Google Play Music launches as streaming competition heats up

Google is stepping into the streaming music game in Canada with the launch of Google Play Music, the latest in a growing number of services that could change how Canadians listen to their favourite songs.The company announced Monday that its all-access subscription service would be the centrepiece for a broader digital music service that offers music on mobile phones, tablets and personal computers.Aside from streaming, users can also buy tracks for their personal collections, quite similar to Apple’s iTunes store.Google’s streaming service is one of the most extensive offerings available to Canadians yet, and a highlight of the technology giant’s launch into selling music in Canada.Google Play Music users will have streaming access to 25 million songs, which the company says is several million more tracks than its U.S users can access. The cost is $9.99 per month, after an introductory rate.The rollout will be available for phones and tablets on both the Android operating system and Apple’s iOS devices.“You can create radio stations from any of your favourite tracks, artists or genres, or you can listen to our precurated playlists from Google Play Music’s team of music experts,” said Zahavah Levine, director of global music partnerships at Google Play.Levine said the Canadian version of the service will cater to local tastes, which includes a selection of Francophone music and a playlist that showcases this year’s Juno Award winners.The presence of legal, on-demand streaming music has been limited until recently in Canada.Last month, Shaw Communications partnered with digital service Rdio to help expand its presence in the country as part of a marketing, content and promotion partnership.Last year, free streaming music service Songza opened an office in Toronto with the goal of getting a head start against its competitors like Spotify and Pandora, two popular international streaming services that aren’t yet available in Canada.Google’s arrival in Canada was also stalled by securing royalty agreements with local music organizations.“It’s complicated, so it took some time to hammer out,” Levine said.“But we worked hard together to make it happen.”Google Play Music is already available in 25 other countries, including the U.S. and Mexico.

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Google Adds Continuous Monitoring of Android Apps

Google is adding a new security feature to Android designed to scan installed apps on a device and ensure that they’re not acting maliciously or taking unwanted actions. The system is built on Google’s existing app-verification model, which warns users if there’s a potential problem with an app they’re installing.
The addition to Android’s security system is meant to augment the Bouncer tool that Google uses to scan apps in the Play store for malicious functionality. That feature has been in place since 2012 and has enabled the company to help stem the tide of malicious apps making their way into the app store and onto users’ devices. Bouncer looks for known malware and other malicious behavior.
Android also has a feature that will verify apps during installation and may block them or warn the user of a problem.
Now, Google is adding the ability for Android to monitor the behavior of apps while they’re on a device.
“Building on Verify apps, which already protects people when they’re installing apps outside of Google Play at the time of installation, we’re rolling out a new enhancement which will now continually check devices to make sure that all apps are behaving in a safe manner, even after installation. In the last year, the foundation of this service—Verify apps—has been used more than 4 billion times to check apps at the time of install. This enhancement will take that protection even further, using Android’s powerful app scanning system developed by the Android security and Safe Browsing teams,” Rich Cannings, an android security engineer, wrote in a blog post.
Most Android users likely haven’t seen the warnings that the Verify apps system throws, but Cannings said that the new system provides an extra meausre of defense against malicious apps. Researchers have found that developers will sometimes send updates to installed apps, adding malicious or otherwise unwanted functionality.
“Because potentially harmful applications are very rare, most people will never see a warning or any other indication that they have this additional layer of protection. But we do expect a small number of people to see warnings (which look similar to the existing Verify apps warnings) as a result of this new capability,” Cannings said.

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Google to open up Glass program to anyone with $1,500 to spare

   Google has announced that anyone will soon be able to buy one of its Glass headsets for a limited time, provided they live in the US and have $1,500 (plus tax) to pay for them.Up until now, access to the Glass Explorer program has been restricted. Around 2,000 units were sold to developers who paid up at Google's 2012 I/O developer conference, and since then Google has offered up to 8,000 more units to testers or competition winners, or for use in businesses to test their usefulness in specific industries."Our Explorers are moms, bakers, surgeons, rockers, and each new Explorer has brought a new perspective that is making Glass better," said the Glass team on itsGoogle+ page. "But every day we get requests from those of you who haven’t found a way into the program yet, and we want your feedback too. So in typical Explorer Program fashion, we’re trying something new."Punters of no particular qualification will be able to purchase a pair of the high-tech specs for the first time on April 15, and will get to choose between a variety of frame styles and colors. Prescription lenses can also be fitted to the headsets for those of us who need them.Google hasn't said how many units it is opening up for sale at this point, but warns that supplies are limited. This might seem like a marketing gimmick, but Google has been keeping a tight grip on the Glass prototypes ahead of the expected commercial launch this summer, so supplies may be tight.Google has been keen to point out that the current Glass hardware is still very much in a beta phase and the final commercial product could look very different from the current design. It has also signed up Luxottica, which owns the stylish Ray-Ban and Oakley specs sellers, to help make Glass a bit cooler.But today's announcement, as well as a program announced on Tuesday to give additional support for businesses to develop for the platform, indicates that we probably won’t see too many changes before the final product hits the shelves. ®

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Google Chrome Bug Could Allow Websites To Snoop On Conversations

