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Should Google Android Be Broken Up?

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By Evan Niu, CFA, The Motley Fool

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According to Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, the search giant has clearly won the mobile platform war. That assertion is based in part on the sheer fact that Android is by far the dominant mobile operating system on the planet. That’s indisputable.

Over the past two years, Android doubled its global market share and now powers 70% of all smartphones sold worldwide. That rise is incredible, any way you slice it.

Source: IDC.

The thing is that while Google likes to tout those legitimately impressive headline figures, saying there are now more than 1.3 million Android devices activated every day, the truth is that there are currently so many different distinct Android camps that lumping them all together is somewhat specious where it counts.

Should Android be broken up?

A subtle admission
Google has seemingly acknowledged this. The search giant subtly changed its methodology for measuring version distribution, which resulted in meaningful changes in its reported statistics. The aging Gingerbread fell from 44.2% to 39.8%, while the newest Jelly Bean soared from 16.5% to 25%.

Android version distribution. Source: Google.

The new method now measures the devices that visit the Google Play store instead of including all devices that check in to Google’s servers (i.e., activations). Google says “new data more accurately reflects those users who are most engaged in the Android and Google Play ecosystem.”

Translation: Google wants to emphasize its own Android camp to developers, while minimizing the importance of Amazon.com‘s fork as well as all the Chinese OEM forks out there. Google uses the aggregate figures when they make for good headlines, but it concentrates on its sanctioned Android versions when it matters strategically.

Google doesn’t directly benefit from the different forks out there, and Amazon’s is by far the most successful in tablets. The e-tailer was the No. 3 tablet vendor in the fourth quarter, with 11.5% of the market, and none of those Kindle Fires feed into Google Play. That’s what Amazon’s Appstore for Android is for.

Facebook just launched its Home software suite, which I consider more of a “half-fork,” since Home still feeds into Google Play even though it emphasizes Facebook’s social services over Google’s. From the social network’s perspective, Home is still the right strategy, since Facebook knows better than to compete on a primary platform level.

Even BlackBerry is now piggybacking on Android’s dominance, using ported Android apps to pad its app counts. BlackBerry devices still rely on BlackBerry World for their app fix, and developers have to manually port their apps to the platform to run inside an emulator, so those smartphones were never getting included in Google’s figures. BlackBerry has made some progress getting developers to go native, but the company serves as another example of a third party riding Android’s success with no benefit to Google.

You can’t have one without the other
Device fragmentation has long been cited

From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/14/should-android-be-broken-up/

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

How Google Hopes to Liberate America From Cable Captivity

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By Evan Niu, CFA, The Motley Fool

Motorcycle Police Chase Video

Source: Google.

Thus far, the company’s big push into becoming an Internet service provider, or ISP, has mostly been relegated in

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Let’s face it: America is being held captive. That’s the case that law professor Susan P. Crawford makes in her book Captive Audience, which describes the current monopolistic state of the telecommunications industry.

When it comes to the Internet, a technology that has unarguably revolutionized the world and the global economy, America severely lags behind other countries. We’re talking about a technology that America created, yet the average American is relegated to inferior speeds compared with other parts of the world, and many rural areas don’t even have broadband service.

A sad status quo
In many ways, Internet access can be considered a necessary utility nowadays, much like electricity. Unfortunately, the people who can afford it are paying too much, while there’s still a large chunk of the population that can’t afford it at all.

One reason for this sad status quo is that the sector inherently requires an oligopoly structure. Not everyone can afford spending $19.7 billion on infrastructure, which is what AT&T dropped on capital expenditures last year, in addition to the $20.3 billion spent in 2011.

Along the way, the industry became segregated into wired and wireless sectors. Comcast and Time Warner Cable dominated the wired side, while AT&T and Verizon primarily call the shots in wireless.

