As reported on Engadget. BY SEAN BUCKLEY How much will a modular smartphone set you back? If Google gets its way, about $50 — assuming you forgo all of the bells and whistles. The team behind Project Arawants to launch what it calls a “grayphone,” a barebones customizable exoskeleton that comes with little more than a screen, a frame and a WiFi radio. That wouldn’t be much of a phone, of course, but its only the bait. Google’s Paul…
As reported on TechCrunch. by Darrell Etherington Your smartphone hosts a bevy of sensors that do many things within its sleek case. But thanks to a new project, dubbed Tango, by Google’s Advanced Technology And Projects (ATAP) group, your next one might have one more superpower: visual spatial awareness. As in, your next smartphone might be able to not only see, but also to understand its surroundings. If that seems like something out of science fiction,…
As reported on Engadget. BY TIMOTHY J. SEPPALA Google is no stranger to humanitarian work, and its latest effort is helping keep an unflinching eye on the world’s trees. For its part in the Global Forest Watch, the search giant is providing tech (namely, Earth and Maps) that allows virtually anyone to monitor deforestation on a massive scale. Let’s say you want to peek at how much of Brazil’s rain forest has been clear-cut in since 2008. You can do that. Even better,…
As reported on The Verge. By Chris Welch There’s been plenty of fierce debate around Google Glass and general etiquette for using the device, and now Google is finally stepping in with its own take. The company has posted a list of do’s and don’ts for participants in its Explorer program. “Our Glass Explorer community, which consists of people from all walks of life, actively participates in shaping the future of Glass,” Google says. But these suggestions don’t…
As reported Wired. BY PRANAV DIXIT Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired To access one of Google Maps’ best hidden features, you have to know the magic word. Well, it’s a phrase, really, and that phrase is: “OK Maps.” Enter this phrase into the Google Maps app and the portion of the map that’s currently visible on your screen will be saved directly to your device. Once saved, you can access that map even without a data connection.…
As reported on Engadget. BY MARIELLA MOON You might get zero hits now when you search for pics of a giant fleet of Google zeppelins, but that could change in the not-too-distant future. Planetary Ventures, one of the company’s subsidiaries, just got into an agreement to take over a humongous NASA hangar (named Hangar One) in Mountain View that’s big enough to house a slew of dirigibles. To be exact, Google will lease Hangar One and its surrounding land,…
As reported on Engadget. BY MATT BRIAN If you were hoping Flappy Bird would find its wings and fly back onto the App Store or Google Play, its creator has some tough news for you. Less than 48 hours after he pulled the explosively popular game, developer Dong Nguyen briefly emerged from his self-imposed exile to talk to Forbes about why that little bird will flap no more. According to Nguyen, the game was designed to help people relax, let players blow…
As reported on TechCrunch. by Frederic Lardinois Google Glass is still months from its public launch, but after the initial hype, most of the recent news around Glass has been negative. It seems like for every positive round ofpublicity Glass gets, it soon gets hit by something negative soon after. Just a few days ago, for example, word spreadthat the New York Police Department was testing Glass. Google itself isn’t working with the NYPD, as far as I can tell, but somebody…
As reported on Engadget. BY SHARIF SAKR France and Google are playing a delicate game of brinkmanship in the courts of Europe, and it still isn’t clear who’ll come off worse. France fined the search company €150,000 ($200,000) last month as a penalty for failing to tell French citizens exactly what happens to their personal data. Google could have coughed up the trivial sum and drowned its sorrows in a bottle of beaujolais, but instead it has decided to fight…
As reported on The Verge. By Aaron Souppouris You could be the star of a major new exhibition Your work could be at the heart of one of the largest digital art exhibitions the world has ever seen, thanks to a collaboration between London’s Barbican Centre and Google. The exhibition is called Digital Revolution, and from July 3rd to September 14th it will explore the impact of technology on art over the past 40 years. It will…