Google Now is one of those products that to many users doesn't seem like a product at all. It is instead the experience one has when you use the Google Search application on your Android or iPhone device (it's consistently a top free app on the iTunes charts). You probably know it as Google search, but it's far, far more than that.
People have told us that accessing all of their Google stuff with one account makes life a whole lot easier. But we've also heard that it doesn't make sense for your Google+ profile to be your identity in all the other Google products you use.
We do have business relationships; we do licensing relationships, and people want to use Google services on top of Android. But in theory, you can use Android without Google.
People ask me all the time: 'What is it like to be a woman at Google?' I'm not a woman at Google, I'm a geek at Google. And being a geek is just great. I'm a geek, I like to code, I even like to use spreadsheets when I cook.
I wish that Google would realize its own power in the cause of free speech. The debate has been often held about Google's role in acceding to the Chinese government's demands to censor search results. Google says that it is better to have a hampered internet than no internet at all. I believe that if the Chinese people were threatened with no Google, they might even rise up and demand free speech - free search and links - from their regime. Google lives and profits by free speech and must use its considerable power to become a better guardian of it.
If you are going to store your e-wallet on your own server, don't keep your e-wallet on your desktop, and make sure you use encryption. If you lose your computer, your bitcoins are lost forever.
More than a billion people have downloaded Google Earth. More than a billion people use Google Maps. They are very comfortable tools for people to explore the planet in high resolution.
Python has been an important part of Google since the beginning, and remains so as the system grows and evolves. Today dozens of Google engineers use Python, and we're looking for more people with skills in this language.
Some people love magic for the right reasons: They love to experience wonder. They don't want to know how it works. In this day and age, we know how everything works. We can Google anything and the answer is never really far away. Magic is a break from that where you get to enjoy mystery. And then there's the people who watch the trick but don't want to enjoy it because they want to figure it out and they feel like I'm challenging their intelligence, which I'm not doing. Those people are hell-bent on not enjoying magic and probably not enjoying their lives either.
Google's competitors argue that Google designs its search display to promote Google 'products' like Google Maps, Google Places, and Google Shopping, ahead of competitors like MapQuest, Yelp, and product-search sites.
In short, Now is Google's attempt at becoming the real time interface to our lives - moving well beyond the siloed confines of 'search' and into the far more ambitious world of 'experience.' As in - every experience one has could well be lit by data delivered through Google Now.
The U.S. can use its control over the dollar and the global financial system to shut down any bank or bank account in the world. It can use its control over Apple and Google to remove apps from the App Store and Google Play.
Google+ will never have a user base to rival Facebook's. It just won't. Not even if you include the 'users' who create accounts so that they can use other Google services.
As much as the Pulitzer is the hallmark of journalism, I think what I love the most is when somebody says they took my column and it's in their wallet. I have had people open their wallet and show me a corner of a column.
People felt like they were friends with Google, and they believed in the "Do No Evil" thing that Google said. They trusted Google more than they trusted the government, and I never understood that.
Take Google - I can use it, you can use it, anyone else can use it, but we all know its designed so that private power can influence significantly how you access it.