A security flaw in Google Chrome, the world's most popular Web browser, could allow a hacker to turn on a user's computer microphone and secretly obtain a Chrome-generated transcript of the user's conversations, according to an Israel-based software developer who highlighted the flaw in a blog post this week.
The developer, Guy Aharonovsky, told International Business Times he found the defect in Chrome while experimenting with a voice recognition feature in the browser. He said he reported the problem to Google through its Chromium bug tracker, but the company’s developers designated it “low-severity,” which meant they didn't view it as a top priority and offered no immediate fix. Google did investigate the problem, he said, but only after he submitted a blog post about it to Reddit, a popular socially driven news site.
“Google, [like] all developers, [has] a tendency to dismiss the not-so-obvious security bugs,” Aharonovsky said.
A Google spokesperson confirmed the existence of the vulnerability on Wednesday. “Our security team is actively investigating this issue,” Google said in an email to IBTimes.
The security flaw in the Chrome browser emerges just as the world is confronting the frightening prospect of an undetectable bug known as Heartbleed, that makes millions of passwords vulnerable to being stolen.
The spokesperson refused to comment on Aharonovsky’s claim that it downplayed the security flaw until his post gained attention online. "As of right now, we have no further comment other than the one we provided in our first email," Google said.
While there's no evidence of any Chrome user harmed by the vulnerability, the security flaw's potential damage is significant. Chrome serves more than half of the world's Web traffic, and with just one click on a malicious Web page, a user could unwittingly allow that website to obtain a text transcript of any conversation near the computer, via the user's computer microphone.
While most hackers target victims by enticing them to download a virus or malware file, this bug only requires a Chrome user to visit a Website that's designed to exploit this vulnerability.
Google told IBTimes that a software feature in the browser generates the text from a user’s voice, which is recorded by a computer microphone. Google said recorded text files contain “much less information” than audio files, and if no sound is detected for eight seconds after the last mouse click, the feature turns itself off.
Aharonovsky created a simple demonstration to show how the bug could work. In it, computer users are asked to use a mouse to drag and drop “seeds” onto the ground to grow a tree, increasing the likelihood that a voice recording is activated every eight seconds. He said this feature works even if users block access to the computer microphone in Chrome’s security settings.
The spokesperson said Google could not say when an update with a fix for the security flaw will be available.

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Google updates developer policy to crack down on shady, deceptive ads

Google has reportedly updated its policy following which new rules have been laid down by the company for app developers in an attempt to crack down on shady and deceptive advertisements. 
The company recently introduced changes to the Google Play Developer Program Policy, requiring app developers to display only certain kinds of content.

According to Tech Crunch, the changes put the onus on the  developers themselves to make sure that no ad networks 

or affiliates they're using for app promotion purposes are  engaged in these practices

The company has reportedly taken the step to ensure  cleaner Android apps.

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Google to release Samsung Galaxy S5 Google Play Edition alongside HTC One M8 GPE?

 Google has officially announced the HTC One M8 Google Play Edition, many are wondering if the Samsung Galaxy S5 will also join the ranks.At Google I/O last year, Google surprised smartphone fans when the company announced that it would be adding the Samsung Galaxy S4 to a new range of devices called Google Play Edition. This version of the Galaxy S4 would be stripped from any Samsung customizations, like TouchWiz and various gesture controls. Instead, the $649 unlocked Galaxy S4 would ship with a stock version of Android and like Google's Nexus devices would be guaranteed to receive Android updates in a timely fashion.Google followed up by adding last year's HTC One, Motorola's Moto G, and Sony's Z Ultra to its Google Play Edition smartphone lineup and also offers LG's G Pad 8.3 as the only Google Play Edition tablet.Minutes after HTC officially announced its 2014 flagship smartphone, the HTC One M8, Google announced that it would be adding the smartphone to its Google Play Edition smartphone lineup. The unlocked smartphone strips away HTC Sense 6 for a pure Android experience. The question on many smartphone fan's minds is will Google also announce the Samsung Galaxy S5 Google Play Edition on April 11, the official release date for Samsung's latest and greatest smartphone?It's pretty safe to assume that Google will repeat the same play it made last year by adding the Samsung Galaxy S4 to its Google Play Edition by adding the Galaxy S5. The new HTC One M8 and Samsung Galaxy S5 are two of the most highly anticipated Android smartphones to be released this year and just like last year, Google will want to have two of the best flagship smartphones showcasing the latest version of Android. The Samsung Galaxy S5 and HTC One M8 both have similar high-end specs, and cutting out TouchWiz and HTC Sense 6 on the devices in place of stock Android will certainly speed things up and please Android fans that want one of those smartphones running stock Android without the hassle of hacking, rooting, and using custom ROMs on the handset.There have been rumblings that Google will announce the Samsung Galaxy S5 Google Play Edition on April 11, but for now we'll have to wait to see if those rumblings turn into reality.

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Google introduces program offering $15 per referred Google Apps user جوجل يقدم 15 دولار هدية

Google on Monday announced a new App Referral Program aimed to spread the use of Google Apps for Business through word of mouth. Under the program, the company is encouraging people to refer Google Apps to their friends, family, and even businesses. And guess what? There are rewards for it. Every time you refer someone and they actually sign up, you get $15, deposited directly into your bank account.
Google announced the referral program through a post on its official Enterprise blog. "Many of the millions of Google Apps customers learned about tools like Hangouts, Drive and Gmail for business from their customers, friends and networks," Prajesh Parekh with the Google Apps marketing team, wrote in the post.
While there's no limit to the number of customers you can refer, you are only rewarded for 100 users per business. Also, referral amounts will be based on the number of users that have paid for at least 120 days. At present, the program is available for anyone based in the US and Canada.
Want to participate and earn some extra cash? Head over to Google's website for registration -- requires taxpayer ID number and bank account details. Once done, you'll receive a unique referral link, which you can share with your network through e-mail. What's more, you don't even have to think about what to write in the email, because Google has a predefined template you can use.

