09
Apr
2013-04-09_09h28_56

Microsoft (Along With Nokia, Oracle, Others) Tells EU To Stop Letting Google Bundle Its Apps With Android, Misses Irony

Posted by in Google, News

FairSearch Europe—a coalition of Google competitors or legal adversaries including, among others, Microsoft, Nokia, and Oracle—has filed a complaint with the European Union alleging that Google is abusing its dominant OS position in the mobile market to push its own set of apps.

The group claims that Android is used "as a deceptive way to build advantages for key Google apps in 70 percent of the smartphones shipped today," pointing out that manufacturers have to agree to a certain set of rules requiring inclusion or placement of certain apps. If they want to use Google apps, of course. Manufacturers are free to use Android for whatever purpose they choose without them, if they think that will be a greater benefit.

07
Apr
bt

'Babel' Name Purportedly Makes An Appearance In Gmail, Might Be The Real Deal

Posted by in Android OS, Applications, Google, News, Rumors

From poorly-executed "leaks" to potential legitimate sightings, there's been a lot of hubbub about Google's supposed unified messaging service, likely called Babel. This isn't necessarily surprising. After all, if you asked most Android enthusiasts what feature they most wanted from the platform in its next iteration, you'd hear a lot about unified messaging. We've tried to stay clear of covering every flurry of Babel-related murmurings so far, but today we saw something new – Google+ user Patric Dhawaan posted a screenshot of what he says is a notification in Gmail, triggered when "pruning" his inbox.

At first, we were a bit suspicious of the screenshot.

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
drivelogo

Google Allows Developers To Back Up Data To Your Drive Account, Creates Custom Properties For Docs

Posted by in Google, News

Today, Google launched a couple new features for developers that will give them a lot more flexibility in storing data associated with apps. For starters, using what's called "app data folders," a developer can store important files in a user's Drive storage space. This is huge news as, up until this point, the main method for backing up data has been the Backup API, which is great for small things that are 1-2MB or so, but isn't really sufficient for larger files.

appdatafolder

Lest you worry that developers can now pile a bunch of data into your Drive account, users will still be able to see how much data is being stored.

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.

03
Apr
search logo

Google Search Update Brings Real-Time Package Tracking, Faster Search Results, And Quick Feedback

Posted by in Applications, Google, News

You know what we just can't get enough of? Google Now cards. Today, the data giant updated its search app with a new real-time package tracking card (as opposed to the static "Your order has shipped" option before). In addition, regular old search results should be faster, which users on older devices are likely to love.

2013-04-03_17h26_52

As a bonus, the app now provides quicker access to feedback and settings on the cards themselves. All in all, this is a fairly small update, but the bump from the nice but mostly useless package tracking card from before to proper real-time tracking is a great benefit.

03
Apr
mapstiny

Google Maps Navigation Going Live In A Bunch Of Countries Including Bulgaria, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia And More

Posted by in Applications, Google, News

Back in December, we noticed that a bunch of countries had been added to the list of supported areas for Google Maps Navigation. That list was promptly updated to remove most of them, but now it looks like they're (almost) all back and available for use right now, including Bulgaria, Lithuania, Slovakia and more.

Here are all the new countries that have been re-added to supported list:

  • Bulgaria
  • Estonia
  • Ghana
  • Iceland
  • Ivory Coast
  • Kenya
  • Latvia
  • Lithuania
  • Senegal
  • Slovakia

Of those, we have independent confirmation from users in Bulgaria, Lithuania, Estonia, and Slovakia that turn-by-turn navigation is available as of right now, which leads us to believe that the entire list is legit.

02
Apr
nexusae0_1_thumb5

Google Releases Android Platform Distribution Numbers For March With New Collection Method – Gingerbread Down To 39.8%, Jelly Bean Hits 25%

Posted by in Android OS, Gingerbread 2.3, Google, Jelly Bean 4.1, Jelly Bean 4.2, News

Well, it's that time again – time for the monthly update to Android's Platform Distribution Numbers. Each month, Google publishes the latest figures, letting developers know what versions of Android are currently dominating active devices.

This month, we're seeing a familiar pattern – Gingerbread is continuing its slow descent, hitting 39.8%, down from 44.2% this time last month. Meanwhile the latest and greatest – Jelly Bean – accounts for exactly 25% of the overall distribution, meaning it's finally hit one quarter of all tallied devices. That, for those interested, marks a nearly 9% jump from last month's 16.5% figure.

image

Ice Cream Sandwich is still strangely climbing, hitting 29.3% up from 28.6% in February.

02
Apr
image

No, BorrowLenses Won't Let You Rent Google Glass (Yet) - Trust No One On April Fools

Posted by in Google, News

Yesterday, BorrowLenses, a site that rents gear to photo and video enthusiasts, posted up a rental page for Google Glass and a matching blog post. Those interested were invited to rent Glass on April 30th. The prices started at $105 for 3 days all the way to $499 for 4 weeks. With the developer version of Glass going for $1500, this didn't sound like such a bad idea if you were just looking to see how it worked without a huge commitment.

image

As we suspected, the whole thing was a hoax. Good one, BorrowLenses. You managed to convince quite a few sites around the web that the Glass offer was the real deal, so props for the original idea.

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