Google

How to get a job at Google

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Thomas Friedman writing for the New York Times about the value of a high GPA, good grades, and the like to companies like Google.

Google unveils phone designed to build 3D map of your surroundings

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This is fascinating technology.

The device’s sensors allow it make over 250,000 3D measurements every second and update its position in real-time.

Google said potential applications may include indoor mapping, helping the visually-impaired navigate unfamiliar indoor places unassisted and gaming.

Watch the video in the post to get a better sense of this. I think this is a great idea, long time coming. The question is, can Google make this useful and usable. The potential is huge.

Google buys ad-click fraud fighter spider.io

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As markets mature, fraud is sure to follow. Google and Apple both have their share of problem to solve, from online browser and YouTube click fraud for Google and App Store gaming issues for Apple.

Google’s pursuit of sports broadcasting

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Very interesting piece (behind free reg-wall) on Google’s slow move into sports broadcasting, an area traditionally dominated by the major networks and satellite/cable conglomerates.

Analysis of Google vs Tim Cook’s Apple

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A little slanted, perhaps, but still a very interesting read. Interesting take on the timing of Tim Cook’s hiring in 1998. No argument that Apple has been better in the Tim Cook era.

Google Chrome allows malicious sites to eavesdrop via your computer mic

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I have always been a little paranoid about my computer’s web cam and microphone. Here’s yet another reason why.

A user visits a site, that uses speech recognition to offer some cool new functionality. The site asks the user for permission to use his mic, the user accepts, and can now control the site with his voice. Chrome shows a clear indication in the browser that speech recognition is on, and once the user turns it off, or leaves that site, Chrome stops listening. So far, so good.

But what if that site is run by someone with malicious intentions?

Most sites using Speech Recognition, choose to use secure HTTPS connections. This doesn’t mean the site is safe, just that the owner bought a $5 security certificate. When you grant an HTTPS site permission to use your mic, Chrome will remember your choice, and allow the site to start listening in the future, without asking for permission again. This is perfectly fine, as long as Chrome gives you clear indication that you are being listened to, and that the site can’t start listening to you in background windows that are hidden to you.

When you click the button to start or stop the speech recognition on the site, what you won’t notice is that the site may have also opened another hidden popunder window. This window can wait until the main site is closed, and then start listening in without asking for permission. This can be done in a window that you never saw, never interacted with, and probably didn’t even know was there.

To make matters worse, even if you do notice that window (which can be disguised as a common banner), Chrome does not show any visual indication that Speech Recognition is turned on in such windows – only in regular Chrome tabs.

This is scary.

Google and Apple shuttles will now pay to use San Francisco’s public bus stops

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The shuttle buses that transport workers for huge tech firms like Google, Facebook, and Apple between San Francisco and Silicon Valley every day have come under heavy fire lately, but today a vote was passed unanimously on a pilot program that the city hopes will help ease those tensions. In front of a meeting room packed full with journalists and citizens, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) just approved a proposal that will see commuter shuttle buses pay to share approximately 200 spots with city buses.

Companies that operate the buses will soon have to pay $1 for every stop they make, every day, to the SFMTA — amounting to about $1.5 million over the 18-month pilot (set to start in July 2014). The agency won’t earn any profit from the money it collects, though; instead, it’ll use the fees to cover the new permit program, enforcement, and further evaluation of the pilot. Prior to today, Silicon Valley shuttles typically would use SFMTA bus stops throughout the city without express permission, leading to potential traffic snarls — as well as a sentiment that these companies were taking advantage of the city without giving anything back.

This seems fair and, hopefully, will satisfy both sides.

Google Glass, movie theaters, and journalism

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Where do the ethical obligations of journalism kick in? If you are a blogger, does that make you a journalist? Do you have an obligation to double-check your sources to verify the accuracy of everything you post?

Julie Strietelmeier, a self-professed “tech geek writer” got an email from a reader, telling a story that started when a friend wore his Google Glass into a movie theater (they were prescription lenses) and detailed his detainment by homeland security. Follow the headline link and read the story. It’s worth it.

Google, Nest, and the value of your home’s energy profile

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Buried in this article on the Nest acquisition is this little gem:

Researchers in 2011 were even able to use a similar approach to determine what movie was being watched on a television set by making energy profiles of each film. This was achieved by observing that a television’s electricity load will vary over time depending on whether dark or light scenes are being displayed to the viewer.