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جوجل تطرح ساعتها الذكية الجديدة (GOOG) Smartwatch And Nexus 6 Coming

 (GOOG) Smartwatch And Nexus 6 Coming 

The war for smartwatches may be reaching a high point this year with both Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) are respectively planning to release a version of smartwatch later this year. The Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch, which released in 2013 and run on android operating system, was the first major entry in the smartwatch market and this year more are likely to debut from Microsoft, Google, HTC and Apple. Google is aiming to grab a share of the global smartwatch industry, which was worth USD 700 million in 2013 and is likely to grow to at least USD 2.5 billion this year. In the coming years the industry will keep growing at 3 digit rates.
The Google SmartWatch
Following two successful partnerships with LG for both Nexus 4 and 5, Google will create a new version of Nexus with LG to be released either in July this year. The Nexus 6 will reportedly but alongside the Google smartwatch, rumoured to be named ‘Nexus Gem’ or ‘Google Gem’.
Features we can expect to see
Google will use its knowledge base, Google+, hangouts and other services to access information online and interact with people you know. While the Google glass was not welcomed due to its cyborg like interface and other privacy concerns, a smartwatch might just change people’s opinion. According to WSJ, It might feature a 640px X 360px screen, just like glass which is a high resolution, and most likely be square in shape rather than rectangular. It would also feature a 5 megapixel camera for recording pictures at 720px.
If you want to take a picture simply hold up your arm so that your palm was facing you and say ‘OK watch, take a picture’. To take a selfie or video hangouts simply face the palm outward.
The watch would not only support Bluetooth but also WiFi, it will have 16GB of storage and at least 700 MB of RAM. A light sensor for dimming or brightening the phone, a tiny speaker or ear bud and a vibration feature to buzz you when you receive an alert are some nifty features we could expect to see.
The best part of a Google smartwatch would be unleashing its knowledge base whenever you needed it, like alerting you for incoming texts and caller id information for incoming calls. Imagine touching the screen and asking ‘OK watch: How late is subway open?’ and the answer will come to you. Or receiving directions turn by turn, setting reminders, appointments, and sending texts and emails.
For now sales of smart watch haven’t been impressive due to complaints of bulk, lack of functionality and often work as simple fashion accessories. It remains to be seem if Google can fix some of these issues and change the market attitude towards smartwatches.
 


The question remains though: Who will make the smart watch and what software will it use?
Initially, it was rumored that Motorola would make the Google smartwatch but after Motorola’s acquisition by Lenovo Google may have to look elsewhere. The watch may be just an accessory or an additive to an Android phone rather than a standard wearable device that users might buy. Wimm one,a smart watchmaker was purchased by the giant last year is perhaps the biggest indication that the Google smartwatch is coming.
The device could run on latest Android 4.4 KitKat or a software similar to what is available on Google now and be heavily dependent on gestures.

So why would you use a Google smartwatch?
The reason this could be the best smart watch ever made is simply because of the relative quality of Google services versus competing services. No other watchmaker, including LG, Microsoft or other start ups, can match Google now. Think about it as a service platform for wearable computing, Google Glass and Google Watch are the first two devices on this platform.
The watch will most likely tap into the same back end service and functionality being built for google glass and offer same benefits. A screen on your watch may not be as immediate as a screen aimed at your eyeball. But it would be for everybody who loves Google Glass but are not prepared to wear it in front of their faces.
Release date
The date to mark on the calendar is June 25-26 when Google holds it I/O conference and we are likely to hear some, or all, of these products.

If Google can successfully pull this off, it could signal the arrival of smartwatch that move beyond its basic value of showing snippets of text and email. The smart watch could move from being a niche product to an object of everyday use loved by both tech geeks and general public. A combination of Google Now and some hardware is perhaps all it takes to make the smartwatch a super intimate device that’s on you rather than with you.
So what would you prefer, Google Smartwatch or Google Glass? Do let us know by making use of comment section below.

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قاعدة بيانات جوجل مذهلة حقاً

قاعدة بيانات جوجل مذهلة حقاً

ستشاهد معنا بالصور قاعدة بيانات جوجل العملاقة استعد معنا للإنطلاقة قاعدة بيانات تقدمها جوجل على الإنترنت تسمح لأي مستخدم أن يضيف أي نوع من المحتوى، مثل النص والصور ومعلومات مٌشَكَلَة مثل XML، PDF، إكسل وRTF. 

قدَّم فريق عمل جوجل في الولايات المتحدة الامريكية صوراً مذهلة لقاعدة بيانات جوجل .. يوجد اكثر من ثمانية مراكز بيانات تابعة لجوجل في اميركا وهونغ كونغ وتايوان وسنغفورة وشيلي وغيرها من البلدان .

تشغل هذه المراكز مساحة تزيد على 115,000 قدم مربع ليتمكن المستخدم من التصفح بكفائة عالية جدا لا مثيل لها .

