Report: New Nexus 7 tablet due in July. Here’s what to expect.
It’s about time Google’s Nexus 7 tablet gets a refresh and sources tell Reuters it will happen in July. Here’s what to expect in terms of pricing and hardware changes. Read more »
Call in podcast: Chromebook screenshot tips and the Facebook phone
Got 20 minutes to spare on your commute or at work? Why not tune in to this week’s call in podcast where we answer your tech questions. Plenty of Chromebook tips on this week’s show as well as thoughts on the Facebook phone. Read more »
Right on cue: 54.3 percent of Androids run Ice Cream Sandwich or Jelly Bean software
In October, I suggested that more than half of all Android devices would run Android 4.0 or better within four to six months. My time was just about up, but it happened as planned. That’s good for developers and for end users. Read more »
For Facebook, it’s not about their phone; it’s about you and your phone
There’s little doubt that Facebook will unveil a new phone on Thursday, but the star of the show will be software, not hardware, in this battle between Facebook and Google for user engagement. Read more »
Google faces wrath of European regulators over unified privacy policy
photo: Shutterstock / vlad_star
Remember when Google drew together all its privacy policies last March? That move has now prompted investigations from privacy regulators across Europe, who say the company has ignored their recommendations. Read more »
Amazon is the cloud to beat, but Google has the cloud to watch. Here’s why.
So who will be number two in public cloud after Amazon Web Services? Smart money is now on Google Compute Engine. With caveats, of course. Read more »
Google Nose is not really a joke
photo: Flickr / Slideshow Bruce
Google Nose (now in beta) is an April Fools joke, but computers that smell or even taste things will soon be within the realm of possibility. Just ask IBM. Read more »
The week in cloud: AWS goes mobile; Google vows patent pledge; cloud wars rage on
photo: Shutterstock / Gena96
New AWS group appears to gird for mobile development; Google issues non-aggression patent pact; and PayPal caught in cloud war crossfire. Read more »
What it takes to be a mobile hit: Five friends, zero VC dollars and lots of chutzpah
John Arrow is the 26-year-old CEO of a four year old mobile application company that has 375 employees. Here’s how he managed to grow his business while growing as a leader at Mutual Mobile. Read more »
A Facebook phone: Is this the final brick in the social network’s walled garden?
A “Facebook phone” is one of the longest-running rumors in the technology world, but a number of observers think such a beast is actually going to make an appearance next week. But do users actually want one? Read more »
Watch out, internet: Dave Winer is back in the business of making blogging tools
Dave Winer is the father of RSS and a blogging pioneer, so it’s worth paying attention to him when he comes up with something new — which he has, in the form of a browser-based note-taking and blogging tool. Read more »
Naysayers be damned: Why I bought a Chromebook Pixel
Nearly every Chromebook Pixel review says you shouldn’t buy one. But as someone who took a 60-day web-only challenge in 2008, I’m ready for exactly what the Pixel offers, so I bought one. Read more »
The dark matter of the virtual world: resources
The era of constrained resources is just beginning, so right now access to resources acts as sort of dark matter, quietly putting pressure in complex ways on how the virtual world operates. Read more »
Google donates patents to protect cloud software from lawsuits
photo: alphaspirit
Google announced a “patent pledge” in which it will donate 10 patents related to MapReduce to protect the emerging cloud and big data industry from lawsuits. Read more »
Why Twitter is doing the right thing by refusing to identify users who posted anti-Semitic comments
photo: Flickr user Hoggarazzi
Twitter may be run by a private corporation, but it has quickly become one of the strongest tools we have for free speech, which is why it’s so important that the company resist efforts to curb that speech. Read more »
Solar thermal startup eSolar still out there and raising $30M
Remember eSolar, the solar thermal startup incubated by Idealab, and backed by Google.org, GE, and others? It’s still here and trying to raise a $30 million round, of which it’s close almost half. Read more »
Google Translate for Android adds offline language support
Heading out of the country with your Android phone? Consider upgrading to the latest version of Google Translate for Android, which now supports offline language translation. Read more »
Call in podcast: T-Mobile iPhone and the best Android keyboard
On this week’s mobile call in podcast, we recap all of the T-Mobile news: no contracts, the iPhone 5 and a new LTE network. Then we hit your questions about running Linux on a Chromebook and which is the best keyboard for Android. Read more »
Top techies tout their top tech tools for webscale computing
photo: Charlie & Hudson
Developers love the latest and greatest tooling. Whether it’s Sawzall, a Google language that bridges declarative and procedural worlds. Or Kafka, a real-time framework for managing data streams. Here are four or five tools that deserve a look. Read more »
How researchers are fighting lung cancer using PageRank
photo: PLOS One
Medical researchers are using a mathematical process similar to Google PageRank in order to identify organs most likely to spread lung cancer throughout the human body. Read more »
Where in Asia is Google’s Eric Schmidt?
