Google Removes Voice From iTunes App Store Due To Bugs

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If you just decided you need to install Google Voice on your iPhone you will probably be surprised to see that the application is no longer available in the Apple iTunes App Store.

According to Vincent Paquet, Senior Product Manager for Google Voice, the applications has been intentionally pulled because it "had a bug that caused the app to crash at sign in", so it got removed in order "not affect additional users until the fix gets published". The bug seems to affect only some users but if you don't have the app installed you'll have to wait for Google to republish it with the proper fixes.

Source: iTunes (cache)
Via: Engadget

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Google HTC Nexus One Gets Android 2.3.6 Update

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The Google Nexus One managed to stay up-to-date all this time mainly because Mountain View managed to keep its promise and continuously push out refreshes as they were stable. The phone recently got its Android 2.3.6 update.

The Nexus One Android 2.3.6 build is GRK39F and, from the description, it contains "important bug fixes and security patches". What you need to do in order to apply is to download the ROM file from the source link and then go through the update process (you most probably know by now). Let us know if you find anything out of the ordinary in the new ROM.

Source: Google
Via: AndroidCentral

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Google+ iPhone Client Update Turns Huddle Into Messenger and More

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Google's Plus take on social networking is getting really popular among Android users but Mountain View is trying to get iPhone users away from Facebook and onto its own social network. The Google+ client for iOS has been updated with quite a lot of features.

Using the mobile application you can now join Hangouts and what's even better is that Huddle has turned into Messgener, where you can also send pictures now. +1 option on comments has been added and the new version also brings several improvements and bugfixes. Get it from the iTunes link below or check with your application on your iPhone for the update.

Source: iTunes

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Sprint Nexus S 4G Receiving Google Wallet-Enabling Update

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All signs pointed to it coming, and now Google Wallet is here. First Samsung released a software update to the Nexus S 4G on Sprint that brought the app to the Android phone, followed by Google's official announcement of the service's launch.

Nexus S 4G system software GWK74 is on its way to users currently. As well as installing the Google Wallet app, the software includes security updates for your phone. We haven't heard any estimate as to how long it's expected to reach all NS4G owners.

Of course, to make any use of Google Wallet, you'll need to set up a payment method. Right now, the only major credit card you can use directly is a Citi MasterCard, but you can always jump through a few hoops by signing up for a prepaid Google card, then transferring funds from another credit card to Google's. As a bit of a reward for your efforts, Google is starting-off this first wave of users with a free $10 on their prepaid cards.

Have any NS4G users received Wallet yet and had a chance to test the app? You can use Google's Wallet site to find locations where retailers are accepting the transactions. If you have a chance to swing by one on your way home from work, let us know how the experience went.

Source: Samsung, Google
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Google Prepping Developers For ICS Transition; No SDK Yet

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As Android Ice Cream Sandwich seeks to reunite the tablet and handset branches of the Android tree, an influx of Honeycomb apps will have their first opportunities to run on smaller screens. While we're still waiting for the new OS update to arrive, Google is getting Android developers ready for the transition, advising them about how ICS will interpret Honeycomb apps, and what steps they can take to make sure their apps look good, no matter on what size screen they're being viewed.

The good news is that, so long as an app follows standard interface cues, it should make the leap to ICS with little issue. The OS will scale Honeycomb's Action Bar to fit a smartphone's screen, but there are steps developers can take to ensure that their vision remains intact; options include repackaging the app to exclude devices with non-tablet-sized screens, or building multiple versions of the app into one APK to be optimized for displays of varying sizes.

One of the problems, though, is that for now there's no way to see just how ICS will scale apps to smartphone screens. Google hasn't released the SDK for ICS to developers, so for now it can only offer some general tips on preparing for the update, and developers will have to sit on their code until the time comes that they're able to actually test it.

Source: Google
Via: Android and Me

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Verizon Google Nexus Prime Landing On November 3?

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Google Nexus Prime, Samsung Nexus Prime, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, and so on... There are many names to it but in fact it's one device that the Android enthusiasts are eagerly waiting for. The pure Android phone will be allegedly landing at Verizon on November 3.

