNC director Rudy Ramaway, and supposed to be the head of Google’s operations in Indonesia together with Krishna Zulkarnaen, who currently works as Chief Marketing Officer.

It’s been quite some time that Google has been in talks with Indonesian government to discuss different aspects before opening its office in the country to serve the population of about 220 million. The company is aiming to make its presence felt in the emerging internet space of Indonesia.

With the opening of this office, the total number of Google’s offices in Southeast Asia will reach four. The company launched its offices in Thailand and Malaysia in 2011. Indonesia is a fast growing market and expected to become a vital platform for web firms in the future. The presence of Google in the region would certainly benefit both the country as well as the search giant.

Digg Founder Kevin Rose Joins Google

Mikey Mell — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 20:49:36 +0000

The founder of Digg has been hired by the search giant Google. He announced this on his Google+ page where he mentioned that he has finally joined the Google and is bringing its entire staff of his startup Milk to the Google.

Rose pointed out that ““I’m beyond excited to announce that the Milk crew (Kevin Rose, Daniel Burka, Chris Hutchins and Joshua Lane) is joining Google! It’s been a privilege to use Google products over the years (I still remember begging for a Gmail invite) and I can’t wait to be a part of the amazing team that is shaping the future of the web.”

Just a few weeks after leaving Digg (which he founded), Rose formed a startup Milk back in April 2011. Milk was established with an aim to work as development lab for mobile web ideas, which was situated in Mission District in San Francisco.

The news of Digg founder Rose and his team coming to Google was originally surfaced last week. The news comes just a few days after Milk pushed the plug on its very first app, Olink that enabled users to rate the insides of places. Rose further mentioned that ““Oink was our first test and, in preparing to move onto the next project, we’ve decided to shut it down to help focus our efforts” – the efforts that will now take place at Google’s camp.

Perhaps, a good initiative taken by the search giant, Kevin Rose will certainly help bring something valuable to the company.

Google Claims Its Ads Are Safer Than Ever

Mikey Mell — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:31:36 +0000

In today’s world, everyone seems busy Googling for one reason or another. Google has become has major source of getting results for our queries. Google also provided us with a number of context-relevant ads. This is how the search giant makes money and this won’t seem to change in near future.

In one of its blog post entitled “Making our ads better for everyone,” the search giant points out the process that advertisers must go through to make certain that the ads displayed on the search engine results and other Google properties are legal and not destructive or risky.

According to Google, all ads will have to pass through a thorough technological review along with a manual one to take away ads with malware and spam-like functionality. Furthermore, the search giant claims that it has pushed “millions of dollars” into making this system best of the best.

Following are given a list of some major improvements Google has introduced to its ad system:

Improved “query watch” for counterfeit ads: While anyone can report counterfeit ads, we’ve widened our proactive monitoring of sensitive keywords and queries related to counterfeit goods which allows us to catch more counterfeit ads before they ever appear on Google

New “risk model” to detect violations: Our computer scanning depends on detailed risk models to determine whether a particular ad may violate our policies, and we recently upgraded our engineering system with a new “risk model” that is even more precise in detecting advertisers who violate our policies

Faster manual review process: Some ads need to be reviewed manually. To increase our response time in preventing ads from policy-violating advertisers, we sped up our internal processes and systems for manual reviews, enabling our specialists to be more precise and fast

Twenty-four hour response time: We aim to respond within 24 hours upon receiving a reliable complaint about an ad to ensure that we’re reviewing ads in a timely fashion

What Google is claiming about its ads should be viewed with skepticism. Certainly, the company wants to ensure that its ads are safe and users are not worried about any spam or malware, but the fact is company makes money with every single time you click on any ad…

Furthermore, the company also claims that “bad ads” on its ecosystem had dropped by 50% last year from 2010, discarding more than 130 million affected ads. The search giant has shared video with us to describe how its ad system works and why it is safe to click on them:

Google Chrome Extension Makes Hangouts Accessible to the Blind

Mikey Mell — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 07:03:04 +0000

As we all know that Google+ Hangouts offers and audio and video experience, but this doesn’t mean at all that it is entirely accessible to those with visual impairments. On the side of a Hangout, there are available chatrooms where the participants tend to type a chunk of backchannel conversation as the main video conference continues.

This has clicked the mind of one developer and he decided to come up with something that would assist the people with visual impairment. He creates a Google+ Chrome extension that utilizes text to speed technology to read everything that appears in the chat box out loud.

