The acquisition of Motorola Mobility, a dedicated Android partner, will enable Google to supercharge the Android ecosystem and will enhance competition in mobile computing. Motorola Mobility will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. Google will run Motorola Mobility as a separate business.

Larry Page, CEO of Google, said, “Motorola Mobility’s total commitment to Android has created a natural fit for our two companies. Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers. I look forward to welcoming Motorolans to our family of Googlers.”

Sanjay Jha, CEO of Motorola Mobility, said, “This transaction offers significant value for Motorola Mobility’s stockholders and provides compelling new opportunities for our employees, customers, and partners around the world. We have shared a productive partnership with Google to advance the Android platform, and now through this combination we will be able to do even more to innovate and deliver outstanding mobility solutions across our mobile devices and home businesses.”

Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile at Google, said, “We expect that this combination will enable us to break new ground for the Android ecosystem. However, our vision for Android is unchanged and Google remains firmly committed to Android as an open platform and a vibrant open source community. We will continue to work with all of our valued Android partners to develop and distribute innovative Android-powered devices.”

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of regulatory approvals in the US, the European Union and other jurisdictions, and the approval of Motorola Mobility’s stockholders. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2011 or early 2012.

The web is a powerful platform that has evolved significantly over the past ten years from simple text pages to a rich interactive experience. Google Chrome is a browser built for this new web – a web that’s full of possibilities, a web that helps users go beyond viewing to start doing. Chrome is fast and simple, designed to help you make the most of the modern web. It gives people a great browsing experience because of its fast, simple and secure interface. Today, 160 million people around the world use Chrome to explore the web and ‘The Web Is What You Make It’ campaign is all about sharing their stories and inspiring more people to get online and change their lives.

Through a series of short videos, Google wants to share how the web has changed the lives of millions of people and helped them achieve their dreams. It includes a variety of stories from celebrities to everyday consumers to small businessmen.

The first video, “Letters from Dad”, debuted on June 19, 2011 across national TV channels, was inspired by a collection of true stories about parents taking advantage of technology and web services to capture and document the lives of their children.

The second video, “Archana’s Kitchen”, which aired last week, tells the story of Archana who grew up in a small town in Tamil Nadu, Coimbatore and took forward her childhood passion of cooking to the web through Blooking (Blog Cooking). She developed a faithful set of followers online, which culminated into a catering service along with a book deal.

‘The Web Is What You Make of It’ campaign showcases some truly inspiring stories of people doing amazing things using the Chrome browser in their everyday lives. The web has completely transformed people’s lives today. Nowadays people spend more time online, in their browser, than they do in their car. You can make yourself heard, make a comment, share a picture or simply stay connected just by being online. The campaign shows how the web empowers people to amplify anything they want to do”, says Nikhil Rungta, Country Marketing Head, Google India.

“The campaign, at its core, is about people. It opens people’s eyes to how they can connect, inspire and impact the world via the power of the web. It’s also an open invitation to get people online and using the web to its full potential”, he adds.

Street View is a popular feature of Google Maps, already available in more than 27 countries. It allows users to virtually explore and navigate a neighborhood through panoramic street-level images. It is also available on Google Maps for mobile.

In countries where Street View is available, the user can access street-level imagery by zooming into the lowest level on Google Maps, or by dragging the orange “Pegman” icon on the left-hand side of the map onto a blue highlighted street.

In addition to the cars, the Google Trike — a specially designed three-wheel pedi-cab with a camera system mounted on top — will start gathering images from select locations in the area such as the Nrityagram Dance Village over the next few weeks. (For the collection of imagery in privately-owned destinations, we work with property owners and receive permission.) The Trike has already collected imagery from dozens of famed places around the world, including Stonehenge in the United Kingdom, Pompei in Italy, Legoland in California, and Versailles in France. You can find images of the trike in action here.

Lynne Fernandez, Managing Trustee, Nrityagram Dance Village said, “We are very excited to be on Street View. I understand that the Trike can go off the beaten path to photograph some of the most remote and beautiful places on earth, so anyone can explore them from anywhere. It will provide a scenic virtual view of Nrityagram and that’s the closest to actually being here!”

