Sick of sitting through ads on YouTube just to watch a few seconds of a video clip? The Google-owned service is reportedly readying a version that lets users avoid all the advertising if they’re willing to pay for the convenience. [More]
Google Fights Piracy (And Makes A Buck) With Ads For Legal Downloads In Search Results
By 10.20.14
Have you been wanting to catch up on Game of Thrones but don’t have HBO (or a friend who will share her HBO Go login info)? People who search for things like “Game of Thrones Download” on Google are now being greeted by ads from services offering legal ways to pay for the content you’re after. [More]
Google Expands, Renames Same-Day Delivery Service, Adds Membership Fees
By 10.14.14
Less than two years after Google launched same-day shipping with Google Shopping Express, the company is overhauling the service with a new name, an expanded reach and membership fees. [More]
Google Reportedly Testing Telemedicine Service To Give Consumers Basic Medical Information
By 10.13.14
Soon you might not have to leave the couch to find out whether or not your feverish symptoms could be related to food poisoning. While we’re not sure of all the particulars, Google is reportedly dipping its toes into the telemedicine waters. [More]
Google Street View Straps A Camera To A Camel’s Back To Capture Arabian Desert
By 10.8.14
The closest most of us will get to riding through an Arabian desert on a camel are those rides kids can take for free on a humped friend at the zoo (or if you’re like me, that time I fell asleep in the middle of reading Arabian Nights as a kid and swore I woke up with a sunburn).But at least now we can get a better idea of the experience with Google Street View’s new camel view of the Liwa Desert. [More]
Giving Police Backdoor Access To Smartphones Is An Invitation To Be Hacked
By 10.3.14
With both Android and iOS phones making privacy updates that will make it impossible for Google or Apple to unlock a device without a user’s passcode, even with a warrant, authorities from local police to the head of the FBI to the U.S. Attorney General are saying there should be some sort of backdoor way to gain access to these devices. But what they don’t realize is that leaving in that additional point of access just makes phones more vulnerable to other forms of snooping. [More]
FBI Director Concerned About Smartphones The Police Can’t Search
By 9.26.14
In recent weeks, both Apple and Google have announced improved privacy measures that make it more difficult for police to search suspects’ smartphones, even with a warrant. This isn’t sitting well with FBI Director James Comey. [More]
FTC: Google Must Pay At Least $19M In Consumer Refunds For Unauthorized In-App Pruchases
By 9.4.14
Changes may have already been implemented to prevent kids from making unauthorized in-app purchases on apps from Google Play, but that doesn’t mean the company is off the hook for the huge bills some families faced. Google has agreed to provide full refunds – with a minimum payment of $19 million – to consumers who were charged for kids’ purchases without authorization of the account holder. [More]
IRS Turning Its Baleful Gaze At Company Cafeterias That Churn Out Free Food
By 9.2.14
Do you hear that noise? It’s thousands of forks clattering in the hands of Silicon Valley employees currently enjoying a free lunch. The Internal Revenue Service is taking a closer look at the trend of company cafeterias shoveling free food onto employees’ plates, saying that smorgasbord is a taxable fringe benefit. [More]
Google Also Plans To Hasten Robot Apocalypse With Delivery Drones
By 8.29.14
Not content to sit idly by while the likes of Amazon, UPS, DHL, and others work to bring about the inevitable robot apocalypse, Google announced last night that it too is getting into the delivery-drones-of-doom game with its Project Wing flying machines. [More]
Google’s Plan To Let Kids Have Accounts: Bad Idea Or Acknowledgement Of Reality?
By 8.19.14
A few years back, Facebook’s sweatshirt-in-chief Mark Zuckerberg caught a lot of heat when he said he’d be willing to fight for the right to peddle his social network to kids under the age of 13. He eventually backed off on this idea, but now Google appears to be taking up the cause. [More]
Google Maps Adding Underwater Photos Of World’s Oceans To Street View
By 8.14.14
Nemo might never have been so hard to find, if only his ocean had a good map of the local reefs. Wayward fish with knowledge of technology will be in luck — as will anyone yearning for a view under the sea — as Google Maps is adding 360-degree Street View photos of our oceans’ coral reefs. [More]
Barnes & Noble, Google Partner To Take On Amazon With Same-Day Book Shipping
By 8.7.14
The spirit of competition has a tendency to create odd bedfellows. Or so seems to be the case for Barnes & Noble and Google, whose partnership to offer same-day shipping could prove to be a formidable rival to Amazon. [More]
Nobody Wants To Sleep In A Driverless Car
By 8.1.14
Driverless cars are either a strange folly on Google’s part, or everyone’s inevitable future. While Google continues testing, researchers at the University of Michigan surveyed the public to find out how we feel about the prospect of self-driving cars. The sort of surprising result is that while people generally have a positive opinion of the technology, the prospect of riding in a self-driving car makes most people nervous. [More]
Despite Policy Changes, Google Must Face Class Action Suit Regarding In-App Purchases
By 7.22.14
Google may have made changes to prevent inadvertent in-app purchases within the Google Play store, but the company still has to answer for their previously lax controls that allowed children to run up huge bills on their parents’ accounts. [More]
Google To Start Alerting Mobile Search Users To Flash-Heavy Sites
By 7.15.14
You know what’s really great? When you’re trying to access a website on your phone and the page you’re looking at uses Flash, which is not supported on iOS devices and hasn’t been supported on Android since version 4.1 started rolling out in 2012. In an effort to preempt user frustration (and nudge sites to upgrade their mobile experiences), Google is now including information about unsupported technology on a site when it turns up in mobile search results. [More]
Google Buys Music Playlist Service Songza For Reported $39 Million
By 7.2.14
The coffers of Silicon Valley are tinkling sweetly again with the sound of coins exchanging hands upon the news that Google has bought music playlist service Songza for a reported $39 million. Because in the technology world, everyone’s gotta have a piece of every pie. [More]
SCOTUS: Google Must Face Lawsuit That Its Street View Data Collection Invaded Consumers’ Privacy
By 6.30.14
The Supreme Court was busy on Monday, not only did it make a ruling in the long-awaited Hobby Lobby case, but it also declared that Google must face a lawsuit over privacy invasions that occurred while gathering Street View data. [More]