The information comes in a rather cryptic form: "Fore on the date Bruce Wayne?s true father did die; you shall in fact be able to buy in stores of red and black", tweets Tom Fleming. Well, Bob Kane, the creator of Batman (Bruce Wayne) did die on November 3 and the "red and black" store points to Verizon. Other than that, treat this as another Nexus Prime (or whatever it will be called) rumor.

Source: Twitter
Via: Electronista

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Google Adds Five More Languages To Android Voice Actions

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About an year or so ago, Google introduced Android Voice actions, which allowed users to control actions using their voice. You could call someone, send text messages, browse the web and do other common task using your voice.

Initially available in the U.S., Google now added British English, French, Italian, German and Spanish for the five respective countries. You can make Google searches using your voice or say the following commands: send text to, call, go to , navigate to, directions to, map of, etc. If you are running Android 2.2 Froyo or above, download the Voice Search application from the Android Market and speak to your phone.

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Google Optimizing Android For Intel Chips; First Hardware in 2012

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It seems like Intel's been sitting on the edge of the Android pool for ages now, dangling its feet in the water but never quite getting the nerve to jump on in. We've heard about ports of Android that would be optimized for the company's Atom processors, and manufacturer Aava teases its Intel-powered designs at trade shows year after year, but where's the commercial product? We're not quite there yet, but progress is being made. Intel just showed off some Medfield-based hardware running Gingerbread, and announced along with Google the continuation of the partnership between the companies, now set on seeking out further performance gains for Android running on Intel hardware.

The two companies took the stage at this year's Intel Developer Forum to show off what Intel had been working on. It had a tablet to show off alongside a smartphone, but neither are supposed to represent any actual consumer-bound hardware. For that, we'll have to wait until next year, when the first Intel-based Androids are expected to arrive.

Andy Rubin explained the future of the partnership, announcing that upcoming Android releases will be available with Intel-optimized code. By taking advantage of features Intel's built-in to its silicon, the companies should be able to squeeze out as much performance as possible. We'll have to wait to see just how this hardware will hold up to the standard ARM-based fare.

Source: Intel
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Google Brings Music Beta to iOS Via Web App

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If you're on Android, using Google Music Beta to store your tunes is a bit of a no-brainer. Sure, you might prefer a different media player, but with the service still free, it's hard to pass up the opportunity to also store some songs online through Google, knowing you can easily access them wherever you may be, either from your Android phone or a nearby computer. While thus far it's been an Android-only party, Google is now throwing out the welcome mat for iOS users, with the creation of a web-based streaming player you can access through Safari.

For a web app, Google Music Beta is quite full-featured, supporting background playback, swipe transitions, and all the standard streaming functions, album art, playlists... everything you need to start accessing your music collection from an Apple device. Google hasn't officially closed the door on the possibility of a native iOS app, but it looks like this will be the only option for the near future. You can check it out now on your iPhone at music.google.com.

Source: TechCrunch
Via: IntoMobile

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Google Offers Beta Updated With Five Additional Cities Added

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Google Offers was officially introduced together with Google Wallet at the end of May and, if initially only available in Portland, the Bay Area and New York City, it is now expanding to add five more cities to the list. The offering brings you deals based on your location that might be of your interest.

Austin, Boston, D.C., Denver and Seattle are now supported by Google Offers Beta and if you are on the hunt for deals, you can have them on your Android phone if you are using the Google Shopper application. You can find everything of your interest nearby on the Today's Offer tab, given you are situated in one of the supported regions mentioned above.

Source: Google Commerce Blog
Via: MobileBurn

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Google+ iPhone Client Updated With Added Reshare Option

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The official Google+ client for iPhone has been launched on July 20 for those of you who are mixing the Apple platform and its phone with Google's social network. An update is now available for the application which you can download for free in the iTunes App Store.

The new version of Google+ for iPhone will allow you to "reshare" cool stuff on the network. In addition to this new feature, the application refresh also brings a couple of bug fixes as well as performance enhancements to the table. Follow the source link, check with your computer's iTunes or your iPhone's AppStore for an available update in order to install.

Source: iTunes
Via: MobileBurn

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Google And NASA Put Smartphones In Space (Video)

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Have you ever seen someone else so hard at work on their smartphone that it makes you feel a little embarrassed to be using yours mostly for Angry Birds and YouTube? One of the latest projects we've seen for Android devices is enough to make even us feel like smartphone underachievers, where Nexus S handsets were taken on-board the final Space Shuttle mission for use interfacing with space-bound robots.

A pair of Nexus S phones were hooked up to some MIT-designed SPHERES robotic satellites. The Androids used a WiFi connection to the Shuttle to communicate with astronauts and report on sensor data (not like there was any hope of finding a 3G signal).

Why the Nexus S for this project, or even a smartphone in general? Turns out, it's for some of the same reasons we enjoy them, like relatively high performance compared to their power consumption. The Nexus S in particular was singled-out for being easy to take apart ? something we don't usually consider when evaluating a smartphone, but NASA has its own priorities. Beyond that, Android was identified as a platform NASA's scientists felt was easy to develop code for.

If you're curious to see the sort of apps were used on these heavenly Nexus S models, the Sensor Data Logger, at least, is available in the Android Market.

Source: Google
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Google Voice Android App Gets Bugfixes, Improved Offline Support

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It's been a couple months since Google last released an update to its Google Voice app for Android. That last one was pretty darn minor, with the most notable change being some more ecological power management. Google's back with a new update to the software, this time actually fixing some annoying bugs.

If you've tried Google Voice out, you've probably noticed some odd behavior when trying to play back voicemails you've received, where the message would stop running shortly after you began listening, requiring you to hit "play" a second time. With Google Voice 0.4.2.34, voicemail playback will now work as planned, no longer requiring that second tap.

Unlike a traditional VoIP app, Google Voice uses normal voice services to connect you, after routing you to an access number to initiate the call. In the past, the app would negotiate this setup with its servers each time you wanted to dial. Now, you'll no longer need an active data connection each and every time you want to call someone ? only that very first time.

There's also a fix for an issue that would delay Android notifications from showing up on time, and new warning messages advising if the phone has no data connection when you go to write a text message. Look for the updated app in the Android Market today.

Source: Google
Via: Android Police

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YouTube embraces Google+ Hangouts for live streaming

YouTube is closely integrating Google’s Hangouts group video chat platform with its live streaming in an effort to make video watching more social. The site has already quietly begun to make live video feeds available to Hangouts users, and will eventually add tools to improve discovery of live streams both within Hangouts and on YouTube.com, I was told by YouTube Live Product Manager Brandon Badger this week.

Hangouts has been joined at the hip with YouTube ever since the chat platform launched as part of Google+ at the end of June. Hangouts users can launch YouTube videos right from within the group video chat, and up to ten participants can watch the same video simultaneously.

How to watch YouTube Live in Hangouts:Start a Hangouts session in Google+ and invite your contacts to join you.In a separate browser tab, head over to YouTube.com/Live and select a live stream of your choiceCopy the YouTube video I.D. of the selected live stream. Not sure how to find it? Just click on the share link below the video. You’ll get to see a link like http://youtu.be/XXXXXXXX – the cryptic code after the slash is the video I.D.Switch back to hangouts, open the video tab and search for the I.D.Click play, and you’re all set.

So far, only recorded videos have been featured within Hangouts, but Badger is going to officially reveal at Vidcon in Los Angeles Saturday afternoon that users can easily watch live streams together as well (check out a step-by-step guide in the box on the right if you want to try this yourself).

The current method of manually searching for live video feeds is somewhat cumbersome, but YouTube is actively working on a much closer integration. Soon, it will feature ongoing live streams within the YouTube tab of Hangouts. The next step after that will be to directly integrate Hangouts into YouTube pages for live streams. “We would show you some of the available public Hangouts,” Badger told me during a phone conversation, adding that these Hangouts would be featured right next to a live stream.

A final component will be personalization: Imagine you’re going to watch a soccer game live on YouTube.com, and you can immediately see which of your friends have joined up in a Hangout to watch the same game. Badger couldn’t give me any time line for the integration of these features, but he assured me: “It’s something we’ve been working on.”

Live streaming providers have long experimented with audience participation, and a number of platforms now offer integration of Facebook and Twitter live feeds during events that are broadcasted live online. YouTube has in the past experimented with this as well, and Badger said live streams regularly provoke more commenting than prerecorded YouTube videos.

The face-to-face interaction of Hangouts takes this type of interaction one step further. Users are able to talk to each other in real time while watching a sports game, a concert or a newscast, much as if they were sitting on the couch together. The limited nature of Hangouts — only ten users can chat with each other at a given time — also adds a sense of intimacy that’s lacking from a Twitter or Facebook feed.

However, the ten-person-limit has also been a point of contention, especially around popular Hangouts. Some users have already taken matters into their own hands to circumvent the limit. When musician Daria Musk had her first Hangouts concert two weeks ago, users simply daisy-chained multiple Hangouts to offer more than ten people to join in on the fun.

Musk’s second concert was streamed live on Hangoutparty.com, a site that has since been offering live screencasts of other Hangouts as well. Badger didn’t have any specifics to share about similar options offered by YouTube itself, but he said his team is certainly aware of the phenomenon: “We have definitely seen lot of demand to live stream Hangouts.”

Image courtesy of Flickr user kevindooley.

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How Google Maps is changing the face of data

Already incredibly useful for helping us get directions, find the nearest grocery store and find out our state capital, Google Maps is now becoming the hot way to display enterprise or organizational data that’s associated with particular places. As a data visualization method, the timing of this trend isn’t surprising. The concept of big data has opened organizations’ eyes to the value of their myriad data sources — many of which are tagged with geo-location information — and now is opening up new ways to process and display that data.

IBM’s Jeff Jonas described the importance of geospatial data at our Structure: Data conference in March, calling it “prediction super-food.” You can watch the video below to get the full (and rather entertaining) explanation, but here’s a summation: geospatial, or space-time, data adds context to the information we already have, allowing us to make better decisions. Using a puzzle analogy, lots of data without context is like a pile of puzzle pieces, but lots of data with context is like those same puzzle pieces coming together to complete the picture.

Geospatial adds an incredible amount of context. It allows for complex tasks such as tracking of people as they go about their business to help determine who’s connected to whom, or predicting where someone might go next and what’s the best route to get there. If we’re talking about a spreading disease, Jonas explained, geospatial data helps us determine its vector and velocity.

This is where Google Maps comes in, because it presents an intuitive way to visualize and consume that data. You’re not just looking at times, places and other information in text form, but you’re seeing it in relation to time and space.

Last week, for example, I covered the aptly named Space-Time Insight, whose product overlays real-time data atop Google Maps (among other interfaces). It lets customers visualize what’s happening and then act accordingly based on whatever their needs happen to be. California ISO, for example, uses Space-Time to see where wildfires are burning and determine where they’ll travel next, as well as to monitor energy prices and conditions in numerous locations and adjust the grid supply accordingly.

Wednesday, SAP announced a similar partnership with Google that lets SAP applications overlay their data on Google Maps. To demonstrate the breadth of possibilities for data-plus-maps mashups, SAP suggested a handful of possible scenarios:

A telecom operator could use Google Earth and SAP BusinessObjects Explorer software to perform dropped-call analysis and pinpoint the geo-coordinates of faulty towers.A state department of revenue could overlay household tax information on a map of the state and group it at the county level to track the highest and lowest tax bases.A mortgage bank could perform risk assessment of its mortgage portfolio by overlaying foreclosure and default data with the location of loans on Google Maps.With SAP StreamWork, a team of customer support representatives in a consumer packaged goods company could collaborate and pinpoint the location of consumer complaints within specific geographies and make a decision regarding how to address and prioritize resolutions.A theme park operator could use the Google Maps API Premier and get real-time traffic information on attractions with SAP BusinessObjects solutions to send rerouting messages to customers in order to improve satisfaction rates.U.S. census data could be overlaid on a Google map of the country, grouped by state and drilled down on at the county level.

Something tells me we’re only getting started when it comes to fusing big data, advanced analytics and next-generation displays. The truth is that we’re still a long way from mastering the capture and analysis of big data streams, which arguably are necessary steps before tackling the visualization issue. It’s difficult to even imagine how we — or our machines — will be consuming data 10 years from now considering how far we’ve come in the past few years. But we’re off to a very good start.

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Google TV price slashed to $99 as Logitech stumbles

Logitech told investors this week that it is preparing to slash the price of its Revue Google TV set-top box to just $99, down from $249. The price cut is meant to “remove price as barrier to broad consumer acceptance,” it stated in its investor slides. (PDF)

In other words: The Revue just didn’t sell. At all. “Sales of Logitech Revue were slightly negative during the quarter, as returns of the product were higher than the very modest sales,” the company stated in its prepared remarks. (PDF) And it’s not like Revue sold well before: Logitech made just $5 million from Revue sales in the previous quarter.

The price cut will mean that consumers will be able to buy Google TV units below cost, something Logitech has accounted for with a hefty $34 million one-time charge. The company now hopes Revue sales will finally pick up once Google releases the next version of its Google TV platform later this summer, which will bring access to the Android Market and other improvements. It then wants to sell more accessories to Google TV owners, which kind of sounds like what then-CEO Gerald Quindlen told me about Logitech’s original strategy when Google TV was officially unveiled a year ago.

Speaking of Quindlen: The big proponent of Google TV stepped down after the company released its earnings this week, with Logitech Chairman Guerrino De Luca stepping in as the acting CEO. Quindlen’s resignation was also prompted by disappointing revenue from Logitech’s core and European business, which resulted in a net loss of $30 million for its first quarter of fiscal 2012.

It may be too early to forecast the future of Google TV from these stumbles, as a number of major CE makers are expected to adopt the platform once the next iteration is available. However, it sure looks like Logitech bit off more than it could chew by embracing the platform early on.

Check out this interview with Quindlen during happier days:

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Google+: Fighting it is futile [Video]

Google+ is the talk of the (tech) town. It is on everyone’s lips even though not everyone has access to it. And despite Google’s stingy invite policies apparently 20 million have signed up. Google+ is drawing enough attention that Facebook backer Peter Thiel’s Founder’s Fund might post a thesis titled, We wanted flying cars and we ended up with + to their website. Folks from Epipheo have created this awesome tongue-in-cheek video to explain what is Google+ and why eventually we will all end up using it. Enjoy!

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Why Google’s screwup on Google+ brand pages is a big deal

There’s been a lot of sound and fury about the way Google has approached branded (i.e., non-personal) pages on its new Google+ social network. Much of it is a symptom of internecine warfare among the big tech blogs, some of whom waited to launch branded pages and got sandbagged by what they say is the web giant’s flip-flopping. But there is a serious issue underneath the griping, which is that Google can make or break a company’s presence online by virtue of its control over the web-search market — something Google+ is almost certain to become an integral part of.

When Google first launched its new social platform a couple of weeks ago, a number of media brands — including Sesame Street and the tech blog Mashable — rushed to set up pages on the network as a way of staking their claim, in the same way that many have set up what used to be called Facebook “fan” pages. But while Facebook allows corporate entities to have a presence on its network, Google said that it wasn’t ready for branded pages just yet. Instead, it asked most companies to wait, and said it would be rolling them out over the next couple of months after a trial with a few select entities such as Ford.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, some companies didn’t feel like waiting, or taking down the pages they already had, so they just left them there. This caused a lot of confusion about what Google’s strategy was going to be exactly — would it grandfather the pages that already existed, or would it simply nuke them and force those companies to create new pages and build up their follower base from scratch again?

The confusion was compounded when Google started deleting branded or non-personal pages this week: some pages, including the page belonging to Mashable, remained in place while others vanished. Then the blog executed a clever trick by changing the name of its page to the name of founder and CEO Pete Cashmore — something that allowed it to retain all of its followers. This sent competitor TechCrunch into a frenzy of outrage, and caused Google-watcher Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land to write an open letter about the ill will caused by its Google+ screwup (TechCrunch’s fake personal page has already been deleted).

This may all seem a little like the cool kids fighting over who gets the parking spot closest to the door of the high school, but there is a serious issue at the center of the dispute, which TechCrunch writer MG Siegler hinted at in his post — and that is Google’s ability to create what amounts to a “suggested user list” for companies on its new social network. The SUL was something that Twitter created early on as a way of trying to help new users find accounts to follow, but it caused a lot of controversy because it led to some users getting millions of followers very quickly.

A list of preferred accounts may not have seemed like a big deal when Twitter was just a tiny plaything for nerds, but it became a big benefit when the network grew to become a significant distribution platform for news and other content. The issue for brands is that Google+ could recreate that problem — or opportunity — in spades, because in just a few weeks it has already become so massive.

Depending on how you measure it, the speed at which Google+ has grown dwarfs just about any other social network, including Facebook and Twitter, and that’s because Google has been able to unleash a giant, built-in promotional engine via its various services such as Gmail, Picasa and so on. Integration with email was undoubtedly a huge launchpad, and the toolbar that appears at the top of Google pages when users are signed in, directing them to their Google+ feed, keeps the engagement levels high.

image via Leon Haland

With 20 million users or so already, Google has gone from zero to being a potential strong contender in the social networking game. But it’s not just the size of the network that’s important — it’s how the activity on those Google+ pages get interpreted by Google search, and how that affects page rank and all the other parts of the company’s black-box algorithms. It’s not clear how much the social signals coming from Google+ will be integrated, but there is no question that doing this was a big driver behind the company’s interest in doing social at all.

In other words, Google’s missteps or tweaking of Google+ features aren’t just of interest to a few tech-obsessed social-networking nerds. Could the way it has handled corporate pages even become an issue in the FTC inquiry into the company’s monopolistic and/or anti-competitive behavior? Possibly. But make no mistake — while some may see Google+ as just another copycat social network, it has the potential to affect the bread and butter of companies that do business online, and that is not a trivial issue.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user Mark Strozier and Leon Haland

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Mr. Schmidt goes to Washington: Google lobbying hits new high

When most people think about Google and Facebook, they think about California’s Silicon Valley. But according to newly filed disclosure documents, the tech industry’s titans are spending more and more time — and money — making their voices heard in Washington, D.C.

Google spent a whopping $2.06 million on lobbying efforts in the second quarter of 2011, according to documents filed this week per the US Senate’s Lobbying Disclosure Act. The search engine giant spent $1.48 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2011. The company seems on track to clearly outspend its 2010 lobbying budget: Google spent a total of $5.2 million on lobbying efforts last year.

According to the documents, Google’s Q2 2011 lobbying funds were focused on such issues as international tax reform, international freedom of expression and censorship, renewable energy policies, and an H.R. 399 bill titled “Stopping Trained in America Ph.D.s From Leaving the Economy Act of 2011,” to name just a few.

This most recent quarter represents the first time Google has outspent Microsoft in formal lobbying. Microsoft spent $1.85 million on lobbying efforts in Q2 2011, up from the $1.72 million it spent during the first quarter of 2011.

Google’s increasing influence in Washington is setting off alarm bells for some policy watchers. California-based public interest group Consumer Watchdog is calling for Google chairman Eric Schmidt to register formally as a lobbyist, since he personally is spending increasing amounts of time working in government relations.

“Schmidt could well have reached the threshold requiring registration as a lobbyist; he is clearly trying to influence policy,” said Consumer Watchdog director John Simpson in a press release issued Thursday. “It certainly should be checked out.”

The scrutiny is not stopping relative newcomers to the tech industry’s big leagues from trying to have their own say in Washington. Facebook spent $320,000 during Q2, according to regulatory documents filed this week, nearly the same amount that it spent over the entire course of 2010. Facebook has spent $550,000 on lobbying so far this year on such issues as the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, the Location Privacy Protection Act of 2011, and an initiative billed as “discussing House, Senate, and Government rules to allow more Government and Congressional offices to access social media and to use social media to engage with citizens.”

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Is Google becoming more mature — but less interesting?

Ever since co-founder Larry Page took over as CEO from Eric Schmidt in January, Google has been getting a lot more, well… businesslike. It has been closing down or winding up a variety of projects and experiments, including Google Health and Google PowerMeter, and now it has announced that it is closing the door on its entire Google Labs venture. Some features will be folded into existing products, but many may simply disappear altogether. While this may be an admirable sign of maturity, it could also make the Google culture less experimental — and therefore also less interesting, and ultimately less successful.

In his first major address as the new CEO of the company last week, discussing Google’s latest earnings results, Page described how he has been trying to get the web giant to focus on a smaller number of product groups and lines of business (his remarks were also simultaneously published as a Google+ post). The Google co-founder said that management had already done “substantial internal work simplifying and streamlining our product lines” because the company needs to put “more wood behind fewer arrows.” Later in his presentation, he added:

It is easy to focus on things we do that are speculative (e.g., driverless cars) but we spend the vast majority of our resources on the core products. We may have a few small speculative projects happening at any given time, but we’re very careful stewards of shareholder money — we’re not betting the farm on this stuff.

Why does Larry Page, all of a sudden sound like your average MBA from Stanford? Could this new note of caution be a signal to investors that Page isn’t some Rollerblading airhead who is going to plunge Google into hot water in his pursuit of web-powered pipe dreams? Eric Schmidt’s presence as CEO used to be seen by some financial observers as a benefit because he provided the “adult supervision” that the company theoretically needed. Could Page be trying to soothe those fears?

Another possibility, of course, is that Google has begun to realize that Facebook and Twitter have been eating large portions of its lunch — or what should be its lunch — by taking over the social aspect of the web, features that are becoming more and more important as a signal of user intent, and therefore a crucial part of what advertisers are looking at. All of that chips away at Google’s core business of search-related ads, and explains why the company was so eager to launch Google+, and why Larry Page recently made success in social a key factor in Google’s compensation scheme.

In any case, there’s no question that Page has been trimming down the number of arrows that the company is focusing on — but will he also smother the experimental and risk-taking atmosphere that Google has become known for over the years? Getting businesslike and focusing on product lines is all well and good, but changing a corporate culture in that way can have unforeseen consequences. Projects like Google Health and PowerMeter may not have met business criteria, but they were symbols of what Google wanted to be — namely, a better kind of company, one not solely concerned with the bottom line.

There have been a number of articles written by ex-Googlers about how complacent and even bureaucratic the company has become — a company that was once the poster child for the Silicon Valley startup scene, with its gourmet cafeterias and Segway transporters, its foosball tables and free daycare. Not only that, but Google was the famous pioneer of “20-percent time,” which allowed employees to follow their programming dreams and gave birth to such products as Gmail. Even 20-percent time has been scaled back.

Obviously, a company with more than 28,000 employees can’t retain a startup culture forever, and the pressure of being a publicly-traded company puts even more emphasis on hitting the kinds of financial benchmarks that Page mentioned in his earnings presentation. And it’s true that Facebook and Twitter are becoming a threat to Google’s core businesses, as we have mentioned a number of times at GigaOM — so it’s good to see the company finally concentrate on putting out a half-decent product like Google+.

At the same time, however, while those experimental projects and features like Google Body and Google Transliteration may not have made business sense, who knows what products or enhancements they might have led to? Even the late, unlamented Google Wave produced some handy features that got folded into Gmail and Google Docs. Focusing on business principles is all well and good, but Page needs to be careful that he doesn’t win the battle for focus and lose the war for the future.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user Stefan and Wikimedia Commons

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