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 »
Mega data centers’ innovations in serviceability, automatically detecting and recovering from failures, procurement practices, and so forth will become standard practice in all modern data centers. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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 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’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 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 »
A lot of die-hard RSS users are upset that Google has decided to kill off its Google Reader service, but for me Twitter and other platforms based on social news are far superior to any RSS reader and have been for some time. Read more »
Google now allows joins within its BigQuery analytics service, as well as support for timestamped data and massive aggregations. Valuable stuff if you use BigQuery. Read more »
Mourning the demise of Google Reader? Digg announced Thursday that it’s already planning a revamped reader, and will speed up production in light of Google’s announced spring cleaning. Read more »
Using location-based information, notifications and an optional Bluetooth connection, Field Trip turns your phone into the ultimate tour guide. Read more »
The folks at YouTube are aware that filming with an iPad can be physically and socially awkward — it reminded users of the iPad app to “film wisely so your iPad isn’t blocking everyone’s view.” Read more »
Devices like Google Glass are going to change the way that we consume the news and other information — how will media companies have to change the way they think about the news and how it is constructed? Read more at paidContent »
Google is shutting down more projects it considers distracting to core business. So far it has shut down 70 such apps and services, but it is Google Reader whose loss I bemoan. Read more »
Google’s Chromebook Pixel with touchsceen is to some, “just a browser” but no real apps. Now that Google has replaced the leader of Android with Sundar Pichai, SVP of Chrome and Apps for Google, Android apps on Chrome OS could become reality. Read more »
Sundar Pichai, SVP of Google Chrome and Apps, will now head up the company’s mobile operating system, the company announced unexpectedly on Wednesday. Rubin will take on a new yet-to-be-explained role within Google. Read more »
How could Acer improve its $199 C7 Chromebook? More battery life please! That’s what the new C7 model gets you: 6 hours versus 3.5 hours. You’ll pay $279.99 for the new model, but it also comes with twice as much memory. Read more »
Nearly five months after it launched, Samsung’s $249 Chromebook gets Netflix. We knew this was coming but the surprising thing is that Microsoft helped out. Read more »
Worldwide IT spending finished out 2012 with a growth rate of 3.8 percent over 2011, the lowest growth rate since 2009. Fourth-quarter 2012 earnings reports and guidance were notable in their lack of any decisively positive news to raise 2013 spending expectations much. Those optimistic about […] Read more at GigaOM Pro »
A flood of new website addresses with endings like “.book” and “.movie” are set to arrive in coming months. Companies like Amazon and Google are set to control the names but the terms under which they will do so are still undefined. Read more at paidContent »
The controversy over writer Nate Thayer’s failure to credit his sources, which some alleged amounted to plagiarism, is just part of an ongoing debate over how we use — and give credit for — information in a digital age. Read more at paidContent »
Twitter users reported that Justin Bieber’s YouTube channel got hacked, and YouTube apparently fixed the problem, potentially preventing a riot of Bieber fans. Read more »
First the New York Times rankles Facebook and then they release a new feed redesign; technology is making people richer, though not as many billionaires; Time runs out for Time Inc.; some VCs have problems & Spotify has more new competition; and a few stories we recommend. Read more »
HTC did not infringe on two of Nokia’s patents, a Mannheim court has found. Nokia had claimed that one of the patents covered app store functionality found in Google Play. Read more »
Google turned on data compression features this week, helping Chrome Beta for Android surf the web faster while cutting down on wireless use. How much is it saving you? This little command will show you. Read more »
Nexus 7 owners paying attention to Google Play may have scored the official tablet dock for $30 … if they were quick. The dock is already sold out; another sign that Google needs to up its sales and inventory game. Read more »
If Google really did set off the process that led to Microsoft’s mammoth fine, then this was in a way just another episode in an increasingly nasty war between the two companies. Read more »
Companies are rushing to embrace the promise of big data to understand both their businesses and the ways in which customers interact with them. But effective data-based decisions are not made in response to simplistic data reporting; they are made in response to considered and ongoing data analysis. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Europe needs to do more to reduce wasteful energy consumption, and its policy makers are looking at how to green its data centers to help them achieve a 2020 energy efficiency goal. Read more »
A year after it was launched as the new version of Android Market, Google Play contains over 5 million ebooks, 18 million songs and 700,000 apps, the company announced Thursday. But it’s still struggling to compete against Amazon and iTunes. Read more at paidContent »
Uptake for Android 4.0 or better continues to rise and there are finally more devices fitting this category than those that use the old Android 2.3 Gingerbread software. That’s good for users and for developers. Read more »
Experimental code found earlier this week has found its way into the Chrome Beta for Android app. With a simple tweak it should speed up your browsing experience while using less wireless data at the same time. Read more »
Google’ vice president of data centers, Joe Kava, outlines how the search giant’s pursuit of data center designs corresponds nicely to the company’s ten governing rules. Well, almost. Read more »
Google’s Chromebook Pixel is quite versatile after all. Here’s a video look of it running Chrome OS and Linux at the same time, allowing me to use Skype and other third-party apps. Read more »
The latest update to the app also includes quicker nearby search options and English language versions of the app and a choice of kilometers or miles in seven Middle Eastern countries. Read more »
The console era is over — or so a growing number of game-industry executives would have us believe. While social and mobile gaming have taken a sizable share of the video games market, there is room for growth for hardware, particularly in streaming technology and the emergence of open-source platforms. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Google’s SPDY (pronounced “speedy”) experiment to deliver web pages faster may be coming to Chrome for Android based on experimental code found this weekend. Read more »
In the first of our four-part multi-media series on Hadoop, the people who helped build Hadoop talk about its birth, its promise and the challenges in moving it from webscale to just large-scale. Read more »
Google could add huge data sets of satellite images to the Google Maps Engine, which businesses would be able to use for rapid analysis of changes over time. Now only researchers can access the data. Read more »
Google is trying to paint a new German law regulating news excerpts as a victory, just as it did with the deals it cut with France and Belgium . But it feels like Google is losing more than it is winning. Read more at paidContent »