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Windows Phone Soon To Join Google+ Party

Google+ took the world by storm this past summer and quickly excelled to over 90 million users. Of course the Google+ Android app has the most features and is the one updated the most however the iOS version has caught on quickly, and after a brief problem with no back button, and no “clickies” it’s almost as good as the Android version.

Windows Phone 7 users were left out in the cold. Google only has one app on the Windows Phone 7 OS and that is their search app which just received a nice overhaul. Google+ users who have a Windows Phone have been relegated to using the mobile web version of Google+. While the mobile web version is pretty feature heavy, it’s not the same as having a dedicated app for the fastest growing social network in the history of social networks.

That may all change soon as a Google PR Rep from Germany, Stefan Keuchel, posted a message on Twitter letting folks know that the Google+ app for Windows Phone 7 is currently in the works. Keuchel didn’t specify a release date.

There’s been a flurry of Google+ news on the internet lately. It all began with a ComScore report that suggested most Google+ users are spending less than 3 minutes a month on the service. That news was compounded by two interviews with one of Google+’s leads VP of Social, Vic Gundotra. The most recent, a fireside chat with author and Twitter celebrity Guy Kawasaki. In the Kawasaki interview Gundotra suggested that people not getting the most out of Google + are using it wrong.

Google has pushed their social initiative to the max by basically integrating almost every Google service available through their social network.

source: Neowin

How Guy Kawasaki’s Chat with Vic Gundotra Changed My Thinking about Google+ (anetahall.wordpress.com)
New Google Search app released for Windows Phone (cnet.com)
Google Tries Its Hand Again at Windows Phone Search App (pocketnow.com)

Beyond The Lens: With Randy Jay Braun

Over this past weekend we where able to sit down with Randy Jay Braun a photographer out of the state of Hawaii in which we are all jealous about. Besides talking about his love of Photography, he goes into how mobile phones will be the future. As well as how they might one day take over DSLR’s.

YouTube remotely accesses the camera on your tablet or phone

According to a “security expert” YouTube can remotely access the camera on your tablet or phone reports Read Write Web via The London Times (paywall). The reason I even paid attention to this was the fact that it was found at the bottom of the article and was mentioned in passing. If this were truly the case, would this not be the headline? With all the discussions of privacy and contacts happening lately certainly this would make waves with different government agencies. This is a very serious accusation to make and yet there is no solid evidence to support this claim; actually the “evidence” provided by the “security expert” uses the description found in the permission description (read below).

In an article about Facebook reading users emails (more on that later) the London Times and RWW accused Google owned YouTube of remotely accessing the camera found on tablets and smartphones. “Facebook, according to the report, joins several high-profile Web firms that have been caught snooping on their customers. Flickr, dating site Badoo and Yahoo Messenger have all been accused of accessing users’ private data, and YouTube can remotely access and operate a smartphone’s camera, security experts told the Times.” We pinged Google for an official statement and received this reply;

This is so silly…it requests the camera permission so you can launch camera to take a video from within the YouTube app. It’s not like the app can turn on your camera without asking you.

The permission being discussed is found in Hardware Controls and reads as follows:

TAKE PICTURES AND VIDEOS
Allows application to take pictures and videos with the camera. This allows the application at any time to collect images the camera is seeing.

The idea that Google or YouTube would give themselves the ability to remotely access your video camera is, well, silly. It illustrates the very real issue that companies are facing when it comes to permissions and users privacy. What is needed is more education regarding permissions and the use of data by these companies.

Sources: Read Write Web via The London Times

Google+ becomes Brad Pitt’s first social network

Google+ welcomed Brad Pitt to his first social network. I have been a fan of Brad Pitt’s for a long time. My appreciation for Mr Pitt grew significantly while I was living in New Orleans doing recovery work after Hurricane Katrina. Brad Pitt has been extremely active in the continuing recovery in New Orleans. He co-founded Make It Right.
His first post was focused on “A Night to Make it Right Gala” happening on March 10th 2012 at the Regency Hyatt Hotel in New Orleans. Ellen DeGeneres and Brad Pitt will host the Gala. Dr John (one of my favorites), Rhianna, Sheryl Crow, and Seal will all be performing. The charity gala will raise funds to build sustainable, affordable homes for New Orleans’ families who lost everything to Hurricane Katrina and promote Make It Right’s work to provide sustainable housing in Newark, NJ and Kansas City, MO for disabled veterans and disadvantaged communities.

A brief history of Make It Right:

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina flooded 80 percent of the City of New Orleans and killed 1,577 people. Hardest hit was the Lower 9th Ward where more than 4,000 homes were destroyed by the storm and the surge of water caused by the breach of the Industrial Canal levee.

