With Chromecast, Google reveals Chrome as its strategic big gun

Computerworld - Chrome is Google and Google is Chrome.

The Chrome browser is Google's most potent strategic weapon, a former Microsoft program manager said last week.

"Chrome is the focus at Google; Android is an afterthought," asserted Ben Thompson, who writes on his Stratechery blog. Thompson, who left Microsoft earlier this month, has quickly made a name for himself with insights into the technology market, in particular Microsoft, Apple and Google, ranging from Microsoft's massive reorganization to the possible role for a larger, 13-in. iPad.

"Chrome shouldn't be thought of as a Web browser," Thompson wrote. "Rather, it's an optimized bi-directional delivery vehicle: the best experience with Google services for users, and maximum user data for Google. And it runs everywhere. This is why Google has been investing millions of dollars in building the Chrome brand."

Thompson's latest post was reacting to the debut of Chromecast, the $35 stream-to-TV device Google introduced last week. Chromecast, said Google, is powered by a simplified version of Chrome OS. (Although GTVHacker.com claimed Chromecast is "more Android than ChromeOS.")

"As a horizontal company, Google wants to be on every screen, and their vehicle to accomplish that across verticals, both from a technical and brand perspective, is Chrome," Thompson added. By "verticals," Thompson meant "devices."

It's hard to argue with Thompson.

Google has been expending significant resources to push Chrome into as many corners as possible.

Not only is Chrome (the browser) available for all major desktop and mobile platforms -- from Windows and OS X to Android and iOS -- the major features of Chrome OS are being added to the browser, including packaged, nee "native," Web apps and the ability to view and edit Microsoft Office documents.

The goal? From Thompson's viewpoint, control of a "multi-screen world."

Others have had similar thoughts.

"It looks like Google is defining the Chrome platform as what I'd call 'Web Platform Plus,' and intends for Chrome OS and the Chrome browser to be a 'platform on a platform' on any device it is permitted to run on," said IDC analyst Al Hilwa in a May interview, months before Chromecast.

By defining that "platform on a platform" -- Chrome on Windows, on Android, on iOS, on OS X, on the television -- Google is trying to turn as many devices and screens as possible into ones locked into the company's ecosystem, keep users loyal to that same ecosystem of sites, service and apps, and entice others to join them.

The ultimate prize is more revenue, which Google generates almost exclusively from online advertising. All Google does, argued Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester, is driven by its search for more, and more expensive, advertising.

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Google Chromecast

Pros Extremely inexpensive. Smooth integration with supported apps. Easy to set up. Useful accessories. Supports multiple Chromecasts on the same network.

Cons No local media playback. Chrome integration is limited. Bottom Line The Google Chromecast is the least expensive way to access online services on your HDTV if you can't do so already, even if more functional, pricier options are available.

By Will Greenwald

By this point, there are tons of ways to watch online content on your HDTV. Your media hub, your game console, your Blu-ray player—even your HDTV itself might be able to access YouTube and Netflix. If you don't have those options, though, you're usually looking at a $100 investment in a box like the Roku 3 or Apple TV.

The Google Chromecast is a new alternative to all of the above. It's a $35 (direct) stick that plugs into your HDTV's HDMI port and lets you stream media from Netflix, YouTube, and Google Play through your smartphone, tablet, or notebook. It's more limited than the Roku 3 and Apple TV, but its price (just over a third of either product) makes it an easy Editors' Choice. It's not quite Google's answer to AirPlay and it's not quite a full-featured media streamer, but it's an incredibly inexpensive way to access online media and Google Play's generous movie and music libraries on your HDTV.

Design
The Chromecast is a simple HDMI stick you plug into the back of your HDTV, like the Roku Stick. Unlike the Roku Stick, it uses a separate micro-USB port instead of MHL to power it. On one hand, this means you need to run a cable from the stick to a USB port, making it much less neat than it would seem. On the other hand, it means the stick works with any HDTV, whether it has an MHL-capable HDMI port or not. The stick has a single button on the back for setup and a single LED light to indicate it's on.

