This year, Google is expected to debut the new Android 5.0 Jelly Bean platform, and should make a change in the previous approach to releasing it on only one flagship device.

In line with previous rumors, new reports suggest that there will be multiple Nexus handsets arriving on shelves in 2012, and that they will come from more than a single manufacturer.

OEMs are expected to differentiate their devices through the included hardware capabilities, while loading the same Android UI on all of them.

For the past couple of months there have been rumors that Google plans to launch its own cloud-based data storage service. Today TheNextWeb.com reports that the service, called Google Drive, could launch as early as next week, possibly Tuesday or Wednesday.

The article claims it has received information about the launch and Google Drive's features from an unnamed partner. According to the site, Google Drive will launch with 5 GB of free cloud storage space for each user. That's higher than the 1 GB of free space that was previously rumored and also higher than Dropbox's free 2 GB space. However the amount is much smaller than the 25 GB of free cloud data space for users of Microsoft's Skydrive service.

Date: April 22, 2012
Place: Lviv, GClub Global Logic, st. Sheptytsky 26.


Start preparing GTUG Lviv in the familiar atmosphere of international breynstorm and offline chaos. Meeting time is localized in a single day, and the place, up to the target landing guglodesanta.

Google continues to add new features to its Google+ social networking service. One of the most popular sections of Google+ is Hangouts, which people use to create group conference calls. Now Google+ Hangouts has added a new feature that should be popular with its PC users; the ability to make telephone calls to most every cell phone and landline.

As described on the Google+ post by team member Vincent Paquet, Hangout users can now click on the Invite button and then click on the “+telephone” link if they want to make a phone call. After typing in the phone number, the user hits "Add" and the conversation can begin.

There's been lots of rumors that Google plans to step in and release a Google Nexus-branded tablet sometime in 2012. Earlier in March, new rumors claimed that Asus would be the company making the tablet and that it would have NVIDIA's quad-core Tegra 3 processor but priced at just $199.

Now there's yet another rumor about the Google Nexus-Asus tablet over at AndroidandMe.com. The report is based on statements made by an anonymous "senior employee at a supply chain company based in the United States." This employee says that the Google Nexus tablet is a "done deal."

Earlier this month, Google released a big update to its previously released Windows Phone search app, adding new features. At the moment, it's the only app made by Google that support's Microsoft's mobile OS. However, it looks like that situation could change sometime in the near future.

Stefan Keuchel, an official Google PR rep for Germany, posted a message on his German language Twitter account, (via WPCentral.com) that in basic translated terms says that a Google+ app for Windows Phone devices is in the works. Unfortunately, there's no specific release date yet.

Search engines on the Internet typically offer links to other web sites in response to a user's search inquires. Now it appears that Google will be offering up more specific answers on their own in addition to those web links. The Wall Street Journal reports that the search changes will begin sometime in the next few months.

Basically, if a person has a specific question, they will soon be able to type that question in a Google search box and get a specific answer on top of the normal web link search results. This new approach is called semantic search, which implies that the search engine actually understands the question that has been typed in. The normal method is the keyword search which looks for the words themselves on other web sites.

If you can remember the name "Google Play" then you’re most likely aware that it was originally assumed to be the name of the rumoured 7-inch Google Tablet. However, we can now confirm that it is the new name for the Android Market. We’re still unsure as to why a new name was necessary but we’re sure that the new name and new features will work out for the best.

Google Play is now an entirely cloud-based solution to purchasing your music, movies, books and apps. This means that all the purchased content a user buys is stored online, and is always available to them, without any fear of losing anything. Google Play can also auto-sync the applications purchased by users to a device of preference.

Internet users waiting for a Web page to load find a delay of even just milliseconds too long, engineers at U.S. search giant Google say.

A delay of 400 milliseconds, about the blink of an eye, causes people to search less, they said.

"Subconsciously, you don't like to wait," Arvind Jain, Google's resident speed guru, told The New York Times. "Every millisecond matters."

Internet users will visit a commercial or news Web site less often if it is slower than a close competitor by more than 250 milliseconds, experts said.

Google has withdrawn support for TippingPoint's annual Pwn2Own hacking competition following rule changes. Previously, entrants were required to reveal all the details about exploits used to compromise security. That stipulation no longer exists and folks are allowed to enter 2012's Pwn2Own without divulging their methods. Google called the practice "worrisome," noting that it's willing to pony up for vulnerability information.

Among other benefits, Pwn2Own is typically a source of positive PR for Google with Chrome surviving past events completely unscathed. Fortunately, hackers will still have an opportunity to try their hand at Google's robust browser during the same conference (CanSecWest) in Canada next month. The search giant will host its own event called "Pwnium," offering up to $1 million in monetary rewards for various degrees of exploitation.

