Google unveils interactive Doodle for Robert Moog’s birthday

Google will be celebrating the 78th birthday of Robert Moog tomorrow, May 23, 2012, with a (pretty amazing) interactive Doodle on its homepage. Moog, who is best known for inventing the Moog synthesizer, has been named the "pioneer of electronic music" with his invention.

To celebrate the occasion, Google has created an interactive Moog synthesizer on its homepage where users can turn switches on and off, play sounds, and record their creations. The Doodle is currently live on the Google Australia homepage, and will be launching in the U.S. tomorrow.

Google Chrome surpasses Internet Explorer as world’s most popular web browser

According to new data released by StatCounter this morning, Google Chrome has surpassed Internet Explorer as the world's most popular web browser (in terms of usage), a spot Microsoft's browser has held every week of the year since 1998. IE has been on a steady decline over the past several years, with web browsers such as Chrome and Firefox taking up market share left behind.

According to the data, Chrome now holds a 32.76% market share worldwide, while Internet Explorer controls 31.94%. In a distant third is Mozilla Firefox at 25.47%.

YouTube celebrates its 7th birthday

Today, May 21, 2012, is the seventh birthday of the Internet's most popular video uploading website, YouTube. Seven years ago on this date, YouTube opened its doors to the public. Following a significant amount of popularity from users, YouTube was sold to Google and has been under Google control since.

YouTube announced as part of a birthday blog post today that over 72 hours of video is collectively uploaded to the website every minute.

Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility could close as soon as next week

According to a report from The Associated Press, the Chinese government has approved Google's proposed $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility, possibly opening the opportunity to close the deal that was initially announced in August of 2011 as early as next week. China was the last country that needed to approve the merger, with both the United States and European Commission approving the deal back in February.

Chinese regulators had one condition for the deal being approved: "That Google's Android operating system for mobile devices remain available to all at no cost for the next five years."

Google introduces improved Google+ integration into Gmail

Today, Google unveiled further integration of Google+ into its email service Gmail. The first improvement coming deals with search in Gmail: searching for a person's name will now display any emails you've sent to them, their profile pictures, and the ability to start a conversation with them. In addition, Google is rolling out improved Circles integration, allowing users to see profile pictures and detailed search information when clicking on the pictures of their Google+ friends.

Circles are also now supported in search and filters. Find messages from a specific circle by typing circle:[circle name] in the search box. You can also find mail from any of your circled contacts by searching with has:circle. You can refine your search even further with other criteria and create filters based on circles. This means you can now view all the unread emails from your ‘Friends’ circle or automatically star every message that comes from your ‘VIP’ circle.

Google introduces “Knowledge Graph”

Today, Google introduced a new feature to its search engine that is dubbed "Knowledge Graph." The technology takes user input as a whole, rather than separate words and strings like it has been in the past. Knowledge Graph will allow users to narrow their search results down to exactly what they're looking for, get a summary of information on the right-hand side of the page, and pick out small details related to search queries.

The Knowledge Graph enables you to search for things, people or places that Google knows about—landmarks, celebrities, cities, sports teams, buildings, geographical features, movies, celestial objects, works of art and more—and instantly get information that’s relevant to your query. This is a critical first step towards building the next generation of search, which taps into the collective intelligence of the web and understands the world a bit more like people do.

Google has already begun rolling out Knowledge Graph to users, and it will soon be available on mobile devices as well.

New Google Chrome Stable release adds tab syncing across devices

Today, Google released the first Stable version of Chrome 19 to the public, adding tab syncing across multiple devices when users are signed into Chrome with a Gmail account. When a user is signed in, all their open tabs appear under a new menu on the "New Tab" page in Chrome called "Other Devices."

The Stable version update will be rolled out to existing Chrome users over the coming days.

Report: Google developing Chrome Web Browser for iOS

According to a report from Business Insider (based on a research note from Macquarie analyst Ben Schacter), Google is currently developing a Chrome Web Browser app for use on iOS devices. In fact, the app may already be submitted to Apple for review and could debut in the App Store as soon as the end of this quarter. No specific details about the app were given, however.

While third-party web browsers already exist on the App Store (an example include Opera), a majority of iOS users still use Safari because of the amount of system-level integration the app brings.

Google celebrates Mother’s Day with a Doodle

To celebrate Mother's Day, Google has placed a heart-warming animated Doodle on its homepage. The Doodle portrays the mom character as a "g" and her two children as two "o's" as a spin-off of the regular Google logo. The "o's" are animated and walk over to hug the "g" and the rest of the Google logo fades in.

Google releases overhauled Google+ app for iOS

Today, Google released version 2.0 of its Google+ app for iOS (App Store link), bringing with it a number of new features and a completely overhauled user interface. The company notes in its announcement of the update that the "+1" button will now float at the top of the screen to make it easier for use, and that the app sports "crisper fonts, larger profile pics and a friendlier homescreen." Users' streams will now have "overlays, gradients and other visual elements" to make it easier to read as well.

The update is available via the iOS App Store beginning today.

Google Maps for Android updated with support for Offers, indoor walking directions

Today, Google updated the Google Maps for Android app (Google Play link) to version 6.7 and with it, brings integration with Google Offers, indoor walking directions, and business photos. Offers allows users to see any deals with businesses close to them, while indoor walking directions (available in the U.S. and Japan) show people around indoor locations. Google Business Photos are panoramic photos of retail stores for users.

