Social web behavior is increasingly filling the need for a traditional search engine, but you can’t monetize the social web by transferring over search advertising. What does that mean for Google, and what are some of the most promising ways startups are filling the gap? Read more »
There are smartphones and there are superphones, and the latter is heating up to a boil.The release of cool new phones often slows down to a trickle, but this year it’s becoming more of a firehose. Here are the 5 best superphones to watch. Read more »
Vlingo this morning introduced a feature that reads messages for drivers, eliminating the need to take their hands off the wheel. It’s the latest interesting offering from the startup, which is effectively competing in the speech-recognition space against giants like Google, Microsoft and Nuance. Read more »
Swiss and German privacy regulators say they are taking a close look at the practice by Facebook and other social networking sites of allowing users to upload photos, email addresses and other information without the consent of all the individuals who own or appear in them. Read more »
The mobile industry has gathered in Las Vegas for CTIA, its annual dog-and-pony show featuring the latest handsets and technology. This year’s show is all about the mobile operating system, as evidenced by the first wave of announcements out this morning. Here’s what they mean. Read more »
A European Union court decision says that Google can continue to sell trademarked terms as advertising keywords, but the EU’s highest court left the door open for future lawsuits against the search company — if it’s found to have encouraged trademark infringement through its AdWords service. Read more »
The web tablet app market will be a significant one in just a few short years, going from $183 million in revenue in 2010 to $8.2 billion by 2015. The overall momentum for this market will bedriven early on by the iPad and Apple’s app store, but over time other devices and app stores will also push the market. In this report, we provide a detailed forecast of web tablet sales, including both the forthcoming iPad and non-Apple tablets, as well as in-depth descriptions and analysis around expected app purchasing behaviors and total anticipated sales and download volume. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Whether it was its inability to cope with competition from Baidu or its moral outrage at the recent hacker attacks on its infrastructure, Google is the first Western company to say no to China. Did it do the right thing? Take our poll. Read more »
Microsoft today said it has tapped Yap to power its voice-to-text application for BlackBerry users on Sprint’s network. The move is something of a coming-out for the North Carolina startup, which has joined a crowded field of speech recognition software vendors. Read more »
HTC has finally spoken out regarding the pending lawsuit Apple launched against the smartphone maker regarding its use of multi-touch as an interface navigation mechanism, and around 20 other technologies. It should surprise absolutely no one that the Taiwanese company doesn’t see eye-to-eye with the iPhone […] Read more »
Google has launched a new gadget (available in Google Calendar Labs) called Smart Rescheduler for its Google Calendar service. Once installed, if you want to reschedule a meeting, all you have to do is select an event and let Google find new time. Read more »
Here’s today’s wacky theory: Maybe the reason Viacom has gone after YouTube so litigiously is because YouTube is “the one that got away” — and anyone who’s ever had an unrequited crush knows how much it hurts to see something special slip through one’s fingers. In […] Read more »
Smartphone maker HTC has been largely silent since hit by Apple with the suit claiming patent infringement. The company is not being silent any longer and sent over a statement addressing its position. HTC is declaring that when it comes to touch phones, HTC was first. Read more »
OpenADR — the Berkeley Labs open source system for automating the way utilities do demand response — is already being used to control some 70 megawatts of capacity for big industrial and commercial customers of California’s biggest utilities. Could it expand its reach into homes and […] Read more »
Google has partnered with Sony, Intel and Logitech to develop a yet-unannounced product called Google TV. It will be based on Android and could be a dedicated set-top box or a software platform that could be deployed on Internet-connected TVs and similar devices. Read more »
It was bound to happen, sooner or later. Steve Jobs is simply too important, too impressive, too easy a target not to base a character on him and turn it into a sitcom. And that’s what might very well be happening, if the pilot currently in […] Read more »
An Australian tech website has started running ads featuring Mac Pros and MacBook Pros whose entry-level prices are noticeably higher than those in the current Mac lineup. So what, right? The ads are probably incorrectly labeled, or something. But the word on the street (well, the […] Read more »
Updated with comments from Google: There’s a battle looming in California over smart meters and energy prices. Google says the state should require its big utilities to give near real-time pricing information to every smart meter-enabled customer by the end of next year. California’s big three […] Read more »
Android faces a fragmentation challenge with four different versions shipping on handsets today. Google can’t directly change this, but there are ways to combat it passively. And if you spot the pattern of its actions, you can see how Google is trying to resolve the issue. Read more »
Google contributes between 6 and 10 percent of the volume of traffic on the web, but it’s also using its own vast network to cut its costs and boost its ability to serve customers better, by direct peering and caching content near the edge. Read more »
Here’s two unconventional players that could make an influential but unusual team in terms of open standards and innovation for the smart grid: Google and software maker Grid Net. OK, hear me out. As Grid Net’s new Chief Strategy Officer Andres Carvallo told me last week, […] Read more »
In a world of web-based services that depend on aggregating other data sources, your product will only be as strong as your weakest API call. We are seeing the emergence of new ecosystems of data built around cloud providers and popular APIs such as Twitter’s. Read more »
A Google employee expressed his distaste for the way Apple does business in no uncertain terms in a recent blog post. Tim Bray, a co-inventor of XML and a well-known blogger in his own right, is also a Google employee on the Android team, having recently […] Read more »
Microsoft is betting that that Silverlight can help lure third-party developers to its Windows Phone operating system, which is scheduled to be released by the end of the year. It’s a strategy that seems to be paying dividends — so far. Read more »
As Google continues to try and adapt Buzz to the changing needs of users, debate continues over whether the service should be its own separate publishing platform, like a blog, or whether it should be used to aggregate content from other social networks such as Twitter. Read more »
HTC has begun shipping its Android handset to Verizon Wireless in advance of a launch in the next few weeks. If Google is going to move the needle with its flagship phone, though, it has to start backing the phone with a big marketing budget. Read more »
When you post an update on Facebook, should you expect it to stay private? You intend that only your pre-approved group of friends will see your update, but what if others do? Have your rights to privacy been violated unfairly? What do you think? Read more »
How to deal with user privacy on social networks as they grow, mature and become more sophisticated has been a frequent topic of conversation at this year’s SXSW. Is privacy just a technical problem? Read more »
Researcher Danah Boyd brought fighting words to SXSW, where she delivered a well-received keynote on the subject of online privacy and publicity, calling out Google and Facebook for being cavalier with their users’ personal information, including repurposing it for a larger audience. Read more »
