The Story

Google and Verizon are to hold a joint press conference today, during which the companies will announce a new partnership: Android phones are coming to Verizon. According to some other information, this means at least one handset as early as the second half of this month.

Procuring Android-powered phones for sale will finally give Verizon what many in the tech community consider to be a “real” smartphone. Right now, AT&T has the iPhone, T-Mobile has a few Android phones, and Sprint has the Palm Pre, though they’re slated to get their own Android phone soon. But Verizon only has BlackBerry phones, which are not exclusive products.

Verizon is coupling its new smartphones (which we will know more about later in the day) with a heavy 3G advertising campaign. The ads are aimed at convincing consumers that Verizon has the best 3G coverage, presumably in hopes to get people out of the AT&T-iPhone camp.

Verizon Needs This More Than You Think

Verizon may be the biggest carrier in the United States right now, but that could change very quickly if the company does not provide consumers with a good reason to keep with …

An example of a Google Hot Trends page.

The Story

In an attempt to make things a little more real time, Google has launched Google Hot Trends. Essentially, the Hot Trends site shows the most popular terms that people are searching at different points in time. The list features the 40 most searched terms on Google, and clicking on each shows how popular that term has been over the past few hours, when it had been the most popular, and a bunch of news articles related to the search query.

It’s Not Google Vs Twitter

To be sure, a lot of people are going to see this and think “Oh, Twitter has had trending search topics forever. Google must want some of that action.” But that would be to disregard how Twitter and Google work.

When you go to the Twitter search page, you get all the different tweets coming in about this or that, with an option to see the latest X tweets that have come in during the last few seconds. It’s like being able to see exactly what’s taking …

The Story

Warner Music Group is finally going to have its videos featured on YouTube. This comes after Warner’s decision to pull all of its content from YouTube last December. The terms of the deal between Warner and Google aren’t available, but we can assume that the negotiations are revolving around how much money Warner will get per view of its content.

And In Last Place…

Seriously? Do people care about this? Warner was, to be kind, very dumb for pulling its content down from YouTube in the first place! The site is advertising gold. You put your song on YouTube, people listen to it, and some go out and buy it. Them’s the breaks.

In a word, Warner is late. Basically, a lot of people who were looking for Warner’s songs on YouTube never found anything, and they never bought anything. But more importantly, Warner didn’t think to negotiate ad revenue until just now. The music industry isn’t in danger of failing altogether just yet, but when your business is shrinking, you want to do everything you can to revitalize it.

And yes, this isn’t worth any more of my words or any more …

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Google recently added a new feature to Google Maps called Places, which provides information on a location from right inside Google Maps. For example, if you search Tartine Bakery on Google Maps, you’ll get its map location along with a whole slew of other information about it, such as reviews and pricing and photos. That comprises the Places page.

The concern levied today was over whether or not Google was using its power as the largest search engine in the world to push its own content. The Places page for a lot of locations was showing up before similar content from other sites such as Yelp and New York Times Travel. This was despite the fact that Places had just launched, which meant by Google’s algorithm it shouldn’t have as high of a search ranking. Additionally, Google Maps is usually at the top of search results when you search for a place. So Google seemed to be giving its content an unfair amount of weight.

Not There Yet

It later came to light that this was a mistake and that Google was taking measures to blacklist Places from the main search …

The Story

While that video might be taking things a little far, it does reflect a sentiment which a lot of people have right now.

Once upon a time (read: earlier this week), there was a little ROM that could called CyanogenMod. Basically, it is Android as it should be. It’s faster, works better, and has a whole slew of features that Google just didn’t build in. For example, you can’t run applications that are stored on an SD card with the standard build of Android, despite the small size of the on-board ROM. CyanogenMod doesn’t have this problem.

But Cyanogen, the developer behind the mod, recently received a cease and desist notice from Google. Essentially, despite Android’s being open source, many of the applications in it such as Gmail and Google Maps are closed source and can only be distributed by an entity licensed to do so. In those advertisements for “<insert Android handset name here> with Google,” the with Google bit indicates that Google applications are on the phone.