The developer of the extension, Mohamed Mansour shared his thoughts on how Google+ Hangouts should be made more accessible to the impaired people who need a helping hand to use it properly:

Today I was in a hangout, where I met a blind war veteran. It was really inspiring to see him use such technology. But it was really hard for him to use it since it wasn’t accessible friendly. I was writing on the chat on the left, and it was really difficult for him to read the text. I am really into Accessibility, and I worked on it a lot in Chromium in the past, and I really wanted to help him.

So I told Tim, “what if the chat spoke to you?” Tim said, “That would be awesome.” When I saw the big smile on his face, I had to do it! So I created this extension for Chrome!

The extension is certainly very impressive and is available for Chrome. The video given at the end will give you a good demo of the extension.

The video shows that an audio announcement will be made whenever someone joins the Google+ Hangout is fantastic, given that someone may not be able to see the text properly would never know whether someone joins or leave.

It is also important to note here that Google+ team is very watchful in its approach to release a full API for its Google+ social tools, but this can be done with extra tools for developers. Now, considering the usefulness of the extension, Google+ team might consider making it an official part of the product.

Accessible Hangouts for Google+

Google Files a Complaint to Confiscate GooglePlay.com

Mikey Mell — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 06:26:50 +0000

In one of its recent announcement, the search giant emphasizes on the fact that it would now be mentioned as “Google Play”. Since this announcement, Google has geared up its rebranding process for Android Market. The entire range of content that is currently available from Google will now be available under new brand.

This is what the search giant had to say about the change last week:

Today we’re eliminating all that hassle with Google Play, a digital entertainment destination where you can find, enjoy and share your favorite music, movies, books and apps on the web and on your Android phone or tablet. Google Play is entirely cloud-based so all your music, movies, books and apps are stored online, always available to you, and you never have to worry about losing them or moving them again.

However, before finalizing the transformation process, the search giant has to deal with a one big hurdle – the domain name GooflePlay.com. The domain is currently owned by a Japanese resident. The search giant has filed a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum to seize it, reports Fusible.

Although, the search giant filed a trademark for the name just a day before announcing Google Play, but it seems that Google won’t have much trouble in getting the domain from its current Japanese owner as it includes Google’s main trademark and company name.

The URL Google assigned for its Google Play is http://play.google.com. However, a lot of traffic is distracted by the people who enter GooglePlay.com into their browser.

Google has a really good history at winning domains, as it has already won 32 captured domains that infringed on several trademarks it owns.

In order to win the rights to this domain, Google needs to have one or more violations of ICANN’s guidelines:

The domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark in which the complainant has rights

The owner has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name and;

The domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

Though, the domain isn’t a part of Google and is an ad-farm at the moment, it is needless to say that Google will face any difficulty scoring another win.

Google’s New Privacy Policy Goes into Effect

Mikey Mell — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 07:21:13 +0000

Google announced its new privacy policy back in January. The search giant came under a good amount of criticism over its new privacy policy, with investigations are being conducted by several countries, including European regulators and South Korea.

The Google’s new privacy policy went into effect from March 1. The new privacy policy announced in January affects over 70 different documents and governs all of Google’s products under one roof.

The search giant vows that the new document is much easier and simpler to understand and follow. The company claims that it made changes into its privacy plan to offer a seamless user experience. Moreover, Google says that the change won’t harm the real essence of the company’s privacy controls.

Alma Whitten, Director of Privacy, Product and Engineering at Google, wrote in a blog post, “We aren’t collecting any new or additional information about users. We won’t be selling your personal data. And we will continue to employ industry-leading security to keep your information safe.”

In the new documents, Google has taken away some of the ‘inconsistencies’ that enable the company to combine more of your data across various Google products, such as YouTube, Gmail, Search and Google Docs.

Whitten further states that “So in the future, if you do frequent searches for Jamie Oliver, we could recommend Jamie Oliver videos when you’re looking for recipes on YouTube—or we might suggest ads for his cookbooks when you’re on other Google properties.” European regulators have twice directed Google to hold off, but the search giant ignoring the directions of European regulators brought its policies into effect.

Have a look at the video embedded below to have a finer idea of the introduction of new privacy policy:

Google Announces Design Stencils for Android Developers

Mikey Mell — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 06:45:51 +0000

The only thing responsible for Android’s consistent beat in the market over the recent few years is perhaps lack of design-centric applications. If we compare the available apps on Android and iOS platforms, majority of the apps do better on Apple’s products.

