Internet & Media

Google has sent Microsoft a cease-and-desist letter demanding Microsoft withdraw its redesigned YouTube app for Windows Phone 8 because it violates Google's Terms of Service.

The Verge first reported news of the letter, dated May 15, and included a copy of it on its Web site.

The TOS that the Microsoft YouTube app violates has to do with it blocking ads and allowing downloads of videos from Google's YouTube site.

From the letter:

"YouTube's agreements with creators give them choices inhow their content is presented and distributed, and your application takes away that control.The YouTube … Read more

Nearly two years after the launch of Google+, Google's social strategy looks like less of a joke and more of a calculated maneuver to make its social network the underlying fabric that weaves together relationships spread across desktop and mobile, Android and iOS.

Wednesday, at its annual Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, the search company announced 41 new features for its Google+ social network, including a Pinterest-like look, auto-generated related hashtags, "Awesome" photo options, and a streamlined messaging experience.

More important than all the cosmetic changes to the stream or the flashy photo enhancements … Read more

For Google, less is more.

That's the case with the tech giant's latest giveaway at its annual developers conference, which at face value might seem less generous than years past, though that turns out not to be the case when you do the math.

This year's haul: a Chromebook Pixel with LTE, the company's top of the line Chromebook, which sports a very high pixel density screen. Google sells it for $1,449 on its online store, though gave it away to all 6,000 I/O attendees.

All told, that adds up to $8,694,… Read more

If Google is going to lead, if not dominate, the technology industry's transformation in the era of mobile computing, it's going to need partners. Lots of them.

With that subtext in mind, the company put on quite the show Wednesday morning, with an impressive pitch for the hearts and minds of developers on the first day of its I/O 2013 conference in San Francisco. This was a hybrid of class lecture, sneak peek tease, and big vision bloviation-fest as Google strutted its stuff for almost three hours. The lengthy laundry list of announcements was impressive, with a … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- Everybody knows that YouTube is growing, but Google revealed on Wednesday just how big it's gotten.

Matt Frost, senior business product manager for the Chrome Web Media Team, listed these statistics at the Google I/O show for developers:

• More than 1 billion monthly users;

• More than 4 billion video views per day;

• More than 6 billion hours of video watched per month;

• More than 72 hours of video uploaded each minute

• And 25 percent of consumption is with mobile devices.

In addition, Frost said that HD video is "becoming dominant."

That's obviously … Read more

Apple's App Store on Wednesday passed another major benchmark, topping 50 billion app downloads.

That's according to the countdown timer on Apple's Web site and in iTunes. Apple also confirmed the benchmark on Twitter:

We just hit 50 billion app downloads. Thank you. It couldn't have happened without you. #50BillionApps tw.appstore.com/hgE

The person who downloaded the 50 billionth app will get a $10,000 App Store gift card from Apple, and the 50 people who downloaded apps right after that each will receive a $500 gift card. … Read more

Larry Page thinks the tech industry should work together. In his remarks at Google I/O, he said "us versus them" industry competition creates negativity that impedes overall progress in the industry. "Every story I read about Google is us versus some other company or some stupid thing," he said. "Being negative is not how we make progress. The most important things are not zero sum. There is a lot of opportunity out there."

Page singled out Microsoft for criticism, noting that the company recently gave its Outlook.com users the ability to log … Read more

Last week, my son lost all the research he had done for his first science fair project. (Topic: Can Fossils Form in Igneous Rock?) Extreme drama ensued, and ultimately, I ended up typing his dictation for him as he Googled frantically to meet his deadline.

If you've ever worked with a nine-year-old on a big project, you know that unless your child is a prodigy, the process often dissolves into tears of frustration.

As a parent or adviser, you need to teach a child to think critically, understand basic concepts of measurement (Should we measure the temperature at which … Read more

Larry Page may have officially just assumed the title of bizarro Steve Jobs.

Page wrapped up the kick-off address at Google I/O Wednesday not with a slick sales pitch or "one more thing," but with some pretty inspiring talk about the role of technology in creating a better world, mixed with a laundry list of companies and institutions that make him sad.

Speaking softly due to a medical condition that Page revealed earlier has afflicted him for many years, the Google CEO ended the three-hour-plus keynote not quite with a bang, but with an unprecedented question-and-answer session punctuated with many a jab.

Here then, are the highlights of what might be Larry Page's first annual festival of disses:… Read more