Apple Jab at Google Likely at WWDC

Apple is expected to reveal its homegrown replacement for the Google Maps application, built into iOS 6, as the highlights of the Worldwide Developers Conference opening Monday.

Attendees are also likely to get a peek at that next-generation iOS, which will reportedly launch in the fall for select devices, including a brand new iPhone handset.

Apple's anticipated break from Google Maps would be yet another sign of the growing battle between Apple and Google for domination in the mobile space.

Since the original iPhone was introduced in 2007, Google Maps has supplied the iPhone's built-in mapping and location capabilities. But Apple is reportedly looking to control its own mapping functions as location-based services and features become baked into more mobile apps.

Evidence of the growing importance of location services is all over the App Store. Popular social applications such as Foursquare, Facebook, and Twitter let users share their location with friends. Google's iOS search app uses location to improve local search results, and mobile ad networks rely on location to deliver relevant advertising.

Location on the iPhone is big and promises to get bigger as people increasingly consult their smartphones for local restaurant reviews, finding the nearest car mechanic, tourism tips, and movie times.

Map Building

Apple is wary of leaving such a key component for the iPhone in the hands of one of its biggest rivals and getting ready to dump Google Maps, The Wall Street Journal reports. Over the past three years Apple has purchased three mapping companies: Placebase, Poly9, and C3 Technologies.  Apple in 2010 also revealed in a letter to Congress that it was working on a traffic conditions service for the iPhone -- something Google Maps already offers Android users.

Apple in fall 2011 replaced the iPhone's Google-made geocoder -- a piece of software that turns longitude and latitude into a point on a map -- with its own technology, according to the Journal.

Then, in early 2012, the first fruits of Apple's homegrown map effort turned up in iPhoto for iOS.

What Will Google Do?

As for Google, critics believe it suffer if its business relationship with Apple disintegrates. Many Apple watchers believe the iPhone maker is trying to wean its mobile users off other Google services in iOS. Apple's digital voice assistant, Siri, for example could encourage more people to give up using Google search -- the default search engine for the Safari browser on iOS. Siri can supply data from a variety of sources such as Yelp for local information and Wolfram Alpha for facts and figures.

The majority of Google's mobile traffic comes from the iPhone, the Journal reports. So if fewer iPhone users turn to Google for information, that means the search giant will see less potential ad revenue and user data from mobile users, an ever-expanding user base hungry for online information.

One thing that Apple probably won't, or at least can't, replace is the iOS app for Google-owned YouTube. There simply isn't a credible replacement for the most popular video site on the Web.

Will You Switch?

But will iPhone users accept Apple's homegrown alternative? Google Maps is very popular thanks to features such as Place Pages with local business information and Street View's immersive 360-degree photos of locations around the world.

And Google Maps promises to only get better. Google on Wednesday revealed new improvements to Google Maps including 3D flyovers and offline maps access. Google Maps will also be getting more Street View images using a special camera that can be carried by a person on foot, adding to Google's existing Street View images taken by a fleet of cars and special tricycles.

If Apple does dump Google Maps, the company may also choose not to make a lot of noise about it. Apple may opt instead to discuss potential new features of the iOS Maps app or perhaps a new look, while avoiding issues surrounding its business relationship with Google.

Regardless, many critics and pundits will be waiting to see if Apple on Monday offers a glimpse of what the Maps application will look like in the next version of iOS.

Google Improves Google Plus Search Signals

Google revealed a list of 39 changes it made in May, and one of them is about improving social search – particularly when Google chooses to show Google+ pages in the right-hand panel, often reserved for Knowledge Graph results.

Google’s listing for the change says:

Updates to +Pages in right-hand panel. [project codename “Social Search”] We improved our signals for identifying relevant +Pages to show in the right-hand panel.

Pretty vague. It does show, however, that Google is still trying to figure out the best way to use its social network in search. Before the Knowledge Graph, there was a much greater emphasis on Google+ in this area of search results pages, but Google is really high on the Knowledge Graph results, and considers it to be one of the most significant things it has done for search in recent memory. Google also says Knowledge Graph has increased user searches.

