Clint Boulton

Google Dec. 6 launched Google eBooks, the company’s effort to offer books online for purchase and free as an alternative to existing services from Amazon, Apple and Barnes & Noble. Consumers will be able to search among 3 million titles from the EBookstore, which will complement the existing Google Books platform the company launched in […]

Google’s Android operating system U.S. market share hit 23.5 percent in October, putting it one percentage point behind Apple’s iOS at 24.6 percent, according to new numbers from comScore. Apple’s iOS share was 24.3 percent in September, while Android stood at 21.4 percent. If the trend charted by comScore continues, Android should pass iOS in […]

Google eBooks Launches with Android, iPhone, iPad Applications by Clint Boulton Google eBookstore Google’s eBookstore titles will support the ePub and PDF formats. It will include a Web reader to help users read indexed books from any device that supports a modern Web browser, including computers, tablets and smartphones. Android App As mentioned above, Google […]

Google Dec. 3 picked up digital rights management software maker Widevine for an undisclosed sum, providing a fresh measure of content protecting for its YouTube property it currently doesn’t offer. Widevine’s software improves the quality of video and audio content delivered via the Web and ensures copyrighted work isn’t pirated across more than 250 million […]

Google has acquired speech synthesis startup Phonetic Arts, whose software samples human speech and tailors it for computers, for an undisclosed sum. Google is being typically hush-hush about what it will do with the Cambridge, U.K.-based startup’s assets and talent, which will move to Google’s London office. “The Phonetic Arts team will join Google’s existing […]

Google is hosting an event Dec. 7 where it will likely demonstrate a netbook based on its long-awaited Chrome operating system. Chrome OS is Google’s support platform for its increasingly popular Chrome Web browser, which accounts for 9.27 percent of browser use, according to Net Applications. Google intends the platform to run on netbooks and […]

Samsung has sold more than 1 million Apple iPad rival Galaxy Tab tablet computers worldwide, a significant jump for a product that notched 600,000 units sold two weeks ago before the Thanksgiving holiday rush. Samsung spokesperson Kim Titus confirmed the milestone to eWEEK Dec. 3, but declined more details about where sales of the Android […]

YouTube Dec. 2 spruced up the usefulness of its Leanback application by letting users create their personalized channels. Leanback lets users type in a topic they want to see related videos for and sit back to let them roll. Videos are chosen with consideration of users’ YouTube settings and preferences. Leanback works well on Google […]

Google Dec. 2 won approval to power Yahoo Japan’s search engine from Japan’s Fair Trade Commission, a victory that has Microsoft worried about its prospects for Bing in that country. Japan’s FTC said the deal wouldn’t violate antitrust rules as it currently stands because it is limited to a sharing of technology, according to the […]

I appreciate good Google acquisition stories as much as the next fellow, but the search engine really need to tread lightly with this Groupon stuff. In case you haven’t been following the wickedly spinning rumor mill, Google has been in talks all week to buy local shopping Website Groupon, which e-mails millions of users daily […]

Google Dec. 2 rolled out a new cloud-based computing platform that puts past and present satellite imagery online to gauge changes in Earth’s environment. Introduced at the International Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico, Google Earth Engine is intended to help scientists detect how forests are changing over time using trillions of images collected by […]

Google Dec. 2 said it plans to improve its copyright and piracy protection procedures, including processing copyright takedown requests for content within 24 hours. The search engine said it is building tools to improve the submission process to make it easier for rights-holders to submit Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown requests for Google products, beginning […]