Hasta La Gadget!

Earlier this year at CES 2014, ASUS took the wraps off a very interesting hybrid device, and by hybrid we’re not talking about a laptop that doubles as a tablet. By hybrid we mean a laptop that double as a tablet that runs both Android and Windows at the same time. This came in the form of the ASUS Transformer Book Duet and was a pretty interesting device to say the least. Now given that Google and Microsoft are rivals, we can’t say that Google or Microsoft might have been too pleased to have both operating systems offered in the same device, and now according to a report from DigiTimes, it has been suggested that Google could be pressuring ASUS into never launching the device. (more…)

ASUS Transformer Book Duet Might Be Killed Due To Pressure From Google [Rumor] original content from Ubergizmo.

As you may have seen Google is working on a cool project called Tango which allows smartphones and tablets (and possibly Google Glass down the road) to not only see, but understand your environment. This is made possible by computer vision techniques not unlike what is used in Kinect 2 today. To make that possible at a scale and power consumption that is compatible with the battery capacity of a phone, Google has partnered with Movidius, a semiconductor company that builds Myriad 1, a vision processor that was designed from the ground up for this task. (more…)

Movidius Myriad 1 Vision Processor Powers Google’s Tango original content from Ubergizmo.

The world is vast and travel budgets finite, so looking for deforestation as it’s happening all over the world is nigh impossible. That is, of course, unless you have an all seeing eye in the sky—and, hey, you know what, there are satellites orbiting over all of our heads right now. Global Forest Watch is a new, near real-time forest monitoring system from World Resources Institute, Google, and another 40-odd partner organizations.

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Google has found itself at the center of another patent infringement suit. This time the patent suit was filed against Google by a company called ART+COM Innovationpool GmbH (GCI). The … Continue reading

We guess everyone has heard by now that Facebook will be acquiring WhatsApp, the popular instant messaging app, for a cool $19 billion. However it seems that Facebook was not alone in their bid for WhatsApp as our previous report had also suggested that Google expressed their interest as well. However it seems that Google’s offer of $10 billion without a seat on the board was not enough for WhatsApp to sell themselves to the company, which led to them selling to Facebook instead. However according to a report from The Information, it seems that Google had made a last-ditch attempt to acquire WhatsApp and was even willing to pay more than $19 billion.

The report goes on to state that Google’s Larry Page was also willing to allow WhatsApp to remain as an independent company, while at the same time providing them access to Google’s resources. This would mean that WhatsApp would not only have the money, but would also be able to compete with Facebook with regards to photo and video sharing, as well as instant messaging. Unfortunately despite the tempting offer, it seems that WhatsApp executives felt that Facebook’s vision was more aligned with theirs compared to Google. In fact it seems that it was also rumored that Google offered WhatsApp millions just to be notified if the company were to enter acquisition talks with another company, possibly so that Google could outbid them instead. Of course none of this can be confirmed, but what do you guys think?

Google Reportedly Offered WhatsApp More Than $19bn In Last-Ditch Effort original content from Ubergizmo.