Google is easily the most prolific of the major technology companies, as it proved in dramatic forge in 2012. We saw an augmented reality headset, cool new Nexus hardware, clever new Entanglement services, and flush a few terrible, terrible ideas. Throughout the year, the company continually surprised us—and reminded us that the advanced Google is interested in such, much to a higher degree refining its search algorithms.
Can you recall the outdo and worst of Google's 2012 output signal? Click through this slideshow, and let us know if we forgot to include any monolithic wins Beaver State fails.
HIT: Nexus 7
This June, Google became a major player in the pad of paper market when it undraped the 7-inch Link 7 for a mere $200—a cost that should prepar every potential Kindle Fire buyer retrieve doubly about aligning with Team Amazon.
The Nexus 7 was quickly acclaimed as the best Humanoid tablet uncommitted, and steady impressed iPad fans. Built in partnership with Asus but branded every bit a full Google product, the Nexus 7 is at ease to hold, offers a high-quality display, boasts good battery life, and is zippy and responsive to gesture controls. Who said a "substantial" Android tablet would never be able to compete in a widge quad controlled by Apple and Amazon?
MISS: Nexus Q
Google's biggest right was proclaimed alongside the Link 7 at June's Google I/O conference. The Nexus Q is a End Star-comparable orb premeditated to stream euphony from your Humanoid smartphone or tablet. That sounds slap-up on newspaper, merely the hardware costs a walloping $300 and doesn't admit any speakers. What's more than, you can't control it with iOS, Windows Phone, Beaver State any background software; its Android support is limited to Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean; and it supports lonesome Google Music, Google Video, and YouTube, so forget about victimization IT to well out content from tierce-party apps.
Google bragged that the Nexus Q was its first amply native hardware product—conceived, engineered, and manufactured with nobelium partner support. But information technology was also a total die, and has been pulled entirely from the Google Take on store.
HIT: Google Looking glass
Pickings a starring leaping into the time to come, Google put-upon a brazen skydiving stunt at Google I/O to publicly unveil an early prototype version of Google Glass, a artistic movement augmented reality headset that one mean solar day May replace your smartphone. Google finally envisions a product that can snap photos, alleviate video Old World chat, provide walking and driving directions, and receive and send inst messages and emails—all via a head-mounted video display. In 2022, Google will return prototype Google Methedrine units to a limited number of developers who paid $1500 each to mother their workforce on Google's sci-fi spectacles.
Is the Glass project somewhat wacky or flat marginal insane? Most in spades. But the skydiving stunt does prove that Google has the germ of an idea that just…might…work.
Pretermit: Google hobbles ActiveSync
In December, Google announced that users of its free Gmail service would recede the ability to use Exchange ActiveSync for syncing Calendar, Gmail, and contacts on spic-and-span devices. (The service, however, will continue for business, political science, and education customers of Google Apps.) Google said it was making the switch because it could use agape protocols to achieve similar results, merely the decision rattling appears to be a swipe at Microsoft, the Almighty of Rally ActiveSync. In 2012, the companies also battled over Google's altered privacy policy, patent issues, and the current war for Father Christmas.
Stumble: Google Now
Introduced with Android Jelly Bean in June, Google Now is the company's take happening a digital personal assistant that collates ain data and delivers it to you unprompted. For exemplar, if you're due to attend a meeting happening the otherwise pull of a townsfolk, Google Now leave, in theory, alert you to traffic problems that might make you late. The creature can also share sports scores, flight of steps-time alerts and endure reports, all unprompted.
Google has been current the conception of Google Now for some time, and it's great to see it finally reach fruition. Google Directly is besides an early model of services Google can deliver based on its unified privacy policy, which lets the company meld altogether your Google information into a single database. Google Now is expected to pluck out to screen background PCs as part of the Chrome browser in the coming months. We wanted this new addition.
MISS: Cut-rate Chromebooks
Google and its manufacturing partners finally nudged down the prices of Chromebooks (laptops running the web browser-supported Chromium-plate OS) below $200 in 2012. Three budget Chromebooks were released this year, including the $200 Acer C7, the $250 Samsung Series 5 550, and a $300 version of the C7. Lul, even with a good deal turn down prices, users were more interested in buying a 7-edge pill for $200 than blowing their cash on a hobbled notebook. The Chromebook enterprise isn't dead, just if common support drops whatever further, we should expect to see ironware partnerships well-nig die in 2022.
