Posts Tagged ‘Google’
A Google executive recently said the cloud computing market in 2012 will focus more on mobile devices and social networking in order to keep pace with businesses’ interests. Amit Singh, vice president of Google Enterprise, told eWeek that the cloud trend next year will try to move businesses more into the realm of teamwork from the era of individual production.
With the move more into social networking, Singh said Google is trying to push forward the integration ability of its social networking website Google+. Singh said businesses will start using more of a BYOD, or bring your own device, approach when it comes to using mobile devices at work. Peter Coffee of Salesforce.com said he sees the cloud helping users break through with features and capabilities they may not have had before, such as the ability to create a document on one device and view it on another.
“People do not want to be burdened by what device is holding a piece of content,” said Coffee, who added that having content that is device-neutral will be important for everyone in the business world.
Gartner’s predictions for the future of cloud computing agrees with Singh’s prediction, adding that by 2016, 50 percent of cloud-based email users will rely on a browser, tablet or mobile device instead of a desktop.
Though Android Ice Cream Sandwich is only available for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus right now, it’s done enough to make us Android 2.3 users pretty dissatisfied with our perfectly decent OS. If reports are accurate, the update floodgates should be set to open – starting with the Google Nexus S.
The Google Nexus S is the former lead Android device and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus’s immediate predecessor. It’s a decent phone, with a 4-inch Super AMOLED display and a 1GHz single-core processor. It didn’t rock people’s world half as much as the Galaxy Nexus has, though.
Still, one of the key benefits of Google Nexus S ownership over the past 12 months or so has been priority updates – and that seems to be the case even with the next gen Android Ice Cream Sandwich too.
According to a number of Google+ postings, Google is in the process of testing its new OS on its old Nexus S device. How is it doing this testing? By using its own employees as guinea pigs, of course.
Click here to go directly to Britney Spear’s Google+ Page
Pop star Britney Spears has become the most followed individual on Google Plus with over 743,000 followers.
Contactmusic.com reports that Spears has beaten Google’s CEO Larry Page as well. Larry is being followed by 742,500 people.
The social media site was launched in July.
Britney is the fifth most followed user on rival social networking site Twitter with over 11.3 million followers and is behind Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry and Kim Kardashian.
Google senior product manager Michael Siliski introduces the company’s digital music store. Photograph: Jae C Hong/AP
Google and Apple have stepped up their corporate battle with the launch this week of music services for their smartphone platforms.
Android handset users in the US will now be able to get access to Google Music, where the search engine company has signed up the main music labels except, so far, Warner Music.
The service is not available outside the US because Google has not completed negotiations with record labels to allow it to sell songs elsewhere.
The Google Music offering comes with exclusive content from the Rolling Stones, Coldplay, Busta Rhymes, Shakira, Pearl Jam and the Dave Matthews Band.
Songs are available in MP3 format encoded at 320Kbps. Song prices range from 69c to 99c and $1.29, the same as on Apple’s iTunes.
The absence of Warner Music means Google Music will lack some famous names such as Led Zeppelin and Prince which are available on rival stores such as Apple’s iTunes.
“They’ve got to get that [music] catalog filled pretty quickly,” said Mike McGuire, an analyst at industry research firm Gartner. “It’s a launch, but it’s kind of like a work-in-progress.”
Analysts say selling online music is unlikely to provide much of a lift to Google’s revenue. But they say Google needs to be in the market to ensure that its Android-based mobile efforts can match offerings from competitors.
Android is the world’s No. 1 smartphone operating system, powering about 200m devices worldwide. But without a music service, Android-based smartphones and tablets may not be as attractive to consumers seeking a product that offers a seamless media experience.
The service costs $25 per year, leading Jamie Rosenberg, Google’s director of digital content for Android, to take a dig at it: “Other cloud music services think you have to pay to listen to music you already own. We don’t,” he said.
via Google opens Android music store to challenge Apple iTunes guardian
Although it replaced the command with a new operator, (“quotation marks”) Google has admitted that users still aren’t entirely happy. Corin Anderson, Google’s Principle Engineer for Search says “we’ve received a lot of requests for a more deliberate way to tell Google to search using your exact terms. We’ve been listening, and starting today you’ll be able to do just that through verbatim search.”
