Google found NOT guilty in infringement case with Oracle

Just over a week ago, the jury began deliberations on the ongoing patent infringement case between Google and Oracle. After waiting in the wings, with bated breath, the verdict is finally in, as Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court of Northern California dismissed the jury this afternoon after a unanimous decision that ruled in favor of Google’s mobile OS, declaring that Android did not in fact infringe on the Oracle patents in question.

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Google officially closes acquisition of Motorola Mobility

Months in the making, the deal is finally done. Motorola Mobility is officially part of Google. After receiving blessings from Europe, the US and China, the Internet giant has put the finishing touches on its purchase of Moto's mobile division. Though the corporate marriage faced plenty of obstacles, Big G was able to put the manufacturer on its ledger for the price of $40 per share, or about $12.5 billion. As it stands, Motorola Mobility will continue to operate as a separate business entity and as a licensee of Android, but Mountain View is still claiming the purchase will allow it to "supercharge" its mobile ecosystem. The future of the new subsidiary's employees is a different matter, however. Rumors have been swirling for the last week or so that there could be significant layoffs at Moto following the merger, which would further enforce the perception that Google is more interested in the company's patents than in entering the hardware business. Of course, whether or not we'll see layoffs or perhaps a Moto-branded Nexus is still a mystery. For a bit more on Google's victory lap, check out the PR after the break.

Google has also settled on a replacement for Sanjay Jha as CEO of Motorola Mobility, Dennis Woodside. Woodside is a longtime Googler who got his start in sales, building out business in Africa, Eastern Europe and Russia, before becoming President of the Americas sales operation. Hit the break for the press release.

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Windows RT is a 'return to the digital dark ages' according to Mozilla, Google agrees

Mozilla is creating quite a buzz this morning over Microsoft's new Windows RT (the variety designed to run on ARM processors). It's claiming that only the Internet Explorer browser will run under the much more (in computing terms) privileged Windows Classic environment. It claims this effectively makes IE the only fully functioning browser on the platform, with everything else being denied access to key computing functions (running as a Metro app). Mozilla argues that if IE can run in Windows (rather than Metro) on ARM, then there's no reason why the other browsers can't. Mozilla then goes on to extend an invitation to Microsoft to "remain firm on its user choice principles". Meanwhile it's not just the Moz that has taken umbrage at the move, with CNET reporting that Google also isn't happy with the situation, saying "We share the concerns Mozilla has raised regarding the Windows 8 environment restricting user choice and innovation." We'll have to wait and see what Microsoft's take on the matter is, but for now it looks like the browser wars are back on.

Google found guilty of copyright infringement

Google plans to move for a mistrial after Jury fails to answer fair use question. The case is being watched closely by Silicon Valley, as Oracle accuses Google of infringing copyrights it holds related to the Java programming tools it provides. 

A federal jury on Monday found that elements of the Android operating system infringed on technology from Java, a platform bought by Oracle only two years ago. Google had questioned whether Oracle's copyrights were even valid, and that it should be excused under fair use principles, as it only used parts of Java that have always been freely available. 

Oracle is seeking over $1 billion in damages from the search giant, but the Jury's failure to determine whether Google's actions were legally protected fair use comes as a major blow to Oracle's prospects of securing such high damages. 

Samsung Galaxy S3 gets a release date, plus some photos

Earlier in the week, we reported on the hardware of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S III. The handset maker has listed the "carrier preference" list for the phone on its U.S. signup page, and although it has not been confirmed, the following carriers are listed: Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, MetroPCS, US Cellular, and C Spire. 

Samsung says the device will hit Europe on May 29th and the U.S. and Canada "in June." In Europe the phone will be a Vodafone exclusive for the first 30 days. HIt the break link for some press photos.