With wired connections, most of the networks around the country are built with antiquated copper wires. Some companies have built high-speed fiber optic networks, but that’s a costly upgrade. Verizon began building its FiOS network in 2006 but has since reversed course and won’t expand beyond its current obligations. It simply wasn’t worth it to invest in FiOS, since it would still be too hard to compete.

Barring a consumer uprising, there’s little incentive for wired incumbents to invest heavily in fiber optic networks when they can hinder competition in other ways.

Enter Google Fiber.

Liberation!
The search giant’s gigabit fiber optic service promises Internet speeds up to 100 times what the average American has and represents a truly disruptive threat to the wired telecom sector.

Source: Google.

Thus far, the company’s big push into becoming an Internet service provider, or ISP, has mostly been relegated in Kansas City, which straddles the state line between Kansas and Missouri. Kansas City has a little over 600,000 people, combining both sides. The company just announced its plans to expand Google Fiber deep in the heart of Texas, bringing the service to Austin. The Live Music Capital of the World boasts a population of more than 820,000.

For fortunate residents within Google Fiber‘s growing footprint, the decision is a no-brainer compared with current offerings. Google hasn’t finished pricing in Austin yet, where I live, but I’m currently paying about $60 per month before taxes and fees for a 20 Mbps connection from Time Warner Cable. The Kansas City pricing is $70 per month for a Gigabit (1,000 Mbps) connection. Boost my speed by 50 times for an

From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/13/how-google-hopes-to-liberate-america-from-cable-ca/

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Apple Prepares to Take the Mapping Fight to the Streets

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By Evan Niu, CFA, The Motley Fool

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In the war over mobile mapping, Google remains the uncontested leader. The search giant is undoubtedly the gold standard when it comes to mobile mapping.

Perhaps you’ve heard by now that Apple  ditching Google Maps didn’t go so well, although the net result of the debacle was that iOS mapping ended up stronger than ever after Big G released an even better version of Google Maps as a third-party iOS app — even better than Google Maps for Android, by Google’s own admission.

Let’s take this outside
One of the key features at the center of the spat was turn-by-turn navigation. There’s another key feature Google has that Apple wants: Street View. According to a recent patent application that was initially filed in September 2011 but just now made public and uncovered by AppleInsider, Apple is exploring similar technology. 

The application is titled “3D Position Tracking for Panoramic Imagery Navigation,” and involves using a mobile device’s sensors to navigate a location. Moving the device physically provides data that “can be used to move up or down a virtual street or other navigation actions.”

To date, Apple doesn’t have any street imagery of its own to use, though, while Google has an abundance of it. At this point, Big G has nothing better to do with Street View than to go scuba diving or mountain climbing, so it’s safe to say the company is comfortable with its imagery lead.

Street View car. Source: Google.

This may be the biggest missing part of the puzzle. Google has spent years driving around its Street View cars, tricycles, and snowmobiles, paying $7 million in fines over those Street View cars, just to get all those snapshots. (Some even thought it ran over a donkey in in pursuit of those photos.) It’s unthinkable that Google would hand over this data to Apple, but the Mac maker could potentially partner with someone who has a comparable collection.

At the same time, both Apple and Google continue to explore indoor mapping possibilities. Apple just acquired WifiSLAM, a small start-up that used Wi-Fi signals to locate smartphones indoors. Apple not only wants to fight indoors, but it may be preparing to take the fight to the streets.

The mapping debacle didn’t seem to hurt sales at all, but investors still want to know whether Apple remains a buy. The Motley Fool’s senior technology analyst and managing bureau chief, Eric Bleeker, is prepared to fill you in on both reasons to buy and reasons to sell Apple, and what opportunities are left for the company (and your portfolio) going forward. To get instant access to his latest thinking on Apple, simply click here now.

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Google's Next Nexus 7 Is Coming

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By Evan Niu, CFA, The Motley Fool

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If there was any doubt that Google was gearing up to launch a second-generation model of its popular Nexus 7 tablet, Reuters is now chiming in with a fresh report that the search giant is targeting a July launch for the next iteration. That would put the Nexus 7 in a one-year product cycle, since the first one was unveiled to the world last July.

