NewsTrust - Google - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Independent)

Google’s ‘Project Glass’ Augmented Reality Glasses Are Real And In Testing

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

TechCrunch - Apr. 04 (Opinion) - After weeks of speculation and rumors, Google has officially pulled back the curtain on what they have come to call Project Glass -- a pair of augmented reality glasses that seek to provide users real-time information right in front of their eyes. "We think technology should work for you — to be there when you need it and get out of your way when you don’t," wrote Babak Parviz, Steve Lee, and Sebastian Thrun, three Google employees who are part of the Google X skunkworks. "We’re sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input." Something tells me that they won't be hurting for feedback.

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HuffPost Goes Deep On Google : CJR

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Columbia Journalism Review - By Greg Marx - Sep. 27 (Editorial) - The Huffington Post trio of Ryan Grim, Zach Carter, and Paul Blumenthal dropped their 6,800-word take on “Google, Microsoft, and the War for the Web” Sunday night, and like all of HuffPost’s deep dives, the piece was chock-full of good reporting. Among the nuggets of news large and small: • Google’s influence-buying spree has pushed the number of lobbyists in its employ up to ninety-three, spread across eighteen firms. (An antitrust investigation of the company led by the Senate Judiciary Committee is jokingly known as the “Leahy Full Employment Act,” after committee chairman Pat Leahy.) And the company’s new commitment to bipartisanship means that not only GOP-aligned lobbying shops but conservative think tanks like Heritage Foundation and AEI are now getting Google cash.

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Google’s +1 Button Gets Its Treat: Now Lets You Share To Google+ Circles

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

TechCrunch - By Jason Kincaid - Aug. 24 (Opinion) - Over the last several months you’ve probably come across Google’s +1 quite a few times. You may have even clicked it, only to wonder what exactly you’d just accomplished. Because, at least from the user’s perspective, there hasn’t been any reward from clicking on it. You’d push the button for the treat, only to leave empty-handed. That hasn’t stopped the +1 button from getting huge distribution — it’s now on 1 million sites and appears in 4 billion impressions every day, but that growth has had more to do with the fact that it’s Google than it does with the button being useful. The +1 button has always had a subtle purpose, of course: Google says that it impacts search results, so pages you +1 may show up in your friends’ queries more prominently than they would otherwise. But who knows how often that happens. And while these +1 clicks also get saved in your Google+ profile, they’re not anywhere your friends are going to see them.

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Google Tried To Buy Color For $200 Million. Color Said No.

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

TechCrunch - By Michael Arrington - Jul. 22 (Opinion) - If that headline looks familiar to you, you're probably remembering our story about Google offering to buy Path for $100+ million from earlier this year. Path turned that deal down. About the same time, multiple sources have confirmed, Google was also making a run for Color, the mobile social network founded by Bill Nguyen. This was well before Color launched, and Google was looking at the company's potential as well as the team. Google offered $200 million for the company, according to our sources.

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The Power Of Pull

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

TechCrunch - By Alex Rampell - Jul. 03 (Opinion) - What makes email, Facebook, and Google so valuable? Answer: Visiting them is largely unprompted, notwithstanding the synapses that fire in your brain that make you check your email, your Facebook feed, or decide to research something on Google. In other words, people pull content themselves, rather than having that content be pushed — or foisted — upon them. The best way of looking at consumer web applications is as a complex stack of “pulls” and “pushes.” Lest these terms be confused with an earlier generation of push: a “pull” is an unsolicited action by a consumer, whereas a “push” is a solicitation by a seller/producer. The consumer ultimately “pulls” from a mobile phone or computer. Everything else is “pushed” to the consumer, through ads, e-mails or other marketing efforts from companies eager to get business and traffic.

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Google's Eric Schmidt: Smartphones 'Remember Everything'

Sun, 15 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Catharine Smith - May. 15 (Interview) - Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt sat down on Sunday with CNN's Fareed Zakaria for a segment on "Fareed Zakaria GPS" to talk innovation, Android tablets versus Apple's iPad, and the future of technology. Schmidt also commented on the data that users' phones store and how that data can serve the user. Said Schmidt: Today, you're phone knows who you are, where you are, where -- where you're going, to some degree, because it can see your path. And with that and with your permission, it's possible for software and software developers to predict where you're going to go, to suggest people you should meet, to suggest activities and so forth. So ultimately what happens is the mobile phone does what it does best, which is remember everything and make suggestions. And then you can be just a better human and have a good time.