Vinay Goel, Product Head, Google India said, “We decided to start driving in Bangalore because it is the IT capital of India and feel that the IT savvy users will be able to leverage the benefits of the product to the fullest. Street View is useful for urban development planners, law enforcement agencies, househunters, and travelers. It lets users check out restaurants before arriving, make travel plans and arrange meeting points. Businesses can also benefit from the Street View technology by embedding Google Maps directly into their site for free. Hotels can use it to show off the convenience of their location, and restaurants can use it to raise awareness.”

Google goes to great lengths to safeguard privacy in Street View while enabling all users to benefit from this feature. Google has developed highly sophisticated technology that effectively blurs human faces and number plates of vehicles to render them unidentifiable. In addition, Google will be extremely responsive to any request received from a user for the additional blurring of any images that features them. Street View is designed to comply with all local laws including those related to security and privacy in India.

Vinay Goel added, “We are committed to balancing the needs of our users with concerns about security. At Google, we recognize the sensitivity associated with certain locations and are committed to working with relevant stakeholders to ensure that their concerns are addressed.”

For more information on Street View and how it can be used for recreational purposes and by businesses please visit: www.google.co.in/streetview

* Performance Profiling with Speed Tracer: Speed Tracer is a new tool built using modern HTML5 technologies that allows developers to diagnose performance problems in the browser, providing insight that hasn’t been available before about low-level operations deep within the browser.

* Incremental Downloading with Code Splitting: As applications grow larger, developers want to ensure that their applications start as quickly as possible, without requiring application “boot up” time as the code downloads. Code Splitting enables developers to safely and easily slice and dice their application code so that key functionality can load immediately and other features can be loaded later as needed.

* Declarative UI with UiBinder: Team projects benefit from a workflow that allows smooth collaboration between designers and developers. UiBinder is a new declarative UI framework in Google Web Toolkit which enables rapid design iteration and a clean separation between presentation layer and application logic.

We’re here! We’re back! And we bring you the year that was, through top searches that defined India’s preferences in 2010. The year- end Google India Zeitgeist- a listing of the top Google searches done by Indian netizens in 2010- throws up a panorama of  events, moments and trends that shaped our lives this year.“Google Zeitgeist 2010 is a real reflection of the spirit of the nation. It offers a unique perspective on the year’s major events and hottest trends based on searches that Indians did online.” said Vinay Goel, Head of Products, Google India.

For starters, IRCTC continues to top the charts of the year-on-year fastest rising bracket, while some of the newer entries this year are the Micromax and Samsung mobiles- giving an indication of how central the mobile phone has become for people in today’s world.

Netizens continue to be movie buffs with Kites, Endhiran and Dabangg topping the charts in the most popular movie bracket, this year. Amongst the fastest rising category, British actress Aruna Shields emerges on top followed by Sonakshi Sinha, who made her film debut this year. Some of the other favorites from Bollywood this year include Katrina Kaif and Zarine Khan, while amongst the men, Salman Khan ruled the web.

Music soothes souls clearly! More and more people are turning to the World Wide Web for music as ‘songs’ featured as the most popular searched term this year. Entertainment is not the only thing ruling netizens’ minds this year as sports continues to be a favourite. FIFA World Cup not only grabbed the real world’s attention, but of the virtual world too! Social networking continues to connect many as Facebook, Orkut and YouTube remain in the Top 10 list of the most popular searches.

And Internet is the new ‘counsellor’! Many turned to the Internet with queries such as ‘How to get Pregnant’, ‘How to Kiss’ and ‘How to impress a girl’.

While putting together the lists, Google studied the¬ aggregation of billions of queries people typed into Google search in 2010 to compile the Google India Zeitgeist 2010. We used data from multiple sources, including Insights for Search, Google Trends and internal data tools to compile the same. We also filtered out spam and repeat queries to build out lists that best reflect “the spirit of the times.” All of the search queries we studied are anonymous – no personal information was used. Except where noted, all of these search terms are most popular for 2010 – ranked in order of the queries with the largest volume of searches this year. In some cases, we list the “fastest rising” queries, which means we found the most popular searches conducted in 2010 and then ranked them based on how much their popularity increased compared to 2009.