First-generation Nexus 7. Source: Google.

The company is reportedly sticking with Asus as the manufacturer of choice, although Big G may be ditching NVIDIA‘s Tegra for the applications processor in favor of a Qualcomm Snapdragon. That’s in line with what Pacific Crest analyst Michael McConnell predicted in February, believing that Google was planning to use a Snapdragon APQ8064.

Reuter’s anonymous sources say that Google gave both chip makers a fair shot, but ended up choosing Qualcomm due to better power efficiency. The Nexus 7 was one of NVIDIA‘s two biggest tablet wins last year, with the other being Microsoft Surface, and Qualcomm may be muscling in on its tablet turf.

Pricing is still up in the air, and Google is reportedly contemplating keeping the same $199 price point or dropping down to $149. The search giant may be hoping to sell upwards of 6 million to 8 million units of the second-generation model during the latter half of the year.

Some analysts believe that Google shipped 4.6 million of the first-generation Nexus 7 during the second half of 2012. IDC pegs Asus total tablet shipments at 5.5 million during that time frame, showing just how much the OEM has benefited from the Nexus 7 partnership, since those figures imply that the Nexus 7 comprises 84% of its tablet volumes. Asus is targeting 12 million in total tablet units in 2013.

Amazon.com is Google’s primary competition in the $199 price segment for 7-inch tablets, and the e-tailer has also set precedent for an annual product cycle with refreshes every September. Amazon’s third-generation Kindle Fire should be due out just a couple months after the second-generation Nexus 7 hits, and maybe Amazon will finally take the wraps off its Kindle Phone at the same time.

Apple‘s iPad Mini has also become a viable threat in the smaller tablet segment, even though it carries premium pricing. There’s been no shortage of speculation on when the iPad maker will launch a second-generation model with a Retina display. Some have thought an iPad event is in store for later this month, but other analysts think Apple’s moving the iPad cycle farther back.

Google’s next Nexus 7 is coming.

Is Apple still a buy? The Motley Fool’s senior technology analyst and managing bureau chief, Eric Bleeker, is prepared to fill you in on both reasons to buy and reasons to sell Apple, and what opportunities are left for the company (and your portfolio) going forward. To get instant access to his latest thinking on Apple, …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Google Maps Out Emergency Alert System

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By Rich Duprey, The Motley Fool

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In an emergency situation, you’re likely to get more valuable, reliable, and up-to-date information off of social media like Twitter and Facebook then you’ll get out of FEMA, Homeland Security, or any other number of disaster relief organizations. The hashtag #Sandy was among the top trending topics on Twitter as the hurricane barreled into the East Coast, with residents posting the latest news, pictures, and information along its path.

With hundreds of millions of “boots on the ground,” so to speak, social media provides virtually live updates of what’s happening and how bad things really are in a disaster.

Where to go when disaster strikes
Last year, Google also greatly expanded its alert system ahead of Sandy, launching “crisis maps” showing the storm’s path and providing emergency information, such as evacuation routes, the location of public shelters, and live pictures of the storm.

Source: Google.

Now it’s taking it further by rolling out a system that displays alerts from police agencies all across the U.S.

Hyperventilating over hyperlocal
Partnering with a small start-up called Nixie, a New Jersey-based community information service that alerts you to public safety threats and community events via web, email, and cell phone, Google on Friday tapped into the company’s hyperlocal database of 6,500 police agencies to begin displaying alerts when someone searches for a place that has an active alert or uses Google in an area with an active alert.

Beginning with Hurricane Katrina in 2005 when it created satellite imagery overlays of the devastation in the affected region accurately showing the scope of the disaster — which EMS workers used to help find stranded survivors — Google has been expanding its “National Weather Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to display warnings issued by the agencies on its maps. Google has since added the Japan Meteorological Agency and AMBER alerts for missing children.

