Clint Boulton

The iPad earned something of a sweep in 2010, as the tablet computer made its way into the top trend lists of leading Internet powers Google, Twitter and Facebook. Facebook Dec. 14 revealed 2010 Memology, list of top trends culled from analyzing status updates published by the social network’s 500 million-plus users across 236 countries. […]

Google’s Chrome operating system Cr-48 notebook is a newfangled mobile Web computing device that does a lot of what a netbook does, serving Web applications via a browser. It’s how users access those Web apps that is different than a netbook. Not better, but definitely different. Cr-48 is the test machine Google is giving to […]

Facebook Shops for Talent to Fight Google, Social Web Competitors by Clint Boulton Octazen Solutions Facebook quietly picked up contact import software maker Octazen Solutions in February. Facebook called this a “talent acquisition.” The company’s two employees joined Facebook as engineers. Divvyshot Divvyshot, whose software lets people upload photos to the Web, share them and […]

Google Dec. 13 launched its official Google Latitude application for Apple’s iPhone, more than a year and a half after Apple refused to allow the app as a native offering in its App Store. Google Latitude is the company’s friend-finding application, showing smartphone users where there friends are on Google Maps. The idea is to […]

Google has begun distributing special stickers with near field communications (NFC) technology to let business owners in Portland, Ore., tout their wares right from their doors. NFC is a short-range wireless technology that lets devices communicate from within a few inches of each other. Users can take a smartphone equipped with an NFC chip and […]

So I’ve had this nagging feeling in the back of my head, like a snake licking the base of my skull. From the inside. I haven’t been able to put my finger on it, but then I read Mark Cuban’s column from December that asks “Am I Living the Google Lifestyle?” Cuban tells this brief […]

Google Dec. 13 defended itself from suggestions that it gives its own Place Pages local search service preferential treatment on Google.com, arguing that anything it does is to help users find the best information possible. The issue arose after the Wall Street Journal published this story (paywall warning) Dec. 12 sourcing startup executives who fear […]

Apple’s iPad and smartphones and gadgets based on Google’s Android operating system joined tragic disasters on Twitter top 10 Twitter Trends for 2010, derived from scrutinizing tweet content of more than 25 billion tweets users published this year. Twitter used its analytics software to calculate the top trends, as well as the leading trends in […]

Google said it will improve its maligned Android Market application store this month, making it easier for consumers to find, purchase and download developers’ apps. Android Market sports well over 100,000 applications, one third that of Apple’s App Store. Yet to many users, Android Market feels leagues behind the App Store in quality and user […]

Google garnered 59 percent of a U.S. mobile advertising market worth $877 million in 2010, thanks largely to the search ad business the company claimed was operating at a $1 billion run-rate this year. Market researcher IDC said Apple was the runner-up at 8.4 percent of the U.S. ad spend, which rose 138 percent from […]

Google is betting heavily on the cloud with Chrome Operating System, a Web platform for netbooks that Google CEO Eric Schmidt said is predicated on leveraging reliable networks and diskless machines. While Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac machines rely greatly on software residing locally on the hardware, Google intends Chrome OS to fuel Web applications […]

Connecticut state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal Dec. 10 ratcheted up his July request for data Google collected from Connecticut citizens via insecure wireless networks by demanding the search engine to cough it up. Blumenthal’s office issued a civil investigative demand, or the equivalent of a subpoena, to make Google turn over the data its Street […]