Oct 26

Google Acquires Neven Vision For Face Recognition

Posted in: Google, Today's Chili

This article was written on August 15, 2006 by CyberNet.

Google Acquires Neven Vision For Face Recognition

It looks like Google is finally stepping it up a notch when it comes to integrating photo recognition into Picasa. Google recently acquired Neven Vision which will be used to help improve the photo searching capabilities that their photo manager has. The Official Google Blog makes the acquisition sound pretty exciting:

Neven Vision comes to Google with deep technology and expertise around automatically extracting information from a photo. It could be as simple as detecting whether or not a photo contains a person, or, one day, as complex as recognizing people, places, and objects. This technology just may make it a lot easier for you to organize and find the photos you care about. We don’t have any specific features to show off today, but we’re looking forward to having more to share with you soon.

So they are really just teasing us because they don’t even have a quick demo video that shows us what to expect from Picasa. While we sit here and twiddle our thumbs waiting to see this in action we can play with Picasa’s color recognition feature that is already implemented. Another option to keep you busy is to go tinker with the Web-based Riya who is already working on recognizing faces and objects in photos…and does it quite well.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 20

MetroPCS may be top contender for AT&T’s post-acquisition assets

Posted in: att, leak, leaks, merger, mobilepostcross, rumor, rumors, t-mobile, TMobile, Today's Chili
The likelihood of a successful acquisition of T-Mobile by AT&T may largely depend on what the latter is willing to give up. The largest GSM carrier in the US may need to throw a few assets overboard in order to satisfy the Department of Justice, and has reportedly been Rethinking Possible by engaging in discussions with several parties interested in scooping up the leftovers. According to Bloomberg, MetroPCS appears to be the frontrunner in the talks, and plans to meet with the Justice Department (alongside AT&T, of course) in the next two weeks to determine if the strategy will appease the regulating body. No guarantees here, of course: it seems like a lot of assets would have to change hands for MetroPCS — a regional carrier with roughly nine million subscribers — to be considered a large enough competitor to assuage the government’s concerns here. We can’t imagine the Feds would be satisfied with any small offering, considering the Department’s filed a lawsuit against Ma Bell to block the merger. We have a feeling this saga is just starting to get real interesting, so stay tuned.

MetroPCS may be top contender for AT&T’s post-acquisition assets originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Oct 2011 19:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 14

Google’s 1Q Profits Soar, Acquire Marratech

Posted in: Google, Today's Chili

This article was written on April 20, 2007 by CyberNet.

MarratechLast week it was DoubleClick, this week it’s Marratech.  Google has just announced their acquisition of Marratech , developers of web and video conferencing software.  Their main competitors would be WebEx (recently acquired by Cisco), Microsoft Live Meeting, and Adobe Connect.

Web conferencing is the newest way to share images, documents, and business plans with a group of people by holding live e-meetings, which is why this purchase makes sense.  Google is getting their hand into a little bit of everything so that eventually, people won’t have any reason to go anywhere else but Google for web the web services that they want.

I could see them integrating this into their Google Apps Premier, or even into Google Docs and Spreadsheets.   It uses Java, and it’s available for Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms which makes it extremely versatile.

Participants of the web and video conferencing are able to see each other with the use of web cameras, and they’re able to record and playback the meetings later on.  It would also be great if they made it easy to get the conference up on Google Video in just a few clicks for those who weren’t able to attend.

In their announcement, Google says that this will “enable from-the-desktop participation for Googler’s in video-conference meetings wherever there’s an Internet connection.”

Google also just released their first quarter results and reported revenue of a whopping $3.66 billion! That’s an increase of 63% compared to first quarter of last year, and an increase of 14% compared to 4th quarter of 2006.

Just as their revenue is coming in, it’s going right back out with all of the recent acquisitions. It reminds me of a recent article over at Google Blogoscoped titled “Google Acquires Internet (May 2017).”

It was a mock-up press release where he “quotes” Google CEO Eric Schmidt saying “With the acquisition, we can increase the speed of indexing as everything will already be on our servers by the time it’s published.”

Followed by Larry Page saying, “We realized it’s not very cost-effective to buy the Internet in smaller portions.”

Google seems to be on an acquisition kick, so who’s in queue next?

