Google Now

The amazing concept of another Google project... Google Now.

The implications, again, are quite literally incredible. Anyone else feel we are living on the dawn of a new age? It is if the birth of the Internet and Mobile Phones were big game changers but since then nothing much has happened... but now we are on the verge of some major changes.

Corporate Culture - What are the perks of the Googleplex: working at Google?

Google have often been cited as on one of the world’s best employers. They look after their employees and create a stimulating and exciting environment to work in.

Well one of the first things is that the food in the cafeterias is free. Yes free. But they counteract that with gyms and swimming pools so you can work off those donuts.

For the musicians among the staff, Google went one further than allowing employees to bring in their guitars. They built a state of the art music studio for use by employees to help de-stress themselves!

Google have plenty of sports and entertainments  for the employees including: table tennis, foosball, a climbing wall, and video games for those who like to sit for a bit.

They also have a medical facility where you can make an appointment with the doctor, and you can have a massage at the Googleplex if feeling stressed.

A free laundry service is provided as is free haircuts and if you can’t get a space in the underground car park, there is a free valet service to help!

Google do have a day care service (which isn’t free but subsidised) called the Kinderplex, so family needs are met there also.

Every year they take their employees on reward trips such as skiing or going to the casinos in Vegas! They also get a holiday bonus and a holiday gift (normally a new phone!).

Every Friday is TGIF day and here the two founders, Larry Page and Sergei Brin are joined at an All Hands meeting where people can ask them anything.

Finally, Google have what is called the 20% programme. This is when they let employees work on projects that they want to do and are interested in. This could be an entire day a week, but Google have benefited from this creativity in many key projects, one such example was the birth of Gmail.

So as you can see Google are certainly not your average employee, but then again with the advertising revenue they bring in they can afford not to be ordinary.

Google's Top 10 Searches in UK for 2012

TOP UK SEARCHES FOR 2012

1.Euro 2012

2.Olympic tickets

3.Whitney Houston

4.Kate Middleton

5.April Jones

6.Netflix

7.NatWest Online

8.iPad 3

9.Gary Barlow

10.Gangnam style

Possibly the only surprise is that The Olympics wasn’t at number one?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20677541

ICT in Business - Cars without a driver heading for California!

Oh how it seemed like the future... a car with no driver. That was the premise behind Knight Rider, the old TV show which had KITT the car that could drive itself. Now however, fact looks like following fiction.

A new bill to bring driverless cars to roads in California has been signed. State governor Jerry Brown backed legislation on Tuesday, and said: "Today we're looking at science-fiction becoming tomorrow's reality".

The bill was signed at the headquarters of Google, which has been testing a fleet of 12 autonomous computer-controlled vehicles for several years, which some may have seen on Stephen Hawking's New World TV show.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin said self-driving cars would be "far safer" than those driven by humans.

Other major car manufacturers, including Audi, Ford and Volvo also have their own driverless car programmes!

How quickly they will become a mass market product and reach UK shores, who knows? But a driverless car that perhaps in future could be electric or run on solar power would transform the world as we know it.

In the News...

ARCADIA IN TROUBLE

Arcadia, the owner of Top Shop and BhS, reported a 38% fall in annual profits to £133m and says it expects to close up to 260 stores in the next few years.

Arcadia boss Sir Philip Green told the BBC the closures would come as store leases came up for renewal.

It also reported same-store UK sales down by 1.8%.

The group, which owns Burton, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge, said it expected heavy discounts on the high street this Christmas.

DIXONS LOOK TO DIFFERENTIATE ON CUSTOMER SERVICE

The electrical goods firm Dixons Retail says its focus on improving service is marking it out from its competitors.

First-half losses before tax and one-off items at the group, which owns Currys and PC World, widened to £25.3m loss from £6.9m the year before.

But the fall in same-store sales slowed from 7% in the first three months to 3% in the second quarter.

Dixon's chief executive said that the company's better service strategy was bringing gains in market share.

US RETAILERS HOPE FOR AN AFTER THANKSGIVING BOOM

US retailers hope hordes of bargain-hunters can lift the economic gloom as the holiday shopping season begins.

After polishing off Thanksgiving turkeys, millions of Americans will head to the shops on Friday for the busiest shopping day of the year.

Black Friday - so-called as it is when many retailers head out of the red and into the black - sees many stores open at midnight, or even earlier this year.

Half of the entire US population is expected to hit the shops this weekend.

The National Retail Federation (NRF) said 152 million people would visit stores in search of bargains this weekend, up 10% from last year.

Consumer spending accounts for about 70% of US economic activity.

BIG US MERGER WITHDRAWN

US telecoms giant AT&T and Deutsche Telekom have cast doubt over the $39bn (£25bn) sale of T-Mobile USA by withdrawing their merger application to the industry regulator.

AT&T also said it would include a $4bn charge in its fourth-quarter accounts to cover any potential compensation due if the deal does not go ahead.

The US Justice Department moved to block the sale at the end of August.

The two firms said they would focus on clearing the deal with the government.

GOOGLE AXING PRODUCTS

Google has announced that it is dropping seven more products in an effort to simplify its range of services.

The out-of-season "spring clean" brings an end to services including Google Wave, Knol and Google Gears.

It is the third time that the US firm has announced a cull of several of its products at the same time after they had failed to take off.

Experts said the strategy might put off users from signing up to new services.

Bill Gates v Google

Everyone knows how Google has become the generic name for internet searching but now Microsoft want to take them on.

Apparently 70% of net users search via Google but the Seattle based firm are launching their own websearch engine called Bing! It is simply at www.bing.com

It is not fully operational yet but it will be interesting to see if it can eat into Google's high market share.

Ask.com resorted back to Ask Jeeves to help rebrand themselves, and Yahoo and Lycos are no longer the forces they once were in the early days of the net.

Can Google withstand this latest attack?