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Flipboard: Threat and Opportunity

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Monday Note - By Frédéric Filloux - Apr. 17 (Opinion) - Every media company should be afraid of Flipboard. The Palo Alto startup epitomizes the best and the worst of the internet. The best is for the user. The worst is for the content providers that feed its stunning expansion without getting a dime in return. According to Kara Swisher ‘s AllThingsD, nine months after launching its first version, Flipboard’s new $50m financing round gives the company a €200m valuation. Many newspapers or magazines carrying hundreds of journalists can’t get a €200m valuation today. Last year, for the Groupe Le Monde, an investment bank memo set a valuation of approximately $100m (net of its $86m debt at the time, to be precise). That was for a 644 journalists multimedia company – OK, one that had been badly managed for years. Still, Flipboard is a 32-people startup with a single product and no revenue yet. So, what’s the fuss about? The answer is a simple one: Flipboard is THE product any big media company or, better, any group of media companies should have invented. It’s an iPad application (soon to be supplemented by an iPhone version), it allows readers to aggregate any sources they want: social medias such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr or any combination of RSS feeds. No need to remember the feed’s often-complicated URL, Flipboard searches it for you and puts the result in a neat eBook-like layout.

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Google's Larry Page Does Exactly The Right Thing: Says "Whatever" To Wall Street

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Business Insider - By Henry Blodget - Apr. 17 (Opinion) - In some people's minds, Google's Larry Page just committed the cardinal sin: He offended Wall Street. Wall Street has reacted to the first quarter in the Page regime by tossing the stock overboard. Larry Page is spending way too much, Wall Street says. Larry Page isn't communicating well enough. Larry Page couldn't even be bothered to spend more than a couple of minutes on the earnings call with Wall Street last night. So to hell with him! Lost under the outrage, of course, is that Larry Page may be doing exactly the right thing: Focusing on Google and Google's products and users, instead of Wall Street.

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Google Doing Some Profile Unification Leading Up To… Well, Something.

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

TechCrunch - By MG Siegler - Mar. 26 (Opinion) - Google is still hard at work on their social strategy. You know it, I know it, we all know it. What it will actually be, remains to be seen. But there are clues related to it that have started to appear.

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TechCrunch Interview With Eric Schmidt, Larry Page And Sergey Brin

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

TechCrunch - Jan. 20 (Interview) - Late last summer we were ready to break a big story that Eric Schmidt would be stepping down as the CEO of Google. Multiple sources and all that jazz. The basic story was that he was tired (who wouldnt be), and that the idea of competing, and probably losing battles, against Apple and Facebook for the next decade wasnt all that appealing. Who would replace him? That was the rest of the article. But Google insisted the story wasnt accurate, wasnt even close to accurate, and generally contained no accuracy whatsoever. We killed the story, since their denials s

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Google gins search formula to favor its own services

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Register - By Dan Goodin - Jan. 19 (Review) - A noted Google-watcher has assembled a convincing argument that the site's search results highly favor Google-owned services, despite repeated company claims that they are algorithmically generated and never manipulated. Harvard professor Ben Edelman and colleague Benjamin Lockwood found that Google's algorithm links to Gmail, YouTube, and other house brands three times more often than other search engines.

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Stewart, Assange and Journalism Education

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Inside Higher Ed - By Michael Bugeja - Jan. 18 (Opinion) - In this brave new media world, you learn about a crisis when it has reached unmanageable proportions, such as happened in the subprime housing debacle at the roots of a recession that has slashed budgets at colleges and universities. And that is why educators everywhere should be concerned about the demise of global journalism, networks of trained reporters and editors generating content on the scene in national and international bureaus. We no longer live nor educate in that world. By elevating access over truth, ours has become a world that reacts via commentary rather than prevents in advance of calamity.

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New Visualization Tool from Google With Data From 5.2 Million Digitized Books

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

ReadWriteWeb - By Audrey Watters - Dec. 16 (Review) - We've written a lot this year about the boom in e-readers and the benefits that e-books have over print. ... But a new project available in Google Labs today - Books Ngram Viewer - highlights some of the other benefits of digitizing texts beyond better reading and storage.

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Inevitable! Google Chrome Extension Exports Your Facebook Contacts

Thu, 25 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800

TechCrunch - By Alexia Tsotsis - Nov. 25 (Review) - Facebook had removed the option to import your contacts from Gmail. A third party developer has decided to build “Facebook Doesn’t Own My Friends,” a Chrome extension that lets you easily export your Facebook Friends’ contact information.