Zeitgeist Explained

Google reveals the internet “Zeitgeist” (German for “the spirit of the times”) through an exploration of the billions of search queries we receive every year. In addition to the year-end Zeitgeist, which highlights the top trends of 2009, we also have several tools that give insight into global, regional, past and present search trends. Google Zeitgeist tools can never be used to identify individual users because we rely on anonymized, aggregated counts of how often certain search queries occur over time. These tools are available year-round for you to play with, explore, and learn from: www.google.com/zeitgeist

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.
Media Contacts:

Gaurav Bhaskar
Google Corporate Communication Manager
gauravbhaskar@google.com

Sheetal Singh
20:20 Media
sheetal@2020india.com

I. 2010 India Zeitgeist lists
Fastest rising
1.    IRCTC login
2.    Micromax mobile
3.    YouTube Videos
4.    FIFA
5.    Facebook
6.    Cricket live score
7.    Indian Railways
8.    Twitter
9.    way2sms
10.    Samsung Mobile

*Inferences
- ‘Why be in line when you can be online’ is the mantra as IRCTC tops the chart this year
- Micromax marks an entry this year as netizens are increasingly searching for it
- FIFA trips cricket

Most popular
1.    Songs
2.    Facebook
3.    Google
4.    YouTube
5.    Yahoo mail
6.    Gmail
7.    Yahoo
8.    Nokia
9.    Orkut
10.    IRCTC

*Inferences
- Let the music play is the mantra of Indians
- Social networking continues to connect people online

Most popular movies
1.    Kites
2.    Endhiran
3.    Dabangg
4.    3 Idiots
5.    Harry Potter
6.    Ravaan
7.    Veer
8.    My Name is Khan
9.    Twilight
10.    Rajneeti

*Inferences
- Kites fly high on the Internet
- Khans still popular on and off screen
- Robots new chemistry with the Internet
Popular Brands
1.    Nokia
2.    Samsung
3.    Airtel
4.    Micromax
5.    Dell
6.    Maruti
7.    Vodafone
8.    Apple
9.    Sony Ericsson
10.    HP

*Inferences
- Mobile phones catch the fancy of Indians – mobile brands rule the net
Popular How to list
1.    How to get pregnant
2.    How to kiss
3.    How to impress a girl
4.    How to improve spoken english
5.    How to reduce weight
6.    How to gain weight
7.    How to tie a tie
8.    How to create a website
9.    How to make money
10.    How to meditate

*Inferences
- Net turns the ‘Friend’ for many as netizens ask: How to get pregnant, how to kiss, how to impress a girl
- Many search for how to go the family way as love continues to remain in the air
- Google plays the teacher as netizens search for improving English
- In health, loss is more profitable than gains
- Rather than ‘money hai to honey hai’, netizens believe in ‘honey hai toh money hai’
Fastest rising People – Top people
1.    Aruna Shields
2.    Sonakshi Sinha
3.    Zarine Khan
4.    Lalit Modi
5.    Neha Sharma
6.    Shakira
7.    Katrina Kaif
8.    Sachin Tendulkar
9.    Lady Gaga
10.    Salman Khan

*Inferences

- British actor Aruna Sheilds features at the top with her Indian debut in Prince
- Bollywood’s new sensation Sonakshi Sinha tops the charts
- Shakira shakes a leg at #6

“Sony Internet TV is the world’s first HDTV that combines the big-screen impact of television and full Internet search to deliver an unrivaled entertainment experience,” said Mike Abary, senior vice president of Sony’s Home Division.  “Finally, you can seamlessly search your favorite TV programs and web sites on the same screen, at the same time.”

“We are very proud to be the pioneers of this new entertainment category by delivering the world’s first true Internet TV experience,” added Bob Ishida, senior vice president, corporate executive, and president of Home Entertainment Business Group, Sony Corporation.  “Sony Internet TV creates value by introducing new and compelling ways to enjoy a variety of content.”

Featuring both integrated television models and a Blu-ray Disc™ player, Sony Internet TV is powered by Google TV.  It is built on the Android platform, runs the Google Chrome browser and includes a powerful Intel® Atom® processor offering the ability to quickly search across Internet and television content for easy access to entertainment and information.

