What would Google do to lead Intel, Microsoft and others into home automation? The company would put Nest, the smart-home device maker, in the forefront to lead the charge. That's what the Mountain View, Calif. company did this week by moving Glass from the Google X research lab to a stand-alone unit led by Ivy Ross, who will report to Tony Fadell, Nest Labs co-founder and CEO,. Fadell will oversee Glass and provide guidance.

Return on investment rose as revenue outpaced the rise in spend by brand advertisers across the Americas on Google and the Yahoo-Bing Network. The results -- released in a recent fourth-quarter report based on clients' activity -- for search advertising suggest that marketers spent and received in return the highest levels of investments during the past five quarters in Q4. Ad spend rose 24% year-on-year, while revenue jumped 16%, year-over-year, per the report.

AdWords, Kenshoo, and Marin Software received top honors in G2 Crowd's first search advertising solutions ranking based on ratings and reviews. Others in the cateogory include Ravin Tools, DoubleClick, Yahoo Advertising, Bing Ads, Adobe Media Optimizer, WordStream, and IgnitionOne. The company has put together a review site for search engine marketing platforms, and now ranks the top solutions by category.

Research from the University of Missouri reveals that separation from their phone can have serious psychological and physiological effects on iPhone users, including a decline in cognitive functions and mental tasks. The study seems to confirm what marketers have believed for some time -- that the phone has become an extension of the owner.

U.S. marketers working with IgnitionOne spent 11% more on paid search advertising in Q4 2014 compared with the year-ago quarter, and 35% more on programmatic display compared with the year-ago quarter.

The Huffington Post, Yahoo News, AOL, Match, Weather, TMZ and many other Web sites have been hit with malicious advertising. Security researchers at Malwarebytes Labs found the bug. In aggregate, the affected sites reach about 1.5 billion Web visitors, per the online security firm.

As many predict, Google's pedestal continues to weaken and could be feeling some effects from the recent loss of a search deal with Mozilla Firefox. Google's piece of the U.S. search market fell to 75.2% in December from 79.3% in the year ago month, while Yahoo rose to 10.4% from 7.4%, according to analytics firm StatCounter.

Google has been pushing into wearable technology, robotics and self-driving cars, but it may be no match for Intel. At the Consumer Electronics Show Tuesday, the semiconductor giant announced a slew of innovative technologies that puts it firmly in the lead with processing power the size of a small button. It also showed off a holographic display powered by RealSense. The idea is to go beyond the touchscreen and allow consumers to interact with virtual objects.

It may not mean much to search marketers now, but the Consumer Electronics Association, the organization that monitors growth in the electronics hardware sector, estimates that industry revenue will reach $223.2 billion this year, up 3% from the prior year.

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