Yahoo!
Yahoo! and their employees have all been suffering from the tough financial climate in the U.S. since the beginning of 2008.
We should be hearing from Yahoo! tomorrow as they will be announcing their plans to cut on expenses and avoid loosing to much ground over #1 competitor Google. This will also include many job cuts; as much as 1,000 to 3,000 jobs will be lost before the end of the year.
Although Google’s profits are down from what they used to be years ago, the search giants still managed to make $1.35 billions in profits for the third quarter of 2008.
Most of these profits are coming from their core search and ads business.
Google’s shares have been trading at up to $385 this afternoon up 8.74% today only.
Google Android
The Android platform is following in Apple’s footsteps as Google has specified in their terms and conditions that it could remotely “remove those applications from your device at its sole discretion”.
This means that they control what you can and cannot use on your own device.
Of course, Google will probably only use this in case certain applications are messing up with the internal components of the software to a point were it could make the device operate outside of their established norms.
Only time will tell.
Zoho
It’s no secret that Microsoft Office is the most used desktop office application suite in the business world. What is surprising, is that more and more businesses are switching from desktop office applications to online suites.
Zoho and Google Apps are the most popular ones. Zoho has now over 400,000 users and Google Apps has over 500,000 users. Big names like GE, L’Oréal and now Washington DC are going this way for various reasons. Read it all..
YouTube
Like what you see? Then “Click to Buy”. You will see a lot of this on YouTube from now on.
It’s no secret, Google has been loosing a lot of money with YouTube because it’s not profitable enough. Sure, it’s popular, but it doesn’t bring profits to the company. As a first step in transforming YouTube into a money-making venture, Google started integrating non-intrusive links within certain video pages that promote different type of products and media.
Users will be able to buy the music tracks of certain music videos they like to watch, or buy a game or movie right after watching the preview or teaser. Partnerships have already been made with iTunes and Amazon.
GeoEye-1
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in partnership with Google (and other sponsors), has helped fund the construction of the GeoEye-1 satellite and its launch on September 6th.
GeoEye-1 is the world’s highest-resolution commercial satellite currently in Earth’s orbit and can take photos at a resolution of up to 41 centimeters from the ground. However, Google will only be able to use images taken at 50 centimeters because of a government restriction.
GeoEye-2 is set to launch in 2011 or 2012 with a resolution of 25 centimeters.
Apple iPhone
One thing that the G1 and Android community could say they had that the iPhone didn’t was Google StreetView.
Bad news for them, Apple will be releasing a new update for the iPhone (2.2) and it should feature Google StreetView within the maps application. This update will also fix a few bugs, add an option to disable auto-correction in SMS messages, and support for emoji icons (email smilies and such).
No release date has been set for this update.
Have you ever felt like something was missing and that you have the solution to a problem but just don’t have the resources or money to fix it or make it happen?
Well, now is the time to put that brainpower to good use! Google’s Project 10 to the 100th has been launched this week and is taking all your ideas in consideration until October 20th.
Submit a “World changing” idea and get a chance at Google making it happen.
T-Mobile G1
Following the press conference this morning, here are some details I thought were interesting:
Pricing for the G1 with T-Mobile will be $179 with a 2-year contract. Existing T-Mobile customers will be able to pre-order the G1 device and it will ship to their home as soon as it is available.
Availability of the device will be on October 22nd. T-Mobile talked about data plans starting at 25$ with unlimited web surfing and 400 text messages (35$ gets you unlimited for both). All data plans will have to be added to an existing voice plan with T-Mobile.
The phone will have support for viewing Microsoft Word and Excel files but there is no support for Exchange as of now. Adobe PDF documents will be able to be read on the device.
There is no desktop application for syncing the device and it’s content on a computer but the device will sync with online services such as Google’s calendar application and Yahoo!
The G1 will be simlocked to T-Mobile and users will not be able to use it as a modem device. The device will be available for customers everywhere where T-Mobile offers service and even without 3G coverage.
T-Mobile G1
The T-Mobile-Google-Android press conference in New York city is set to start in just a little over two hours from now.
We now officially know that the phone will be called the G1 over at T-Mobile, that it will be available for “pre-order/early notification” as soon as the event closes, and that the whole event will be viewable on the new G1 web site right after the event is over.
We also learn that some “official” specs have leaked on the TmoNews web site… Seems that the G1 phone will be equipped with GPS after all (some said it would not be a feature of this phone).
In a move that could be seen as ”aggressive” by some, Google has refused to provide an iPhone compatible version of their StreetView service. Keep in mind that StreetView will be available on all Android-compatible phones. Is this the start of exclusive content on cell phones?
We are more than used to this in the gaming industry, where we see exclusive titles reserved for only a specific gaming console like the war between Sony’s PS3, Microsoft’s XBox and Nintendo’s Wii. So why not for cell phones?
No surprise here as Google enters yet another month where it tops 60% of searches conducted by Internet users.
According to comScore, Google Sites led the U.S. core search market in August with 63 percent of the searches conducted, up from 61.9 percent in July, followed by Yahoo! Sites (19.6 percent), Microsoft Sites (8.3 percent), Ask Network (4.8 percent), and AOL LLC (4.3 percent).
Life with Playstation
Here we have a video presentation of the new PS3 channel called ”Life with Playstation”.
Aside from seeing a globe and the weather in major cities, you can scroll the earth around and zoom-in to a city or region and get news relevant to the city or region you are looking at. The news feeds are from Google News.
This is an interesting way of getting news but to me it sounds more like a time waster than anything else. Let’s see what future developement holds for this channel…
Street View
If you have a Blackberry phone, a Java-Based phone or better yet an Android phone (soon…) you will be happy to know that Google is now making Streetview mobile!
T-Mobile
The first cell phone to officially support Google’s Android platform will be the HTC Dream. T-Mobile will unveil it on September 23rd during a press conference in New York city.