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Google Drive Official: Offers 5GB of free storage

After years of leaks, murmurs, hubbub and other familiar synonyms, Google's mythical cloud storage platform is now official... sort of. As Lady Fate would have it, the company apparently outed a memo of the features on its French blog earlier today, but before it could yank the 'pull' switch, an eagle-eyed reader managed to grab the text and run it through -- surprise, surprise -- Google Translate. What's left is an official-as-you'll-get-right-now transcript of Google Drive's features, but contrary to the hype, it all feels way more enterprise-centric than consumers may have wanted. For starters, there's no real mention of music (we guess Google Music is on its own, there), and there's just 5GB of free storage for "documents, videos, photos, Google Docs, PDFs, etc." According to the brief, it's designed to let users "live, work and play in the cloud," with direct integration with Docs and Google+. Hop over after the break for a few videos breaking down the new service.

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Instagram for Android is finally here

Android lovers rejoice! The insanely popular photo sharing social netowrk, Instagram, made famous by iOS has finally arrived on Android today! It is a little smaller than the iOS version visually, but that is hardly a deterent.  The app will work on Android phones running 2.2 or later.  It will not work on tablets.  Around a half of a million users signed up for the app on the company's waiting list over the past year.  Now it is time to get your hands on it.  Head over to the Google Play store via the reference link below and download it now!

Ice Cream Sandwich now on 2.9 precent of devices, 63.7% still using Gingerbread

Android Ice Cream Sandwich has seen some growth since its launch half a year ago, but there are still very few devices adopting the Google OS. Usage has grown from 0.6 percent in January to a whopping 2.9 percent in March, but that is still a far cry from the amount of users running Gingerbread which is at 63.7 percent.  The Android user base is upgrading slowly and charts like these will give developers ideas on what and how to develop apps.  So it may be a while before we see ICS specific apps in the Google Play store.

Google Wallet Prepaid cards back up. Gives you $5 for your patience

If you opened up your Google Wallet app lately, you will notice that you have been granted an extra five dollars to your prepaid card as an apology for the recent security SNAFU. Also, Google fired off an email to existing Wallet users stating the following:

We are happy to announce that you can now add the Google Prepaid Card back to your wallet with the newest version of Google Wallet, and any funds that you previously had on the card should be restored, unless you contacted Money Network and asked for a refund of those funds. To add the Google Prepaid Card back, you will first need to update your Google Wallet application to the most recent version.

Just in case you haven't been following along, here is a quick recap on the entire Wallet saga. On February 9th, it was discovered that it was trivial to access Google Wallet prepaid accounts on a stolen phone by clearing the app's data and re-provisioning it. Google disabled creating new cards, then re-enabled that but left re-provisioning disabled, then re-enabled the whole thing by securing it with a Google Account password. If you've been living through this entire ordeal as a Google Wallet customer, five bucks seems like the least the company could do.

This fix comes in the form of an update for the Android app, if you are a Verizon Galaxy Nexus owner like I am, you can't simply go to the Google Play Store and download this update since Big Red is still blocking the use of the app. Lucky for us however, the good fellows over at XDA have pulled the APK and you can find all the info on how to get your hands on the latest version at the reference link below.

Samsung Galaxy S2 to get ICS this Saturday UPDATE: Just kidding

Two days. That's the amount of time remaining for you, dear Samsung Galaxy S II owner, before the long-awaited upgrade to Android 4.0 -- the dessert known as Ice Cream Sandwich -- becomes readily available for your device through Kies. Naturally, this is going to be adorned with Sammy's TouchWiz UI, and it's only going to be ready on the GT-I9100 (global version) for now. According to the notes, we can expect to see Face Unlock, Android Beam and data usage included, and multitasking and some apps will be improved. We're sure this is just the tip of the feature iceberg, however. Curiously, the site specifies that because of "ICS OS feature," Flash and Bluetooth 3.0 HS won't be supported.

The update will come to individual carriers and their own GSII variants eventually, after a hefty amount of testing on their end, but at least this -- combined with HTC's rollout of Sense 3.6 to the Nordic countries today -- means the ICS ball is officially rolling for custom skins. Let's just hope it's going down a steep hill. If you happen to be packing a GT-I9100, be sure to check the links below for the full set of instructions, and let us know what you find.

