News Editor
Incisive Media
Carly Page joined The INQUIRER as News Editor in April 2012, after a two-year stint writing about mobile phones at SoMobile. Before becoming a full-time geek, Carly studied Journalism at the University of Lincoln, and dabbled in the music journalism industry.
Carly's main coverage areas include mobile devices, mobile software, telecoms, mobile operators and social networks.
With 500,000 downloads in nine days, only about 0.05 percent of Facebook's user base is using the service. Facebook Home hasn't had great initial reviews on the Google Play store from the majority of users. The app has a lowly two star rating.
A Japanese court has fined Google $3,100 for an autocomplete suggestion that linked an innocent man to criminal acts. Google has been asked to change its autocomplete feature, but Google isn't based in Japan, so the court can't enforce a change.
The three-year Google antitrust investigation might be over. An agreement means that Google must clearly label search results for its own services such as Google News or Google+, but it won't involve any changes to Google's search algorithm.
Microsoft is on the attack again, this time slamming Google Play for the information it shares when users buy apps. The attack ads coincide with another European antitrust complaint orchestrated by Microsoft relating to Google's Android software.
Google Keep, like rival app Evernote, allows users to jot down notes, make lists, record voice reminders and save photos that are stored on Google Drive and synced between all Google linked devices. It's available for Android and on the web.
Google pulled ad blocking app AdBlock Plus. Google says it "interferes with or accesses another service or product in an unauthorized manner", which Google said is a violation of section 4.4 of its Developer Distribution Agreement.
Google's Andy Rubin has stepped down from his role as the head of the Android mobile operating system to "start a new chapter" at the Internet giant. Rubin will be replaced by Sundar Pichai, who presently heads the firm's Chrome and Apps division.
Google Play is celebrating its first birthday today by giving away free and cheap Android applications. Well, it's not really Google Play's first birthday, but it is exactly a year since Google rebranded its Android applications store.
YouTube is reportedly planning to launch a music streaming service later this year to compete with Spotify that will be tightly knit into Google Play and the Android ecosystem, will apparently offer both free and paid-for subscription models.
Google Maps for IOS app reached 10 million downloads in just two days. Jeff Huber, SVP of Commerce and Local at Google announced the news on Google+ saying, "More than 10 million downloads in less than 48 hours after release!"
Facebook released a native app for Android devices, which it claims is "twice as fast" as its previous effort. Facebook for Android 2.0, sees the social network ditching HTML5 in favour of native code - as it did with its IOS app earlier this year.
Instagram updated its privacy policy today, revealing that it will soon start sharing data with Facebook. To go into effect from 16 January, Instagram's new privacy policy reveals that the company will start sharing data with Facebook.
New data show that IOS has once again pushed past Android in the U.S. The statistics show that IOS now has a 48.1 percent share of U.S. smartphone sales, compared to Android's 46.7 percent share. Android still has the lead in Europe
Google is nearly ready to release Google Maps for iOS. Google has distributed a test version of its new Google Maps for iOS app, and is "putting the finishing touches" on it before submitting it to iTunes App Store, according to a news report.
Google's advanced voice search capability is now available on iOS in an update to its Google Search app. Already available on smartphones running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, Google's updated voice search application looks set to take on Apple's Siri.
Google started rolling out its biggest update to Street View ever, updating 250,000 miles of roads. It's even available on iOs 6. In addition to updating hundreds of thousands of miles of roads, Google has doubled its special collections.
Eric Schmidt says Google "hasn't done anything yet" with regards to developing a Google Maps app for IOS 6. Schmidt said he hopes Google will remain Apple's search partner on the iPhone, but he didn't sound too optimistic that this will happen.
Apple is reportedly seeking employees that have experience working on Google Maps, after it became apparent last week that its own Maps app on IOS 6 just doesn't cut it against the competition. Apple's Maps app has been panned as a failure thus far.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has heralded mobile as the key to Facebook's future success during his first interview since the social network's poor stock market debut. Zuckerberg also discussed search, saying "at some point we’ll do it."
Google has only made the feature available to large brands and verified celebrities so far. Still, the feature that will soon be rolled-out to all Google+ users enables users to personalise, and shorten, their URLs on Google's social network.
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