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Google Opens Apps Marketplace

The new Apps Marketplace allows other companies to offer applications that compliment and enhance Google’s existing suite of web-base applications which includes everything from Google Doc’s to G-Mail.  More than 50 companies are now selling applications across a range of businesses, including:

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Google To Open Android Business Market

Android Business Market Coming Soon

Rumor has it that sometime this month Google will open an Android Market geared toward business, if done correctly this could be a good thing for consumers and developers.

My biggest complaint about the Android Market is that applications are accepted without any kind of review process. At first the zero application review sounds like a great idea, but you soon realize that quality or legitimacy of apps is greatly diminished without review. Remember the January bru-ha-ha surrounding the fraudulent banking apps?

Hopefully the new market will encourage application developers to deliver higher quality products, we’ve all installed and returned that app that just didn’t quite work as intended.  With any luck the new market will weed out those who develop and submit faulty applications simply because they want to see their name in “lights.”

Will Google do it right, or simply rebrand the existing Android Market?

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Google Releases Google Earth for Android

Google Earth

Today Google release Google Earth for Android, unfortunately if you’re not running Android 2.1 you’ve been left out loop.

Peter Birch, a Google product manager, wrote in a blog post:

“This is our fastest mobile version of Google Earth yet, with a smooth framerate and a beautiful 800 x 480 screen.”

The Android version of Google’s mapping program will include the Roads layer, which labels road names on top of satellite images. Google has also added voice recognition to Google Earth.  As with other versions, Google Earth for Android includes photos, places, and local businesses, and the ability to customize so it displays the layers you use most.

As with other versions of Google Earth, you can also browse photos, places, and local businesses, whether it is in your local community or on the far side of the globe. Click on an icon to see photos, videos, and read about prominent places in the world. You can easily customize your version of Google Earth to display the layers that most interest you.

[via: google]

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Google Announces Google Shopper Application

Today Google announced the addition of Google Shopper to their Android application line-up.

Part barcode scanner, part Shop Savvy, and part Amazon app. Google Shopper allows you to scan either a products barcode or covers of books, cds, and video games.  Shopper uses the auto-focus camera of your Android device to capture a product image or barcode.  Using that information Google Shopper will return with prices, ratings, retailers, and access to expert and user reviews.

Here’s how Google describes the workings of Google Shopper:

Shopper lets you find product information quickly by using your phone’s camera. It can recognize cover art of books, CDs, DVDs, and video games, along with most barcodes. You can also speak the name of the product you’re looking for. Use Shopper to make smart decisions about what to buy, what price to pay, and where to buy it. You can star items for later and share them with friends. Shopper also saves your history so you’ll always have product and price information at your fingertips, even when you don’t have a signal.

Quick review with images and video after the break.
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Google Buzz Working On Sprint HTC Hero

Buzz to Latitude and Latitude to Buzz

I’ve been playing around with Google Buzz the last couple of days and finally was able to get it to work on my HTC Hero via the buzz.google.com website.  Well, maybe I should say I was able to get it to partially work.  I’m able to post updates to Google Buzz minus my location.

This morning I logged into Google Maps and Latitude and noticed that my Buzz status update from February 13th was showing in my Latitude updates and I was able to converse back and forth with my fellow Buzzards in that update.

If you look at the 2nd and 3rd updates in the list, I posted those via Latitude, when I signed into my Buzz account from the computer I noticed that they had also cross posted to Buzz, but were only available to those people who were Latitude buddies.

Now I was on a mission to find out if there was a setting in Latitude that I was missing.  Why were updates from Buzz on the mobile web showing in my Latitude updates?  And, why were updates from Latitude showing in my Buzz updates but limited to my Latitude buddies? Read more…

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Google’s Android OS Will Support Flash 10.1

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google announced today in his keynote speech during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that Google’s Android will support Flash 10.1 opening up the Android operating system  to more content.