The search giant is working hard to alter its approach with the new version of mobile operating system Android, Ice Cream Sandwich. Compared to its previous versions, Android 4.0 seem not only better and more unified aesthetic, but also provides more tools and assistance to developers so as to enhance the look of their apps.

Initially, it was taken as an introduction of an Android Style Guide that assist developers determine a good beginning point of user experience. But the search giant has now launched design stencils on its new Android Design center. Alex Faaborg, Android Designer gives the following descriptions of the new design stencils:

With these stencils you can now drag and drop your way to beautifully designed Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) applications, with grace and ease. The stencils feature the rich typography, colors, interactive controls, and icons found throughout Ice Cream Sandwich, along with some phone and tablet outlines to frame your meticulously crafted creations.

The new design stencils are offered in a range of design suites, such as Adobe Fireworks, Photoshop and Illustrator, and OmiGraffe. Google says that the company will further extend this approach to its other products in the near future.

Now we have to see what kind of response come from the Android Developer’s side, whether they find these design stencils of any help while developing different apps, or continue to prefer to develop from scratch. It is too early to reach any conclusion, so we should wait and see the usefulness of these design stencils in the development of Android apps.

Google+ Buttons Get Better Functionality

Mikey Mell — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 07:08:44 +0000

Google is very quick to make important changes to its few months old social network Google+. In its recent attempt, Google has made some important changes to Google+ buttons. It is a matter of only few months that the social platform receives a major overhaul since its debut. Google in one of its blog post said, “you are about to get better functionality all around.”

The most prominent change that you notice is an easier sharing with +1 button. You will now have an instant opening share box without a need for second click. In case you need to +1 a post, simply do it and move along. Similarly, if you need to add commentary and share it, you can do it in a convenient way.

Another change that you will notice is the way you add brand pages. The search giant has changed the badges to read “Follow”. You only need a single click to add the brand page to your ‘Following’ circle. You can also move the page easily between different circles.

You can even add a badge for yourself, if you feel like having superstar type qualities. Well, actually being superstardom is not the compulsion to add a badge. You can simply put a Follow button on a page of your choice easily. Google+ has also brought some customization options for you as well. On a page of your choice, you can customize few things and then simply need to copy and paste a code to put your Follow badge wherever you want to.

The introduction of single click sharing is certainly a handy feature. Google+ brand pages are already doing well to surpass Twitter’s offering by 4x. Follow button will also be a great initiative from the company as lots of people will surely make use of it. Let us know about your thoughts about revamped Google+ buttons.

Google Updates Docs for Android

Mikey Mell — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 09:01:22 +0000

Google has updated its Google Docs app for Android. In an announcement, the search giant said that the updated version of the app is entertained with realtime collaboration tools, rich text editing and a refined interface.

The new realtime collaboration tools offer users to view editing from multiple invited participants occur live, similar to the one seen in the regular version of Google Docs. With this tool, you can see people typing as they edit documents and go along with their edits. Furthermore, you can also join in with them and start editing straight away with them in the document.

In addition to realtime collaboration tools, the search giant has also revamped the interface of the application. The new interface will offer users pinch-to-zoom actions, which make it simpler for users to begin editing on a particular section of the document.

Another significant feature introduced in the updated version is the rich text editing. The new feature enables users to perform bold, bullet-point, color and other related contextual formatting, which is sometimes necessary to deliver your point in the document.

It’s been quite some time that the Google Docs application for Android missed the line and lagged far behind the regular version of the Google Docs. It is certainly a good move from the search giant to overhaul its application for Android to offer Android-users a similar experience as users of the regular Google Docs.

By offering an updated version of its Google Docs for Android, Google is trying to bring both regular Google Docs and Google Docs for Android in line to improve the functionality of its services on different platforms. The updated version of Google Docs for Android application is now available for download on the Android Market.

Google Docs for Android

Google Makes Mobile Flight Search Easier

Mikey Mell — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:40:23 +0000

The search giant has been experimenting with its flight search to make it simpler and easier to use. In a blog post, Google announced that it has brought more functionality to its mobile version of flight search, introducing some much needed characteristics.

“Since we launched Flight Search back in September, we’ve been hard at work improving the features, increasing coverage and making it easy to find flight results directly from google.com on your desktop. Starting today, we’re also making it easier to find flights departing from the US on your mobile device.”

With a tweaked mobile flight search, whenever you do a text-string search for a flight, such as “flights from San Francisco to Amsterdam in March,” you will receive results that help you customize them directly on the page. Not to forget, you will also get a complete listing of available flights. Instead of moving to somewhere else, you will now able to change dates straight from the results screen.