Two years later after Katrina when actor Brad Pitt toured the city, no progress had been made in the Lower 9th Ward. Still, the community was determined to rebuild. After meeting with local families, Pitt established Make It Right to build 150 green, affordable, high-quality design homes in the neighborhood closest to the levee breach.

Make It Right kicked off in December 2007 with the Pink Project – an art installation designed to bring attention to the challenges and possibilities of rebuilding the Lower 9th Ward. The Pink Project raised 12 million dollars.

21 local, national and international architects donated designs for single family and duplexes to Make It Right. Today, Make It Right has built 75 sustainable, LEED Platinum certified homes for Lower 9th Ward families. According to the U.S. Green Building Council, Make It Right is the “largest and greenest community of single-family homes in the world.”

Make It Right Timeline
Incorporated: August 2007
Announced: September 2007 (Clinton Global Initiative)
Launched: December 2007 (Pink Project)
Groundbreaking: March 2008
Construction began: June 2008
First six homes completed: August 2008
First 50 homes completed: December 2010
First 75 homes completed: May 2011

Source: Hollywood Reporter Further Reading: http://www.makeitrightnola.org/ http://www.nighttomakeitright.com/

The Nibletz team will be in New Orleans the following week and we will try to bring you some coverage from the Gala. New Orleans is my adopted “home city” and the story is still being written regarding the recovery.

Utah State Government Switching To Google Apps

We often consider states like New York, California, Nevada, Texas, Illinois and even Washington State to be the ones on the cutting edge of technology. However when it comes to implementing Google Apps for state government Wyoming and Utah are the first two states to do that.

Utah has become the second state to announce that they are switching all government employees from their former suite of productivity tools to Google Apps.

More after the break
Read More…

Google Doodle Helps Inform People About SOPA On Blackout Day

January 18th is SOPA Blackout day. Websites around the country are “blacking out” in protest and to spread the word about the Software Online Piracy Act otherwise known as SOPA.

Reports on Tuesday mentioned that SOPA was most likely going to be held up in Congress however websites like XDA and Reddit said they were still going forward with plans to black out to encourage people to do something about SOPA.

XDA is hoping that people will contact their congressman by email or phone to let them know that they don’t support SOPA.

While it would be impractical to think that Google could go black and stop operating their search engine for a day in support of the anti-SOPA movement, they have posted the Google Doodle above with an information link below the search bar.

Over the years Google has been a bit wishy-washy in their dealings with issues of online piracy. While they don’t hold back search results from search engines for torrentz and other online download sites, they did block Grooveshark from the Android Market despite the fact that Grooveshark has a clear policy about digital rights.

Nevertheless the Google Doodle will help spread the word about SOPA to the millions of folks who do a Google search today.

Exclusive: Gigantic Crunchies Statue Almost Ready

In between designing the gigantic Android statues that sit on the lawn of Google’s building 44, sculptor Themendous has another big tech client. AOL’s TechCrunch has commissioned Themendous to design and sculpt larger than life sculptures for their events. Themendous did all of the sculptures for the 2011 TechCunch Disrupt events.

Now he is hard at work designing and sculpting a gigantic Crunchie award. The Crunchie sculpture will be on display at the TechCrunch Crunchie in a couple of weeks.

Themendous: Webpage Blog Twitter

Updated – Editorial: Nexus Brand Being Diluted by Verizon

Nexus devices have been billed as “Pure Google” devices ever since the HTC built Nexus One was released January of 2010. The Nexus S [December 16, 2010] and Nexus S 4G [May 8, 2010].
When the Nexus One was originally announced the list of carriers who were originally going to carry the Nexus One included T-Mobile, AT&T, Vodafone, and Verizon. After months of delays Google eventually announced that the Nexus One would not be available from Verizon Wireless.
The follow-up to the Nexus One, the Nexus S (and Nexus S 4G) were available on AT&T, T-Mobile, and finally Sprint.
The Nexus One ushered in the term (as well as actually backing up the claim) “Superphone”. 1 GHz CPU, 512 RAM and ROM, AMOLED (Original screen) and was launched with Android 2.1 Eclair. Being a “Pure Google” device meant that it would be among the first devices to receive future updates to the Android Operating System.
The Nexus S was the first Android device to launch with NFC (Near Field Communication), with a 4″ Super AMOLED screen, 512 MN RAM, and 16 GB of internal storage space (1 GB dedicated to internal storage [ROM] and 15 GB “USB storage”. This was the first device to launch with Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Again this was free from carrier “bloatware” and was sold without any additional carrier overlay (Touchwiz, Sense, Motoblur, etc). This ensuring a faster upgrade path. Shortly after the launch of the Nexus S the Nexus One was updated to Android 2.3.
Google released a tablet version of the Android Operating System 3.0 Honeycomb – which was never open-sourced, but was also free from OEM overlays (at launch). This apparently was done to help speed up updates to the work in progress which was (is) honeycomb.