photo: Flickr / Guillaume Paumier
Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt has earned a lot of Google air milage points recently, touting technology in stops across Asia. Take a look at where he’s gone and what he’s been up to along the way. Read more »
As OpenDNS focuses on security, investors offer a Series B
OpenDNS has transitioned from providing only domain name servers to offering a security product designed with insecure mobile devices accessing corporate networks in mind. Now it has raised an undisclosed Series B. Read more »
Survey: Tell us your thoughts on the future of the smart watch
With the smart watch making many headlines these days, we ask GigaOM readers to weigh in with their thoughts on the device: which features they want, how much they would pay, and which company will rule this market. Read more »
Google to ship LTE Chromebook Pixel by April 8; here’s the LTE service pricing
The wait is over for Google’s Chromebook Pixel with LTE: According to the Google Play store, April 8 is the date of shipment for the LTE model. Here’s a look at the LTE pricing options. Read more »
Mobile apps for Google+ add photo filters, too
Google+ announced Monday that it’s incorporating some photo editing and filtering features into its iOS app from the team at Snapseed, which Google acquired back in September 2012. At this point the “photo wars” seem to have died down slightly, but Google+ gets into the mix. Read more »
Will NRG Energy be the next ten ton gorilla in solar leases?
If NRG Energy starts offering solar leasing options to home owners and small businesses, it would represent the mainstreaming of solar roofs and also likely disrupt the current sector filled with a variety of smaller players. Read more »
The week in cloud: reports of a spy cloud from Amazon and lotsa outages
photo: Shutterstock / Gena96
Google Drive and LinkedIn suffered snafus this week; and Amazon will reportedly build a not-so-secret cloud for the Central Intelligence Agency. Read more »
The real breakthrough of Google Glass: controlling the internet of things
photo: Flickr/Thomas Hawk
Many of the first apps for Google Glass will be about consuming and sharing content on the go. But what if Google Glass could unlock control over the world of the Internet of Things both inside and outside the home? Read more »
Google chairman being coy about whether Google Now is ready for iOS
At the Google Big Tent Summit in India, Eric Schmidt wouldn’t give a straight answer about whether his company’s well-received contextual search app for Android would be coming to iOS soon. Read more »
Google’s Motorola wins patent for octagon smartphone shape
photo: GigaOM
Do you remember Apple’s rounded rectangles patent? Well, this week Motorola obtained a patent for eight-sided smartphones. Read more »
Sorry Google; you can Keep it to yourself
photo: Dano
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Google may think it can waltz into a market that Evernote and others have staked out, but I’m not going to dance. Read more »
How to control a lawn irrigation system with Android and Arduino
What can a pair of Google engineers do with their technical prowess at home? Create an Android app that controls a lawn watering system through an Arduino board and the web! Read more »
A Norwegian startup launches its green data center services
photo: Flickr / bandarj
Fjord IT opens its first data center space in Oslo and is banking on a air cooling technology and cheap hydropower to attract European customers who want low-carbon cloud services. Read more »
The world is ready for the consumer-grade enterprise
photo: Shutterstock / Oleksiy Mark
Former VMware CEO and current Pivotal Initiative leader Paul Maritz shares his thoughts on how the future of enterprise IT must mirror the practices of consumer web companies. Read more »
Google expands Chromebook availability to six more countries while doubling down in U.S.
Chromebooks are now on sale in Germany, France, Canada, Australia, Ireland and the Netherlands, while in the U.S. the devices can now be bought in 1,000 more Best Buy stores. Read more »
Sift Science says it can sniff out cyber fraud — before it gets expensive
Using machine language smarts to screen for a much wider array of fraudulent online behavior, startup Sift Science now has $5.5 million to broaden its beta test beyond a few select companies. Read more »
Why Google killed off Google Reader: It was self-defense
photo: Enrique Gutierrez
Though Google Reader addicts are in mourning, they should have seen it coming. It’s not the kind of product that makes sense for Google in the longer run. Read more »
Google acquires an infrastructure startup Talaria. Will it help Google crush AWS?
Google has acquired stealthy startup Talaria, in what looks like a deal that will help the search giant compete for cloud business with Amazon. Read more »
Google is launching an ebook line based on its augmented reality game Ingress
Google’s startup division, Niantic Labs, is launching a line of ebooks that tie into its augmented-reality mobile game Ingress. Read more at paidContent »
Google is getting even tougher on sites that abuse links, says report
Google is continuing its effort to punish sites that manipulate outside links in order to increase their search visibility. The move means websites should be careful that their SEO strategies doesn’t lead to a penalty. Read more at paidContent »
