Google is reportedly working on its "buy now" button to compete with Amazon wherein the users would be able to shop online and purchase products with a single click right through Google's own search result page.

The sales would continue to be made through third-party sites. Google plans to compete with Amazon by making its own Amazon Prime-like plan with selected retailers that would offer free two-day shipping for an annual fee, reported the Verge.

There is no confirmation on the plan to be moving ahead but the plan is apparently logical.

Data shows that 39% of online shoppers in the United States started their research on Amazon while only 11% started on Google.

Data from research giant Forrester shows that 39% of online shoppers in the US last quarter started their research on Amazon, while only 11% started it on a search engine like Google.

Government is looking for a speedy rollout of Wi-Fi services at select public places in top 25 cities with population of over 10 lakh by June 2015.

"Government has plans to empanel 3-4 Wi-Fi service provider for speedy roll out of Wi-Fi hotspots across top 25 cities in the country by June 2015. The services will be available at select public places within these cities," according to an official source.

The project is part of Digital India programme under which the government aims to cover cities with population of over 1 million and tourist destinations with Wi-Fi services by December 2015.

Telecom firms may get three months time to complete rollout from the date they accept purchase order. The project is jointly being worked by the Department of Telecom and Ministry of Urban Development.

The government will facilitate permissions required from local authorities for network roll out. The government has also separately identified 25 archaeological monuments to provide free Wi-Fi access, the source said.

These monuments include Humayun's Tomb, Red Fort, Qutub Complex in Delhi, Taj Mahal, Fatehpur Sikri Sravasti and Sarnath in Uttar Pradesh, Shore Temple in Mahabalipuram, Vaishali-Kohua in Bihar, Martand Temple and Leh Palace in J&K, Konark Temple in Odisha, Rani-ki Vav Gujarat, Khajuraho and Mandu in Madhya Pradesh and Rang Ghar in Assam.

"The idea is that people even foreign tourists should stay connected. Besides, Wi-Fi spots will also lower traffic burden on telecom networks," the source said.

While the first iteration of Google Glass is still to hit the market, there's already word on a major development regarding the second-generation model. According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, Google has tapped Intel to manufacture the processors for the second version of Glass.

The Intel chipset will replace the Texas Instrument processor that powers the current edition of Google Glass.

The WSJ report also says that the second-generation Google Glass will have better battery life, lasting up to a day with general use. The current Google Glass's battery does not last a day with moderate usage.

Intel is still a dominant force in the chipmaking industry despite its inability to make a breakthrough in the fast-growing mobile computing segment. Though it missed the bus in the smartphone and tablet segment, it is still not too late for the company to cement its position in the wearable category, which is still at a nascent stage. Intel continues to be the biggest producer of PC chips in the world.

Data tariffs for mobile phones are set for a major fall with Bharti Airtel offering high-speed 4G packs below the prices of 3G plans. The development comes ahead of the launch of 4G services by Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio and signals a high-pitched tariff war on the mobile data front, similar to what happened in voice tariffs, where prices in India are among the lowest in the world now.

"We have decided to offer 4G tariffs below the 3G rates for high consumption users," Srini Gopalan, director for Airtel's consumer business, told TOI here. Also, the company will shift 3G customers to 4G at the same rates (provided they have a 4G compatible phone).

Take this for an example. While the monthly tariff of a 10GB data plan is Rs 1,499 on 3G network for an Airtel postpaid customer, the same will be Rs 999 on 4G. And, the data transmission speed on 4G is over 30 mbps compared to an average of about 1-3 mbps on 3G.

Micromax has launched a new Intel-powered 8-inch Android tablet - Canvas Tab P666 at Rs 10,999. The tablet will be available starting November 29.

The tablet is 7.9mm thick, weighs 310.5grams and sports a glass finish with aluminium rim on the sides. It will be available in magnetic black and alluring white colour variants.

Micromax Canvas Tab P666 sports an 8-inch WXGA (800x1200p) IPS display. Powered by a 1.2GHz Intel Atom Processor Z2520 and 1GB RAM, the budget tablet has 8GB internal storage and a microSD card slot that supports cards up to 32GB capacity. It runs Android 4.4 KitKat.

The tablet features a 5MP rear camera (with support for full-HD video capture) and a 2MO front-facing camera. It comes with a 4400mAh battery and the company claims the tablet will offer up to 15 hours talk time and 325 hours of standby time.

In terms of connectivity, Canvas Tab P666 supports 3G for both voice calling and data, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS.

The tablet comes pre-loaded with apps such as Bookmyshow, Hike, Swift Key keyboard, Dr. Safety virus scanning system and Opera Mini browser in addition to Micromax's own app and content stores.

When you use Google, you are making a deal. You get to use Gmail and search and YouTube and Maps for free and in exchange, you agree to share information about yourself. Google gets to sell that information to advertisers.

The more Google knows about you, the more it can match you to an advertiser who thinks you are an ideal customer. Advertisers are willing to pay more for ads served to ideal potential customers. For instance, airlines want to target people who love to travel. Children's clothing makers want to target parents.

Google uses a lot of methods to learn about you. There's the stuff you tell Google outright when you sign up for its services, like Gmail and Google Maps or via an Android phone, like your name, phone number, location, and so on. Google also deduces information about you from watching your internet searches (what do you search for, click on etc) and from the stuff you do with Google's products.

By visiting a site called "Ads Settings" you can see what Google knows about you.

It's not that easy to find Ads Settings. First, click on the link below or type it into your browser: https://www.google.com/settings/

Then click on "Account history."

