Marissa Mayer named Yahoo CEO and President

($YHOO) Yahoo on Monday named Marissa Mayer the company’s new president and CEO. Mayer was one of the earliest employees with Google, joining the Internet giant in 1999 and becoming the company’s first woman engineer. “I am honored and delighted to lead Yahoo!, one of the internet’s premier destinations for more than 700 million users,” Mayer said in a statement. “I look forward to working with the Company’s dedicated employees to bring innovative products, content, and personalized experiences to users and advertisers all around the world.” Yahoo’s co-founder David Filo said, “Marissa is a well-known, visionary leader in user experience and product design and one of Silicon Valley’s most exciting strategists in technology development.” Mayer will begin her new job on July 17th.

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Google ready to spend billions to make Google Play Music a success

Google is reportedly breaking out its massive checkbook in an effort to gain blanket rights to major labels’ music catalogs. Following unconfirmed reports that Google’s music offering was floundering and losing users each week, music industry insider Wayne Rosso says that the Internet giant is now holding negotiations with at least one major label in an effort to gain access to its entire catalog. According to Rosso, Google is willing to spend more than $1 billion for such access.

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Image leak Google's Nexus tablet avaiable

Pocketnow on Tuesday published what it believes to be a press image of Google’s Nexus tablet, although the blog received no other details. The image reveals a very familiar design with a full-sized SD slot, a microUSB connector and a micro HDMI port. The icons on the display reveal that the render was clearly done before Google’s massive Play rebranding, so things may have changed slightly since the images were made. It should also be noted that the company’s previous “Nexus” devices offered no expandable storage. Google’s tablet is expected to enter production this month and ship around June. The slate could be unveiled at Google’s annual I/O conference on June 27th if earlier rumors pan out.

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Google Drive will offer 5GB of free storage for user

Google’s cloud storage service (will apparently be called Google Drive) and is similar to Dropbox, which allows users to store files on cloud servers and access them from computers and mobile devices. According to a leaked screenshot obtained by TalkAndroid, Google Drive will offer 5GB of free storage instead of the previously rumored 1GB. The image also reaffirms that files can be accessed through computers, mobile phones, tablets and via a web browser, and it will allow users to edit a document in one place that will automatically be updated in all locations. Google Drive is rumored to launch the week of April 16th.

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Google’s cloud storage service launch in April

Google’s cloud storage service, rumored to be called GDrive may launch in first week of April, according to a report from GigaOm. Google Drive will apparently allocate 1GB of storage to users for free, and additional options will be available for a fee. Dropbox, the market leader in cloud storage, currently offers 2GB of free storage. It also provides several ways for users to obtain more free space, such as recommending friends to the service. Google’s Dropbox competitor will reportedly feature a domain-specific version for Google Apps customers and it will have an API for third-party apps, allowing users to store content from other apps within Google Drive. Google’s cloud service will allow users to store photos, videos, documents and other files in the cloud, and will be accessible from computers as well as Android tablets and smartphones.

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Google offers $25 in exchange for your privacy (with Google statement)

        

If you’re willing to let Google track you like a hawk over an extended period, the online search giant is willing to pay you $25. That is, $5 for signing up and then $5 in monthly installments if you continue to feel like you don’t deserve any privacy on the Internet. Oh, and that’s not in cash either. It’s paid in a series of Amazon.com gift cards. It’s not exactly break-the-bank kind of money, but it is probably incentive enough to draw in a pretty significant user base.

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Google launches Chrome browser for Android smartphones and tablets

Google on Tuesday announced the first beta release of its Chrome Web browser for Android-powered smartphones and tablets. The firm’s native Web browser is certainly among the better mobile Web browsers on the market, but with Chrome, Google is focused on aligning its mobile browsing experience more closely with its desktop browser. “Like the desktop version, Chrome for Android Beta is focused on speed and simplicity, but it also features seamless sign-in and sync so you can take your personalized web browsing experience with you wherever you go, across devices,” Sundar Pichai, Google’s SVP of Chrome and Apps, wrote in a post on the company’s blog. Chrome for Android is available immediately as a free download in the Android Market and it is compatible with smartphones and tablets running Android 4.0 or later. An introductory video from Google follows below.

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Graphing functionality now available on Google search

Google has just rolled out mathematics graphing functionality on Google search engine results. What does that mean? Your Google search engine just became a graphic calculator. Simply put, Google says that user can “just type in a function and you’ll see an interactive graph on the top of the search results page.” Guessing I’m going to use my TI-84 a couple times less after what Google search results can provide me from now on.

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Google confirms Verizon’s Galaxy Nexus won’t support Google Wallet

Google Wallet isn’t going to work on anything besides the Nexus S 4G for the foreseeable future. Yes, that includes Verizon’s Galaxy Nexus, and very probably AT&T and T-Mobile versions, if they ever appear. Computer World broke the story, though I’d be wary of anything labelled “confirmed” from that particular source. Unfortunately, the news is not entirely unexpected.

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YouTube unveils redesign homepage, gets social, adds algorithmic feeds

YouTube unveiled today the biggest redesign of its homepage in history. The revamped interface appears to be part of Google’s move to introduce a social layer to all its products, adding a new emphasis on integrations with social networks like Google+ and Facebook, as well as bringing in new algorithmic channel feeds. The emphasis on channel subscriptions also makes it easy to navigate and watch YouTube as if you were watching TV.

