Tech Readers » Google

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+

Google, Yahoo Unites to Deal with Phishing

Mikey Mell — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 06:57:47 +0000

Google, Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft have united to fight against sources of phishing, the emails that try to deceive users into giving up their personal information.

The companies in collaboration with the financial services providers, Including Bank of America and Fidelity Investments has formed DMARC.org, also called Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance, a technical specification that will offer consistent authentication results across Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and AOL.

The group blames the increase of phishing on the growth of social media along with certain of other aspects, on its website.

“With the rise of the social Internet and the ubiquity of e-commerce, spammers and phishers have a tremendous financial incentive to compromise user accounts, enabling theft of passwords, bank accounts, credit cards, and more,” reads an explanation on the group’s site. “Email is easy to spoof and criminals have found spoofing to be a proven way to exploit user trust of well-known brands. Simply inserting the logo of a well known brand into an email gives it instant legitimacy with many users.”

SPF and DKIM are the two preexisting authentication screening mechanisms introduced by DMARC. These methods are considered in compliance with industry standard. To implement them through Gmail and other email services, senders need to authenticate their emails. The consequence of this is that the email receivers will be sure about the email. For instance, an email from IRS.gov will ensure users that it is actually from Internal Revenue Service. In addition to this, if anyone trying to use the domain for phishing emails, IRS will be notified.

A McAfee consultant and identify theft expert, Robert Siciliano said that most of the phishing emails have already been intercepted and thrown in users’ spam folders.

He says, “What they’re trying to accomplish now is to eliminate them from your spam folder, noting that some users still click on such emails even when they’re labeled as spam. The fact is, there’s a sucker born every minute. A non-sophisticated user will be a target until all phishing emails are eliminated.”

He further adds that he is pretty hopeful that DMARC will be able to achieve this if “Its coordinated efforts like this that could actually solve this problem.”

All the same, Siciliano also warns here that clicking on a URL inside an email will still not be a good idea, even if DMARC is successful in their task. He means that whenever you received an email, to say, from Bank of America, use the main site to find your link. He also says, “The bad guys are like ants. They’re very consistent and find their way through.”

Google Music Lets You Download Your Own Music

Mikey Mell — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 08:13:48 +0000

The search giant’s cloud music service, Google Music has finally brought a new feature that enables users download their favorite music to their system with just a single click.

It’s been a year or so that Google Music made things easy for users to add their music to the cloud services for easy streaming. However, it wasn’t easy to recover music from your online library whenever users want to download content onto a desktop.

In order to address this problem, Google has introduced a download feature to its Google Music site and the Google Music Manager app.

Downloading music from the cloud to your desktop is smooth and easy. What you need to do is to select your song on the web and hit “Download selected songs.” Hover over to download tab on your Music Manager app and select either “Download purchased music” or “Export your library.” This can be done with any of the purchased music as well as to any tunes that you have uploaded yourself.

However, it is important to differentiate between the two interfaces. These both are slightly different from each other. Music Manager App will allow you to download as many music files as you want, even if you have exceeded the downloading purchased tracks. While you can only download purchased tracks twice to your computer when online.

Google through a blog post broke the news:

You already know that you can upload up to 20,000 songs to Google Music for free and stream them to your +Android device. Now we’re making sure the process is just as smooth for you to retrieve your music from the cloud … Your music will still be accessible from the cloud, so you will continue to have all the benefits of cloud access. Now if your computer crashes, you’ll have a great backup for your music.

Whether allowing users to download music on Google Music will make it the best cloud music service out there on the web, we have to wait and see.

Google Earth Receives Google+ Share Feature

Mikey Mell — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:08:49 +0000

Google has made yet another announcement that its latest version 6.2 of Google Earth has been updated to include several improvements. The updated version not only receives some visual improvements, but also social enhancements as well in the form of Google+ integration.