Who has tried out the new Chrome for Android beta? While we love it here at Android Community it’s still in beta and has a ways to go, not to mention be available on more devices. Today Chrome’s Senior VP Sundar Pichai had a sit down and was able to chat about Chrome and Chrome for Android with CNET, and had some interesting things to say regarding the browser and it’s future.

While Pichai had plenty to say regarding the Chrome Browser its the part for Android that had me interested. Speaking about the amount of downloads (almost 500,000), and how they plan to improve it in the future — talking about feature requests and more. Here is what he had to say:

Faster, next-generation Chromebooks are on their way, Google has told ZDNet UK's sister site CNET News.

"We remain very excited about Chromebooks. We got a lot of positive feedback, and we are really looking forward to the next generation of Chromebooks," said Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Chrome, in an interview on Thursday. "We will improve on the dimensions of speed, simplicity, and security."

One of the biggest web sites in the world was briefly identified by two Microsoft security software products as being infected with malware. ZDNet UK reports that on Tuesday the programs, Microsoft Forefront and Microsoft Security Essentials, got an update that mistakenly tagged Google.com as being infected with the Blackhole exploit kit.

Because of the erroneous update, users of those software programs around the world posted word on Microsoft support forums that the applications were not allowing them to access Google.com. In a few hours, yet another update was sent out to both programs. In a post on the Sans Institute web site, the security group said, "As of 20:11 GMT-5 Feb 14 2012, we received confirmation from Microsoft stating that this problem is a false positive and will be corrected in the update 1.119.1986.0 or higher for the antivirus."

Google could be getting ready to offer up its own cloud-based storage service. That's the word, anyway, from The Wall Street Journal, who reports via unnamed sources that Google's cloud storage business will use the name Drive. Google could launch Drive "in the coming weeks or months."

Google's Drive service would be similar to Dropbox or Microsoft's Skydrive, including offering a certain amount of storage space for documents and other content for free and charging customers if they wanted a larger amount of cloud drive space. It would be a part of the company's Google Apps line up of online software services. The story claims that Google is aiming to price its services below that of Dropbox.

Google has just released a new flavor of the Google Docs application for devices running under its Android operating system. Most of the enhancements packed with the new app release were meant for offline use.

The new application release arrives with better management of offline content, including the possibility to see what’s out of date, as well as with the ability to have all files viewable when offline.

Google Docs also comes with automatic syncing of offline content while on WiFi, as well as with the possibility to star and rename files while offline.

YouTube remains the world's number one video-themed web site and today the site's owner Google announced some new statistics that are sure to blow some people's minds. On the official YouTube blog site, the company revealed that the site is generating a massive four billion video views per day. Google says that number is up 25 percent from just eight months ago.

Even more impressive is the number of videos that are being uploaded to YouTube every day ... or rather every minute. The blog states that 60 video hours are being uploaded by users to YouTube every minute. Yes that means that every second, one full hour of video is being transferred from users to the YouTube site. YouTube even has a colorful interactive infographic web site to illustrate just what those numbers mean.

European regulators have set a new deadline of 13 February to decide the fate of Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility, Reuters reported on Thursday.

Regulators for the European Union originally said they would make a decision on the merger by 10 January. But in December, the European Commission delayed the deadline stating that it wanted to review additional documents that Google had submitted to support its case.

Microsoft Corp. has finally reached a long-sought and expensive goal — its Bing search engine now ranks second behind Google in the Internet's most lucrative market.

Bing and Microsoft's other websites fielded 2.75 billion search requests in the U.S. during December, catapulting in front of Yahoo Inc. for the first time in the jockeying for runner-up to Google Inc.

That's according to statistics released Wednesday by comScore Inc.

Date: March 2, 2012
Place: Kiev



March 2, 2012 in Kyiv within the framework of partnership program with the company Google «Certified Consultants Google AdWords» Ukraine will host the first workshop for professionals on contextual advertising - «Google AdWords Professional."

The seminar will be held in a mini-group up to 15 people in a modern, equipped with computers and high-speed Internet audience.

Google has recruited the Muppets–a fond icon for many Gen Xers and the stars of a new movie–to promote Google+ Hangouts on TV.

Google, it is now clear, has flung itself headlong into TV advertising, since its first ad that aired during the Super Bowl in 2010.

But just who is Google trying to attract with its campaign–which has included spots on NBC’s Saturday Night Live. To promote Chrome, it has  recruited Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber.

None of these shows and artists, except perhaps the World Series, exactly screams out ‘we’re a serious social network.’

If you were wondering how well Android fares these days, you have nothing to worry about. The platform is selling very well, and the number of devices being activated each and every day is

increasing fast.

In fact, daily activations have just reached 700,000, at least this is what Andy Rubin, head of mobile operations at Google, notes in a recent tweet.

