Google

How I became a prisoner of Outlook

Last year, I decided to give Linux a try. Everything was going well, until I started working for a company that uses Microsoft Outlook for e-mail. There's simply no straightforward, reliable way to run Outlook on Linux. I tried Outlook Web Access, but the service strips code from HTML attachments, among other limitations.

(The company I worked for prior to my current employer used Lotus Notes, which is probably the only e-mail program in the world more proprietary than Outlook. Organizations must get some huge benefit from using these closed e-mail systems, because they sure make life difficult for … Read more

Nvidia Tegra: Not just Windows, Android too

Nvidia is working with Google on Android phones as it veers off from its Windows-Mobile-only strategy.

On Monday, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Nvidia announced that it is working with Google and the Open Handset Alliance to get its Tegra processor into Android phones. Tegra is a system-on-a-chip that integrates an ARM applications processor and Nvidia's GeForce graphics silicon, among other functions. The goal is to bring robust PC-like graphics to small devices.

"We welcome Nvidia's support of Android on Tegra," Andy Rubin, Google's senior director of mobile platforms, said in a statement. … Read more

Why Google loves open source

Google has been a huge beneficiary of open source over the years, building its infrastructure on the freely available software. But it has only been in the past year that Google has gone on a serious open-source charm offensive, both contributing actively to open-source projects and calling out its significant contributions to open-source projects: over one million lines of code each year in addition to serving as a host to over 160,000 open-source projects.

Now Alan Noble, head of Engineering for Google in Australia and New Zealand, has called out the various benefits Google derives from open source:

At … Read more

Webware Radar: Truphone adds AIM to iPhone VoIP app

Mobile VoIP service Truphone announced Monday that it has integrated AOL Instant Messenger into its iPhone app. Besides being able to place VoIP calls, users can now log in to AOL and instant message other AIM users through the Truephone app. The software already includes support for Google Talk, Skype, Windows Live Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger.

Netbiscuits, a company that provides a Web software platform for mobile development and advertising, announced Monday that it has partnered with AdMob, the world's largest mobile-advertising service, to provide users with the advertising firm's ad placement tools. According to Netbiscuits, its software … Read more

Huawei to launch Android handsets

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to a Huawei executive as James Chen. The executive's name is Edward Chen.

BARCELONA--Chinese handset maker Huawei Technologies said Monday at the GSMA Global World Congress 2009 here that it plans to start selling phones using Google's Android operating system later this year.

Details about the upcoming phones are still scarce. But the company said it's partnering with a design consultancy company. The device is still in development and is expected to hit the market in the third quarter of this year.

Huawei is a large telecommunications equipment maker … Read more

Google, the great destroyer of value?

In a recent series entitled "The Future of Newspapers," Wall Street Journal managing editor Robert Thomson made some provocative (but insightful) comments about the Web's effect on journalism and the newspaper business.

One comment in particular stands out:

Google devalues everything it touches. Google is great for Google, but it's terrible for content providers, because it divides that content quantitatively rather than qualitatively. And if you are going to get people to pay for content, you have to encourage them to make qualitative decisions about that content.

Google Page Rank supposedly makes qualitative distinctions between content … Read more

Google lets programmers sell Android apps

The Android Market, Google's online repository of applications for the T-Mobile G1 and succeeding devices using the search giant's mobile-phone operating system, now lets organizations charge money for their software.

"I'm pleased to announce that Android Market is now accepting priced applications from US and UK developers," said Eric Chu in a blog post Friday. "Initially, priced applications will be available to end users in the US starting mid next week."

Google gives programmers 70 percent of Android app revenue, with the remainder going to wireless service carriers, minus billing settlement fees. Buyers … Read more

Webware Radar: Shazam hits 35 million users

Shazam, a mobile music discovery service for the iPhone, T-Mobile G1, and other devices, announced Friday that it has added 20 million users since September and now has 35 million users worldwide.

Shazam's success is due in part to its availability. According to the company, its app can be found on phones offered by 75 carriers across 60 countries. Shazam users are tagging an average of 10 tracks per month, and the company claims that a total of 1 million tracks are being tagged monthly around the world. By the end of 2009, CEO Andrew Fisher expects the app … Read more

My Tracks turns Android phone into GPS device

Google on Thursday released an application called My Tracks that turns the T-Mobile G1 Android phone into a full-fledged GPS receiver.

The free software can record tracks showing where you've been, display them on a map, show elevation gains and losses, and share data with various online services.

As a geography buff, I have to confess that this one of the first applications that actually got me excited. I carry a Garmin standalone GPS device so I can geotag my photos and keep track of my trips, but My Tracks one-ups it in several ways.

For one thing, it's a phone and therefore much more likely to be toted at all times, not just on dedicated occasions. But more important, it's an Internet-enabled device, which means it shows my position on Google Maps--either map mode or satellite image mode, not just the feeble and expensive Garmin Maps--as long as it can find the Internet. Track data can be saved not just as a GPX file, but also uploaded and shared with Google Maps. And statistics can be uploaded into Google Docs spreadsheets or even Twittered (for example using the Twidroid application). … Read more