Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) TV to be available in countries outside U.S. on Nov 13

Google Inc(NASDAQ:GOOG) Play, the Internet search giant's entertainment hub, will soon be bringing movies, music, games and television shows via Google TV in various countries outside the United States on November 13.

Users in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia and Canada can purchase and download movies once the service is launched.

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According to a report in Slash Gear - "Originally, only users in the US could download movies and music, something Google TV users abroad were less than thrilled about. This constitutes a major update on Google’s part, and is perhaps an effort in pulling the lagging service out of its tailspin. Google TV has not been without its share of criticism, and Google has fallen short of its proclaimed goals."

Google's library of movies, music and television shows s not clearly spelt out and it is estimated that the company has `thousands' of titles, including millions of songs.

The company has been known to be acquiring content from large movie studios including Twentieth century Fox, from which it had purchased more than 600 titles back in September for Google Play.

With Google+, its social media network initiative, having really failed to catch on vis a vis Facebook, Google is trying all ploys to get viewers to remain on its network.

Google Play Store is where users can download all kinds of applications and this current initiative attempts to marry that with entertainment content available on Google TV.

Some critics have stated that Google lacks focus with Google TV and needs to determine exactly what kind of service it is in order to properly pander it to the masses. Still, this is a big step in opening up the service to a larger array of users, and is a step in the right direction.

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Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Ventures Increases Fund Size To $300 Million Per Year

Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) will reportedly increase the fund it allocates to its venture-capital wing to as much as $300 million per year from the initial figure of $200 million. This has tossed Google Ventures into the top stratum of commercial venture-capital funds.

This particular move implies that Google will now be able to invest in more later-stage financial rounds that translate into tens of millions of dollars for each investor.

It places the company on the same footing as more conventional corporate venture funds like Intel’s Intel Capital that usually $300-$500 million for each year.

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Part of the underlying principle behind the increase is that Google Ventures is a comparatively new company that was founded in 2009. Some of the companies that it has supported 2-3 years back are now in dire need of cash.

Google Ventures has decided to pursue a diverse approach by deciding to invest in a board gamut of companies ranging from medicine to clean power to coupon companies.

Each year, it usually finances 40-50 seed-stage contracts where it puts in $250,000 or less in a company and probably around 15 agreements where it puts in as much as $10 million. Google is aiming at completing one or two deals each year in the range of $20-$50 million.

Some of the investments that Google has decided upon include a smart-thermostat company, Nest, a smart-grid company, Silver Spring Networks, a car-sharing service provider, Relay Rides and Foundation Medicine, a company that implements genomic analysis to cancer treatment.

However, Google Venture lacks top-notch companies like Twitter and Pinterest. The company’s latest hiring of high-profile entrepreneur Kevin Rose could aid in attracting higher-profile contracts.

It seems that it would not take much time before there comes more cash to play with. 

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Can Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Nexus 5 Effectively Challenge iPhone 5?

Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Nexus 4 is all set to hit shelves in Australia next week, so comparisons with its peers are already doing the rounds. The phone has been designed in such a manner that it is not too heavy and users feel comfortable when holding it. The power/lock key and volume buttons are more favorably positioned as well.

Let us go through its specifications one by one:

Screen

The model has a 4.7in true HD IPS display that enhances battery efficiency and has a resolution of 1280x768, which gives it a pixel density of 318ppi, only slightly lower than 326ppi offered by iPhone 5. Whites are quite bright with the text being clear when zoomed out, although the color reproduction could be better.

Software

Google Nexus 4 is the 1^st Android phone to be powered with the latest 4.2 version of Google's mobile operating system, known as Jelly Bean. The new gesture typing improves the ability for adding widgets to the home screen, expendable notifications, and a new quick settings menu, accessible by swiping the notifications panel with two fingers. The Google Now personal assistant has been upgraded and now uses a person’s Gmail account for sourcing data. Google Maps will of course be present, which is an area where Nexus 4 clearly scores over iPhone 5, because Apple released its own mapping tool, which is flawed and has glitches galore.

