Asus' Chairman Jonney Shih and Google's head of Android Andy Rubin have revealed that the Nexus 7 is being sold at cost, and was built in just four months. "Our engineers told me it is like torture," Shih tells All Things D. Asus was told that the Nexus tablet was to be ready in four months, must...
"When it gets sold through the Play store, there's no margin." Andy Rubin, head of Android
We're gathering all the biggest news from Google I/O 2012 here, including the Nexus 7 tablet, Nexus Q media streamer, Google Glass Explorer...
Facebook introduced two changes to its News Feed today, adding a new in-app follow action, along with a shortcut to its "About Facebook Advertising" page.
With the former, users can now follow an individual from within a Facebook app, and have updates from this individual appear in their News Feeds. If, for example, you use a food review Facebook app, you could subscribe to your favorite food...
The next major upgrade to Android will be version 4.1 Jelly Bean, it has been announced at Google I/O today. Project Butter is the major new innovation in Android 4.1, focused on making the entire UI "fast, fluid and smooth." That includes triple buffering in the graphics pipeline, to ensure consistent frame rates with interface animations. Google's I/O demo showed two Galaxy Nexus devices side by side, one running Ice Cream Sandwich and the other on Jelly Bean, with the latter offering a significantly higher frame rate when navigating the Android UI.
Google Now is a big addition from the Android team, introducing a sort of self-aware quality to Android phones — automatically updating you on your favorite sports teams in real time, learning your commute route and checking traffic, and also providing public transit information when it...
The Jelly Beans are coming!
BlueStacks has been making steady progress with its Android virtualization technology over the past six months on Windows, but the company has now released an early beta version for Mac users. The Mac variant provides access to 17 Android apps for now, including Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp. BlueStacks says it plans to expand the offerings "even more" with the next release.
On the Windows...
Only 17 Android apps for now
I would never want to make a superhero game.
Take The Amazing Spider-Man, the new Beenox effort based on the upcoming cinematic reboot, for instance. First you have to provide the feeling of being the beloved wall-crawler, spinning webs any size, et cetera. Then you have to design a realistic challenge for a guy who has pretty much always emerged victorious for the past 50 years or so.
With...
Google had a lot to announce at its I/O keynote yesterday, but if it's all been too much to take in then this could be a solution of sorts — a guidebook to the new Nexus 7 tablet on Google Play. The 84-page tome isn't just restricted to those interested in the Asus slate, however, as it acts as an introductory guide to the Android platform and Jelly Bean in particular.
Now, admittedly you'll probably want an Android device to download and read the book in the first place, but even experienced users might find it useful to delve into the new Jelly Bean features. For others considering the...
One of the many rumors we heard about Google Drive before the cloud storage service's eventual release was support for third-party app integration via a software development kit. That didn't come to pass in the first version of the SDK, but that all changes today with version 2 — developers can now integrate Google Drive into their apps for both Android and iOS devices. Apps developed with the new SDK will let users view, edit, and upload files with Google Drive.
Until now Dropbox has been the most visible player in this space, with Apple's recent introduction of iCloud also gaining some support. Google has also given a few new...
It's possible there's almost too much On The Verge this month. In fact, it might just be our most jam-packed show ever. For starters, the inimitable LeVar Burton stops in to talk about his time on Star Trek, stepping into iconic roles, becoming a meme, and the new Reading Rainbow app. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian also hops on the couch to talk about cats, karma, and of the internet's ability to effect change. Batman masks soon follow....
Star Trek, Batman, Internet, Reading Rainbow, and Dubstep – Truly our best show!
Apple is preparing a major overhaul to iTunes with its next release, including new sharing features that will make it easier for listeners to discover new music, says Bloomberg. Reportedly, the company is negotiating with major labels for new rights that would let users listen to friends’...
The New York Times today launched a new Chinese-language website, in the hopes of gaining new readership from China's burgeoning middle class. The site, cn.nytimes.com, went live Thursday morning in China, and will feature about 30 articles per day. According to the paper, roughly two-thirds of...
HTML5 game development could be one of the hot topics of Google I/O. Yesterday we got word of Strike Fortress, a technically impressive multiplayer title from EA, and today a new team has announced a set of development tools designed to help...
Google has just revealed a new Google Glass Explorer Edition of its prototype camera-equipped glasses at I/O 2012. Pre-orders are open today, only for attendees of the I/O conference, and will cost $1,500 for a delivery early next year. As Sergrey Brin himself confesses, this...
Facebook users are used to having third-party applications and services post to their stream, and now Google+ is getting its strategy in place to do the same thing. VentureBeat spoke with Google's Louis Gray who explained that the History API will allow third-party services like Twitter and...
The SEC is going after Philip Falcone, the beleaguered hedge fund manager behind Harbinger Capital Partners and the now-bankrupt LightSquared LTE initiative, filing civil fraud charges on Wednesday. In a statement, the director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement said the charges "read like the final exam in a graduate school course in how to operate a hedge fund unlawfully."
Falcone allegedly lent himself $113...
As expected, Google unveiled its own 7-inch tablet today at the start of the company's I/O conference. Asus is helping Google build its tablet, co-branded once it's available in mid-July. Google's Nexus 7 is clearly going head-to-head with other...
Here's another intriguing project to come out of this year's Google I/O: the company has announced Web Lab, a series of installations that will let visitors "see the magic of the web brought to life through five Chrome experiments." The installations will be on display at the Science Museum in...
Remaining true to Google I/O tradition, those attending this week's event will receive a collection of loot, including a Samsung Galaxy Nexus...
The irony is not lost on me: mere weeks after I published my Verge At Work internet-based text document synchronization workflow masterpiece, I left the internet. In addition to the chuckles this...
We've spent some quality time with Google's new voice-enabled search and information system on Jelly Bean, Google Now. It's an interesting system that could be described as Google's take on Siri,...
Late last year, we told you just about everything you need to know to buy a smartphone: how to choose a carrier, form factor, operating system, data plan, and more. We gave you the tools to make an...
We like to think we’re pretty good at Rock, Paper, Scissors, but this robot from the Ishikawa Oku Laboratory at Tokyo University is categorically unbeatable. It uses a high-speed camera system to...
Though it went unmentioned during today's Google I/O keynote, the Google Play website now offers the option of updating and/or uninstalling apps...
How did Google and Asus manage to deliver a $199 Tegra 3 tablet like the Nexus 7? According to Nvidia Tegra boss Mike Rayfield, it's part of a concerted effort to drive down the cost of components. Nvidia's Kai program, which we revealed a few months ago, isn't just about using cheaper DDR3L memory and putting more technologies in the chip: Together with Asus and other device manufacturers,...
Google's I/O developer conference at Moscone Center in San Francisco kicked off off today with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, the Nexus 7 tablet, and a wild, Project Glass-infused skydiving event. Stay up to date with all the news from I/O 2012 in this handy Story Stream.
