Search giant Google is facing trouble in Russia. The country’s Federal Antimonopoly Service reportedly accused the company today of violating Russian antitrust laws. The agency found that Google is abusing its position in the market. The decision could force Google to change its current practices in the country and potentially face a fine.
Russian authorities initiated a probe of Google after domestic competitor Yandex filed a complaint in February, The Wall Street Journal reports. At issue is whether Google’s practice of bundling its own apps on Android phones constitutes anticompetitive behavior. “We believe the FAS’s decision will serve to restore competition on the market,” a Yandex spokesperson says.
The Journal says that FAS found Google guilty of “abusing its dominant market position” but not of “unfair competition practices. “We haven’t yet received the ruling,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement. “When we do we will study it and determine our next steps.”
The Russian investigation is not the only antitrust concerns facing the company overseas. In April, the European Union formally accused Google of antitrust violations. The question for the EU is whether Google uses its position as the dominant search engine to favor its own businesses, such as Google Shopping, over those of its competitors. The EU has also opened an investigation into whether the company uses its position to discourage carriers from bundling rivals’ applications on Android phones.
Google has responded to the EU’s initial claim by arguing that online shopping is more competitive than ever.
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Google got a new logo today.
The new logomark is the company’s first major branding update in 16 years. It will preserve the famous blue-red-yellow-blue-green-red color sequence of the original one (the green letter was thrown in to purposefully break up the primary color pattern, because Google isn’t your ordinary tech company), but will lose the old-style serif typeface. The new logo is simpler, younger, friendlier, and—dare we say—more visually in line with Alphabet, Google’s new holding company.
It’s created with a font called Product Sans, a riff on schoolbook lettering style. But the overhaul doesn’t end with the word “Google.” There’s a microphone icon designed to make clear how voice interaction is working, and a four-color “G” logo for mobile that a few smart people have pointed out may be a lot of people’s primary association with Google going forward.
This is the real Google logo though, because it’s what will matter on mobile (and I like it!) pic.twitter.com/wAGVlMOc3Q
— Ben Thompson (@benthompson) September 1, 2015
Designers are predictably mixed on the change, so far. But the overarching message is clear: this is about Google growing outward, and designing a brand that can expand with it. “It’s really about much more than a logo and more about kind of a smart system,” says Geoff Cook, founding partner at Base Design. “Like an overarching visual language that really allows us the users to connect the dots across their ecosystem from product to product.”
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Google has finally responded to antitrust charges filed against the company by the European Union last April.
The European Commission—the executive body of the EU—had been investigating whether Google has been disadvantaging rival shopping comparison sites by prioritizing results from its own Google Shopping service. It has also opened an investigation into whether the company uses its position as the dominant developer of mobile operating systems to discourage carriers from bundling applications from rival companies on Android-based devices. If Google is found guilty of violating EU law it could face fines of up to $6.4 billion—roughly 10 percent of the company’s operating revenue.
In a blog post today, Google general counselor Kent Walker wrote that online shopping is more competitive than ever, and that eBay and Amazon—not Google—are the main players and emphasized the importance of personalized advertising to Google’s business model and to the overall quality of the service. He did not address the EU’s concerns over Android.
“The universe of shopping services has seen an enormous increase in traffic from Google, diverse new players, new investments, and expanding consumer choice,” Walker wrote. “Google delivered more than 20 billion free clicks to aggregators over the last decade in the countries covered by the [European Commission’s statement of objections], with free traffic increasing by 227% (and total traffic increasing even more).”
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Chromebooks have made huge inroads in education—Google says they’re the best-selling computers in U.S. schools—and now the company is making a push into the office. Today it’s announcing a suite of new enhancements designed to make it easier to use Chrome OS at work.
These new tools make fleets of Chromebooks easier to manage, set up, and update. And there are new visualization features, so you can use legacy Windows apps if you need them. Google’s partnering with VPN companies, making printing easier, and making sure you can connect to all your networks no matter where you are.
Business is a hard nut to crack, and even Google admits this is just the first step down the road. The most immediately great new thing is the new Dell Chromebook 13, which occupies a virtually uncharted space in the Chrome OS universe: the mid-range. Starting at $399 and configurable up to $899, the Chromebook 13 has a 13.3-inch, 1080p screen, along with Intel’s Core i5 processor, and a dark gray magnesium-alloy body that looks and feels a lot better than your average bargain-basement Chromebook. It has a good, full-sized, backlit keyboard, and a very usable trackpad. Its battery should last 12 hours, a fact both Google and Dell executives proudly touted. It’s not quite the beauty the Chromebook Pixel is, but it looks very much like a computer you wouldn’t mind using. All for a third of the Pixel’s asking price.