When Google revealed Search Plus Your World earlier this year, it put a lot more Google+ content into users’ search results, by default (although a good amount of this could be eliminated with the toggle button Google provides on the search results pages). Since then, Google seems to have toned the Google+ down a bit.

At SMX Advanced this week, Google’s Matts reportedly acknowledged that the +1 is “not necessarily the best quality signal right now.”

“It’s still early days on how valuable the Google+ data will be,” he’s quoted as saying.

That’s not to say there isn’t a great deal of value for webmasters to be using Google+. In another session at the event, Google+ was found to be a strong signal. A new study from Searchmetrics suggests that the quantity of +1′s has the stongest correlation with good Google rankings (compared to Facebook shares and Tweets), but Google+ doesn’t have enough users for them to be as significant.

Google Brings 300,000-plus AdMob Apps to AdWords

Facebook isn’t the only company with mobile ad news this week. Two years after closing its $750 million acquisition of mobile ad network AdMob, Google is connecting the company’s more than 1 million AdWords advertisers with the more than 350 million mobile devices in the AdMob network.

Now advertisers can run campaigns across AdMob’s 300,000-plus mobile apps through AdWords with the option to buy AdMob inventory separately or bundled with their desktop campaigns. AdMob dialed up more than one billion ad requests across 23 countries last month, according to Google, and the AdWords expansion is expected to drive up mobile inventory demand and mobile CPCs.

Coupled with Thursday’s announcement, Google beefed up its mobile ad targeting capabilities. In addition to targeting users by a specific app or app category within the Google Play Store or iTunes App Store, AdWords advertisers can now aim mobile campaigns—within AdMob or otherwise—at specific devices, such as an HTC One X smartphone or Samsung Galaxy Tab, or at a specific manufacturer like Apple. They can also target campaigns by mobile operating system, carrier and whether a device is connected to Wi-Fi.

“This is the latest chapter in our ongoing efforts not only to bring AdMob’s and Google’s tools together, but also to mobilize all of our ads products and services,” Jonathan Alferness, Google’s director of product management for mobile, said in a company blog post. Previous chapters include last year’s addition of AdMob inventory to the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, the February switch to AdWords-style auctions for AdMob CPC campaigns and last month’s move to let DoubleClick advertisers run static and rich-media campaigns within AdMob.

Connecting ad platforms has been a focal point for Google this week. On Tuesday the company announced an end-to-end display ad platform DoubleClick Digital Marketing that pulled together five products into one suite.

Google Maps adding 3D, offline directions

Google Maps are going 3D. Google announced new features it's building into maps, and it gives the perspective of what you might see if you could fly between buildings. Multiple photos are taken by airplanes, and then it's automatically stitched together to look like a 3D model. The demo was of San Francisco, but no word on which other cities will be the first to get this feature. It is expected to cover 300 million people by the end of the year.

But that's not all. Google Maps and directions will be accessible without an Internet connection. Mobile users will be able to save an area on the map to view offline later. The feature will first be rolled out to Android devices.

The ball is now in Apple's court for maps. We'll have to see what Apple has in store at its Developer's Conference next week.

The co-founders of Napster have launched a new video chat service called Airtime. It's still uncertain if people will care to even use this, but here's how it works: Using a Facebook connection, video chat with a friend and share videos (can be from Facebook or YouTube). You can also ask the system to find you a random stranger to talk to with similar interests. (Kinda strange.) Maybe if it rolls out some more new tools, people might see this as something worth using over Skype or Google Hangouts.

The HBO Go app is now available for Kindle Fire users. But just like every HBO app, it requires you to prove you pay for HBO through a cable provider. One group is hoping to change that with the site TakeMyMoneyHBO.com.

LinkedIn has confirmed that hackers have compromised millions of user's passwords. If your password was compromised, you will be prompted to create a new password the next time you visit the site. LinkedIn is also emailing users who may be affected. Be sure to create a strong password that's hard to crack. (Read tips here for creating a strong password.)