Recently, WhatsApp quietly introduced a new feature that lets users know that their messages have been read, with the double grey ticks appearing in front of the messages turning blue.

And now, just as quietly, the mobile messaging service is letting users of its Android app disable the feature with the rollout of WhatsApp version 2.11.444. This version is available for users on WhatsApp's website for now, and will eventually be rolled out to all users.

Here's how you can disable the blue coloured read receipts' with the message timestamp on WhatsApp's Android app:

1. Make sure that your smartphone is running on Android 2.1 or a newer version.
2. Go to settings menu and enable 'Download from Unknown Sources' in the Security tab
3. Go to the WhatsApp website and download the APK (application) file available under www.whatsapp.com/Android/
4. Once the APK file is downloaded to your device, tap the 'Install' option.
5. Now that WhatsApp has been updated, select Settings > Account > Privacy. Under the Privacy tab, uncheck the Read Receipts option.

Microsoft Corp has issued an emergency software update to fix a security glitch that affects domain privileges in all supported versions of Windows.

The vulnerability could allow an attacker to upgrade unprivileged domain user account privileges to those of a domain administrator account.

The update was released on Tuesday, according to information available on the company's Security Response Center website.

Microsoft said it was aware of limited, targeted attacks that aimed to exploit the security issue at the time it issued the update.

It might not be the key feature in Windows 10, but one of the most striking design changes in Windows 10 harks back to an old one — the Start Menu.

The menu has been given a Windows Live Tile-style makeover, and you can now pin whatever you want to the panel on the right.

The All Apps option now features a vertical scrollbar, so you don't get any of the multi-me menu stacking that you used to get in Windows. As with Windows 7 and 8, the best way to find anything is by searching for it rather than browsing for it.

So, just like on Windows Phone, you could pin a preferred contact or favoured app. Remember that Live Tiles are dynamic, so they can show you the latest news or whether for your current location.

By bringing the Start Menu back, Microsoft is acknowledging that the Start screen went too far for some users, especially in the corporate space. But those Modern UI apps (now referred to as Universal apps we think) still provide the link with touchscreens.

When you delete contacts from your mobile device, they will be removed from your Google account as well. But you can still recover them within 30 days of deleting.

Go to Contacts, click More > Restore contacts. Choose the time you would like to revert to, and click Restore.

Bill Gates is worth an astounding $81.6 billion and he keeps getting richer every year.

His secret weapon is a man you have probably never heard of: Michael Larson.

Gates hired Larson 20 years ago, when his net worth was a relatively paltry $5 billion, report Anupreeta Das and Craig Karmin at the Wall Street Journal, who just wrote a profile on the notoriously secretive Larson.

Larson runs Gates' personal investment company Cascade Investment LLC, funded solely by Gates. At one time, Gates wealth depended solely on Microsoft. But for years he's been selling off his Microsoft stake. The common perception is that he's been using the proceeds from those sales directly for charity. That's not entirely how it works.

Although Gates makes his own investments in tech, it is Larson, through Cascade, who has taken Gate's money and diversified it. Gates now has vast holdings in real estate and non-tech companies like the Canadian National Railway Co., AutoNation Inc., and Republic Services Inc. It is these vast holdings that help fund the Gates' donations.

And although Gates has given an astounding $38 billion to his charitable foundation, thanks to Larson, he's getting richer faster than he can give his money away.

His $81.6 billion is nearly $6 billion more than it was as of March 2014, when he was worth $76 billion, we reported at the time. And $76 billion was $9 billion more than he was worth in March, 2013.

Keep learning new skills. IBM is sending out that message rather sternly. It has cut salaries by 10% of US employees who have not kept pace with emerging technologies and changing client requirements. Indian employees seem unaffected as of now.

As IBM ramps up its CAMS (cloud, analytics, mobile and social) play, its signaling to employees to build skills in these emerging technologies. An internal memo, published on the WRAL TechWire website, says: "While you spend part of your workweek on learning and development activities, you will receive 90% of your current base salary." The pay cut will extend through the 6-month training period.

Employees aren't happy. "Can you say cost cutting and furlow manipulation?" lashed out an employee on ibmemployee.com. IBM has posted nine quarters of declining sales.

A specialist panel appointed by search engine giant Google to help it implement a landmark court ruling on privacy rights held a meeting in Madrid on Tuesday, their first in a seven-stop tour to gather the views of European experts on the issue.

The European Union's top court ruled in May that people have a right to request that years-old personal information that is no longer relevant be removed from internet search results.

Google has already come under fire from regulators for its handling of such 'right to be forgotten' requests, of which it says it has received thousands each month.

The panel embarking on the two-month tour is made up of Google's general counsel David Drummond and chairman Eric Schmidt, as well as eight members from outside the firm, including Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, a former German justice minister and two academics.

This week's news that a Russian crime ring has amassed some 1.2 billion username and password combinations makes now a good time to review ways to protect yourself online.

Hold Security, called the data "the largest known collection of stolen internet credentials." Hold's researchers did not identify the origins of the data or name the victim websites, citing nondisclosure agreements.

If there's reason to believe any of your passwords might have been compromised, change them immediately. One of the best things you can do is to make sure your passwords are strong. Here are seven ways to fortify them:

1. Make your password long
2. Go for combinations of letters and numbers
3. Avoid dictionary words
4. Play with characters
5. No easy-to-guess words
6. Don't use same passwords
7. Code works

Lava has launched a new Android KitKat phablet, Magnum X604, at Rs 11,999.