Have your bug-out bag at the ready
Alternative news outlets have been undermining the foundations of traditional media for years now. With social media and the Internet quickly supplanting the TV networks as place to turn to to get immediate information when disaster strikes, Google’s crisis response alert system makes it even harder to extricate ourselves from its web.

Now when it all hits the fan, you’ll be able to map out how you’ll be able to make it to your bug-out location in safety.

As one of the most dominant Internet companies ever, Google has made a habit of driving strong returns for its shareholders. However, like many other web companies, it’s also struggling to adapt to an increasingly mobile world. Despite gaining an enviable lead with its Android operating system, the market isn’t sold. That’s why it’s more important than ever to understand each piece of Google’s sprawling empire. In The Motley Fool’s new premium research report on Google, we break down the risks and potential rewards …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Apple Buys Its Way Indoors

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By Evan Niu, CFA, CFA, The Motley Fool

Indoor Google Maps. Source: Google.

Inside, Google still has a lead over Apple. However, the search giant’s indoor initiatives date back to 2011, so Apple has more hope in catching up behind closed doors as opposed to under the sun.

The Mac maker becomes a map maker
Apple has confirmed the acquisition to both

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Even though Google is undeniably the mobile mapping king, Apple isn’t giving up so easily. That’s why Apple has acquired WifiSLAM, a small start-up specializing in indoor GPS, since the next frontier of mobile mapping is inside.

iOS users quickly snapped up the new version of Google Maps once it was released on Apple’s platform in December, just months after Apple made the controversial switch to its in-house offering. Google’s first-mover advantage is seemingly insurmountable since it has spent years aggregating mapping data that Apple simply doesn’t have yet.

On the outside, Google’s Street View offers unprecedented reach for an online mapping service. We’re talking about the search giant showing users the Great Barrier Reef or more recently, the Himalayas’ Mount Everest Base Camp. Meanwhile, Apple’s still working on getting down the basics before going mountain climbing.

WifiSLAM is a small company that uses ambient Wi-Fi signals to help pinpoint a smartphones indoor location within an approximate accuracy range of 2.5 meters. That information could potentially be used to eventually build step-by-step indoor navigation, proximity-based social networking, or product-level retail customer engagement.

With WifiSLAM, Apple is taking the mapping fight inside instead of outside.

Let’s take this inside
Turn-by-turn driving navigation was reportedly a major point of contention between Apple and Google that led to the switch. Indoor step-by-step navigation, on the other hand, is mostly an untapped frontier.

Google has already begun building out its data on indoor maps, including integrated floor plans in selected locations and a Google Maps Floor Plans service that’s still in beta testing. So far, buildings like airports and shopping malls, among others, have partnered with Google to make indoor maps available. Big G doesn’t want you running into any Minotaurs, after all.

Indoor Google Maps. Source: Google.

Inside, Google still has a lead over Apple. However, the search giant’s indoor initiatives date back to 2011, so Apple has more hope in catching up behind closed doors as opposed to under the sun.

The Mac maker becomes a map maker
Apple has confirmed the acquisition to both The Wall Street Journal and Reuters, without officially disclosing the price. The WSJ‘s sources peg the price tag at $20 million, which is little more than loose change for Apple.

WifiSLAM is now the fourth acquisition that Apple has picked up to build its mapping service. The Mac maker began acquiring map makers as early as 2009, starting with Placebase for an unknown amount. The company would then proceed to buy Poly9 in 2010 and C3 Technologies in 2011. These three purchases were stitched together to help launch Apple Maps.

Two months ago, there were also rumors that Apple was looking to acquire Waze, the crowd-sourced traffic and navigation service. The acquisition made sense, since Waze is also a small start-up with innovative technology that could be integrated into Apple’s offerings, and Waze is already one of Apple’s mapping data partners. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Will Google Get to $1,000 Before Apple Gets to $500?

