• Motorola's Rick Osterloh To Run Google's New Hardware Division
    Rick Osterloh -- the former president of Motorola, who left Lenovo last month -- is coming back to Google to run a new division to run its "unified" hardware projects. The division will include Nexus, Chromecast, consumer hardware, OnHub, ATAP, and Glass.
  • Google Patent For Wireless Device To Improve Your Vision
    Forget laser surgery -- Forbes points to a Google patent for a vision-correcting electronic device that doctors will inject directly into the eye. It's designed to help the focus of light to stream directly into the retina, resulting in the correction of poor vision. The wireless device harvests energy from an antenna.
  • IAB Releases LEAN Roadmap
    Taking a queue from lean manufacturing principals, the Interactive Advertising Bureau has released a product roadmap for its LEAN advertising principals to support a better advertising experience for those who visit sites across the Web. In the second quarter of 2016, the IAB plans to formalize the process of onboarding data and criteria, start a public discussion about initial guidance, and complete initial user experience testing. By the end of the year the organization hopes to create LEAN scoring algorithms, publish initial findings and recommendations for rolling out LEAN scorecard, and present 2017 LEAN scoring roadmap.
  • Google Rolls Out Two Ad Types For AdSense On Mobile
    Google has introduces two ad types for mobile AdSense publishers. The formats -- Anchor and Vignette -- are available to all publishers under Page-level ads. Google explains that benefits include optimized ads that show when they’re likely to perform well and provide a good user experience. One-time set-up that only requires you to place the Page-level ad code once on each page you’d like the ads shown. And, the ability to adjust the settings in your account and to enable new ad formats without having to change the code on your site. Google also made its test format to publish directly to search results …
  • Amazon Gaining Search Share In U.K., Search Engines Remain More Important
    Search engines remain the most popular source in the U.K. when looking for information online, and are the only source used by a majority of Internet users, according to a survey comparing Internet use in 2015 with 2014. Some 92% participating in a survey said they used search engines when looking for information online, down 3% since 2014. Nearly 48% said they used Web sites with user reviews such as Amazon -- up 9% respectively. Fewer Internet users said they used Wikipedia when looking for information online -- 44% in 2015 vs. 54% in 2014. Men are more likely than …
  • How Amazon Ranks Results
    With 480 million products available to purchase on Amazon's U.S. marketplace, some wonder how the marketplace ranks its results. Sales performance carries significant weight, but Business Insider points to a study from Ripen eCommerce that suggests there is no one factor that determines location on a product's search ranking. The findings suggest that Amazon weights search performance in favor of its own products and programs. If Amazon owns a particular product, or if that product is eligible for Amazon Prime delivery, then it typically ranks higher in search results than products fulfilled by third-party brands, according to Andrew Meola.
  • Google, Ford, Others Form Coalition For Self-Driving Cars
    Google, Ford Motor, Lyft, Uber, and Volvo said Tuesday they will form a coalition to push for federal action to help speed self-driving cars to market. The group will work with civic organizations, municipalities and businesses to bring the vision of self-driving vehicles to America’s roads and highways, reports Reuters.
  • Gmail Android Supports Exchange Email
    Google is rolling out support in Gmail on Android for Microsoft Exchange on all Android handsets. ZDNet reports that Exchange support removes a roadblock for people who wanted to use Gmail for work and personal email on an Android device.
  • Alphabet's Traffic Acquisition Costs Making Analyst Nervous
    Traffic Acquisition Costs (TAC) -- payments to other Web sites -- rose 13.24% to $3.8 billion for the first quarter in 2016, making analysts a bit nervous. The amount comes to about 21% of total advertising revenue. The red flag rose for analysts when the one-off deals that Google strikes to make sure that its search engine is the default option on devices like the iPhone rose 33% year-over-year. Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat addressed the trend, saying Google's growth strategies like mobile and programmatic advertising have higher acquisition costs, but Wall Street kept digging for details. Business Insider explains.
  • Baidu's Self-Driving Car R&D Center Opens In Silicon Valley With Tesla Engineer
    Baidu, China’s largest search engine, announced the launch of a self-driving car research and development center in Silicon Valley. The company expects its team will grow to over 100 researchers and engineers in 2016. The company already moved several of its staff from its newly created Autonomous Driving Unit (ADU) to Sunnyvale and recently hired a Tesla Autopilot software engineer, reports 9To5Google. Liang Heng, a PhD graduate in electrical engineering from Stanford, joined Tesla’s Autopilot team last year, and previously worked at Google on Street View.  
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