“There are now over 700,000 Android devices activated every day,” he notes, without offering further details.

While Apple has had lots of success with the iPad tablet line, tablets that have used Google's Android operating system as its basis have not sold nearly as well, at least until Amazon's Kindle Fire came along. Now Slashgear reports that Google's Chairman Eric Schmidt has been quoted in an Italian newspaper that the company has plans to market its own tablet.

According to the translation, Schmidt said, "In the next six months we plan to market a tablet of the highest quality." It's currently unclear if Google will sell and market the tablet itself, as it did with the Nexus line of Android smartphones, or if it will team up with a tablet manufacturer to aggressively market the tablet.

When Google announced that it was working on self-driving cars and that it had been testing the technology for a few years now, few people were not surprised.

Still, the technology is very much in the experimental phase and won't become a reality for many years to come. But Google is looking at the long term and it's already finding ways it could profit from its early investment.

The company has been granted a patent for self-driving cars. The patent covers a means for a car to go from driver control to self-control, at a designated place.

Elfster, a free online Secret Santa organizer and social networking platform, today announced a Christmas surprise alongside Google Chrome. Users of the Elfster App for Chrome can use a code fragment secretly hidden inside to unlock one of three special Angry Bird holiday levels! Those that haven't already grabbed Elfster can do so via the official website at http://www.elfster.com/ or on the Google Chrome store athttps://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pfagmcegbaeelbnibmipibkmigipedmk

"Elfster has always been a whimsical-yet-functional app, so we're thrilled to be connecting with a fellow fun-filled phenomenon like Angry Birds!" said Peter Imburg, CEO at Elfster. "We're excited to be partnering with Google for the holidays and look forward to seeing our fans enjoy the secret AngryBirds holiday level you can only unlock by using Elfster's ChromeApp."

The European Commission has put a temporary freeze on its review of Google's proposed purchase of Motorola Mobility as it seeks more details about the deal.

The Commission had originally intended to render its thumbs up or thumbs down on the deal by 10 January. But the Commission halted its ongoing review last Tuesday, according to a notification on its website.

Google announced Thursday that it released a new product called Google Currents, a mobile application for Android devices, iPads and iPhones that lets users digest content from magazines and other sources with the swipe of a finger.

There are already more than 150 publishing partners signed on to Google's new content delivery experience, including the likes of CNET, Forbes, Saveur, PBS, Huffington Post and many more. The app also seems to play nicely with most RSS feeds, so you can even add other sites that haven't been tailored to Google Currents yet. For those that haven't, Google is also launching a new self-service platform alongside Google Currents, that gives content publishers the power to customize their web content so it will fit naturally in the new app. Google claims that even small organizations like regional news outlets and non-profits can "effortlessly create hands-on digital publications for Google Currents."

More than 10 billion apps have been downloaded from Google's Android Market.

To mark the moment Google said that for the next 10 days it would cut the price of some top apps to 10p each.

The search giant announced the milestone on its blog adding that the store's apps were being downloaded at a rate of one billion a month.

However, some industry analysts played down the figure saying Google should do more to address poor-quality programs.

Google users have become accustomed to the Google Bar when they visit the search site. It's that dark bar on top of the page with all sorts of menu choices that take the Google user to various Google products like Gmail, Documents and more. Now Google is planning to get rid of that dark bar on top of the browser in favor of an all new approach.

In a post on the Official Google Blog, the company revealed that instead of a dark bar, users will now move their cursor to the Google logo on the top left of any Google page. That will bring down a menu that will give access to most of Google's features and services. Besides the logo, the only things on top of the page will be the search bar and a link to a user's Google+ tools such as sharing and a user's number of notifications. You can check out how the new Google Bar (which isn't really a bar anymore) works via the YouTube video above.

Google has announced that it is dropping seven more products in an effort to simplify its range of services.

The out-of-season "spring clean" brings an end to services including Google Wave, Knoll and Google Gears.

It is the third time that the US firm has announced a cull of several of its products at the same time after they had failed to take off.

Experts said the strategy might put off users from signing up to new services.

Google's Android operating system is pretty much everywhere you go in the smartphone and tablet world with a large number of devices from many different manufacturers. Today The Verge reports that during Google's press event (where it revealed its Google Music service), the company announced that the number of Android-based device has jumped up considerably in just a few months. In May Google said that "just" 100 million Android devices had been activated worldwide. Today that number has doubled with over 200 million Android devices now officially activated.

These numbers compare very well with Apple's iOS devices. In October, Apple said it sold a total of 250 million iOS products since the launch of  the first iPhone in 2007. Anyway you look at it the iOS and Android mobile operating systems are the two dominant forces in the smartphone industry. It also  means that app developers have two huge audiences for their creations.