It’ll be available September 17, and while Google might call it “a Chromebook for work,” the Dell Chromebook 13 appears to just be an awesome Chromebook for anyone.
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How many times have you want to boot up your Google Cardboard for some sweet VR action but that whole holding it thing got in the way? Well thankfully, there’s this new device from Hands Free Headgear that turns your head into a mount for any Google Cardboard viewer. It’s essentially the bones of a helmet that has been simplified to instead support and house your VR device.
It’s not the first time an incredibly simple solution has been made related to technology and cardboard, of course.
うし！！映画だwwww pic.twitter.com/xSRT3P7LTF
— ちーず (@hrhr_mumu) December 27, 2013
What will we think of next?
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Ariel Zambelich/WIRED
A new version of Google Glass is on the way, and this time around, it will be offered exclusively to workplaces such as hospitals and factories.
The new device, called the Enterprise Edition internally, will look very much like the original but with the a new hinge and will sport a bigger display and faster processor, according to 9to5Google. The Wall Street Journal, which corroborates 9to5Google’s report, adds that the device can be attached to different glasses.
The device, overseen by Google’s Nest division, run by Tony Fadell, is expected to be available by fall, according to the Wall Street Journal. It will be at least a year before we see a new consumer version of the device.
As we’ve said, Google never gave up on Glass as an enterprise device, despite putting the consumer version of the device on hiatus, and indeed, the workplace is the ideal place for wearables. It’s one place that Glass has already had some success. In 2013, a California solar panel company had its field technicians wear Google Glass so they could take photos and view documents without using their hands. But Google will have to compete with other companies such as Vuzix, which have been selling head-mounted wearables to businesses for years.
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Unites States Patent and Trademark Office
Google filed a patent today for a Glass-like wearable that records video and makes it searchable. If the gadget senses, through pre-programmed cues, that a significant moment is taking place, it will document the event and file the clip to the cloud for your future reference.
The patent doesn’t state that this new functionality is for Google Glass, but it does shows the processor and data storage mounted onto a Harry Potter–esque pair of spectacles. It could be a hint that Google is either reprising the troubled Glass’s potential as a consumer product or considering a separate tool geared toward Glass’ devotees in the medical and technical industries.
In a hypothetical scenario, Google imagines the glass being used by security personnel or airport screeners to review “the faces of all people that were seen between 1 P.M. and 3 P.M.” For the rest of us, it could be a neat lifelogging device—a means for capturing events accurately without removing yourself from the action. (You’d no longer have to fish out your smartphone, set up the composition, and press the record button.) But that has its drawbacks, too. Some people may not take kindly to being recorded without their explicit permission. Google Glass had a creepy-vibe problem, and these glasses, however school-marme looking, might not be an exception.
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[View the story “@EricaJoy’s salary transparency experiment at Google” on Storify]
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‘On mobile, the average [YouTube] session is now over 40 minutes.’
—Omid Kordestani, Google’s chief business officer, speaking during Google’s quarterly earnings call today.
In fact, Kordestani says that YouTube now reaches more 18 to 49-year-olds than any single US cable network. Those numbers sound insane, but keep in mind that they probably include people listening to music on YouTube, as well as views on tablets. Still, they represent an enormous shift in how we consume media.
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New Google Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat, who joined the company from Morgan Stanley in May, had a good first earnings call today. The company beat its projected revenues during its most recent quarter. More importantly, Porat was able to point to increased revenue in an area that has been a bugbear for Google in recent years: mobile.
During the call she said that the cost-per-click, or CPC, of mobile ads has risen and that desktop CPC has held steady. “We continue to close the gap between mobile and desktop search monetization,” she said during the call. That’s particularly good news since more Google searches happen on mobile devices than desktops in 10 countries, including the US.
Analysts projected earnings of $6.70 a share, which Google beat by 29 cents. Along with mobile, YouTube and Google’s programmatic advertising offerings such as Doubleclick also brought in meaningful money for the company.
Chief Business Officer Omid Kordestani credited local search as one of the main reasons for the company’s improved revenue in search. Some of that improvement was due to warmer weather compared to the first quarter: People aren’t doing as many searches for shopping or dining out when they’re snowed in. But he also pointed to some of Google’s new offerings that help businesses quantify offline sales that result from online searches—claiming, for example that one-third of Target’s mobile ads resulted in in-store sales.
Regardless of where the money came from, investors are pleased. Google shares surged more than 10 percent in after-hours trading.
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Russia Says Google Has Violated Antitrust Law