Google announced a new feature today: the innocuously named “Inactive Account Manager.” “Not a great name, we know,” writes product manager Andreas Tuerk in a public policy blog post that explains that the feature is a way for Google users to tell Google what to do with their digital assets when they kick the bucket.
Google is ramping up the competition on dominant cable companies and ISPs with its super-fast broadband network, known as Google Fiber. The search giant announced Tuesday that it is expanding Google Fiber to Austin, Texas, the third big metropolitan area after Kansas City and Olathe, Missouri. It is also offering a free Internet connection at 5 megabits-per-second to residents of Kansas City for seven years, provided they pay a one-time construction fee. …read more
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By Karsten Strauss, Forbes Staff
Google is collecting applications for a competition that will make four UK-based non-profits fistfuls of money. Called “The Global Impact Challenge,” the search and technology giant will award innovative organizations that use social media for good (not evil). …read more
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Google is still dealing with the fall-out from its “Wi-Spy” debacle (in which the company’s world-mapping Street View cars snooped on people’s Wi-Fi networks per the instructions of an engineer acting, according to Google, completely on his own). This month, it settled a case brought against it by 38 state attorneys general for collecting unsuspecting Americans’ emails, passwords and browsing activity. It agreed to pay a $7 million fine — which is basically Monopoly money for a company that probably made that amount in the time it took me to write this post — and more importantly, it acknowledged that what it did was a privacy violation. …read more
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Google is the dominant player in Internet search and one of the most important technology companies. But it still faces major challenges. …read more
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Google may have captured people’s imaginations with its Google Glass Project, but it could have a few competing devices to contend with when it ships later this year. …read more
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By Andrea Spiegel, Forbes Staff
Google filed a patent application last year to refine their news-ranking algorithm for third time in the past nine years. The Google News algorithm has long been a mystery, with few details publicly available. Computerworld uncovered the document “while conducting an unrelated patent search on the United States Patent Office‘s website.” Nice find, huh? The patent application provides a rare look at the underpinnings of the Google News machine, including specific criteria Google uses to rank news stories: The metrics cited in the patent application include: the number of articles produced by a news organization during a given time period; the average length of an article from a news source; and the importance of coverage from the news source. …read more
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Google shares this week crossed the $800 level for the first time, and seems destined to beat Apple to the $1,000 mark. …read more
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Google is finally launching Glass in a big way with a beautifully designed website and a contest to allow members of the hoi polloi to try “augmented reality for your face.” In a savvy social media move Google is encouraging people to enter a contest for a pair of the geeky chic glasses — available in “Charcoal, Tangerine, Shale, Cotton and Sky” — on Twitter and Google Plus using the hashtag #IfIHadGlass. It will both help spread the news of the product far and wide, and because Google requires that contest entrants follow @/+ProjectGlass on Twitter or Google Plus, will up the new product’s social media following right away. However, there are some drawbacks though to both winning the contest and to running it the way Google is doing. …read more
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Google shares are trading modestly higher Friday after Morgan Stanley analyst Scott Devitt added the company to Morgan’s “Best Ideas” list, asserting that “the next Google is Google.” …read more
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By Andy Greenberg, Forbes Staff Google has never been stingy when it comes to paying for information about security vulnerabilities in products. Now it’s offering an especially large–and especially nerdy–sum of money.
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By Connie Guglielmo, Forbes Staff Google released it’s fourth-quarter results, which may be a little trickier to process given that the company says analysts estimates might not have been adjusted to take into account the sale of its Motorola Home division in December.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
By Connie Guglielmo, Forbes Staff Google, which experienced a bit of earnings drama in October when its financial results were mistakenly released a few hours early, may see some drama again when its fourth quarter earnings are released after the market closes today.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