Certainly, Google has done something extremely well with its mobile flight search. Now Google app is right in line with other famous travel booking applications, including Hipmunk and Kayak. The search giant’s acquisition of ITA is another breakthrough in this regard, as several options has been opened for the search giant to experiment with.

All Google need is to make certain that it is enthralling users with features.

Google’s Homepage Receives a Second Box for Google+ Sharing

Mikey Mell — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 08:46:13 +0000

We all know that Google never likes to clutter up its homepage with additional buttons or contraptions, but for its social network, Google+, the search giant has made an exception.

The search giant has added a share button to the right-hand corner of its patented search page design. The company said that the roll out has already begun and update will soon be available to all users.

Once a user clicks on the share button, a box will open for adding updates to Google+ account. However, the box won’t include search results in the update.

Marketing Land was the first to spot the share button. The share box is a part of an update to the ‘Google Bar’, announced earlier this month by Google. Primarily, the company shifts the share button from the bar to the Google homepage.

The update is nothing but a minor one. The interesting thing about this update is that it is the first time that the search giant has offered any function other than search on its homepage.

The Google+ integration with search results via Search plus Your World was not enough to announce Google’s commitment to its social network – one can add this update as well to show company’s deep concern.

Google generates a major part of its revenue via advertisers, who anxiously want to locate the consumers who are most likely to buy their products. The search giant has ton of search and browsing data that can aid advertisers to fulfill their needs, but still it lacks the vital social graph that its competitor social network Facebook has.

The search giant has been utilizing search in an attempt to create a social graph through its social network and therefore heavily advertise its network as a result.

The integration is somehow reasonable. Relevant search results can be received through utilizing the social data and there is a possibility of coming across a data in search that is useful to share instantly. There are some who oppose this thought as they believe that it will take the effectiveness away of the Google Search.

The editor-in-chief of Marketing Land and Search Engine Land, Danny Sullivan, wrote that “Personally, I find it intrusive. I don’t get why I want to go to the Google home page to share content on Google+. I’ll go to Google+, if I want to do that.”

Here is how Google Bar looked like before:

Eric Schmidt to Offer $1.5 Billion in Google Stock

Mikey Mell — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 07:05:27 +0000

Eric Schmidt, the former CEO and the current Executive chairman of the search giant Google, is selling off Google stock worth around $1.45 billion “as part of a trading plan that would cut his ownership stake in the Internet giant” from 2.8% to 2.1%, reports the Wall Street Journal.

It was back in April last year, when Eric Schmidt was stepped down from its CEO post. It is assumed that this decision has had its impact on the decision because the stock trading plan was adopted back in November by the search giant. The initiative also points out the dwindling faith in Google and also the signs are pretty obvious that Schmidt is certainly looking to keep himself at the distance from the company with this initiative.

Following is an excerpt taken from the Wall Street Journal original report:

The plan allows Mr. Schmidt to spread stock trades over a one-year period to reduce market impact.

Google shares had fallen 3.3% in the past year as of the close Friday, and were up slightly over the prior three months.

Considering the performance of the search giant’s stock price for the past few years, it has been considerably inconsistent during all that time, wavering between ~$500 and up to $650 in the 2011 alone.

What makes it so interesting is the Schmidt patience to wait for social to go public before selling off Google stocks. More importantly, he will still remain in the possession of a significant 2.1% of the Google stock. Perhaps, he may have plans to invest somewhere else.

Leading the company for a fair amount of time, after it debuted in 2001, Schmidt had done a remarkable job to bring company to the current status. However, he stepped down from its CEO position to become an executive chairman of the search giant’s board in 2011.

Google Introduces My Places in Google Maps

Mikey Mell — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 08:01:16 +0000

The search giant is working hard to make its products as much improved to give tough time to its rival services. Google has recently included suggestions for your searches based on what you have searched before and where you are in its Google Maps. The company is now rolling out a new feature to its Google Maps named ‘My Places’, so as to let users locate the ones that are important to them in a seamless way.

To use this new feature, you have to sign into your Google Account. Once you logs into your Google Account, you will see the places that you have Starred, you have searched before, rated and even checked-in places. The new feature is very simple an easy to navigate and works absolutely seamlessly.

The search giant also states that if users want to delete the history, they can do so. However, you have to make certain that the history is being saved for you:

“These past directions and places will only appear for signed-in users who enable Web History. And like other items in My Places, it’s simple to remove any of the locations or directions via the drop-down arrow next to each item.”

