More people are adopting Google Chrome as their main browser as the latest monthly survey by Net Applications shows.

One in every eleven browsers used worldwide is a Chrome or Chrome based browser (either Chromium, Rockmelt or similar) and Chrome gained 0.78 per cent (or 10 per cent of its market share in November).

The other big winner was Apple’s Safari which was up 0.22 per cent last month. Both Opera and Firefox lost shares, albeit 0.15 points when lumped together.

This means that Internet Explorer was the one who lost the most shares in November. Currently standing at 58.26 per cent, IE8 now accounts for 32.75 per cent, nearly a third of the global browser market.

IE6 portion dropped to under 14 per cent while IE7 now commands the same market size as Chrome at 9.5 per cent. Both browsers lost 1.77 per cent altogether while IE8 gained 3.74 percent.

As for IE9, which is still in Beta, it occupies 0.38 per cent of the market, a 33 per cent rise on the previous month, one which was fuelled by a more frequent build release cycle.

Chrome is likely to surge past the 10 per cent mark by next month while its presence on mac and Linux continues to grow significantly.

Originally published on ITProPortal.com

Google is all set to venture into the lucrative ebook market with the launch of its own Google Editions e-book store.

The platform will be released in the US by the end of this year with an international roll-out planned during the first quarter of 2011.

Google Editions will allow users to purchase ebooks and access them from a range of ebook readers without restricting them to one single device.

Google will also allow retailers and book sellers to embed the Google Editions store on their websites in order to sell books.

No details about the revenue sharing model between Google and retailers have emerged.

Dominique Raccah, publisher and owner of Sourcebook, told the Wall Street Journal that: “Google is going to turn every Internet space that talks about a book into a place where you can buy that book. The Google model is going to drive a lot of sales. We think they could get 20% of the e-book market very fast.”

Originally published on ITProPortal.com

Cluster buying online discounting Groupon may attract a bid of $5.3 billion from search giant Google according to sources close to the deal.

Boomtown’s Kara Swisher says that Groupon would be offered more than double the valuation put forward by Vator.TV yesterday.

Swisher’s contacts have confirmed that the deal could be done by the end of the day although nothing is set in stone until the ink has dried on the dotted lines.

At $5.3 billion, Groupon’s purchase would be worth more than Doubleclick and Youtube combined and unlike the latter would bring in significant revenue from day one.

Google is Groupon’s main traffic provider but ironically, Facebook which already has its own Facebook Deals service, does account for around 10 per cent of Groupon’s traffic.

That said, while Groupon’s current situation allows it to command a huge premium should the acquisition go through, some have questioned whether Google wouldn’t just be better off investing the money in its own local based services and reaping the benefits in the long run.

We do however believe that it does make sense for Google to buy Groupon because it would give them a huge lead in location based services ahead of Yahoo or Facebook.

Originally published on ITProPortal.com

Google has announced the release of the latest version of its digital atlas service Google Earth 6.

The company said in a blog post that with the new Google Earth 6 will have a more realistic virtual experience with the new additional features including deeper Street View integration and 3D trees. Users will also be able to easily explore historical imagery.

Google hopes that 3D trees will offer a more realistic experience. Dozens of tree species have been included on the service, ranging from the Japanese Maple to the East African Cordia.

According to the company, full integration with Street View means that users will be able to easily explore a particular area or city simply by zooming down the street.

Google has provided Pegman alongside navigational controls. so that when users see blue highlighted streets, they can drag Pegman to a specific part of the street to zoom to it.

“Once there, you can use the navigation controls or your mouse to look around. And unlike our earlier Street View layer, you can now move seamlessly from one location to another as if you’re walking down the street by using the scroll-wheel on your mouse or the arrow keys on your keyboard,” the company explained.

Originally published on ITProPortal.com

Google is celebrating St Andrew’s day by way of a new tartan-wearing, Scottish flag waving doodle.

St Andrew, who is also the patron saint of Greece, Romania, Russia and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, was one of the disciples of Jesus. He was killed by the Romans in the city of Patras in Greece, who crucified him on a X shaped cross. The cross would later become the Saltire on Scotland’s flag, the Telegraph reports.

Saint Andrew, who was himself a fisherman, is credited for spreading Christianity through out Greece and Asia Minor.

St Andrew’s Day also signals the start of Scottish winter festivals which end in January on Burns Night 25 January.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent a message to the people of Scotland on behalf of US President Barack Obama and the people of USA.

“Scotland’s unique culture and traditions have long been admired around the world, and the special ties between our two nations date back to the founding of the United States,” the message read.

Originally published on ITProPortal.com

The European Commission is to investigate Google, which has been accused of promoting its services over rival ones on its own search listing.

