Google's Early Earnings Report Sends Nasdaq Tumbling

Hemera/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- U.S. stocks fell for the first day this week as jobless claims soared and shares of Google were halted Thursday.
 
The Dow lost eight points to end the session at 13,549. The S&P dropped four points to 1,457. The Nasdaq gave up 31 points as trading on Google stopped at $687.30 Thursday afternoon, effectively putting a damper on the technology sector.
 
Google stock hit the skids after its third-quarter earnings report became public several hours ahead of schedule. The report showed a drop in profit and revenue of more than 20 percent. The stock lost nine percent before trading was halted so investors could review the report.
 
Meanwhile, first-time unemployment claims were up by 46,000 last week after a big drop the week before.
 
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Google Adds 250,000 Miles of Street View as Apple Tries to Improve

Google(NEW YORK) -- While Apple is apologizing for its new Maps app and trying to mend the glitches, Google is trying to stomp it into the ground.

For those who haven't been following the mobile maps war between the two tech giants: Apple's new maps app in iOS 6, which was released in September, replaced Google Maps for the iPhone and iPad. It was quickly criticized by many users for its lack of certain features -- but more so for mistaken locations and jumbled images.

Thursday Google announced that it is releasing the biggest update ever to its Street View feature, which gives users a view of what places actually look like from cars dispatched by Google to photograph everything they pass. The company has doubled the number of images in Street View images, adding 250,000 miles of road from around the world.

Listed on Google's blog are places where they have added more Street View coverage. Some are in the U.S., but most are abroad, in places like South Africa, Denmark, Japan and Spain.

Google has even added places like the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taiwan and Stanley Park in Vancouver.

"Street View, as you know, is a useful resource when you're planning a route or looking for a destination, but it can also magically transport you to some of the world's picturesque and culturally significant landmarks," Ulf Spitzer, the Street View program manager, wrote.

Apple's new Maps app has been criticized for lacking anything like Street View, which is very helpful when you want to see a place without going there. While Google offers its Maps service via its mobile website for the iPhone, which includes Street View, it doesn't yet offer a full mobile app in Apple's App Store.

Two weeks ago Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, apologized for the glitches in the new maps app. Apple also directed people to Google's Maps and provided instructions on how to create a shortcut to the Google Maps website on the iPhone or iPad home screen. Apple has been releasing updates to its offering, which fix glitches like distorted landmarks.

"Apple should have kept our maps," Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman, said Wednesday night at the 92nd Street Y in New York. "The fact of the matter is they decided a long time ago to do its own maps … What Apple has learned is that maps are really hard."

Interviewer Walt Mossberg asked if Google would release a dedicated app for the iPhone. "I don't want to pre-announce products," Schmidt answered.

Google has been rumored to be planning an app for the iPhone before the end of the year, though Schmidt did say that it all would depend on Apple's approval of it.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

October Tech Bonanza: iPad Mini, Windows 8 and More Coming

Microsoft(NEW YORK) -- While President Obama and Mitt Romney may be racing against each other on the campaign trail and fighting it out behind podiums this month, the tech giants are up to something very similar.

This month, the major technology companies are all racing to get their new products on store shelves and one-up each other with better feature sets and price tags.  Before the month is out, Apple, Microsoft and Google are expected to make significant product announcements.

Of course, all the companies are preparing for the big holiday gadget buying season.

"All of these consumer technology announcements are about getting people excited for the holiday selling cycle, which constitutes up to 40 percent of all consumer technology sales," Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, told ABC News.

Moorhead explained the end-of-October rush: "Manufacturers have to announce, ship and educate the retail channels on all new products by mid to late October to make it for mid-November sales."

Here is what you can expect in the next couple of weeks:

Apple iPad Mini
Launch Date: Mid-to-end October

After months of rumors, Apple is expected to release a smaller version of its iPad -- dubbed the iPad Mini -- later this month.  According to reports, it will have a 7.85-inch screen, the same Lightning charging port as the iPhone 5, and an aluminum body.  There's no word on the pricing, but it is expected to be competitive with other smaller tablets.

Microsoft Windows 8 and Surface
Launch date: Oct. 26

After showing off the software for almost a year, Microsoft is ready with the next version of its operating system for tablets, laptops and desktops.  Windows 8 will begin shipping on new tablets and computers from Lenovo, Asus, Acer, Dell, HP and more on Oct. 26.  You will also be able to buy the software and upgrade on that day.