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 14

Microsoft finalizes acquisition of Skype, Tony Bates shares his thoughts (video)

Posted in: business, deal, industry, Microsoft, mobilepostcross, money, skype, steve ballmer, Today's Chili, video, VoIP
Well, it’s finally happened — Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype has just been finalized, a little more than five months after it was first announced. Under the $8.5 billion deal, Skype CEO Tony Bates will be named president of the new Skype Division of Microsoft, and will have to report directly to Steve Ballmer. Many Skype employees, meanwhile, will stay onboard at offices around the globe, including at outposts in Estonia, the Czech Republic, Russia, Sweden, the UK, Luxembourg, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and the US. In a post on the Official Microsoft Blog today, Bates seemed unsurprisingly enthusiastic about the acquisition, describing it as a marriage of two “disruptive, innovative, software-oriented companies.” The exec was less specific about the role his company would play within Redmond’s new architecture, but assured that Skype would be at the forefront of future communications initiatives across a variety of platforms. “Microsoft is committed to the ubiquity of the Skype experience – communication across every device and every platform will remain a primary focus,” Bates wrote. “And we’ve only scratched the surface.” Head past the break for Microsoft’s full PR, as well as the video address from Bates.

Continue reading Microsoft finalizes acquisition of Skype, Tony Bates shares his thoughts (video)

Microsoft finalizes acquisition of Skype, Tony Bates shares his thoughts (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Oct 2011 02:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 11

Add Zenter to the List of Google Acquisitions

Posted in: Google, Today's Chili

This article was written on June 20, 2007 by CyberNet.

ZenterIf you’re keeping track, get out your list of Google Acquisitions for the year and add Zenter to it.  Google just announced that they have acquired Zenter which is software for online slide presentations. I know, some of you are probably recalling their acquisition in April for Tonic whose technology focuses on Java solutions for “presentation creation and document conversion.” It looks like just one presentation company isn’t going to do it for Google, they need a whole line of them.

While both Zenter and Tonic focus on presentations, there’s a reason Google went after Zenter. According to the Google blog, Zenter’s technology will be used to provide presentation-sharing capabilities to Google Docs & Spreadsheets.

Haochi over at Googlified gives his insight saying that Google acquired Zenter because after they purchased Tonic, they realized it would be too difficult for them to make it part of the entire Google suite of apps. Something like “Mission Impossible,” and if they want a presentation app pushed out the door by the end of the Summer, they realized it was going to take another presentation acquisition.

Garrett Rogers over at ZDNet thinks Tonic will be used solely as the exporting engine in the future because they’ve spent a lot of time figuring out how they can be “100% binary compatible with Microsoft Powerpoint.” This would mean that their focus will be saving presentations in a format that would work perfectly with Powerpoint.

While online seems to be the way to go lately, there are still people who prefer desktop applications.  This is where Google Gears could potentially come in handy because Google could take their Online Suite of applications and give them offline capability. I for one, would be more likely to use docs and spreadsheets if there was the capability to take them offline.

Now I just wonder what Google will do with the name.  If they stick with Google Docs, Spreadsheets, and tack on Presentations, it’s getting too long! It’s about time that they come up with a clever new name.

Thanks to everybody who sent this tip in!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 10

Happy 9th Birthday Google!

Posted in: Gmail, Google, Today's Chili, YouTube

This article was written on September 27, 2007 by CyberNet.

happy birthday google If you visit Google today, you’ll notice the usual logo has been replaced with the one you see pictured to the right.  It’s Google’s 9th Birthday, and they’re celebrating! While there are actually several dates that could be considered Google’s birthday, clearly they acknowledge today, September 27th as their official birthday, the day that they became incorporated and their name was officially Google inc. I’m sure they’ve got birthday cake galore and other goodies on hand at the Googleplex to help celebrate. It’s been quite the 9 years for Google, so lets take a look at some of their milestones.

  • 1995-1997 – Google founders Larry and Sergey met at Stanford University and it wasn’t love at first site – they argued over everything. Eventually they agreed that there was a problem to solve, so they got together and began working on technology that would provide relevant information from mounds and mounds of data.
  • 1998 – Working in a dorm room (Google’s first data center), they began working on what they called BackRub, a search engine. After initially wanting to sell their technology, they decided they’d try and grow the service on their own and with generous donations, they were able to move out of the dorm and into the infamous Menlo Park, California garage.
  • 1999-  After outgrowing their space in the garage, they moved once more to an office in Palo Alto to comfortably fit eight employees. Shortly after that move, they found once again that they needed more space. This move took them to what is now known as the Googleplex – The Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California. They also felt that it was an appropriate time to ditch the beta tag, so in 1999, Google Search left it’s beta days behind.
  • 2000 – This is the year that both AdWords and the Google Toolbar were introduced. By the end of 2000, Google was handling over 100 million search queries each day.
  • 2001 –  Eric Schmidt took over as the big boss (CEO) of Google in August of 2001 to help their growing business.
  • 2002 – Both Google News and Froogle ( Now Google Products) launched this year as well as Google Labs which “enabled engineers to present their pet ideas proudly to an adventurous audience.”
  • 2003 – This is the year that Google AdSense launched which has given web sites the opportunity to generate revenue through targeted ads.
  • 2004 – One word… Gmail! At the time, the gigabyte of free storage that they offered for each user was huge. And because they launched this service on April 1st, everybody was convinced it was an April Fools joke. As we all know, this was no joke! Other big milestones this year included the acquisition of Picasa, as well as Keyhole Corp. which we now know as Google Earth.
  • 2005 – Google Video launched this year, although in a very different form than what we know it as today, as well as Google Maps and Google Talk.
  • 2006 –  Undoubtedly the biggest news of 2006 for Google was the acquisition of YouTube, although that was far from the only major thing that happened that year. This was also the year that Google Trends, Google Notebook, and Google Co-op launched.
  • 2007 –  Happy 9th birthday Google! Highlights from this year included TiSP – free broadband service for you home (Happy April Fools), opening Gmail up to everybody, and the acquisition of DoubleClick and Feedburner.