Camera

The Google Nexus 4 comes with a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video calls and a rear-facing 8-megapixel camera for photos and video capture. A 360 degree panorama mode, called the photo sphere is present, using which users can take photos of one place in multiple directions including above and below. The iPhone 5 takes excellent pictures too especially in low light. Their macro performance is amazing and the lens can focus on close range objects swiftly.

The Google Nexus 4 is priced at $349, but the hardware being modeled on LG Optimus G, which is all set to launch next year and at double the rate of Nexus, certainly provides a good deal. Just imagine that you are buying a phone with a value of $700-800 with less than $400!

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Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Tumbling From Its Position In China

As per market-watchers, Google Inc(NASDAQ:GOOG) is going down without a trace in China. they are ranking Google at the fourth position in the domestic search market, claiming that the Maps service of the search engine company has toppled to 6^th position after decline of a near double figures fraction.

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The Chocolate Factory had to go through tough times for market share even before its well-publicised post-operation Aurora row with the Chinese officials in the year 2010.

Baidu.com, Inc. (ADR)(NASDAQ:BIDU), a local competitor made the most of the situation when Google had decided to relocate its search services to Hong Kong. The company has been confronted with tough times ever since.

The web giant is now sitting as low as the fourth rank in the Chinese market of search engines in terms of both unique visitors and page hits, with a little more than 4.5%, as per CNZZ’s October reports.

Baidu is way ahead of Google with around 73%, with Chinese web companies like Qihoo and Sogou in between.

It is the rapid rise of Qihoo 360 Technology Co Ltd(NYSE:QIHU) since it burst onto the search scene in the northern summer that has done everything possible to adversely affect Google’s shares. It was a key associate for Google but later it ditched the US search giant from its immensely popular portal site hao.360.cn.

The choice of locating its data centre outside the barriers of China implies Google searches from within the Great Firewall can be unpredictable and inconsistent, with users often experiencing error messages. That is how users have another reason to go local, notwithstanding self-censoring search service providers.

In order to improve the user experience, Google had recently introduced a Communist Part-baiting tool intended to notify users if a search keyword is going to cause censorship and subsequent connection issues.

On the mobile scenario, results from the third quarter as reported by Analysys International, Google Maps dropped from 2^nd to 6^th rank.

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Vringo, Inc. (AMEX:VRNG) Tumbled Another 9% Despite favourable Court Ruling Against Google Inc

A U.S. court awarded intellectual property firm Vringo, Inc.(NYSEAMEX:VRNG) $30.50 million in damages for patent violations by Google Inc(NASDAQ:GOOG) and other Internet firms.

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The violations related to patents held by Vringo's unit I/P Engine, which was acquired by Vringo. The patents were originally held by search engine Lycos, which sold it to I/P Engine.

According to the verdict issued by the jury - 1. I/P Engine had proven by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendants infringed the asserted claims of the patents.

2. The defendants, which indlueded google and AOL, had not proven by clear and convincing evidence that the asserted claims of the patents are invalid by anticipation.

Vringo had origjnally demanded nearly $700 million as damages but ultimately had to settle for a smaller sum, which was less than 5 percent of its target.

According to the jury, reasonable royalty damage should be based on a "running royalty," and the royalty rate has been set at 3.5 percent. The onetime payment of $30 million should cover Vringo for all past infringements.

Google has the highest liability at $15.8 million followed by AOL with $7.94 million, IAC with $6.65 million and the remaining being split between Gannett and Target Corp.

Whether Vringo will actually get the amount or not is debatable as Google plans to appeal the court ruling.

What is of concern here is the valuation of Vringo's patent portfolio. Vringo as well as its investors were expecting more from the litigation and the reduced pay-out does not augur well for the company.

Shares of VRNG tumbled another 8% after slumping 75 in yesterday’s session post court ruling.

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Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) To Take Down Background Images

Google Inc(NASDAQ:GOOG) had made an announcement in September that users would no longer be able to upload pictures with Classic Plus that used to allow selecting and uploading images to use as backgrounds on Google homepage. The company said that the service will completely stop on 16^th November.

Through a notification on its homepage, Google is thanking its users, who presently use the background image feature. It says that as the company works on a more streamlined version of Google page for its users, it will not be able to support customization with background images.