Google was surprisingly thoughtful in its choice of accessories for the Chromecast. While it will work with just the stick and the micro-USB-to-USB cable plugged in to your TV, it also includes a USB power adapter if you don't have any spare ports. It even comes with a short HDMI extender, which can be very useful if the Chromecast is a little too thick to fit against other HDMI devices if the HDTV's ports are clustered tightly together.

Setup and Supported Apps
The setup process is incredibly simple and entirely app-controlled. Load the app on your mobile device or computer and it will automatically scan both the Wi-Fi network you're currently on and any Chromecast sticks in "Setup" mode. Tap the stick in Setup mode and enter the password to your Wi-Fi network (the app will automatically fill in the Wi-Fi network you're currently using). The Chromecast will automatically connect to your network, and it will show that it's connected (and the strength of the Wi-Fi connection, and the assigned name of the Chromecast).

Your streaming content choices are currently limited, though Google released an API for the Chromecast, so more apps could support it in the future. From an Android device, you can stream media from Google Play Movies and Music (in a limited way, explained below), as well as Netflix and YouTube. From an iOS device, you can watch Netflix and YouTube via the Chromecast. From a computer (Windows or Mac OS X), you can stream media from Netflix, YouTube, Google Play, and Chrome (streaming the view of an active tab to the Chromecast). These apps all get their own Chromecast buttons when the Chromecast app is installed and your Android device detects Chromecast sticks on the network. In supported apps, streaming media to Chromecast is as easy as streaming through AirPlay; just load the media, tap the screen icon, and select the Chromecast to which you want to stream.

Performance
You can set up multiple Chromecasts on the same Wi-Fi network, and the setup app even lets you rename them, so you can label each HDTV and room. By default they're called "ChromecastXXXX" (with different four-digit numbers to identify them), but you can easily change them to "Living Room" and "Bedroom." Multiple Chromecasts work with multiple devices, and I had no problem accessing two different YouTube videos, one on my Samsung Galaxy S III and another on an iPhone 5, and playing both them on a different Chromecast in the lab while all four devices were connected to the same Wi-Fi network. You only have to be wary of bandwidth, since streaming too many videos at once could cause lag.

The Chromecast performed fairly well, but was limited by our Wi-Fi network (a not-particularly-strong hotspot in the morass of wireless testing that is the PC Labs). I loaded Fringe on Netflix and it looked like it was in standard definition, which indicates Netflix was seriously downgrading the quality because of the network speed. Music videos on YouTube looked much better, as did Ice Age on Google Play when I loaded both a short while later after it seemed like the network congestion cleared up. The device itself doesn't have any problem outputting video up to 1080p, but it relies heavily on your bandwidth and the signal strength of your network. 

Limitations and Conclusions
Unlike Apple TV and AirPlay, Chromecast doesn't let you stream your locally stored media. Google Play Music gives an error message when you try to play music you loaded on your device yourself and not through the Google Play store (I found this out when I tried to stream a song from the DRM-free Shadow Warrior soundtrack, purchased legitimately through the Humble Bundle). Google Play Movies goes a step further; the new version of the app that can send media to Chromecast doesn't list locally loaded videos at all. This is Chromecast's biggest weakness, when Apple TV and any other device that allows mirroring lets you share your music and videos without having to get them through a small number of limited, highly controlled outlets. On the bright side, with Google Play integration, if you subscribe to All Access music you can stream any music from a massive library to Chromecast and your HDTV.

Sending your Chrome browser tab to the Chromecast is currently very limited. It's not exactly screen mirroring, so you can't do things like play Web games on your HDTV through Chromecast or watch many Web-based videos. In fact, casting a tab seems to effectively send a screen shot of the tab at its most recent position to the Chromecast, so loading any kind of movie from a site like Justin.tv or Blip.tv is completely out. Chromecast streams the audio of content from these sites, but it doesn't load the video at all. Chromecast support also doesn't seem to be implemented in the Android version of Chrome yet; you need to install the Chromecast extension to your Windows or Mac OS X version of Chrome. If you want to share a Web page from your phone, you're out of luck.

