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Google is once again dangling incentives before engineers.

The company threw open its doors Monday to the engineering community Monday, announcing that it granted a Founders' Prize--"a multimillion-dollar stock bonus"--to the team that developed Google Chrome. "(The) future is shaped by small teams of creative people who want to make a difference. We're on the hunt for these kind of people -- let us know if you think you're one of them," wrote Alan Eustace, senior vice president for engineering and research at Google.

Google is still one of Silicon Valley's … Read more

Google took an important step on Monday in the development of Google Wave, opening its servers up to outsiders who want their own waves to communicate with the outside world.

A "wave" is a stream of messages that blends traditional e-mail, instant messaging, file sharing, and workplace collaboration tools. There have been plenty of supporters and detractors of Google Wave, Google's bid to reinvent e-mail as a combination of such services. But Google's implementation of Wave is going to be only one part of the story: outside developers will have the opportunity to build their own … Read more

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Google's Andy Rubin, head of the company's Android development, would like to clear something up: Google is not in the phone-making business.

Last week TheStreet.com reported that Google had plans to sell a Google-developed phone at retail this year, bypassing carriers with its own Android implementation. But Rubin, vice president of engineering for Android at Google, scoffed at the notion that the company would "compete with its customers" by releasing its own phone.

"We're not making hardware," Rubin said. "We're enabling other people to build hardware."… Read more

Another day, another improvement to Google Maps that increases time spent on the site.

A few days after sending shock waves throughout the portable navigation industry, Google's back adding features to Google Maps that will once again draw the attention of the real-estate industry. Google Maps has been showing real estate listings since this summer, but the company added a few tweaks Thursday designed to make it easier to search for a new home with Google.

If you're looking at a particular slice of the world through Google Maps, you now have the option to select "Real … Read more

Yahoo is apparently thinking about making a run for the border: the Sunnyvale border, that is.

Marketwatch reports that Yahoo is finally preparing plans for a parcel of land it acquired three years ago in Santa Clara, Calif., a few exits south on U.S. 101 of its current headquarters in Sunnyvale. The land has apparently sat vacant ever since Yahoo bought it in 2006 in hopes of expanding, which, of course, didn't exactly work out given Yahoo's financial performance over that time and the economic downturn.

It's not clear whether Yahoo wants to move the executive … Read more

Google says it has found a work-around that should allow it to restore access for Google Voice users to most of the local lines it had blocked before AT&T complained about its practices.

AT&T and Google have been engaged in a war of words over Net neutrality and the obscure practice of "traffic-pumping," exchanging letters with the Federal Communications Commission on an almost weekly basis over the past month. Google wants to ensure that broadband Internet providers such as AT&T adhere to the proposed Net neutrality principles, while AT&T wants … Read more

Yahoo continues to pull out all the stops in hopes of convincing investors and advertisers that even though it's a massive media and technology company today, it has a plan for the future.

"Today is the beginning of a journey back to respect," said Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz in a meeting with financial analysts at Yahoo's headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. "Yahoo was the big shining star in the mid-1990s and mid-2000s, and then somehow we weren't so shiny anymore."

The all-day meeting, which is being Webcast, is designed to reconnect Yahoo with the … Read more

You can almost hear the portable navigation industry swearing already.

Google is announcing plans Wednesday to release a new Android application called Google Maps Navigation. When combined with a GPS-equipped mobile phone running Android 2.0, it provides turn-by-turn directions powered by Google Maps and a slick user interface that combines features such as voice recognition and Google Street View. Google Maps Navigation, like seemingly everything that emerges from Google, will be free.

"Mobile platforms--Android and others--are so powerful now that you can build client apps that can do magical things connected to the cloud," said Google CEO Eric Schmidt in a briefing for reporters at Google's headquarters on Tuesday.

Companies in the cell phone navigation industry have seen this day coming for quite some time. Right now, the beta application only works on phones that will use the Android 2.0 software, which is scheduled to be available very soon with the expected arrival of Motorola's Droid phone on Verizon's network.

Google's Vic Gundotra appeared to demonstrate the application on the Droid: he wouldn't confirm it, but it was a shiny black Android 2.0 phone running on Verizon's network and bearing Motorola's stamp, so we're probably not going too far out on a limb here. (Update, 7:24 a.m. PDT: Says Google's Wednesday morning press release: "The first phone to have Google Maps Navigation and Android 2.0 is the Droid from Verizon.")

However, Google is working with Apple on bringing it to the iPhone, and it's not ruling out licensing the software to makers of portable navigation devices used in cars throughout the world, said Gundotra, vice president of engineering at Google for mobile and developers. The process involving Apple is slightly different from the usual App Store submission process, because Maps is a built-in iPhone application, he said.

The application works like any navigation system that you may have used, but it combines Google Search and Google Maps functions that are normally only available on the desktop and brings them to the smartphone. Perhaps the most interesting and useful feature comes from Google Street View, allowing Google to provide a Street View image at every turn that the application suggests during your journey.… Read more

Ask.com could be on the block, judging by the comments of the CEO of its parent company.

Reuters reported on IAC's third-quarter earnings conference call Tuesday, where CEO Barry Diller all but opened the bidding for the struggling search engine. Despite a novel promotional deal with Nascar, Ask.com has failed to make much headway against the great powers of search in Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft.

"We've been asked a lot whether we're open to consolidating transactions in the area of search. The answer is yes," Diller was quoted by Reuters as saying. "… Read more