Google Wallet lets smartphones with NFC (near-field communication) chips transmit data to special NFC readers for a financial transaction.

The Google Prepaid Card is a virtual card that you can fund with any of your existing credit cards — no Citi MasterCard required.

After you activate the Google Prepaid Card in Google Wallet, you’ll get $ 10 in your account.

You can then top up the card with additional funds from any of your plastic cards. You’ll pay no fees to top up your Google Prepaid Card at least until the end of 2011. Since the Google Prepaid Card is purely virtual, you won’t get an actual card in the mail.

Google made a point of saying that the wallet would be open to other banks and service providers, along with other mobile carriers and handset makers. It remains to be seen how this plays out.

C/Net has created a FAQ on Google Wallet security.

In many Asian countries, NFC can be used for boarding trains and buses and don’t require a manual PIN number entry for that function. Perhaps that too will be incorporated into Google Wallet or competitor Mobile payment systems such as ISIS (backed by AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile), PayPal, or Apple.

Half a billion people worldwide will use their mobile devices as travel tickets on metros, subways and buses by 2015, according to new forecasts from Juniper Research. This is over five times the number generated last year but Juniper is expecting usage to spread widely from the current concentration in Japan and several European countries. Outside Japan, systems in operation typically use SMS or bar codes.

According to Mobile Ticketing for Transport Markets report author Howard Wilcox: “Whether by expansion of SMS and bar code delivery or by NFC, at Juniper we see convenience and choice for users as key advantages of mobile ticketing. It will be 2013 before large numbers of NFC enabled devices are in peoples’ pockets and our new report forecasts the impact on transaction volumes.”

Furthermore, mobile ticketing also has potential across train and air travel, the latter driven by mobile delivered bar coded boarding passes.

Whilst SMS ticketing has been in operation for several years in large cities in Scandinavia and Central & Eastern Europe such as Stockholm and Prague, Juniper believes that recent momentum in Near Field Communications (NFC) will only add to market growth. As metro authorities begin the transition to open contactless payment systems, NFC ticket usage is forecast to grow significantly beginning in 2013.

NFC vendors in Japan are closely related to mass-transit networks, like the Mobile Suica used on the JR East rail network. Their contactless IC card technology has become the de-facto standard method for mobile payments in Japan. You can recharge your credit from your phone.

Other NFC vendors mostly in Europe use contactless payment over mobile phones to pay for on- and off-street parking in specially demarcated areas. Contactless payment using NFC runs over the same chip and PIN network as normal credit and debit card transactions, there is a payment limit on single transactions and contactless cards can only be used a certain number of times before customers are asked for their PIN number.

A report issued last month by the Federal Reserve cited industry estimates that there were 70 million contact-less devices, including credit and debit cards, and 150,000 contact-less readers installed by merchants in the U.S.

dailywireless.org

Google has dropped offline Gmail support in several operating systems until this summer, when HTML5 upgrade is released.

Macworld

Today Google gave a demo of Google Wallet, an app that will make your phone your wallet, with the help of Citi, MasterCard, First Data and Sprint.

Google Wallet will let you tap, pay and save using your phone and near field communication (NFC). It is currently being field tested and will be released soon, says Google.

It eliminates the step of entering a PIN number, since the phone contains a unique identity. Phones without built-in NFC may simply use an NFC sticker. Just don’t loose your phone.

The new mobile payment system works on select Android-based phones sold on Sprint Nextel’s network, according to a Bloomberg report. Google reportedly plans to introduce the service initially in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.

The service uses near-field communications (NFC), the short-range wireless communications technology that allows users to pay for things in retail locations by holding a device equipped with a special chip close to a specialized reader at a retail check out. Sprint’s Nexus S 4G and Nexus S from T-Mobile incorporate the NFC chip.

NFC isn’t just for payments. In a Portland, Oregon test market, Google provided businesses with a free placard for their windows that included an embedded NFC circuit. Waving your phone in front of the placard provides you with information about the business, generally from Google’s Place Pages. Google Wallet may take it to the next level. To buy stuff.