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From The Mind Of A Chrome Designer Comes DropMocks: The Easiest Way To Share Images

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800

TechCrunch - By Erick Schonfeld - Nov. 22 (Review) - Do you ever want to share some photos, mockups or screengrabs with somebody else online quick and dirty? Go to DropMocks, drag and drop your images, and you are done. You get an instant image gallery that displays in CoverFlow style, along with a short URL to share it. For instance, here is an example of a DropMocks I put together in 5 seconds by pulling some photos from my desktop. Same here with these screengrabs. You can name your gallery and save it, and that is pretty much it.

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Google Needs To Do A Lot More Than Fire Employees Who Abuse User Data

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

TechCrunch - By Michael Arrington - Sep. 15 (Opinion) - If a Google employee rampages through my email, Google Voice or other data for no justifiable reason I expect a lot more from the company than simply terminating them. There needs to be criminal charges brought as well. Weve asked Google if theyve pressed charges against either of the two engineers theyve fired for inappropriately accessing user data, and they wont comment. So much of our life is lived online, and so much of our highly sensitive personal data is stored on Googles servers, that it is absurd that there arent more dire consequences facing those that choose to molest that data. If a Google employee broke into my home and stole files from my office theyd go to jail. And frankly Id be far less concerned with that situation than if they were perusing my email for entertainment during their lunch break. a few days ago, for no particular reason, I asked people on Twitter if theyd trust Google with their money and data if Google launched a bank. The overwhelming response was no. Surprised, I wrote wow, most of you say no way youd trust Google Bank with your money. I certainly would. My bank sucks. I think Id like to amend my answer. My bank certainly does suck. But Im pretty sure theyd have an employee arrested if they, say, accessed my data and tried to exhort me with it. Im not so sure Google would do the same. [crunchbase url="http://www.crunchbase.com/company/google" name="Google"]

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Cisco May Be Making A Run For Skype

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

TechCrunch - By Michael Arrington - Aug. 30 (Opinion) - Cisco May Be Making A Run For Skype

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The Full-On Assault On Cable Is Underway

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

TechCrunch - By MG Siegler - Aug. 30 (Opinion) - The Full-On Assault On Cable Is Underway

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Google and CIA Plough Millions Into Huge ‘Recorded Future’ Monitoring Project

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

infowars.com - By Steve Watson - Jul. 29 (Opinion) - Google’s cosy relationship with the U.S. spy network has once again been thrust into the spotlight as the company is reported to have jointly invested with the CIA in an Internet monitoring project that scours Twitter accounts, blogs and websites for all sorts of information, and can also “predict the future”.

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Android Fanboys Have Arrived. And That’s A Good Thing

Sun, 30 May 2010 15:55:03 -0700

TechCrunch - May. 30 (Opinion) - By now, just about everyone on the planet has heard the term “Apple Fanboy.” If you’ve ever said anything good about an Apple product, you’ve likely been called one. But a new class of fanboy has emerged

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Congress On China: Google Gets A Big Wet Kiss. Microsoft Is “Enabling Tyranny”

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 09:03:30 -0700

TechCrunch - By Michael Arrington - Mar. 26 (Opinion) - Many people in the tech community are becoming increasingly skeptical of Google’s motives in partially pulling out of the Chinese markets and starting to suggest a certain level of hypocrisy.

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Zittrain: Google Stands Alone

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 11:06:51 -0700

TechCrunch - By Evelyn Rusli - Mar. 24 (Interview) - Don’t expect an army of web companies to rush to Google’s defense in China v. Google. The lines are drawn but Google will stand alone, according to internet law expert and Harvard Professor Jonathan Zittrain. Other companies, Zittrain argues, are too

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Uh Oh. Not Another “Do No Evil” Company

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0700

TechCrunch - Mar. 16 (Opinion) - Long ago Google unofficially abandoned the Do No Evil mantra and replaced it with, no kidding, an “evil scale.” Sometimes you have to chose between the lesser of two weevils, as Patrick O’Brian would say. And frankly, just staying this side of decent

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The New Paradigm of Advantage

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Harvard Business Review - By Umair Haque - Mar. 10 (Opinion) - the past of advantage was extractive and protective. the future of advantage, on the other hand, is allocative and creative.....an economy built on extractive and protective advantage is a giant, endless ponziconomy.

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Davos Confidential

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Eric E. Schmidt - Feb. 11 (Opinion) - It's easy to sneer at Davos as a place where the rich, powerful and famous come to talk to each other and arrogantly put the world to rights. But there has been little sign of arrogance at recent gatherings.

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