Google chief executive, Eric Schmidt, today made important comments about where he believes the majority of total revenue generated at his company would come from.

During the popular annual technology conference, TechCrunch Disrupt, in San Francisco today, Dr. Schmidt said that he believes “the majority of searches and the majority of revenue [would come from mobile devices],”

He cautioned that revenue generated from mobile advertising right now is not material (less than 5-percent of total revenue), despite exponential growth in mobile device use thanks to more advanced smartphones that offer a better browsing experience.

Online advertising generates about $24-billion in revenue for the company, which accounts for more than 90-percent of total revenue for Google.

Read the full story

A Pairs court has ruled in favor of a French man who sued the world’s largest online search engine, Google, for defamation.

The man got a suspended sentence for alleged crimes relating to the corruption of a minor.

Given extensive press coverage of the alleged crime at the time, querying the man’s name on the popular search engine returns web pages from news publications that suggested he was a “rapist”, among other non-favorable descriptions.

The man argues that the statements in the online articles still available today adversely characterize him, which puts him in a disadvantageous social position when meeting new people and applying for jobs, among other situations and opportunities.

Read the full story

Facebook has developed into the world’s largest social networking website, with over 500-million registered users worldwide, and that number is quickly growing as the site adds more than 500,000 new users each and every day.

Facebook’s exponential growth in popularity can be attributable to the site being the first social network to offer a more seamless user experience with an emphasis on sharing what friends really wanted to see and read, instead of a steady stream of spam-like content found on then the largest social network, MySpace, which is owned by News Corporation.

Competitors underestimated Facebook’s growth potential, forecasting its strong momentum at the time would not sustain in the longer run.

Fast-forward only a few years, and Facebook today is challenging Google’s top spot as the world’s largest web property.

Read the full story

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Mark Stanley from The Center for Democracy & Technology, based in Washington, DC, a non-profit public interest organization working to keep the Internet open, innovative, and free. For more on Internet neutrality, visit CDT’s Free Expression page.

Recently, Internet neutrality has returned to the spotlight amidst intense speculation. Last month, Minnesota Senator Al Franken boldly pronounced net neutrality as “the First Amendment issue of our time.” Franken might be right, and the real question is whose First Amendment rights will prevail: those of Internet service providers (ISPs) or those of content providers and individual users? When this question is finally settled, we could see innovation and online startups severely stifled.

INTERNET NEUTRALITY

Internet neutrality is about preserving what we have now: an Internet where users pay a fee to an Internet service provider (ISP) and have nearly unrestricted access to all online content. Market entry barriers for online innovators are relatively low: all you need is a connection of your own to reach all Internet users. An Internet operating outside the principle of Internet neutrality would allow ISPs to discriminate among different types of services, providing some kinds of Internet traffic with high priority (fastest delivery) while relegating other types of traffic to what essentially amounts to a “slow lane” on the Internet. An inherent danger is that this could open the doors for ISPs to act as Internet gatekeepers, making deals and playing favorites. An Internet where innovators had to negotiate with individual ISPs to be assured access to users would significantly raise barriers to entry, likely entrenching large Internet players and foreclosing competition.

Read the full story

Microsoft has made a significant update to its Windows Live Messenger application for the iPhone, bringing the app to version 1.1.

The update includes a number of new features; such as improved social networking capabilities by allowing you to better integrate your Facebook account directly with the app.

Integrating the app with your Facebook account allows you use Facebook chat directly and view updates from friends. However, the native Facebook app for the iPhone is far more comprehensive and already offers Facebook chat.

Additionally, you cannot integrate Facebook with the app directly from your iPhone. You must go to the Services section by logging into your Windows Live profile from your computer.

Read the full story

A serious flaw in popular Adobe software products, including the company’s popular Flash web platform, has been found that could easily allow a computer hacker to take control of a computer.

Adobe says the security hole is present in all Adobe Flash Player builds up to version 10.1.82.76, and affects Windows, Mac, Linux, and Solaris machines.

Additionally, the vulnerability is also present on the mobile Flash player found on the Google Android operating system.

The company warns the critical vulnerability could also suddenly crash your system, but most importantly, it could compromise important information on your machine, including banking information and your files stored on your computer as a hacker could gain complete control.

The company says its Acrobat and Reader software is not affected.

Adobe says it is in the process of working to release an updated version to patch the vulnerability by the end of September.

Apple Inc. chief executive Steve Jobs essentially banned the Flash platform in Apple iOS devices, including the iPhone and iPad, citing the platform was not as secure and not suited for mobile devices.

The world’s largest online video sharing website, YouTube, started a two-day pilot project that has brought live video streaming to YouTube Channels for select accounts, set to end tomorrow.

The company says it has teamed up with four current content partners, including: Howcast, Next New Networks, Rocketboom and Young Hollywood.

The pilot project comes as the company tests the service and systems as part of a broader plan to expand the service for every one.

Producers simply need a video camera connected to their computer to begin broadcasting live content.

Read the full story

A new Adobe tool in Adobe Air could revolutionize the way developers produce applications.

Developers are able to build a single code-base for a single application, and utilize the tool to essentially convert the application to run on multiple operating systems (including mobile operating systems) that support Adobe Flash. No additional code needs to be changed to support the different platforms.

Adobe says the tool is the first of its kind, and no other technology currently allows developers to maintain the same code-base without any modifications to the initial code to run on a variety of platforms.

Read the full story

Apple has long been restrictive with what apps get approved in its iOS app store found on the iPhone and iPad.

Since 2008, when Apple firstly opened the doors to the App Store, the company has yet to publish a governing list of rules to help developers better understand on what grounds the company rejects or approves applications – until today: Apple said it would publish a list of governing policies to help developers better understand the approval process.

Apple previously decided to allow developers to only use the computer programming language Objective-C, including C++, effectively blocking other programming platforms like JavaScript, and Adobe’s hugely popular Flash platform.

In a recent blog post, Apple chief executive Mr. Jobs, expressed his views specifically about Flash, essentially claiming the proprietary Flash platform is dated and not suited for mobile devices, instead opting towards the open source HTML5 standard.

The direction of Apple not only initiated an anti-trust investigation by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), but also forced Adobe to announce the company would cancel all plans to develop for the iPhone and iPad.

Read the full story

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