Google Maps is very popular in France as they believe that the service is anticompetitive at the moment. If the people of France are so happy with the service, it is certain that majority of the people across the world use this service on regular basis. However, people who are conscious about privacy, there may be a slight concern, but that is not a big threat as you can work around Google’s tracking if to opt for. The company has also started to work as a mapping provider in China and it would be interesting to see how this and many other features get into work.

Google’s New Privacy Policy to Be Probed in South Korea

Mikey Mell — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 08:04:05 +0000

KCC or Korea and Communications Commission, the communication regulator in South Korea has begun investigating Google’s new privacy policy, according to reports. The communication is investigating new rules and regulations along with a user’s information across its services to determine whether these violate local laws.

According to Yonhap News, the commission is thoroughly examining the new measures taken by the search giant to find out whether these will violate local data protection and open use of the Internet. The new privacy policy introduced by Google will be effective from March 1st.

A letter has been submitted to Congress by the search giant to clear concerns over its new policy. The company in that note wrote that it wanted to keep them “simpler and more understandable,” by packing over “60 product-specific privacy policies into [its] main Google one,” utilizing 85% fewer words.

The search giant also put emphasis on the fact that it wants to give more information to users when they are signed up into Google services.

The investigation is launched in response to letter received by Korea and Communications Commission (KCC) from Google Korea that the search giant is going to combine information for its users and confirming that it won’t exclude South Korea from the global change. Although, users will be allowed to opt-out, they won’t be able to use Google for email or web searches, reports Yonhap News.

According to some sources, if the search giant has violated local laws, the Commission will take immediate actions. This step from KCC would emulate warnings by European authorities that asked search giant to delay launching of its new policies so they could investigate the impact of these changes on the users.

Google Checks a New Navigation Design

Mikey Mell — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:43:58 +0000

Since the launch of Google+, the search giant has went through a number of design makeovers so as to integrate native search options with the growing number of social features. It seems that search giant is up to change the design for the one more time.

According to State of Search, the search giant has begun investigating another layout for its social platform. The new layout will improve the visibility of the Google+ notification widget and account section, detaching it from the black bar at the top of the page and blending it into the page itself.

The image given above is taken from the new layout that Google is testing at the moment. If you are the one who like the new layout, you can give it a try as well. Simply open the regional Google homepage or google.com and follow the steps:

Inside the browser, open the developer tools. In Google Chrome, simply press CTRL + SHIFT + I; in Firefox, press CTRL + SHIFT + K; while the users of Internet Explorer 8 or above need to press F12 and open the tab Console. Safari users need to press CTRL + ALT + I and select Console in the opened panel.
Next you need to copy the code in this file into the console/developer screen and press Enter. Users who want to use different domain, such as google.co.uk, they need to replace ‘.com’ with ‘co.uk’ in the code.
On clicking Enter, the new navigation will immediately appear on the screen.

The regular users of Google+ might find this new change of blending the notification widget and account section into the page itself useful as this will help them to experience smooth interaction and increased visibility of new messages and Circle notifications.

The search giant’s recent move of merging its social feature into its search engines met with heavy criticism. However, with this move, the search giant is aiming to strengthen its social integration, helping the 90+ million users that it has already registered.

iOS Apps Crashes More Than Android Apps [Study]

Mikey Mell — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:41:04 +0000

The mobile application monitoring company Crittercism conducted a study regarding iOS and Android applications. The study revealed that iOS applications crash more than Android applications. The image given below shares the results with us and draws a clear picture of the situation. Results reveal that more apps crash under iOS 5.0.1, while its equivalent Android apps seem more stable.

It is, however, important to note here that the issues may not directly be associated with Apple’s iOS 5.0.1. Apparently, it seems that the issues actually lie with the iOS developers who failed to make their third-party apps completely compatible with the Apple’s iOS, eventually crashing up the apps in the end. Contrary to this, if we look at the relatively older version of iOS 4.3.3 that remained in use for quite a reason able time also accounted for 10.66% of mobile apps crash.

On the other hand, Android is looking quite stable. However, the latest Android 4.0.1 is the one that makes up for 1.04% of mobile application crashes – a pinch of salt against iOS 5.0.1’s 28.64%.

You must be wondering what actually cause iOS applications to crash every so often. There are several different reasons and Forbes talks about:

This can be due to hardware issues, such as the use of location or GPS services or cameras; it could be due to the Internet connection, that is, how a phone connects to 3G or WiFi, or that the device is not connected to the Internet at a certain moment, or that something happens during the switch between 3G and WiFi. There could also be issues with language support on certain devices. There can also be memory problems if an app uses too much memory.

