Hasta La Gadget!

The first “all hands” meeting of a CEO is always a time for high drama, so we’re expecting big things tomorrow. New boss Marissa Mayer is telling employees about her plans to turn around the faded internet giant on Tuesday, with the same slides she used in closed-door board meetings in an act of “radical transparency.” Yahoo’s fortunes have been on the slide for a while, after Scott Thompson’s scandal-ridden departure, patent clashes, security breaches and the sale of its Alibaba stake in order to spend $3.65 billion on quelling a shareholder revolution.

A report from AllThingsD says that Mayer’s likely to introduce progress and goal tracking as a measure of performance. The new system will run from the company as a whole right down to individual employees, something that she picked up from her tenure at Mountain View. The same report has revealed that Mayer’s pushing to improve the consumer experience in its Homepage, Mail and Flickr offerings (amongst others) at the expense of advertising — a move that’ll win her plenty of fans used to the minimalist Google homepage.

Filed under: Internet

Marissa Mayer planning to reveal her plans for Yahoo’s turnaround tomorrow originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Sep 2012 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just before the release of the iPhone 5, Apple’s stock hit $700 for the very first time – a record for the company. Today, Google is setting records of its own, with its stock climbing to an all-time high. At the time of this writing, Google’s stock is up $14.37, sitting at $748.36 per share and showing a 1.96% gain overall.

That’s enough to beat its prior record, which was set back in 2007 when Google hit a stock price of $747.24. Google has experienced quite a fight since then too, as its stock fell below $300 during the financial crisis, only to climb more than $400 to get back to where it was before everything went down the proverbial drain. We’re coming up on the closing bell for this Monday pretty fast, so it looks as if Google’s stock will end the day above that $747.24 mark.

Of course, you never really know with the stock market, and Google’s shares could very well fall below that 2007 record before the market closes for the day. Still, regardless of where the stock ends up when the closing bell hits, this is a big day for the search giant, and it shows that Google is definitely on the rebound after investors lost a bit of faith in the company around the time the financial crisis was in full swing.

That’s because Google has been raking in cash from mobile and web advertisements. The success of the big G’s Android platform has played its part in the company’s recent stock surge as well. In short, Apple may be looking pretty good to investors at the moment, but this record-setting day indicates that investors see Google as a strong player too. There are still some variables when it comes to Google’s future, however, with its recent $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola immediately coming to mind. That’s a lot of money to drop in just one transaction, and though the two revealed a slew of new Motorola devices not too long ago, investors are still a little uneasy when it comes to the future of Google and Motorola. Will that be enough to bring Google’s stock price down a significant amount? Time will tell, so stay tuned.

[via Reuters]

Google stock hits new high, breaks records set in 2007 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Hokay. So—let’s assume that fashion companies must photoshop their ads in the name of perfect aesthetics and traumatizing women everywhere. Fine, do what you have to, fashion companies! But why don’t you hire people who actually know what the hell they are doing instead of using the incompetent morons you currently employ? More »

It has been almost an entire year since the last Nexus smartphone from Google was released, that being the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Now that the Galaxy S III rumors have subsided, Nexus rumors have heated up again. Some are suggesting Sammy will be releasing a Galaxy Nexus 2, and today we have some leaked pictures that could at least make it a possibility.

Samsung uses model numbers rather than code-names for their smartphones and tablets. The original Galaxy Nexus was GT-i9250, while devices like the Galaxy S, SII, and SIII were i9000, i9100, and i9300 for the latest. Today we are seeing a new device that looks to be the successor to the Galaxy Nexus (GT-i9250) showing up on Picasa in the form of a few sample photos taken with the smartphone.

A device code-named the Samsung GT-i9260 has appeared in some photos EXIF data, making it right in line with previous update jumps to device names — and following its older brother. Recent rumors have suggested the Galaxy Nexus 2 would rock the same 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED display, but get an increase in all other areas with an improved camera, bigger battery, double the RAM to 2GB, and of course a faster dual or quad-core processor.

The photos appearing today seemingly confirm some sort of new device that resembles the Galaxy Nexus, but whether or not it’ll be the two is really anyone’s guess. With Android 4.1 Jelly Bean being so new do we really expect the next iteration (dubbed Key Lime Pie) to be making an appearance on a brand new phone already? Previous releases like the Nexus One, Nexus S, and then the Galaxy Nexus points to yes — just look at the history below. Thoughts?

[via GSMArena]

Samsung Galaxy Nexus 2 camera samples leak is written by Cory Gunther & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It might seem as if Apple chose its iOS 6 release last week to practice the biblical directive to love one’s enemy. For, by ejecting Google Maps from updated iPads and iPhones, Apple hath caused glorious comparisons to shine upon its foe. If most people were unaware of comparative feature sets and quality aspects that distinguish Google Maps from Apple Maps, every tech-loving person on God’s earth is an expert now.

The media love a bloodbath, and Joe Nocera led the rhetorical pack by calling Apple Maps an “unmitigated disaster” in a NY Times piece. He wondered whether such calamity would have ensued if Steve Jobs (who called the 1998 “hockey puck” mouse the world’s best pointing device) were guiding the company’s product evolution. Mr. Nocera argues the Maps replacement as an indicator that Apple has peaked.

I argue that replacing Google Maps with Apple Maps was shrewd, inevitable and an indicator that Apple understands the true battle it wages.

Continue reading Editorial: Apple’s smart Maps maneuver

Filed under: Transportation, Wireless, Software

Editorial: Apple’s smart Maps maneuver originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Sep 2012 15:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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