Google’s already gained the support of credit card companies, including Citigroup and MasterCard, with Google Payments already acting as a secondary payment option with wireless carriers.

The New York Times expects Google will launch the platform with MasterCard and Citibank. Google Wallet will work at the 124,000 retailers equipped with MasterCard’s PayPass terminals, and users will have to use a Citibank-issued MasterCard credit card number and virtual Google MasterCard prepaid card, the article said.

While several companies have been working on mobile wallets for years, they have not yet been widely adopted because all of those involved need to agree on how the various stakeholders will get paid. Carriers wanted to run their own system, while banks like MasterCard and Citigroup had their own system.

The Isis mobile commerce network, announced last November, seemed like a bold attempt by wireless carriers to edge out credit companies, says Venture Beat. Now the carriers behind Isis — AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile — are looking to partner up with Visa and MasterCard, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Related Dailywireless articles include; Carriers Switch Electronic Wallets, Salt Lake City: First Mobile Payment City in US, Mobile Payment Spreading, Visa: Near Field Communications, iPhone NFC?

dailywireless.org

Today Google gave a demo of Google Wallet, an app that will make your phone your wallet, with the help of Citi, MasterCard, First Data and Sprint.

Google Wallet will let you tap, pay and save using your phone and near field communication (NFC). It is currently being field tested and will be released soon, says Google.

It eliminates the step of entering a PIN number, since the phone contains a unique identity. Phones without built-in NFC may simply use an NFC sticker. Just don’t loose your phone.

The new mobile payment system works on select Android-based phones sold on Sprint Nextel’s network, according to a Bloomberg report. Google reportedly plans to introduce the service initially in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.

The service uses near-field communications (NFC), the short-range wireless communications technology that allows users to pay for things in retail locations by holding a device equipped with a special chip close to a specialized reader at a retail check out. Sprint’s Nexus S 4G and Nexus S from T-Mobile incorporate the NFC chip.

NFC isn’t just for payments. In a Portland, Oregon test market, Google provided businesses with a free placard for their windows that included an embedded NFC circuit. Waving your phone in front of the placard provides you with information about the business, generally from Google’s Place Pages. Google Wallet may take it to the next level. To buy stuff.

Google’s already gained the support of credit card companies, including Citigroup and MasterCard, with Google Payments already acting as a secondary payment option with wireless carriers.

The New York Times expects Google will launch the platform with MasterCard and Citibank. Google Wallet will work at the 124,000 retailers equipped with MasterCard’s PayPass terminals, and users will have to use a Citibank-issued MasterCard credit card number and virtual Google MasterCard prepaid card, the article said.

While several companies have been working on mobile wallets for years, they have not yet been widely adopted because all of those involved need to agree on how the various stakeholders will get paid. Carriers wanted to run their own system, while banks like MasterCard and Citigroup had their own system.

The Isis mobile commerce network, announced last November, seemed like a bold attempt by wireless carriers to edge out credit companies, says Venture Beat. Now the carriers behind Isis — AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile — are looking to partner up with Visa and MasterCard, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Related Dailywireless articles include; Carriers Switch Electronic Wallets, Salt Lake City: First Mobile Payment City in US, Mobile Payment Spreading, Visa: Near Field Communications, iPhone NFC?

dailywireless.org

Google’s eBooks electronic bookstore now contains about 3 million free titles, up from 2 million when it was launched in December.

Macworld

Google’s opening their checkbooks again and have gone ahead and acquired yet another software firm. This time, the folks at Pushlife are being added to their growing pool of talent. They couldn’t comment on what they’d be doing with Google, of course, but we’d bet all our marbles on them continuing the project they were already working on, except with some Android-exclusive love.

They developed an iTunes-style media management system that allowed you to sync your music back and forth between iTunes and Windows Mobile just as easily as iPod, iPad, and iPhone owners can. They had versions for Android and Blackberry available, but I assume Blackberry support will be dropped in light of the acquisition.