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By Tim Beyers, The Motley Fool

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Each week, I endeavor to report the results of the Big Idea Portfolio, a collection of five tech stocks that I believe will crush the market over a three-year period. I’ve done it before; my last tussle with Mr. Market ended with me beating the index’s average return by 13.35%.

Real money was on the line then as it is now, which means any one of the five stocks you see here could cause me a lot of public embarrassment. This time, most of my stocks fell as Google made a series of interesting moves.

First, over a six-hour span at South by Southwest (SXSW), the search king showed off wearable technology, including 12 pairs of talking shoes hacked together in three weeks to demonstrate the potential of connecting gear (and brands) to the Web. A Google X engineer also showed up to demonstrate the Glass interactive spectacles.

Source: Google.

Cool as these devices are, they’re also only part of Google’s growth story. Imagine using search to index and retrieve data about your energy usage compared to average temperature. Then imagine paying your energy bill through Google Wallet and cross-referencing that. Orwellian possibilities abound when you index, well, everything.

Google wants all of us thinking this way. A new service called Keep proposes to challenge Evernote by providing a simple system for archiving anything. Think of it as a slimmed-down productivity tool that does for Google Apps what OneNote does for Microsoft‘s Office Suite.

Other Googlers pitched access to information as a humanitarian need at SXSW. In one session, Amit Singhal, who oversees search for the company, told the story of an African farmer who hiked several miles to an Internet cafe to search for ways to halt an ant infestation of his potato crop. Google held the answer.

Add it up, and I wonder if the search king isn’t fitting itself to be the chief data aggregator and distributor in a hyperconnected world. As Singhal put it: “[E]ven a farmer in Africa, or a mother in an Indian village, or a fisherman in Malaysia, will have as much access to knowledge as kings used to.”

Why not? Google is already the original Big Data company. It was the search king’s early efforts to boil an ocean of online data efficiently that led to MapReduce and the Google File System, two mechanisms for crunching multiple terabytes of data concurrently across a vast array of cheap servers. Today, these breakthroughs undergird an open-source technology called Apache Hadoop that’s used in a number of Big Data projects.

Google, meanwhile, sticks to its own knitting for the biggest Big Data project of all: indexing the Web, every minute of every day, continuously. Mix in Android and Chrome OS devices and a heaping helping of broadband, and Singhal’s dream soon becomes a reality.

Of course, there’s a business purpose here, too. More networks and devices also mean more data, and Google …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Google Tightens Its Focus As It Moves Closer to Glass Launch

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By Chris Neiger, The Motley Fool

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Google is known to have its hand in a lot of pots. The company has transformed all autonomous cars, email, mobile OS, Internet search, and advertising. But in the past month, we’ve seen Google home in on few new offerings and weed a big one out. All of this may point to new focus at Google — its upcoming Google Glass product.

Out with the old
Google has been known to start new products and then abruptly shut them down. Back when smartphones were less prevalent, mobile users could call Goog-411 and look up phone numbers and addresses or just about anything from your phone. But that one bit the dust. Most recently, Google shut down its famed Google Reader, prompting online petitions to bring the service back and resulting in 500,000 new customers for RSS service Feedly.

Google’s experiments are more than just tinkering, though. The company pursues many tech avenues because technology moves quickly and consumer interests are constantly evolving. But its recent release of two new apps, Google Now and Google Keep, point to a more focused company — one where Google is looking straight into the future.

Building in the present, but looking ahead
Even the name of the new apps indicate a focus on the present state of mind. Google Now is built around the idea of giving users information about their world when they need it most. Whether it’s changes to flights, traffic updates, or simple reminders, Google Now wants to be the service that works with you as your life is happening in real time.

