Now that Google has officially announced that it will bid on the 700MHz spectrum, most of us are speculating about the possibilities. And while I have my own beliefs about where Google will go with the spectrum, I’m sure many of you have your own. But regardless of where you stand on this issue, one thing remains certain: the future of the technology industry is curr

Update 10:45 a.m. PT with Google comment. Google is experimenting with a new Web search interface that allows people to influence the results they get by indicating whether or not they like particular results. According to a page of instructions for a test feature on Google Experimental Labs …

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.–What is the best way to make money with ads tied to online video? And how can traditional advertising models benefit from new methods pioneered online? Those were major topics of discussion during the morning keynote today at the Dow Jones Consumer Technology Innovations conference here. And …

Google is adding support for Google Gadgets in its Google Desktop for the Mac software. Google Gadgets, as you probably know, are mini applications with dynamic content that offer quick access for things like newsfeeds and to-do lists. Mac users can now run Google Gadgets side by side with Apple …

Google is set on Wednesday to launch a new feature in its Google Maps for Mobile program that automatically sets your location even in phones that lack a global positioning system (GPS) device. Until now, if you were in a cafe and you wanted to search for a nearby photocopy …

On the positive side Google announced a new effort the “Highly Open Participation Contest” to get young people involved in open source development. They’ve teamed with a bunch of open source projects to get kids involved early. Big thumbs up! Less good…
Google has provided the IP address of …

Google Maps now has terrain maps. You can see mountains, valleys, and buildings.(Credit: CNET Networks) Google Maps has added a new view layer to its repertoire today. It’s called terrain view, and as the name suggests, it lets you get a detailed look at geographical features both natural, …

An article in yesterday’s New York Times cites recent surveys challenging the notion that smartphones are ready for primetime: Similarly, surveys by Yankee Group, a Boston research firm, show that only 13 percent of cellphone users in North America use their phones to surf the Web more than once …

Google’s much-rumored online storage service should be available in a few months, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal late on Monday that cites unnamed sources. The service would allow people to store any kind of data on Google servers and access it from any computer with …

A letter from the top two ranking members of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, Democrat Herb Kohl and Republican Orrin Hatch, seeks to chill Google’s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick on antitrust grounds: Antitrust regulators need to be wary to guard against the creation of a powerful Internet conglomerate able to extend

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama made an impressive showing at the Googleplex on Wednesday, joking about the casual attire of the audience and correctly answering a standard Google engineering interview question. Asked by Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt what the most efficient way to sort a million 32-bit integers is, …

Paula Abdul doesn?t have anything on Marissa Mayer. Mayer, Google’s vice president of search products and user experience, will be on a panel of expert judges for YouBeTheVC.com, where people vie for venture capital funding though an online contest. The contest is something like American Idol meets …

In this interview, Mozilla’s technology strategist Mike Shaver responds to and rejects recent claims that Firefox and Google are getting a bit too close for comfort. Mozilla is independent, he says, with or without Google’s $56 million. I received a fair bit of criticism for a blog post that I wrote last week …

The New York Times is reporting that iGoogle and Yahoo Mail could be at the core of social-networking plans for the two search companies. “Web-based e-mail systems already contain much of what Facebook calls the social graph–the connections between people,” Saul Hansell writes in his blog posting. “Yahoo and Google …

So, what could Google execs be talking about with the man who created American Idol and X Factor? The United Kingdom’s Guardian online reports that Google has been in discussions for about a year with Simon Fuller. Fuller worked with the Spice Girls and managed David Beckham in addition …

Northeastern University has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Google, claiming the database architecture that Google uses to feed up search results has been misappropriated, according to The Boston Globe. The lawsuit claims the technology was developed and patented by a company called Jarg in Waltham, Mass., that was co-founded …

After what felt like a long hibernation period, Google has recently made at least a partial PageRank update of the visible or public PageRank, often referred to as Toolbar PageRank. And boy was it noticed. Not so much with the update but with the PageRank drops targeted at sites that …

Northeastern University and a start-up company cofounded by an associate professor have filed a patent-infringement suit against Google Inc., claiming that database technology patented in 1997 was misappropriated by the world’s most popular Internet search service.

We had never met, but as we talked on the phone I knew she was Googling me. The way she drew out her conjunctions, just a little, that was the tip off — stalling for time as new pages loaded. It was barely audible, but the soft click-click of the keyboard in the background confirmed it. Oh, well, it’s the information age. Normally, she’d have to go through my staff first, but I gave her an appointment.

The top global technology brand for 2007 is (drum roll, please) … um, I’m not sure. One market research firm says Google, the other says Microsoft. This is embarrassing. How about this: you’re the tie-breaker. You’re all buyers of technology products and services; which do you think is the better brand? Which one commands your loyalty and recurring business? I hear

Valleywag is reporting that start-up WhatsOpen.com has written the first wireless app for Google’s new Android mobile platform. It’s still under wraps, but the report says WhatsOpen.com offers a Web application that shows people nearby stores that are open for business. Valleywag has screenshots of what …

Google is making major structural code changes to Gmail and rolling them out slowly. The user interface changes are pretty subtle and you might not even notice them. But the code modifications likely presage more significant design and function improvements to come. To tell if your account has been affected, …

Google “is perhaps the most notable example of how open and competitive the software industry has become,” with “prospects…so bright that the capital markets value the company at approximately $231.5 billion, making it the fifth most valuable company in America.” Or so says a document that landed in …

Cars and maps are kind of a match made in heaven. People get lost, and roads are confusing. Luckily, pumping gas is not, and despite some states like Oregon requiring people to pump your gas for you, most other places are a self-serve affair. The Associated Press is reporting that …

New Google Earth layer is designed to shed light on the location of multimillion-dollar congressional pet projects. Politicians are famous (infamous, some would say) for setting aside billions of federal taxpayer dollars each year to bankroll pet projects in their home districts. Now it’s possible to map precisely where …

Having your site rank high in the search engines can be a real boost to traffic for your site. Could anything be better than achieving that top spot in Google? How about getting eight more keyword-rich links up there? What I’m talking about is the highly coveted site links….

(Credit: Open Handset Alliance)Like a number of my colleagues here at CNET, I had my ear pressed to the phone yesterday morning as the members of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), including Google, Motorola, and HTC, revealed their plans for Android, a new open platform for mobile devices. I’…

On August 31, Lakshmana Kailash K. was arrested in Bangalore, India, and charged with posting insulting images of a revered historical figure on the Internet. The police claimed that he had uploaded disrespectful images of Chhatrapati Shivaji, the Indian equivalent of George Washington. Free speech, it seems, does not extend …

Google has ambitious plans for reforming the mobile Internet world. But not everything Google touches turns to gold. Given the challenges Google faces getting the biggest U.S. carriers to play along and the mixed report card on Google products, the Android isn’t a slum-dunk. For instance, Google’s …