Googlers will be breathing sighs of relief today that the European Court of Justice has indicated the search group can continue selling trademarked advertising keywords to anyone.
But for advertisers, the legal battle is far from over. Continue reading "The Google Adwords trademarks row is set to continue"
Google’s email service is finally returning to its original Gmail branding in the UK after a four-year absence, after Google settled a trademark dispute.
Google paid £226,324 for the intellectual property rights for Gmail to a small UK-based financial research firm, Independent International Investment Research. Continue reading "The curious case of the UK’s missing Gmail"
Google offers fast-flip option to newspapers
Google is holding out a helping hand to the embattled newspaper industry with a new way of browsing newspapers and magazines online.
Eric Schmidt, chief executive, has criticised the formats of online editions of newspapers as slow and “pretty unpleasant to read.”
Google unveiled “Fast Flip” at the TechCrunch50 conference in San Francisco on Monday as a possible solution. Continue reading "Google offers fast-flip option to newspapers"
Microsoft and Yahoo keep punching at each other
The love-hate relationship between Microsoft and Yahoo will be tuned to “hate” for the remainder of the month.
In private, the companies are working on separate versions of integration plans that will send some Yahoo engineers to work for Microsoft as it prepares to take over delivering automated free and paid search results to Yahoo. Continue reading "Microsoft and Yahoo keep punching at each other"
Debate over Google China chief’s next move
Kai-Fu Lee’s time as president of Google China began with controversy, as Microsoft sued the search company for poaching him, then faced a countersuit by Google. His departure was a severe blow for Microsoft’s Chinese operations, and brought out the depth of the animosity between the two companies.
Mr Lee’s impending departure from Google has also sparked debate - not least because it is still unclear exactly why he is leaving and what he is going on to do.
Continue reading "Debate over Google China chief’s next move"
Singularity University students graduate to the real world
When Singularity University was announced in February, its organisers said that during the 10 week summer course, which concluded today, students would work together to solve humanity’s “grand challenges.” By combining their supposedly above-average wits with Silicon Valley’s latest technologies, the 40 or so SU students would find innovative solutions for perennial problems including energy scarcity, climate change and hunger.
The effort, backed by Google and NASA, came across as innovative, if a bit hubristic. With its emphasis on smarter-than-human computers, it also raised plenty of concerns. As we wrote at the time, “many critics call the singularity dangerous. Some worry that a malicious artificial intelligence might annihilate the human race.”
At its closing ceremony today, four teams of SU students presented their projects. What emerged were not futuristic plans to embed computer chips in the brain and build super-smart machines, but noble (if half-baked) plans that leverage existing technologies to address important (if not entirely grand) challenges. Continue reading "Singularity University students graduate to the real world"
Google books: battle lines are drawn
It may have taken close to 10 months, but opposition to the Google book settlement has finally coalesced.
The Open Book Alliance formally launched today with this promise:
The Open Book Alliance will counter Google, the Association of American Publishers and the Authors’ Guild’s scheme to monopolize the access, distribution and pricing of the largest digital database of books in the world. To this end, we will promote fair and flexible solutions aimed at achieving a more robust and open system.
Lex: YouTube
As Google celebrates its fifth anniversary as a listed company, the FT’s Lex column considers the search giant’s most costly acquisition — YouTube.
Bought in 2006 for $1.65bn in stock, the video streaming site has rocketed to a dominant position in online video . . . But Google shareholders are paying to provide the world with laughing baby clips. Estimates for the cost of streaming over 5bn videos a month range from $400m to $700m annually. While Google does not break out the figures, losses are likely to be in the hundreds of millions.
Google executives, at least, feel they are on the right track. Last month they said YouTube was finally on track for its first profit.
Microsoft’s challenge: turning Yahoos into Bingers
Eric Schmidt likes to claim that competition for Google’s search users is “just one click away”.
It’s easy to brush that off as a gesture to appease regulators, or just plain paranoia. But there’s a clear element of truth to it.
ComScore’s latest analysis of the US search market, released today, rubs in the point that Google’s users have already found out how to click elsewhere: they just aren’t doing it that much yet. Continue reading "Microsoft’s challenge: turning Yahoos into Bingers"
The Google social network proceeds apace
A mechanism to connect with your friends as you travel around the Web, a place to store and manage your network of relationships, and now… a platform for social apps.
Piece by piece, Google is building many of the core functions that define social networking. They do not all reside in one place, but as it finds more ways to link these things, the utility should increase exponentially. Continue reading "The Google social network proceeds apace"
David Gelles, Joseph Menn, Chris Nuttall and Richard Waters in the FT's San Francisco bureau upload their views - plus tech insights from writers in New York, London and Tokyo
FT Techblog's comments
Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
David Gelles, a California native, has been hanging around and reporting on Silicon Valley for several years. He joined the FT's San Francisco bureau in 2008 and writes about social networking, clean tech and artificial intelligence.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is facinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Joseph Menn writes about tech security and privacy, digital media, and the computer industry from the San Francisco bureau. He spent a decade covering tech for the Los Angeles Times and therefore remembers the days when pre-revenue dot-coms handed out free bottles of champagne at their launch parties.
Robin Harding is the FT's technology correspondent in Tokyo, following the fortunes of Japan's videogame, semiconductor and consumer electronics companies. Before that, he was an FT editorial writer in London, having previously worked for various banks and asset managers.
Robin Kwong is the FT's Taipei correspondent and writes about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent. Based in London, he has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
Selected FT blog posts
Older entries
The latest gadgets and gizmos, reviewed by Jonathan Margolis in How To Spend It.
Paul Taylor, the FT’s personal technology expert, answers your gadgetry questions