Lava Magnum X604 sports a giant 6-inch HD(720x1280p) IPS display. It is powered by a 1.2GHz Broadcom quad-core processor and has 1GB RAM, along with 8GB internal storage and a microSD card slot.

The dual-sim smartphone comes with Android 4.4 KitKat, the latest version of the OS.

It features an 8MP rear camera with BSI sensor and LED flash that supports full-HD video recording and a 2MP front-facing camera. It has a 2600mAh battery.

In terms of connectivity features, Lava Magnum X604 offers Wi-Fi, 3G, Bluetooth, and GPS.

It will be available in White and Brown colour variants.

Indian mobile devices brand Xolo has launched its first Windows Phone-powered smartphone Win Q900s in the Indian market.

Xolo Q900s is priced at Rs 11,999. However, the device is available at an special introductory offer price of Rs 9,999 with many online retailers.

Xolo Win Q900s is among the lightest smartphones in the world, weighing just 100gram. Samsung Galaxy S4 mini remains the lightest Android phone at 107gram, while other light smartphones are Apple iPhone 5S at 112gram and HTC Desire 500 at 123gram.

Measuring 135x67x7mm, the new Xolo smartphone has a 4.7-inch HD (1280x720 pixels, 321ppi) multi-touch IPS OGS display with scratch-resistant Dragon Trail Glass. The dual-SIM smartphone is powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and 400MHz Adreno 302 GPU. ?It has 1GB RAM and 8GB internal memory, which is expandable via microSD card up to 32GB.

The combined desk-based and mobile PC market in India totalled nearly 1.9 million units in the first quarter of 2014, a 20.6% decrease over the first quarter of 2013, according to IT research firm, Gartner.

Dell increased its market share in Q1-2014 due to strong growth in notebooks which increased 43% year-over-year. This growth primarily came from the consumer segment where Dell grew by 44%. HP was second with a 2.8% drop in market share compared to the same quarter, last year. It registered a 20.5% share.

Lenovo was third with a 13.8% market share (an increase of 1.5% compared to Q1 2013), followed by Acer which commands a 10.7% share.

"Consumers accounted for 47% of total PC sales in the first quarter of 2014," said Vishal Tripathi, principal research analyst at Gartner. "In the absence of any government orders this quarter, the Indian PC market performed dismally, re-emphasizing the fact that sentiments were not very positive in the first quarter of 2014, and enterprises are deferring their purchases. However, with new government leadership, there is a positive sentiment both among and enterprises and consumers, and we expect markets to bounce back in the next two quarters."

Google has started the OTA (Over the air) rollout of the latest version of Android - Android 4.4.3, to Nexus 7(2013) tablet and Nexus 5 smartphone, after releasing factory images of the OS on its website. The update is expected to hit Nexus 4, Nexus 10, Nexus 7(2012) and Google Play enabled devices soon.

The Android 4.4.3 update is essentially a performance update that fixes bugs and tweaks the user interface a bit. It fixes excessive battery drain caused by camera apps on some devices. It also brings better looking dialer app and People app.

Motorola has also announced the rollout of Android 4.4.3 update to Moto X, Moto G and Moto E smartphones. The company has clarified that Moto E users still qualify for the next major Android update.

As per Motorola, "the latest software update brings an improved dialer with a new interface and new colours to enhance consistency and usability, several stability, framework, security fixes, and enhancements to the power profile capabilities."

Facebook users in coup-rattled Thailand reacted with alarm Wednesday after experiencing widespread problems accessing the social networking site, but the junta quickly denied imposing a block.

"Urgent: Facebook has been suspended," one user wrote on Twitter. "Surely that would be suicide. Whole country would protest," wrote another user.

But just minutes later users celebrated: "Facebook is back!!" The military regime which seized power on May 22 said it had not pulled the plug on the site.

"We have not ordered a block of Facebook — it's not our policy," said army spokesman Colonel Winthai Suvaree.

"Facebook experienced a slight technical failure and the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology is working to fix it now," he said.

Mobile instant messaging service, WhatsApp, has partnered with Indian telecom operator Airtel to offer users a customized data plan for WhatsApp use.

The pack is available to both 2G and 3G subscribers and is priced in the range of Rs 36 and Rs 49, depending on the service area. It will offer 200MB monthly data allowance exclusively for Whatsapp use. To activate the plan, users need to SMS the keyword 'Whatsapp' to the number 121.

It's not the first time that WhatsApp has tied-up with Indian telecom operators to offer special plans. The service had previously partnered Reliance Communications and Tata Docomo for offering WhatsApp specific data plans.

WhatsApp claims to have 50million monthly active users in India, which is the largest market for the messaging service provider.

Before handing over mobile phone to your toddler, kindly note that it may make your kid less smart.

Toddlers who play non-educational games on touchscreen devices have a lower verbal score on developmental tests, a new study showed.

There was no significant difference in testing scores between children who used touchscreen devices and children without the same exposure to touchscreen devices, it showed.

However, majority of the parents believed their children received educational benefits by using mobile phones, readers and tablets.

"Technology can never replace a parent's interaction with his or her child. Just talking to your child is the best way to encourage learning," said Ruth Milanaik, developmental and behavioral physician at the Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York.

"We have observed in our neonatal clinic that the number one 'toy' parents are giving their toddlers are mobile phones," Milanaik noted.

The researchers examined infants aged up to 3 years that used touchscreen devices.

Of the 65 families surveyed, the average age of the child when starting to use a touchscreen device was about 11 months and average use was about 36 minutes daily.

