Google was founded in 1996 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page. The company started off as a new search engine that became very popular and is the most commonly used to this day. Google began expanding its services by acquiring many companies such as Keyhole, Inc. and YouTube. In September 2008, the G1 was released, made by HTC the G1 was the first smartphone running Google's own Android operating system. Google continues to expand and innovate in several areas with Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) being Google's first operating systems designed for tablet computers. Read on for the latest Google news, reviews and videos:
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by Joe Levi | May 1, 2013 7:31 AMRead OnYou're not going to see it advertised on billboards or during your favorite television program. Your local cell phone store isn't going to tell you about it either. It's something quite remarkable, and something that even the mighty Google couldn't do. Let's get some background under our belts, shall we? GSM is a wonderful technology. It has opened the world to mobile communications. That's basically what the acronym stands for -- Global System for Mobile Communications, originally Groupe Spécial Mobile. Using systems based on this technology, a subscriber can place their "identity ...
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by Michael Fisher | May 1, 2013 7:01 AMRead OnYou've been asking for it: a head-to-head matchup of the best of Windows Phone with (one of) the best of Android. We had to get the hotter comparisons out of the way first, but here for your viewing enjoyment is the latest piece of Nokia versus Samsung hotness to come out of Pocketnow. Why the delay? Funny you should ask. We've been churning out quad-vs-octa, Samsung-vs-HTC, and Galaxy-vs-Galaxy comparisons first because, at the moment, they're the more apt head-to-heads. Nokia's Lumia 920 is a half-year old at this point, and the truth is, putting it up against the newest Samsung ...
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by Joe Levi | April 30, 2013 10:36 AMRead OnAlmost every mobile platform today comes pre-packaged with some sort of app store. For Android that's Google's Play Store, Windows Phone and iOS both have their own app stores, too. All of these marketplaces allow you to browse, search, find, and download apps for your mobile device. They each also let you update the apps that you've already installed on your device, whenever an update is published. Facebook recently started updating their app -- from within their app. If that sounds strange to you, it is. The usual manner of updating would be by pushing a new version of the .apk to the ...
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Galaxy Note III Hardware Leaks, Android 4.3 Spotted, Google Now Reaches iOS & More – Pocketnow Dailyby Jaime Rivera | April 29, 2013 7:00 PMRead OnWatch today's Pocketnow Daily as we talk about the Galaxy S 4 carrier availability and the irony that TecTiles no longer work for it. Later we go through some Galaxy Note III rumors and the fact that apparently it'll be a bigger and better phone. Some Sony Xperia phones are next as the company plans to apparently give the phablet category a try. Then we talk about Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, and yes, that's not Android 5.0, we know. We end today's show talking about Google Now and what it means for it to only launch on iOS and not on legacy Android devices. All this and more after the break. ...
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by Jaime Rivera | April 29, 2013 5:40 PMRead OnI need a beer, and I'm sure many of you need a drink as well. If this was five years ago, I'd be by my second pack of cigarettes, and it has to do with how furious I am right now. Let me explain why: For starters, I wish I could express in words how long it took me to love Android. My first device was a Google Nexus One, and man, even though I started off at the right foot, it rarely ever felt that way. What a gorgeous phone and what a great experience overall, as long as I didn't turn it on. Froyo and Gingerbread were just stale and cartoony no matter how much I tried to love the device. ...
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by Stephen Schenck | April 29, 2013 10:54 AMRead OnFor over a month now, we've been seeing signs that Google Now was getting ready to spread beyond the realm of Jelly Bean Androids and make an appearance on iOS. After all, we saw what appeared to be a legitimate introduction video for just such an iOS edition. Following that, though, there was a period of confusion, with some comments from Eric Schmidt first making it sound like the app was done and just waiting on Apple's approval, only to have Apple deny that any such thing had occurred. Well, maybe Schmidt simply spoke too soon, as today the Google Search app for iOS has been updated to ...
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by Anton D. Nagy | April 29, 2013 4:16 AMRead OnYou know you wanted it! ASUS Fonepad vs Google Nexus. Here it is! If you have to have an earpiece on your tablet and finally leave your phone at home while you're out then the ASUS Fonepad is definitely the one to choose between the two. However, if the lack of an earpiece is not a deal-breaker for you then take a look at the video below where we inspect the Google Nexus 7 and the ASUS Fonepad, side-by-side, in our usual comparison. The Nexus 7 is soon going to turn one year old and a follow up is just around the corner, or it should be, judging by the usual Google release cycle and common ...
