Google’s upcoming Pony Express service to allow bill payments from within Gmail

There are so many ways to make payments both physically and online. Now, Google wants to add another that gets right to it. The company is reportedly working on a service going by the name Pony Express that forwards bills to inbox of its users. From there, they are able to make payments without having to leave Gmail.

Hit the break for more.

Pony Express, according to Re/code, will collect bills from various companies and store them in one place. This cuts out the need to go between company sites to pay each bill. Instead, Gmail has the tools for paying quickly. It seems that to gather the bills Google will be “partnering with third-party vendors that print and mail out bills on behalf of service providers such as insurance companies, telecom companies and utilities.” Getting bills directly from the service providers is unknown at this time. Users can pay immediately or setup dates for when payments are submitted.

Google enlists the help of a third-party to verify a user’s identity when setting up Pony Express. This includes name, address, and Social Security number. Adding a credit or debit card and phone number will also help make the service more useful.

Where could this service lead, anyways? Simply put: advertisements. Once Google gets an idea of what a user spends their money on, they can tailor advertisements across their many services and platforms even further.

The service is expected to launch in the final quarter of 2015. So plenty of changes between now and that time are likely. Consider Pony Express a fluid project for Google.

Source: Re/code

Come comment on this article: Google’s upcoming Pony Express service to allow bill payments from within Gmail

​Google’s driverless car ideas include airbags on the outside

Airbags on the inside, that’s what cars typically have, protecting the driver from any incident that might knock them around inside a vehicle. But how about airbags on the outside, for the rest of us? Google’s patented the idea for its driverless cars, with a system of inflatable bumpers that would react in the event of an accident. Sensors could detect when a collision is imminent and inflate the bags to hopefully reduce damage to anyone (or anything) involved. That said, typical airbags might not help when installed outside of the car, as any poor pedestrian that the system would aim to protect would likely be bounced off — which doesn’t sound particularly safe. Google has the answer, however: visco-elastic material.

This wonder-material that would offer a degree of give when coming into contact with objects (or what we like to call ‘people’). The idea of airbags-on-the-outside isn’t completely new, though. Volvo is also toying with the idea, here’s how the carmaker imagines it would look like:

Google appears to be making sure its driverless vehicles are packed with safety features: hopefully, to assuage that freaky feeling a lot of us get at the idea of a car that gosh-darn drives itself.

Filed under: Transportation, Google

Comments

Via: Quartz

Source: USPTO

Bold move: Cyanogen and Blu will launch CyanogenOS phone without Google services

In a world dominated by Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS, there’s little room for another player to take control. There are those who fear that Google’s services will monopolize the mobile industry, and Cyanogen is one of them.

Cyanogen is getting big. Really big. With an $80 million investment from various tech companies such as Qualcomm, Twitter, Telefónica and more, Cyanogen plans to build a mobile ecosystem that doesn’t need Google in the picture at all.

“We’re putting a bullet through Google’s head.” states Kirt McMaster, the brash and confident Cyanogen CEO.

An article by Forbes describes the plan Cyanogen has in place to become the “third player” in the smartphone OS market. The $80 million investment above describes a part of this plan, with all sorts of tech companies taking interest in CyanogenOS. Microsoft is one of those companies. While they were not among the groups investing in Cyanogen at the time, people familiar with the investment deal state that Microsoft is working on a big partnership with Cyanogen to bring some of its services to future phones powered by CyanogenOS, including Bing, voice-assistant Cortana, OneDrive, Skype and Outlook.

McMaster describes his desire for CyanogenOS to provide a fair ecosystem for major software companies. He hopes to attract developers to the OS threatened by Google and Apple. He wants companies like Visa or PayPal to provide the mobile payment system for their phones, and Skype to be the built-in phone dialer. He states services like Spotify could become the default music player, and that his phone would know he uses Spotify as his default music player when he tells it to play a song.

“In a perfect world the OS should know I use Spotify for music,” McMaster says. “I should be able to talk to the phone and say ‘Play that song’ and the f—ing song plays with Spotify. It doesn’t do that today.”