A US government cybersecurity watchdog has warned computer users Monday against using a version of the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser with a security hole that could allow hackers in.

The government's Computer Emergency Response Team (US-CERT) said in a statement that it was aware of "active exploitation" of the security flaw in versions six through 11 of the flagship Explorer browser.

The agency, a unit of the Department of Homeland Security, urged computer users to take protective actions and "consider employing an alternative web browser until an official update is available."

The security flaw is of particular concern for computers running Windows XP, an older version of the operating system for which Microsoft has said it will no longer issue security updates.

Microsoft said Saturday that an attacker who successfully exploits the vulnerability could take control of the computer. Cybersecurity firm FireEye, which took credit for identifying the flaw, said hackers were exploiting the bug in a campaign nicknamed "Operation Clandestine Fox."

Roger Kay, analyst with Endpoint Technologies Associates, said the flaw affects multiple versions of the browser "but is most dangerous for XP users, since that OS is no longer being maintained."

"While it's still possible that Microsoft will relent and fix XP one more time, users should not count on it," Kay said. "And even if Microsoft does throw this group a lifeline one more time, inevitably the day will come when the software giant will no longer bail them out."

Google has acquired Titan Aerospace, maker of high-altitude, solar-powered drones, for an undisclosed figure.

The deal was first reported by The Wall Street Journal and later confirmed to TechRadar by a Google spokesperson.

According to the Journal, Google plans to use Titan's drones to gather images and connect more of the world's population to the web. Titan will continue to operate out of its New Mexico base, and Google said the company will work in concert with Project Loon.

Google's Project Loon is working to build massive, high-altitude balloons that beam internet signals to parts of the world still untethered to the net.

There's a chance Titan could also work with Makani, another Google project that's tinkering with an energy-efficient airborne wind turbine.

For its part, Titan has said its drones, which are designed to fly for up to five years, can gather real-time, high-resolution images of the earth, tow atmospheric sensors and bolster voice and data services.

Google Inc updated its terms of service on Monday, informing users that their incoming and outgoing emails are automatically analyzed by software to create targeted ads.

The revisions more explicitly spell out the manner in which Google software scans users' emails, both when messages are stored on Google's servers and when they are in transit, a controversial practice that has been at the heart of litigation.

Last month, a US judge decided not to combine several lawsuits that accused Google of violating the privacy rights of hundreds of millions of email users into a single class action.

Users of Google's Gmail email service have accused the company of violating federal and state privacy and wiretapping laws by scanning their messages so it could compile secret profiles and target advertising. Google has argued that users implicitly consented to its activity, recognizing it as part of the email delivery process.

Google spokesman Matt Kallman said in a statement that the changes "will give people even greater clarity and are based on feedback we've received over the last few months."

While we wait for Apple to confirm that it's been making an iWatch, Google is busy designing a wearable version of its Android operating system.

Android Wear is a new platform that extends the company's leading software to the body starting with the wrist in the form of smartwatches. As Android head Sundar Pichai penned in the announcement, these app-driven time pieces understand the context of the world around you and deliver messages and reminders beamed directly to your wrist.

Convenient Google Now notifications are literally on hand thanks to Android Wear, and the ability to seek out additional information with voice controls outfits everyone with the all-encompassing power of the search engine.

Compact point-and-shoots

Range: Rs 4,000 - 20,000

Regardless of what smartphone manufacturers will tell you, a compact point-and-shoot is almost always better than the one on your handset. These cameras come with easy to-use functions like auto focus, filter effects and photo modes that allow novice users to click good pictures by simply using the proper one-touch auto settings. Besides, these shooters handle low-light photography better; are equipped with optical zoom (which is the only type of zoom you should consider when buying a camera); and superior quality lens.

Here, you can expect to pick a camera with...

A 10-megapixel sensor and above. Optical zoom starting at 5x, going up to 20x. A 2.7-inch to 3-inch LCD display. Features such as smile detection, panorama, miniature effect (tilt-shift photography), as well as shooting modes such as sports, portrait, close-up, landscape, night shot, indoor, outdoor, etc. Rugged exteriors that are shockproof, waterproof, dustproof and freezeproof.

Google's Project Loon Wi-Fi broadcasting balloon Ibis-167 reportedly circled the Earth in a record 22 days.

Earlier, Google had estimated a total of 33 days for Ibis-167 to successfully circumnavigate the globe.

According to Cnet, before Ibis-167, Google had floated Project Loon balloons up into the atmosphere-in all the project has traveled 311,000 miles and experienced wind speeds ranging from 2 knots to 75 knots-but it hadn't yet seen such a speedy traverse around the world.

Google wrote on Project Loon's Google+ account that it enjoyed a few loop-de-loops over the Pacific Ocean before heading east on the winds toward Chile and Argentina, and then made its way back around near Australia and New Zealand.

Slowly but surely, Now is proving to be one of Google's biggest weapons against Apple (just look at Android Wear), and Mountain View looks set to make its predictive assistant even more functional in the next update.

The latest rumour, plucked from the mouth of a source speaking Android Police (and some spotted code), is that Google Now will soon remind you of upcoming bills and offer quick links to pay them online.

On top of that, it's likely that you'll be able to ask Google questions like "what is my next bill?" to see a list of your due payments, be they credit cards or utilities.

This joins rumours that Now will also soon be able to automatically create calendar entries based on mentions of events, and provide contact-based reminders based on your proximity to another person.