LinkedIn is also defending its mobile app, which can send your calendar info to LinkedIn's servers. This is an opt-in feature, and it's designed so the app can help you research the people you will be meeting with. But some security researchers saw that it wasn't just pulling in dates and people; it was also sending anything written in the notes, which could be sensitive. LinkedIn said the info was never stored on its servers, was always transmitted securely, and it will update the app to not gather any notes in a calendar event.

5 secrets hidden in Google's tribute to the first drive-in theater

1. Android mascot and the Wilhelm scream

The Android mascot dons a Hawaiian skirt for Google's tribute to the opening of the first drive-in theater. Plus, did you hear the Wilhelm scream? (Google)

Have you met the Android mascot? Google created this little, green bot to hype its smart phone operating system. Perched atop the dashboard of a 1950s car, the Android robot stands mid-hula, wearing a grass skirt complete with a coconut bra. It’s a unique play on the popularity of hula girl bobble heads, which still appear on car dashboards years after drive-in theaters have disappeared.

The Android mascot is used to wearing all sorts of costumes. When Google released Android’s 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, the lime green color was replaced with – you guessed it – an ice cream sandwich motif: chocolate on the outside, vanilla ice cream underneath. Google also released pins for Mobile World Congress 2011 that displayed the mascot wearing a blue polka dot dress and a red suit.

But there's a second Easter egg hidden in this shot: the most famous sound effect in Hollywood. Behind the green robot, on the drive-in movie itself, a typical Hitchcockian scene plays. Dressed in a suit, a man opens a door to a dark office, goes to flick on the light switch and sees a shadow of an ominous figure with outstretched fingers. The final shot shows the man’s wide, frightened eyes, reminiscent of facial close-ups in movies such as “Shadow of a Doubt” (1943) and “Psycho” (1960).

The character lets out a distinctive howl. It's the "Wilhelm scream," a particular sound clips that has appeared in countless movies. The exact same scream has been used in Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings, and many, many other films. 

As the Monitor reported recently, "the Wilhelm scream has appeared in Gremlins 2 (when a victim of the titular monsters falls to his death); Batman Returns (when a clown gets a bat-fist in the face); the direct-to-video Little Mermaid 2 (when a crew member on a doomed ship leaps overboard); and Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (during the battle for Helm's Deep)."

Horror movies were popular at drive-ins, including classics ranging from “The Blob” (1958) and “The Curse of Frankenstein” (1957). Although “horror movies, so popular in the thirties and early forties, had seen their star fall by the fifties,” according to Yahoo, “not many such films made the ‘A’ list. They were fodder for the drive-in theaters and Saturday matinees.” 

2. Google leetspeak

Google hid its name in the ticket number. 600613 is code for Google. (Google.com)

Every movie ticket has a serial number, and if Google had its way, every movie ticket would have the numbers “600613” on it. This little nod uses “leetspeak,” a computer geek code that replaces letters with numbers that look similar.

6 for G.

0 for O.

1 for L.

3 for E.

So, 600613 becomes Google. Subliminal advertising strikes again.

Google To Acquire Instant Messaging Service Meebo

Google has agreed to buy the online messaging firm Meebo, a move expanding the Internet giant's capabilities for instant sharing of Web pages using social networks.

Terms of the deal, announced Monday on the Meebo company blog, were not disclosed. But a report last month by the Dow Jones site All Things Digital said the price would be around $100 million.

"We are happy to announce that Meebo has entered into an agreement to be acquired by Google!," the company blog https://blog.meebo.com/ said.

"For more than seven years we've been helping publishers find deeper relationships with their users and to make their sites more social and engaging. Together with Google, we're super jazzed to roll up our sleeves and get cracking on even bigger and better ways to help users and website owners alike."

Meebo, a privately held company, claims to reach almost half the US Internet population, in part with its "Meebo bar" which allows users to click to comment or share a Web page using a social network.

The Meebo bar can be customized and added to any page without modifying the programming codes of the website, according to the firm.

Another Ex-Google Employee Blasts Google plus

Google might want to start instituting a gag order on all outgoing employees- and some that are still there as well. Another ex-employee has published a high-profile online criticism of the search giant, citing Google+ as a particular sore spot.

