Google aims to make selling your patents easier with the Patent Purchase Promotion

In an effort to bolster its already gigantic patent portfolio, Google today announced the Patent Purchase Promotion. The company describes this as an “experimental marketplace” for patents that aims to remove as much friction from the patent market as possible. How so? Well, the patent market is already a very frustrating thing, especially for smaller patent owners who sometimes end up working with patent trolls. People can lose money very quickly in these scenarios, and Google would like to save you from the hassle.

Google explains:

From May 8, 2015 through May 22, 2015, we’ll open a streamlined portal for patent holders to tell Google about patents they’re willing to sell at a price they set. As soon as the portal closes, we’ll review all the submissions, and let the submitters know whether we’re interested in buying their patents by June 26, 2015.

Google expects everyone it transacts to receive full payment by the end of August.

To learn more about the Patent Purchase Promotion, head on over to the official Patent Website to read the fine print. This should go without saying, but Google also recommends you get in touch with your attorney before submitting your application.

(Update: reminders too) You can also set alarms and send notes to your phone from Google Search

Update: Google’s support page “Link your phone to Google”  indicates that, in addition to the four commands mentioned below, you can also use the “set a reminder” command. We couldn’t get it to work on our devices, but it’s worth trying for yourself.

The page also clarifies the requirements for the feature to work:

“For now, you have to be in the United States with your browser language set to English.

The Android device you want to link needs to have:

• The most recent version of the Google app
• Now cards turned on
• Web & App activity turned on
• Google Now notifications turned on
• Location reporting on “High accuracy” mode”

Original post:

It’s not just “send directions” and “find my phone.” It looks like Google is adding a slew of commands that let you control your Android phone from Google Search.

As discovered by Google Operating System, you can now quickly set alarms and send notes to your Android phone by typing in some simple commands.

For now, the features are only available in the United States, though “find my phone” works worldwide so there’s a good chance the others will follow. If you want to try them out from elsewhere, you can try adding “&gl=us” at the end of the URL of your search query, like this: “https://www.google.com/search?q=set+an+alarm&gl=us”

To set an alarm on your phone, just type “set an alarm” or “set alarm” and you will be shown an interface that lets you pick the hour and the device that you want to set the alarm on. You can also type “set and alarm for 12pm” to pre-select the hour.

It’s just as simple to send a note: type “send a note” or “note to self” and you will be shown a text field where you can type in a brief note. Click the send button and a notification with the note will appear almost instantly on your device. You can also include the note text in the main command, like “note to self visit Android Authority.” From there, you can either copy the text or share the note to Gmail or Google Keep.

To recap, you can now use the following commands in Google Search:

• “send directions”
• “find my phone”
• “set an alarm”
• “send a note”

We’ll keep an eye for more functionality, so stay tuned and let us know if these work for you.

Google says Nexus 7 pulled from Google Store, buy the Nexus 9 instead

Now that Google has come official with this news, it is time to announce that Google is no longer going to be selling the Nexus 7. That’s right, for all intents, the 7-inch Android tablet that has been the benchmark of Google’s vision for Android in a tablet, is no more.

Over the weekend, Google rather silently pulled the Nexus 7 from the online store, leaving just the Nexus 9 when searching for a tablet in the Google Store. Official word, as reported by Engadget, is that there is still some inventory around the stores and carriers, but their emphasis is now on the Nexus 9, built by HTC.

If you are still considering this tablet, which we recently put side-by-side the iPad Mini 3 in a little shootout, you best not waste any time. Head to stores like Amazon, which still have stock starting at $165.00.

The Nexus 7, as mentioned, has been a fairly solid device for most users. Indeed, everyone we know that still has their original 2012 version of the tablet, are still huge fans of the ASUS built device. Even if, like my own 16GB model, it has a few issues. Sadly, in more recent developments, many Nexus 7 users of both the 2012 and 2013 models, have been experiencing near complete device failures, be sure to read up on that before you spend your cash.

As the Nexus 7 comes to its end, let’s pay homage to it by bringing you our initial device review and a few highlights from its time with us. (That sounded pretty morbid, we still use our Nexus 7 tablets, and love ‘em, but we have to admit that the specs are a little dated, obviously, and we just might consider buying something a little newer if we were buying now ourselves.)

It is not a sad day, folks, it is just the next step in the evolution of Nexus tablets as Google discontinues selling the Nexus 7 in the Google Store. Do you think there will be a 2015 version of the Nexus 7 launching later this year?