So Chromecast is a limited device, though one with some very handy uses. Netflix, YouTube, and Google Play integration let you turn your smartphone or tablet into an access portal to put a startling amount of movies and music on your HDTV. Unfortunately, the inability to play local media and the very limited Chrome tab streaming support holds it back. That said, it's still a $35 product held up against $100 devices like the Roku 3 and the Apple TV, and it can add useful functionality to an HDTV that doesn't have built-in access to those services, which could be the real key to the Chromecast's success: bringing Internet HDTV streaming to many more people than before. The massive Google Play movie and music libraries also help sweeten the deal, especially if you're an All Access subscriber for music.

If the Chromecast cost as much as the Apple TV (or even half as much), it would compare more poorly. At $35, though, it's the most affordable way to access online media services on your HDTV, even if those services are limited. Considering the price, the Google Chromecast earns Editors' Choice.

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Google Flights

Pros Exceptionally fast. No page reloading when making changes. Filter by specific airline(s) or airline alliances. Excellent way to find lowest price by date. Mobile device-accessible. Includes multi-city trips, one-way trips, and roundtrips.

Cons Can't purchase. No hotel reservations, car rental, or activities to book. No promotions or deals; only advertisements. Bottom Line It's no wonder the first name in search delivers near-instantaneous travel results in Google Flight. But seeing as you can't make a purchase on the site, it isn't nearly as useful as it could be.

By Jill Duffy Google Flights (free) is one of the best sources for a second opinion you can find on the Web. Google Flights is a small slice of the Google search universe that only looks at airline travel, and, since the site first appeared more than a year ago, it has corrected some of its major limitations. You can now search for roundtrip flights to cities around the world, as well as one-way tickets and multi-city trips with up to five legs. The site still doesn't let you book a ticket directly through Google—you have to link out to another site—but it does include a lovely array of tools for narrowing down your travel criteria and looking at alternative options.

In the end, though, Google Flights works best as a free second opinion to Kayak (5 stars), our Editors' Choice for travel search and booking. Kayak offers everything Google Flights does, and a whole lot more. But Google Flights has a slightly smoother interface, so wading through certain kinds of search results. Still, it's one of the 15 best travel apps and services you'll find.

Why Use Google Flights?
The primary reason to use Google Flights, despite its lacking some features we consider basic in travel websites, such as the ability to add hotels and car rentals to an itinerary, is because it's fast. Wicked fast.

When you land on the page, you can start typing the name of any city, and Google Flights will suggest ones you probably mean. Below those entries are date fields for arrival and departure. A third row of additional filters, including the number of stops you're willing to make on the way and a slider bar to limit the price, work equally fast as the primary search.

By default, Google Flights starts on a roundtrip search, but you can change it to a one-way or multi-city flight by switching tabs at the top. With the all the changes you might make to a search, Google Flights never has to fully reload the page, which is astoundingly different from the experience of using Kayak, Orbitz, and any other major travel search and booking site.

You can also turn on a map that shows you the most direct flight line between the two locations. New York to Honolulu looks a lot farther than it sounds.

A second visual indicator, and my favorite tool on the site, is a bar graph icon indicating an interactive graph that shows how the price changes if you opt to travel on different dates. Kayak offers a similar tool, but you have to delve pretty deeply into that site before it turns up. On Google Flights, you can adjust the number of days of the trip while using the flexible date option as well. For example, a roundtrip flight between New York and Honolulu December 26 to January 4 hits a peak price of more than $1,500, but the bar graph shows that a much better fare of $652 can be had if you just slide your dates of travel over to December 31 to January 9. That's less than half the cost, so you can see how worthwhile it might be to have flexible travel dates. For finding the best time to fly based on price, Google Flights is awesome.

There are more criteria filters to try, such as changing the class of the airfare (economy is the default), or limiting the airlines which Google Flights will search.

Google Flights doesn't let you buy the flight right on the site, making it only useful for travel search rather than booking. You have to link out to another site, usually that of the airline carrier, to make a purchase. Google Flights doesn't include hotels, car rentals, vacation packages, which you'll find in Orbitz and Kayak, either. And, seeing as you can't buy on the site, Google Flights doesn't offer any customer service or price guarantees along the lines of what Orbitz offers.

Check With Google, Book On Kayak
Kayak still leads the pack for travel search and booking sites, and it's our Editors' Choice. If you have a lot of factors to take into consideration for your travel plans, start with Kayak and run a quick cross-check on Google Flights, which is so fast it will only take you a moment to drill down your options and find exactly what you need. 