Although the researchers in question relied on very granular data from the television set, Danezis worries that such techniques could one day offer smart-home companies an X-ray view of your home.

Tony Fadell’s blog post on Google acquisition of Nest

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Tony Fadell:

This decision wasn’t made on a whim – Google has been in the mix in some way or another for about three years of our almost four-year history. In fact, my first meeting with Google as a Nester was before we’d launched. At the 2011 TED Conference, Erik Charlton and I huddled in a corner with Sergey Brin to show him a video and an early model of the Nest Learning Thermostat – he instantly got what we were doing and so did the rest of the Google team when we showed them. In May 2011, Google Ventures led our Series B round of financing, and in 2012, Series C. Time and time again, Googlers have shown themselves to be incredibly like-minded, supportive and as big of dreamers as we are. I know that joining Google will be an easy transition because we’re partnering with a company that gets what we do and who we are at Nest –and wants us to stay that way.

Best of luck. Continue making great products, you’ll be successful.

Unwanted Google+ invitation gets man arrested

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Wow. Yesterday, we posted this little doozy, Jim’s classic reaction to Google’s new default that allows people on Google+ to send you email, even if they don’t have your email address.

While digging into that story, I ran across this little gem. Seems Thomas Gagnon got slapped with a restraining order by his former girlfriend. Then she got a Google+ invite, attributed to him.

Apple vs Amazon vs Google, told in 9 bar charts

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These nine bar charts lay out the stock fundamentals for Apple, Amazon, and Google. Any analyst that follows these companies surely is familiar with all of these. They tell a strong story. Certainly not definitive, but hard to ignore.

iOS 7 now installed on 78% of active Apple devices

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Last Friday, we posted a link to a graphic that detailed the process HTC goes through to vet new versions of Android. The multi-company hoops that need leaping, as well as the incredible number of devices that need to be tested, are both barriers to adoption of new Android revs and contributors to fragmentation.

Apple has announced their latest adoption rates for iOS 7. 78% is a huge number.

Microsoft takes on Google Chromebook in this tin-eared ad

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If you are going to create an attack ad, it better be either irrefutably in-the-right or incredibly clever. This ad makes the case that the Chromebook is not a real laptop, that when it is not connected to the internet, it is “pretty much a brick.” I don’t own a Chromebook, and I’m not necessarily a Chromebook fan, but fair is fair. A “brick”? It took me all of 2 minutes reading reviews to dispel this myth.

I get the fact that the Chromebook might not be as useful when you are not connected to the net, given that it was designed with Google’s online suite of apps in mind. But not one review I read implied that the Chromebook is useless when off-line.

Apple consortium owned “Rockstar” goes after Google, others in patent war

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When Canadian telecom Nortel went bankrupt in 2009, there was a bidding war between Google and a consortium called Rockstar Bidco for more than 6,000 Nortel patents. Rockstar, which is owned by Microsoft, Apple, RIM, Ericsson, and Sony, won the auction for $4.5 billion.

This afternoon, Rockstar filed suit against Google for patent infringement. You can read the complaint here.

From the complaint:

On August 1, 2000, United States Patent No. 6,098,065 (the “‘065 patent”) was duly and legally issued for an invention entitled “Associative Search Engine.” Rockstar is the assignee of the ‘065 patent and has granted an exclusive license to NetStar, who holds all rights and interest in the ‘065 patent. A true and correct copy of the ‘065 patent is attached hereto as Exhibit A.

Google has infringed and continues to infringe the ‘065 patent by its manufacture, use, sale, importation, and/or offer for sale of systems, methods, products, and processes for matching search terms with relevant advertising and/or information based on those search terms and other user data, including but not limited to Google’s process of receiving search requests from a user, using its search engine to generate search results based at least in part on the search request, selecting—through Google’s AdWords and/or any other products, methods, systems, or services Google uses to store and choose relevant advertising—a relevant advertisement based on the search request and/or user data, and providing the search results together with the particular advertisement to the user; and additionally Google’s systems, methods, products, and processes of using other user data aside from the search request to help select the search result and/or advertisement; and additionally and alternatively its contributing to and inducement of others to manufacture, use, sell, import, and/or offer for sale infringing systems, methods, products, and processes in the manners described above. Google is liable for its infringement of the ‘065 patent pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 271.

This is going to get messy.