This is what Google Earth team said about its updated version:

We’re taking bird’s eye view to a whole new level with the latest version of Google Earth, released today. With Google Earth 6.2, we’re bringing you the most beautiful Google Earth yet, with more seamless imagery and a new search interface. Additionally, we’ve introduced a feature that enables you to share an image from within Google Earth, so you can now simply and easily share your virtual adventures with family and friends on Google+.

You will find the visual updates quite remarkable. Following is given a screenshot of a before and after of the Grand Canyon.

Being based on multiple satellite images stitched together, you can often have the image a little erratic when seen on the app. The Google Earth team has stated that the problem has been rectified in the latest version of the app by smoothing out the seams between images that makes it really fantastic.

The team has not only made the stuff on the Google Earth look prettier and clear, it also brought something that has already been introduced to other Google services, the integration to its social network. Yes, the latest version of Google Earth comes with an integration of Google+.

While searching for locations on the app, you can now share those screenshots directly on Google+ in few clicks.

Once you hit the share button, there will appear a familiar Google+ dialog that asks you which ‘circles’ you would like to share the content with. It is certainly interesting to share screenshots of locations you have visited or want to have discussion about the places you would like to visit in future.

Google Earth is really a handy app and its functionality much depends on the device you are using to run it. The service now offers an auto-complete feature similar to the one in Google’s search engine to make the searching process easy and simple. With this feature, you need not to worry about typing the street name wrong.

The search giant is busy socializing all its Google products under the tenure of its new CEO, Larry Page. He recently announced that the social network had exceeded 90 million users mark.

Download Google Earth 6.2

Google+ Now Opens for Teens

Mikey Mell — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:52:51 +0000

All those fall between 13 and 18 years of age will be pleased to hear that they can now join Google+. Thanks to the search giant who has made necessary security improvements to its social network to make it useable for the teenagers. This has been announced by Bradley Horowitz, the Vice President of Product at Google.

Prior to this, you need to be at least 18 or older in order to join the social network of Google. It seems that the initiative is taken to match up with Facebook that requires users to be 13 or older to join the social network. Horowitz said:

Teens and young adults are the most active Internet users on the planet. And surprise, surprise: they’re also human beings who enjoy spending time with friends and family. Put these two things together and it’s clear that teens will increasingly connect online. Unfortunately, online sharing is still second-rate for this age group.

In life, for instance, teens can share the right things with just the right people (like classmates, parents or close ties). Over time, the nuance and richness of selective sharing even promotes authenticity and accountability. Sadly, today’s most popular online tools are rigid and brittle by comparison, so teens end up over-sharing with all of their so-called “friends.”

With Google+, we want to help teens build meaningful connections online. We also want to provide features that foster safety alongside self-expression. Today we’re doing both, for everyone who’s old enough for a Google Account (13+ in most countries).

Following improvements has been made by Google in its Google+ to make it appropriate for the teenage users:

A warning appears whenever a teenage user share with ‘Public’ or ‘Extended Circles’.
Only the people in teens’ circles can communicate with them and their posts (By default).
Teens will automatically be muted if a stranger joins a hangout.

A Safety Center has been created by the search giant with a view to support its new move to bring teens and teen-focused content to its social networking site. The Safety Center can be reviews by parents along with their teenage children before they begin using the service.

Google with a view to promote its social platform has started spending on marketing as well, particularly on television. In order to become a successful platform, the service needs to appeal the people of all ages. But what I personally believe Google is bit late on catching up with Facebook when it comes to younger users. The social networking giant Facebook has a host of apps and an active user base of over 800 million. Google has yet to introduce features that will attract Facebook users towards it. The search giant still needs to go a long way in order to become a true competitor of Facebook.

Manage Your Google Ad Preferences

Mikey Mell — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:58:48 +0000

It seems that Google is into some hard work these days, as it has been reported yesterday that the search giant has revamped its privacy policies. Many users of Google services find the new policies a bit scary, but actually those are not as scary as portrayed.