The models also feature Dual View, allowing users to watch television while tweeting about what they’re watching, checking their fantasy football scores, or finding related content on the web.

They also deliver a truly personalized entertainment experience with the ability to bookmark content for easy access and add applications from the Android™ Market (coming in early 2011).  The models feature Sony’s premium streaming service “Video On Demand powered by Qriocity™” as well as pre-installed apps including CNBC, Napster, NBA, Netflix, Pandora,® Twitter, and YouTube.™

The intuitive hand-held RF QWERTY keypad remote incorporating an optical mouse makes it easy to navigate content, type in search terms, and control the TV’s user interface.  Additionally, select mobile devices such as an Android phone, can control the TV with an app that will be available for download from the mobile Android Market later this fall.

Built-in Wi-Fi makes it easy to connect to home broadband networks to access web content.  Additionally, Sony Internet TV is ready for the future and is fully upgradable through system updates.

Sony Internet TV easily connects to select HD DVR devices from Dish Network to include previously recorded content in the search results and control DVR functionality from the set’s user interface.

Sony Internet TV Line

Featuring four LCD HDTVs with Google TV built-in, the Sony Internet TV line includes the 24-inch class NSX-24GT1 ($599.99), the 32-inch class NSX-32GT1 ($799.99), the 40-inch NSX-40GT1 ($999.99), and the 46-inch NSX-46GT1 ($1,399.99).

Sony Internet TV Blu-ray Disc Player

The Sony Internet TV Blu-ray Disc™ player with Google TV built-in, NSZ-GT1 ($399.99), also allows users to enjoy all of the powerful features of Google TV on their existing HDTV.

Sony Internet TV and the Sony Internet TV Blu-ray Disc Player are currently on pre-sale at www.SonyStyle.com and www.BestBuy.com.  They will be available for purchase at Sony Style on October 16 and at Best Buy shortly after.

For more information, please visit www.sony.com/SonyInternetTV or log in to our social media community at www.Sony.com/blog.

With the growing number of small businesses, distributed teams, increased broadband penetration, and 24×7 mobile work culture, DeskAway is rightly poised to give teams an accurate view of how their projects are doing and help eliminate common problems that occur when multiple people are collaborating: email spam, multiple file versions, lost files, task accountability issues, lack of clarity & work transparency. Users can easily organize, manage and track their projects from a central location, thereby, keeping everyone in the loop.

The DeskAway integration with Google Apps is really simple and takes just a few minutes. Once integrated, Google Apps users will seamlessly be able to access all their project communication without having to sign into DeskAway through a separate browser everytime.

“This goes with our belief of ‘simplifying work’ within the workplace and we are excited to see this powerful integration work for thousands of businesses”, says Sahil Parikh.

The Google Apps Marketplace™ makes it easy for more than 2 million Google Apps businesses to discover, purchase and deploy integrated business applications and related professional services. By integrating with user account and application data stored in Google Apps, these cloud applications provide a simpler user experience, increase business efficiency, and reduce administrative overhead.

Search across TV, Web, and Apps

Google TV is based on the Android platform and runs the Google Chrome web browser. Users can access all of their usual TV channels as well as a world of Internet and cloud-based information and applications, including rich Adobe® Flash based content – all from the comfort of their own living room and with the same simplicity as browsing the web. When coupled with the Intel® Atom™ processor CE4100, Intel’s latest system-on-a-chip designed specifically for consumer electronics, the new platform will offer home theatre quality A/V performance. Sony and Logitech said they would be delivering products based on the new Intel Atom processor and running Google TV later this year. While Google TV is designed to work with any TV operator, at launch the user experience will be fully optimized when paired with DISH Network.

Google TV expands video choice from the hundreds of channels available today through a pay TV provider to the vast storehouse of video content available through the web and streaming videos. The Google TV experience is complemented by the ability to watch streaming video from leading content platforms, including Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, and YouTube. Google TV will also have the capability to run apps from the Android Market.

