Yesterday saw the end of the first day of Google’s three-day developer-focused conference Google I/O in San Francisco. And for consumers, there was plenty on offer.
The annual Google fest is popular…
Google might soon seal a deal with the European Commission regarding alleged abuses.
Jessica M. Cross
By Angela Daly, Swinburne University of Technology
It’s taken nearly three years, but the European Commission and Google last week reached some form of agreement regarding alleged abuses of the search engine’s dominant position in the European Union…
Search terms can give insight into the likely future behaviour of economic actors.
Ahmad Nawawi
What a curious thing the stock market is; so powerful, yet so flighty. Like a school of sardines, it moves as one, changing direction nimbly when danger looms or advantage beckons. What it will do next…
Microsoft’s negative marketing campaign says less about Google and more about its insecurity in the IT industry.
AAP/Everett Kennedy Brown
You can tell a lot about an organisation’s culture and view of the world by looking at what it says about its competitors.
Some enterprises, just like some politicians and academics, are serene. They…
Will China’s copycat culture spawn a host of smartglasses?
SewPixie
The tech press reported recently that Chinese search giant Baidu.com was working on a new “smartglasses” device, dubbed Baidu Eye – a computerised headset with a small LCD screen, voice commands, image…
Glass has been smashed by the critics … but is that reaction justified?
Slinky2000
It was labelled one of 2012’s most important inventions and “the next big thing”.
So it was, with great fanfare, that Google sent its first batch of Google Glasses out into the geekdom in March – and…
Don’t worry – your Reader data is still in there.
Ed Yourdon
Google HQ’s recent announcement that its Reader platform is to be discontinued has been met with concern – even alarm – from its legions of loyal users. So where do we go from here? What will happen to…
There’s still hope for open sharing of content on the web.
Sue Waters
Google announced today it will close its Google Reader service.
Citing a declining number of users owing to the downturn in popularity of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds, Google Reader – which offers…
Will a US$732 million penalty be enough to dissuade Microsoft from violating antitrust settlements in the future?
When large corporations can shrug off financial penalties and seem indifferent to reputational damage because they’ve captured the consumers, you might wonder about the true cost of broken promises in…
A High Court ruling that Google did not engage in misleading conduct avoids a quagmire around the obligations of online and bricks-and-mortar publishers.
The High Court has ruled that Google did not engage in misleading and deceptive conduct when it published a number of advertisements created by its AdWords program. Does this mean that the advertisements…
Google has scored a legal victory over the ACCC – but what was it all about?
EPA/Joechen Luebke
Google has won its long-running legal battle with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), after the High Court today overturned a ruling that the company had engaged in “misleading…
Research in Motion has reinvented itself as BlackBerry — and has released two new phones to boot — but its smartphone market share will be far from peachy.
AAP
Research In Motion (RIM), who as of this week officially changed its name to BlackBerry, has come a long way since its beginnings in Waterloo, Canada in 1984. Started by two engineering students, Mike…
Does Google’s new map point towards the “wisdom of the crowd”?
Google
News that Google has successfully constructed and published maps of North Korea is stirring the imagination of social media aficionados around the world, but may also stir international political tensions…
Apple share price has been punished after unveilling disappointing first quarter earnings, but its “cool” status has taken a bigger hit.
The stockmarket was hoping for great things from Apple’s earnings announcement for the December quarter. Most of all, they were hoping for something that would turn around a four month slide in Apple’s…
While US regulators cleared Google of antitrust breaches for unfairly diverting traffic to their own services, the Europeans see things differently.
At the end of a 19 month investigation into Google’s search business by the US Federal Trade Commission, many commentators declared that Google had “dodged a bullet”.
In other words, the journalists believed…
A visit to North Korea by Google chairman EricSchmidt and American ambassador to the UN, Bill Richardson has raised diplomatic concerns.
Bill Richardson, former governor of New Mexico and American ambassador to the United Nations and Google chairman Eric Schmidt have recently arrived in North Korea on a well-publicised private mission to…
Google’s tax-minimisation strategy is causing problems for the Australian Taxation Office.
AAP
It might well have been a case of a stopped clock being right twice a day, but on the very day I had an article in The Conversation called Giant profits, tiny tax bills: time to close loopholes on corporate…
Google Ingress turns walking the city streets into a game of territorial control.
Google
Don’t read technology blogs? Then a new innovation in massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMPORGs) may be passing you by.
Perhaps, like me, such games have never been of much interest to…
The imperative to remember information has been replaced with the imperative to remember where information is located.
parkieblues
When Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” hit newsstands in the July/August 2008 edition of The Atlantic, the reaction was predictably vociferous.
The essay itself – a 4,175 word editorial…
Despite earning $201 million in revenue, Google Australia paid $74,000 in tax last year.