Spencer Tipping was a programmer at Google for six months, by his own description. His parting shot is unlike a lot of the other criticism out there because by the author’s own admission, it’s more an expression of his own personal reasons for leaving the company. Tipping admits that he has had “much trouble staying in one place,” holding several professional positions for brief amounts of time over the past few years- and at many points in the blog post, he acknowledges that a complaint is more a reflection of his personal biases than a critique of Google.

The post itself has taken on a life of its own: several updates and clarifications appear before and after the main section, not to mention the footnotes in the original post.

Tipping cites “technological culture” as his most pressing concerns, giving several reasons that probably don’t mean much to non-programmers. He criticizes various aspects of the coding being done, and some of the languages in which it is done at Google.

Of course, the most public attention is focused on the #1 complaint in his “Corporate Culture” section: Google+. Tipping writes:

I think Google+ is an effort that does not deserve the engineering minds at Google. This is mostly a personal bias. I see Google as solving legitimately difficult technological problems, not doing stupid things like cloning Facebook. Google, in my opinion, lost sight of what was important when they went down this rabbit hole.

Former Google engineer James Whittaker echoed some of these sentiments, especially the “rabbit hole” aspect, when he explained his decision to join rival Microsoft:

Social became state-owned, a corporate mandate called Google+. It was an ominous name invoking the feeling that Google alone wasn’t enough. Search had to be social. Android had to be social. You Tube, once joyous in their independence, had to be … well, you get the point. Even worse was that innovation had to be social. Ideas that failed to put Google+ at the center of the universe were a distraction.

And in October 2011, Google engineer Steve Yegge accidentally published a 5,000 rant about his employers, calling Google+ “a pathetic afterthought… a kneejerk reaction, a study in short-term thinking.”

What do you think? Do they all have some valid points?

Google Maps getting new timeline features

Google Maps could be about to get some pretty nifty new features, if leaked source code is anything to go by. Android Police has been rooting around in the APK to version 8.6, the latest build of Google Maps for Android, and has found mention of a timeline feature, as well as a whole new social aspect.

The picture above hints at how timeline could work. Though not entirely clear, the graphics seem to show progress on a map, with a home icon, checkbox, briefcase for work, etc. So it could show your progress through this series of graphics. Intriguing.

It has the same name as the timeline feature in Facebook, and seems to fulfil a similar function. I suppose you could use it to see how long a journey took, as opposed to how long it was meant to take, and help plan for next time.

Google sent out invites for an event showing "the next dimension of Google Maps". That would imply 3D, but seeing as Google already does 3D maps, the next dimension is presumably time.

Google Latitude also looks like it'll be getting Google Plus integration, which makes a lot of sense. Rather than sharing your location with contacts one by one, you'll be able to share it with your circles and let everyone know you're enjoying a Whopper in the Burger King at Oxford services.

Also new? A coin feature, letting you rate how expensive a restaurant is when writing a review, and a bicycle layer for finding bike-friendly routes.

Google is holding a Maps event on Thursday, when all will become clear. Apple is rumoured to be dropping Google Maps in favour of a military-grade maps service it bought last year. Missile-like accuracy, here we come.

Would you like to see these new features? And should Apple drop Google Maps? It does seem a bit erratic to me, often getting my location spectacularly wrong. Let me know your thoughts in the comments, or on Facebook.

Google Hypes 'Next Dimension' of Maps Ahead of Apple Event

Google will host an event next week to talk about the "next dimension" of Google Maps--five days before Apple is expected to ditch the service in favor of its own mapping product for iOS at its WWDC.

“At this invitation-only press gathering, Brian McClendon, VP of Google Maps and Google Earth, will give you a behind-the-scenes look at Google Maps and share our vision,” says a notice on publications. “We’ll also demo some of the newest technology and provide a sneak peek at upcoming features that will help people get where they want to go – both physically and virtually.”

A report by 9to5Mac last month claimed that Apple will drop Google Maps in the next version of iOS, and will instead use a homegrown mapping service. Apple has acquired several companies in the mapping space over the last few years, and may finally be ready to give Google Maps the ax. Google may be trying to preempt Apple's announcement with promises of grand new features.