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by Stephen Schenck | April 26, 2013 7:46 PMRead OnJust yesterday, we were talking a little about what direction Google might be heading with future Android builds, and entertained the idea that neither Android 5.0 nor Key Lime Pie are in our immediate future. At the time, that might not have been any more than some educated guesswork, but newly uncovered evidence is making that seem just a bit prescient, with server logs pointing to the existence of Android 4.3, still using the Jelly Bean name. Servers are reporting connections from devices running Android 4.3, build JWR23B. Analysis of the IP addresses used by this gear, identified as ...
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Waterproof Galaxy S 4 Active, Snapdragon 800 Up Next, ASUS Fonepad Unboxing & More – Pocketnow Dailyby Jaime Rivera | April 26, 2013 7:00 PMRead OnWatch today's Pocketnow Daily as we talk about the ASUS Fonepad and our coverage of the device. Then we go through Windows Phone and some revealing stats from a recent poll in the United States. Google is next as we cover the news regarding the Play Store's new app update policies. We later talk about Qualcomm's plans to begin deploying the Snapdragon 800 processor and what this means for the mobile industry. We end today's show talking about Samsung's plans to bring us the Galaxy S 4 Active, a ruggedized version of their new flagship. All this and more after the break. Stories: - ASUS ...
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by Stephen Schenck | April 26, 2013 6:53 PMRead OnIt doesn't take knowing much about smartphones to realize that Google Glass, all tiny and perched on the side of your head, isn't one. Even so, we've recently learned that the headset does, indeed, run Android, so maybe it really isn't so different after all. With the device now in the hands of early adopters, more and more info on this innovative gadget has been coming to light, and some of the latest info tells us a bit about Glass's hardware specs. For instance, Glass appears to be powered by a Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 SoC. This is a chip that saw popularity in smartphones in early ...
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by Stephen Schenck | April 26, 2013 4:12 PMRead OnWhere are we at now with rumors about the Motorola "X" phone? There was a lot of talk earlier about a huge variety of custom options for the handset, but the recent chatter has downgraded all that to just a lot of different color choices being available. Today a new set of rumors arrive, and they once again return to the idea of alternate case materials. While we had previously heard that color was going to be the only variable, choices as to materials could once again be on the table, with an exotic wooden option specifically named. A group of rumors refers to some interesting X features, ...
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by Stephen Schenck | April 26, 2013 10:42 AMRead OnLast month, we got word of an unusual change happening with the Facebook app for Android, as Facebook appeared to be doing an end-run around the normal Google Play app update process and enabling the Facebook app to update itself directly from Facebook's own servers. Since then, we've seen Facebook Home launch, and heard plenty of gossip about how all this Facebook Android stuff was going down over at Google. We've been wondering what, if any, action Google might take to try and make a play for power, and now the first volley may have been fired, upon Google informing developers of a new ...
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by Michael Fisher | April 25, 2013 1:14 PMRead OnThere are devices that deserve a modicum of coverage, and then there are devices that call for a maelstrom of coverage. Samsung's Galaxy S 4, the most hotly anticipated Android smartphone of 2013 so far, easily falls into the latter category, and we have no qualms about devoting an entire podcast to discussing the latest Google-powered beast out of Seoul. Tune in as Master Chief Stephen Schenck, Figurine Boatswain Taylor Martin, and Captain 2 Phones take you for an auditory tour of the high and low points of the Galaxy S 4, calling on the kind of strung-out expertise that only nine days ...
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by Stephen Schenck | April 24, 2013 7:02 AMRead OnGoogle has proven time and time again that it's so much more than just a company that can find you the search results you're looking for; over the years, we've seen it branch out into dozens of new directions, not the least of which has been Android. That said, every once in a while the giant falters, and there's been a fair share of missteps: what was it thinking with last summer's Nexus Q? There's some new, pretty compelling evidence suggesting that Google is gearing-up to unveil an Android gaming service – not just selling games like it's been doing through Google Play, but linking ...
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by Michael Fisher | April 24, 2013 12:01 AMRead OnThere are a lot of things the fourth smartphone in Samsung's halo Galaxy S series is not. It's not a reinvention, or a revolution. If it were a movie, the Galaxy S 4 wouldn't be the blockbuster revival of a flagging film franchise: the reboot that kicks a sagging series back into high gear. That's because the Galaxy S line has never been a disappointing one. For years, Samsung's flagship smartphone series has dominated the Android landscape, making the word "Galaxy" synonymous with Google's platform in much of the public vernacular. Last year's Galaxy S III accelerated that trend, ...