Based its results on where you have visited, the Ads on the Web preference pane within your Google account settings is an impressive insight of what Google thinks of you. Although, Google succeeded in show the details of many people spot on, still many people reporting that their sex is listed incorrectly, or either the search giant is expecting that they are years younger or older that what they actually mentioned.

For instance, here is given demographics of Nancy Messieh:

Here you will notice that Nancy is not male, although the age is guessed right. Google is smart enough to know details about the person, considering where he has visited. Sorting the data will give Google enough idea about the interests, personality, sex and age, but it assumptions cannot necessarily be on target each time, considering what you have visited.

Fortunately, the search giant does offer you the ability to edit or remove any of the entries, right or wrong they may be. But if are stubborn enough to get your head spinning, just navigate over to your Google Dashboard, but always kept this thing in mind that Internet is watching you.

Google Announces a Public Alerts Platform

Mikey Mell — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 07:35:25 +0000

Google has launched a new service called Google Public Alerts. The service has been integrated into search giant’s current Google Maps. With this new platform, users will be able to get up-to-date information on emergency messages, including hurricane and storm warnings.

This new platform will help Google to provide users information regarding weather, safety and earthquake alerts, all across the United States, utilizing the content provided by the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Weather Service and the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

Users will be able to look for key terms and locations to find out more about what is happening in their area. One such example is provided by the search giant in the form of flood warnings in Indiana, where users will get a list of warnings throughout the state. Once user clicks on any of the warning, he will get detailed information on the location, the severity of the threat and what action should be required by user to stay safe.

The Google’s new platform offers a centralized and easy-to-access site with the latest on all of the current alerts in the United States. If a user wants to remain up-to-date with all of the public alerts, he can visit the website.

However, it is important to note here that Google Public Alerts is not available for all the cities across the United States. But we assume that with the expansion of partnerships, the platform will provide data about more cities.

Google Streamlines its Privacy Policies

Mikey Mell — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:29:23 +0000

A recent press release from Google indicates that the company is overhauling its privacy policies and lining up all of them under a single release:

“So we’re rolling out a new main privacy policy that covers the majority of our products and explains what information we collect, and how we use it, in a much more readable way. While we’ve had to keep a handful of separate privacy notices for legal and other reasons, we’re consolidating more than 60 into our main Privacy Policy.”

Here you will have to be a little careful while going through different headlines floating around on the web. For instance, The Washington Post reports it as:

Some times headlines are misleading as it does in the above case. Anyone who opts for using Google product, he/she would have to agree to the terms of service, meaning that you are under its privacy policy. This simply means that you will never be ‘opt-out’ of privacy policy of Google.

A more positive approach has been used by Google with a new policy in place. With a new policy, you will get more relevant results regardless of your place. The most noticeable thing here is the blanket policy that means all users will be treated same while being on any of the Google service. For instance, when a user is watching a YouTube video about dogs, he would likely see a Google.com ad for pet food.

Nothing much has been changed from Google, but the changes made represents Google’s positive and proactive approach towards its privacy issues. In other words, the things have been made easier for the users as far as they understand them thoroughly. There act can bring similar or related content elsewhere on different but linked Google services.

The video given below will demonstrate the overhauled privacy polices pretty well to the users. Have a look at it and see what Google has brought for you:

Google Announces Internet Research Site

Mikey Mell — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 17:41:41 +0000

The search giant has launched a new site called ‘Value of the Web’ earlier today. The site is designed to collect research from around the globe that “sheds new light on the economic impact of the Internet.”

Google has launched the site with 19 studies of which several covering the effect of Internet in countries as diverse as Sweden, Japan and Israel. The site also features general studies on cloud computing and the impact of search. However, it is important to note here that the research available on the site is not necessarily in English. For instance, a study on the Internet in Denmark is available only in Danish language.

A good number of papers uploaded on the site are in fact Google-commissioned studies by the Boston Consulting Group, including the UK-focused Connected Kingdom report which was covered earlier. However, the site also features the work from the likes of Deloite as well.