هذه شبكات من الألياف الضوئية تعمل بسرعة تزيد على 200,000 ضعف عن سرعة النت الموجودة في منزلك . شبكات ملونة حمراء وزرقاء وصفراء تكوَّن كابلات تقوم بتشغيل جوجل وتحقيق ما لا يمكن للاخرين من تحقيقه .

دعامات فولاذية واخرى الياف ضوئية تعمل بطريقة مذهلة ..

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New Google+ Ads Won't Run on Google+

Google is using its Google+ social network to create ads but not run them, the company announced on Monday.The "+Post" ads will run on Google Display Network, which includes 2 million sites. The ads look just like Google Plus posts but appear outside the network. For example, if you're in the market for a minivan, you might see a Toyota ad pop up on AutoTrader or another car enthusiast site. In that sense, the units behave much like Facebook's promoted posts. The Google+ ads don't include recommendations, though — only public posts from Google+ users. A comment from someone in one of your circle won't jump to the top, like one in Facebook's Sponsored Stories will do.

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Rumor: Google Working on Set-Top Box for 2014 Launch

Here we go. It was only a matter of time before Google's Android platform joined the television rumor game. However, unlike Apple's iOS before it, the recent batch of rumors surrounding the search giant don't have Google allegedly making a physical television set of its own.No, it's just a set-top box that we're all postulating about. At least, that's the rumor that's been thrown out by the brand-new tech news website The Information (subscription required), which suggests that said set-top box — based on Android, of course — will likely be available for purchase from Google in the first half of next year.The device is said to be able to handle a number of different streaming services – think Hulu Plus, Netflix, YouTube (obviously), et cetera — and give a purchaser living room access to some gaming as well. As for just how powerful the set-top box will be, gaming-wise, we don't know (but we'd love to find out!)The news echoes previous rumors from the Wall Street Journal months ago, which mentioned at the time that Google was also planning to stick a video camera and motion sensor into the set-top box — presumably, to make Google Hangouts just that much easier (and bite the thumb at rival Skype, which currently enjoys living room success as the de facto communication service on Microsoft's Xbox gaming consoles).The latest batch of rumors don't explicitly call out this motion sensor by name, which gives us pause to wonder whether Google has rethought that part of the device.The rumored purchasing window dovetails nicely with additional news that Google is planning a big Google TV announcement at this year's Consumer Electronics Show. Additionally, it comes right as Amazon is rumored to be making its own set-top box as well, likely for release in 2014 as well.As for whether the alleged Google set-top box will be unveiled at CES, we're not sure. We're also not sure what one might call it. It's also rumored that Google will be rebranding this Web-friendly set-top box as "Nexus TV," an update from previous rumors that had Google calling the device "Android TV."Were we to bet, however, we'd lay down a little bit of cash that Google is likely to announce updates to the core Android OS that powers Google TV on the various devices the smart TV service lives. It took the company quite a bit of time to get its Android 4.2.2 update for some of the Google TV products previously stuck on Android version 3.2 of the OS (that's Jelly bean versus Honeycomb, for those that prefer tastier names). Theoretically, the move the Jelly Bean now allows Google to upgrade Google TV even quicker – could a quick jump to KitKat be on the horizon as well?While that might not please those looking for a fancy first look at Google's ambitions for the living room, it's would at least be throwing a bone to those who plunked down for Google'sother TV initiative.

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Fixing the Nexus 5: with a new version of Android, Google tackles the camera

Only a few years ago, Dave Burke remembers, cellphone users were just happy to have a camera at all. But expectations have changed. "If you have a smartphone, people want it to take pictures like a DSLR. Even in one year the quality bar and expectation bar has gone up higher and higher. Internally, ours have too. I think we can do better, and we are."
As he says this, Burke, Google's Director of Engineering for Android, is walking through all the changes Google has made to the Nexus 5's camera in the five weeks since the phone hit the market. The fruits of the Android team's efforts is Android 4.4.1, the update rolling out over the next few days that is designed to fix the buggy, inconsistent camera on what is otherwise one of the best Android phones on the market.
The changes break down in five categories, Burke says, autofocus first among them. Mixing speed and image quality requires a fragile balance, particularly in low light, and Android 4.4 skewed too far toward image quality. "There’s a tendency to say, 'oh, we have this cool thing that stabilizes, so lets make the shutter time longer, reduce the gain even longer, and get better shots.'" But while the Nexus 5's optical image stabilization allowed it to get better-than-average shots in low light, in good lighting it just made for frustratingly slow shooting speeds. By speeding up the framerate and increasing how quickly the camera can read its surroundings and fire a picture, Burke and his team improved the autofocus, the exposure, and the white balance. "You fix the motion blur," he says, "and make everything faster."
Speed is a theme for the update, and the Nexus 5's camera really does feel faster across the board. The app launches a full second quicker than it did before the update, meaning you'll miss many fewer shots than before. There's also a new progress indicator in HDR+ mode, which makes the process, longer by necessity, feel a lot more straightforward. It's the first of what Burke says will be a series of interface changes, as Google tries to make Android cameras a little more controllable and obvious. Right now, nearly every setting is buried under layers of menus, and Burke says Google is working on undoing that.IN ONLY FIVE WEEKS, GOOGLE MASSIVELY UPGRADED THE NEXUS 5'S CAMERABut even now, after just five weeks of work, the Nexus 5's camera has been massively improved. We've only had a day with the software, but the changes are clear. Before, there were shots you simply couldn't get — I learned to not even try with fast-moving subjects, especially in low light, but now a picture of the New York City skyline out the window of a taxi is crisp and in focus, even if it's not quite as sharp as on an iPhone 5S. The Nexus 5 just inspires confidence in a way it never did before. It doesn't take six tries to get a picture in focus, because the camera doesn't re-focus again as soon as you hit the shutter. It just fires, and far more often than not gets a crisp, clear photo.
Photos are a little more contrasted, too, with slightly more vibrant colors. Burke says this was an intentional change, that "we just wanted to make photos pop a little more." The effect occasionally goes too far, with reds and oranges exploding off the screen, but for the most pictures look lively and accurate.
There's still plenty of work to be done, of course. The camera app desperately needs a one-touch way to focus and capture an image, for one thing: moving your hand from focusing to firing doesn't cause blur the way it used to, but it still means you'll miss quick-moving subjects. Photos can still come out looking over-processed, and focusing in low light still takes a while. Burke says his team is working on "tuning the edge cases," too, making sure the camera can function properly in strangely lit situations.
With Android 4.4.1 on board, however, the Nexus 5's camera stops being a dealbreaker — it's not the best smartphone camera, but it's a camera you can use confidently and expectantly knowing that it will almost always deliver. It may not take the perfect shot yet, but rarely offers anything but a completely usable one. Burke says it's only going to get better, though he admits there's a lot to do. "Cameras can be pretty complicated," he says.

