Google news stories on Newser

Wow Google Moog Doodle Honors Synth Pioneer

Rob Quinn — Wed, 23 May 2012 00:01:00 CDT

Google has honored synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog with a doodle fans are calling its best ever. To mark what would have been Moog's 73rd birthday, Google's homepage features a fully playable version of his famous synth, complete with 19 knobs and a recording device. "We had a terrific blueprint," chief...

China Clears Google's Motorola Takeover

Mark Russell — Sun, 20 May 2012 06:44:38 CDT

Google's $12.5 billion bid for Motorola got the OK from Chinese authorities yesterday, the last regulatory obstacle in the online giant's quest to move into mobile phone production, reports Reuters . A condition for China's approval requires Google to keep its Android software free and open for at least five...

Tech's Richest Hate Showing Off Wealth

Matt Cantor — Fri, 18 May 2012 16:10:05 CDT

Facebook's staff may be full of zillionaires, but don't expect Ferraris in the parking lot. Silicon Valley, where almost 14% of homes earn more than $200,000 per year, is deeply opposed to conspicuous consumption—hence Mark Zuckerberg's iconic hoodies and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's underground house. "The message here...

Iran Threatens Google Over Nameless Gulf

Rob Quinn — Fri, 18 May 2012 02:19:23 CDT

The body of water separating Iran from the Arabian peninsula is nameless on Google Maps, and Iran isn't happy about it. Iran's foreign ministry accuses Google of dropping the name Persian Gulf "as one of the seditionist acts taken as part of the soft war against the Iranian nation," Reuters...

Google Revamps Search With 'Knowledge Graph'

Dustin Lushing — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:47:55 CDT

Google is rolling out a major new change to its search engine today—the Knowledge Graph . When a user searches for a famous person, place, or thing, a box will pop up on the side of the screen offering a concise list of relevant facts, reports ABC News . Google's database...

Google Gets First Self-Driving Car License

Mary Papenfuss — Wed, 09 May 2012 03:45:18 CDT

Google is officially speeding into the future now that it has its mitts on the first-ever-issued license for a self-driving car , courtesy of the state of Nevada. There's just one hitch: state regulations require that the self-driving car must have two human operators inside—one behind the wheel to take...

Google 'Violated Copyright' But Dodges $1B-Bullet

Mon, 07 May 2012 14:28:09 CDT

A federal jury in San Francisco has reached an impasse on a key issue in Oracle's copyright-infringement case against Google, handing the database-software company a major setback. Oracle had been seeking up to $1 billion in damages on copyright claims after alleging that Google Inc. built its popular Android mobile...

10 Biggest Internet IPOs

Thu, 03 May 2012 17:59:49 CDT

Facebook hopes to raise as much as $13.6 billion in an initial public offering of stock, probably in mid-May. It would be the largest IPO ever for an Internet company. Here are the top 10, according to Renaissance Capital, an IPO investment adviser: Google : $1.67 billion, 2004 Yandex...

Facebook, Google Could Fall Apart

Kevin Spak — Wed, 02 May 2012 15:51:03 CDT

Right now, Google and Facebook seem invincible, but in five to eight years they could well be gone, argues Eric Jackson in Forbes . "Not bankrupt gone, but MySpace gone." After all, it's happened to loads of web giants before them. The more you look at the Internet, the more "it...