Google

2013 has been dubbed the year of Android by Strategy Analytics, which has just put out its smartphone OS shipment figures for the year. This follows a mobile device-maker centric report it put out on Tuesday. Google’s Android platform accounted for 79% of global smartphone OS shipments in the year, according to the latest Strategy Continue Reading →

Just shy of a year after the Google Glass Explorer edition started arriving on early adopters’ doorsteps, Google is announcing a way for people who need prescription glasses to use it. The company is releasing four different frames that can both fit the Google Glass hardware and accommodate corrective lenses. Glass is still limited to Continue Reading →

Guests arriving at the Aloft Hotel in Manhattan or one in Silicon Valley will soon be able to do something hotels have dreamed about offering for years: walk past the check-in desk and enter their rooms by using a smartphone as a room key. The boutique hotel brand from Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide plans Continue Reading →

Russian blogger Eldar Murtazin said on Twitter that the Nexus line of devices will be discontinued in 2015, replaced instead with a new brand spawned from the current Play Edition family. Google has launched various Play Edition devices this year, including the HTC One, the Samsung Galaxy S4, the LG G Pad 8.3, the Sony Continue Reading →

Samsung has been rumored to be working on wearable glasses similar to Google Glass, supposedly under the Gear Glass name, and according to a report from The Korea Times, Samsung will unveil Gear Glass this year at IFA in September. According to the report, the smart glasses are tentatively called “Galaxy Glass” – a Samsung Continue Reading →

Chromebooks have come from nowhere to grab nearly a fifth of U.S. school purchases of mobile computers, posing problems for Microsoft and possibly even Apple. The inexpensive laptops, which run Google software but are mostly sold by other companies, accounted for 19% of the K-12 market for mobile computers in the U.S. in 2013, according Continue Reading →

Samsung and Google have signed a sweeping deal to license their patent portfolios to each other, covering both existing intellectual property in addition to patents filed over the next ten years. United under Android, the two companies haven’t really been seen as litigation threats to one another — but with this deal, the threat drops Continue Reading →

Google is shelling out $400 million to buy a secretive artificial intelligence company called DeepMind. Google confirmed the deal after Re/code inquired about it, but declined to specify a price. Based in London, DeepMind was founded by games prodigy and neuroscientist Demis Hassabis, along with Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman. This is in large part Continue Reading →

Google on Wednesday announced a new Google Search feature that surfaces more information about certain websites. The description will be available when a site is “widely recognized as notable online, when there is enough information to show or when the content may be handy for you,” according to the company. All you have to do Continue Reading →

Forget Google Glass – Google is getting even closer to your eyes. Google is currently testing a contact lens that measures glucose levels in tears to help manage a patient’s diabetes. The lens, which can get a reading once per second, was created in a time when the International Diabetes Foundation says we are “losing Continue Reading →