Whether the site features the self-commissioned work or not, sharing of such kind of research on the site perfectly in line with the search giant’s policy of encouraging more people to go online. The more people go online, the more people will use Google services. The site also exhibits in itself schemes including Internet education in India and getting businesses online in Kenya, the latter of which received a lot of criticism in the previous week. The company also started an institute in Berlin to study online innovation in 2011 and there are chances that its research will find its way to the new site somewhere in future.

At the moment, the ‘Value of the Web’ site is lacking some of the final tweaks and touches as partner logos are missing, and also two of the studies. However, the site is still worth bookmarking so as to assist you whenever you are in need of some data fodder to reinforce a pro-Internet argument or pitch in the coming time.

Google Announces Orkut for iOS

Mikey Mell — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 09:36:30 +0000

The search giant has finally launched an iOS app for its social network named Orkut. Google announced this on its official Orkut’s blog. The app is compatible with the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Surprisingly, the search giant launched the app almost sixteen years after the launch of the social network.

It seems that the company is bit too late in launching the Orkut for iOS, as the social network has already given its way to the social networking giant in Brazil, the only country where it remained leader for the long time. It is not limited to Facebook, as Google+ is also gaining some popularity all over the world, while it has already drawn 4.3 million Brazilian users last month.

However, Orkut is still a popular network in Brazil with more than 34 million users, despite the fact that many users have shifted to other social networks. The company has not yet shown any signs to giving up on the Orkut and being a popular choice of people in Brazil, it is managed by the Brazilian subsidiary. The local subsidiary is not encouraging users to move to the Google+, as Orkut has received a complete makeover along with many additional features and improvements, clearly showing no signs from the company to push it out of the scene.

Also, the release of the Orkut for iOS is another example from the social giant that it still has faith in its aging social network. With app installed on their devices, users will now able to update their status, contact their friends and also able to receive birthday reminders straight on their iOS devices.

It won’t be easy for the Google to convince users Apple users to access Orkut through their devices, when we compare it with other popular social networks like Facebook, Twitter, etc. Unfortunately, Google has not included the most vital element of the social network, Communities, in the recently released Orkut for iOS app.

But what we assume that the feature will be included in the next version of the application. Something similar was done with the Orkut for Android app which was released back in December. The access to Communities was included earlier this month.

However, such a strategy from the search giant seems to be a little less to its potential. Launching an application with limited features will certainly meet with a lot of criticism as far as the potential and position of the Google in the world of web is concerned.

Download Orkut from the App Store

Google+ Now Lets Users Post Videos as their Status Update

Mikey Mell — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:41:54 +0000

The search giant is toiling hard to make its social network a potential competitive of its biggest rival Facebook. In one of its recent initiative, Google has introduced a new feature to its relatively young social network. The new video sharing feature is an attempt to give its users an option to post videos as their status update.

Google has moved to its video sharing community YouTube, which is one of the largest video sharing communities in the world, to make its new feature worth effective.

The new video sharing feature enables users to share video updates with all those people added in their Circles. The idea is to make it easy for the people to share a video with their Circles without letting them to go to the video sharing site.

The new feature has made things as easy as clicking a button to ‘Record Video’ with results being pushed right in a user’s stream.

However, the advantage YouTube has over the social platform is its monetization. The integration of new feature won’t affect the YouTube traffic by much. The feature, however, make it easy for average users to share small videos or messages that they have filmed without the need to get their YouTube content into the social network.

The search giant is serious about making Google+ a true competitor of Facebook. Since Google+ beta launched, Google has been busy adding new features and improving the existing ones on the feedback received from users. However, Google+ still has to long way to become a real contender. The way Google is handling its social platform one can assume that the search won’t leave any stone unturned to make it popular among the masses.

Google has also introduced a new meme creator to its social network couple of days ago that enables users to upload photos with an ability to add custom text on them. This too is an impressive inclusion in the social platform by the search giant as this will help draw more traffic to the site. Memes has always been a favorite doing for many and having it within the social network is a big plus.

