eBrandz Blog

Search Engine News Updates: August23-31-2010

Welcome to another weekly edition of Search and Social updates — packed with announcement, alliance, disputes and axing down services or products, from Silicon Valley’s tech leaders like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, Bing and others, as well as many more interesting Search Engine Optimization news from across the web…
Intel Pays US$7.68 Billion For McAfee To Combat Hacking And Virus Threat

Chip maker Intel Corp., after 18 months of close collaboration with security software provider McAfee Inc., Intel finally announced that it would acquire McAfee for $7.68 billion to address the growing threat of hacking and viruses in an all-cash deal, or $48 per share…

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Facebook Snaps Up Mobile Check-In Network “Hot Potato” To Enhance Places

Barely days after introducing its location-based Places service, Facebook over the weekend announced that it has snaffled up “Hot Potato,” a Brooklyn-based company with a mobile app that combines news feed and location-based features that lets people use smartphones to let friends know what they are up to at any given moment…

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Google Previews Chrome Web Store For Developers

Google over the weekend announced that they have made available a developer preview of its “Chrome Web Store,” which enables access to Web applications. The new “App Store for the web” has been unfolded in a developer preview, allowing developers to get their hands on the new business…

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Google Releases New AdSense Option For Developers To Monetize iPad Apps

Internet search engine titan Google recently announced that they are releasing a new feature for its Mobile for AdSense apps, optimized for the iPad in a nod to the growing number of iPad apps as well as the growing usage the extremely popular tablet that has no true Android competitor right now, which lets developers in the U.S. and Canada, who are participating in the beta program, to monetize their iPad apps…

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Google Experiments With New “Streaming Search Results” Function

The Internet is swirling with talks about search engine giant Google is experimenting with a new manifestation of its search engine that rejiggers results pages as you type your query, in real-time, according to a video captured by a UK-based SEO…

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Google Finally Acquires Visual Shopping Comparison Site Like.com

Last week, the silicon valley was abuzz with search engine giant Google in apparent discussion to bundle up its arsenal with a visual shopping site and, finally on Monday the company announced that it has acquired visual search company Like.com, which specializes in visual search technology that lets people hunt online for bargains using pictures of clothing…

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AOL Gives Parents Tool To Monitor On Kids’ Social Networking Activities  With Safe Social

Have you ever wish that you could become an invisible being in your house to watch for what your kids post on Facebook and other social media sites? Well AOL, in association with SocialShield, is launching AOL SafeSocial, a $9.99-per-month service that empower parents to monitor their kids’ online activities without having to be a “friend.”…

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Google Earth 1.1 For Android Goes Underwater

Most of the Earth’s surface is covered with water, which we land-lubbers have a difficult time exploring on our own. Google Earth enthusiasts who own smartphones powered by Google Earth for Android adds an ocean layer to its application for surveying our planet…

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Google Introduces Free Voice Calls Via Gmail

Internet search engine giant Google has just invaded Skype’s territory Wednesday with the introduction of a new service that delivers Voice over Internet Protocol to Gmail and make phone calls over the Web to landlines or cellphones and links the service to Google Voice app. Currently, only users in the US will be able to make calls from inside their Gmail account…

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News Corp. To Merge Fox Audience Network With MySpace

Big changes are underway at Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. troubled digital division. Following the departure of Fox Audience Network President Adam Bain, News Corp has announced it now intends to merge its online advertising network, Fox Audience Network and social networking site, MySpace unit…

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Nokia, Intel Focus On 3D Holographic Mobile Tech

US computer chip behemoth Intel and Finland’s Nokia, the world’s leading mobile phone manufacturer, said Tuesday that they are developing a first joint research center that will focus on developing 3D interfaces and virtual reality experiences for use on mobile devices…

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Google Launches New Homepage For “RealTime” Search Of Tweets, Buzzes

Another day, another service has been unfolded from the house of world’s most popular search engine leader. Google Inc. on Thursday strengthened its efforts to make its Web-search results timelier, for users who want to sift through news, comments, further embraced the world of tweets, status updates, and on-the-fly posts with a website devoted to finding “real-time” content as it hits the Internet…

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MySpace Acquires Social Chat Startup Threadbox To Boost Messaging

News Corp.’s MySpace, the struggling social-networking site, attempting to make a reappearance has finalized a deal to acquire certain, unspecified assets of social messaging platform Threadbox. whose real-time messaging application has been branded as a more useful Google Wave, VentureBeat reported…

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Free iPad Scammers Hits Facebook And Twitter

Every generation has its fair share of people who are ingenuous enough to believe that there is a free lunch — only to find out the painful way later on that they have been conned. A bout of spam disguised as a free iPad offer is compromising the accounts of social network users on Facebook and Twitter…

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Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen Sues Google, Apple, Facebook, Others Over Web Patents

Billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen on Friday, triggered a patent shot across the bow of several prominent technology companies, suing 11 major Web-based firms, including Apple, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, YouTube and eBay, charging them with infringing patents filed more than a decade ago, which he owns…

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Google Gobbles Another Pseudo Swedish Social Startup Ångströ

The Internet search engine giant Google, striving to counter the growth of Facebook, continues to determinedly pursue social-networking capabilities, this time with the acquisition of Palo Alto-based startup “Ångströ,” an outfit that built all sorts of apps that hook into “social” sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn…

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Adobe Tweaks Photoshop.com’s Free Web Tools, Abandons Sign-Up Requirement

Adobe over the weekend unleashed several updates to its free online editing applications at Photoshop.com, including the preference to edit photos without signing up for an account, giving users another incentive to BitTorrent the real McCoy…

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Microsoft Reverts Back Windows Live Sync To Live Mesh, Ups Storage

Hold onto your breaths, Windows Live enthusiasts; software maker Microsoft over the weekend has decided to make a bunch of changes to its Live Sync service including reverting that decision, and the combined program will now be called Windows Live Mesh before it is released in final form this fall, and raise Mesh’s storage limit to 5 Gbytes of free cloud storage…

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Google Preps To Offer Pay-Per-View Movie Rental Service On YouTube: Report

Google’s YouTube video-sharing website is in discussion with Hollywood’s leading movie studios to unfold a global pay-per-view video service that could be introduced by the end of the year, thrusting it head-to-head with Apple in the race to dominate the digital distribution of film and television content, the Financial Times reported on…

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Google Renews Licensing Deal With AP For Hosting News Stories

After months of ongoing discussions, search engine giant Google and the Associated Press announced on Monday they have resolved a deadlock over extending their licensing deal, which allows it to host full-text news articles from the US news agency on Google sites such as Google News…

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Microsoft Breaks Into Google’s Unwalled Garden, Unfolds Bing App To Verizon Android Users

Late last year, when Microsoft introduced a downloadable application for the iPhone from Apple, it set off some sensation in the tech world. Android owners who have been longing for a new mobile search option can now rejoice as the tech world was buzzing again with an announcement by Microsoft’s search group, Bing. The software maker on Monday announced the launch of its first Bing for Mobile Android app for Verizon customers…

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Google Scoops Up “SocialDeck” Fifth Company This Month

Barely days after acquiring Angstro, search engine giant Google Inc. continues its pattern of shopping spree by scooping up the social games start-up SocialDeck Inc., the latest in a series of acquisitions aimed at helping the Internet search titan build a social-networking service to compete with Facebook Inc…

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