HIT: Google Fiber
Google became an ISP in July 2012, announcing specifics for Google Character, a fiber-to-domicile service in Kansas Urban center that features 1- gigabit-per-forward information bandwidth, transmission line Goggle bo service, and reasonable pricing. In true Google style, there's even a discharge option (although it has limited availability). So far, Google has merely the most modest plans to blow up its pilot project, but the company's flirtation with providing slayer Net overhaul along with Video—and maybe one day phone service—may have competitors scrambling very presently.
MISS: Google Wallet woes
People will always be wary of new technologies, especially where their money is troubled. But Google didn't help the adoption of Google Wallet, its NFC-based mobile payments platform, when several security concerns emerged. In early February, security measures firm Zvelo found an exploit that could let on the security PIN for Pocketbook users with rooted Android phones. Soon after, the web log Smartphone Chomp reported a further much serious security fault that would allow a phone thief to reset a Google Billfold PIN, and memory access money on a paid card, even if the phone wasn't frozen. This blemish prompted Google to temporarily halt Wallet's prepaid charge plate functions. Google is also having a yob time persuasive wireless carriers to support Wallet in their partner smartphones.
MISS: Seek Positive Your World
Google started to take lookup personalization to the uttermost in January with the introduction of Search Plus Your World, a new look for port that's supposed to elegantly cite personalized, pertinent capacity by harnessing information from Google+.
Early SPYW results might include photos from your contacts and Google+ profiles of notable personalities and businesses. As the religious service rolled exterior, however, information technology really began to feel like one big promotion for Google+. Accessing data from other social networks would certainly mitigate the problem, but that would only steal thunder from Google+, which continues to grasp for relevance in a world dominated by Facebook and Chirrup.
MISS: 11 months of Gelatin Bean plant
Google was so excited in November to introduce Mechanical man 4.2, an updated version of Jelly egg, it killed an entire month in the system's Populate/Contacts app. As the Android team up said in a Google+ post, "We discovered a bug in the Android 4.2 update, which makes it impossible to put down December events in optional fields of the People app (this glitch did not regard Calendar). Perch assured, this will be fixed soon so that those of you with December birthdays and anniversaries won't be forgotten past your friends and kin."
Oops.
HIT: Musical doodles
Sometimes Google's bespoke home foliate logos—alias Google doodles—get a little old, especially for specious non-events, such as the 46th anniversary of Star Trek. But we're not total curmudgeons, and we possess to applaud the Robert Moog-glorious doodle posted in May that lets you create and share your own musical compositions. The Moog doodle even inspired a large array of creative musical creations on YouTube and Google+. In November, Google introduced other musical treat with Pile, a Web app for Chrome that lets you play in a essential band, online with friends.
Fille: Android fragmentation
Google has been so busy rolling out unexampled versions of Android that information technology hasn't spent enough time with hardware partners to update legacy devices to its latest Oculus sinister. So, as of December, a trifle many than 50 percent of users were relieve running Android 2.3 (also titled Gingerbread), according to Google's developer site. Gingerbread is a 2-yr-old arrangement, and has since been eclipsed by two newer Humanoid smartphone OSs. Bringing updates to bequest phones has always been an outcome for Google, not to mention for hardware manufacturers, which are complicit in the problem. The offspring of OS "fragmentation" was a bouffant deal in 2011, and we didn't look very much relief in 2012.
HIT: Google Trekker
Google Maps already offers Street View, a mapping tool around that lets you virtually walk polish metropolis streets, and even enter indoor spaces, all from the comfort of your Web browser or maps app. Just in 2012, the company revealed a new technology that takes every last the pictorial representation equipment that's loaded into Street Though vehicles—namely, 15 cameras, each snapping 5-megapixel images all 2.5 seconds—and puts it into a 40-pound Trekker back pack that you can fancy extreme locations. The upshot? Now challenging terrain like the Grand Canyon hindquarters be captured in 360-degree panoramic views. Google hasn't yet made live its Exalted Canon image captures, but the simple concept of Trekker is a hit.
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Ian is an freelance writer based in Israel who has never met a technical school theme he didn't like. He primarily covers Windows, PC and gaming hardware, picture and music streaming services, social networks, and browsers. When he's not covering the news atomic number 2's working on how-to tips for PC users, or tuning his eGPU setup.
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