To navigate the array of content that will now be available through a single device and on a single screen, Google TV introduces an integrated search experience to help viewers easily find relevant content across over-the-air and pay-TV channel listings, DVR, and the Internet, as well as a picture-in-picture layout to access multiple windows simultaneously. Google TV also features an innovative home screen to help viewers quickly organize their favorite content and personalize their TV viewing experience. Some of these features are only available with advanced integration from DISH Network.

Broad Alliance of Industry Leaders

Eric Schmidt, Google Chairman and CEO said, “We are very proud to be working with this distinguished set of partners, all of whom have decades of experience in hardware, design and retail.”

Sony announced plans to introduce “Sony Internet TV,” the World’s first TV lineup incorporating the Google TV platform.  The first models are planned to be introduced in the U.S. market in the Fall of 2010 with the lineup featuring both a standalone TV model and set top box-type unit incorporating a Blu-ray Disc drive.

Howard Stringer, Chairman, President and CEO, Sony Corporation said, “I am delighted to announce the unique alignment of Google’s rapidly growing, open source Android platform with Sony’s unparalleled expertise in the field of TV design and technology. The addition of ‘Sony Internet TV’ will further bolster Sony’s comprehensive TV lineup and will fuse new levels of enjoyment and interactivity into the TV experience.”

Logitech will introduce a companion box that brings Google TV to existing HDTV home entertainment systems, easily integrating with any brand of HDTV and set-top box. The companion box will incorporate Logitech’s Harmony® remote control technology, and will include a controller that combines keyboard and remote control capabilities. The company also has plans to introduce an HDTV camera and video chat for Google TV, along with additional choices for navigation and control, including apps to turn a smart phone into an advanced controller for Google TV and home-entertainment systems.

Gerald Quindlen, President and CEO, Logitech said, “We committed to Google TV early on because it aligns with our strategy to support open platforms that enable new immersive experiences in the digital living room. While Google TV enables seamless discovery of all your content, Logitech enables seamless control over how you experience that content. We look forward to continued collaboration with Google and the developer community to create new Google TV experiences that have yet to be imagined.”

The Intel Atom CE4100 processor will power both the Logitech and Sony devices. Paul Otellini, Intel President and CEO praised the collaborative effort and said TV as we know it was being “reinvented.” “Today marks the next step in the evolution of TV. TV’s are becoming smarter as a result of the microprocessor and the Internet. Traditional TV programming will be merged seamlessly with the infinite amount of content on the Internet to enable every viewer to determine what they want to watch, when they want it. This is Moore’s Law transforming television, powered by the performance of Intel microprocessors.”

DISH Network has been a key partner with Google on advanced integration development for Google TV. The two partners began a joint trial over a year ago with more than 400 DISH Network and Google beta users. Based on the continuous feedback from the trial, Google and DISH Network have built the optimized Google TV experience that seamlessly integrates traditional TV, DVR and web content.

Charlie Ergen, Chairman, President and CEO of DISH Network, said, “Google TV marks the next evolution in television, and we are excited to be the first to partner with Google to bring this experience to our customers. Only DISH Network Google TV customers will be able to enjoy a unified search across TV, DVR and web; easily find related content; and manage their entire TV viewing experience. Additionally, the advanced integration will allow developers to create new and exciting applications to enrich the TV viewing experience.”

Best Buy will bring their retail experience and consumer expertise to the project, with Google TV devices being sold at Best Buy locations nationwide later this year. “Every day, our 180,000 Blue Shirt store employees and Geek Squad Agents work with our customers to get them the best home theater experience possible”, said Brian Dunn, CEO Best Buy, “We are thrilled about the new and exciting experiences smart TVs, like Google TV, provide to our customers – and we are looking forward to showcasing those experiences in our store and ensuring customers get connected to all the products and services that bring those experiences to life.”

Finally, Adobe Flash Player 10.1 will be integrated directly into the Google Chrome browser on Google TV, enabling viewers to experience tens of millions of web pages with rich Flash content including games, animations, applications, videos, audio and more. Shantanu Narayen, President and CEO, Adobe said, “An open web ecosystem offers endless opportunities for creativity and innovation. Flash Player 10.1 extends the advantages of full web browsing and consistent, rich experiences to smartphones, tablets, netbooks and Internet-connected TVs. We’re thrilled to be part of the Google TV initiative with other industry leaders who share a common vision of enabling access to the best web experiences possible.”

