Hasta La Gadget!

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

In the early days of the internet economy, the saying went that webpages were created on Macs, served on Unix and viewed on Windows. In the iOS app economy, it’s often the case that apps run on devices by Apple, but connect to services by Google. With the exception of many games, at this point, apps increasingly strive to be internet services.

Google has been investing in more of these services for a longer time and in a way more directly tied to apps than Apple has. Google Maps has been the best example, but others include Google Drive (with its editing features), Google Voice and Google+. In contrast, Apple’s biggest consumer online service success (other than the iTunes store) has been iCloud, which is less app-like and more of a silent shuttle for documents and files among iOS devices.

Filed under: Software, Apple, Google

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Google Now is, perhaps, one of the more compelling reasons to opt for an Android device over iOS. But, Mountain View is smart enough to realize that its big push to deliver information pre-emptively would be severely hampered if it was isolated to one platform. So, here we are, almost a year after Now debuted with the launch of Jelly Bean, and the (mis)labeled Siri competitor has finally landed on Apple’s mobile OS. Obviously, to truly come to grips with a product like this, you’d need days or weeks to truly judge it, but we’re familiar enough with the Android version to feel comfortable passing along our initial impressions. So head on after the break to see whether or not Google was able to replicate its virtual assistant magic on iOS.

Filed under: Software, Mobile, Apple, Google

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Word that Google has snapped up natural language processing startup Wavii first came from TechCrunch, and now the Wall Street Journal is chiming in with its own sources claiming the deal has in fact been struck, and that an announcement is imminent. In its current form, Wavii parses a personalized news feed and distills text into a summary for the top stories, similar to Yahoo’s recently-purchased Summly. TechCrunch reports that Apple and Google were locked in a bidding war for the outfit, but the web titan ultimately won with a bid in the neighborhood of $30 million. According to the WSJ, the fledgling firm’s talent will join Page and Co.’s web search team, which means the language detection technology may bolster its Knowledge Graph, giving users better results (and direct answers) for their queries. As language recognition permeates Page and Co.’s projects, Google Now and Google Glass could potentially benefit from the acquisition as well. Mountain View has yet to acknowledge the reported purchase, but if the tea leaves are being read correctly, expect that to happen soon.

Filed under: Google

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Source: TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal

While everyone else speculates about new Nexii and what sweet treat the next version of Android will be named after, we’re anticipating some exciting news about Now at Google I/O. Specifically, that it might be coming to both iOS and the desktop. We’ve already seen quite a bit of evidence that the virtual assistant app will eventually land on Apple’s mobile platform and maybe even Chrome. Newly discovered code in a Google page hints that it might just become part of the standard web search interface — provided you opt to turn it on, of course. Source code for the page in testing encourages you to, “get started with Google Now,” because it provides, “just the right information at just the right time.” It also offers you the opportunity to change you home and work locations because, as the explanation goes, “Google Now uses your Home location to show relevant information like weather, traffic conditions, and nearby places.” As you dig through you’ll also find plenty of references to “now_card.”

If Now becomes a standard part of the Mountain View lineup, regardless of platform, it could be huge for a company which already dominates the search market. Not to mention, it might satiate those seven people out there still mourning the loss of iGoogle. We won’t know anything for sure until the wraps are taken off and have reached out to the company for comment, but we anticipate the response will be predictably non-committal.

Filed under: Internet, Google

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Source: Google Operating System, Google

Japan’s NTT DoCoMo isn’t content waiting for Google Now to become commonplace before it gives customers a taste of predictive search. The carrier is near launching a trial for Tap-de-Concier, an Android-based service that will pop up maps, media, games and more depending on both the user’s own habits, as well as usage and trends from DoCoMo’s other portals. The result is a service that theoretically knows what you want, when you want it: Tap-de-Concier can tell that you’re looking for train schedules before work on a Monday morning, and restaurants on Friday night. We imagine that some will like the alternative just because it won’t be confined to Jelly Bean — any DoCoMo-offered phone or tablet with at least Android 2.3 can run the service, including Raku-Raku phones. Locals will have between March 26th and September 30th to decide whether or not Tap-de-Concier is more helpful than its Google parallel.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile

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Via: The Next Web

Source: NTT DoCoMo