Google Keep is, well, another note-taking app — but by the end of the year it could be so much more. Google Keep features are pretty standard as far as note-taking apps go: audio notes, voice-transcribed notes, the ability to take photos and add text to them, all stored in the cloud and synced to other devices. But if this type of technology is paired with a set of Google Glasses, then it becomes truly revolutionary. Google Glass users could tell their glasses to take a picture of their car, add a speech-to-text note to remind them to get the oil changed, and then have the note pop up as a reminder when they leave the office.

Source: Google.

Google Keep and Google Now aren’t just productivity apps; they’re another step in the wearable-computing direction. They’re Google’s way of creating apps that work alongside users in real time, with minimal interaction with a device.

Keeping it all in focus
Google may not always get the same attention as Apple or Samsung get for its products, but Google Glass and its interactive offerings may propel technology into a new stage of interaction for the average consumer. Google Glass will cost about $1,500 when it becomes available, but that high price tag shouldn’t deter investors from seeing Google’s vision. In …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

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Trust Isn't the Issue With Google's Keep

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By Tim Beyers, The Motley Fool

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Evernote and Microsoft can rest easy. By my tests, Google‘s “Keep” archiving and productivity software isn’t the threat that some might think it is.

To be fair, I tested an  early (i.e., unfinished) version in a Chrome browser on a Mac, even though only Android handsets can access the features Google advertises in the promotional video below:


Source: Google.

A non-issue of trust
Most of the articles I’ve read dismissing Keep have less to do with functions, and more to do with trust. How we can possibly trust Google to support Keep, when Reader — one of the search king’s more popular tools — will be unceremoniously kicked to the curb in July? Only a small-f fool would use a Google-branded productivity app knowing the rug could be pulled out at any time, skeptics say.

Maybe they’re right, but they’re also missing the point. The trouble with Keep isn’t that it’ll be orphaned as its predecessor — Google Notebook — was. The trouble with Keep is that it’s underpowered in glaring ways. No clipping tools. Little structure, and no tagging. No design sense. All the things that make Evernote great are lacking in Keep.

In fact, there’s so much missing, that I wonder why Google didn’t ante up $2-3 billion to buy Evernote.

The huge and growing threat from Microsoft
We know Google needs Evernote — or something like it — in order to compete. Microsoft has a full suite of productivity apps in Office, and an online subscription-based product called Office 365. Google Apps lack archiving and task management. Keep seems to be designed to address both these needs, but in one product.

Interestingly, Keep comes at a time when a growing portion of the world is turning to suites of cloud-based software for business. Salesforce.com has enjoyed better than 30% revenue growth in each of the last two fiscal years. Peer NetSuite has enjoyed accelerating revenue growth since 2009.

For its part, the search king says there are now 40 million Apps users, and all signs point to continued growth in the years ahead. Microsoft could make the journey difficult with Office 365, and efforts to make Skype a de facto messaging and telephony platform for small business Office users.

Google needs Keep to help bulk up Apps, but it might need Evernote even more.

For further analysis of Google, I invite you try our newest premium research report, in which we dissect the search king’s sprawling empire, and assess the risks and opportunities for your portfolio. Access your report now by clicking here.

var FoolAnalyticsData = FoolAnalyticsData || []; …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

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2013: The Year of Evolved Mobile Search Ads

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By Chris Neiger, The Motley Fool

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Just last month, Google launched its “enhanced campaigns” to meld desktop search ads with mobile search ads, removing the option for advertisers to opt out of using mobile ads in their campaign. It was a bold move by the company and showed that Google is moving its advertisers quickly into the mobile world, where competition is heating up.

Mobile search, the traditional way
Right now, Google enjoys about 95% of global mobile searches. In the U.S. alone, the market for mobile search advertising is expected to hit $3.36 billion this year, and eMarketer expects Google to snag 92.4% share of that. Google’s new, enhanced campaign strategy will help the company to acquire that market share by moving advertisers away from desktop-only campaigns and essentially forcing them to create ads around content rather than a specific platform .

Source: Google.

