[Google] announced on Friday that there are now 2,000 schools using Chromebooks for Education around the world. Just three months ago, there were 1,000 schools, showing an impressive adoption rate so far.
Google announces that 2,000 schools now use Chromebooks, up 100% in three months
Chromebooks will continue to dominate education, and the low pricepoint is a huge reason why.
The Internet search giant unveiled on its Chinese search site this week a new mechanism that identifies political and other sensitive terms that are censored by Chinese authorities. For example, when users search for keywords like “carrot”—which contains the character for Chinese President Hu Jintao’s surname—a yellow dropdown message says: “We’ve observed that searching for ‘hu’ in mainland China may temporarily break your connection to Google. This interruption is outside Google’s control.
Engadget reports that Google has integrated leaderboard functionality into Latitude. It’s an attempt that “threatens foursquare under its breath,” but to foursquare, this likely isn’t making anyone run for the hills.
Looking at Latitude holistically, there isn’t much that encourages users to adopt the service and provide location check-in data. Leaderboards, a key part of the foursquare experience, likely will not change that fact. Considering that Latitude has not experienced the same kind of hype a service like foursquare has, it’s unlikely leaderboards will make that much of a difference.
It’s an odd attempt by Google to make Latitude relevant. Time will tell if additional functionality is added on, but in the interim, it looks like Latitude is still behind foursquare, Facebook Places and other geolocation services. And isn’t going anywhere soon.
Michael Liebhold, a senior researcher specializing in wearable computing at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, Calif., predicts that the next step in technology is the blurring of the real and virtual worlds.
Over the next 10 years, he says, he envisions that people will be wearing glasses with built-in screens and, eventually, contact lenses — with working displays.
“Kids will play virtual games with their friends, where they meet in a park and run around chasing virtual creatures for points,” he said.
According to Nick Bilton, wearable computers will become a new standard as people become “more absorbed by the [smartphone] screen.” While it’s hard to envision what exactly these prototypes could look like, it’s reported that Apple and Google have already begun testing prototypes of their own.
If anything, the smartphone — which already takes up a significant part of our daily lives, both in time and attention — will only grow in importance. And if Google and Apple are placing heavy bets in building and developing technologies around this device, then we have to assume that smartphones aren’t going away anytime soon.
Who says innovation isn’t possible at a corporate company? Today’s Dilbert cartoon pokes fun at Google 20% time.
Android and iOS combine to secure a whopping 82 percent of the smartphone market. Apple has 29 percent of the market, while Android has the lion’s share with 53 percent. These two platforms were the only ones to record growth in 2011. RIM’s BlackBerry OS, which has struggled this year, declined to a meager 8 percent of the market share. Newcomer Windows Phone 7 didn’t plummet like RIM, but it didn’t climb either. Throughout 2011, the platform never went above 2 percent.
The NPD has released smartphone market share numbers for the year. They aren’t surprising. Apple and Google continue to lead the way, as Android and iOS were the only platforms that grew.
Windows Phone 7 didn’t move, which is a minor surprise considering that Microsoft seemed to advertise their devices on television fairly extensively.
An interesting infographic that breaks down the top 20 most expensive keywords in Google AdWords. The top three keywords: Insurance, Loans and Mortgage. (Source / Larger Image)
Please accept our apologies for the spam we caused this afternoon.
For about 80 minutes we ran out of disk space on the service that keeps track of notifications. Hence our system continued to try sending notifications. Over, and over again. Yikes.
We didn’t expect to hit these high thresholds so quickly, but we should have.
Thank you for helping us during this field trial, and once again, we are very sorry for the spam.
The number one most important thing we can do to increase the number of women in tech is to show a multiplicity of different role models. The stereotype of that very complete and rigid picture of what being a computer scientist means really hurts people’s understanding and ability to identify with the role and say, ‘Yes, this is something I can be in and want to be in.’
Gordon and HC friend Michael are interviewed in an article about not being on Facebook, and do not at all come across like pretentious yuppie tech nerds.
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“Facebook lost more than six million users in May according to a widely publicized report by InsideFacebook, which collects data on the site. That number was disputed by Facebook and other third-party researchers, who reported a net gain for the month, but everyone’s data show Facebook’s momentum has slowed—and the web’s power users, at least, seem to have moved on.”
”’The tech-savvy crowd has grown tired of Facebook,’ Jason Calacanis, dot-com publisher of the bygone Silicon Alley Reporter, wrote this weekend in his email newsletter predicting that Google+ will be a “crushing success.”
Now that Google+ has debuted, how many people will opt to delete their Facebook accounts in favor of other social platforms? The article dives deep into how peoples’ perception of Facebook have changed over time.
According to Matthew Panzarino, Google is making all profiles public “primarily to aid in the growth of its new Google+ social network.”
This isn’t the best idea. In the past, Google has faced several privacy issues (Buzz first comes to mind). Though a user can determine what circles to share content with, users who are not as familiar with the social network may underutilize and/or not use Circles. Without question, it could cause a lot of problems.
Users have two choices: Either make your profile public or delete it outright.
With all of these new social features debuting, it’s clear that we live in exciting times. The big winner of the “social wars” is the user. With more features and more competition than ever, users will have the opportunity to pick the most applicable platforms to meet their needs.
Source: twitter.com
Well first, I don’t think competitors kill companies and services. I think the vast majority of “deaths” are self inflicted. Facebook didn’t kill MySpace and Friendster, they killed themsleves by failing to address the shortcomings of their services and their inability to respond to changing market dynamics, in some cases brought on by competitors. Of course, that fate could be in store for any company, including our portfolio companies, but it won’t be because of Google+.
Source: avc.com
“We’re still just scratching the surface of marrying human relationships with information,” he says. “There’s a huge opportunity which someone else will fill — or we will fill.”
— Google search engineer Amit Singhal | Inside Google+ — How the Search Giant Plans to Go Social
Source: Wired
Google, you have the best of intentions. But the small gesture in Chat has caused a stir for those without fathers today.
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