But there's another major launch coming around the 26th -- Microsoft's own tablet, called Surface.  Microsoft hasn't confirmed the exact date of release or the price.

Microsoft Windows Phone 8
Launch date: Oct. 29

After releasing Windows 8, Microsoft is planning to release Windows Phone 8 on Oct. 29 at an event in San Francisco.  The phone operating system has been previewed and has some new features, including new homescreen features.  Nokia, HTC and Samsung have already announced plans to release phones running Windows Phone 8 and those are supposed to be out shortly after the launch.

Google Nexus by LG
Launch date: Late October

Google has been rumored to be releasing the next version of its Nexus phone at the end of the month.  CNET has reported that Google is working with LG and will together launch a phone similar to LG's current Optimus G, which has an HD 4.7-inch screen.  But instead of Android 4.0, it will run the new Android 4.2, which will have new features.  Other sites have also reported that there will be other Nexus phones launched by Google around the same time.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google?

KIMIHIRO HOSHINO/AFP/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- How much toilet paper would you need to cover Texas?  How many vacuum cleaners are made a year?  Can you swim faster in water or in syrup?  How would you weigh your head?

If your answer to these questions was, "who cares?" your chances of ever working at Google, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, most of the Fortune 500, or, increasingly, the corner shoe store, are slim.  Offbeat, brain-teasing questions are all the rage right now with interviewers.

So says science writer William Poundstone, author of the new book, Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google?  Its daunting subtitle: "Trick Questions, Zen-like Riddles, Insanely Difficult Puzzles, and Other Devious Interviewing Techniques You Need to Know to Get a Job Anywhere in the New Economy."

Anywhere?  Yes, pretty much, Poundstone tells ABC News.  The reasons, he says, are several.

First, there are more people than there are jobs.  A potential employer can set the bar to entry high and still be assured of a waiting room full of desperate souls.  

Second, "HR departments are running scared, asking themselves, 'How can we make sure our questions have predictive power for how well someone will do on the job?'"

There's not absolute proof that the new questions work, Poundstone says, but there's abundant evidence (including a Harvard study) that the old ones don't.  Most hiring decisions, researchers have shown, have more to do with an applicant's appearance or manner of speech than they do with his or her intellect.

Many of Google's questions, says Poundstone, are intentionally open-ended.  Example: "How would you devise an evacuation plan for San Francisco?"  In most instances, there is no single correct answer.  The interviewer's goal is to see how the thinking process of the applicant works, and to gauge his or her creativity in problem-solving.

Google declined an ABC News request for comment.

The book's most useful features include "A Field Guide to Devious Interview Questions," which divides questions into categories (e.g., classic logic puzzles, lateral-thinking puzzles, insight questions, tests of divergent thinking, etc.), then offers strategies and tips for answering each type.

Another feature is useful whether you interview with Google or any other employer: "Salvaging a Doomed Interview" offers advice for how to buy yourself time to think and how to make a good impression on your interviewer, whether you know the answer or not.

The second half of the book gives answers to the teasers cited in the first -- although which of these you ever might be asked is tough to say.  Questions, Poundstone explains, have a shelf life of their own.  Some ("Why are man hole covers round?") escape the shops of their creators and become part of company or industry folklore, such that more and more applicants come prepared to answer.

Interviewers at Google, for this reason, invest effort coming up with ever-newer and more devious questions.  It's more valuable for the applicant to understand the strategy for answering a given type of question than to have a canned answer ready.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Google Makes Voter Registration Easy with TurboVote Partnership

Google(NEW YORK) -- The 2012 election and convention tech tools keep on coming.

On Tuesday Google announced the launch of its Online Voter Guide, a portal that allows Google users to register to vote easily. In addition to its YouTube Elections Hub and its Google Politics & Elections site, this page will provide easy access to TurboVote, which lets you register to vote, vote by mail, and sign up for emails and texts about the upcoming election. TurboVote breaks voter registration down into a few clickable steps.

“To make it easy to navigate the rules and deadlines about registering to vote and how to vote by mail, we put together an online voter guide. We’ve also added a special section to make it easier for military and overseas voters to find information about their different rules and deadlines,” Google’s Eric Hysen wrote on the company’s blog.  Google and YouTube will be streaming the conventions and debates at its Election Hub Channel.

