Google I/O: Google introduce new options to send money from Google Wallet via Gmail!

   Google's Wallet platform is a good idea and it's popular in some circles, but for whatever reason it isn't really something a lot of people use all of the time. That doesn't mean that Google are resting on their laurels in the finance department though and instead they're busy adding the ability to send money from Google Wallet through your Gmail account!

   The way this will work is that there will be a little $ sign next to the attach file paper clip and if you hit that $ sign then you can add money to the email, assuming the other person has a Google Wallet account too! Apparently if you have a credit or debit card attached to your account and there are transaction fees then Gmail will warn you about those before you hit the send button!

   This feature will roll out over the coming months to people in the US assuming you're aged 18 or over and you won't be allowed to do this from mobiles. You can however, do it through the Google Wallet mobile site and it's likely that the feature will come to mobile Gmail when it's possible to overcome the obvious security issues!
Via AndroidCentral.

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Google merge Gmail, Drive and Google+ photos storage, whilst allowing all developers to respond to comments on the Play Store!

   Google's suite of email, online storage through Google Drive and Picasa or Google+ photos, depending on which you prefer, has been separated out and people have been awarded storage based on each service in turn. From today though, things will be changing.

   Google will now bundle the free 5GB of storage which comes with Google Drive together with the 10GB of storage which comes with Gmail, so that you'll have a total of 15GB of storage to divide up across the services however you fancy!  

   If your 15GB of cross-storage proves to be too little then now you'll have to fork out a little more to extend your storage, as Google has dropped the plan which gave you 25GB of extra Google Drive space for $2.49 a month. Instead, your cheapest option is now 100GB for $4.99, whicnto be fair to Google is half of the price of the 100GB plan which Dropbox offer. Don't be alarmed if these changes haven't happened to you yet because they're rolling out over the next few weeks.

   One thing which definitely will be changing from today though is that all developers on Google Play will be allowed to respond directly to comments on their apps. There's not too much to add on this, but it should help developers eradicate spam comments and genuine issues should probably be a lot easier to resolve now!

Google (1) and (2) Via TheVerge and Engadget respectfully.

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12/10/2012

Amazon has confirmed they sell their devices at cost!

   Amazon has today confirmed that they sell their tablet and eReader hardware at cost. Their CEO, Jeff Bezos said to the BBC ""We sell the hardware at our cost, so it is break-even on the hardware." 

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20/07/2012

Asus and HTC offer a relatively comprehensive update list!

   Asus has announced there will be a good amount of updates rolling out to their tablets. Owners who're definitely going to be getting some Jelly Bean action are owners any of the following; the ASUS Transformer Pad, the ASUS Transformer Pad Prime and the ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity.

   But... That's not the end of the story because Asus has expressly said:

“We are still investigating Jelly Bean updates for other devices, but we are not in a position to confirm whether any other products will be eligible for an update at the moment.”

   So don't give up faith just yet, we still think there's a chance of other tablets being updated and we expect the OG Transformer will get some Jelly Bean because of how popular the device was!

   On the HTC front it seems we misreported the news yesterday. The company has confirmed 

there will be updates for the very top end of their One series. It's only the varients of the HTC One X and One S that have been confirmed so far. So for clarity that's the; HTC One X, One S and One XL, as they're known on different networks. Unfortunately the Sensation XL which was one of last years flagships has no word on whether there will be an update for that and the same is true for all the other Sensations from last years!

In other news:

• Lenovo's CEO has decided to reward his employees for their recent progress and the employees will be getting a little cut of his yearly bonus! Nice guy!
• Google has bought out the popular email solution, Sparrow. The company has done some great work for iOS and Mac devices and the personnel have gone straight into Google's Gmail division.
• Nokia's beautiful little N9 has been given a working port of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.
• Talking of Jelly Bean; the update has been delayed Down Under because of the strict nature of Emergency calls over in Aus. Vodafone Australia has postponed the update while they make sure everything conforms!
• The London Eye will be a special treat during the London 2012 Olympics. Twitter comments about London 2012 will dictate the colour the landmark will glow at night. If the comments are good we'll get one colour, if they're bad then it's another colour and if they're anything else then well, you guessed, it another colour!
• SkyGo is now available on your Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy Note and Galaxy S3!
• Google's ad business pulled in $12billion in Q2, which is very, very good going!

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