With Google Business Photos you can explore panoramic photos of the inside of a business from the palm of your hand. Now you can get a feel for a restaurant or store inside as well as outside using Street View technologies. To access these 360-degree panoramic views, look for the “See Inside” section on the Place page of select businesses.

Nevada DMV issues first license to legally drive Google self-operating car

According to a report from The Associated Press, the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has issued the first license that makes it legal to operate in a Google self-driving car. The car, which uses a myriad of sensors and cameras to determine a path around other vehicles on the road, pedestrians, and road blocks, has been in testing on the roads of California around Google's Mountain View campus for more than a year now.

"It gets honked at more often because it's being safe," said Nevada DMV Director Bruce Breslow.

The Nevada law states, however, that there must be two people in the car at any given point in time. One person should be in the driver's seat and have the ability to override the computer if need by pressing on the brake or placing a hand on the steering wheel. The other should be monitoring the car's computer system that determines the path that the vehicle will be taking.

Google Play long past 15 billion downloads

The newly renamed Google Play crossed a major milestone "a few weeks ago" according to TechCrunch.

A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch that Google Play, formerly known as the Android Market, crossed 15 billion downloads a few weeks ago. The numbers come as a surprise since Google made no mention of the new number and last we officially heard was Google Play had 11 billion downloads.

Compared to Apple's App Store, Google is far behind but rapidly catching up. Apple says that their store has over 25 billion downloads. In terms of number of applications Google is also catching up fast, Google Play has about 500,000 apps while Apple has 600,000.

Jury: Google infringed upon some copyrighted content owned by Oracle

According to a report from Reuters, a jury ruled today that Google has infringed upon some of the copyrighted content owned by Oracle regarding the Java programming language. The ruling comes as part of a high-profile lawsuit filed by Oracle that claims Google illegally used Java code in its Android mobile operating system.

The jury, however, was unable to decide whether Google had fair use of the copyrighted content. Google lawyers are moving toward a mistrial at this time, according to the report.

Oracle, which initially filed the lawsuit back in 2010, is seeking roughly $1 billion in damages from Google.

Google to face more than $10 million fine over breaching Safari web browser cookie system

According to a report from Bloomberg, the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is preparing to slap Google with a fine totaling more than $10 million as a result of the Web giant's recent breaching of Apple Safari's cookie system. Google was caught inserting certain cookies into Safari on iOS devices that circumvented privacy restrictions and tracked users' activity on the Internet.

At this time, no official fine has been given.

Trimble acquires SketchUp from Google

Earlier this week, Google announced that it has sold the popular 3D modeling tool SketchUp to third party development company Trimble. The Internet giant says that it hopes Trimble will continue to develop SketchUp for the more than 30 million users that the popular application has. Google will be staying onboard to work on SketchUp, but Trimble will have the final control of the software.

That’s why I’m sharing today that the SketchUp team and technology will be leaving Google to join Trimble. We’ll be better able to focus on our core communities: modelers who have been with us from the beginning, as well as future SketchUppers who have yet to discover our products. Designers, builders and makers of things have always been the heart and soul of SketchUp. With Trimble’s commitment to invest in our growth, we’ll be able to innovate and develop new features better than ever before.

Google “zerg rush” easter egg discovered

Earlier today, a new easter egg was discovered on Google search results, one that deals with Blizzard's Starcraft video game series. To begin the easter egg, you type in "zerg rush" (without the quotes) into Google, and watch the show as red and yellow circles begin to drop from the top of the screen and literally "destroy" search results on the page. Clicking on one of the circles will destroy them immediately as well.

Thoughts on this?

Google Translate used by 200 million people every month

According to a blog post, Google Translate, the service that allows people to simply type in text and translate it into a wide variety of different languages, is used by 200 million users every month. Translate will soon be celebrating its sixth (6) birthday and has been rolling out languages available for translating for several years now. In addition, Google revealed that 92% of the traffic coming to Translate is outside of the United States.

Today we have more than 200 million monthly active users on translate.google.com (and even more in other places where you can use Translate, such as Chrome, mobile apps, YouTube, etc.). People also seem eager to access Google Translate on the go (the language barrier is never more acute than when you’re traveling)—we’ve seen our mobile traffic more than quadruple year over year. And our users are truly global: more than 92 percent of our traffic comes from outside the United States.

Pingdom: Google Chrome 18 is the world’s most popular browser

According to data released by analytics company Pingdom, Google Chrome 18 is the world's most popular Web browser, sporting a 25.6% market share. In a distant second place is Firefox 11 with 15.8% market share, followed by Internet Explorer 9 and 8 with 15.7% and 14.6% market shares, respectively. When all Internet Explorer versions are combined, Microsoft continues to hold the world's most popular browser title.

In North America, Internet Explorer 9 holds the crown as the most popular browser with 21.2% market share, closely followed by Chrome 18 with 20.2%.

Google’s “Zipper” Doodle celebrates Gideon Sundback’s birthday

When you visited Google today, you make have noticed something quite peculiar on the homepage of the world's most popular search engine - a giant zipper is running down the page. If you drag the zipper down using a mouse, the page "unzips" to reveal search results for Gideon Sundback, who was born on April 24, 1880. Sundback is best known for his work on developing the modern zipper. The normal Google logo has also been slightly remodeled to give a more retro look behind the zipper as well.