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Google Nexus 7

Pros Fast. Well-built. Excellent battery life. Well worth the money.

Cons Some third-party apps must be updated for Android 4.3. No HDMI or MHL to connect the tablet to HDTVs. Bottom Line Google's Nexus 7 continues to set the bar for small-screen tablets with a perfect balance between price and performance.

By Sascha Segan Balance. That's the key. Last year's Nexus 7 set the bar for small tablets with just the right balance of features, size, and price. This year, Google and Asus do it again. The new Nexus 7 ($229 direct, or $269 as reviewed with 32GB) balances size, performance, and price to hit the perfectly sweet spot for a small tablet.

Physical Features and Networking
The new Nexus 7 is slimmer, lighter, and more comfortable to hold than the original, which was already more comfortable to hold than the oddly wide Apple iPad mini. This model is 4.5 by 7.9 by .34 inches (HWD) and 10.2 ounces, with tapered sides and a soft-touch back that somehow feels a little classier than the weird faux-leather of the original Nexus 7. Asus still understands that narrowness, more than anything else, is key to making a device you might sometimes want to hold in one hand.

Editor's Note: This is a review of the Google Nexus 7 tablet available on July 30, 2013. For our review of the 2012 Google Nexus 7, see here.

There are very few ports here—just micro-USB, a headphone jack, and a microphone—and narrower, but not very narrow, side bezels framing a sharp 1,920-by-1,200 screen.

The screen is the big advance here. Asus swapped out the Nexus 7's original 1,280-by-800 screen with a gorgeous 1,920-by-1,200-pixel IPS LCD panel. At 323 ppi, it's almost exactly the same density as the Apple iPhone 5's "retina" display and higher than any iPad. It's bright enough for most circumstances, colors are very true, and the viewing angle is good. But it's also small enough that the screen doesn't totally kill battery life. We got 7 hours, 37 minutes of video playback with the screen turned up to max brightness. While that's definitely shorter than the 10 hours that last year's model, with its less-dense screen, commanded, it's still quite respectable.

The Nexus 7 comes in three models. The first two are Wi-Fi only, with support for 802.11a/b/g/n on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands; the support for faster 5GHz Wi-Fi is another upgrade from last year's version. We tested the 32GB Wi-Fi model. The third unit packs more LTE and HSPA bands than I've ever seen: It'll work on Verizon's LTE network and AT&T's and T-Mobile's LTE and 3G networks.

All of the models have GPS, which makes this bright little tablet an absolutely killer in-car navigation system. The GPS on my test tablet locked in very quickly. The tablet also has Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC, although surprisingly there's no support for Google Wallet. Maybe Google Wallet isn't a thing any more.

Performance, OS and Apps
The Nexus 7 is the first Android 4.3 tablet, running a 1.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm S4 Pro APQ8064 processor. Think of it as about two-thirds of the way up the current performance ladder, with the Samsung Galaxy S4 phone at the top. It close to doubles the performance of last year's Nvidia Tegra 3-based Nexus 7 on pure processor and graphics benchmarks and positively crushes the iPad mini on the Geekbench system benchmark: The mini scores only 748, while this guy registers 2,643. The Chrome browser beats the iPad mini on the Sunspider browser benchmark by about 30 percent.

Real-world performance isn't solely dependent on processor speed: It's dependent on how many pixels you're pushing, the OS, and third-party apps. That's where the Nexus 7, running Android 4.3, runs into a bit of trouble. I run the same bunch of Android apps every time I test a tablet, and some of them either didn't show up in the market or got buggy on the Nexus.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted, for instance, had weird graphics artifacts. The UI in Netflix was sluggish, although videos played just fine. Asphalt 7: Heat, one of my standard test games, didn't even show up on a search. Sometimes when searching Google's own Play store, animations would get jittery or the text entry box would lose focus. The popular video player MX Player quit on launch. I suspect a lot of these problems are Android 4.3 issues which will get solved quickly as the app creators update their work.

