• Google Turns Maps Into Pac-Man Game
    Google is using Maps allowing site visitors to play the classic game Pac-Man. Click on the Pac-Man icon at the bottom left corner of the page. Users can select any city, then click the Pac-Man icon to begin playing in a section of the city. The roads determine the path. The game also works on the Google Maps app for iOS and Android, as well as the desktop client.
  • Google Undercuts Connectivity In AT&T Competing Cities
    Many saw it coming. AT&T brought its high-speed broadband service to Google's backyard Monday, but The Wall Street Journalreports that consumers will pay a higher price in Cupertino, Calif. compared with places where the two compete, such as Austin. Google has tentative plans for fiber service in nearby San Jose, but hasn't announced any decision as to whether that will happen.
  • Yemen Search Engine Blocked In Conflict
    The Internet has become the voice of the people, carrying news and opinions from one region of the world to another. Days after Saudi Arabia began airstrikes on Yemen in an effort to take control from Houthi rebels, Yemen's largest Internet service provider, Yemen Net, appears to have blocked several major news and media Web sites, per Global Voices. As an example, the media agency cites Sahafa Net, a search engine that aggregates content from all major Yemeni Web sites. Until it was blocked last week, Sahafa Net was one of the most visited in Yemen.
  • IBM Acquires Blekko Search Engine Technology
    IBM has acquired certain technology from Blekko with plans to integrate it into IBM Watson to improve on congnitive computing. The technology will provide IBM with access to additional content integrated into Watson-based products and services delivered by IBM and its partners, per Big Blue's Web site. The deal closed Friday. Overall, Blekko raised $24 million in venture capital funding from Netscape founder Marc Andreessen and Ron Conway, as well as others.
  • Teleport Launches Mobile Search Engine To Find Better Quality Of Life
    Teleport, a startup founded by early Skype employees, is launching a set of iOS and Android apps to help tech workers find the best place to live. It aims to support an increasingly global mobile workforce. Type in preferences for the cost of living and other life-related measures like traffic and pollution and the healthcare system, and it helps identify cities that best match the requirements. The company is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, SV Angel and Seedcamp, as well as angel investors Jeff Dean, Jaan Tallinn, Scott and Cyan Banister and Rain Rannu.
  • Google CFO's $70M Pay Package
    Ruth Porat received a more than $70 million cash and stock deal from Google for transitioning from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. The SEC filing reports that her annual salary will be $650, rather than the $1 million made at Morgan Stanley, but she will receive a $5 million cash signing bonus after spending one year at Google and a special $25 million stock grant that she will receive incrementally during the next two years. Then there is a $40 million stock grant that she will receive every other year.
  • Facebook, Drones, And Internet.org Project
    The novelty of it all. How much money will Facebook, Google, and Amazon waste on building drones and windmills that bring Internet access to the millions, or will the pie-in-the-sky scheme really work? Facebook confirmed Thursday at F8 it's building a fleet of drones to provide Internet access to billions. The unmanned aerial vehicles are part of its Internet.org project. The fleet will take its first flight this summer.
  • Microsoft Working On A New Maps App?
    Microsoft is working on a universal Maps app for Windows 10 that runs across devices ranging from phones to PCs. The new version of Bing Maps on the Web is being tested, but not available for review, per one report. The report links to a site that briefly explains the project and that the Map app works on Internet Explorer 10 and 11, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome using a PC or tablet, and Safari using a Mac, and is only available in the United States in English.
  • Banking On Messaging Apps
    Messaging app retention is 1.9 times better than the average for one-month retention and 5.6 times better than the average for 12-month retention, per Flurry, which released these stats earlier in the week. The post compares the retention of messaging apps compared with the average retention of all apps over one month, two month, three months, six months and 12 months. The post also shows the over-index of messaging apps compared with the average of all apps. Simon Khalaf explains.  
  • Google To Use Microsoft Standard To Improve Chrome Scroll
    Google has adopted a Microsoft standard that supports mouse and touch navigation for its Chrome browser, reports The Verge. The standard, Pointer Events, was first introduced by Microsoft in Internet Explorer. The article quotes Google’s Rick Byers saying "replacing all touch event handlers with pointer event handlers will address the main longstanding source of scroll-start jank we see on Android."
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