The search engine giant is also in process of modernizing a number of aspects including AdSense for Feeds that is slated to shut down totally on 3^rdDecember.

The Spreadsheet Gadgets was also taken down since a number of popular gadgets are now integrated into charts in spreadsheets. Google mentioned that it has plans of phasing out the Spreadsheet gadgets that is scheduled to start next year.

The ‘Recommended Sections’ of Google News has been taken off on 15^thOctober.

This is not all. +1 Reports in Webmaster Tools are supposed to phase out from 14^thNovember. Google mentioned in an official blog post that the company had introduced the +1 Reports in Webmaster Tools to aid publishers in calculating +1 activities on their pages. Since webmaster now use Social Reports in Google Analytics in order to get a broader view of social activity, the company will terminate the standalone +1 Reports on 14^th November.

All the aforementioned aspects have been started by Google as a part of its ‘Continued Spring Cleaning’. Google has stated in an official blog post that technology delivers several opportunities to help enhancing the lives of users. This implies it is crucial to focus or one may end up doing too much with less impact.

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Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), Amazon (AMZN) to be grilled for not paying sufficient taxes

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)and Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) are set to feel the heat from a parliamentary committee in the United Kingdom over payment of taxes lower than what they were liable for.

A report by Reuters said that UK's public Accounts Committee had asked senior officials of the companies to make a deposition on November 5.

The Internet giants have been criticised in recent months for making substantial sales in the country but paying only a small amount in taxes, sometimes as little as 1.5 percent on hundreds of millions of pounds of earnings, Macworld reported.

According to the report, Google had paid about 8 million pounds in corporation taxes in the U.K. in the six years through 2010. Online retailer Amazon is "asking its publishers to pay a full 20 percent of VAT on eBook sales in the UK - even though it only has to pay 3 percent to the Exchequer because it is based in Luxembourg," it said.

Exchequer secretary David Gauke recently said in the House of Commons that the country's eBook market was valued at 140 million pounds in 2011, but he admitted that the Treasury had no idea about how much tax was being paid by the companies concerned on these sales.

Gauke said: "A large proportion of this business is supplied from abroad. Therefore, no reliable estimate has been possible for the value of VAT levied on the sale of e-books purchased in the UK."

Recently auction site eBay had also come under scrutiny as it had been paying only 0.15 percent of tax on sales worth some $798 million in the country in 2010, the report said.

If the company had followed standard corporation tax guidelines, it would have had to pay $51 million in taxes instead of the $1.2 million that it did pay.

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Vringo, Inc. (AMEX:VRNG) V Google (NASDAQ:GOOG): Things To Watch Out For In The Jury Verdict

Judge Jackson rocked the universe for Vringo, Inc. (AMEX:VRNG) on Wednesday with a stunning ruling in the Vringo vs. Google Inc(NASDAQ:GOOG) lawsuit that restricts Vringo’s potential damages to those sustained since the date if filing of the Google case. In so doing, Judge Jackson threw cold water on a hopeful day for Vringo investors, whose stock rose to an intraday high of $4.47 before tumbling to $1.75 on the news.

After sporadic trading halts, the stock settled, or, more precisely was frozen in the mid-$2s by the end of the trading day.

Judge Jackson primarily indicated he would only apply the laches argument to Google, and not to the remaining defendants. However, in the end he wound up sticking with his verdict, so there is no change in the laches impact declared last day. To put it in other words, the start date for Vringo’s damages can be no earlier than 15^thSeptember, 2011, the date it filed the court case.

Closing arguments are completed and very soon, the jury will have been instructed and will start its deliberations. There is a very good likelihood the verdict will be declared on Friday during the trading day. In all fairness, it must be announced after trading is closed or that trading is stopped before the news breaks so that everyday will have the same prospect to make considered, as conflicting to spontaneous, trading decisions. The panic and uncertainty simply was not fair to the retail shareholder.

After the verdict is declared, one would want to know whether Vringo prove infringement. Then there is the question is whether Google prove invalidity. If Vringo finds infringement, the jury will decide whether Vringo should be awarded a running payment or a lump sum royalty. If the jury goes for a lump sum royalty, there is a good chance that Vringo will get a good amount.

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