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Google's latest 'moonshot': Rubin's robots

The news was first reported by USA Today in August; however, new details emerged about the venture on Wednesday.Google has created a new robotics group under Rubin and bought seven tech companies in the past six months, including Schaft, Industrial Perception, Meka and Redwood Robotics, to help with the push, according to a person familiar with the situation. The person did not want to be identified because the group has not officially launched, and the transactions were mostly small private deals.Google began as an Internet search business, and this is where the company still makes most of its prodigious revenue and profit. However, CEO Larry Page encourages the company to take big bets on new technology that may not become viable for years but could have a huge impact on how people live and do business. These long-term projects have become known as moonshots."Like any moonshot, you have to think of time as a factor," Rubin told The New York Times Wednesday. "We need enough runway and a 10-year vision."Rubin, age 50, stepped down from the Android business earlier this year without saying what he planned to do next at Google. The executive has been interested in robots for much of his career. Before working at Apple in the 1990s, he was a robotics engineer at German manufacturer Carl Zeiss.Google shares rose less than 1% to $1,060.14, close to a record high, in early afternoon action Wednesday. It closed at $1058.18, up $4.92.Page announced Rubin's new project on the company's social network, Google+, reminding followers of the executive's past success."His last big bet, Android, started off as a crazy idea that ended up putting a supercomputer in hundreds of millions of pockets," Page wrote. "It is still very early days for this, but I can't wait to see the progress."Google is not the only big tech company thinking about the potential of robots. Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos said this week that the Internet retailer is testing the use of drones for delivering packages in a little as 30 minutes."Google's robotics ambitions and Bezos's drone PR should be a reminder to investors that they are not only investing in the trend lines of the current financials, but in the future vision and broad ambitions of these companies," Ben Schachter, an analyst at Macquarie, wrote in a note to clients Wednesday."Amazon and Google clearly are going to invest in projects that may not bear fruit for 5-10 years, if at all," he added.Sizing up the potential addressable market for Google robots is "near impossible;" however, the company does not invest meaningfully in any business that it doesn't think can be profitable and generate at least $5 billion in revenue in a reasonable time frame, the analyst noted.Google has succeeded on big long-term projects before, such as YouTube and Android, and the company's newer moonshots, such as self-driving cars and the Glass wearable computing platform, are beginning to show early commercial promise.Robotics has been considered an emerging technology for decades, but for the most part, it has been a disappointment. That may be changing, especially in the area of drones, according to Chris Dixon, a partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.One of the main drivers of this is the rapidly falling cost of sensors and other components that are needed to maneuver drones and other robots."The promise of robotics is finally coming to fruition through drones," Dixon said. "Several factors have come together to make them viable."The price of components such as GPS, cellular connections, small, energy efficient processors and tiny cameras, has dropped dramatically because they're already made in such high volume for smartphones, he explained.Google uses cars with mounted cameras, combined with satellite data to build its popular Maps service. Some of this data collection could be done more cost-effectively with drones, according to Dixon."Satellites cost $500 million to build and get in the air. Drones cost in the thousands of dollars," he noted.Google declined to comment on whether the company uses drones. However, Rubin was pictured in The New York Times Wednesday beside a small, yellow helicopter, and the company has made huge strides in developing self-driving cars.Google's robotics acquisition spree also gives some clues about where its latest venture may be headed.Meka makes humanoid robots and related technology that the San Francisco start-up says will help robots "work alongside people in the home and the workplace." Schaft, based in Japan, is developing walking robots.Industrial Perception calls itself a leader in 3D vision-guided technology that enables industrial robots to do tricky logistical tasks such as truck and container unloading, e-commerce fulfillment and package sorting.Redwood Robotics is working on robotic arms, or "manipulators," that it says will reduce the stress of dull and repetitive tasks. This type of technology is beginning to change traditional manufacturing and distribution, but the start-up thinks it will revolutionize service industries such as health care and hospitality, too.