The 2012 conventions are expected to be the most connected political events in U.S. history. A number of apps have been released around the events and both campaigns have been extremely active on social media outlets, like Facebook and Twitter.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Apple v. Samsung: What the Verdict Means for You and the Tech Industry

SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg via Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- The verdict in the landmark Apple v. Samsung case was a major win for Apple -- the jury finding that many of Samsung's phones and tablets copied Apple's iPhone and iPad, and recommended that Samsung pay Apple over $1 billion in damages.

But it's not just Samsung that is going to pay and it's certainly not just about money (although Samsung's stock price has dropped over the past few days). The impact could ripple out from the company to the rest of the mobile industry, and ultimately to the technology you buy or own.

There's one thing many industry analysts agree on in the wake of the verdict: there's going to have to be more innovation in mobile devices. Plain and simple: products will have to start to look different from the iPhone and iPad.

"The jury reaffirmed Apple's claim that the design may be obvious when you see it but it takes work, vision and refinement to make it all come together as an experience. At the moment the only handset vendors that probably aren't concerned long term are Nokia and RIM," Michael Gartenberg, research director at the market research firm Gartner, told ABC News.

"With Apple patents being upheld, this will force the larger industry toward greater innovation and differentiation. If you're a CE [consumer electronics] vendor thinking of 'borrowing' any aspect of Apple design, you might want to think twice."

Nilay Patel, a former patent attorney and managing editor of The Verge, a technology publication, has said the same, and points out that Apple's competitors have already begun to change their new products to protect themselves.

"I think Apple's proven that its case about copying is very strong; we are already seeing software features change," Patel told ABC News. "I am sure we are going to see other software changes. I also believe we are going to see a highly differentiated hardware design."

During the trial, Apple's lawyers pointed to phones made by Nokia -- the Lumia 900 in particular -- to illustrate its point that not all phones had to be made to look like the iPhone.

Google's Android operating system was a center point in this trial. It is used in more mobile devices than any other, including all the Samsung products in dispute in this case. A number of Android features, including the way users have to move their fingers to zoom in or out on their screens, were found to infringe on Apple's patents.

"I think Apple's ultimate target is not just Samsung but the Android ecosystem. They view Google as their ultimate competitor, this is a setback for all of Android," Mark Lemley, a law professor at Stanford University, told ABC News.

With that in mind, some analysts believe that could be a major boon for Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system.

"The Samsung-Apple verdict was good for Microsoft's Windows Phone," said Patrick Moorhead, president of Moor Insights, in an interview with ABC News. "Not only is Microsoft free and clear of legal encumbrances, the once 'free' Android is looking more expensive every day when you add the Microsoft license fee plus a potential Apple license fee."

Microsoft employees even tweeted that reaction after the verdict was announced. "Windows Phone is looking gooooood right now," Bill Cox,  Sr. Director of Marketing Communications for the Windows Phone, tweeted after the verdict. Microsoft's next version of Windows Phone -- Windows Phone 8 -- is expected to hit in the next couple of weeks. Popular Android handset makers, including Samsung and HTC, already sell Windows Phone devices.

Google, on the other hand, said it doesn't believe the verdict will have far-reaching impact on its operating system. "The court of appeals will review both infringement and the validity of the patent claims. Most of these don't relate to the core Android operating system, and several are being re-examined by the U.S. Patent Office," Google said in a statement.

But those are longer-term changes. More immediately, there is a good chance that Samsung products that infringed on Apple's patents will be pulled from store shelves as Apple has been seeking an injunction against their sale.

Since the law moves slowly, though, many of the products in question aren't on the market anymore. Today Apple announced it is seeking a ban on the following Samsung phones: Galaxy S 4G, Galaxy S2 (AT&T), Galaxy S2 (Skyrocket), Galaxy S2 (T-Mobile), Galaxy S2 Epic 4G, Galaxy S Showcase, Droid Charge and the Galaxy Prevail. The Galaxy S2 phone is no longer available at many carriers; the new Galaxy S III and Galaxy Nexus hadn't been released yet when the suit was filed, and were not considered in this case.

That said, Lemley believes Apple will attempt to go after those newer handsets in the injunction. "Is it limited just to these products or does it prevent Samsung from implementing it into other products?" Lemley said.

Samsung could also be forced to make software updates to existing products to alter some of the features cited in the suit. Samsung was forced to issue an update on its Galaxy Nexus phone earlier this summer for similar reasons.

But if you have a Samsung phone, don't toss it just yet. Before all of this happens, Samsung is expected to appeal the decision.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Google Purchases Frommer's Travel Guides

JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Google says it is acquiring the travel brand Frommer’s from John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“The Frommer's team and the quality and scope of their content will be a great addition to the Zagat team,” a Google spokesperson said Monday in a statement to ABC News. “We can’t wait to start working with them on our goal to provide a review for every relevant place in the world.”

