Google News

A mystery structure being built on a barge floating off San Francisco's Treasure Island has led to many speculations. While CNET predicts that Google is building a floating data center, others theorize that it could be a floating marketing center for Google Glass. Google had patented a 'water-based data center' in 2009, but has refused to comment on the development.

In reaction to plaguing malicious Chrome extensions, Google will block local Chrome extensions on the Windows platform from January ensuring installation only from the Chrome WebStore. However, its Dev and Canary channels will continue local installations. Google says, it hosts none of the malicious extensions and recommends developers to migrate extensions hosted outside the Chrome WebStore "as soon as possible".

The new Gmail update now allows users to preview and save attachments directly to Google Drive. The feature, already available to iOS and Android users, is now accessible from the desktop too. Files can still be downloaded to the computer directly, but the improved Google Drive integration allows for better file access across multiple devices.

On Monday, Google introduced a Chrome Beta release that alerts user about the tabs that are playing video or music, or using webcam or that being cast to TV. An addition of a speaker icon in the tab will allow users to visually locate the noisy culprit. The updated version will also warn users about malicious websites and files.

An advertisement by Google depicting two childhood friends, who are tearfully reunited following their separation during India-Pakistan partition, has gone viral online. The three minute video, titled Reunion, has racked up more than four million hits since it was posted online on Thursday. The advertisement explains how the two friends are brought together again by their grandchildren using Google Search.

In its annual financial report, Mozilla has maintained that the organization's revenue from Google increased from $139 million (85% of total revenue) in 2011 to about $280 million (i.e. 90% of total revenue) in 2012, leading to its increased dependency on Google. As a matter of relief to Mozilla, its expenses have not grown as quickly as its revenue.

According to Forbes, Apple with a brand value of $104.3 billion is the world's most valuable brand followed by Microsoft($56.7 billion), Coca-Cola($54.9 billion), IBM($50.7 billion) and Google($47.3 billion). US-based brands dominated with over fifty spots in the list of 100, far ahead of Germany(9 brands), France(8) and Japan(7). Unfortunately, no Indian company featured in the list.

Google has launched a hands-free conversational search to Chrome through the Google Voice Search Hotword extension (in Beta). The new feature allows users to ask Google questions by speaking with the search engine in a conversational manner, eliminating the need to type in search terms manually. Notably, the feature is available in English and only in the US.

Google's new robotic grocery delivery service is expected to challenge Amazon's drone project that envisages transporting goods to its customers by air. Reportedly, Google's robots could be paired with its self-driving car research to help automate the delivery of goods to people's doors. Google said it has taken over seven robotics companies in the past half-a-year to develop its product.

Google on Saturday announced the new Samsung Chromebook for India at Rs. 26,990. The Chromebook, weighing 1.1kg, comes with a 11.6 inch screen, 1.7GHz Exynos 5 dual processor, 2GB of DDR3L RAM, and 16GB of SSD. The company has already released Chromebooks from HP (for Rs. 26,990) and Acer ( for Rs. 22,999) in India recently.

Google India on Monday said it will kick of its three day long 'Great Online Shopping Festival' from December 11. The shopping carnival will see participation from about 241 e-commerce players, including Flipkart, Myntra, and Amazon India, among other. During this, sellers will be offering discounts ranging from 20% to 80% on footwear, property deals, books, jewellery, watches, electronics etc.

Aiming to cater to the world's fastest growing consumer technology markets, Google on Wednesday opened it's first data centres in Asia (Taiwan and Singapore). However, the company has no plans to open one in China or India due to the regulations. The tech giant also announced that it abandoned plans to build a third data centre in Hong Kong.

After getting a huge response from shoppers, Google on Thurday extended its mega event, 'Great Online Shopping Festival' (GOSF) by a day. The second edition of India's GOSF, which started on Wednesday, will now go on till Saturday. GOSF's first edition last year witnessed over a million people visiting the site, but this time that number has already been surpassed.

With a view to make its product usage easier and more effective, Google on Thursday launched a new site called Google Tips, which gives helpful guidelines on how to use Google products. The site is broken into cards, each of which offers a quick description of the products. At present, the site accommodates 13 products like Search, Gmail, Chrome etc.

In the latest update to Android(4.4.2), Google has removed an experimental privacy feature from it, that allowed users to block apps from collecting their personal information. It is speculated that Android users, who do not wish to upgrade to Android 4.4.2, could be vulnerable to security risks. The company claims to have included the privacy feature accidentally, in Android 4.3.

Google's Chromebooks were two of the three best selling laptops at Amazon this holiday season, beating Windows and Mac computers. With cheapest one by Samsung being priced at $192, Chromebooks are inexpensive laptops that are based entirely on the Chrome browser, and need an internet-connection to do anything. In October, Google said 22% of all US schools were using Chromebooks.

With nearly 1,24,000 media mentions during 2013, Google has dethroned Apple (1,20,500 mentions) to become the most talked-about company of the year, according to a report by Dow Jones. Microsoft and Bank of America were ranked third and fourth with 84,000 and 71,000 mentions, respectively. Google's highest month of mentions came in May, while for Apple, it was in September.

According to the latest numbers from NPD, Chromebooks accounted for 21% of all laptop sales and almost 10% of all computer sales to businesses in 2013 -- a big leap from virtually nothing in a year before. Moreover, Amazon this week reported that two out of its three best-selling laptops during the holiday season were Chromebooks.

Internet giant Google has entered a key partnership with the Election Commission (EC) of India to help it manage online voter registration and facilitation services, ahead of the 2014 polls. Google will offer EC its resources to enable voters to locate their polling station using Google Maps. Notably, Google will not charge the EC for these services.