Verbatim search is a way for users to make all of their searches specific, without the need to enter another command with every query. Once the Verbatim tool is turned on, all searches will be conducted as if each phrase was wrapped with quotation marks.
This means that Google will not apply certain search tweaks to the query, such as; making automatic spelling corrections, personalizing the search, including synonyms of search terms, finding results that match similar terms to those in the query, searching for words with the same stem, and making some terms optional.
To turn the tool on users need to click on the ‘More search tools’ option in the left hand options bar, and select Verbatim. The tool needs to be selected each time Google is opened but will apply to each query in that session once it is selected.
Photo by AP
Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt envisions an explosion of “big data” and the simplification of powerful technology changing the world, from the spread of democracy to the introduction of self-driving cars.
A car is going to drive itself better, in our lifetimes, than we will,” Schmidt said in a speech yesterday at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. “Especially if you’re drunk, but even if you’re not — people get distracted. Plus you’re not supposed to be tweeting — but you are — when you’re driving.
He said the availability of huge sets of data, and algorithms to make sense of them, leads to possibilities like self-driving cars, one of Google’s side projects.
Schmidt called for citizens to demand its leaders to use such data when making policy decisions about issues like global warming. He said the data clearly points to climate change caused by humans but little action has been taken.
Social media fail or fraud?
A Google+ page that appeared to be the online home of Bank of America has for the past seven days advertised the company’s “new” slogan: “We took your bailout money and your mortgage rates are going up.”
The page was a fraud, of course — but a fraud the giant bank has allowed to exist for the past week, since Google unveiled pages for businesses and products on its new social network. How such a thing could slip past the attention of the country’s second biggest bank by assets is anyone’s guess, said Chester Wisniewski, a senior security adviser for security firm Sophos Labs.
“An organization the size of Bank of America you would expect would be very protective of their brand,” Wisniewski told FoxNews.com.
“It’s just kind of common practice in most organizations to do that these days. I just find it amazing for this to go on for week and them not to notice,” he said.
The no-longer-available page was clearly a satire of the giant bank, possibly one created by the “Occupy” protesters or the hacker group Anonymous, Wisniewski suggested. And the mocking posts on the page are obviously not from the real bank.
via Brandjacked! Fake Google+ Page Insults Bank Of America | Fox News.
Google offers way for wireless network users to opt out of Google Location Server inclusion – SlashGear
Posted on: November 15, 2011
Google has announced a new plan that will help people that have wireless networks at home or in their offices opt out of being included in the Google Location Server. The GLS is one of the ways that Google helps provide location services to mobile users. When your network is in the GLS listings it can be used to find where a person is when they use location services on a mobile device.
Google Inc. (GOOG)’s Android software ran on more than half of all smartphones sold in the third quarter as consumers snapped up handsets made by Samsung Electronics Co., said researcher Gartner Inc. (IT)
The Google system accounted for 52.5 percent of smartphone sales, more than doubling its share from a year earlier, Gartner said in an e-mailed report. Even as some consumers delayed purchases to wait for Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s latest iPhone and other models, smartphone sales by volume grew 42 percent, it said.
Google+ Will Gain Enterprise Social Collaboration Features | PCWorld Business Center
Posted on: November 15, 2011
Google plans to release to customers in the future a version of Google+, already in use internally at the company, that has features designed specifically for workplace collaboration.
So said Google+ official Bradley Horowitz on Monday at the company’s Atmosphere event, where Google is hosting 350 CIOs from around the world to discuss the role of cloud computing in the enterprise. The event ends on Tuesday.
“We know from our own experience this will transform businesses worldwide,” said Horowitz, Google+ vice president of product.
For example, the Google+ Circles functionality, which lets users segment their “friends” list into different groups, will allow for “intra-enterprise sharing” through Circles for the IT department, the marketing department and the like, that are public within an organization but not necessarily to people outside, he said.