When Mumbai resident Ritika Desai was browsing through an online portal that offered free filing of income tax, a 10-page 'terms & conditions and privacy policy agreement' popped up on screen. The print was too small and the sentences too long, so Desai clicked the 'I agree' button without much thought and went ahead with the tax filing. After a few days, she was flooded with calls from financial planning firms and banks offering investment products.

"I thought it was a telemarketing gimmick, but when some callers mentioned my bank account details, I knew something was amiss," she says. On probing one caller, she found that the tax filing portal had released her information to them. When a livid Desai called up the portal, they told her that she had given them the right to share the information as per the terms & conditions. "Since I had clicked on the 'I agree' button, there was nothing I could do to stop them," she says.

There are many like Desai, who accept the user agreements on websites without reading them and give up many of their rights. "People think these agreements are not significant enough to cause damage. Besides, they are so lengthy that it is boring to go through each and every point," says Ravi Goenka, advocate, Goenka Law Associates. So what should you do?

Watch out for
Ideally, you should read every line in the user agreement. If you find it too tedious, here are some tips that will help you understand what you are agreeing to. The first rule is to read anything that is in all-caps or bold or highlighted. The fact that the text has been highlighted means it is important. Second, hunt for key clauses that will be most relevant to you by using CTRL + F and typing in the keywords (see Keywords to find...). This will take you instantly to the clause that matters.

It is called Hack but it has little to do with hacking. It is a new programming language designed by Facebook that lets programmers build complex websites and other software quickly and without many flaws.

"We can say with complete assurance that this has been as battle-tested as it can possibly be," Bryan O'Sullivan, the Facebook engineer behind the language, said in a statement.

Experts say Hack is a new version of PHP -- the language Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg used when he started building Facebook. Hack too runs on the Hip Hop Virtual Machine but it lets coders use both dynamic typing and static typing. For the next decade, Zuckerberg and his rapidly growing company continued to build their site with PHP. But as a PHP site grows, you need far more computer servers to run the thing than you would with other languages and it can be difficult to manage all your code and keep it free of bugs.

Hack makes it easier to manage code and eliminate errors. It provides these benefits without slowing down the developer. Unlike other statically type languages, Hack can run without compiling.

"You edit a file and you reload a web page and you immediately get the feedback. You get both safety and speed," O'Sullivan added.

Google on Tuesday announced Android Wear, "a project that extends Android to wearables" like smartwatches. The announcement is aimed at attracting developers, who can create apps for the new family of Android devices, before smartwatches and similar devices powered by Android Wear start appearing in the market.

"We're always seeking new ways for technology to help people live their lives and this is just another step in that journey," Sundar Pichai, who heads Android and Chrome divisions in Google, wrote on the company's official blog.

According to Google, the smartwatches powered by Android Wear will show information "when you need it", provide answers to spoken queries, monitor physical activity and allow access to other devices like a smartphone.

Goggle said that it was already working with several consumer electronics manufacturers, including Asus, HTC, LG, Motorola and Samsung; chip makers Broadcom, Imagination, Intel, Mediatek and Qualcomm; and fashion brands like the Fossil Group to bring consumers watches powered by Android Wear later this year.

Google Inc will pay finance chief Patrick Pichette a $3 million annual bonus, and chief business officer Nikesh Arora a $3.5 million bonus, a slight increase from the previous year, following a year in which the internet company's stock surged nearly 60%.

Google chief executive Larry Page and co-founder Sergey Brin will receive no bonus, the company said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), continuing the founders' practice of not taking a bonus. Page and Brin, who are each paid a $1 a year in salary, have a large portion of their personal wealth tied directly to Google's stock.

Google's shares shot up 58% in 2013, breaking the $1,000 mark for the first time and outpacing the Nasdaq's 38% gain for the year.

Google chief legal officer and head of corporate development David Drummond will receive a $3 million bonus, Google said. Drummond's bonus last year was $3.3 million.

Banks around the world, consumed with meeting more stringent capital regulations, will miss a deadline to upgrade outdated software for automated teller machines (ATMs) and face additional costs to Microsoft to keep them secure.

The US software company first warned that it was planning to end support for Windows XP in 2007, but only one-third of the world's 2.2 million ATMs which use the system will have been upgraded to a new platform, such as Windows 7 by the April deadline, according to NCR, one of the biggest ATM makers.

To ensure the machines are protected against viruses and hackers many banks have agreed deals with Microsoft to continue supporting their ATMs until they are upgraded, extra costs and negotiations that were avoidable but are now likely to be a distraction for bank executives.

Google has rolled out several changes to how it shows results to a web user on its search page. The changes are subtle but noticeable. The two big changes are removal of lines from the clickable search results and introduction of a yellow label called "Ad/Ads" in front of the sponsored results.

While web users started seeing the changes in the last two days, Jon Wiley, lead designer for Google Search, officially confirmed them on Thursday on his Google+ page.

"Towards the end of last year we launched some pretty big design improvements for Search on mobile and tablet devices. Today we've carried over several of those changes to the desktop experience," Wiley wrote on the social media site. "We've increased the size of result titles, removed the underlines, and evened out all the line heights. This improves readability and creates an overall cleaner look. We've also brought over our new ad labels from mobile, making the multi-device experience more consistent."

If you use WhatsApp on an Android phone, you should be careful about what you talk about or share on the instant messaging app. Using a few scripts and a rogue app, anyone can peer into your chat logs and see what you talk about with your friends.

A Dutch security consultant has found that WhatsApp chat logs saved on the SD card of an Android phone can be read by other apps because of the way Android allows sharing of data between apps.

"The WhatsApp database is saved on the SD card which can be read by any Android application if the user allows it to access the SD card. And since majority of the people allows everything on their Android device, this is not much of a problem," Bas Bosschert wrote on his blog.

