Google Business Photos Lets You Peek Inside

Today, at the Social-loco conference, Marissa Mayer stepped up and introduced the newest product coming out of Google Maps. With Google Places being a hit on mobile, and StreetView being a hit...well...everywhere, Maps is bringing a new feature for businesses called Google Business Photos. This gives a 360-degree view of everything inside a business. Google will even send over a photographer for the photoshoot!

So, when can businesses apply? NOW! There are 50 million Place pages to be filled! Currently it is limited to select cities in USA, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan but if you want your business to be in the program but aren't in these cities, apply anyways. Google wants to see where the demand for photographers is and this will help them decide where to send them.

Oh, and here's a cute little introduction by Google:



Source: ReadWriteWeb

New Chrome Ad Will Make Your Heart Melt

I can't really say anything about this ad that it doesn't say on it's own. Just take a look for yourself:



via TheNextWeb

Google I/O Android App Is Out!

With just a few more days until this year's Google I/O, the big G has released an Android app for our viewing pleasure. It consists of schedules with sessions you can star, a map of the conference center, descriptions of all the sandboxes, and a news bulletin. This only gets me more hyped up for the big event.

You can get the application here. Only 6 more days to go!

Source: Google Code Blog

Google Is The Most Reputable Company In The US

According to a Harris Interactive poll, Google is the most reputable company in the United States. Along with them are technology companies like Apple, Intel, Amazon, Sony, and Microsoft. All of these companies got a score higher than 80, which is quite impressive. Check out the results below.

Source: Mashable

NFC-Based Coupons Coming To Android?

Google is reportedly working with Ingenico to develop NFC-based coupons for Android, as claimed by Ingenico CEO Phillipe Lazare. They are currently working towards pushing coupons to users while they are shopping at a particular store. This could mean a convergence of Google Places and the brand new Google Offers.

Lazare has pictured the situation as such: a user is at a store and gets a coupon pushed to them; once they reach the checkout counter, there will be an Ingenico terminal where they can tap their phone to send the coupon data. Simple as that; no emails and QR codes, just tap go on. With Google's recent partnerships with MasterCard and CitiGroup, this could be right around the corner.

According to Lazare, this isn't coming anytime soon, but is in the development phase. I'm sure we're likely to get a glimpse of this sometime within the next year, though. This is something that will prove the power of NFC, and in turn, Android.

Source: ReadWriteWeb

RIM To Bring Enterprise Solutions To Android

RIM has announced that it is going to release a multi-platform BlackBerry Enterprise solution which includes Android devices. That means that Android devices will soon be getting the enterprise security we currently find exclusively on BlackBerry devices, including the Enterprise Server technology and the management system. Some features will remain exclusive to BlackBerry devices, but the majority of game-changing features are going to be brought to both Android and iOS. This is a very exciting development considering the fact that this brings Android closer to an enterprise market. I really hope Google takes advantage of this with their Google Apps and converges the services to make some powerful business-style devices this year.

For the full press release, click here.

Details About The New Google TV Emerge

It's no secret that the new Google TV will be shown off at Google I/O this year, but we've finally gotten a glimpse of the future. Here are a few rumors coming from an insider:

• Faster chipset, meaning better performance
• Better user experience
• Android Market - finally

The first two are obvious ones, but the last one is definitely something to put a smile on everyone's face. The Android Market is a long time coming to the Google TV and I'm interested to see how this really plays out. Up till now, all Android market apps have been focused on touch-based device; it'll be interesting to see how things play out on a new kind of device. 

I'm especially looking forward to seeing Google TV games with Android touch devices being the controller. This, and much more, is possible with this kind of cross-platform interface, which makes this kind of development so much more exciting! Now, who can wait for Google I/O 2011?

Source: Business Insider

Googler Confirms "Ice Cream Sandwich" Next Android Version

Romain Guy, a well-known developer in the Android team, has confirmed the name of the next version of Android. There has been a back-and-forth for the past couple of months about whether it will be called Ice Cream or Ice Cream Sandwich.

A little while back, Jason Kincaid of TechCrunch claimed that Andy Rubin himself said that the version name would be Ice Cream Sandwich, but others will still skeptical on the name. The reasoning? Well, it's quite simple - the statues outside of the Android building all represent some Android version. Andy Rubin was worried that if they called it Ice Cream, people would get the statue confused with the FroYo (Frozen Yogurt) statue. Can you say LOL?

Regardless, it seems that Guy has confirmed all doubts and has credited Kincaid's claims. Here's where the all the rumors were ended:

Now when will this special dessert be served? Chances are that we'll get a sample at this year's Google I/O, but it probably won't come out for another few months (just like FroYo did). Rumors claim that this version will most probably converge Gingerbread and Honeycomb and create a cross-form-factor OS all across the board. I guess only time will tell what this next delicious treat will taste like.

Source: DroidDog

[UPDATE: It's Here!] Google Chrome Canary Build Coming To Mac OS X

UPDATE: Canary for Mac is here! More here.


Google Chrome has always had multiple channels for it's browser. It has the stable channel, the browser that should never break; the beta channel, the kind-of unstable browser that gets some features the stable doesn't get; the dev channel, the very unstable, near-bleeding-edge browser that gets the early, unfinished features; and finally the Canary build. This build is literally the bleeding edge. It gets features that no one will see in quite a while and don't work very well at all.

Up till now, the Canary build has only been available to Windows users. Mac OS X and Linux users have been kept in the dark and have been drooling for the chance to get their hands on this channel. But today, some news makes it look like Canary is making it's way over to OS X very soon. As in, the next few days.

Although the stable is in version 11 (so is Beta, I believe), dev channel is currently at version 12, and Canary is about to hit version 13 - that's the version that will hit Mac OS X. A developer who tracks the project very closely, Peter Beverloo, said the following:

"While it has not been released yet, Google does seem to be ready to release Google Chrome Canary for Mac OS X systems. The browser cannot be made the default browser through the preferences and the release monitor says that the latest version was released today, using the same revision as Windows’ Canary."

No one really knows when it'll hit, but it's definitely coming soon. I really hope they bring this build over to Linux; I've been looking forward to running the Canary build on Ubuntu for quite a while now!

Source: TechCrunch