It's anybody's guess what Google will announce, but given the term “next dimension” on the invite, we may see some new 3D mapping akin to what Apple is rumored to announce for iOS6.

Also, the place marker icon on the invite image is the same one that Google uses to denote local businesses. It's possible that Google will expand local business search within its Maps app and provide more recommendations on where to go. The language in the invitation--”help people get where they want to go”--lends some credence to this theory.

(Video below is of the Swedish 3D mapping firm C3 Technologies that Apple acquired in 2010. It's believed that Apple will talk more about this technology at WWDC as part of an overhaul of its iOS mapping tech.

Google has also done a lot of work with indoor maps, including floor plans and interior views, so we might see these features expanded to more retailers and highlighted more prominently in Google's mobile apps--but all this is speculation on my part.

Mapping and navigation are among the most valuable tools in any smartphone, so it'll be interesting to see what Google and Apple come up with. Stay tuned.

Google files patent claim against Microsoft, Nokia

 

Google lashed out at Microsoft and Nokia in a regulatory complaint, accusing them of illegally feeding mobile patents to a technology troll scavenging for billions of dollars in licensing fees that threaten to drive up the prices of cellphones and other wireless devices.

The claims were spelled out Thursday in a complaint filed with the European Commission, the chief regulator on that continent. Google Inc. also shared the complaint with the US Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission.

Microsoft Corp. brushed off Google's accusations as the "desperate tactic" of a company facing regulatory questions about its dominance of online search and digital advertising. Efforts to reach Nokia Corp. representatives at the company's headquarters in Finland late Thursday were unsuccessful.

Google's attack on Microsoft and Nokia escalates a legal brawl among technology giants trying to gain the upper hand in the rapidly growing market for mobile computing. Most of the fighting so far has been in the courtroom, where lawsuits and countersuits alleging patent infringements have been filed by Apple Inc., Samsung, Microsoft, Oracle Corp. Nokia, and HTC, among others.

Some of the missives have been aimed at Google and its business partners using its Android software for smartphones and other mobile devices. To protect itself, Google picked up 17,000 mobile patents in a $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility Holdings that was completed last week.

Nokia joined forces with Microsoft last year when it agreed to adopt Windows as the operating system on its cellphones.

Google's complaint centres on 2,000 wireless patents that Nokia and Microsoft sold in September to MOSAID Technologies Inc., a company that specializes in collecting royalties on intellectual property. Companies that focus on extracting patent royalties instead of innovating are derisively known in the technology industry as "trolls."

MOSAID has made it clear it believes it is sitting on a potential gold mine.

After Nokia and Microsoft handed over the patents, MOSAID estimated the royalties from the intellectual property rights could bring it more $1 billion in revenue over the next decade. Under terms of the sale, MOSAID keeps one-third of the revenue from the patent royalties with the remainder going to Nokia and Microsoft. That mean's MOSAID's revenue estimates imply the patents could generate licensing fees of $3 billion during the next decade.

MOSAID declined to comment Thursday. The company, which is based in Ottawa, Ontario, already is suing iPhone and iPad maker Apple for alleged patent infringement in a Texas federal court.

The portfolio that Nokia and Microsoft transferred to MOSAID is valuable because about 1,200 of the patents are considered to be "essential" to the operation of most mobile devices running on 2G, 3G and 4G wireless networks.

Some of the patents cover parts of open-source software known as the Linux Kernel, a form of freely available computer coding that Google used in building its Android operating system. Google alleges MOSAID is reneging on a commitment that Nokia made in a 2005 regulatory filing when the company pledged not to enforce patents against software relying on the Linux Kernel.

"Nokia and Microsoft are colluding to raise the costs of mobile devices for consumers, creating patent trolls that side-step promises both companies have made," Google said in a statement. "They should be held accountable, and we hope our complaint spurs others to look into these practices."

In its statement, Microsoft alluded to investigations in the US and Europe into allegations that Google has been abusing its influential role in Internet search to thwart competition and increase advertising rates.

Google "is complaining about antitrust in the smartphone industry when it controls more than 95 percent of mobile search and advertising," Microsoft said. "This seems like a desperate tactic on their part."