In 2009, we firstly reported that Google finalized an agreement with Twitter to allow the search giant to index tweets to display them in search results as part of a push to make search results more timely and relevant.

The deal was worth about $15-million, and at the same time, Twitter made a similar deal with Microsoft’s Bing search engine at a reported cost of $10-million.

Today, Google made the “most significant” enhancements to its Google Realtime search, adding a few new features.

Google added a new tool to filter search results based on geographic location, allowing users to see results such as tweets only from specified regions.

Read the full story

The search giant, Google, has just announced it would bring its visual search application Google Goggles to Apple’s iOS platform, making the application available for iPhone and iPad users.

Google Goggles is already available for Google Android powered mobile devices through the Android Marketplace.

Google Goggles retrieves useful information from a picture a user snaps along with their respective GPS position.

The company is dubbing the product a universal visual search tool.

However, although the app works great on certain queries, it is still in beta, but the company says future updates will make the product more effective and useful with more accurate and relevant information.

Read the full story

The once top retailer of music CDs, HMV, has struggled in recent months facing intensifying competition from digital retailers, and peer-to-peer Internet networks where people illegally share their music free of charge.

The result has been a significant decline in earnings for traditional brick-and-mortar retailers, such as HMV.

The HMV stock (LON:HMV) has lost a significant amount of its value in recent months, reflecting slumping earnings and lost market share.

Read the full story

Google today started to add support for embedded YouTube videos based on HTML5, and not on the traditional Flash platform the company currently uses to power videos.

Users could already embed HTML5 videos, as the company continues to test the platform that many argue is more secure and more efficient than Adobe’s proprietary Flash platform.

One of the most publically critical companies to criticize the Flash platform is Apple, who banned the platform in its popular products, including the iPhone 4 and the iPad tablet computer.

Read the full story

Google has just announced the company would no longer sell its flagship Nexus One Android powered smartphone directly to consumers.

The company said in a statement found on the product website that it has received the final batch of shipments from its manufacturing partner, Taiwanese-based High Tech Computer Corporation (HTC), and that it would not be selling additional units after the final inventory is depleted.

Read the full story

NTP Corporation today announced it has launched new lawsuits against numerous technology firms for alleged patent infringement related to eight patents held by the company in wireless email delivery.

NTP has filed suit against LG Electronics, Microsoft, Motorola, Apple, Google, High Tech Computer (HTC) Corporation in a U.S. District Court in Virginia.

NTP has already successfully sued firms for infringements on the same patents it is filing suit for today.

Read the full story

Many of us rely on Google daily to stay productive and connected, including gmail, and more recently, even Google Docs to keep important documents available anywhere thanks to the cloud.

Busy road warriors even stick view and edit documents on their mobile phones, in particular with the iPhone and Android based devices that offer more robust applications and bigger screen devices.

Today, Google announced an updated version of Google Docs, that will allow users to easily view various documents without downloading the files locally, including .docx, .ppt, and PDFs, among other formats, directly from their browser.

Read the full story

Google today announced the availability of Google Earth 5.2, which boasts new features outdoorsmen will rejoice about.

In the latest version, you can connect your GPS device directly with the application to import your track, but now, new features will show you more information and statistics about your journey than ever before.

The latest version includes the ability to view elevation, speed, and graphs about your route in Google Earth. A new feature also records your route, so you could play it back later, with historical information including speed and slope.

Read the full story

About a week ago, Google started allowing users to add a customized background picture on the Google homepage, or to choose a pre-designed background created by partners.

The company made the feature clear via a simple text explanation, but not everyone saw the tip as a result of a programming bug, causing people to think Google had permanently changed its home page background.

The feature also proved unpopular among many people, prompting the company to remove the auto background picture; going back to the original simple and white background for now.

Read the full story

Google is expected soon to integration VoIP into its popular gmail email and instant messaging client.

Google has slowly been positioning itself into the VoIP space with a few acquisitions, including most recently of the company Global IP Solutions Corporation (GIPS) that develops technologies that process and deliver voice and video over Internet protocol, namely for service providers and developers to integrate with their platforms.

On May 18, Google acquired GIPS for $68.2-million in an all cash deal that also moved the top employees of GIPS to the Google camp.

Read the full story