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AH Primetime: Motorola is Moving in The Right Direction

 

Motorola got into radios and televisions during their founding in 1928, but quickly got into telecommunications and introduced the first handheld portable telephone – from bag phones to car phones, and finally cell phones.  They sold many mobile phones throughout the 90’s and early 2000’s – remember the great V60 aluminum and the E815 – but it was their most popular phone in 2004, the Motorola RAZR, that was also their last great success.  It is hard to determine how they quickly dropped in sales in the very business field that they had a strong hand in developing – they build quality products and their reception/radio capabilities are still the best that exists to this day.  However, after losing billions, the company was divided up into two divisions and in 2011, Google bought their mobile division for 12.5 billion and forever changed Motorola’s existence.
Since Google bought Motorola, the company has continued to lose money, and Google is OK with that, they expected it, and they have no worries that their mobile division will eventually start to turn a profit.  What people need to realize is that Google allowed Motorola to continue on the projects they were working on; after all, they had commitments to Verizon that needed to be fulfilled.  So their first few devices really had no Google influence – and were made for Verizon’s Droid series, the Droid Ultra, the Droid MAXX, and the forgettable Droid Mini.  Motorola was not afraid to experiment with nano coatings or using kevlar for their cases and even though the Droid Ultra and Droid MAXX were very well received and loved by many, but will never sold enough to make much of a difference in Motorola’s or Google’s bottom line.

                              Motorola V60 —— Motorola E815 —— Motorola RAZR

Google and Motorola are a perfect marriage – Motorola needed some money and a new direction and fresh guidance and Google needed an outlet to spread Android throughout the world, because the more Android that’s out there, the more money Google can make via advertising.  With Google’s influence, Motorola is going in a different direction with a different mindset – don’t use the best display, just a good display – don’t use the best processor, just a good one – don’t crowd it with a bunch of memory, just enough to make it work – don’t burden it with a bunch of gimmicky software, just give it practical, useful, software – don’t crowd it with a heavy skin, leave it run pure Android and optimize everything.  The result is a smooth, fast, and, most of all, a useful device that is a phone for the masses, and that is exactly what Google is looking to build.

                                          Droid MAXX —— Moto X —— Moto G

I do not mean to get away from my Android roots, but the new Motorolas are like the, dare I say it, iPhone – the Moto X and the Moto G simply work and are going to offer the majority of teens, young adults, and older folks a great device for a reasonable amount of money and it offers many useful features. Diehard tech freaks would never buy a Moto X or Moto G (unless they wanted a second run around device), but Motorola is not targeting that market segment. Motorola is trying to not only sell their devices in the U.S., but around the world to the emerging nations, where the real potential for growth exists. By flooding the world with Motorolas, Google is flooding the world with Android, and that means they will make billions on advertising.
Motorola is not trying to be like the other OEMs – they are following the path less traveled, and along this path are millions of potential customers. Some thought it was odd that Motorola would come out with two phones so very similar, with the Moto G being so much less expensive and sold off contract. It is a unique twist that just may work – Motorola doesn’t really care which phone you buy, because they still make a sale and spread their name and Android. We will not see the full effects of the “new Motorola” for another couple of years, but the ripples of change have started and very soon we will see them hit the shores of many nations – yes, Motorola is headed in the right direction.
In the comments or on Google+, let us know what you think of the new Motorola and do you think they are headed in the right direction.

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Google employee goes on Facebook rant after cafe bans him from wearing Google Glass - and demands the manager be fired

A Seattle restaurant has chucked out a customer who refused to take off his Google Glass.
Nick Starr was at the Lost Lake Cafe in the city and was wearing the glasses, which allow users to take pictures and record audio or video, when he was asked to remove them.
After refusing to take them off, he was eventually asked to leave.
He complained about the incident on his Facebook page and suggested the restaurants' owner considers the employment of its night manager.
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Dispute: Nick Starr left a Seattle restaurant after he was ordered to remove his Google Glass

'She tells me that the owner's other restaurant doesn't allow Google Glass and that I would have to either put it away or leave,' he wrote.
'I asked to see where it was policy for Glass to be disallowed at Lost Lake. She said she couldn't provide any and when asked to speak with management she stated she was the night manager.'
Starr says he's eaten at Lost Lake with his $1,500 headset before and asked to see where the restaurant's anti-Glass policy was posted. He and his specs eventually left.

 

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The episode has raised the debate about how invasive the gadget is.
After refusing to remove the glasses, Starr and his boyfriend left the venue.
He vented on his Facebook post, demanding an apology from the restaurant and calling for the woman's termination.
He added that he thought it was bizarre that the restaurant asked customers to shares images on social networking sites of their experiences there, but banned the Glass.

Scene: The manager at the Lost Lake Cafe asked him to remove the glasses in accordance with their policy

Anger: Restaurant owner David Meinert, pictured, said he thought the glasses were invasive

The Lost Lake Cafe has refused to apologize, saying that they have other customers' interests in mind. They shot back at Starr with their own Facebook post, outlining its policy.
'We recently had to ask a rude customer to leave because of their insistence on wearing and operating Google Glasses inside the restaurant,' the statement said.
'We kindly ask our customers to refrain from wearing and operating Google Glasses inside Lost Lake. We also ask that you not videotape anyone using any other sort of technology.
'If you do wear your Google Glasses inside, or film or photograph people without their permission, you will be asked to stop, or leave. And if we ask you to leave, for God's sake, don't start yelling about your 'rights'. Just shut up and get out before you make things worse.'

