Google

YouTube begins paid subscription pilot

YouTube on Thursday launched a new service for video content makers that lets them charge users to subscribe to their channels.

What Google calls just a "pilot program" for the time being, lets video makers charge users a monthly fee for access to their videos. The subscription plans start at 99 cents a month, but can be set higher. All paid channels offer a 14-day free trial and can be sold at a discount if users subscribe a year at a time, YouTube said in a post announcing the program.

The service is launching with 53 paid channels … Read more

From the Web to Google Drive with just the click of a button

Google wants to help you keep track of all the important files you save from the Web. Whether it's a bill, an e-book, or your favorite cat photo, you can now save it to your Google Drive with just one click -- or really two clicks -- of a button.

Drive users can now click the "Save to Drive" button to save files directly from a Web site to their Drive account, the company announced in a blog post Thursday.

"We surf the Web for a million different reasons -- for everything from school research projects … Read more

Wix: Come for our site builder, stay for Google Apps

The popular Web-site builder Wix has inked a deal with Google to help small business customers install branded Google Apps.

Wix, which lets individuals and businesses build sites in HTML5 via an app market and drag-and-drop editor, announced Thursday that its partnership with Google will allow small businesses to sign up for Google Apps with one click. A subsequent two-click process will set up and brand apps -- including Gmail and Google Drive -- for companies.

"Branded email has been one of our most frequently requested features, and it was this that led to our decision to integrate Google … Read more

W3C proceeds with Web video encryption despite opposition

The World Wide Web Consortium has decided to go ahead with a technology that will let companies like Netflix stream encrypted video using Web sites -- against the wishes of the Free Software Foundation, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and 25,600 petition signatories.

The Web standards group announced the move Thursday, to nobody's surprise. Entertainment-industry players had approached the group three years ago to discuss the technology, Microsoft has been helping develop it, and Google already has built the specification, called Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) into Chrome.

The standard doesn't actually handle encryption and digital rights management (DRM) to … Read more

Why Google Glass needs help getting to you

Google is reportedly talking with eyewear upstart Warby Parker about designing less geeky frames that would include the Glass apparatus. While the optical frame maker could certainly add some fashion to Glass, perhaps making it less cyborg-like, it could also provide an efficient way to sell and distribute Google's wearable computer.

Warby Parker recently opened its first "flagship" shop, located in New York's trendy Soho district. It's a the perfect location to attract the trendy geeks who want to be the first in their hood to don Google's smart glasses.

For Glass buyers requiring … Read more

Facebook to Firefox: Please add WebP image support

Facebook's engineers like Google's WebP and want Mozilla to build support for the image format into the Firefox browser.

Google hopes to speed Web performance with the image format, which can do the job of both of today's major graphics formats, JPEG and PNG. Facebook began testing WebP support in April.

And now it looks like the powerful company has become Google's biggest ally in the effort to promote WebP. Mozilla is deciding whether to reverse its earlier opposition to WebP, and Facebook programmer Bryan Alger on Wednesday encouraged Firefox developers to do so in a … Read more

Google, authors wrangle in court again over digital books

Google and the Authors Guild are wrangling in court again, with the latter asking for $3 billion in damages related to Google's digital books project.

Lawyers for the two companies on Wednesday presented their oral arguments in an appeal hearing related to class action status for the suit. A judge in the Second Circuit Court in New York last year had granted the Authors Guild the ability to sue Google as a group, but the search giant on Wednesday argued that such status shouldn't be granted.

The company in the past has cited a survey that showed more than half of the authors polled approved of Google scanning their books … Read more

Google expands Fiber to Grandview, Mo.

Google Fiber is hitting another Kansas City, Mo., suburb, the online giant said Tuesday.

Grandview, Mo., will become the latest location to snag the super-high-speed Internet, joining other cities such as Austin, Texas; Provo, Utah; and Shawnee, Kan.

However, Google said in its blog post that it will still be "awhile" before it can build Fiber in Grandview as it needs to plan and engineer its network there first.

Google, which announced the Fiber project in February 2010, began construction of the network backbone in February 2012. The idea behind Google Fiber is for the company to build … Read more

Google going to revamp its Maps interface at I/O?

Word has it that Google Maps may be doing a substantial revamp to its interface. According to Google Operating System, a site that gives unofficial news and tips about Google, the Web giant is said to be rolling out an update that takes away sidebars and navigational buttons and concentrates more on one big interactive map.

The unofficial news site posted a pair of maps on Tuesday that it says show what the overhaul will look like. Apparently, what is now displayed in the Google Maps sidebar will be shown on the top of a full-screen map and there will … Read more