Fast forward to October 18, 2011 – Google and Samsung announce their second collaboration towards the Nexus line of devices, the Galaxy Nexus. The Galaxy Nexus brings a 4.65″ 1280 x 720 Super AMOLED HD screen, a Texas Instruments 1.2 Ghz dual-core processor, with 1 GB RAM, with either 16 or 32 GB of on board storage, along with a myriad of updates to camera software, video output options, and I’d the first Nexus device to offer 4G LTE connectivity. Seeing as there was only one carrier offering a significant LTE network at the time of the announcement it also signaled the first “Pure Google” Nexus device on the Verizon network. Fans were going nuts – THIS IS WHAT WE HAD ALL BEEN WAITING FOR……OR WAS IT?

Developing: Motorola Mobility wins injunction against Apple in Germany, apparently

“As the patent litigation world turns”

[scribd id=71622154 key=key-2l51dt9nj83mi07adrm2 mode=list]

Apparently, Apple was just handed a major loss in the biggest European market. Unlike the injunctions against Samsung that Apple has won in Germany, the Netherlands, and, most recently Australia, this is not a preliminary ruling. Florian Mueller explains here,

We’re not talking about a preliminary injunction, but this one is in effect now and it could be appealed and lifted.

He also notes:

The court ruling doesn’t say which particular products Motorola Mobility accused of infringement, but since the U.S. equivalents of both patents-in-suit were also asserted by Motorola Mobility in federal lawsuits in the United States, it appears that the entire range of Apple mobile devices is affected by this decision.

So, at this moment, Motorola has the ability to stop Apple from selling any devices within the confines of German borders. This is a very significant win. The damage could be huge. According to Mueller if this were to pan out, Apple will be required to pay damages on any possible infringement from April 19, 2003 to the present day.

The patents that are allegedly being enforced are:

EP (European Patent) 1010336 (B1) on a “method for performing a countdown function during a mobile-originated transfer for a packet radio system”; this is the European equivalent of U.S. Patent No. 6,359,898
EP (European Patent) 0847654 (B1) on a “multiple pager status synchronization system and method”; this is the European equivalent of U.S. Patent No. 5,754,119

Head over to FOSS Patents for a more in-depth (professional) analysis.

Moons Over My YouTube?

YouTube Co-Founder, Steven Chen, took the stage today at TechCrunch Disrupt Beijing. Chen sat down with the queen of international start-up reporting Sara Lacy to talk about business, what’s new and of course the big YouTube deal.

Chen revealed that while they were negotiating the sale of YouTube to both Yahoo and Google they often met with both companies at a Denny’s in Paolo Alto. Chen says he wanted to find a place that no one would think to look for them at. Of course, TechCrunch Founder, Mike Arrington was keen to their dubious plans to get Moons over My Hammy and Grand Slam breakfasts while negotiating a grand slam of a deal.

Chen admits to having eaten Mozarella sticks while pondering over one of the biggest deals (at the time) in Silicon Valley. Chen told Lacy that it was Google CEO (at the time) Eric Schmidt’s commitment to continue to let the YouTube founders run YouTube the way they wanted, that ultimately swayed them there instead of Yahoo.

“For twelve months, whatever we wanted to do, we were allowed to do,” Chen told Lacy “It was tremendous courage from Eric, allowing this group of 20 year-olds to run the company.”

source: TechCrunch

The Big Rumor: Google In Talks To Buy Yahoo

Although AOL’s Tim Armstrong has been trying to sway his board and Yahoo’s board for an AOL-Yahoo merger, it seems like another, bigger, company wants to sink their teeth into yahoo.

Reports are running rampant on the internet today stemming from a report from the Wall Street Journal that Google is in talk with private equity firms to merge (or at least attempt) to merge with Yahoo. This wouldn’t be the first time that Google did business with yahoo. Yahoo was one of Google’s biggest clients 10 years ago, providing back end search services to the yahoo internet portal.

As PCMag suggests Google hasn’t entered into any kind of agreement with Yahoo and no one is sure which private equity firms Google is talking to. It’s also important to note that a leak or rumor from the Wall Street Journal doesn’t carry near as much weight as it would have five years ago.

It is apparent though that Yahoo wants a large, stable suitor. It’s been widely reported that Microsoft has been looking at acquiring Yahoo’s assets along with those of AOL.

Although a marriage between Google and Yahoo would spend a long time under regulatory scrutiny, the potential for GoogleAds and Google+ with a merger with Yahoo is endless.

source: WSJ via PCMag

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