Advances in artificial intelligence tend to provoke polarizing reactions for most people. One, a dystopian anxiety where humans huddle in fear of their metallic overlords. Or two, a utopian futurist society where humans are freed from mundane labor and complex challenges are solved by machines. Wherever you fall on the AI anxiety spectrum, the […]
Over the past week there were rumors that Google and Facebook were both interested in buying Skype. Then Om Malik reported that Microsoft was really the one interested and the Wall Street Journal confirmed yesterday that Microsoft would be paying a remarkable $8.5 billion for the company, making it Microsoft’s largest acquisition to date: At […]
You no doubt read on Monday that Sprint and Google Voice have done a deep integration. This now enables a Sprint subscriber to either a) make Google Voice into her Sprint mobile number or b) use an existing Sprint number as the Google Voice number. Those who choose to do this get all the benefits […]
The end of the year is the time when people feel more free to make wacky statements and dubious predictions. Whether it’s the season, too many rich desserts or the additional alcohol people consume it’s not clear. But one such prediction is that Google might seek to become a full-fledged phone company in 2011. Having […]
Earlier this week, we discovered that Yahoo would be the default search engine on AT&T’s first Android handset, the Motorola Backflip. That’s a first as far as I know, an Android device that doesn’t present Google as the featured search engine. However, in the bad-news column for Yahoo, according to PaidContent, T-Mobile has now swapped […]
You saw the rumors earlier in the week and we reached out to Google for confirmation of the reported Gizmo5 acquisition. But at the time they didn’t say anything. In fact they said, “We’re always talking to various companies about various things, but we don’t comment on rumor or speculation.” It’s no longer speculation because […]
Yahoo reported today that the company had “entered into an exclusive, multi-year, partnership with O2 Germany to become the preferred partner for mobile search and services, displacing Google.” Paid search results are reportedly part of the deal (and likely a revenue share as well). According to press materials: O2 users now have direct access to […]
Google has created a mobile app for its Google Voice service, right now only for Android and BlackBerry with an iPhone app to come. Think of this as Skype for mobile only more so, because there’s a usable number associated with the service and integration with your phone’s contacts. Effectively what the mobile app allows […]
Sprint, the troubled, third largest US wireless carrier, has been mulling a spin off or sale of Nextel and has been the subject of takeover rumors itself. It had ambitious plans to roll out a national WiMax network that had seemingly been placed on the back burner. However, today the company announced a major deal […]
There are roughly 250 million cell phone users in the United States and more than ten times that figure around the globe. Approximately 42 million (or so) people use the “mobile Internet” in the US, with varying degrees of frequency. The number of people texting constitutes at least 100 million more on top of that. […]
Google has joined a consortium of Asian companies, Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, KDDI Corporation, Pacnet, and SingTel, to build an undersea transpacific fiber optic cable that will provide much greater bandwidth capacity between the United States and Japan. According to the press release, the cost of the new “Unity” cable effort will be $300 million. […]
Yahoo put out a dizzying slew of press releases today aimed at highlighting its carrier partnerships and what it claims is its mobile leadership position. The core of these releases is the announcement of nine new Asian mobile operators, adding to the company’s other Asian carrier relationships. Yahoo’s oneSearch will provide mobile search for these […]
Speaking on Tuesday at the CTIA mobile trade show, Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer definitively said that the company would not bid for wireless spectrum licenses next year. Reuters quotes Ballmer as saying, “What would it buy us to buy a piece of spectrum, one piece of spectrum in one country…It would do a lot to […]
Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft are all doing business in China. There’s been bad PR and even congressional hearings for Yahoo about its cooperation with the Chinese government in the country’s effort to censor the Internet and crack down on dissent. Turkey and Thailand have blocked YouTube, and so on. Now this article from Forbes describes […]
Google may dominate in web search, but it has only a slight lead over Yahoo in mobile search users, according to new stats from research firm M:Metrics. Business Week has a good summary of the research: “Google had about 4.75 million U.S. subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2006, roughly 1.1 million more than Yahoo. […]
Chunghwa Telecom, Google Sign Agreement from the Associated Press reports Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom has signed a mobile deal with Google. Google will provide mobile web search services to Chunghwa’s user base starting this January. According to the story, Chunghwa Telecom is the largest phone company by revenue in Taiwan, with 840,000 3G users and is […]