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Google Archive

WSJ: Google to open online tablet store this year

The WSJ/The Verge headline drew me away from Skyrim: Google to sell tablets? What, are they going to build their own? That's huge! "The Internet search company is planning to market and sell tablets directly to consumers through an online store, similar to rivals Apple and Amazon, according to people familiar with the matter. The move is an effort to turn around sluggish sales of tablet computers powered by Google's Android software. Some of the online store's future tablets are expected to be co-branded with Google's name, said people familiar with the matter. Google won't make the devices and its existing partners such as Samsung and ASUS will be responsible for the hardware." Wait, I emerged from Skyrim for an online store? Lame.

“Why I left Google”

"The Google I was passionate about was a technology company that empowered its employees to innovate. The Google I left was an advertising company with a single corporate-mandated focus. Technically I suppose Google has always been an advertising company, but for the better part of the last three years, it didn't feel like one. Google was an ad company only in the sense that a good TV show is an ad company: having great content attracts advertisers." Note we're looking at a Microsoft employee. His points still carry some validity, though.

Chrome falls during Pwn2Own, issue fixed within 24 hours

"As day one of the annual Pwn2Own hacker contest wound down on Wednesday, no browser suffered more abuse than Google Chrome, which was felled by an attack exploiting a previously unknown vulnerability in the most up-to-date version. Combined with a separate contest Google sponsored a few feet away, it was the second zero-day attack visited on Chrome in a span of a few hours." Google fixed the issue within 24 hours.

Rubin: 300 million Android devices, 850000 activated each day

"Each and every day, we are humbled by the trajectory of Android and our partners. With a year-on-year growth rate of more than 250%, 850000 new Android devices are activated each day, jetting the total number of Android devices around the world past 300 million. These numbers are a testament to the break-neck speed of innovation that defines the Android ecosystem." Andy Rubin clarified the numbers - activations are only counted once per device ID, and devices without Google services, such as the Kindle Fire, are not counted. Of these 300 million devices, 12 million are tablets - in other words, Apple has very little to fear at this point. Then again, Android on smartphones started out that way as well.

How to remove your Google Search history

So, the EFF has an article up on how to clear your search history at Google before the changes to the company's privacy policy takes effect. Most importantly, the hitherto sealed search hisory will now be shared with other Google services to provide better products advertising. Interestingly enough, when I got to the search history page, I saw this. Was this feature opt-in or something? Also, just to be safe, where do I go to delete or even just see the information associated with my Apple ID or my Live ID?

Google Now Scanning Android Apps for Malware

"Google has added an automated scanning process that is designed to keep malicious apps out of the Android Market , the company announced today. The new service, code-named 'Bouncer', scans apps for known malware, spyware, and Trojans, and looks for suspicious behaviors and compares them against previously analyzed apps. Every app is then run on Google's cloud infrastructure to simulate how the software would operate on an Android device, he said. Existing apps are continuously analyzed, too."

Google Contractors Vandalised OpenStreetMap Data

Fascinating. After the whole Mocality story, we were greeted by another story of Google misconduct. This time, it's OpenStreetMap, which claims that users connecting from the same Google IP addresses in India as in the Mocality incident are vandalising OpenStreetMap data. Google has confirmed to ReadWriteWeb that two contractors acting on their own behalf while on the Google network were responsible. Another, less serious instance of Google misconduct, perhaps, but OpenStreetMap's handling of this issue does smell fishy.

Fragmentation Is Not the End of Android

"The fragmentation of Android is very real and very problematic for end users, developers, mobile operators, device manufacturers, and Google. However fragmentation does not mean Android is going to 'die' or 'fail' as some seem to think. On the contrary I think we can count on Android playing a significant role in our world for a long, long time. I also am confident that Google has already lost control of Android and has zero chance of regaining control. This post explains why I'm so confident about this."

Google Employees Caught Scamming Kenyan Company

It really hasn't been Google's week. First the entire internet exploded because of some uninteresting nonsense regarding social networking (really internet?), but today something happened that's actually a bad thing and worth talking about: in Kenya, Google has been caught accessing the databases of a competing business, and offering Google's own product to the people in the database. Google has already apologised, and is currently investigating the matter.

Introducing the Android Design Site

Pretty interesting. "Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) is our biggest redesign yet - both for users and developers. We've enhanced the UI framework with new interactions and styles that will let you create Android apps that are simpler and more beautiful than ever before. To help you in that mission, we're introducing Android Design: the place to learn about principles, building blocks, and patterns for creating world-class Android user interfaces. Whether you're a UI professional or a developer playing that role, these docs show you how to make good design decisions, big and small."

Is Google Paying Bloggers to Write Garbage Content?

Last year, Google implemented one of its more ambitious changes to its core consumer products (that would be search, in case you lost track) with Panda, an effort to reduce the amount of pointless and low-quality review sites and the like from the top of Google's search results. Interesting, then, that there's hints Google is actually generating garbage content to promote Chrome, as SearchEngineLand and SEO Book. Or is there a more reasonable explanation? Update: And this is why - rightfully so or no - Google tends to get more love than, say, Apple or Microsoft. The company has announced that even though the sponsored posts were not the company's fault, Google will still penalise the Chrome browser's homepage, lowering its pagerank for at least 60 days.

Review: Android

Once upon a time, in a land, far, far away, there were two mobile operating systems. One of them was designed for mobile from the ground up; the other was trying really hard to copy its older, desktop brother. One was limited in functionality, inflexible and lacked multitasking, but was very efficient, fast, and easy to use. The other had everything and the kitchen sink, was very flexible and could multitask, but had a steep learning curve, was inconsistent, and not particularly pretty.

Chrome 15 Surpasses IE8

Only weeks ago StatCounter reported that Chrome pushed past Firefox to become the second most popular web browser after IE. A new StatCounter report says Chrome 15 has jumped into the number one spot, replacing IE8. This is the first time a non-Microsoft browser has led the list in StatCounter's tracking.

Android: A Visual History

"Google's Android operating system has undergone a pretty incredible metamorphosis in the three short years since it debuted on the T-Mobile G1. Think about it: three years, eight major releases. Eight. To put that in perspective, there have only been ten major consumer-grade releases of Windows (give or take, depending on how you count) in over twenty-five years of retail availability. You could make a pretty convincing argument that no consumer technology in history has evolved as quickly as the smartphone, and Android has been at the very center of that evolution. With the release of Android 4.0 - Ice Cream Sandwich - on Samsung's Galaxy Nexus, we wanted to take a look back through the years at how Andy Rubin's brainchild has evolved into the industry titan that it is today. What's changed? What has (sometimes stubbornly) stayed the same?" Fantastic article.