In addition to this, the study also points out Apple’s iAd system begin the potential reason for the problem. It supposedly offers developers “problems if they [do] not adhere to certain standards.”

Moreover, the other problem is related to users who don’t opt to update.

The chart given above clearly shows that a good number of iOS device users are not upon the latest version of Apple’s mobile OS. Most of them are still using iOS 4.3.3, iOS 4.2.1 and some even running iOS 4.0. The obvious reasons people not opt to upgrade their devices are perhaps to keep a jailbreak or carrier unlock, while others just not care to update to latest operating system. If we follow the same approach for iOS app updates then we need to have a separate data to see the current trends.

Google+ Exceeds 100 Million Users

Mikey Mell — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:16:15 +0000

Facebook is certainly the most popular social networking platform all over the world. The when tech world awaits the social network’s IPO filing, an analyst claims that the young competitor Google+ has hit 100 million users mark.

A Google+ wather, Paul Allen says that the young social platform will have 100.8 million users by the Wednesday. On January 19, the CEO of Google, Larry Page announced that its social network had over 90 million users.

Allen wrote in a blog post on Google+ that the network has grown over 10% within two weeks. Allen, the founder of Ancestory.com, along with his staff follows a very strange approach to reach to his estimates – he along with his staff run hundreds of queries on surnames they have been tracking since July and then infer the size of the social network. It seems that his approach works far better for him as most of his numbers are usually very close to the ones revealed by Google afterwards.

Interestingly, Allen has anticipated that the network will exceed 400 million users mark by the end of this year – half the number that Facebook currently has.

There can be several factors that boosts Google+’s growth recently. Google has recently opened its network for teens. Also, the search giant has introduced Google plus Your World, a program launched last month that incorporated Google+ into the company’s search result. Such additions and improvements might have resulted in raising traffic of the network.

In addition to the efforts of Google, some recent steps from Facebook may have also encouraged some to give Google+ a try. One such step is the introduction of Timeline feature from Facebook that has annoyed a good number of users.

‘Life at Google’ Comes to Google+

Mikey Mell — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:56:04 +0000

Google has finally created an official ‘Life at Google’ account on its social network, Google+. The search giant has similar profiles on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook as well. The purpose of ‘Life at Google’ accounts is to share information with other users, such as what it is like working at Google, posting of job opportunities and content about the atmosphere and culture for which the search giant is popular.

All those keen to work at the company, the Life at Google accounts are must-follows for them. Being the social network of Google, its account on Google+ will truly be a focus of Google’s social media recruitment strategy. The search giant has promised too much in a tweet regarding its new Google+ page.

Compared to 27,817 likes on Facebook and 133,750 followers on Twitter, the page is in 2,800 circles within six hours after its launch.

When compared to Apple and Amazon, which prefer to work under much secretive manners, Google’s ‘Life at Google’ accounts is completely opposite to many other tech titans. Historically, Google has always been open about its corporate ‘culture’, which is obvious from the postings on the accounts.

Life at Google on Google+

Tech Readers » Google

Google Advises Developers to Submit Privacy Policies

Related Posts

Google Might Let You Buy Movies via Google Play

Related Posts

Google Ready to Open Office in Indonesia

Related Posts

Digg Founder Kevin Rose Joins Google

Related Posts

Google Claims Its Ads Are Safer Than Ever

Related Posts

Google Chrome Extension Makes Hangouts Accessible to the Blind

Related Posts

Google Files a Complaint to Confiscate GooglePlay.com

Related Posts

Google’s New Privacy Policy Goes into Effect

Related Posts

Google Announces Design Stencils for Android Developers

Related Posts

Google+ Buttons Get Better Functionality

Related Posts

Google Updates Docs for Android

Related Posts

Google Makes Mobile Flight Search Easier

Related Posts

Google’s Homepage Receives a Second Box for Google+ Sharing

Related Posts

Eric Schmidt to Offer $1.5 Billion in Google Stock

Related Posts

Google Introduces My Places in Google Maps

Related Posts

Google’s New Privacy Policy to Be Probed in South Korea

Related Posts

Google Checks a New Navigation Design

Related Posts

iOS Apps Crashes More Than Android Apps [Study]

Related Posts

Google+ Exceeds 100 Million Users

Related Posts

‘Life at Google’ Comes to Google+

Related Posts