I didn't see any such problems in Google's other built-in apps, and other apps such as Riptide GP2, Paper Monsters, Dead Trigger, and Photoshop Touch ran just fine. Most importantly, Google's Chrome browser runs very, very well here, as do Netflix and Amazon's Kindle app. I'd still recommend e-ink e-readers to many people because of their near-infinite battery life and sunlight readability, but this will do a great job with children's books and comics.

This has always been Google's struggle with Android tablets: making sure third-party apps are up to speed with the platform. Google has changed the home page of its Play store so only tablet-friendly apps show up, although you can still find "ugly" apps not designed for tablet screens, like CBS's TV.com app, by searching for them. Those apps still don't look too bad on a 7-inch screen; it's really with 10-inch tablets where you run into problems. 

Apple's iPad mini has a superior app experience, it's true. You'll find more and better apps in Apple's app store, and they're pretty much all guaranteed to run smoothly. But the Nexus 7's app situation is good enough for that not to be a deal-breaker.

Android 4.3's other flagship feature makes this an excellent kids' tablet, although not quite as good as the Amazon Kindle Fire with FreeTime. Android 4.2 let you create multiple user accounts on your tablet. Now, "restricted profiles" let you create accounts that can only use certain apps. I created one and found that the restricted account was locked out of the Google Play store. YouTube threw up an error message but worked anyway; all the other apps I allowed my virtual child to use, worked fine.

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Google unveils second-generation Nexus 7 tablet running Android 4.3

Google is rolling out a second-generation Nexus 7 tablet designed for improved performance and portability, featuring the company's just-announced mobile operating system, Android Jelly Bean 4.3.

The device offers numerous enhancements over the original Nexus 7 tablet that Google released last year. It is also the first device to ship with Android Jelly Bean 4.3, the latest version of Google's mobile OS, the company announced Wednesday.

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The product was introduced by several Google executives during a meeting hosted by Sundar Pichai, head of Android, Chrome and apps at Google.

Improved portability, speed and graphics comprise the major enhancements to the Nexus 7 tablet. The device will be available in three models: a 16GB Wi-Fi version for $229, a 32GB Wi-Fi model for $269, and a 32GB 4G LTE version for $349. The Wi-Fi models will be available starting Tuesday at the Google Play store, while the 4G model will be available in the coming weeks through T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon, the company said.

Besides the U.S., the new Nexus 7 will be available in Canada, the U.K., Spain, Korea and Australia, with more countries to follow very soon, Google said.

In terms of portability, the new Nexus 7 is almost 2 millimeters thinner than the original and about 50 grams lighter. The device features a 7-inch display, the same size as its predecessor, but packs in more pixels, Google said, going from 1280 x 800 to true 1080 HD at 1920 x 1200 pixels in the new model. It also can show a 30 percent wider range of colors and has dual stereo speakers for virtual surround sound.

The first partner to take advantage of the new 1080 HD video feature is Netflix, which supports video streaming in the high-quality format.

The tablet also sports dual cameras, with a 1.2-megapixel camera in the front and a 5-megapixel lens in the rear.

Internally, the Nexus 7 features a 1.5Ghz Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, giving it a four-times-more-powerful graphics processing unit than the original Nexus 7, Google said. The CPU is also 1.8 times faster, Google said, and the system memory has been doubled to support 2GB of RAM.

Specs also include dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 for powering peripheral low-energy devices.

The Android 4.3 software on the Nexus 7 also includes a new restricted profiles feature to give users more controls over who else can access certain content and apps on the device.

Since its launch last year, Google's Nexus 7 has accounted for more than 10 percent of all Android-based tablets sold, Google's Pichai said.

"Nexus 7 has been a big hit, and we're going to try to follow up with another one," said Hugo Barra, product manager at Google.

In recent years Google's product portfolio has expanded significantly beyond its bread-and-butter search technology. In recent months there has even been talk of Google opening brick-and-mortar retail stores to boost its efforts in selling hardware like tablets and also laptop computers with its Chromebooks.

Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow Zach on Twitter at @zachminers. Zach's e-mail address is zach_miners@idg.com

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Google Play store inundated with scam apps, Symantec says

A steady stream of questionable applications is flowing daily into Google's Play store for Android devices, according to security vendor Symantec.

