Category: Google

As reported on Engadget. By Alexis Santos An Explorer Edition of Glass is already a pricey piece of tech, and smartphone tethering plans required to give it a mobile Internet connection have only made ownership that much more expensive. However, there’s good news for Google’s guinea pigs: the latest update to the headgear quietly implemented a way around the additional monthly fees. With XE9 loaded onto headsets, the companion Android apppipes data to and from the hardware, bypassing both the smartphone’s Bluetooth…

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As reported on The Verge. By Nathan Olivarez-Giles Since 2007, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have been gassing up their private jets at deep discounts thanks to the federal government. But according to The Wall Street Journal, the jet-fuel breaks are now over. Thanks to an agreement between NASA and an LLC, called H211 — owned by Page, Brin, and Google Chairman Eric Schmidt — the executives were allowed to fuel up at an airfield located within the…

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As reported on Engadget. By Mariella Moon Google’s big list of open source projects just grew by one — the company has introduced a new online learning platform called MOOC.org. Despite the name, it’s not a website about cows — MOOC stands for “massive open online courses,” and it’s a product of the marriage between Mountain View and edX, an educational website by MIT and Harvard. However, while edX only features free courses from affiliated universities, MOOC.org will accept material submitted by…

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As reported on The Verge. By Nathan Olivarez-Giles The web alone is not enough    Today, on Chrome’s fifth birthday, Google is announcing the rollout of what it’s calling Chrome Apps. Don’t feel bad if you’re confused by the name. Chrome has been serving up web apps since 2010 when the Chrome Web Store opened up alongside the launch of the Chrome OS. Chrome Apps, however, are different than what’s been offered before. They comprise Google’s bid to elevate…

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As reported on Engadget. By Jon Fingas You may not have noticed it yet, but Google is in the middle of sweeping changes toHangouts that should offer big improvements to image quality and accessibility. The company tells GigaOM that it’s currently upgrading its video chat service to 720p by switching from the H.264 video codec to the more efficient (and Google-controlled)VP8 standard. HD-quality Hangouts should be available soon after Google finishes the VP8 rollout to web users late next week.…

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As reported on Engadget. By Mariella Moon Here’s one for the logophiles and the voracious readers: searching for words on Google now returns more than their definitions. So, next time you look up a fancy term, the definition box will also contain its synonyms, sample sentences and a drop-down menu that can translate the word into another language. The new results even give you a glimpse of a word’s origins and show a graph of how commonly it’s used…

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As reported on TechCrunch. by MAHESH SHARMA Google has added a half-dozen new travel and entertainment features to its personalised search app Google Now. With the additions, the company is aiming to capture the attention of the real-world consumer, such as a sports fan watching an NCAA football game, or the recently landed tourist trying to find their rental car. Like Twitter, Google is drawing on a lot of evidence that indicates people are increasingly consuming entertainment — TV or otherwise —…

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As reported on The Verge. By Jeff Blagdon Google is giving experts a convenient way to profit from their talents online with a new service called Helpouts. It’s still being tested, but Google says it is currently inviting people “with expertise across a number of topics” to sign up in advance of the eventual public release.   GOOGLE TAKES A FLAT 20 PERCENT CUT OF WHATEVER EXPERTS PULL IN Helpouts are face-to-face video calls powered by Google+…

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