Google Apps

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Porn App Snaps User's Photo, Demands Ransom

Welcome to so-called 'ransomware'

(Newser) - If you've used Adult Player, sorry to hear it: It's an Android porn app that takes a photo of you with the phone's front-facing camera, immobilizes the device, and demands a $500 payment via a locked ransom screen to fix the phone and delete the photo. This...

'Bad Piggies' Soars to Top of App Charts

Rovio releases sequel to Angry Birds

(Newser) - Just a few hours after being released, Bad Piggies, the long-awaited follow-up to Angry Birds, is topping the app charts for both iOS and Android, reports CNET . In Bad Piggies, you change teams, manipulating the pigs instead of birds—players use umbrellas, wings, propellers, and other tools to find pieces...

Microsoft Office Enters the Cloud

Move ups competition with Google

(Newser) - Google stole a chunk of Microsoft's corporate customers when it introduced its web-only Google Apps, but now Microsoft is pushing back with Office 365. The company is putting its extremely popular Microsoft Office software in the "cloud," introducing the new online version this week. Customers will be...

Google Beefs Up Services for Nonprofits

US nonprofits offered free ads, services

(Newser) - Google has launched a new and improved version of its one-stop shop for US-based nonprofit organizations. The search colossus is offering approved nonprofits free or discounted use of Google Apps, access to premium services, and grants of up to $10,000 a month in free advertising on Google AdWords, reports...

Apps Used Just Once 26% of Time

In a quarter of cases, the first impression is the only impression

(Newser) - When a developer brags about how many times his mobile app has been downloaded, take it with a grain of salt. Smartphone apps were used once, and only once, roughly 26% of the time last year, according to a new study from Localytics. What’s more, that number has been...

Your Apps Are Tracking You
Your Apps Are
Tracking You
investigation

Your Apps Are Tracking You

...and sending out your personal info

(Newser) - Big Brother may not be tracking you, but your smartphone is. A Wall Street Journal investigation examined 101 leading apps, and found that more than half were breaching users' privacy and leaking personal information to companies: 56 sent the phone's unique device ID, 47 conveyed the phone's location, and five...

Content From Amazon, NBC to Power Google TV

Firm unveil new deals to populate its TV service

(Newser) - Google now has a series of deals to provide content for its new Google TV service, the Wall Street Journal reports, including with NBC Universal and Amazon. The latter will lend its Amazon Video on Demand library to Google TV users, giving them paid access to some 75,000 movies...

Microsoft to Give Away New Web-Based Office

Goes head-to-head with Google's online apps

(Newser) - Microsoft, the “king of paid software,” is going free with an online version of Office next year, Fortune reports. “The sleeping giant in Redmond has clearly woken up to the Internet threat,” writes Jon Fortt. Microsoft is risking “cannibalizing its own Office business,” but...

Google Earth Knows Its ABCs
 Google Earth 
 Knows Its ABCs 

Google Earth Knows Its ABCs

(Newser) - From an A-shaped street crossing to a building in the form of a Z, an Australian man has spelled out the alphabet using Google Earth. Rhett Dashwood spent 6 months painstakingly scanning satellite images of his native state, Victoria, and found buildings or geographical landmarks in the shape of all...

New Google Voice Offering a 'Dutiful but Klutzy Secretary'

Features like voicemail transcription are great, but far from flawless

(Newser) - Google’s Voice feature, offered in free beta for now, bundles all your phone numbers into one “Google number,” and records, transcribes, emails, and archives voicemails, allowing you to respond via texts sent from your computer. It “has some brilliant features,” Courtney Banks writes in the...

Google 'Latitude' Knows Where You and Your Friends Are

Mobile app uses GPS, cell towers, networks

(Newser) - Google’s newest mobile app—Latitude—allows users to keep track of where they, and their friends, are at all times, reports CNET. The phone-based application debuts today and opens up a new vista for social networking. The software allows users—tracked via GPS and by proximity to phone towers...

Google Quietly Conquers With Irresistible Apps

Columnist worries about being so tied to giant, but everything just works so well

(Newser) - Despite near-total lack of marketing, Google finds its way into Web lovers’ hearts with an irresistible bundle of applications. “Having grown up in the vapor trail of the ’60s, I learned to be wary of large, centralized organizations,” David Carr writes in the New York Times. “...

Google Phone's Appetizing App Menu Is Functional, Too
Google Phone's Appetizing App Menu Is Functional, Too

PRODUCT REVIEW

Google Phone's Appetizing App Menu Is Functional, Too

Not as snazzy as iPhone, and memory is an issue, but open model sure to keep offerings sharp

(Newser) - With Google’s G1 smartphone making this week’s big tech splash, Katherine Boehret, in the Wall Street Journal, takes a look at some of the applications on offer, finding them “useful, entertaining, and mostly straightforward.” Of those she tested from the Android Market, “the G1's apps...

Google Will Unveil Android Phone Next Week

First glance at iPhone competitor

(Newser) - Google’s hyped Android phone will make its debut next week in New York, the Los Angeles Times reports. Google and T-Mobile—the gadget's first carrier—plan a press conference  to show off the handset, a new rival for the iPhone and Blackberry. The "G1” won’t go on...

Google's Smartphone Slated for This Fall

The search-giant's Android operating system to rival Apple's

(Newser) - Google’s long-rumored Android-powered smartphone could have customers surfing the Web and chatting by as early as October, the New York Times reports. The gadget, the product of a partnership between T-Mobile and HTC, is expected to challenge Apple’s iPhone and other smartphones that offer PC-like functions as well...

Search Feature Riles Retailers
 Search Feature Riles Retailers 

Search Feature Riles Retailers

New search-within-search feature serves users well, but merchants are steamed

(Newser) - Google has some other companies up in arms with a new feature that keeps the search engine front and center even when results are coming from a merchant’s website, the New York Times reports. Google’s new search-within-search feature brings up a search box that keeps the user with...

Google Health Will Be Ad-Free
Google Health Will Be Ad-Free

Google Health Will Be Ad-Free

Medical-records service now being tested will profit by increasing search traffic

(Newser) - The newest member of the Google family, Google Health, will not have advertising, CEO Eric Schmidt said this week, but will earn its keep from the traffic it draws to the company’s search engine. The new service stores health records, allowing users to share test results, prescriptions and other...

Google Sites App Again Targets Microsoft Office

Program allows workgroups to create online media

(Newser) - Google hopes to make another dent in Microsoft’s productivity empire with a new application: Google Sites. The program lets workgroups create multimedia web content, and rivals Microsoft’s $1-billion-a-year SharePoint, the New York Times reports. It joins Google apps for email, word processing, and more in an assault on...

Google Invests in Cloud Computing
Google Invests
in Cloud Computing

Google Invests in Cloud Computing

Internet giant wants everyone to do everything online

(Newser) - Google has hands in a lot of pies, from maps to email to spreadsheets and now, with Android and OpenSocial, to cellphones and MySpace. But it all relates to one strategy, the Washington Post says. Google wants to make the web so useful that everyone does everything online. In this...

Vista, Office Spur Microsoft to Huge Growth

23% gains in first quarter; new PC sales drive gains

(Newser) - Microsoft yesterday reported a 23% leap in net income and its best revenue growth since the dot-com boom, making it an isolated winner in a tumbling market. The announcement drove up the company's shares 10% in after-hours trading. The sales of new PCs with Windows installed helped drive the gains,...

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