Clint Boulton

News Analysis: Engadget reported something Dec. 23 that frankly boggles the mind. Citing a tipster, the site claims Google’s Nexus One smartphone will be available by invitation only.EWEEK has already explored the idea that Google could let consumers purchase the Nexus One and pick their carrier over the Web, which many agreed is an attractive […]

It’s that time of year when people love to track Santa, trying to figure out his route to deliver gifts across the world. Google is all over it, picking up a tradition started by NORAD in 1955, which you can read about here. The search giant is tracking Santa through Google Earth and Google Maps; […]

Folks responded with good points to my post from yesterday, “Why Microsoft is So Far Behind Google on the Web,” a riff on how Microsoft lets Google buy what it wants — AdMob, YouTube, DoubleClick — without challenging or responding to its nemesis. The comments that praise Microsoft for its frugality regarding Internet businesses have […]

Twitter proved just how serious it is about location-based Web services by acquiring Mixer Labs for an undisclosed sum. Mixer Labs makes GeoAPI, a service geared to help software developers build applications that use geolocation services, ideally to make the programs more useful and relevant for users. GeoAPI services include a reverse geocoder, which take […]

Google Dec. 23 confirmed that the Federal Trade Commission has asked the search engine for more information regarding its $750 million bid for mobile ad provider AdMob. Google said the FTC issued a “second request” for information related to the deal, which was announced Nov. 9 and was slated to close in early 2010. The […]

Microsoft has billions of dollars to spend, and more market clout than any software company in the world, thanks to its Windows and Office hegemonies. Isn’t it stunning that the company is far behind Google and even Yahoo in the online space? Why is that? It’s not for lack of resources and talent. When it […]

Read “The Meaning of Open” by Jonathan Rosenberg, Google senior vice president of product management, because it’s a great read, but read it knowing a few things. First, Google open-sources a lot of software; in fact, Rosenberg claims Google is the largest open-source contributor in the world, contributing over 800 projects that total over 20 […]

News Analysis: Who backed out of Google’s bid to buy local business search specialist Yelp for $500 million? TechCrunch reported the initial deal and its suddendissolution, but the New York Times’ Internet reporters have different takes of how the bid collapsed. The Times’ Claire Caine Miller claimed Yelp shut talks down backed out of acquisition […]

Less than a week after Twitter offered its hottest tweet trends for 2009, Facebook Dec. 21 released its own list of trends from data mapped about top trending words and phrases in U.S. status updates for the year. Like Twitter tweets, status updates enable Facebook users to write about what’s going on with them, albeit […]

Consumers mulling whether or not to license book titles through Google Book Search or purchase an electronic reader such as the Amazon Kindle or Barnes & Noble Nook may want to take the privacy policies of those services and devices into account before they do so. Privacy watchdogs at the Electronic Frontier Foundation argue that […]

Twitter is raking in some $25 million from agreements to let Google and Microsoft index its tweets, pushing the microblog service into profitability, according to a Bloomberg BusinessWeek report. Twitter will earn $15 million from Google and $10 million from Microsoft Bing, according to the report, which cited sources who asked for anonymity because the […]

David Coursey over at PC World has introduced a potentially incendiary topic: that Apple and Microsoft could join forces to take on Google. The idea is fascinating, though Coursey doesn’t quite sell it. After reading it, one feels as though Coursey doesn’t believe in what he wrote. One example he uses is that of the […]