Update: Samsung's just tweeted that March 10th date is (sadly) wrong. It added that once the upgrade schedule is concrete, it'll confirm through its dedicated Twitter account.

Apple Acquires Chomp, spends a lot in the process

So for those of you that don't know, Chomp is an app discovery search engine that helps you find app for your mobile device by a keyword search.  A very cool piece of tech if you ask me.  Apparently Apple thinks they are pretty cool as well since they have decided to purchase the app searching company for a large amount. The exact details of the deal are not known at this time.  

Chomp uses technology that is far above that of the current keyword search in the Apple app store, but was used on many of Verizon's Android market searches.  I think it is safe to say that Chomp will no longer be used on Android handhelds, so Google will have to find a new way to help out customers that have no idea what they want.

Are we going to see Android Jelly Bean as early as this summer?

Last October all the hype was around Google's newest iteration of their mobile operating system Android, named Ice Cream Sandwich.  Yet after five months, there is still only one device currently supporting the OS, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.  Although there have been promises that the operating system will get pushed to a number of other devices, we will not see those until late this year. 

And now, sources close to the matter, are stating that the next operating system for Android could be out as soon as this June.  The next mobile OS, codenamed "Jelly Bean" will primarily be geared toward tablets. The OS will be a slight improvement upon ICS with the added ability to dual boot between Android and other operating systems.  Namely, it is aimed at dual booting between Android and Windows 8, making the Microsoft mobile operating system even that more diverse.

This is all speculation at this point, but with Windows slated for a fall release, Android Jelly Bean could see its debut just prior to that.

So what's really going on with Google Wallet?

Google Wallet is Google's mobile payments application and online payment platform.

The Google Wallet application allows a person to tap their phone with NFC against a receiver in a store, quickly type in a pin code, and rejoice with their most recently purchased product. However, recently, it has gotten in some hot water over an apparent lapse in security. There were two security issues recently uncovered. The more heinous of which required an offending hacker to go in to the settings of your phone, erase the data within the Wallet application, set up their own account, and presto! They have access to your Google prepaid card. Pretty simple. So, of course, people freaked out. But let's go over Google Wallet's alternatives:

Cash- If someone has access to your cash, they have your cash. Inherently insecure.

Credit card- If someone has access to your credit card, they can make unlimited purchases online and in store at some locations with a simple forgery of your signature. Pretty insecure as well.

Moral of the story? Guard your stuff. To Google's credit, very shortly after this "hack" went public, in a knee-jerk reaction, they stopped issuing new prepaid cards to temporarily remedy the problem as they worked on a true solution. Soon after that, Google fixed the issue and reopened the prepaid cards. But people are still freaking out saying that this is indicative of the lack of security in Google Wallet and they are already counting Wallet out.

Poppycock, I say.

Google Wallet is more secure than other forms of payment, it's easy, and it's awesome. Besides, if someone steals my phone, I would be much less worried about the ten dollars on my Google Prepaid Card and much more worried about my $730 Galaxy Nexus.

Android 4.0.4 ROM leaks out for the Galaxy Nexus on Verizon

A little gem known as Android 4.0.4 wriggled its way onto the interweb last week, and while it was geared specifically for Sprint's Nexus S 4G, a similar version has just cropped up for the CDMA / LTE Galaxy Nexus from Verizon. While it's only available for tenacious users who've unlocked their bootloader, it seems that a host of improvements are on deck for the official release. First and foremost, the ROM is said to be noticeably faster, with the speed gains also extending to the web browser and the device's boot time. The release also packs a new radio file that (at least from user impressions) offers more seamless transitions between the CDMA and LTE networks. All in all, the rest of the changes are rather minor, but if you'd like to join the bleeding edge, you'll find everything you need in the source link below.

XDA-Developers

Google puts out a style guide for devs of ICS

Matias Duarte just dropped by The Verge trailer at CES 2012 to fill them in about Google's new effort for ensuring consistency in the Android user experience: a style guide. And since I am now best friends with Josh Topolsky, we've got the scoop too! (kidding, he merely shook my hand). According to The Verge:

Android OEMs and app developers will be provided with a set of in-depth guidelines on how to build atop of Android. All the instructions will be made available on a new website, Android Design, a subset of the Android Developers site, which will be built out over time with ever more granular and detailed best practice advice.