Night out: Starr was out with his boyfriend, Brian (left), when they were approached by the manager

Fan: Starr said he wears the glasses everywhere and argued you can also take pictures with cell phones

Owner David Meinert, who banned Google Glass at another one of his restaurants earlier this year, said he felt uneasy about the device.
'I think they're invasive and they make people uncomfortable,' he told KOMO News. 'More than that they make me uncomfortable, and it's my place.'
But Starr countered that he believes Google Glass is no more intrusive than cell phones with cameras that are also capable of taking images.
'I think privacy is vapor now,' Starr said. 'There are cameras everywhere. There are recording devices everywhere.'
'I would love an explanation, apology, clarification, and if the staff member was in the wrong and lost the owner money last night and also future income as well, that this income be deducted from her pay or her termination.'

Take it off or get out: Seattle may be home for tech giants Amazon and Microsoft, but Google Glass isn't welcome in one local diner

Starr's request for the managers termination has been met with vitriol on his personal Facebook page which has remained public throughout the controversy.
'What kind of pathetic loser asks for someone to be fired because they asked him to put his toy away? What kind of overly indulged manchild throws a hissy about something so inconsequential? Grow up loser!' writes one poster.
'People like you give tech people and people in your generation a bad name. You don't have the RIGHT to use technology any way you want, anywhere you want. Maybe we need to stop worrying so much about our RIGHTS and more about doing what is right.
That woman is a real, flesh-and-blood person struggling to earn a living at an exhausting profession, who will not be able to pay her bills if she is fired. Balance that against....what? Your thwarted desire? That is low,' wrote another angry user.

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'OK Google' voice-activated search comes to Chrome

Google has finally brought voice-activated search, first seen on the Moto X, to the Chrome browser. If you have Chrome and a microphone, you can try it out right now — but it's not quite as useful as its mobile predecessor.
Installing the "hotword" extension makes it so that whenever your browser is open to the Google.com homepage or a search results page, all you need to do to dictate a search is start it out with "OK Google." It'll jump to the ordinary "Speak now" page and the rest works just like a normal voice search would.
Could be useful if your hands are occupied and you need to make a quick unit conversion (how many ounces in a cup?) or check the traffic to see if your guests will be late. There are a few limitations, though.

The Moto X is always listening, whether it's asleep or awake, and "OK Google Now" will bring up the voice search interface pretty much no matter what. But in Chrome, the tab has to be front and center. If it's a background tab, it just won't activate — so you may have to use your hands to get the hands-free search ready to go in the first place.
And at the moment it only works on the U.S. version of Google search — not Google UK, Google Brazil, and so on, and not from within Gmail or Drive. Just the standard ".com" homepage or search page.
Google will surely be expanding the capabilities of the voice search plugin, but for now it's mostly just a neat trick that lets you feel high-tech. Still, if it saves you from dripping grease on the keyboard this Thanksgiving, it'll be a welcome addition, however limited it may be. Download it here for free.

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KitKat Arrives on HTC One Google Play Edition

Google's new Android 4.4 KitKat OS is now rolling out to those with the HTC One Google Play edition.
The Verge noted that its HTC One got the update this morning, while those on the XDA-Developers forum reported the same thing.
The 305MB update boosts the device to Android 4.4 KRT 16S, and includes recent fixes to radio connectivity and encryption bugs. It doesn't, however, include the Nexus 5's "Google Experience Launcher," which adds features like a Google Now option to the home screen, The Verge said.
Developer versions of smartphones run "stock" Android, or a version of Google's OS stripped of manufacturer add-ons, like Samsung Touchwiz or HTC Sense. The HTC One developer edition made its debut in March for $649, but PCMag's Sascha Segan gave it low marks for only working properly on AT&T.
For those impatient users dying to break off a piece of Android's KitKat, an XDA user captured the OTA download link, and posted it online.
Neither HTC nor Google immediately responded to PCMag's request for comment.

KitKat rolled out on Oct. 31 on the Nexus 5. Shortly thereafter, HTC pledged to roll out KitKat to the Google Play HTC One, followed by the unlocked and carrier versions within 90 days. KitKat has also rolled out to Moto X users on Verizon Wireless as well as the Nexus 7 and 10.
Meanwhile, if you're looking for something with a little more bling, the HTC One Gold (pictured) is now available in Europe for pre-order.
This is not the limited-edition 18-carat HTC One, only five of which were produced for last month's MOBO (Music of Black Origin) Awards in Glasgow.
The much less pricey gold-colored HTC One was leaked in September, just days after Apple unveiled its new gold iPhone 5s. The 4.7-inch gold HTC One sports a 1.7GHz quad-core processor and the same software features as other HTC One models, which also come in silver, black, blue, and red.
Pricing and delivery dates vary by carrier.
For more, see PCMag's reviews of the HTC One Google Play edition and HTC One, as well as the slideshow above.