Android will no longer be locked into application based games or video content. Users will be able to interact with websites in the same way they interact on their computers.  This is huge because neither the iPhone nor the upcoming Windows 7 operating systems support flash. On top of that, this is not Flash Lite. This is full fledged Flash, users will get the full functionality of flash and not just simple audio or video streams.

This should make competitors nervous simply because Microsoft has claimed that they are working with Adobe to develop a solution; however, flash will not be ready for the launch of Windows 7.  Another reason Google will continue to take market share away from Windows Mobile and iPhone.

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Google Unveils Buzz Live Updates

Today Google unveiled its real time status update addition to G-Mail named Buzz.  Buzz much like Twitter allows users to update their status within G-Mail so that the world or the people they e-mail regularly know what they’re up to.

Google Buzz will auto-follow your frequent contacts, collect live updates from a your contacts and show not just direct messages but updates from Twitter and Google Reader. It doesn’t currently post outward; however, Google hints that Buzz may eventually make updates to Twitter and similar services in the future.

Buzz also aggregates media posts from Flickr, Picasa, and YouTube which are given special treatment and include special media browsers to view content without having to leave the existing environment. Read more…

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Father of Linux Linus Torvalds Buys a Nexus One

We’re not usually concerned when someone buys a Nexus One, but when it’s the father of Linux Linus Torvalds the guy who self admittedly hates cell phones – “they are irritating and disturb you as you work or read or whatever – and a cellphone to me is just an opportunity to be irritated wherever you are. Which is not a good thing,” – well that’s news worthy.

Torvalds has owned a number of phones, including Google’s G1 device and  ”one of the early China-only Motorola Linux phones,” before he finally broke down and bought one from the company’s web store.  It took Google’s addition of multi-touch capabilities to the Nexus One to make that happen.  He admits that his G1 was mostly used to play games while on long flights.

Torvalds’ loving it:

But I have to admit, the Nexus One is a winner. I wasn’t enthusiastic about buying a phone on the internet sight unseen, but the day it was reported that it finally had the pinch-to-zoom thing enabled, I decided to take the plunge. I’ve wanted to have a GPS unit for my car anyway, and I thought that google navigation might finally make a phone useful.

And it does. What a difference! I no longer feel like I’m dragging a phone with me “just in case” I would need to get in touch with somebody – now I’m having a useful (and admittedly pretty good-looking) gadget instead. The fact that you can use it as a phone too is kind of secondary.

Google couldn’t buy better advertising than having the father of Linux espouse the virtues of the Nexus One.

[via: linus' blog]

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Apple Threatens App Availability if Mention of Android Isn’t Removed

The Apple vs Google battle continues, it appears that Apple’s animosity toward Google has spilled over into Apple’s iPhone App Store approval process. Apple asked a developer to delete mention Google’s Android in an application’s description.

In an email to Tim Novikoff the developer of “Flash of Genius: SAT Vocab,” Apple wrote:

“it would be appropriate to remove ‘Finalist in Google’s Android Developer’s Challenge!’ from the application’s description.”

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T-Mobile UK in Talks with Google to Land Nexus One

It seems that Google’s Nexus One might appear on the T-Mobile network in the UK, according to a loose-lipped tweet by Robin O’Kelly, head of corporate affairs at T-Mobile.

O’Kelly tweeted, “T-mobile in talks to range Nexus one also. Happy landing.”

He then followed that up with the confirmation, “We’re talking to Google re nexus and hope we can come up with something very soon.”

Robin O'Kelly, head of corporate affairs at T-Mobile.

At the moment only Vodafone has the Nexus One on its network, as we know T-Mobile carries the Nexus One on its network here in US. So there’s every reason to believe that T-Mobile will soon offer the Nexus One in the UK once the two companies have hammered out a deal.

Maybe Google is rethinking their game plan after the challenge laid down by Steve Jobs of Apple.  This bodes well for the Sprint and AT&T rumors we’ve been hearing.

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