Latest Gear Live Videos
Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY Android PlayStation phone Super Bowl commercial
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Google, Handhelds, Video Games, Videos,
The Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY becamse very real last night, as it was highlighted in a very cool Super Bowl XLV commercial that featured the Google Android robot getting a back-alley body modification to add thumbs to his arms so that he could get his game on. This Xperia PLAY is the world's first PlayStation certified smartphone, and we're looking forward to February 13th, when all the details will be revealed. Check out the commercial after the jump.
Click to continue reading Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY Android PlayStation phone Super Bowl commercial
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Newsmap: Your visual newsroom
Posted by Drea Avellan Categories: Design, News, Productivity,
In a connected world such as the one we live in today, we are constantly bombarded with news non-stop. This is why we sometimes need a way to distinguish what's important and current from the rest of the fluff. Newsmaps helps us visualize the world of news in a easy to understand format. This tool visualizes Google News results using a treemap visualization algorithm that helps display all the information in a user friendly way. Bigger font? Popular story. Colors? Categorize the topic of the story. Color intensity? How fresh or old the story is. We can customize our news by interest and even location. Although the colors and fonts can seem a little harsh on the eyes, it gets our attention to what is important.
Do you use a similar tool such as this? Feel free to share it with us in the comments.
Microsoft Bing caught stealing search results from Google
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Corporate News, Google, Internet, Microsoft,
In a very controversial yet fascinating study, Google has exposed what looks like blatant copying of search results by Microsoft's own search engine, Bing. As a test, Google invented 100 query terms, words that do not exist, and they made the search engine return a single link to a site that had nothing to do with the search term. Then, a group of engineers used Internet Explorer 8, equipped with the Bing toolbar, to search for those terms on Google. Low and behold, soon after, Bing started returning the exact same search results. Since the terms were deliberate and random, there can be no coincidence. From the apparent evidence, Microsoft clearly used either IE8, Windows itself, or the Bing toolbar to find out what people searched for on Google, what results they get, and then used that to improve their own Bing site. Check out the blog post for all the details on Google's claim. Something tells me this battle is far from over.
Read More 
| Google Blog
Google Latitude now lets you check in to local spots
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Google, GPS, Software,
In the crowded world of location apps like Foursquare and Facebook Places, Google Latitude aimed to differentiate itself from the rest of the pack. Unlike the others which center around checking into places by tapping an icon, Latitude always tracked where you were in real-time, without any user interaction needed. Then it would share your whereabouts with your friends as you moved around. Thing is, people like checking in. So Google went ahead and added the ability to check in on Latitude, which will allow more flexibility for users of the app. A more interesting feature in Latitude is you can even choose to be automatically checked into locations, which sounds fairly ridiculous given how close many spots are to each other.
Google and Twitter add tweet by phone for Egypt
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Internet,
In light of the severe Internet disruptions that are happening in Egypt, where the government cut off all Internet access and SMS messages in and out of the country in an attempt to silence the 80 million people living there, we've seen a number of technologies come up to break the blockade. People have been using ham radios, satellite phones, and fax machines to make their voices heard. Now, Google and Twitter have partnered up over the weekend to create a phone-to-tweet service, where people from Egypt can make calls to an international number, and their messages will be tweeted automatically. Yet another example that proves you can't silence an entire people, and the communication always finds a way. Very cool.
Read More | Google Blog
The future of Apple’s NFC mobile payment strategy
Posted by Reza Malayeri Categories: Apple, Smartphones, Editorial, Rumors,
There is no question that mobile phone payments are very popular, and that many of us can operate our entire financial lives from our mobile phones. Apps from PayPal, and Square can turn our iPhones into portable financial centers, allowing us to exchange money quickly and easily. These new applications are creating opportunities and benefits that will shape the future of mobile payments.
Predictions about the iPhone 5 and the iPad 2 are beginning to heat up, and much of the talk has been about the implementation of NFC (near field communication) technology. What we haven't heard about so far, is anything about native intergration of mobile payment solutions from Apple and Google.
Click to continue reading The future of Apple’s NFC mobile payment strategy
Google Products Table of the Elements
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Business Tools, Design,
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Google published a pretty impressive page with all of their developer products in a table of the elements-style arrangement. It fills the whole screen and shows off the sheer amount of products the company is working on. Some are well known like Gmail and Picasa. Others, like Google Secure Data and BigQuery, are pretty obscure. Check it out if you're interested in the inner workings of the biggest search engine out there.
Read More | Google
Google’s censorship of BitTorrent, Rapidshare, and MegaUpload has begun
Posted by Reza Malayeri Categories: Corporate News, Google, Internet,
The age of Google censorship is finally here. Google announced several weeks ago that they planned on rolling out censorship of "piracy related" keywords. Pressure from the RIAA and MPAA has resulted in keyword censorship by Google. Phrases that are currently being censored include: BitTorrent, torrent, utorrent, RapidShare and Megaupload. Interestingly, the censorship does not apply to Google's full search results, and the questionable keywords are only being filtered out of Google's "Autocomplete", and "Instant" services.
Reports are coming in that Google's censorship is arbitrary. "What is most surprising about the new filter is that the keywords appear to be picked arbitrarily. It includes BitTorrent clients such as uTorrent and Xunlei, but not BitComet and Vuze. While cyberlockers such as RapidShare and Megaupload are banned, prominent sites such as 4shared, HotFile and MediaFire are not."
This has created an interesting situation for Google. Are they becoming the very thing they despised when they left China? China's censorship of Google was a major factor in the company leaving that country, and now the shoe is on the other foot.
What do you think about Google's censorship? is broad censorship of arbitrary keywords the answer to stopping piracy? What about the large number of honest BiTtorrent users that will be affected?
Read More | TorrentFreak
Google Voice now supports number porting
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Smartphones, Google, Internet,
Google Voice, the wonderful service that can integrate all your calls to a single number, providing free services like voice mail, transcription and SMS messages, now supports number porting. This means that if you have a phone number which you want to keep, but you'd like to use it for Google Voice, now you can port it over. You may recall that the feature appeared in Google Voice last week, but was quickly pulled, with Google saying it was just a test. The video released by Google shows the process this takes, which seems pretty straight forward. This service has a one time cost of $20. Of course, Google Voice is still only available in the US, at least so far, and if you take advantage of the number porting, you may incur an ETF charge from your wireless provider.
Read More | Google Blog
Gmail favicon now shows unread message count
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Google, Internet,
Ever since the advent of tabs, web sites with messaging or updating features have started providing unread message counts in the title, usually at the front, so that people can easily scan their opened tabs and see if any of them has unread stuff. Of course as tabs become more commonplace, heavy users have so many opened that often no part of the title is even visible anymore. Google introduced an innovative little feature today to fix that in Gmail. They call it the Unread Message Icon. It's a dynamic favicon that the server provides which updates the tab to show the number of unread messages in your inbox. Now, even in a crowded browser, you can easily see if you have new email. It's a simple improvement, but brilliant nonetheless, and I wouldn't be surprised to see other sites adopt the technique. To enable it, you have to go in your settings and click on the Labs options.
Read More | Gmail Blog
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