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Google, Microsoft ramp up fight against online child pornography

In response to the alarming proliferation of photos and videos containing child pornography on the Internet, Web search giants Google and Microsoft plan to introduce measures to block the content from their search results.
The modifications will prevent more than 100,000 search terms from generating results that link to images and videos associated with child sex abuse and instead trigger a warning that the associated content is illegal. The restrictions, which apply to English-speaking countries, will be expanded to more than 150 languages in the next six months, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt wrote in an article for the Daily Mail on Sunday.
"We've listened, and in the last three months put more than 200 people to work developing new, state-of-the-art technology to tackle the problem," Schmidt wrote. "We've fine-tuned Google search to prevent links to child sexual abuse material from appearing in our results."
Once it's determined that content represents genuine abuse and not innocent bath time photos, the content is assigned a unique digital fingerprint that speeds the detection and deletion process when the images appear in Google's system, he wrote. "Microsoft deserves a lot of credit for developing and sharing its picture detection technology," Schmidt wrote. 
Engineers at YouTube have also created new technology to identify child porn videos on the video-sharing site, and the company plans to make the technology available to other Internet companies and child protection agencies, Schmidt wrote.
The effort is the result of a call to arms this summer by UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who praised the move as a "really significant step forward."
"Google and Microsoft have come a long way," he told the Daily Mail. "A recent deterrence campaign from Google led to a 20 percent drop off in people trying to find illegal content, so we know this sort of action will make a difference."
The companies have long been focused on eradicating child pornography from the Internet. Google announced plans in June to build a database of child porn images that can be shared with other tech companies, law enforcement, and charities around the world, allowing for greater collaboration toward content removal. In addition to joining the Technology Coalition, which looks at how technology can be used to end child exploitation, the search giant has also donated millions of dollars to nonprofit organizations that work for the cause.
Microsoft has also actively battled child pornography on the Web. The software giant helped develop the hashing technology for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's PhotoDNA program. The technology is also used by other Internet companies, including Facebook.

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Google is working on a new Android camera API, supports Camera RAW

 

The Nexus 5 camera was a huge disappointment, especially after comments from high-ranking Googler Vic Gundotra stating that "we are committed to making Nexus phones insanely great cameras. Just you wait and see."
That was nine months ago. We waited and saw, and what showed up on the Nexus 5 wasn't very good. There may be an explanation for this, though. According to commits in the public Android source code, which were first spotted by Josh Brown on Google+, Google is working on a new camera API for Android. Work on the new API started in December 2012, which would make it seem targeted for KitKat, but about a month before the new OS's release, the API was pulled from Android's framework code. The commit that removed the API from the release Android code is here, with the comment saying:

DO NOT MERGE: Hide new camera API.

Not yet ready.

Bug: 11141002

This commit was pushed on October 11, about a month before the release of KitKat. A month before release was probably "feature freeze" time, where work on new features stops and everyone focuses on fixing bugs in time for release. The camera revamp didn't make it and was replaced with the original camera API.
The really good stuff is in the initial commit, which contains tons of documentation about the new camera setup. There's a new API class called "Android.hardware.photography" (the current camera functionality lives under "android.hardware.camera"), and with the fancier name comes fancier capabilities:

Full-capability devices allow for per-frame control of capture hardware and post-processing parameters at high frame rates. They also provide output data at high resolution in uncompressed formats, in addition to compressed JPEG output.

The new camera API has a backwards-compatibility mode for older devices, but "full-capability" devices now have access to a few new picture formats. The only new image format listed that isn't present in Jelly Bean seems to be support for camera RAW:

General RAW camera sensor image format, usually representing a single-channel Bayer-mosaic image. Each pixel color sample is stored with 16 bits of precision.
The layout of the color mosaic, the maximum and minimum encoding values of the RAW pixel data, the color space of the image, and all other needed information to interpret a RAW sensor image must be queried from the {@link android.hardware.photography.CameraDevice} which produced the image.

Normally smartphone cameras output JPEG files, which are compressed, mostly-finalized images. RAW is minimally compressed and unprocessed, so shooting in RAW gives the photographer much more flexibility after the picture is shot. Programs like Photoshop can do much more with a RAW file than with a JPEG.
Camera RAW is not totally unheard of on a mobile phone; Nokia's upcoming Lumia 1520 will be able to shoot RAW. Besides making Photoshoppers very happy, the RAW file could be passed to an even more powerful on-board photo editor, which Google seems very keen on building into Android and Google+.
The new API also supports face detection. This includes bounding boxes around faces and center coordinates for the eyes and mouth. In addition to the face-focus capabilities, the system can assign unique IDs to each face (provided they stay on screen) so developers could do things like assign silly hats to multiple faces in a video feed. While you may have seen face detection on some Android devices, those were all solutions built by Android OEMs.
There's support for burst mode, too—another feature that you would swear was already included in Android, but isn't. On Nexus devices, the only "burst mode" involves the user pressing the shutter button really fast.

The camera device is removable and has been disconnected from the Android device, or the camera service has shut down the connection due to a higher-priority access request for the camera device.

The strangest new feature is probably support for a removable camera. We can't recall a single Android device of any kind that has had a removable camera, so feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments.
The most important possible improvement that wouldn't be visible in the source code: image quality. Android cameras arguably lag behind the iPhone in quality, so this new API may be Google's solution to that problem. Android's subpar image quality seems to be an across-the-board problem, so maybe the issue really is as low-level as the camera API. There's no way to be sure though, until we get finished software and devices in our hands. With documentation using phrases like "substantially improved capabilities" and "fine-grain control" it certainly sounds like Google is out to fix Android's digital-imaging woes.

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