Practical Technology

I’ve been using Google Music since it was in beta. At first, it didn’t interest me that much. Yet another way to save my music to the cloud? How much good really was that? Well, after using it for several months, and now that Google Music is open for everyone in the US to use, [...]

[Read more →]

When I wrote about Google making it possible to opt-out of their Wi-Fi access point mapping program, I made a mistake. I thought Google was still using its StreetView cars to pick up Wi-Fi locations. Nope, Eitan Bencuya, a Google spokesperson, tells me that Google no longer uses StreetView cars to collect location information. So, [...]

[Read more →]

What is it with companies wanting to know your every move anymore? Facebook’s has been tracking you on Websites with Facebook Like buttons; Amazon, with its forthcoming Silk Web browser, will literally track your every move on the Web, and now HTC, in some of its Android smartphones, has planted a logging program that records [...]

[Read more →]

Measuring a profit can be a complicated thing my accounting friends tell me. For example, Google, which controls Android, is certainly making money from it, but how much? But, what if you’re making $444 million from Android and you actually didn’t have to spend any money on research and development or programming? You’d be doing [...]

[Read more →]

Microsoft has just announced its biggest ever Android-related patent deal with Samsung. In this contract, Microsoft will get a royalty payment on every Android smartphone and tablet that Samsung sells. And, what exactly is Samsung paying for and how much are they actually paying? We don’t know. Horacio Gutierrez, vice president of Intellectual Property and [...]

[Read more →]