Opportunity for Developers

The demonstration at I/O highlighted the unique opportunity developers have to help shape the future of Google TV. Today Google announced that they would soon release a set of TV specific APIs for web applications, encouraging web developers to begin building unique web applications for use on television sets. Later this year Google will also release an updated Android SDK, which will support applications built for Google TV.

Google also plans to open source the Google TV platform to help spur innovation in the industry and so that other developers can benefit from the project. The long term goal is to collaborate with the entire developer community to help drive entertainment in the living room forward and to introduce the next generation of TV-watching experience.

For larger online publishers, managing, delivering and measuring the performance of ads can be a hugely complicated process. Major online publishers (including social networks, entertainment sites, portals and news sites) use ad serving to manage the complex process of how and when the ads they have sold appear on their websites.

Neal Mohan, Vice President of Product Management at Google, said: “Google wants to help online publishers make the most money possible from their content. The upgraded DFP is part of our suite of products that are designed to help online publishers maximize their advertising revenues. Ad serving is the machinery that powers the online advertising world, so improving that technology can put a lot of money in publishers’ pockets. This upgraded platform is another major milestone in our continuing investment in the display advertising ecosystem.”

The upgraded DFP is part of Google’s suite of products – also including AdSense and the DoubleClick Ad Exchange – to help online publishers maximize their advertising revenues across all their ad space, whatever their size and however they choose to sell their ad space.

It includes a wide variety of key features that will help enable publishers to get the most value out of their online content:

* A new interface that has been completely redesigned to save time and reduce errors.
* Far more detailed reporting and forecasting data to help publishers understand where their revenue is coming from and what ads are most valuable.
* Sophisticated algorithms that automatically improve ad performance and delivery.
* A new, open, public API which enables publishers to build and integrate their own apps with DFP, or integrate apps created for DFP by a growing third-party developer community (apps under development today include sales, order management and workflow tools).
* Integration with the new DoubleClick Ad Exchange’s “dynamic allocation” feature, which maximizes revenue by enabling publishers to open up their ad space to bids from multiple ad networks. Dynamic allocation is described in this document.

DFP comes in two flavors, tailored for different publishers’ needs:

* DFP – for larger online publishers, to which current DART for Publishers customers will be upgraded over the next year.
* DFP Small Business – a simple, free version designed for growing online publishers, to which we will be upgrading Google Ad Manager customers.

To reflect Google’s continued investment in DoubleClick’s products and the central role of DoubleClick’s technology products within Google’s display advertising business, Google is also today unveiling some changes to the DoubleClick logos – including typset changes, incorporating a new “by Google” theme, and retiring the “DART” brand.

Google’s website with information about the Games in Vancouver and Whistler also features:

A gadget with up-to-date event, medal-count and athlete information, visuals of each venue and Google News updates, which people can add to iGoogle or embed in a website

Competition venues in Street View and modeled in 3D in Google Earth (also featured on Vancouver2010.com)

Real-Time Search results for the Games, combining tweets, news stories and blog posts

Links to Twitter and Facebook so people can easily share the website with their friends

A regularly updated Picasa gallery with photos from the Games, both from people attending the Games (simply use the tag “wintergames2010″ when uploading photos) and from Google News

Favourite Places in Google Maps, with “best of Vancouver” maps from 10 local experts including past Olympians

Up-to-date medal counts, schedules and event results in 30 languages are available simply by searching on Google throughout the Games for specific sports, countries or the Games generally. Users around the world can also look forward to a special doodle each day from February 12 to 28, in celebration of the Games.

For those in Vancouver during the Games, Google has created a special transit trip-planner in Google Maps using updated routes and schedules for Vancouver, Whistler and the Olympic bus network. These transit directions are available at maps.google.com under “Get Directions”, or at google.com/transit. Riders should be sure to check the official Vancouver 2010 website, Vancouver2010.com, for any scheduling or route changes before starting their trips.