Over the last seven months, Symantec found more than 1,200 suspicious applications in the Play store. Google removes many shortly after they're published, but others stay in the store for a few days.

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"Although they have short lives, the apps must provide ample profit for the scammers as they show no signs of halting their development of new ones," wrote Joji Hamada of Symantec.

The applications can be difficult to assess and employ a series of maneuvers and layers in order to attempt to rip off users.

Hamada wrote one application aims to get users to subscribe to an online adult video site at a cost of more than $3,000 a year. The application's sole purpose is to launch a link to an adult website.

The website then asks the user to register in order to play videos. An email form is drafted, and the user is asked to hit send. The email, sent to the user, contains a link to another service on a different website.

This time, the user is prompted to enter a password. If that button is clicked, the phone is supplied with a number. When called, the number gives out a password. The person is then given registration details and told of a ¥315,000 ($3,200) annual fee that is due within three days.

Applications that launched only links "can be almost impossible for any system to confirm anything malicious," Hamada wrote.

"The manual steps required in this scam is another strategy used to keep the apps on the market as long as possible," Hamada wrote. "Human analysis may be the only way to discover these sorts of apps."

Apple closely examines applications submitted for its App Store, which has kept its marketplace relatively free of malware. Google also scans applications in the Play store. It also added a feature to the latest 4.3 version of the Android OS that scans any application for malicious code.

More than 100 applications similar to the adult videos one have been published on Google Play since the beginning of the month, Hamada wrote. Thirty applications from three developers are still in the market.

Symantec informs Google when it finds such applications, he wrote, but the scam applications flow into Play daily. Many of the applications float into some of the top keyword searches, apparently as the result of abuse of Play's search function.

Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirk.

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Google buys speech recognition patents

Google has acquired from the SR Tech Group a portfolio of U.S. patents and patent applications that includes several speech related patents.

The portfolio includes a patent covering a speech interface for search engines and a patent that covers a system for modifying and updating a speech recognition program, the SR Tech Group said in a news release on Monday.

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The patents and patent applications complement Google existing portfolio of 50,000 patents worldwide, it said. A spokesman could not immediately comment on what Google was planning to do with the patent portfolio.

Details of the deal were not disclosed.

Google has been investing in voice enabled search technology for a while. It introduced voice-enabled search for the desktop at Google's I/O developer conference in San Francisco in May. This will allow people will be able to search using voice commands on their Chrome desktops and laptops.

Conversational Search, as Google calls it, is already used on mobile devices and taps into the company's knowledge graph, which contains hundreds of millions of objects and billions of facts that enhance Google's search.

At Google I/O, Amit Singhal, a senior vice president at Google, said that voice enabled searching is another step forward to let people use Google in as natural a way as possible. Users should be able to sit back, relax and ask a question, with Google giving the answer in speech, he said.

Loek is Amsterdam Correspondent and covers online privacy, intellectual property, open-source and online payment issues for the IDG News Service. Follow him on Twitter at @loekessers or email tips and comments to loek_essers@idg.com

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With Chromecast, Google reveals Chrome as its strategic big gun

Chrome is Google and Google is Chrome.

The Chrome browser is Google's most potent strategic weapon, a former Microsoft program manager said last week.

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"Chrome is the focus at Google; Android is an afterthought," asserted Ben Thompson, who writes on his Stratechery blog. Thompson, who left Microsoft earlier this month, has quickly made a name for himself with insights into the technology market, in particular Microsoft, Apple and Google, ranging from Microsoft's massive reorganization to the possible role for a larger, 13-inch iPad.

"Chrome shouldn't be thought of as a Web browser," Thompson wrote. "Rather, it's an optimized bi-directional delivery vehicle: the best experience with Google services for users, and maximum user data for Google. And it runs everywhere. This is why Google has been investing millions of dollars in building the Chrome brand."

Thompson's latest post was reacting to the debut of Chromecast, the $35 stream-to-TV device Google introduced last week. Chromecast, said Google, is powered by a simplified version of Chrome OS. (Although GTVHacker.com claimed Chromecast is "more Android than ChromeOS.")

"As a horizontal company, Google wants to be on every screen, and their vehicle to accomplish that across verticals, both from a technical and brand perspective, is Chrome," Thompson added. By "verticals," Thompson meant "devices."