Google’s long been rumored to be launching their own music service – a formal announcement of which we expect to be made at Google IO in May – and this acquisition lends further credibility to all of the murmurs we’ve heard over the past year. (This stuff has been going on since last year’s Google IO, you know.) Check out the video above to get a taste of what could be coming to Android. [via TechCrunch]

Android Phone Fans

When Phandroid reader Bennett Todd [Thanks!] sent in a Phantip saying today’s Google Doodle hinted that perhaps an Android Ice Cream announcement was imminent, I rushed to check it out. Indeed, the April 3rd Google Doodle features two “Ice Cream Sundaes” as the O’s in Google.

Unfortunately, if you mouse over the image, you get the true reason why today’s Google Doodle includes Ice Cream:

119th Anniversary of the First Documented Ice Cream Sundae

Indeed, a quick all-knowing Wikipedia entry shows that April 3rd is the Ice Cream Sundae Anniversary:

Supporting Ithaca’s claim, researchers at The History Center in Tompkins County, New York, provide an account of how the sundae came to be: On Sunday, April 3, 1892 in Ithaca, John M. Scott, a Unitarian Church minister, and Chester Platt, co-owner of Platt & Colt Pharmacy, created the first historically documented sundae.[4][5] Platt covered dishes of ice cream with cherry syrup and candied cherries on a whim. The men named the dish “Cherry Sunday” in honor of the day it was created. The oldest-known written evidence of a sundae is Platt & Colt’s newspaper ad for a “Cherry Sunday” placed in the Ithaca Daily Journal on April 5, 1892. By May, 1892, the Platt & Colt soda fountain also served “Strawberry Sundays,” and later, “Chocolate Sundays.” Platt & Colt’s “Sundays” grew so popular that by 1894, Chester Platt attempted to trademark the term ice cream “Sunday.”[6];

But in that very same article, stories from Evanston, Illinois and Two Rivers, Wisconsin claim THEY invented the Ice Cream Sundae in 1890 and 1881 respectively. The Ithaca story is from 1892. The folks from Ithaca have refuted one of the stories and keep in mind that Google states “First Documented” Ice Cream Sundae not the first one to invent the Ice Cream Sundae, so now age old disputes are getting solved here.

It appears as though this is more of a coincidence than anything else. I wouldn’t expect an Ice Cream announcement before Google IO, but when it is announced, I’m now wondering if Google will go with Ice Cream Sundae instead of the previously rumored Ice Cream or Ice Cream Sandwich. Afterall… they’ve got to put SOMETHING in that lawn of theirs!

Android Phone Fans

The wait is over and the tweet says it all. For those of you that don’t want to wait for the OTA , I’m sure an update.zip will be surfacing very soon.

View full post on AndroidSPIN

Well, the Honeycomb porting train is ahead full steam with the Google Nexus One latest to receive. We had heard some HTC devices getting it earlier last week from XDA-Developers (of course), and now we have another HTC device to add to the list. Apparently there really isn’t much working on this port other than just booting into Honeycomb. You can’t make calls, text, or use the camera, but no doubt they’ll have those working in no time.

If you want to find out more about the Nexus One Honeycomb port, and keep up to date on new features working, follow this thread.

Google Nexus One gets Android Honeycomb Port

View full post on Android News, Rumours, and Updates

Just earlier this month, Google released an official Blogger app for Android that would allow users to blog straight from their phones. Now, Google is providing you with five helpful hints that can help you take advantage of all of Blogger’s features from your Android device.

1. Attach photos as you compose

Take photos using your phone’s camera and instantly add them to your post while you draft. You can also insert photos from your phone’s gallery, all within the Blogger app.

2. Include your current location
With your phone’s GPS, you can let your readers know where you’re blogging from by selecting your current location, no additional typing needed.

3. Share to Blogger
Share videos, products, photos, links and other interesting things you would like to include in your blog via the share button that’s available in many apps, including Google Maps for mobile, YouTube, and your web browser. After you share an item to your Blogger, it will be inserted into new post that’s automatically created for you so that start can composing right away.

4. Switch across multiple Blogger accounts
If you’re an author of more than one blog, you can easily switch between your different accounts by tapping on the orange arrow next to the title of your blog. That way, you can publish articles for each of your blogs to keep your all of your readers up to date.

