Google's new indexing engine, Caffeine, is said to provide 50 percent fresher results for web searches than Google's last index.
Google's older index had several layers, some of which were refreshed at a faster rate than others. The main layer would update every couple of weeks, for example. To refresh a layer of the old index, Google would analyze the entire web.
With Caffeine, Google analyzes the web in small portions and updates its search index on a continuous basis, globally. That means fresher information.
Apple has changed the terms of its application developer agreement to block apps from using competitive ad networks operated by rivals such as Google.
That's ironic in light of "network neutrality" debates that some claim involve packet blocking, in the "restraint of trade" sense. Others point out that network management and grooming, as well as ability to create value-added services and features, are more the issue.
What is striking are the many ways packets are being groomed, blocked and shaped by application and device providers. Apple blocking Google ad network ads, or Apple refusing to share analytics with some third-party ad networks, are new examples.
Blunt instruments do not work well in a business and an ecosystem that changes this fast, especially when content pay walls, app stores, even operating systems and browsers can favor or deny access to "Internet bits."
Channel organizations have faced change ever since IP communications began to displace older voice technologies, principally by increasing technology skills requirements.
The complexity of UC implementations, especially in multi-vendor environments, requires a significant vendor or channel partner implementation and integration expertise, notes Melanie Turek, Frost & Sullivan principal analyst.
Most companies with more than a few dozen employees will deploy UC across technology from at least two vendors. That will involve integration, and since it's unlikely those two vendors are plug-and-play today, that integration will require services, she says.
The nature of channel partnerships also is changing as IT and telecom staffs converge with the shift to software-centric solutions, and with businesses increasingly virtualizing their data centers and communications infrastructures.
T-Mobile might be gearing up to offer free phones for Father’s Day.
According to the copy of the script TmoNews apparently obtained, a voice-over says, “Starting early 8 a.m. this Saturday, T-Mobile is putting families first with another first. We’re making every single phone in the store free.”"
Says AdMob CEO: Apple proposed new developer terms on Monday that, if enforced as written, would prohibit app developers from using AdMob and Google’s advertising solutions on the iPhone. These advertising related terms both target companies with competitive mobile technologies (such as Google), as well as any company whose primary business is not serving mobile ads. This change threatens to decrease – or even eliminate – revenue that helps to support tens of thousands of developers. The terms hurt both large and small developers by severely limiting their choice of how best to make money. And because advertising funds a huge number of free and low cost apps, these terms are bad for consumers as well.
Let’s be clear. This change is not in the best interests of users or developers. In the history of technology and innovation, it’s clear that competition delivers the best outcome. Artificial barriers to competition hurt users and developers and, in the long run, stall technological progress.
Since I started AdMob in 2006, I have watched competition in mobile advertising help drive incredible growth and innovation in the overall ecosystem. We’ve worked to help developers make money, regardless of platform – iPhone, Android, Palm Pre, Blackberry, Windows, and others. In the past four years, AdMob has helped tens of thousands of developers make money and build real businesses across multiple operating systems.
I’ve personally worked with many iPhone app developers around the world, including one who created a fun and simple game in the early days of the App Store. He built the app because he was interested in the challenge. He built this single app into a multi-million dollar advertising revenue stream with AdMob, hired a whole team, and turned a hobby into a real business.
We see these stories all the time. We want to help make more of them, so we’ll be speaking to Apple to express our concerns about the impact of these terms.
Google apparently is testing a new feature that makes Gmail chat more useful: users are able to make and receive Google Voice calls from inside the Gmail application, as they would using Skype on a PC.
A new phone icon opens a Gmail chat window with a dialpad, an option to find contacts, a credit balance and a call button.
Sales of Sprint Nextel Corp.’s HTV Evo smartphone did well even in markets that don’t yet have access to the company’s new super-fast 4G wireless network, the company’s CFO told analysts Wednesday. Considering there is a $10 monthly surcharge for the 4G network feature, paid by all HTC Evo users, whether they have access to the network or not, that's something.
Bob Brust, appearing at a New York analyst event, said that first-day sales of the HTC EVO 4G on Friday “did really well across the country, not just in 4G areas” and that the Overland Park-based company was “working hard to remedy” a rash of stores that sold out of the devices.