This was only the tip of the iceberg as far as Google’s milestones go, and I can only imagine what 2008 will bring. Happy Birthday Google!

Source: Google Corporate Information

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 06

Nuance reportedly buying Swype for $100 million

Posted in: mobilepostcross, Today's Chili
It’s only been about a year since Nuance traced Swype’s finger gliding input method with QuickType, but it seems like the firm is ready for the real deal: Michael Arrington says it’s nabbing the Seattle-based startup to the tune of $100 million. With competition heating up in the voice command space after Apple’s Siri assisted iPhone upgrade, Nuance could be stocking up on more traditional input methods, or at the very least edging out the potential for more competition. There’s no word just yet if Swype will replace or fade away in lieu of the firm’s own traceable input brand, but we’ll be sure to let you know if we hear something official.

Nuance reportedly buying Swype for $100 million originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Oct 2011 22:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 03

HP pays $10.4 billion for controlling interest in Autonomy, which will remain autonomous

Posted in: breaking news, BreakingNews, business, hewlett-packard, HewlettPackard, HP, Today's Chili


VoodooPC. 3Com. And, perhaps most notoriously, Palm. The list of HP acquisitions grows by one today, with the purchase of UK information-software maker Autonomy, long a target of former HP chief Léo Apotheker. Apotheker, you may recall, was just ousted in favor of former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. The deal began during Apotheker’s tenure and went through with HP paying just about $10.4 billion for a controlling percentage of Autonomy stock. The UK firm will remain a separate unit, with Whitman saying, “Autonomy significantly increases our capabilities to manage and extract meaning from that data to drive insight, foresight and better decision making.” Something tells us she’s not the only one hoping for some better decision making. For full details on HP’s latest buy, check the source link.

HP pays $10.4 billion for controlling interest in Autonomy, which will remain autonomous originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Oct 2011 19:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 03

Rhapsody announces plans to acquire Napster

Posted in: BestBuy, breaking news, deal, Music, streaming, Today's Chili

Details are fairly light at the moment, but Rhapsody has just announced that it plans to acquire Napster, and that the deal is expected to be complete as soon as the end of November. In a statement, Rhapsody president Jon Irwin said that the deal “will further extend Rhapsody’s lead over our competitors in the growing on-demand music market,” and that “this is a ‘go big or go home’ business, so our focus is on sustainably growing the company.” According to Rhapsody, the company will acquire Napster’s subscribers and “certain other assets” under the agreement, and Best Buy (Napster’s current owner) will receive a minority stake in the company. Press release is after the break.

Continue reading Rhapsody announces plans to acquire Napster

Rhapsody announces plans to acquire Napster originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Oct 2011 13:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sep 30

AT&T asks court to dismiss lawsuits filed by Sprint and C Spire Wireless

Posted in: att, carrier, industry, Law, lawsuit, market, merger, minipost, mobilepostcross, price, Sprint, t-mobile, Today's Chili

Well, look at Ma Bell now, wishing it’d all just go away. Tied up in lawsuits, the company has filed motions to dismiss the two complaints brought by Sprint and C Spire Wireless (formerly Cellular South), which seek to block AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile. In the filings, it’s argued that the two providers represent their own interests, rather than that of the public. AT&T further reveals that C Spire had pursued private negotiations prior to the lawsuit, where the regional provider agreed to support the merger “if AT&T would agree not to engage in facilities-based competition in Mississippi.” Ma Bell goes on to state, “This inappropriate proposal confirms that what Cellular South fears is competition, not lack of competition.” Given the latest maneuver (which smacks heavily of PR spin), there’s no doubt that lawyers for Sprint and C Spire will have a bit of homework for the weekend.

AT&T asks court to dismiss lawsuits filed by Sprint and C Spire Wireless originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Sep 2011 20:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceBloomberg Businessweek  | Email this | Comments

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