Google to Roll Out Meme Generator on Google+

Mikey Mell — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:52:43 +0000

With a view to create/started memes on its own social network rather than merely being shared to users, the search giant has started rolling out a new feature that will let Google+ users to add text to the photos they upload with no need to visit extra sites or tools.

Google through its official Google+ account announced the new feature:

Rolling out now and over the next few days… you can add text to photos by adding a photo to the sharebox and clicking the “add text” button beneath the photo. You’ve seen memes float around the web. Now make your own and share them with your circles on Google+.

Collin McMillen, the Google Software Engineer shared some test images to demonstrate how the new tool actually works. It is noticed that the new feature makes it simple for users to add ‘big’ bold text on top of the images.

He further stated that the new feature will assist users to “drop a photo into the sharebox on Google+, and then click the “Add text” button underneath the photo. Type in something funny, then share and enjoy.”

The roll out of the new features has already begun, so you can expect to have this new feature in on your Google+ account in coming few days.

Now we have to see whether the new feature will be good enough to expel out the sites like Quickmeme out of the web world or not. What we feel it such sites will remain alive for a number of reasons but Google is trying hard to make its new feature a success so that users will be able to create and share meme images within its social network.

Google to Join SOPA Protest

Mikey Mell — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:22:57 +0000

Google has decided to take part in online SOPA protest from tomorrow, reports Cnet. A statement has been released by the search giant saying that it will join Reddit and Wikipedia to show its protest against the controversial bill presented in the Congress.

Instead of going dark for the day like many other sites did, Google is inclined to place a link to an anti-SOPA message on its front page. Usually, the front page is used to celebrate anniversaries, the lives of artists or engineers who have left a strong influence to culture, but the search giant has never protested a political movement on its home page.

Citing the Google’s spokeswoman, Cnet reports, “Like many businesses, entrepreneurs and web users, we oppose these bills because there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites without asking American companies to censor the Internet. So tomorrow we will be joining many other tech companies to highlight this issue on our US home page.”

However, the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) protest has been discouraged by the CEO of Twitter Dick Costolo, who called the blackout “foolish for business” and some online writers even questioning the worth of closing a site in order to register protest.

Microsoft in Talks with Pantech to Sign Android Patent Deal

Mikey Mell — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 09:10:14 +0000

Microsoft is reportedly in talks with the South Korea’s third largest mobile manufacturer, Pantech so as to make it its next patent licensee. Both the companies are in negotiations over finalizing the royalty payments for its patents regarding Android smartphones.

According to Yonhap News, the company is most probably following the competitor smartphone suppliers Samsung, which Redmond-based Company described as its “most important Android patent license to date,” and LG, which according to company accounts for over 70% of Android smartphones sold in the United States.

A spokesman of Pantech confirmed that companies are in talks:

“We are in talks with Microsoft over the patent use, but specific details have not yet been decided,” a company spokesman said.

At the recently held CES event in Las Vegas, Pantech has revealed its latest LTEW-enabled smarpthones along with its first 8-inch tablet device, named the Pantech Element. It is an Android-based tablet and completely waterproof.

Many people belong to the technology industry viewing patent protection more of a business than a way to claim intellectual property rights against a company or individual copying an innovation of their own. What Microsoft believes is that the patent system is in fact ‘normal and necessary’ regardless of the fact that it can be very horrible.

The Deputy General Counsel, Horacio Gutierrez, the man who guides Microsoft’s intellectual property group thinks that companies won’t have the drive or incentive to spend millions of dollars and several years creating new technologies, if there is no patent system. The new technologies are vital as they led the basis for hardware and software platforms and without patent system, it cannot be possible.

