Google is planning on releasing an enterprise version of Google Voice in 2010, said Google Enterprise President Dave Girouard in an interview earlier this week in eWeek. Voice will be bundled with Google Apps. Read more
Google today has said it will charge users a mere $150, rather than $350, if they quickly terminate their T-Mobile contract after buying phone at a reduced price with a T-Mobile contract. It is also giving a break to existing T-Mobile customers who buy the phone with a carrier contract, then change their plans. This is a nice happy ending to the story I reported a couple of weeks ago. Read more
In a surprise blow to Google's massive efforts to corner the fledgling digital books market, the DOJ has given the thumbs-down to Google's settlement with the Author's Guild and Association of American Publishers. I, for one, couldn't be more delighted. Read more
Tablets aren't even shipping yet and the wars between vendors are escalating. This despite that tablets have always so far been a strictly niche device (think UPS), although PC makers like Apple and Microsoft have made many attempts over the years to sell us the idea. Read more
On Monday, the FCC asked Google, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile to explain how they tell their customers about early wireless contract termination fees. Notice anything interesting about that list? Google is the only handset retailer in the bunch.
The others are carriers. That's because if someone buys a Nexus One phone purchased through Google with a two-year T-Mobile contract, and the user wants out of that contract, the user is expected to pay two "early termination fees" (ETF). One fee would be charged by Google and a second charged by T-Mobile. Read more
Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) raked in $6.7 billion in revenue in its fiscal fourth quarter, which ended Dec. 31, and finished 2009 with $23.7 billion in revenue. Its fourth quarter was a whopping 17% increase over Q4 2008 yet its year-end came in at a modest, single digit 8% increase. Read more
With Google's threat this week to pull out of China, the company is taking sides along national boundaries - something that seems very out of place for a modern multinational corporation.
There are multiple ways of looking at this. Read more
Google has thrown its name in the hat to become an administrator of white spaces databases. This is a reversal for Google, which officially said in February 2009, that it did not plan to be an administrator. However the company told me last month that it was considering the idea. Read more
Google on Tuesday unveiled its Nexus One, an Android smartphone designed by its own engineers and available directly through the company without a cell phone contract.
The unlocked phone is priced at $529. And here's the disclaimer on what networks will support it directly from Google: Read more
The editors and bloggers that make up the Google Subnet community wish you and your loved ones a happy holiday season and best wishes for a great 2010. We'll be taking a short hiatus from December 24 through January 3. We'll be back on January 4 bringing you more news, blogs, podcasts, opinion and discussions about Google. As has become a holiday tradition, I have assembled a quirky list of Holiday 2009 resources for your reading pleasure this week.
Top 2009 articles from Google Subnet Read more
Google has unveiled a service called "Dashboard" which helps users manage their privacy information by showing them the data Google is collecting on them across its most popular services. Read more
Google has joined the IPSO Alliance, a consortium of technology vendors promoting the use of the Internet Protocol for "smart object communications," once referred to as "the Internet of things." The vision of this group is that everything from appliances to cars are plugged into an IP network and can communicate via private networks or over the Internet.
As you might expect, the year-old group is also a cheerleader for IPv6 adoption. Should every object that consumes power also be equipped with its own IP address, we are going to need more of those puppies. Read more
Google is rumoured to have made a $500 million offer for local social network Yelp, according to the New York Times. If the deal goes through, it will give Google a wealth of data to boost its local search results, according to Adam Bunn, head of SEO at Greenlight, an independent search marketing agency. Read more
On Dec. 8, Google finally released a repository of extensions for Google Chrome. Chrome extensions numbered at more than 300 on launch day. As a beta project, extensions come with a few caveats from Google. For the moment, Google is only supporting extensions in its latest beta version of Chrome, so if you prefer the official, stable browser, you'll have to forgo add-on tools for now. Read more
On Monday the rumor once again hit that Google was planning to sell its own Android, undocked phone next year. Today, the Wall Street Journal published an article confirming the story.
The phone even had a name, the Nexus One. It was reportedly designed by Google, will be manufactured by HTC and could be available as early as January 5. Read more
A bug in Google Chrome has been identified that reveals the identity of the browsers' users when they are using anonymous browsing services like Tor. The bug leaks the DNS data of the user.
Third-party anonymous browsing services mask the identity of a user by routing their DNS queries through a proxy server. But when Chrome is configured to use such a proxy, it is basically ignoring that request and routing DNS queries from the user's local network, revealing the user's network and location. Read more
Google today launched its own URL shortening service, aptly named the Google URL Shortener (http://goo.gl/). The service is, for the moment, only available in the updated versions of the Google Toolbar and FeedBurner.
Google says that its service will be more secure than the goodness-knows-how-many URL shortening services that already exist (tinyURL, bit.ly, tr.im, at least 50 others). According to the Official Google Blog, Google's version offers the following advantages. Read more
The Electronic Frontier Foundation was one critic among many concerned over Eric Schmidt's statements on how Google should respect privacy. According to Gawker, when he was asked during an interview for on CNBC's about whether users should concerned about sharing so much information with Google, Schmidt responded, "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." Read more
UPDATED 12/11/09: Acer has received FCC approval for its first Android smartphone, reports ZDNet. Read more
Google is beefing up Google Apps with the addition of mailing lists and forums. It is not doing this through its ultra-cool and hyped Google Wave app, but by revamping good-old Google Groups. Forums and e-mail lists via Groups will become a feature for the Education and Premier editions of Apps. In this way, Apps administrators can support private discussions strings and group mailing lists between employees. Read more
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