Google+ Will Gain Enterprise Social CollaborationFeatures | PCWorld Business Center.
Can Google+ beat Facebook? That’s the wrong question – CNN.com.
Pete Cashmore is the founder and CEO of Mashable.com.
Dublin, Ireland: An energy-efficient, cloud computing data center on 11 acres of land with a $101 million investment. The natural cooling from Dublin’s climate saves energy by eliminating the need for chillers.
Asia – Singapore, Hong Kong &Taiwan: A $200 million investment in three data centers to support increased demand of services via smartphones and tablet computers, and expectations to be operational in 1 to 2 years.
Pryor, Oklahoma – Just opened a new $600 million, 130,000 square feet data center, and plans to open a second building for office space. Another energy-efficient project, the data center will be powered from a wind farm which will feed into the electrical transmission grid.
Microsoft
Dublin, Ireland: Microsoft expects to expand its 19-acre, $500 million data center in Dublin by more than a third – similar to Google, the data center uses natural cooling without any chillers.
West Des Moines, Iowa: $200 million facility originally started in 2008 but put on hold after the recession. The data center project started up again in 2010, and appears to be nearing completion.
Boydton , Virginia: An expansion investment of $150 million and a planned second data center facility. With the first phase of its project requiring $499 million, Microsoft is trying to stay competitive in the cloud computing market.
- North Carolina: Scheduled for completion by September 2013, the second data center for this social network giant will measure 300,000 square feet, same as its first data center that hasn’t even opened yet. Facebook purchased 150 acres of land and invested $450 million in their first data center. The data center will be energy-efficient and deploy evaporative cooling instead of a chiller system.
IBM
- Langfang, China: A cloud computing data center for Range Technology Development Co. Ltd. measured at 620,000 square meters and intended to serve business growth industries such as transportation, telecommunications, e-government and healthcare. IBM’s data center business in China has reportedly tripled in the last four years.
- Google has acquired land in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore to build data centers in these three locations, it said Wednesday.
- The data centers will be the “first Google proprietary data centers in Asia,” and will be fully owned and operated by the company, said Taj Meadows, the company’s policy communications manager for Asia Pacific.
- More people are coming online every day in Asia than in any other part of the world, so locating data centers there is an important next stage of Google’s investment in the region, the company said Local data centers will help the company provide faster and more reliable access to Google’s services, it added.
- here is a large surge in Internet use in Asia, particularly for consumer applications, said Jun Fwu Chin, research manager for virtualization and data center at IDC Malaysia.
- A number of new data centers are coming up in the region as multinational Internet and hosting companies set up data centers to serve local customers, and also to meet governments regulations in some countries that require data to be handled locally, Chin said.
- The company has acquired 2.45 hectares of land in Jurong West, Singapore, and another 15 hectares of land in Changhua County, Taiwan, to build the data centers. It has also acquired 2.7 hectares of land in Kowloon, Hong Kong, for a data center there.
- Google expects to invest over US$100 million in each of the facilities in Taiwan and Hong Kong, including the cost of land, construction and technical equipment. It did not specify the size of the investment in Singapore.
- Google has launched a new service to make its cloud computing platform more appealing to businesses. The company on Thursday introduced a limited preview of Google Cloud SQL, a scalable, hosted MySQL database environment.
- Navneet Joneja, product manager for Google Cloud SQL, says that one of the most frequent requests from Google App Engine users has been for an easy way to develop traditional database-driven applications. Using App Engine, Google’s platform-as-a-service offering, in conjunction with Cloud SQL allows developers to avoid the burden of database management, maintenance, and administration.
- And at the moment, the price is hard to beat.
- Cloud SQL is available free of charge for now, and we will publish pricing at least 30 days before charging for it,” said Joneja in a blog post. Google says it will not charge for the service in 2011.
- But the price will go up eventually. Google in May said it planned to increase the price of using its App Engine cloud computing infrastructure later this year and recently shocked developers when the magnitude of the price increase became apparent. The outcry that followed–partly the result of expectations set by the low price during App Engine’s beta period–prompted Google engineering director Peter Magnusson to apologize for not providing developers with the tools to understand how their apps would be affected by the price change.