AAP
For many companies, tax is a cost of business rather than the price we pay for civilised society. The driver for tax minimisation or even avoidance is clear: the less tax business pays, the more profit…
European data protection law and Google seem to be at odds.
Vermin Inc
We all know the basics: when you sign up for a Google account you provide valuable personal information that allows hardworking people at the company to build a profile of you. This will include your age…
Replacing Google Maps with Apple Maps has not been without its hiccups.
Bert Kaufmann
Mapping and navigation is at the heart of how we use smartphones today. By extension, the Apple Maps app is at the heart of iOS 6. And so Apple’s decision to swap Google Maps for Apple Maps in its new…
Mark Zuckerberg rings the Nasdaq’s opening bell from the Facebook Headquarters in California.
EPA/Zef Nikolla
With almost a billion accounts and growing, Facebook still has as strong a lock on the concept of sharing as Google does on the concept of search. As such, while no company is immune to failure, the current…
Google could face fines if it doesn’t address alleged anti-competitive practices.
mark knol
The European Commission (EC) has given Google “a matter of weeks” to address concerns the American search giant has “abused a dominant market position”.
The announcement overnight (AEST) follows an 18…
Semantic search is about recognising the meaning of words, not just the words themselves.
Chris P Jobling
Late last week, Google representatives unveiled a significant enhancement to the company’s ubiquitous search engine. They’re calling it the “Knowledge Graph” and claiming it will support “more intelligent…
We can already control computers with our thoughts, but how deep does the rabbit hole go?
Warner Bros. Pictures
The growth of augmented reality (AR) will almost certainly change the way we visually experience the everyday world. And, as discussed previously on The Conversation, it’s likely to be Google’s Project…
Google Drive has been launched in an already clouded marketplace.
kilokon.tw
In late April, Google announced, in a relatively low-key post on the official company blog, the existence of Google Drive.
The service, which has been the subject of rumours and enthusiastic chatter…
Is the search giant’s foray into augmented reality an exciting or daunting vision of the future?
Google
Earlier this month, Google released a video (see below) announcing Project Glass: the development of a pair of glasses with a real difference.
Google’s augmented reality eyewear (or “eyeware”) will provide…
Should legislation be used to tame the search engine’s appetite?
COG LOG LAB
We all know Google has a history of privacy-related misdemeanors but a report in the Wall Street Journal last week
suggests the search giant hasn’t learn from its mistakes.
The report, about the findings…
Apple has been the target of protests over working conditions in China.
AAP
Over the last few weeks, what was the juiciest development for those that cannot get enough of gossip about tech giant Apple? Was it “when will the iPad 3 debut and will it have a retina display?“ Or…
The creative sector may need a little help protecting itself online.
unsure shot
Creators of online content should feel free to share material online without fear of non-attribution or piracy, or having their copyright or trademarks misused. Plainly, the current system of enforcement…
Going public is not without its risks, even for internet giants.
Peter DaSilva/EPA
Facebook announced overnight that it’s going to sell US$5 billion of shares in its long-awaited initial public offering (IPO). Company executives filed the official paperwork to get the IPO process underway…
Who really knows what you want – the search engine or you?
Ste fan
In what has been labelled a “bad day for the internet”, Google last week changed its search engine to include personalised results from Google+.
The introduction of Google Search plus Your World has led…
Looking at the earth from above can reveal incredible secrets.
delayed gratification
Archaeology is the study of the remains of the past but has long been predatory on the sciences and their ever-growing technologies. I was brought up as a student in 1970s Britain, when we learned of the…
What’s coming up? Where will we find it? What does it mean?
h.koppdelaney
Around this time of year you see plenty of articles (such as this one) reflecting on notable technologies and events of the year now gone. Such pieces will also attempt to predict the events of the year…
Stuck between sock stores and sanger stalls? This tech could really help.
avlxyz
Christmas is fast approaching and there’s a (very big) chance you’ve got some last-minute shopping to do. You won’t be the only one, and with shopping centres packed to capacity, it’s easy to get lost…
Is tighter online regulation a cause for despair or jubilation?
kelvin255
Battle lines have been drawn in the US between proponents of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), currently being debated, and those who oppose any regulation of the internet.
On one side are organisations…
The major social network sites have recently been touting improved privacy settings to allow users to customise post audiences. Google+ Circles, Facebook lists, and now Unthink’s branches are engineering…
Unthink is positioning itself as a force of “emancipation”.
Unthink.com
On October 25, Unthink invited public beta users to put aside their YASNS (Yet Another Social Network Site) fatigue. Since then, it claims to have attracted more than 100,000 registered users.
The site…
It’s hard to know what to think about Google these days. Financially, the company is booming, but its reputation has suffered following the lukewarm reception for Google+, and an embarrassing outburst…
The scorecard for Google+ to date shows pluses and minuses.
Birgerking.