The investigation has been brought about due to complaints made by price comparison website foundem.co.uk, Microsoft shopping site Ciao and French justice search engine ejustice.fr, all of which claim that Google is restricting their ranking online.

Google responded to the accusations by stating:

“Since we started Google we have worked hard to do the right thing by our users and our industry – ensuring that ads are always clearly marked, making it easy for users to take their data with them when they switch services and investing heavily in open source projects. But there’s always going to be room for improvement, and so we’ll be working with the Commission to address any concerns.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, The Commission has said that it will examine whether Google purposely lowered the ranking of its competitors on its unpaid search results in favour of its own services. The EC will also investigate whether the search giant lowered the sponsored search ‘Quality Score’ for competing companies.

The EC was also keen to stress: “This initiation of proceedings does not imply that the Commission has proof of any infringements. It only signifies that the Commission will conduct an in-depth investigation of the case as a matter of priority.”

Originally published on ITProPortal.com

Today’s announcement by the European Commission that it is launching a formal investigation into supposed allegations that Google may be doing some dodgy businesses comes as a sobering reality check into the power that the Internet behemoth wields over our lives.

Google clearly cannot make everybody happy – especially the complainants – and the claims that it has illegally pushed its own services ahead of rivals on its search engine result pages and preventing publishers from striking deals with third party ad brokers can be partially disputed.

It’s interesting to note that one of the complainants, Foundem, said that Google should not be allowed to discriminate in favour of its own services and that Google should clearly label its own services in search results.

The UK-based entity has pushed for the concept of Search Neutrality which advocates that “the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet”.

The issue is that Google runs a for-profit business that works by providing things for free and then charging the providers, not the users. Everything Google does, from Gmail to Youtube, follows this fundamental rule.

In the case of Foundem who said that Google pushed its own price comparison service above anybody else, we couldn’t find any hint of it, at least on Google.co.uk.

A quick search for price comparison sites, websites and a number of other keyword combinations brought up a wide variety of Foundem competitors like Pricerunner, Kelkoo or Moneysupermarket but not Google Shopping.

Google has been tinkering with comparison technology since the beginning of the year and it is only a matter of time before they launch their own comparison service.

When this time comes (and it will come, rest assured), comparison websites will have to take a long hard look at their business outlook and look elsewhere; putting all your eggs in the same basket was never an excellent strategy.

Originally published on ITProPortal.com

Sony and Best Buy have slashed the price for devices running Google TV, weeks after the service was launched to much fanfare.

The platform, which is available through Logitech’s Revue set-top-box and Sony’s Internet TVs, has failed to take off owing to its high price and lack of exclusive content.

The Japanese consumer electronics giant has cut the price of Google TV enabled Blu-Ray player by $100, dropping it to $299. Best Buy is also offering Sony’s Goolge TV enabled devices at the discounted prices. The Logitech Revue, however, is still only available for the full price..

Sony has also reduced the price for its Internet TV line-up that comes embedded with the Google platform. Google TV enabled internet sets are now available for $600 for the 24-inch LCD TV, while the 32-inch and 40-inch models will be available for $800 and $900 respectively. Meanwhile, the 46-inch model is retailing at a huge $1,200. The discounts are to run until 29 November.

Originally published on ITProPortal.com

The Chinese government had carried out strategic cyber attacks against Google and other Western businesses, new documents released by whistleblowing website WikiLeaks reveal.

According to The New York Times, documents released by WikiLeaks showed that the US government had received confirmation from a Chinese informant that Politburo, the governing body behind the Communist Party of China, had directed the well planned and highly sophisticated attack onGoogle and other Western companies.

The leaked documents come in the form top-secret US Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet) cables that were procured and made available by the controversial website.

The New York Times reports that the Google hacking was only one part of a campaign directed by specialist security experts and internet outlaws to attack hired by the Chinese government.

The documents also revealed that China has been mounting cyber attacks against the US government, US businesses and the Dalai Lama since 2002.

Originally published on ITProPortal.com

Google is rumoured to have acquired online discount service Groupon for $2.5 billion.

Vator TV reports that an unnamed source has confirmed that Google is to purchase the service for a whopping $2.5 billion. However, the companies are yet to make a formal announcement on the matter.

Talk of a deal between Google and Groupon was first reported on the 19 November, although it is only now that a deal appears to have been reached.

Groupon, which was founded in 2008, rakes in more than $50 million in revenue every month. An earlier fund raising session valued the company at over $1 billion. The company has over 20 million subscribers and operates in 29 countries.

The deals organisation had reportedly also been approached by Yahoo and eBay for a possible takeover. It was widely expected that eBay was going to be successful after Groupon announced a deal in October with the online auction company, which allowed eBay users to get local deals with the help of Groupon.

Originally published on ITProPortal.com