Google

Google's new education initiative, Google Play for Education, is designed to put more tablets into K-12 classrooms, the company said Wednesday at its Google I/O developers conference.

The new store launches this fall. It enables teachers deploy an app or an e-book to all of their students' tablets at once, and has apps that have been recommended by other teachers to make sure they are appropriate for specific ages and grades.

"Each app has been recommended by a group of educators," Engineering Director Chris Yerga said during the keynote. "This is key because teachers trust … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- At this year's Google I/O developer's conference, a promise was made: Chrome on Android will start feeling more like Chrome on the desktop.

This is as it should be.

I've never understood why Chrome and Android function as separate environments. They're two sides of the same coin; Chrome handles superior cloud-computing and Web use, and Android handles the app-based, offline world: documents, physical media, and files. Chrome has excellent touch-pad and keyboard support, and Android has touch. The two can use each other.

Actually, the lines are already blurring: the Pixel has … Read more

Google's adding some new firepower to its photo-hosting service on Google+ with features designed to save people time when dumping their photos into the cloud.

Key among them is a feature that will automatically back up photos taken on smartphones and send them to Google's cloud storage. The move follows similar efforts from Dropbox, and more recently Amazon, to provide peace of mind for people who aren't manually backing up their files.

For files that have already been uploaded, Google also has new tools to automatically edit and adjust behind the scenes. That includes a new highlight … Read more

The Google+ news stream is getting a new face.

The new display is very similar in style whether viewed from a mobile device or large-screen computer. The only real difference is that it switches from one to three columns depending on the device used.

The change to Google's nearly 2-year-old social network was unveiled during the company's keynote at Google I/O, an annual developers conference in San Francisco.

At first blush when viewed on a large screen, the new design bears some resemblance to the social networking site Pinterest. However, Google is giving certain types of media, … Read more

Google rolled out a new design for Google Play on Wednesday, showing some extra love to tablet apps.

Google Play's recommendations -- some of which are based on a user's Google+ account -- will now surface apps designed for tablets in its top app charts, Google announced at its Google I/O developer's conference.

Engineering Director Chris Yerga said the new Google Play will make it easier for users to find the apps they want.

At today's Google I/O developers' conference in San Francisco, Google announced that it would release its own variant of the previously unveiled Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone.

For the most part, the device will remain largely the same. It will feature 4G LTE and 16GB of storage space.

However, the handset will offer a skinless Android 4.2 Jelly Bean Nexus experience, it will come with its bootloader already unlocked, and users will receive system updates as they come in.

This unlocked GS4 version will be available starting June 26 and will work on AT&T and T-Mobile … Read more

I had always thought Americans were willing to try something new -- at least once.

This sense of adventure often explains the nation's predilection for naivete, war, and forgiveness.

So I had imagined that from Alaska to New York, there were people desperate to adorn their faces with the new intellectual's makeup: Google Glass.

And yet, despite the fact that pioneers like Rep. Michele Bachmann have already been game enough to pose in them, ordinary Americans still seem to be feeling resistance.… Read more

Google launched a music streaming service Wednesday, taking its first stab at the growing industry with a new service linked to Google Play for Android.

The All Access service costs $9.99 a month and you get a 30-day free trial. And it's launching Wednesday in U.S., with additional countries coming soon. If you sign up by June 30, you get it for $7.99 a month.

The move puts Google in direct competition with music streaming companies like Pandora and Spotify, and also potentially with Apple, which has been inching in that direction. Just last week, for … Read more

Google is trying to make gaming a little better on its Android and iOS platforms with a handful of new features for developers. Chief among them is a new cloud save service, which stores game progress on Google's servers and syncs up gaming activity between devices.

Google also has a new matchmaking service, which like Apple's Game Center, can match up players for live and turn-based games. Google says this works on both Android and Apple's iOS. A demo of the feature at Google's I/O keynote crashed and burned, but the company says it works … Read more