Google is shutting down its Slide team, which has been running as an independent unit since it was bought over a year ago for $ 200 million. Slide was a social apps startup with its acquisition part of Google’s plans to get more social. But, that was before the success of Google+. All of the [...]
Last fall, Google made its first attempt to take over your living room with the launch of Google TV — a platform that merged the web with television content to create an experience promising to usher in a new era of convenience and interactivity. Unfortunately it’s been mostly a dud thus far. The platform’s overly-complex user [...]
Samsung may have publicly praised Google’s acquisition of Motorola earlier this week, but behind the scenes the company is reportedly furious that its competitiveness may be slipping away. Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Kun-hee chaired a last-minute meeting in the aftermath of the deal’s announcement, Yonhap News reports, in which he warned execs that IT power was shifting from hardware companies [...]
Google has announced a four day pseudonym grace policy on Google+, giving those not currently showing their real name on the social network the opportunity to change that, rather than see their account instantly suspended. According to Saurabh Sharma, a Google+ product manager, during that four days users will be able to interact on the site [...]
Later this summer, Vizio will launch an 8-inch tablet that will come with an IR blaster. According to the company, that device will support 95-percent of the consumer electronic devices currently available in the U.S. I’m sure there are many out there that are excited by Vizio’s news. Those folks like the idea of being [...]
If you’re a Comcast customer, your TV viewing experience will soon get very interactive. Just yesterday, Comcast announced a partnership with Skype to bring HD video calling to your television sets, and today the company unveiled a new Xfinity set-top box powered by Intel that will integrate Facebook to bring social features and app support [...]
Google’s mantra of launching products early and often didn’t exactly work with Google TV. It hit the ground with a gimped feature set and limited hardware options. The analogy of Android simply hasn’t held true as hardware makers and retail vendors alike simply haven’t picked up the devices. Today, at Google I/O, new hardware partners [...]
John Lennon would have loved Twitter, Yoko is said to have revealed. Certainly she would have the inside track on this, especially if she had insisted on it. But what I want to know is whether Hendrix would have loved GarageBand, or would Miles have preferred Android over iPhone. It’s open, man… We’ll never know [...]
Google is looking to recruit a new user experience lead, responsible for Google TV apps and the related SDK. According to the job description, the successful candidate will be “asked to pioneer new possibilities for web-based and Android application experiences on the platform and establish the patterns and standards used to develop great interactive experiences [...]
The PlayStation 3 and Google TV recently got an updated version of Netflix’s Watch Instantly interface and now Samsung HDTVs compatible with Samsung Apps seem to be getting the latest interface too. According to reports, the latest interface appeared after a firmware upgrade on a UN46C6500 LCD HDTV and it now offers the ability to [...]