It's hard to argue with Thompson.

Google has been expending significant resources to push Chrome into as many corners as possible.

Not only is Chrome (the browser) available for all major desktop and mobile platforms -- from Windows and OS X to Android and iOS -- the major features of Chrome OS are being added to the browser, including packaged, nee "native," Web apps and the ability to view and edit Microsoft Office documents.

The goal? From Thompson's viewpoint, control of a "multi-screen world."

Others have had similar thoughts.

"It looks like Google is defining the Chrome platform as what I'd call 'Web Platform Plus,' and intends for Chrome OS and the Chrome browser to be a 'platform on a platform' on any device it is permitted to run on," said IDC analyst Al Hilwa in a May interview, months before Chromecast.

By defining that "platform on a platform" -- Chrome on Windows, on Android, on iOS, on OS X, on the television -- Google is trying to turn as many devices and screens as possible into ones locked into the company's ecosystem, keep users loyal to that same ecosystem of sites, service and apps, and entice others to join them.

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Google buys speech recognition patents

IDG News Service - Google has acquired from the SR Tech Group a portfolio of U.S. patents and patent applications that includes several speech related patents.

The portfolio includes a patent covering a speech interface for search engines and a patent that covers a system for modifying and updating a speech recognition program, the SR Tech Group said in a news release on Monday.

The patents and patent applications complement Google existing portfolio of 50,000 patents worldwide, it said. A spokesman could not immediately comment on what Google was planning to do with the patent portfolio.

Details of the deal were not disclosed.

Google has been investing in voice enabled search technology for a while. It introduced voice-enabled search for the desktop at Google's I/O developer conference in San Francisco in May. This will allow people will be able to search using voice commands on their Chrome desktops and laptops.

Conversational Search, as Google calls it, is already used on mobile devices and taps into the company's knowledge graph, which contains hundreds of millions of objects and billions of facts that enhance Google's search.

At Google I/O, Amit Singhal, a senior vice president at Google, said that voice enabled searching is another step forward to let people use Google in as natural a way as possible. Users should be able to sit back, relax and ask a question, with Google giving the answer in speech, he said.

Loek is Amsterdam Correspondent and covers online privacy, intellectual property, open-source and online payment issues for the IDG News Service. Follow him on Twitter at @loekessers or email tips and comments to loek_essers@idg.com

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Google Play store inundated with scam apps, Symantec says

IDG News Service - A steady stream of questionable applications is flowing daily into Google's Play store for Android devices, according to security vendor Symantec.

Over the last seven months, Symantec found more than 1,200 suspicious applications in the Play store. Google removes many shortly after they're published, but others stay in the store for a few days.

"Although they have short lives, the apps must provide ample profit for the scammers as they show no signs of halting their development of new ones," wrote Joji Hamada of Symantec.

The applications can be difficult to assess and employ a series of maneuvers and layers in order to attempt to rip off users.

Hamada wrote one application aims to get users to subscribe to an online adult video site at a cost of more than $3,000 a year. The application's sole purpose is to launch a link to an adult website.

The website then asks the user to register in order to play videos. An email form is drafted, and the user is asked to hit send. The email, sent to the user, contains a link to another service on a different website.

This time, the user is prompted to enter a password. If that button is clicked, the phone is supplied with a number. When called, the number gives out a password. The person is then given registration details and told of a $3,200 annual fee that is due within three days.

Applications that launched only links "can be almost impossible for any system to confirm anything malicious," Hamada wrote.

"The manual steps required in this scam is another strategy used to keep the apps on the market as long as possible," Hamada wrote. "Human analysis may be the only way to discover these sorts of apps."

Apple closely examines applications submitted for its App Store, which has kept its marketplace relatively free of malware. Google also scans applications in the Play store. It also added a feature to the latest 4.3 version of the Android OS that scans any application for malicious code.

More than 100 applications similar to the adult videos one have been published on Google Play since the beginning of the month, Hamada wrote. Thirty applications from three developers are still in the market.

Symantec informs Google when it finds such applications, he wrote, but the scam applications flow into Play daily. Many of the applications float into some of the top keyword searches, apparently as the result of abuse of Play's search function.

Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirk

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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