Cyanogen powered phones are selling very well worldwide, with examples like OnePlus and Micromax selling phones like hotcakes because of their affordability, premium hardware and highly customizable software. The next step for Cyanogen, however, is through Blu- one of the most popular phone manufacturers in Latin America and up there in the top selling phones on Amazon. Blu says it will launch a CyanogenOS powered smartphone by the end of this year, without any of Google’s services. Blu CEO Samuel Ohev-Zion states that he plans for the phone to include Amazon’s app store, Opera web browser, Nokia Here for maps, Dropbox and OneDrive for cloud storage, Spotify for the music app, as well as Bing for mobile search and Cortana for voice control.

“When these other apps are deeply integrated into the phone, most of the time they perform better than the Google apps,” says Ohev-Zion.

To describe Cyanogen’s mission as ambitious might be an understatement, but with the attention they are getting and the financial backup from corporations such as Microsoft, it’s likely we will only see them grow from here.

The post Bold move: Cyanogen and Blu will launch CyanogenOS phone without Google services appeared first on AndroidGuys.

Google Fiber services headed to Salt Lake City

Google Fiber hasn’t exactly gotten off to a hot start, as it’s only available in a handful of cities. Google has been working on expanding their ISP footprint, though, and the next city on that list is Salt Lake City, Utah.

Google announced today that they’ll be partnering with the city to figure out the best way to lay out their fiber network to get customers connected. Salt Lake City was likely picked due to its large technology sector, since those kinds of cities and areas are prime targets for Google’s gigabit internet service.

You won’t be able to sign up for Fiber in Salt Lake City tomorrow, but it Google typically gets the wheels turning just a few months after announcement, so hopefully the wait won’t be too long.

source: Google Fiber

Come comment on this article: Google Fiber services headed to Salt Lake City

Ruth Porat is the new Chief Financial Officer at Google

The current CFO of Morgan Stanley, Ruth Porat will be taking over the same position over at Google starting May 26, a Google press release said. This means Patrick Pichette’s tenure as the Google CFO for 7 years will now come to an end. Larry Page had nothing but gratitude for Pichette and his work with Google. 

After joining Google, Ruth Porat will be directly reporting to the CEO and co-founder of Google, Larry Page.  “We’re tremendously fortunate to have found such a creative, experienced and operationally strong executive,” said Larry Page. “I look forward to learning from Ruth as we continue to innovate in our core–from search and ads, to Android, Chrome and YouTube–as well as invest in a thoughtful, disciplined way in our next generation of big bets. Finally, huge thanks to Patrick Pichette for his seven super successful years as CFO”.

Speaking about her new stint with Google, Porat said – “I’m delighted to be returning to my California roots and joining Google. Growing up in Silicon Valley, during my time at Morgan Stanley and as a member of Stanford’s Board, I’ve had the opportunity to experience first hand how tech companies can help people in their daily lives. I can’t wait to roll up my sleeves and get started.”

Source: Google

Come comment on this article: Ruth Porat is the new Chief Financial Officer at Google

Schmidt weighs in on Google Glass

Ever since Google announced they were shutting down the Explorer program for Google Glass earlier this year, there has been lots of speculation as to whether the wearable device was dead or not. Many people believe the shuttering of the old beta program was a sign that Google’s experiment had failed. However, others noted that Google had moved it to another part of the company, Tony Faddell’s Nest division, a sign that it would eventually re-emerge, probably with a more consumer-ready focus. Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt has now weighed in and made a clear statement that Google is committed to the Glass platform.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Schmidt indicated that Faddell’s role is “to make it ready for users” likely based on feedback received during the beta testing of 2013 and 2014 through the Explorer program. Schmidt went on to say,

“It is a big and very fundamental platform for Google. We ended the Explorer program and the press conflated this into us canceling the whole project, which isn’t true. Google is about taking risks and there’s nothing about adjusting Glass that suggests we’re ending it.”

Schmidt suggested the media jumped the gun in claiming Glass was dead and failed to recognize that such a project is long term in nature and takes considerable time to get right. Some of those adjustments will likely include addressing issues like the cost, battery life, and improvements to the sound and display. The devices have also suffered from a foil issue that would need to be addressed. Unlike the Explorer beta program, the next phase of development may employ an in-house strategy similar to other companies.

source: Wall Street Journal

Come comment on this article: Schmidt weighs in on Google Glass