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Google Catalogs now available on Android Tablets

Google has finally made its Google Catalogs service available today on its tablets running the Android operating system, months after arriving on, well, Apple’s iPad back in August. There are store catalogs from more than 125 brands, including Nordstrom, Williams-Sonoma, Nike and Sephora. The app itself, which is entirely free, is downloadable from the Android Market, and also offers more than 400 digital catalog issues that can be browsed by various categories. Could have come a bit earlier to Android tablets from Google themselves, instead of to the iPad first, but, oh well, it’s at least here.

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YouTube offering Disney and Pixar movies for rent

YouTube has been stepping up its content offerings to bolster its movie rental service that started about a year ago but has yet to put much pressure on services like Netflix. It added about 3,000 new movies for rent back in May and now it’s also getting Disney and Pixar movie titles, 1,000 of which Netflix just lost access to when it failed to renew its deal with Starz.

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200 million Android devices activated, 550,000 activations daily

During the Google Music event in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Google’s director of digital content for Android Jamie Rosenberg announced that there are now more than 200 million active Android devices in the hands of consumers around the world. That figure is up from 100 million activated devices in May. In addition, Rosenberg said that Google activates an average of 550,000 new Android devices each day.

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Google adds Gmail voice calling for 38 new languages

Google has expanded the scope of Gmail’s phone calling feature, reducing the cost of international phone calls and making the feature available in 38 languages.

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Google now activates 500,000 Android devices each day

Google announced at its annual Google I/O conference last month that as of the beginning of May, the tech giant was activating 400,000 Android new devices each day. That amazing pace seemed almost impossible to keep up, but fast forward to Tuesday and Google’s Android boss shared a new stat. “There are now over 500,000 Android devices activated every day, and it’s growing at 4.4% w/w,” Andy Rubin posted from his Twitter account. Compared to the rest of the market, Android’s explosive global growth slowed recently. In the U.S., Android even lost share last quarter for the first time since 2009 according to IDC. Activations certainly aren’t slowing down though, and we expect Android to be the dominant mobile OS in terms of market share for years to come.

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Google+, Google’s social products [video]

Google on Tuesday finally took the wraps off of its answer to the social steamroller that is Facebook, and it’s called Google+. While Google has launched numerous social products in the past, Google+ is the Internet giant’s most comprehensive offering to date. It is largely an effort to play catch-up, of course — since Google has a lot of catching up to do — but the service also offers some nifty innovative elements that could appeal to users who navigate away from Facebook long enough to check it out. Key features include Circles, which allow you to group contacts together in various social circles and share things only with the particular circles you chose; Sparks, which are topics similar to Twitter hashtags; and Hangouts, which are video chat rooms. There is also a mobile element to Google+, and for the time being it focuses on text updates, photo and video sharing, and… you guessed it… location. Google+ is currently in private beta. A handful of videos covering the key elements of Google’s new service can be viewed below.

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Google updates Google Maps Web app for Android and iOS

Google updated its Google Maps Web app for iOS and Android today. Website allows you to access many of the options that are available from a desktop browser, too. That includes the ability to view your location, search nearby areas with suggestions and auto-complete, get directions for driving, transit, biking, or walking, view different lays, view Place pages, and access your starred locations.

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Mobile Browser Speed Test – Safari vs IE9 vs Chrome

Joe Belfiore, Director of the Windows Phone program compared the performance of Internet Explorer 9 mobile with Mobile Safari on iPhone 4 and Android browser on Samsung’s Nexus S by running HTML5 speed reading demo.
As you can see from the video below, Internet Explorer 9 mobile with hardware acceleration support blows away Mobile Safari and Android browser.

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YouTube announces YouTube Live, live streams content on YouTube

Google’s YouTube on Friday announced that it is rolling out its new YouTube Live beta platform located at www.youtube.com/live. YouTube will use the channel to stream live events, concerts, interviews and more.

Today we're announcing the initial roll out of YouTube Live, which will integrate live streaming capabilities and discovery tools directly into the YouTube platform for the first time. This begins with a new YouTube Live browse page (www.youtube.com/live), where you can always find the most compelling live events happening on YouTube and add events to your calendar. Subscribe to your favorite YouTube live-streaming partners to be notified of upcoming live streams on your customized homepage.


Today, we'll also start gradually rolling out our live streaming beta platform, which will allow certain YouTube partners with accounts in good standing to stream live content on YouTube. The goal is to provide thousands of partners with the capability to live stream from their channels in the months ahead. In order to ensure a great live stream viewing experience, we'll roll this offering out incrementally over time. Partners interested in learning more about the livestream experience can check out today's post on the Partner Communications Hub.

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Chrome 11 beta minor update, get APIs for proxies, Web navigation

Google Chrome 11 has received a minor update that gives developers access to two new APIs.

1. Full-featured proxy API - which will, for example, allow users to set different proxy servers for normal browsing and Incognito mode. Proxy auto-config scripts are also supported by the API.

2. Web Navigation Extension -- is a bit more expansive. This API will allow devs to build everything from more powerful safe browsing extensions -- like Traffic Light -- to data analysis and reporting extensions.

Both APIs are currently experimental, so you'll need to enable them on the about:flags page to try out any relevant extensions. Apart from a proxy example built by Google and shipped with the Chromium source.

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