Daily News Courier

Larry Page’s Oddly Backward Comments on Mobile

Google’s CEO says we shouldn’t design for mobile devices. Say what now?

It was an offhanded, qualified remark made in passing during Google’s latest earnings call, but Larry Page’s comments on mobile design had all the grace of a gong being hit. “I’d almost say that we shouldn’t be designing for mobile,” he said, as reported by Quartz. “The kind of mobile phones we have now, the state of the art, are a little bit beyond, and those experiences [i.e., full websites] should work on those devices as well.”

Google CEO: Fixing supply woes ‘a priority for our team’

Larry Page, from this afternoon's Q4 2012 earnings call:

"Clearly there's working to be done managing our supply better, and that is a priority for our team."

Certainly nothing there we didn't know — the Nexus 4 is still unavailable on Google Play, and the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tend to come and go as well. 

But it is nice to hear the boss acknowledge it.

Three Clues to Google

Google

By Hiring Kurzweil, Google Just Killed The Singularity

Thank god.

Late last Friday, Google announced a jaw-dropping hire: Ray Kurzweil will join the company as a Director of Engineering. Has the world

Larry Page talks about Google, defines the Nexus role

Larry Page, Google CEO, had a sit down with Fortune to discuss search and its future, mobile, and the competition. It is an interesting read for anyone who follows tech, but there was one thing that caught my eye enough to talk it about it separately here. When talking about the Motorola buyout, and the possibility of a Motorola Nexus, the Nexus program itself got some explanation.

Part of the reason why we've done Nexus devices in the past is that we want to build an amazing device that kind of showcases what's possible on Android, gives a way for the programmers to get early builds, does a whole bunch of things that are important. Exactly what we do, which devices we do, what the timing is, how we release the software with them, all those things have been changing.

This lines up pretty well with how we feel about the Nexus program here at Android Central. Get the bleeding edge build of Android into the hands of the people making the next killer app. By the time the rest of the world is ready to move up a version, it's more stable and the niggling kinks (hello glitchy lock screen widget panes) have been worked out. But more importantly, the apps are ready. 

Larry also talks about why we did not see a Motorola built Nexus device. Forget the conspiracies and armchair QB stuff, before we get to any of that there is a simple fact to consider.

I don't think there's any physical way we could have released a Nexus Motorola device in that sense. I mean, we haven't owned the company long enough. 

The full article is really worth the read, hit the source link and have a look.

Source: Fortune

More Screens, More Money for Google?

CEO Larry Page hopes innovation will bring the company more revenue on mobile devices

On an earnings call with analysts and investors today, Google CEO Larry Page pegged the search giant’s future to “multiscreen” experiences that make it easy for a user to switch from, say, an Android mobile device to a Chromebook computer to an Internet-connected television.

Page: Android activations still at 1.3 million a day

Google's Larry Page made it to the third-quarter earnings call (after missing the Q2 call). And, unfortunately, he dropped the same activations numbers on us that we heard back in late September. More than a half-billion Android devices in the field, with more than 1.3 million activations per day.

But, as we pointed out this morning after Verizon's earnings call, it's still heads and shoulders above every other platform not named iPhone.

We're kibbitzing on the earnings call now. You can listen live after the break.

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Google officially owns Motorola, replaces CEO with a Google veteran

Motorola is now officially owned and operated by Google. The landmark acquisition was first announced in August 2011, but it did not become official until the deal gained approval from the United States, European Union, and China. Now that these three major hurdles have cleared, Google can start playing with its new toy.

Google has stated that Motorola will operate as a separate business, but it has replaced CEO Sanjay Jha with Dennis Woodside, a Google veteran who has experience at various operations in Europe and Africa. Though Jha will no longer run Motorola, he will continue during a transitional period.

Are Ross Perot Jr. and Google’s Founders Launching a New Asteroid Mining Operation?

An impressive array of backers are behind the new firm Planetary Resources.

On Tuesday, a new company called Planetary Resources will announce its existence at the Charles Simonyi Space Gallery at The Museum of Flight in Seattle. It’s not clear what the firm does, but its roster of backers incudes Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, filmmaker James Cameron, former Microsoftie (and space philanthropist) Charles Simonyi, and Ross Perot Jr., son of the former presidential candidate.

Larry Page on Android tablets: A lot of success on the low-end

Google CEO Larry Page wandered into the touchy territory of Android tablets during this afternoon's investor conference call. That's, of course, relevant because while there are 5 bazillion models of Android tablets out there, none has really come anywhere close to the popularity of the iPad. That, and longstanding rumors have Google putting out its own tablet this summer, likely on the 7-inch side of things with a price that may or may not compete, depending on which rumor you go by.

So did Page shed any light on what might or might not be coming? Not so much.

Here's his answer:

I think that we're very excited about tablets. I think, you know, there's a number of Android tablets out there. Obviously, we have strong competition there as well. I think you've seen us really invest substantially in things like Google Play, which really gives you great access to entertainment, media, books and videos and so on, as well as the apps. And we think that's an important component on what we're doing.

I think there's also, obviously, there's been a lot of success on some lower-priced tablets that run Android — maybe not the full Google version of Android. But we definitely believe that there's going to be a lot of success at the lower end of the market, as well, with lower-priced products that will be very significant. It's definitely an area we think is quite important and that we're quite focused on.

Not that we expected him to blurt out future plans or anything. Far from it. But you can't help but wonder that that says about the current state of Android tablets when Google's CEO trumpets the low-end ones that do more to muddy the waters than propel the ecosystem forward.