Word is that Google is buying up most of mobile app incubator Milk, including its young founder Kevin Rose -- a curious deal, according to Web watchers, considering that Milk has yet to produce anything of substance. One possibility is that Google is betting on Rose, best know for founding Digg, to add a little luster to its products. “Rose has an avid online following, stemming from his days as a host on TechTV and the long-running podcast ‘Diggnation,’ AllThingsD writes. “That kind of ongoing fan engagement could be a boon to Google+, which has been criticized for low engagement …

Google is reportedly about to make one of the biggest changes in its search history by incorporating “semantics” to better understand what words mean. “The changes to search are among the biggest in the company's history and could affect millions of Web sites that rely on Google's current page-ranking results,” The Wall Street Journal reports. “At the same time, they could give Google more ways to serve up advertisements.”  “Under [the new] system, search queries are run through a vast knowledge database that discovers relationships with other words and facts,” Engadget explains. If one searches for "Lake Tahoe,” for …

Pundits have been predicting Google’s downfall for years, but recent developments are adding substance to such prophecies.  In a derisive blog post this week, former Google engineer James Whittaker says his once-innovative former employer is now playing catch-up in the areas of advertising and social. "The Google I was passionate about was a technology company that empowered its employees to innovate," writes Whittaker. "The Google I left was an advertising company with a single corporate-mandated focus." Essentially, [Whittaker] spins a tale of a once idealist company getting drunk on ad dollars and selling their soul to push monetization above all …

Making good on earlier threats, Yahoo is proceeding with a substantial patent infringement lawsuit against Facebook. “The attack … is sure to be a controversial one, pitting Yahoo against a company that has surpassed it handily in recent years in regards to popularity among consumers,” writes AllThingsD.  “Patent fights are nothing new in Silicon Valley,” notes The New York Times’ Dealbook blog. “But the social-networking world has largely been spared such fights, at least until now.”  As Reuters notes, however, “Only two of the 10 patents at issue are directly related to social networking technology. Most focus on …

Stealing the spotlight at SXSW on Sunday, Instagram said it has surpassed 27 million registered users. More remarkable, the photo-sharing startup’s user-base is still limited to Apple users. That’s about to change, however, as co-founder Kevin Systrom showed off Instagram’s upcoming Android app at the Austin conference. Without giving a full demonstration, Systrom told TechCrunch: “In some ways, [the forthcoming Android app is] better than our iOS app. It’s crazy.” Systrom didn't specify a release date, but says that he hopes to release Instagram for Android "really soon," according to The Verge. Still, “While many Android …

In a deal that has some Web watchers scratching their heads, Green Dot, a prepaid debit-card provider, is buying mobile location-based services specialist Loopt for over $40 million. It’s “a move straight out of left field,” The Next Web writes. Green Dot “seems like an unlikely buyer for a company like Loopt, but [it] says it expects to put its products to good use, to improve customer acquisition and retention, drive the adoption of new banking and payment products and to become a leader in mobile wallets, rewards and payment solutions at retailers nationwide.” “The deal comes as …

As if the latest iPad isn't bad enough for Google, Apple is now reportedly dropping Google Maps from its various services.

Taking on Apple iTunes, Google has aligned three key media assets -- Android Market, Google Music and eBookstore -- under a new “Google Play” brand. It’s “a grand plan to unify all the media [Google] serves up from various portals to one recognizable brand identity and location,” Wired writes. “Call it Google’s iTunes moment.” To date, “Google’s trouble … has been the disjointed nature of everything it has,” writes Marketing Pilgrim. “From the onset, Apple has been sleek and direct in its presentation of the material you can buy through them.”  As a result, “Over the past year or …

Putting Google in the crosshairs, a U.S. judge just ordered the search giant and Motorola Mobility to turn over information to Apple on Google's acquisition of Android, its development of the Android operating system, and its proposed acquisition of Motorola. The decision by U.S. Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner came in a patent lawsuit filed in 2010 by Apple against Motorola Mobility, which, as Bloomberg notes, has since countersued. “The development,” as MacRumors writes, “is a key one for its impact on drawing Google into the patent fight that has until now mostly seen the company staying in the background …

Motivated by a New York Times report that iPhone and Android apps can access users’ private photos, Chuck Schumer on Sunday urged the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the charges. The U.S. senator from New York also referred to a recent discovery that iPhone and iPad apps can upload entire address books -- with names, telephone numbers and email addresses -- to their servers. “The lawmaker said it was his understanding that many of these uses violate the terms of service of the Apple and Android platforms,” Reuters reports. “He said ‘it is not clear whether or how those terms …