John Wiley & Sons, Inc., said Monday that it has “entered into a definitive agreement to sell of its travel assets, including all of its interests in the Frommer’s brand, to Google.”

Earlier this year, Wiley said it was exploring opportunities to sell a number of its assets, “as they no longer align with the company’s long-term business strategy.”

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Google Plans to Slash 4,000 Jobs at Motorola Mobility

KIMIHIRO HOSHINO/AFP/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Google will remake Motorola Mobility, the cellphone maker it bought this year, beginning with job cuts.

The search engine giant plans to lay off 20 percent of Motorola Mobility’s workforce and close a third of its worldwide offices.  One third of the 4,000 job cuts will be in the U.S.

The cellphone maker has suffered from a slide in market share, losing out to Samsung and Apple, the dominant players in the global market.

The New York Times reports “the turnaround effort will also be a referendum on the management of Larry Page, Google’s chief executive, whose boldest move has been the $12.5 billion acquisition.”

Under its new management, the company is said to be cutting back on the number of different phones it makes and ending production of low end devices.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Google Ordered to Pay Record $22.5 Million for Violating Privacy

KIMIHIRO HOSHINO/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- The Federal Trade Commission has ordered Google to pay $22.5 million for violating user privacy on its Apple's Safari browser. It's the biggest FTC fine ever issued for a company violation.

The federal agency found that Google had been tracking "cookies" on Google sites for Apple Safari users. It was also sending targeted ads to those users, which violated another settlement between the FTC and the search-engine giant.

Google claimed that a tweak in Apple's browser caused an unintentional violation, but the FTC was not swayed by such an argument.

"A company like Google, which is a steward of information for hundreds of millions of people has to do better," David Vladeck, the FTC director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, told reporters on a conference call following the announcement.

The potential privacy violation was first detected by Jonathan Mayer, a Standford University graduate student, who realized that Google was still tracking his cookies, even though he had tried to block it.

"This seems to be the kind of thing the company shouldn't be doing," Mayer told ABC News in February.

As a result of this and other violations, a "Do Not Track," or DNT, setting had been added to various browsers, including Mozilla's Firefox, Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Apple's Safari. Still, with this particular violation, the FTC charged that during 2011 and 2012, Google had been tracking Safari users -- on Macs, iPhones and iPads -- who had opted out of such tracking, as a result of default settings in the browser. Google has not admitted to violating the law.

"The complaint is not a finding or ruling that the defendant has actually violated the law. This consent order is for settlement purposes only and does not constitute an admission by the defendant that the law has been violated," the FTC said in a news release.

A Google spokesperson held to that as well. "We set the highest standards of privacy and security for our users. The FTC is focused on a 2009 help center page published more than two years before our consent decree, and a year before Apple changed its cookie-handling policy," the spokesperson told ABC News. "We have now changed that page and taken steps to remove the ad cookies, which collected no personal information, from Apple's browsers."

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

YouTube Won’t Come on Next iPhone

File photo. iStockphoto/Thinkstock/YouTube(NEW YORK) -- Get a new iPhone or iPad and you’ll get a handful of preloaded apps — Apple’s Calculator, Newsstand, App Store, and YouTube, just to name a few. But when Apple releases the next version of its iOS software — iOS 6 — in the fall, the YouTube app won’t be on the list.

“Our license to include the YouTube app in iOS has ended. Customers can use YouTube in the Safari browser and Google is working on a new YouTube app to be on the App Store,” Apple’s Trudy Muller told ABC News. Google, which owns YouTube, didn’t immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

While the YouTube app will stay in iOS 5, those who update their iPhones or iPads to iOS 6 in the fall will no longer have the YouTube app out of the box; they’ll have to download it separately from the App Store. And YouTube isn’t the only Google app that will be missing in iOS 6 — Apple’s replacing Google Maps with its own Maps app, which was previewed earlier this summer.

Apple and Google have continued to battle it out in the mobile phone market as Apple sues Samsung for copying its products, including its hardware and software. Samsung’s phones and tablets all use Google’s Android operating system. AllThingsD suggests that Google might have already been compromising on the app with the lack of ads and missing content.

iOS 6 is expected to launch in September alongside the new iPhone (which many think will be called the iPhone 5). Google has not said when it plans to release its standalone YouTube app.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio