Google, Mobile | featured news

Alibaba seeks to weaken Google's dominance of the Chinese smartphone market with subsidies and other support for its rival Amos operating system. The firm has set up a one billion yuan ($162m; £105m) programme to support app developers and is offering monthly payments to handset makers for every phone using its platform they sell.

Microsoft, Oracle, Kayak and other technology and search companies in the FairSearch.org coalition have filed a complaint with the European Union over Google’s Android mobile operating system, saying that the platform gives the tech giant an unfair advantage in mobile search.

After last years' talk of Facebook wanting to acquire WhatsApp, a new report states that Google is interested in buying the popular messenger service. According to DigitalTrends, which is quoting inside sources, WhatsApp is in the negotiating phase over prices with Google. The report states that the deal started four or five weeks ago and adds that WhatsApp is “playing hardball” and jockeying for a higher acquisition price, which currently is “close to” $1 billion right now.

Introducing the note pad Google Keep, a combination Web site and app for Android phones. Wait, that sounds like Evernote.

Apple Inc marketing chief Phil Schiller attacked Google Inc's "fragmented" Android software and its biggest adopter, Samsung Electronics, a day before the Korean firm takes the wraps off its latest flagship smartphone in the United States.

Android lead Andy Rubin will step down from his position, handing over the reins of Google’s mobile operating system to Chrome lead Sundar Pichai. Google chief executive Larry Page broke the news Wednesday in a post on the company’s official blog, saying that Rubin felt the time had come to move on — albeit within the company.

Google says it's cutting an additional 1,200 jobs in its Motorola division as the unprofitable cellphone maker struggles to compete.

Google’s short-term goals for its Motorola smartphone division are two-fold: clear the rubble on the runway and build for the future. 

Google is giving a few more people a chance to pay $1,500 for a pair of the Internet-connected glasses that the company is touting as the next breakthrough in mobile computing.

Google's stock price topped $800 for the first time Monday amid renewed confidence in the company's ability to reap steadily higher profits from its dominance of Internet search and prominence in the increasingly important mobile device market.