Recently when Matt Cutts, the head of the webspam team at Google, tweeted against scraper websites, he was in for a big surprise.

While the tweet was made against scraper websites, which use the content generated by other people to make money, Cutts had no idea that a Twitter user would call Google a scraper, complete with a simple example showing how the search engine benefits from the content produced by others.

On February 28, Cutts said, "If you see a scraper URL outranking the original source of content in Google, please tell us about it." Google doesn't want scraper websites to rank high in its search engine and Cutts, as the man who fights spam on Google search engine, is interested in knowing offenders.

IOnce in a few years software giant Microsoft asks its customers to upgrade to a new operating system (OS) as it prepares to pull off support for the older version. That time draws nigh. April 8 is when the Redmond, Washington-headquartered corporation stops support for its longest running and most successful OS, Windows XP.

In use since 2001, XP survived three generations of software upgrades and now Microsoft is urging users to upgrade to Windows 7 or Windows 8. Post D-Day , there won't be anyone to fix bugs on XP, offer patches, monitor hacker activity , and using XP could potentially cripple systems. "It's less than 30 days to go for the support to end," points out Karan Bajwa , managing director, Microsoft India . "We supported XP for 12 years while the average in the technology industry is five years. There will be no updates or software patches available for XP after April 8," he adds.

International DJ-producer Steve Angello is giving away his record label's entire catalog with the help of Google Play.

Angello announced that his Size Records will roll out more than 170 songs for free to fans in the US. The campaign, dubbed "#DECADE," kicks off with 10 free songs. The rest of the label's music will be made available in the coming weeks, concluding at the end of the month.

Angello launched Size in 2003, and the new campaign is to thank fans for a decade of support for the independent label. The free songs from more than 80 artists were launched with Angello's creative agency Rebels Studios alongside Google.

Privacy advocates have asked US regulators to halt Facebook Inc's $19 billion acquisition of messaging service WhatsApp until there is a clearer understanding of how the company intends to use the personal data of WhatsApp's 450 million users.

WhatsApp, a service that allows mobile phone users to send each other messages, has had a longstanding commitment to not collect user data for advertising purposes.

But there's no guarantee that that commitment will hold true once the service becomes part of Facebook, according to the filing to the Federal Trade Commission by the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy, both non-profit groups.

With Samsung setting the tone for the year with its smartphone Galaxy S5, all eyes are now on Apple, Google, LG and HTC to respond with their own flagship models. But Google has ruled out launch of its Nexus 6 handset before end of the year.

Talking about the next-generation Nexus smartphone, Sundar Pichai - the head of Google's Android and Chrome units - has been reported at the just-concluded Mobile World Congress 2014 as having said, "I can assure you, it will not be released in the first half of the year."

This means that Google will not unveil the Nexus 6 at its I/O 2014 developer conference, scheduled for June 25 and 26.

READ ALSO - Nexus 8 running Android 4.5 to launch in July: Report.

Facebook, after unsuccessfully trying to get its users on its own email system, has thrown in the towel.

The social networking giant told AFP by email that it was giving up on email "because most people haven't been using their Facebook email address, and we can focus on improving our mobile messaging experience for everyone."

The company launched its email service in 2010, and in 2012 prompted an outcry by changing the default address for messages to users' Facebook addresses.

The project was seen as an attempt to be a "Gmail killer," by getting members of the biggest social network to switch email accounts, but Facebook now admits it did not work.

"We're notifying people who use their @facebook.com email that the feature is changing," the company spokesman said.

A new study has dispelled the finding of a widely publicized Princeton study that stated that Facebook would lose 20% of its users between 2015 and 2017.

The latest study from Carnegie Mellon University said Facebook that just turned 10, will stay here for some time, CNET reported.

Bruno Ribeiro, a postdoctoral researcher in Carnegie Mellon's computer science department, came to this result by applying a model that he developed using data from Web traffic data company Alexa to six years worth of user data from 22 membership-based sites like LinkedIn, Meetup.com, and Facebook.

This study, unlike the Princeton study that looked primarily at Google searches for "Facebook," looked at sites that have grown, as well as those that suffered attrition, and analyzed various user trends like how likely active members were to become inactive, what role members played in getting others to join the site, and what role advertising played in increasing the site's traffic.

He found that Facebook, along with LinkedIn, Huffington Post, and the Ashley Madison dating site would continue to thrive, while Flixter, OccupyWallStreet, and Tea Party Patriots won't.

LinkedIn finished last year with a strong showing, but the online professional networking service rattled already-jittery investors by indicating its performance will weaken this year as management ramps up spending while revenue growth slows.

The projection released on Thursday with LinkedIn's fourth-quarter results triggered an 8% drop in the company's stock price during extended trading. The shares shed $17.91 to $206.54.

LinkedIn also announced it is spending $120 million to buy Bright, a startup that makes data-analysis tools matching job hunters with employers.

The acquisition could foreshadow a year of heavy investment that crimps LinkedIn's earnings. CEO Jeff Weiner emphasized the Mountain View, California, company will be spending "significantly" on data centres and long-term projects that may take several years to pay off.

The late sell-off in LinkedIn's stock came a day after another online networking service, Twitter, disappointed Wall Street with a fourth-quarter report that revealed a jarring slowdown in its user growth. Twitter only added 9 million users during the period, well below its quarterly average of 16 million additional users during the previous year.

A US girl's snarky Facebook post has cost her father $80,000 he had won in a legal settlement.

