Engadget has photos of what they say is going to be a mobile phone running Google-backed mobile system Android. The phone is T-Mobile-branded and produced by HTC (Taiwan-based High Tech Computer Corporation, a member of the – again Google-backed – Open Handset Alliance, as is T-Mobile), and comes with a slidable keyboard.* [Via Reto.]
*The last HTC/ T-Mobile phone I had I gave up on due to low usability, but then again, it had Windows Mobile running on it.
$175,000 per day, says Forbes in July, with an additional $50,000 that need to be spent on Google/ YouTube ads. (New ad formats may come up too, Silicon Alley Insider reports.) [Via GoogleWatchBlog.]
Based in Germany and apparently launched just this month, Forestle is a search engine using Google’s Custom Search program. On their homepage they say, “Save 0.1 yd² of rainforest with each search you do at Forestle. So far we have already saved 25,024.6 yd² of rainforest!” Now when you do a search, the result shows a “Forbidden” message from Google, and above it Forestle prints this message:
<<Google ended partnership with Forestle!
Dear Forestle user,
We just received an email from Google in which they announced the end of the partnership with Forestle. They said that we offered “incentives to click artificially on sponsored links” and that this was not compliant with their policies..
Well, we don’t agree with that!
We displayed a note at the top of the Forestle result page that says “only click on Google sponsored links if you are really interested in them”. Also we saved 0.1 m² per search and not per click! So where did we offer incentives to click on ads?
In our opinion Google ended the partnership, because Forestle became too successful>>
Another note above that message reads, “Please only click on Google sponsored links if you are really interested in them. You harm Forestle, Google and the advertising websites with artificial clicking.” (I’m not sure since when notes like these have been added to the site.) Forestle says all of their income “minus administrative costs” goes to The Nature Conservancy initiative. While Forestle claims they save “0.1 m² per search and not per click”, on their explanations page they say “Forestle earns advertising revenue from clicks on ’sponsored links’”. (I asked Google for a comment and will update this post should they reply with information.)
Google announced the winners of the first phase of the Android Developer Challenge. Android is the mobile operating system and software library to-be pushed by Google and others. Here are some of the ideas whose creators received $275,000 (the $100,000 winners are available on Google’s page as well):
Cab4me: Helps you to find a taxi.
CompareEverywhere: A price comparison engine and review reader.
Ecorio: Aims to track your carbon footprint.
GoCart: Lets you scan a product barcode to then find out where to buy this near-by.
Life360: This seems to be a social network for your neighborhood to post important alerts (like “dog ran away” or “house on fire”).
Locale: This tool automatically changes your phone’s setting based on where you are. (Not novel, but perhaps useful.)
PicSay: A picture editor which comes with color correction, distortion tools and more, as well as sharing features.
Softrace: Compare with others around the world in physical activities like racing.
TuneWiki: A self-proclaimed social media player, with synchronized lyrics, translation, music maps and more.
Wertago: A social tool aiming to let you find the “hottest parties in town.”
A second phase of the contest is coming up. Google says it “will launch after the first handsets built on the platform become available”.