The initial version of the guide includes information like typography, color palettes, and other stylistic advice, as well as a breakdown of the components making up the Android UI. Matias stresses that what we're seeing today is a purely optional aid for Android designers, not something that Google will seek to enforce.

Google unveils new Chromebox Series 3

The Chromebox looks a bit different than the model Google showed off back in May, but there's still no word on price or specs; a Samsung rep told me it was likely to launch mid-year 2012.

The new Series 5 Chromebook represents an iterative upgrade to the previous model; instead of running an Atom processor, it's now equipped with a dual-core Intel Celeron. Lightweight specs, to be sure, but definitely an improvement over the previous model. Design-wise, it shares a lot in common with Samsung's other Series 5 laptops, it's mostly plastic, but feels relatively well constructed. 

Galaxy Nexus Officially on Sprint

Ads leaked out last week, but now Sprint's officially taken the cover off of the LTE-capable Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Unlike Verizon's model, Sprint is highlighting the Galaxy Nexus' NFC capabilities and Google Wallet software. There's no mention on whether the processor has indeed been bumped to 1.5GHz as we saw earlier, but we do know that the storage space has unfortunately been cut to 16GB. Other than that, it looks like the Sprint Galaxy Nexus could be the closest to Google's vision of what the device should be. There's still no word on when this device will be available, but we expect it'll be available when Sprint's LTE network goes live later this year.

Google Wallet can be downloaded on Galaxy Nexus

Well it didn't take too long for the hacker teams to sidestep the red menace known as Verizon wireless, and create a downloadable version of Google Wallet for the Galaxy Nexus. There are still some bugs, but reports are coming in that the app does function. So if you can't wait for the legal dispute to end, hop over to XDA-Developers and grab the app.

It is official! The Samsung Galaxy Nexus on sale December 15 on Verizon Wireless for $299.99

Finally, it is official! Verizon has put an end to all the speculation and announced the release date and price for the LTE-capable, Ice Cream Sandwich-equipped Galaxy Nexus. It launches tomorrow, December 15th, and will cost $299.99 with a two-year contract.

Galaxy Nexus being sold early at Best Buy and certain Verizon stores. (UPDATE: Confirmed!)

After all the false promises from Samsung we'd heard that many Verizon, Best Buy, and Radio Shack locations already had the elusive LTE Samsung Galaxy Nexus in stock, and it was inevitable that consumers would do their best to try to buy it ahead of the scheduled launch date — currently rumored to be December 15th. Today, some lucky individuals were able to do just that. Droid Life has posted images from a reader that claims to have picked up a unit from a Verizon retail store, while Google+ user Dave Fayram bought his new phone at a Best Buy. There appears to have been some confusion at Best Buy locations today, confirming that they were a go for sales this morning. Other locations continued to state that the device was not yet released and would simply be available "soon."

The phone was priced at $299.99 on-contract as expected, and screenshots indicate it comes with at least three different Verizon apps pre-loaded: the My Verizon Mobile account management tool, Verizon Login, and VZ Backup Assistant (of course, thanks to Ice Cream Sandwich, all three can be easily disabled). With the Red Menace still refusing to make an official announcement, no doubt many more will try to "encourage" retail employees to sell the phone early. If you're so inclined, please be aware that Verizon doesn't take pre-launch sales lightly when it comes to employees and retailers, so if you're denied it's better to commiserate with your local representatives than berate them. While we'd like to say an official launch date will be announced soon, unfortunately neither Verizon nor its retail partners are offering any new information at this time.

Update on Monday, December 12, 2011 at 10:25AM by Dustin Turley

Confirmed!  Just called four different Radio Shacks in the San Diego area and they have the Galaxy Nexus in stock and all sales representatives say the units will be for sale "very soon"