Patrick Snay, 69, a former headmaster of Gulliver Preparatory School in Florida was set to receive the amount after settling a 2011 age discrimination suit with the school he once headed.

However, his daughter, Dana ruined the $80,000 deal by blabbing about it on Facebook, the 'Miami Herald' reported.

"Mama and Papa Snay won the case against Gulliver. Gulliver is now officially paying for my vacation to Europe this summer. SUCK IT," she wrote on the social networking website.

The message circulated among the former Gulliver student's 1,200 Facebook friends and eventually made its way back to the school.

Social networking giant Facebook has seen its monthly active userbase growing 16% year-on-year to 1.23 billion for the quarter ended December, driven by strong addition across Asia and other emerging markets.

Also, the number of people using Facebook on a daily basis increased by 139 million to 757 million at the end of the year.

"It was a great end to the year for Facebook...In 2013, we added 172 million monthly actives and 139 million daily actives. That means that our daily engagement continues to increase. In the last quarter, more than 60% of our monthly actives visited Facebook daily. Given the size of our community, we're very excited about this pace of growth," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said.

Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei allegedly hacked state-owned BSNL's network and the government is investigating the matter, Parliament was informed today.

"An incident about alleged hacking of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited network by Huawei, a Chinese telecom company, has come to notice."

"The government has constituted an interministerial team to investigate the matter," Minister of State for Communications and IT Killi Kruparani informed the Lok Sabha.

There were reports of a mobile tower being impacted a few months ago in coastal area of Andhra Pradesh that was attributed to hacking by the company's engineers.

The written reply of the minister did not share any detail of the incident.

BSNL had awarded a major part of its network expansion tender of about 10.15 million lines to another Chinese company ZTE in 20

The Facebook ID that users have been flashing on their profiles, claiming it reveals which number user they were to join the site, is apparently not exactly what they believe it is.

Facebook spokesperson said that the company had assigned numerical blocks in the early days, but today user IDs are not issued sequentially.

According to Mashable, the specific number assigned to users when they had joined the site is actually based on a variety of number ranges.

For example, if a user's Facebook ID is in the 806,000s range, it doesn't mean they are the 806,000th user to join the site, but shows that the user was around the 6,000th member to join from NYU, the ninth university added to the social network.

Google on Wednesday announced the availability of indoor maps in India. The company said that users of Google Maps on Android, iOS and personal computers can now access the floor plans of 75 places in 22 Indian cities.

Most of these 75 places are shopping malls but museums and convention halls also find a mention in the list. Similarly, while most of these places are located in big cities like Delhi and Mumbai, some buildings from Raipur and Ludhiana too are a part of the project.

"We launched indoor maps in countries like the US earlier. Now we are bringing it to India. We worked with mall owners and authorities that manage a place to get the floor plans and location details and have added that information to Google Maps," Suren Ruhela, director and product manager, India Google Maps, told TOI. "For now we are starting with 75 places. But as we get feedback from consumers and work with more partners, we hope to add more places."

Google's fourth-quarter earnings rose 17% even though a long-running slump in its online ad prices deepened.

The performance indicates that Google is still struggling to close the gap between the rates for ads shown on mobile devices and those on personal computers.

Advertisers haven't been willing to pay as much to reach prospective customers on the smaller screens of smartphones and tablets, but Google has been tweaking its digital marketing system so mobile and PC ad campaigns are bundled together. In doing so, Google is hoping advertisers eventually will recognize the advantages of reaching people on the go and gradually begin to pay higher prices for mobile marketing pitches.

But Google's average ad price during the fourth quarter fell 11% from the previous year. That was the steepest quarterly drop in 2013. It marked the ninth consecutive quarter that Google's average ad rate, also known as "cost per click," has fallen from the previous year.

The results from its latest quarter showed that for the first time, mobile advertising accounted for more than half of its total ad revenue. That's a clear sign that the social network born a decade ago in the desktop computer era is succeeding in its goal of being "mobile first."

Facebook's earnings and revenue for the final three months of 2013 handily surpassed Wall Street's expectations for the third quarter in a row as it further expands the number of users and the amount of money it makes on mobile ads.

"If 2012 was the year where we turned our core product into a mobile product, then 2013 was the year we where we turned our business into a mobile business," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a conference call with analysts. "I expect 2014 will be the year where we begin to deliver new and engaging types of mobile experiences."

Global sales of tablets surged 50.6% last year, with Apple clinging to the top vendor spot amid strong gains by rivals, a survey showed.

International Data Corp (IDC) said worldwide tablet shipments totaled 217.1 million, up from 144.2 million in 2012.

IDC said Apple's iPad is increasing sales but slower than the overall market, and that growth rates are tapering off in the big markets like the United States.

"It's becoming increasingly clear that markets such as the US are reaching high levels of consumer saturation and while emerging markets continue to show strong growth this has not been enough to sustain the dramatic worldwide growth rates of years past," said IDC analyst Tom Mainelli.

Personal computer sales sank even further during the holiday shopping season, capping the steepest annual decline in PC shipments since desktop and laptops began to appear on people's wish lists decades ago.

The fourth-quarter numbers released on Thursday by the research firms Gartner and International Data Corp serve as the latest testament to the growing popularity of smartphones and tablet computers. The mobile devices are typically less expensive than PCs and more convenient to use than clunky desktops, making them appealing alternatives to go online for work, entertainment, information and communications.

Gartner cited the mobile shift as the main reason for a 7% drop in worldwide PC sales from the previous year during the three months ending in December, a period when the demand for electronics is at its peak. It marks the seventh consecutive quarter of decreasing PC sales.

Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd today tested its 4G network at the Techfest event in IIT Mumbai campus by running trials of video calls and Jio television service, among others.

Jio television has a feature that eliminates the need for recording content.

"LTE is about Learn to Earn. More than 78 per cent of Indian content comes from outside. We must work towards shifting content to India. We should look at creating Health Exchanges to create affordable Healthcare supported by broadband," RJIL's president for strategy and products, Mathew Oommen said at the event.

RJIL is country's only pan-India 4G spectrum holder.

Chipmaker giant Intel is reportedly planning to launch a new brand of computer that runs both Windows and Android using virtualization techniques.

Intel's new idea, internally known as "Dual OS," would see Android running inside of Windows, so that both the apps could run side by side without rebooting the machine, the Verge reports.

Intel might introduce its new PC in the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week, the report added.

Earlier, Samsung announced the Ativ Q, a Windows 8 hybrid laptop that could launch a full-screen virtualized instance of Android by tapping an app on the homescreen, and coincidentally it was also known as Dual OS.

Search engine giant Google has raised concerns about consistent demands by governments and law enforcement agencies across the world to remove content that is critical of them.

The US-based firm, which offers services like search, email, ads and mapping, said over the last four years, "one worrying trend has remained consistent: governments continue to ask us to remove political content".

The company regularly receives requests from governments and courts around the world to hand over user data.

In a blogpost, Google legal director Susan Infantino said, "Judges have asked us to remove information that's critical of them, police departments want us to take down videos or blogs that shine a light on their conduct, and local institutions like town councils don't want people to be able to find information about their decision-making processes."

Shopping is a beautiful experience and is loved by everyone. Online shopping will provide you your favorite product at the doorstep while sitting in the home itself, by selecting the mode of payment. But online shopping also has certain drawbacks.

Below here i have sorted out 5 hottest shopping sites in India.

1.  Flipkart
2.  ebay.in
3.  Yebhi.com
4.  Myntra.com
5.  HomeShop 18

Brazilian judges have ordered Google to hand over private data gathered via its Street View program. The company should understand how serious the judges are after they warned that the tech giant will face a daily fine of $50,000, up to a maximum of $500,000 if it doesn’t comply.

However, the company pays over $500,000 daily on stocking the vending machines at the Goolgeplex, so it definitely can afford to drag its feet on the order. In addition, Google has a right to be stroppy about the court order too. The company got into hot water over software in its Street View cars which were collecting Wi-Fi information. The issue was moved to the court and the tech giant had to pay lots of money on multiple court cases. It looked like Google learned its lesson and promised never to do that again.

Google and Virginia Tech team up to build and test a driverless car. The Google driverless car is a project by Google that involves developing technology for autonomous cars. The software powering Google's cars is called Google Chauffeur. Lettering on the side of each car identifies it as a "self-driving car”.

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Want to know what the weather will be like tomorrow? A simple internet search will provide a forecast, or, more likely, many forecasts. How can you be sure which one is accurate?

And what if you also want to know the pollen count because you are allergic, or pollution levels because you worry about your child's asthma?

EU-funded researchers are answering those questions with an innovative online platform providing easy access to comprehensive, accurate, localised and personalised environmental and meteorological information.

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Google has reportedly added a new handwriting input tool to Gmail and Google Docs that allows users to send emails in their own handwriting.

With a mousepad or cursor users can write out what they want and Google will do its best to create a typed version of their words and also give suggestions for similar words from where the user can choose from.

Google is gearing up to launch the all-new second generation Nexus 7 tablet in the Indian market in November, three months after its global launch.

Sources told TOI Tech the internet giant is likely to launch the tablet on its own rather than through its Taiwanese manufacturing partner Asus. Google is currently testing the tablet with Indian apps and customised content.

Asus, which manufactures Nexus 7 tablets for Google, is unlikely to be involved in the retail of Nexus 7 in India. The tablet will initially be sold by Google's retail arm through AndroidLand store in Noida (near Delhi) and Bangaluru.

The changes, which Google announced in a revised terms of service policy on Friday, set the stage for Google to introduce "shared endorsements" ads on its sites as well as millions of other websites that are part of Google's display advertising network. The ads are similar to the social ads on Facebook, the world's No. 1 social network, which has 1.15 billion users

If a Google+ user has publicly endorsed a particular brand or product by clicking on the +1 button, that person's image might appear in an ad. Reviews and ratings of restaurants or music that Google+ users share on other Google services, such as in the Google Play online store, would also become fair game for advertisers.

Detailed within a post on the official Google Chrome blog, the Chrome development team has rolled out a new feature in Chrome 30 for desktop users that allows users to search the Web using an image rather than using text.

Within Chrome 30, the user right clicks on an image and selects "Search Google For This Image" in the drop down menu. Located on the search listing page, Google displays other pages that use the same image around the Web as well as sites that are related to the subject matter of the image. This could be particularly useful for identifying locations when the locale isn’t mentioned on the page where the image is located.

Google’s thinktank has created an innovative solution to the problem of low web penetration in developing countries – balloons that beam down internet. As part of its Project Loon, Google sent out balloons that float in the stratosphere at a height of 20km and relay the internet to houses via a special antenna that captures the necessary signals.

The internet search titan aims to provide 3G-like speed via these internet balloons, which cover an area of 1,256 sq m each. Seeing an innovative and eco-friendly means to solve the problem of poor internet connectivity, several nations (including India) have shown keen interest in Google balloons.