5. Keep track of published posts and saved drafts
See what you’ve composed in an easy to read list by tapping the list icon located on the top right-hand corner.

If you haven’t done so yet, you can download Blogger for Android for free from the TalkAndroid ApptlyAndroid database.

Google gives users 5 helpful tips for using Blogger from your Android device

View full post on Android News, Rumours, and Updates

The official Google Reader application for Android has received an update, adding widget support to the ever popular RSS application.  The update now brings the app to version 0.9.2 and adds two new home screen widgets.  We think the screen shot of the update below says it all.  So, hit the break and check it out.  Check out the application on our apps database as well and don’t forget to let us know what you think in the comments below.  One thing we did find interesting and worth noting is in the new permissions.  For some unknown reason, the app would like access to your contacts list.   Read More…

Official Google Reader For Android Gets An Update, v 0.9.2 Adds Widget Support

View full post on Android News, Rumours, and Updates

We’ve just been informed that as Nokia shopped their hardware to the two premium third-party smartphone OS providers in the United States, Google took initiative and asked them to join powers. The end result? Well, you already know – Microsoft won.

Schmidt said Google expressed disappointment when they made that choice. And it wasn’t exactly because Nokia doesn’t like what Android has to offer, I think. It’s because of a man named Stephen Elop, Microsoft’s former head of their Business Division.

Elop was recently appointed CEO and President of Finnish-bred Nokia, but his ties to Microsoft remained close. It’s not a coincidence, folks. And I’m not knocking Nokia for this at all – it’s their business. But I can’t imagine it was easy for them to ignore how big Android already is.

Was it Money? We know Microsoft has a lot of it. Google has even more. Or is it just vision? Does Nokia see something in Windows Phone 7 that has them genuinely optimistic? Or is there something in Android’s ecosystem that turned them away?

Whatever the case is, I imagine if Nokia ever does adopt our little baby robot, it won’t be under the direction of Elop. We’ll keep dreaming regardless.

View full post on Android Phone Fans

While Google Earth remains one of the most incredible programs you can download for free, it’s odd that it’s taken this long for the best features of one of its sister services – Street View – to be included.

With this version it’s finally there, and the difference is incredible. It’s always been a useful app, but now it’s a fully-fledged world in its own right.

With Street View, it’s the full package. Zoom down to ground level in previous versions of Google Earth, and while a few landmarks and big cities were blessed with 3D models courtesy of Sketch-Up artists and other collections, most of the world felt like a blocky wasteland. You could bring up users’ photos, which compensated for this a bit, but now you can actually get the full picture.

The one thing you can’t do is play a Tour while in Street View mode, which is disappointing, but being able to pause it and leap in and out, checking the scenery and watching out for sites of interest, is a much better way of checking the route than driving through the 3D view or trying to extrapolate from a top-down shot.

It’s also amusing to note how the view changes between the actual photos and the supposed ‘photo-realistic’ 3D models and images you have access to. Graphics technology has a fair way to go yet.

A new leaf

The other big new feature in this version is the addition of 3D trees, although this isn’t desperately impressive. It’s only activated in certain places, like San Francisco, and trying to track down foliage closer to home just gave us the same green blots on the landscape as before. At least you don’t need to worry about it spoiling the view.

Like all Google Earth features, it’s provided as a layer that can be switched on and off. It joins Oceans, Historical Imagery (now more prominent when you search) and Flight Simulator mode as interesting, but ultimately fairly gimmicky additions.

Related Links

• TechRadar Reviews Guarantee
• Read more software reviews

View full post on TechRadar: All PC & Mac feeds

“Think mobile” with Google as they discuss the future of mobile industry marketing. Mary Meeker, Partner at Kleiner Perkins, Google’s Dennis Woodside, President of Americas, and Jason Spero, Head of Americas Mobile Advertising, will be discussing how marketers need to rethink their current strategies to reach todays and tomorrows “mobilized” consumers. The discussion will be held at 1:05pm EST, you can tune in via youtube.

Source: Google Blog

View full post on AndroidSPIN

Google is celebrating Jules Verne’s birthday with a logo that pays homage to the author’s famous 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The doodle, which marks Verne’s 183rd birthday, transforms the usual Google letters into submarine portals looking out at the sea.

The effect was created using the powerful transform tools in CSS 3 to layer together an animated diving sequence using nothing more than standard HTML and a few transparent images. If you’ve got a device with an accelerometer built-in (any iOS device, recent Macbook or Android device), you can even control the doodle just by tilting down to dive or side to side to move forward and back.

If you’re on a desktop or don’t have an accelerometer in your laptop, you can steer the Nautilus with a control stick. While the doodle worked in most browsers, it’s smoothest and fastest in Google Chrome and Firefox 4 beta.

Other Google doodles have used HTML5’s canvas element, along with some CSS 3, to create the bouncing balls experiment and the awesome, playable version of Pac-Man.

See Also:

• Write Your Name in Bouncy Google Balls
• Transform Your Site With CSS 3
• Slick Web Design Gets Easier Thanks to CSS 3’s Transform Tools
• Chrome 9: Faster 3-D Graphics, Instant Search and an App Store

View full post on Webmonkey

If you plan on attending Google I/O this year, you better camp out a spot in front of your computer come Monday. The AndroidDev team just tweeted that tickets will be on sale after the weekend, but don’t expect them to hang around much longer than that. Google I/O is an extremely popular event with an unfortunately limited number of open spots for those who wish to attend.

Google already opened up pre-registration for some past attendees, but this is the general public’s first crack at making their way in. Phandroid will be there, that’s for sure. Will you?

View full post on Android Phone Fans

That’s right $20,000 to any hacker that can successfully comprise a windows 7 machine running it’s Chrome Browser via a security vulnerability written in Google-written code and  sandbox escape.

CanSecWest’s Pwn2Own Contest is an annual event pitting some of the world’s best security analyst and exploit writers against the most popular web browsers and mobile devices. After last years contest, Google’s Chrome Browser was the only browser left unscathed. Given the money and prizes being offered and obvious publicity involved with successfully comprising the Chrome Browser, chances are good that the cross-hairs are already being lined up on this web browser.

Contest sponsor Tippingpoint ZDI says a successful Chrome hack “must include a sandbox escape”,  and be in Google-written code,  in order to win the $20,000. On day 2 and 3 if competitors are unsuccessful, they will be allowed to use exploits written in non-Google code to potentially comprise the browser. If they succeed on days 2 and 3 ZDI will offer $10000 for a sandbox escape and Google will offer $10000 for the Chrome bug.  In order to fully utilize a sandbox escape the exploit may have to be combined with another vulnerability for full system compromise.

On day 1, Google will offer $20,000 USD and the CR-48 if a contestant can pop the browser and escape the sandbox using vulnerabilities purely present in Google-written code. If competitors are unsuccessful, on day 2 and 3 the ZDI will offer $10,000 USD for a sandbox escape in non-Google code and Google will offer $10,000 USD for the Chrome bug. Either way, plugins other than the built-in PDF support are out of scope.

CanSecWest is also offering cash prizes for anyone using unpublished browser security holes to remotely launch code on Windows 7 or Mac OS X machines.

Browser Targets for this Year:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer
• Apple Safari
• Mozilla Firefox
• Google Chrome

Each browser will be installed on a 64-bit system running the latest version of Windows 7 or Mac OS X.

For mobile devices the attack surface has been increased to allow attack against the cell phones basebands.

Mobile Targets for this Year:

• Dell Venue Pro – Windows 7
• IPhone 4 – iOS
• Blackberry Torch 9800 – Blackberry 6 OS
• Nexus S – Android

A successful attack against these devices must require less to no user interaction and must comprimise useful data from the phone. Anything that would cost the owner of the device money, ie: silently calling long-distance numbers, eavesdropping on conversations, etc, is within scope.

The contest is being held the 9th, 10th, and 11th of March, 2011 in Vancouver, BC during the CanSecWest Conference. For more information, registration, or to follow the contest visit TippingPoint ZDI’s website.

Source: TippingPoint ZDI

View full post on AndroidSPIN

Google’s Blogger service is one of the most popular blogging apps out there. It’s been quite a shame that there hasn’t been an Android app for Blogger services…until now. But today, Google has released a Blogger app for your Android phone. Being able to blog on the go just got easier, complete with the option to sort posts and upload pictures directly from the gallery. If you’re a Blogger user, be sure and grab this app from our Apptly Android database, or by scanning the QT code below.

Google Brings Blogger App to Android

View full post on Android News, Rumours, and Updates

Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Google has confirmed that dreadful and unwanted news of Honeycomb not coming to your smartphone.  A company spokesman was asked the question whether or not Honeycomb 3.0 would make its way to handsets, Andrew Kovacs said “no…Google’s Android 3.0 or “Honeycomb” is a tablet-only OS, for now.”

It kind of makes sense though, doesn’t it?  According to various portions of the SDK, it was clear that some aspects of the source code was clearly optimized for larger form factors.  It raised numerous questions as to how this could possibly be delivered to handsets.

In an article by PC Magazine, Kovacs further states: Read More…

Android 3.0 Honeycomb Won’t Be Coming To A Smartphone Near You, Just For Tablets, Says Google

View full post on Android News, Rumours, and Updates

As we mentioned earlier today, and then later followed up with, by our own Micheal Murphy, Google held a Honeycomb event, where the company presented some new and upcoming features.  Honeycomb wasn’t the only news at the event however, as Hugo Barra handed the mic over to Chris Yerga, Android’s Engineering Director for cloud services.  Yerga kicked off his portion of the conference by stating that they were making changes to the market, changes that will “meet the needs” of both users and developers.  One such change will be In-App purchases.  We should expect to see things like purchasing music, upgrading to other versions of apps, adding extra levels or content to applications and even using virtual currencies, all within other apps.

Disney Mobile was also present at the conference as they showed In-App purchasing in action with their Tap Tap Revenge application.  Yerga showed, while in the application itself, the ability to purchase a song from the market.  It doesn’t take a genius to see how this can benefit both users and developers alike.  Let us know what you think in the comments below.  And if you missed the event earlier, no problem, you can hit the break where we’ve embedded the video from Google’s YouTube Page for you to view it in its entirety.

Read More…

Google Event Announced ‘In-App” Purchases Coming To The Android Market

View full post on Android News, Rumours, and Updates

Microsoft has announced a plug-in for Google’s Chrome web browser that allows Chrome on Windows to play H.264 web video through the HTML5 <video> tag. The new plug-in comes on the heels of Google’s decision to remove H.264 support from Chrome and focus on the company’s competing WebM video codec.

You can grab the new Chrome plugin from Microsoft. Microsoft previously released a similar H.264 plugin for Firefox, which also only supports WebM video.

The video move is the latest sign of a collision between the two tech giants, who now compete directly in search, courtesy of Microsoft’s Bing initiative and mobile, where Google’s Android is taking market share and the new Windows Phone 7 is struggling for a foothold. Google has also launched various cloud-based applications that take aim at Office. This week, the two threw punches over search, with Google claiming Microsoft copies its results, and Microsoft complaining the Google perpetrated a sting worthy of a spy novel.

Now the two are sparing over web video. Google has thrown its weight behind the WebM codec, which the company owns, while Microsoft supports H.264. However, Microsoft says that, provided Google makes some changes, it may be willing to support the WebM codec as well.

While HTML5’s video tag promises a native way to watch video in your browser, video codec support among browsers is divided. Firefox, Opera and Chrome support the WebM codec while Apple’s Safari and Microsoft’s IE9 support H.264. As it stands there is no “it just works” solution, which means most websites still use Flash video players.

Microsoft’s H.264 plug-ins for Firefox and Chrome are part of the company’s attempt to be pragmatic — since Windows includes native support for H.264, users should be able to watch H.264 video even if the browser doesn’t support it. On the other side of the coin, Internet Explorer 9 will be able to play WebM video through a similar third-party plug-in.

However, while Microsoft isn’t including native support for WebM in the next version of IE, it doesn’t appear to totally rule out the idea. As part of the plugin announcement, Dean Hachamovitch, corporate vice president for Internet Explorer, outlines some of Microsoft’s problems with the WebM codec. The main problem is that Microsoft is concerned about WebM’s potential patent risks.

Google insists that it owns all of the patents covering WebM and the VP8 video codec. But the company offers no indemnification for costs incurred should a patent lawsuit arise. That means that anyone distributing WebM/VP8 could be on the hook for any patent-related fees that might come up.

Some have dismissed Microsoft’s patent worries as an example of Microsoft spreading “fear, uncertainty and doubt” about WebM, but Microsoft does have history on its side in this case. As Hachamovitch points out, such patent lawsuits often don’t arise until a technology is in widespread use. So just because no one is suing over WebM now, doesn’t mean they won’t in the future. Hachamovitch cites the JPEG photo compression format, pointing out that JPEG was around for ten years before the first patent lawsuits appeared. Eventually the patents in question were ruled invalid, but not before millions of dollars were spent defending and licensing JPEG.

Of course the same patent threats potentially hang over H.264, but the MPEG-LA consortium — the governing body that oversees the patents surrounding H.264 — provides a kind of legal buffer between H.264 licensees and any lawsuit.

Surprisingly, Hachamovitch says that, if Google is willing to indemnify WebM users against patent lawsuits, “Microsoft is willing to commit that we will never assert any patents on VP8.” Of course that doesn’t mean other companies won’t, but it would be a huge step forward for WebM if Microsoft jumped on the bandwagon. Google did not respond to a request to comment in time for this story.

For now at least Microsoft has chosen a pragmatic approach — plugins. There will be a WebM plugin for Internet Explorer and H.264 plugins for Firefox and Chrome. In the end, Windows users will be able to watch just about any video on the web regardless of which browser they’re using. It might not be an ideal solution, but it is one that, from the user’s point of view, just works.

See Also:

• Microsoft Adds H.264 Video Support to Firefox
• Google Dropping H.264 Codec from Chrome Browser [Updated]
• Major Browser Vendors Launch WebM Free Open Video Project
• Microsoft Says Web Video in IE9 Is All About H.264

View full post on Webmonkey

Is there anything better than waking up to your inbox and receiving some good news?  Yeah, how about an inbox with an email from Google inviting you to an Android event at the Googleplex in Mountain View?  That’s right, Google has stated on Feb 2nd, they will be holding an event to discuss “an in-depth look at Honeycomb, Android ecosystem news and hands-on demos”.  We can’t help but wonder if Google has something new in store for us.  It’s not like Google to just hold an event for a mere summary of Honeycomb.  Maybe we’ll hear some discussion on all of these 2.4 sightings or whether or not Honeycomb will be configured to operate on a smartphone?  We can hope can’t we?  Yes we can, and shall.  In any event, stay tuned to Talk Android because we’ll be covering the event and reporting back to you first hand.

Google has also provided a way for you to stream the event live, for those of us who sadly, can’t make the event.  What do you want to see come out of all of this ?   Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Google Announces Android Event For February 2nd, Touts An In Depth Look At Honeycomb And More

View full post on Android News, Rumours, and Updates

While some hands-on demonstrations of the Motorola XOOM and an extensive walkthrough at Verizon’s CES keynote gave us a good taste of what Android 3.0 Honeycomb will bring in terms of change to the operating system, Google is planning an event to give an even deeper look at the new version of its mobile platform. While Android aficionados are busy picking apart the Honeycomb SDK preview that just came online this week, Andy Rubin and crew are gearing up to give the masses a bit more.

The event, which will take place next Wednesday in Mountain View, CA, will see Rubin first present his take on the new OS followed by plenty of hands-on time with Honeycomb. We are assuming Google has reached a more stable build than the untouchable version featured on the XOOM at CES.

While you could say there isn’t much more we could discover about Honeycomb, we are sure Rubin and crew have some surprises up their sleeves. Could this event coincide with a launch of a new web-based Android Market? Google Music? Or will the proceedings be squarely focused on showing off just how awesome Honeycomb really is?

[via AllThingsDigital]

View full post on Android Phone Fans