- In a confirmation of Taiwan’s investment climate and the strength of its information/communications technology industry, Google, the world’s largest search engine, will invest over US$100 million to set up a data center spanning 15 hectares in space in Hsienhsi Township of Changhua County, announced the company yesterday (sep 28)
- Google also announced decision to set up data centers in Singapore and Hong Kong, with the investment scale in Hong Kong also reaching US$100 million. It, however, didn’t publicize investment scale in Singapore.
- This is the first time for Google to set up data centers in Asia. Presently, it has eight data centers in Europe and the U.S. and 15 offices in the Asia-Pacific region.
- Google now has a branch company in Taiwan, with a paid-in capital of NT$2.1 billion. The company pointed out that the data center will be completed in one to two years, adding that the projected investment of US$100 million will be used in land purchase, construction, and procurement of technology and equipment.
- Google noted that the decision to set up Asian data centers is for the purpose of deep-cultivating the Asian market, following surge in the Internet population in the Asia-Pacific market. Taiwan is selected as a site for Asian data centers, due to its market proximity, complete infrastructure, top-notch technological talents, and reasonable business regulations.
- Search engine company to spend over $200m building facilities in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. Google will invest over $200m to build data centres in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, the Search engine company’s first data centres in Asia.
- According to Bloomberg, Google has already acquired land in the three South-east Asia countries. The company told Blomberg that the data centres in Hong Kong and Taiwan are expected to cost over $100m each. The move is a part of Google’s wider strategy to expand its presence in Asia. At present, Google leases data centres in Asia to offer services in the region.
- The search engine company has a growing user base in several Asian countries including China and India, where the company’s services such as search, e-mail and online maps are popular. Google’s Android is also widely used in Asia, with most Asian smartphone makers using the mobile-phone operating system.
- The operation of the Asian facilities are expected to begin one to two years after construction begins, said the company.
- Meanwhile, The New York Times has reported that the next great expansion of the world’s digital infrastructure is under way in developing markets such as China, Brazil and Argentina.
- E-commerce leader Amazon has enabled its AppStore for Android users in India, according to various media reports.
- Amazon’s AppStore has over one lakh apps and is offering one paid app for free daily. Users will need to register for Amazon.com before downloading the app. Like Apple’s AppStore, users will also need to add their credit card information before accessing the app store. On the other hand, Google’s Android market, which comes loaded with all Android OS-based phones, does not require this information and only asks for it when you download a paid app. This could be a make or break for Amazon’s AppStore in India, where credit card usage is still low. By restricting access to free apps, we doubt Amazon will see much traction for its app store unless it offers a huge USP.
- According to a report by mobile market intelligence firm Research2Guidance, Google’s Android Market crossed six billion downloads in August. It also states that as of the end of August 2011, the Android Market contained 277,252 apps and on average, weather apps generated the highest total revenue from paid downloads.
- Blackberry smartphones are losing ground to the combined strength of iPhone and Android smartphones, as far as their use at the workplace is concerned, according to a survey of 1,681 U.S.-based workers released Thursday by Forrester Research.
- That finding amplifies what many have known for a while about the entrenched workplace smartphone veteran: the BlackBerry faces trouble from its competitors.
- The BlackBerry, made by Research in Motion, still leads among U.S. workers, with 42%, the survey said, with Apple”s iPhone accounting for 22% and Android devices, 26%.
- The survey also found that nearly half, or 48% of the group, said that they chose the primary smartphone used for their work without considering what their company supports. Only 29% said they chose the smartphone from a list of phones the company supports, while 23% said they had no choice in the matter.
- Often, corporate IT shops will choose BlackBerry smartphones when requiring a worker to use a specific smartphone, partly because of the perceived security benefits, many analysts, including at Forrester, have found. The growth in Android phones and the iPhone — many of them brought to workplaces by workers independently — are forcing IT shops to rethink that decision
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