Features are not friends. That’s the simple message to Google+ from 40 University of Queensland students after using the system since its invite-only launch in July.
To say the service’s fortunes to date…
Responses to climate change are becoming a crucial part of business strategy.
AAP/Google
By Paul Brown, University of Technology, Sydney and Suzanne Benn, University of Technology, Sydney
In early September, Google publicly disclosed details of its carbon footprint for the first time, launching the Google Green website in the process.
The search giant revealed a carbon footprint of 1.5…
Carrying cards and cash on your phone seems like a big call.
Google
So it’s finally here: Google Wallet, a free Android app that turns your (Google) smartphone into a mobile payment system, launched today.
To do this, the company has partnered with Citi, MasterCard, First…
A battle is raging over search and serendipity online.
AndYaDontStop
The latest salvo in the internet attention wars has come in the form of figures from StatCounter.
A relatively small content driving service called StumbleUpon drove more than 50% of all social media…
Patent acquisition is a delicate game of balance and counterbalance.
Rolf Vennenbernd/EPA
The patent wars took a bizarre turn this week.
Samsung, currently defending itself against a legal move by Apple to have four Samsung smartphones and tablets banned from America due to alleged patent…
Google CEO Eric Schmidt will discuss collaboration at the Edinburgh TV Festival.
Peter Parks/AFP
Google chairman Eric Schmidt will make history tomorrow as the first IT/internet executive to deliver the MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival.
In doing so, he will face…
It can be hard to know where the next bit of hypercharged rhetoric will come from.
fotoforlizzie
If you believe the hype, the “patent wars” are well and truly underway.
Google announced last week it will buy Motorola Mobility to get access to 15,000 of the handset manufacturer’s patents and HTC…
The proposed buyout of Motorola Mobile is Google’s largest acquisition.
Google surprised the entire tech industry last night by announcing it is acquiring Motorola Mobility, the maker of Droid smartphones and Xoom tablets, for US$12.5 billion in cash.
This move, the largest…
The battles currently being waged raise serious questions about patent law.
Yonhap/AAPIMAGE
The mobile patent wars, it seems, have reached Australian shores.
On Monday, representatives of Apple and Samsung were in the Australian Federal Court, fighting it out over Samsung’s Galaxy Tab tablet…
The suspension of Google+ accounts has raised questions about the company’s aims.
yuichio.sakuraba
The phrase “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” was coined by American computer programmer Eric S. Raymond to distinguish two different approaches to the development of software.
The Bazaar was likened to the…
Search engines can flag up “dubious” searches on request.
ssoosay
We know the self-confessed perpetrator of the Norway killings Anders Breivik purchased six tonnes of fertiliser, a key ingredient of explosives, in recent months.
We know he was under surveillance by…
Some users have been automatically suspended from all Google services.
halilgokdal
A fresh storm has blown into Google’s new Google+ service. The company has been suspending accounts because they contravene Google’s Community Standards – ostensibly to stop fake or spam accounts being…
When the driver’s away, the cars will play.
joeszilvagyi
It’s a science fiction staple: driverless cars navigating crowded cities. But just how close are we to such a world? How long until an autonomous vehicle could be sitting in your driveway?
Last year Google…
Google+ faces an uphill struggle to win hearts and minds.
Google
Google is hoping that the saying “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again” will work out for them with Google+.
Launched as a private beta version on Tuesday, Google+ is the search giant’s latest…
Are traditional telephony services looking down the barrel of a gun?
Grace
If you use services such as Skype, you’ll already know about Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). This is what makes your video calls with loved ones possible, and – not least with the advent of the NBN…
There’s every chance your computer has been compromised.
TTC Press Images
Today, Australia’s Labor Government announced it had started working on a national cyber security strategy, to be released as a white paper in the first half of next year.
This comes amid growing concern…
Knowing me, knowing you: there is nothing we can’t view.
tonechootero/Flickr
Advanced surveillance and social media might seem like strange bedfellows. Until you look a bit closer, that is.
Technologies developed for surveillance applications are typically designed with robustness…
Cloud computing could completely change the game.
sharmili r/Flickr
Google’s so-called Chromebook will be launched next month in the US and much of Europe, and, not unusually, “some time later” in Australia …
The move was announced at the company’s flasghip I/O conference…
Since 1950, more than 150,000 people have died in motor vehicle crashes in Australia. The worst year was 1970, when 3,798 people lost their lives – more than 10 deaths each day.
Annual deaths are now…
Chrome is heralded as the fastest browser, but are the others catching up?
Until a few years ago, there was only one name in the world of web browsing: Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. But now, in 2011, users have more choice than ever when it comes to searching online.
Before…
Last week’s Google Books ruling was a win for copyright protection.
AAP
The decision by a US Federal Court judge last week to reject a $US125 million settlement between Google Books and the publishing industry allows authors to protect their copyright and prevents Google from…