And We Will March On

Cyanogen recently updated his site to to say that development on CyanogenMod would not cease, but it would be slowed down a bit. Future releases will …

The Story

After Google released the Chrome Frame plugin for Internet Explorer, Microsoft released a statement saying that the plugin makes the browser less secure. According to Microsoft, Chrome Frame has “doubled the attack area for malware and malicious scripts” in that it subverts security measures Microsoft developed for Internet Explorer 8.

Now Google has come out and refuted those claims. For example, both IE7 and IE8 have sandboxing features similar to Chrome’s, but they only work in Windows Vista. To get these features at all in Windows XP requires Chrome Frame or a browser with those features.

Google also stated that the best thing for users to do is to install and use a browser that isn’t Internet Explorer.

While we encourage users to use a more modern and standards-compliant browser such as Firefox, Safari, Opera or Chrome rather than a plug-in, for those who don’t, Chrome Frame is designed to provide better performance, strong security features, and more choice … across all versions of Internet Explorer.

What Microsoft Isn’t Saying

Microsoft’s assertion that Chrome Frame doubles the attack area is a bit misleading. In a sense it does, but only …

A screenshot from the CyanogenMod installation.

The Story

CyanogenM0d, a modified version of the Android operating system, received a cease and desist notice from Google. The issue that Google has levied is that CyanogenMod’s developer is not just rewriting the open source bits of Android, but some of the closed bits, too. This means the Gmail and Gtalk applications, among others.

Just Because You Can…

So to start, this is well within Google’s rights. Though a lot of Android can be rewritten, some of it is proprietary and closed. If HTC had rewritten Gmail and included it with the MyTouch 3G or some other handset, Google would be sending them a cease and desist. Sadly, it’s a much smaller entity who’s being affected by what is a pretty standard legal concept in the technology world. If it’s closed source, you can’t redistribute it.

…Doesn’t Mean You Should

All of that said, Google is being sort of stupid as this stifles the development community that is building around Android. While CyanogenMod is definitely more of a thing for the hardcore than for the masses, it is still a …

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If I didn’t know better, I’d think this was a Photoshop job. But no, this is a screenshot I took on my computer after installing Chrome Frame, a plugin developed by Google which essentially lets you have Chrome in Internet Explorer. And unlike most similar plugins which would put your machine in a position of running two browsers, Chrome Frame doesn’t take up too much by way of system resources.

As for marketing Chrome Frame, Google apparently isn’t going to do much. Aside from hearing about it from tech resources like TechGeist, the only way people will find out about the plugin is if they’re running Google web applications in Internet Explorer. When that happens, Google might display a little notification saying “Hey, your browser is slow. Try this.”

I Love It!

This might be the best thing to ever happen. There are still a lot of sites which only play nice with Internet Explorer or which don’t support Chrome. One of my personal favorite is Netflix’s instant streaming. Now all of the Chromepuffs of the world (yes, that’s the term for Chrome fans) can have the feel …

The Story

As part of its Google Syncinitiative to get users to have all of their web applications on their phones, Google has now enabled push Gmail support.

Having an over-the-air, always-on connection means that your inbox is up to date, no matter where you are or what you’re doing. Sync works with your phone’s native email application so there’s no additional software needed. Only interested in syncing your Gmail, but not your Calendar? Google Sync allows you to sync just your Contacts, Calendar, or Gmail, or any combination of the three.

I Want A Google-Made Email Application

That sentence up there is in bold because it highlights a problem I have with most phones: they’re native email applications suck. And this is a problem ranging from the crappy RAZRs of the world to the iPhone. You can prove this to yourself with a handy little experiment. Try searching for an old email in your Gmail account on your iPhone. Unless you search by sender or something, you’ll be out on your ass. But if you launch the browser and hop into Gmail, search becomes the most useful thing in the world.

And there’s a …

The Story

In an interview with Danny Sullivan, Eric Schmidt said that his favorite Google product was… Chrome. The full answer is pretty interesting:

The one that I am the most pleased with is Chrome. This is a personal answer. Because Chrome has a lot of subtlety to it. It’s all of these complex design choices that the Chrome team made that makes Chrome faster and just [intuitive]. And once you start using Chrome it’s very hard to go back to a different browser. And you can’t quite say why. And those are the trade-offs. And they’re all subtle. And that’s the kind of stuff I like.