Google’s move comes at a strategic time in the mobile advertising space. Desktop search is on the decline while mobile search is skyrocketing. The latter now accounts for 25% of all Internet searches, and search marketing agency Covario estimates that mobile search will reach one in every three searches by the end of this year .

Google’s most vocal contender is Microsoft and its Bing search engine. Bing is the default search engine on the Windows Phone OS, but the operating system currently takes less than 3% of smartphone market share, and in 2011 Bing only took 2% of the mobile search market. Even if Windows Phone sales took off and Bing’s mobile search doubled or tripled its current percentage — both a difficult feat — Google would still own the market.

Searching without searching
It may not be Microsoft that Google needs to watch out for, though. Mobile search through apps is on the rise. Many apps utilize smartphone location-based features to integrate search results within apps, which bypass Google or Bing.

On Android devices, the Google Search app is currently the second most frequently used app, behind Google Play. But in Apple‘s iPhone, the Google Search app didn’t even make it in the top 10 for most-used app. It’s not that iPhone users don’t use Google search in their browser, but they don’t use the actual Google Search app like Android users do.


Source: Apple.

Apple’s place in the search market is an odd one. Back in 2010, Steve Jobs said, “On the desktop search is where it’s at; that’s where the money is. But on a mobile device search hasn’t happened. Search is not where it’s at, people are not searching on a mobile device like they do on the desktop.” Fast-forward three years and Apple’s Siri performs many search functions for mobile users. Siri consults Google for some results, but also taps Bing, Yahoo, Wolfram Alpha, Wikipedia, and other sites for queries. Although Siri doesn’t bring in any mobile search revenue for the Cupertino company, Siri could take up more mobile searches over …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

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Like It or Not, Google Is Shaping Your Future

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By Chris Neiger, The Motley Fool

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The future is anything but certain, but that doesn’t stop Google  from predicting what technologies consumers will want over next few years. The company’s current innovations are already influencing industries — and probably your future.

Through the looking glass
You may have heard about a little thing called Google Glass: a hands-free, voice-activated pair of computerized glasses. The glasses are the latest form of wearable computing, set for a consumer release at the end of this year. They transform everyday experiences and interactions into something that can be shared, recorded, and documented without missing a beat.

Source: Google.

Google Glass enables users to take photos and videos at the moment of experience, get directions overlaid on top of the real world, stream live moments, and send calls and texts with minimal device interaction. Google Glass is more than a gimmick or a science-fiction trinket — it’s a technological contrivance that blurs the lines between technology and life.

That may seem slightly dramatic, but almost every technological device that is truly revolutionary seems overhyped and oversold at its beginning. Take a step back 20 years ago and imagine asking your phone to remind you about your latest appointments, or reaching for a device in your backpack that holds thousands of books inside it, or another device in your pocket that can tell you where you are anywhere in the world and connect you to any person. All of these are now ho-hum technologies that we now take for granted, but they were, and still are, amazing innovations.

Apple‘s Siri lets us talk to computers and have them (admittedly, not always perfectly) answer us back and help us find information. Microsft‘s Kinect gives us control of computerized devices without even touching a screen, like Tom Cruise in Minority Report. But a virtual personal assistant, gesture controls, and Kindle books don’t paint the whole picture. For technology to truly improve our lives, it needs to get out of our way and simply work for us. With Google Glass, the company is attempting to do just that, by taking the technology out of our hands and allowing us to experience things as they used to be, before we had to grab our phone to remember the memory.

But Google’s tech ambitions go much further than wearable computers. The company wants its technology to save lives, and it’s set its sights on driverless cars to make help make that happen.

Where would you like to go today?
Google’s widely publicized self-driving car has driven more than 300,000 miles since 2010, without a single computer-related accident (although a few minor incidents have occurred at the hands of human drivers). Cars that park themselves have been available for years, and a growing number of vehicles can already detect pedestrians and other vehicles, automatically speed up or slow down vehicles on the highway, and stop a vehicle when a driver isn’t paying attention. The next step …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance