Alphabet Inc. (formerly: Google)

[CityFarmer]

Future mobile phone will be a totally different gadget. Thank to Google innovation...

When a mobile phone is more than a phone

TAIPEI – An experimental platform by Google taps on the mobile phone to tell a story from six different points of views. Called The Cube, six videos — for example, six concurrent scenes or a music track sung in six styles — are wrapped around a 3D Box made of cork, which a user can then rotate to determine which side(s) they see.
...
http://www.todayonline.com/tech/when-mob...more-phone

[CityFarmer]

One more useful and innovative result of Google's R&D...

Google’s latest: A spoon that steadies tremors

MOUNTAIN VIEW — Just in time for the holidays, Google is throwing its money, brain power and technology at the humble spoon.

Of course these spoons (don’t call them spoogles) are a bit more than your basic utensil: Using hundreds of algorithms, they allow people with essential tremors and Parkinson’s Disease to eat without spilling.

The technology senses how a hand is shaking and makes instant adjustments to stay balanced. In clinical trials, the Liftware spoons reduced shaking of the spoon bowl by an average of 76 per cent.

“We want to help people in their daily lives today and hopefully increase understanding of disease in the long run,” said Google spokesperson Ms Katelin Jabbari.
...
http://www.todayonline.com/tech/googles-...es-tremors

[CityFarmer]

Corporate is the next battle field for smartphones. IMO, Android lose out, in security, comparing with Apple, and BB platform. The security is paramount for corporate tool, and more so with the popularity of hackings lately...

Google targets businesses with work tools for Android

SAN FRANCISCO — Google is releasing a set of tools designed for businesses and employees who want to get work done on Android-powered smartphones, setting up a skirmish on another key front of mobile computing.

The technology, unveiled on Wednesday, launches Google’s attempt to turn Android phones into the digital hub of people’s personal and professional lives. The expansion will pit Google against Microsoft and BlackBerry, which have been focusing on the corporate market for years.

Google will also be duelling its biggest rival in mobile computing, Apple, which forged a partnership with IBM last year to build more iPhone and iPad applications tailored for businesses and government agencies.
...
http://www.todayonline.com/tech/google-t...ls-android

[greengiraffe]

Google hits $634bn high
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL JULY 18, 2015 8:29PM

Google Inc shares surged to a record this morning after the internet-search giant showed signs of quelling two big investor concerns: Can it make money from mobile phones and can it be managed with more discipline?

The 16.3 per cent jump in Google’s share price was remarkable for a company of Google’s size. Its $US468 billion ($634bn) market capitalisation makes it the second-most-valuable US stock, behind Apple Inc.

Google added nearly $US65bn ($88bn) in market value in Friday’s US session, slightly more than the market cap of Lockheed Martin Corp and nearly three times the value of Twitter Inc.

The increase was the second largest ever for a Nasdaq stock, trailing only the $US66bn that Cisco Systems Inc added on April 17, 2000, near the peak of the dotcom bubble, according to FactSet.

The gains by Google and other tech companies — Netflix Inc. rallied 18 per cent on the week after reporting quarterly results — capped a week that pushed the Nasdaq Composite to a record close.

Fellow online-ad seller Facebook Inc. also reached a record high on Friday, ending the day with a market value of $US266.7bn.

On Thursday US time, Google reported better-than-expected second-quarter financial results.

But the numbers themselves were less meaningful to investors than the hints that smartphones wouldn’t crush Google’s search-advertising money machine, and that Google’s founders, who own a controlling stake in the company, wouldn’t spend their way to oblivion.

It didn’t hurt that Google’s chief financial officer, newly arrived from Morgan Stanley, also suggested the internet company might share some of its bounty with investors.

“What do we need potentially for capital return?” CFO Ruth Porat asked, rhetorically, on a conference call with analysts. Google has never paid a dividend or repurchased shares. The company ended June with $US69.8bn in cash reserves.

On all fronts, the news was subtle, and there are no guarantees that Google will conduct a big stock buyback or thrive on mobile. But they represent real shifts within the 17-year-old company, as it matures and confronts challenges from Apple, Facebook and others.

For example, Google last year asked employees to work exclusively from a mobile device one day a week, to better appreciate how a growing share of users reach its panoply of Web services.

Ads on smartphones have long been a challenge for Google, because there is less screen space and it is more difficult for users to make purchases after they click.

In recent months, Google has introduced new smartphone advertising formats for cars and mortgages, adding to mobile-friendly formats for hotels, flights and insurance.

It’s also trying to better link ads consumers see on smartphones to what they buy in physical stores, as a lure for advertisers. This month it began testing a buy button on mobile shopping search ads, which could make it easier for people to purchase on their phones.

“Mobile is driving eCommerce conversions as well as consumer actions like calls and stores visits,” said Sridhar Ramaswamy, Google’s head of Ads & Commerce.

“We are working with our advertisers and partners to show the full value of mobile and have great momentum here.”

The price of Google’s mobile search ads remains lower than those shown on personal computers. Digital-marketing agency Merkle RKG said clients paid 58 per cent less for mobile ads than desktop ones in the second quarter. That compares to a 65 per cent discount a year earlier.

At digital-marketing firm IgnitionOne, clients pay an average of US73c a click for Google mobile ads and $US1.06 for desktop versions, a 45 per cent difference.

Advertisers are shifting to mobile to follow their customers. In the past two years, online T-shirt design company CustomInk has increased its spending on Google’s mobile search ads tenfold, while spending on the desktop versions are flat. The price the firm pays for each mobile click has more than doubled, while for desktop it is paying about the same.

“That’s where the customers are and where the searching is,” said Sean Murphy, CustomInk’s executive vice president of e-commerce.

But Mr Murphy remains wary, because he can’t always measure whether mobile search ads lead to purchases, unlike on PCs where every action can be tracked. This is especially true because people often search on their phones and then buy later on their PC, he explained.

“I don’t think Google is out of the woods yet,” Mr Murphy said.

Ben Kirshner, CEO of digital marketing firm Elite SEM, said the smaller screen of smartphones now sometimes works in Google’s favour.

Because fewer ads are visible, he says, advertisers are increasing their bids to ensure that their ads can be seen. He predicts that the prices of Google mobile search ads will equal those of desktop ads by next year.

The bullish news on mobile advertising was accompanied by signs of cost controls at a company better known for far-flung projects such as solar-powered drones and self-driving cars.

New hiring at Google fell for the second consecutive quarter and spending on research and development was roughly flat with the prior quarter.

Ms Porat, the CFO, said she was working with Google business leaders to become more disciplined and efficient on spending and investing, signalling caution on some of the company’s longer-term riskier projects, known as moonshots.

In response, investors bid up Google’s shares by $US97.84 to finish Friday at $US699.62. The shares have now gained 32 per cent on the year.

The Wall Street Journal

[CityFarmer]

Home-service from Google? Hmm...

Google hires may signal move into home-services market

SAN FRANCISCO — Google has hired part of the team at Homejoy, a house-cleaning startup that is shutting down, signaling that the Internet giant may be interested in the home-services market.
...
http://www.todayonline.com/tech/google-h...ces-market

[greengiraffe]

Google unveils new corporate structure, management shake-up
ALISTAIR BARR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL AUGUST 11, 2015 8:35AM

Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page will head the new parent company. Source: AP
Google is going conglomerate.

The internet company has announced a sweeping reorganisation that more clearly separates its core, and very profitable, search and advertising business from its fledgling efforts to extend internet service, cure disease and build robots and self-driving cars.

Google said it had created a holding company, Alphabet, that will manage each of its businesses. Alphabet will be run by Google’s current leaders, including chief executive Larry Page, co-founder Sergey Brin and chief financial officer Ruth Porat.

Alphabet’s new Google subsidiary — including the search business, YouTube and the Android and Chrome operating systems — will be led by Sundar Pichai, who has been in charge of product and engineering for Google’s internet businesses.

Google said each Alphabet subsidiary would have its own CEO, reporting to Mr Page, a structure similar to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.

In a meeting with investors last December, Mr Page said he looks to Berkshire Hathaway as a model for running a large, complex company, according to people who were at the meeting.

“Fundamentally, we believe this allows us more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren’t very related,” Mr Page wrote in a blog post.

Google declined to make any executives available to discuss the moves.

Beginning with the fourth quarter, Google said it would separate financial results for the core Google business and the remaining Alphabet businesses. The move will offer investors more insight into Google’s core search and advertising business. Investors have been uneasy about the Google’s spending on its various “moonshots,” such as the self-driving car, delivering internet access from balloons and health research.

“It was getting harder and harder to hide the costs of some of the company’s projects,” particularly since some were bound to fail, said one former Google executive. “It’s easier to take the core business and run it like a Fortune 500 company,” keeping the more speculative enterprises separate.

Google said its existing shares would convert to Alphabet shares and trade under its existing stock tickers, GOOG and GOOGL.

Investors reacted positively to the news, sending Google shares up more than 5 per cent in after-hours trading. Google shares had lagged behind other technology companies for most of the year, until the company reported better-than-expected second-quarter results and signalled plans to rein in spending on ancillary projects.

“The whole point is presumably to say to investors that we hear your calls for more transparency and we’ll provide it,” said Brian Wieser, an analyst with Pivotal Research. But, he cautioned, “just because they break out the data doesn’t mean they’ll stop making investments in things that are so far removed from core business.”

The move raises the profile of Mr Pichai, 43, who will become chief executive of the new Google, Alphabet’s search and advertising unit. Mr Pichai has been effectively running those businesses for several years

“Sundar has been saying the things I would have said (and sometimes better!) for quite some time now,” Mr Page wrote in his blog post.

At the same time, Google said chief business officer Omid Kordestani would become an adviser to Alphabet and Google.

Google has shown strength lately, reporting in July that its latest quarter of financial results handily beat analysts’ expectations, helped by stronger-than-expected revenue growth and tighter cost controls.

Wall Street Journal

[CityFarmer]

More news report on the re-org. It is a very good move for investor confidence, and most importantly the transparency on new ventures...

(not vested)

Google morphs into Alphabet Inc, investors cheer clarity

SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc announced a major shake-up of its operating structure on Monday, creating a holding company called Alphabet which will contain subsidiaries to separate its core web advertising business from newer ventures like driverless cars.

The move appeared to be an attempt to let the search engine giant focus on its more creative and ambitious projects, while investors cheered the potential for more financial disclosures of its disparate business segments.
...
http://www.todayonline.com/business/goog...nc-shakeup

[CityFarmer]

A new star in Google, Mr Sundar Pichai...

A leader with users in mind will take the helm at Google

SAN FRANCISCO — The technology industry is partial to dramatic, sometimes blustery, often larger-than-life top executives. Mr Sundar Pichai will have to work hard to be ranked among that colourful crew. He sent news of his ascension on Twitter yesterday (Aug 10) to the top slot at Google — he is just the third person to officially run the search company — very obliquely
...
http://www.todayonline.com/business/lead...epage=true

[CityFarmer]

Google also in grocery deliveries biz? 

Google to start testing grocery deliveries this year
08 Sep 2015 19:06
[SAN FRANCISCO] Google will start testing a delivery service for fresh food and groceries in two US cities later this year, stepping up competition with online retailer Amazon.com and startup Instacart Inc.

The trial will begin in San Francisco and another city, said Brian Elliott, general manager of Google Express, which already delivers merchandise, including dry foods, to customers. Whole Foods Market and Costco Wholesale will be among Google's partners for the new service, he said.
...
BLOOMBERG

Source: Business Times Breaking News

[CityFarmer]

It is the cheapest working solution to the most remote places...

Google’s Internet-beaming balloons to take off in Indonesia

MOUNTAIN VIEW (California) — Google’s Internet-beaming balloons are ready to take off on the next phase of their mission to deliver online access in regions where most people live offline.

The balloons will begin hovering in the stratosphere above Indonesia in an expansion of the project announced on Wednesday. About 250 million people live in the country made up of about 17,000 islands, although only 42 million have Internet access, according to the CIA’s estimates.

Google’s programme, called “Project Loon”, aims to change that by transmitting high-speed Internet signals from clusters of balloons floating about 60,000 feet above the Earth.
...
http://www.todayonline.com/tech/googles-...-indonesia