With a whirlwind of announcements at its Google I/O developers conference this week, Google’s vast suite of social products is finally starting to look like it was created by a single company and not cobbled together via a series of haphazard acquisitions. Here are the highlights of what’s changed: Hangouts: Google Messaging, Unmessy At Last [...]

The universe of apps for Google Glass, initially limited to the New York Times and the social network Path, is expanding rapidly. Google on Thursday announced several more entries to its Glassware stable: Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Tumblr, CNN news updates, Elle fashion features and a Glass-only game called Ice Breaker. Look for more Glass apps to surface [...]

I’m a devoted Pathhole—a hardcore user of mobile social network Path. For all that I make fun of Path’s twee, artisanal, and bespoke nature—on a recent visit to its lovely office in San Francisco, I was tempted to ask CEO Dave Morin if his software engineers were cruelty-free—I have a soft spot for the service [...]

In one of the more popular Google I/O sessions of Day 2, two members of the Google [x] team behind Project Glass explained how to enable root access on your expensive eyewear — a step that will also void your warranty, just like it does when you root an Android smartphone. What does root access do? [...]

A few years ago, Google’s cloud services focused on simply storing and managing objects: email, documents, music, and movies. The 2013 version of Google is now using the cloud to connect and build relationships between them, responding to and anticipating the desires of its users. Google used its I/O keynote to describe how its vast [...]

Google bombarded thousands of attendees at its I/O 2013 Keynote with enough information to force that hi-res photo of Vic Gundotra’s forehead into their dreams tonight. Here are the eight best moments: Google Variant Of The Samsung Galaxy S4 One of the briefer announcements at I/O was the introduction of a variant of the Samsung Galaxy S4 [...]

What’s in Google’s Wallet? Under the Wallet name, Google has been mostly selling failure. It’s offered a confusing array of payment services—most notably, a way of paying for items in stores by tapping your smartphone to a device on the counter. That in-store payment service has been, let’s say it, an outright disaster. But Google [...]

Google has formally demanded that Microsoft yank its new YouTube app for Windows Phone, which allows users to skip ads and download YouTube videos — both of which violate YouTube’s terms of service. The Verge has the full text of Google’s cease-and-desist letter, which is dated today. ReadWrite reported on the Microsoft app’s apparent rule-breaking [...]

At the Moscone Center West, where Google’s been holding its annual I/O conference for developers, we’ve seen a fair number of people wearing Google Glass, the face-mounted display-and-camera gadget Google introduced last year. The most prominent Glass-toter was Google cofounder Sergey Brin, who drew a crowd at an after-hours party for press attending the event. [...]

Activist shareholder Dan Loeb just called for Sony to sell up to 20% of its entertainment division, and Sony has already rejected the offer in a statement provided to USA Today. Third Point, a New York-based hedge fund managed by Loeb, owns roughly 6.5% of Sony, making it one of the company’s largest shareholders with a stake [...]

Square, PayPal, and Groupon all made news today with the common goal of getting small businesses to junk their cash registers for Internet-connected devices that promise to bring the simple act of settling accounts into the future. Change With Your Coffee I work from home, but every morning I wake up, take a shower and [...]

A quiet upgrade to Bing’s language translator today has added Klingon, in both the Latin and Klingon alphabets.  That’s great news if you wanted to ask, “How does one get ‘Scroogled’?” in the elegant tongue of Star Trek’s most warlike species. The answer, of course, is “chay’ Qu’ ‘SchrooghleD’ wej wa’?”  Or perhaps you were [...]