The rival companies of Microsoft are not at all happy with its patent frolics. Google thinks that the Redmond-based software giant has employed it in a ‘hostile’ patent war. The Senior Vice President of Google David Drummond stated in a blog post that the search giant being a successful smartphone platform developer had drawn hostile attention from the rivals, including Apple, Oracle and Microsoft and the companies are intended to use patents to conduct patent war.

FTC to Investigate Google+ Inspection in Google Investigation

Mikey Mell — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:26:40 +0000

A recent report suggests that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is going to include Google+ in its existing probe of Google.

The launch of Google’s social network is taken by FTC pertinent to its investigation into whether Google is violating antitrust laws by offering its own services favorable treatment, according to Bloomberg that quotes “two people familiar with the situation.”

It was back in June when FTC launched its investigation against Google operations. The commission has probed Google previously as well over its Google Buzz privacy issues. However, FTC believes that its latest investigation into Google is roader one.

The report comes at a critical time for the search giant as it has recently incorporated its Google+ data into its search results. This move of search giant offended many of its rivals including Twitter and watchdog group EPIC that filed a complaint to the FTC inciting the commission to probe into the Google+ integration.

Now, the time will show us how fruitful is that probe against Google+ go for the Federal Trade Commission. If you have your say on this probe, please let us know in the comments section.

Google Plans to Launch ‘Style Guide’ for Android Apps

Mikey Mell — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 19:57:53 +0000

You may recognize or practice that apps on Android’s Market don’t bound to follow any law unless they are not malevolent. It is also noticed that Google doesn’t have firm principles for what is not or is not permitted for apps in selling point of view for the development of a platform. On the other side, Apple is famous for its rigid Human Interference Guidelines (HIG) that developers are going mad about every day.

On app’s appearance and feel Apple wanted to comment how it is, and wants its customers to have reliable understanding when using their iOS instrument.

The Verge reports that Android will soon adopt a similar model for its latest OS Android 4.0 (codenamed: Ice Cream Sandwich or ICS)

The Director of Android OS, Matias Duarte said that on its way is the style guide for Android OEMs and app developers, report claimed. The guidelines are assumed to be radical and can be viewed here.

What is reporting us seemed to be nothing more than suggestions at the moment. I don’t know about others, but I personally not ready to see things as they were presented in the report. What I assume that Android is planning to begin reviewing apps a little more closely in the coming days. There is no doubt that no gadget is as better as the software it is running and the search giant primarily wants to have all world-class apps running on its devices.

We are looking up to collect as much information as possible on this. We will get back to you as soon as guidelines find their way to the web. Stay tuned.

Bing Outruns Yahoo as the Number 2 Search Engine

Mikey Mell — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 19:17:46 +0000

A research firm, comScore reveals that Microsoft’s search engine Bing outrun Yahoo in the market share for the first time in December 2011. This makes the Bing the number 2search engine trailing the search giant Google.

According to research firm, in December, the Bing saw a growth of 15.1% because Yahoo saw a decline of 0.6% in its market share during the same month. The figures collected in November showed a tie between both the search engines.

Nonetheless, the victory over Yahoo led the team behind the three years old search engine to over joy at Microsoft. The results of 2010 for the same month shows that Yahoo was ahead with 16% share compared to 12% share of Bing. It took quite a long for Microsoft to see things going their way finally. The growth shown by Bing will certainly help lift the company’s earnings.

The current figures also demonstrate Yahoo’s constant decline. Yahoo was once the number 1 search engine all over the world, but lost its title in the hands of Google back in 2000. In the same year, Google became the default search provider of Yahoo. However, in 2004, both companies agreed to end their partnership. It is from this point Yahoo has been struggling to keep its market share intact. Yahoo has been trying hard to regain its lost status through making necessary changes to its management and board of directors. It has already experimented with several CEOs with PayPal’s Scott Thompson currently hold the position.

Google is currently a search giant with a market share of 65.9%, according to comScore. It saw a growth of 0.5% in December. Both Yahoo and Bing are far behind in race and it will require hard work to decrease this massive gap.

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