23
Apr
wavii

Google Supposedly Snaps Up Aggregator Wavii In $30 Million+ Acquisition

Posted by in Google, News, Rumors

Wavii, a service that promises to help you "keep up with everything you care about" has been snapped up by Google, according to Tech Crunch, for a sum totaling over $30 Million.

The deal, which signals an end to an apparent acquisition battle between Google and Apple, likely means that Wavii's language processing prowess will be integrated with Google services from the Knowledge Graph all the way down to (perhaps) Google Now. It also means that Wavii will not be joining forces with Apple's Siri.

For those unfamiliar with Wavii, the service  is basically an aggregator of news it thinks is both interesting and relevant to you, the user.

17
Apr
2013-04-17_16h28_43

AppAnnie: Play Store Downloads Reach Nearly 90% Of App Store Levels, iOS Still Bringing In 2.6x Revenue

Posted by in Android OS, Google, News
Last Updated: April 19th, 2013

Back in January, we learned that if you want to be a developer and avoid leaving money on the table, you need to be on both Android and iOS. One or the other isn't going to cut it. However, according to AppAnnie, if you have to choose just one platform, Android is still struggling to prove it's the one you should go with.

According to the report, Play Store downloads are nearing App Store levels, reaching close to 90% as much as the iOS store. Unfortunately, equal exposure isn't quite translating to equal revenue. As it turns out, Apple's platform is still bringing in about 2.6 times as much revenue as Google's counterpart.

04
Apr
2013-04-04_14h13_39

[Editorial] Facebook (Shockingly!) Didn't Fork Android, Because Forking Android Rarely Makes Sense

Posted by in Editorials, Google

Today, Facebook announced the Facebook Home suite that we've been hearing so much about. Well, to be more accurate, we've been hearing that Facebook is going to build its own phone and fork Android and create its own special social OS and that it would be the end of Google and that civilization will crash around us and we'll all wear monkey pelts and "Like" statuses by hurling spears through our enemies. Or something. Well, as it turns out, the world didn't end, Android is still whole, and Zuckerberg even thinks the idea of forking an entire OS to make an app is silly.

04
Apr
comscoretiny

comScore Releases February 2013 U.S. Numbers: Android Drops 2%, Apple And Samsung Gain OEM Share

Posted by in News

comScore just dropped some new U.S. market share numbers on us and if you like drama, you're going to love this one. According to the analytics company, for the three month period ending in February 2013, Android's share actually dropped 2%, while Apple's rose 3.9%. Before you panic, though, no, this isn't the end of the world.

2013-04-04_17h19_46

Since comScore actually gives us the total number of smartphone subscribers in the country (by its count), we can use that percentage to get an idea of just how many total users a platform gained or lost. There were 133.7m total smartphone users in February, versus 123.3m in November.

03
Apr
chromiumtiny

Google No Longer Cares For WebKit Either, Apparently, Forking The Engine Into New Project Called 'Blink'

Posted by in Google, News

Man, WebKit cannot catch a break today, can it? After Samsung announced that it would be teaming up with Mozilla to build their own mobile browser engine called Servo, Google says its planning to fork WebKit to create a new project called Blink. Unlike Servo, this one will still be based on WebKit, but this new fork actually seems to be aimed not at competing with whatever Samsung is putting out, but rather at gaining freedom from another browser: Safari.

You see, Chrome doesn't actually use the entirety of WebKit. It mainly uses what's called WebCore, which handles HTML and CSS rendering.

01
Apr
espierlocktiny

Espier Screen Locker Gives Repressed iOS Fans The Gateway Lockscreen They've Been Looking For On Android

Posted by in Applications, News

It's time for us to come clean. We've been collectively living a lie, Android fans. Hiding our deepest desires and hoping they go away. Praying that maybe, Duarte willing, that we'll get something that's close enough that we'll be satisfied. But no more! Today, we shed the façade and embrace the truth: all we really want is a clean, simple UI that's not cluttered by drawers, widgets, or icons in shapes other than rounded squares. Oh yes, and slide-to-unlock. Glorious slide-to-unlock. Well, now we can have it with the Screen Locker plugin for Espier Launcher.

espierlock1 espierlock2 espierlock3

The plugin is an addition to the Espier Launcher that gives you the look and feel of the OS you've always dreamed of.

28
Mar
search logo

Google Launches Open Patent Pledge, Promising Free Use Of Patents For People Who Don't Sue

Posted by in Google, Legal, News

Google has announced a new initiative today that might, if we're lucky, slowly lead to some meaningful changes in how patent litigation is approached. Or, alternatively, make it easier to highlight the jerks who are ruining it for everyone. The Open Patent Non-Assertion (OPN) Pledge gives would-be inventors a pool of patents that Google promises to never sue anyone over, "unless first attacked." That last part is where eyebrows go up, though.

First, some context: there are 10 patents in the mix, which already isn't a lot. The company says more will be added over time. For these ten patents, Google is ensuring that any company, group, or developer working on open source software may use the technology without worry of being sued by the search giant.

13
Feb
neo one small

The Curious Case Of The Brazilian Android-Powered iPhone: Apple Loses Trademark Suit

Posted by in News

International trademark, patent, and copyright law is a bit of a legal minefield, and Apple has proven itself to be among the best in navigating it these last few years. But there is one exception to their otherwise impressive track record: the lucrative South American market of Brazil. While Apple iPhones have been sold in the country for years, Apple has never owned the trademark for the name. A regional phone manufacturer, Gradiente Eletronica, registered the trademark for "iphone" way back in 2000.

iphone neo one

That didn't stop Cupertino's legal bulldogs from suing Gradiente after they released the iPhone Neo One, a ~$300 mid-range Gingerbread phone, in December.

04
Feb
Jelly-Bean-Logo

Stock Android Isn't Perfect: Jelly Bean 4.2 Edition

Posted by in Features, Jelly Bean 4.2, Stock Android Isn't Perfect
Last Updated: February 7th, 2013

A few months ago I wrote "Stock Android Isn't Perfect," an article where I turned my usual harsh UX critique on stock Android, instead of just picking on TouchWiz and Sense all the time in my reviews. The article went over pretty well, and even got a few responses from Googlers! I didn't cover everything that was wrong with Android, though, and there have been a bunch of updates since the original article, so it's about time I wrote a sequel.

So we're officially making this a series now, and it'll serve two purposes: One, there's a new version of Android out, and more things to complain about; and two, to give credit where it's due, because, since I wrote that article, a lot of things have been fixed.

17
Jan
larrypagetiny

Larry Page On Apple's Thermonuclear War: 'How Well Is That Working?', Also Facebook Is 'Doing A Really Bad Job On Their Products'

Posted by in Google, News

It's hard to argue that Google hasn't been a significantly different company under Larry Page's leadership. If nothing else, it has certainly become more directly competitive. Mountain View has generally (though not always ) preferred to be passive in its approach to other companies, allowing the product to speak for itself (whether for good or ill), rather than outright antagonize others. Apparently all that reservation was just saving up for when Page would take the helm and let the zingers fly. In a Wired interview, the CEO had this to say on the subject of Apple:

Wired: Steve Jobs felt competitive enough to claim that he was willing to “go to thermonuclear war” on Android.

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