Google launches beer

Every day that the Earth keeps turning, Google tries to persuade us that it is increasingly sophisticated.

What better way to express that sophistication than to create a beer?

I fizz with delight to inform you that the Googlies have entered into a partnership with the Dogfish Head brewery that has produced a beer called URKontinent.

For myself, I cannot help staring at that name and wondering whether it represents the opposite thought to URInkontinent--which occurs occasionally after a few too many inferior pints.

However, given the involvement of Dogfish Head, this beer will surely at least be of a superior quality. Its Web site offers that it is brewed in the style of a Belgian Dubbel, which is presumably twice as strong as a Belgian single. Or perhaps it is merely a nod to the idea that Belgians are two peoples stuffed into one little country.

URKontinent is an expression of what Googlies would like to see in a beer. According to the finely flowing video I have embedded, Google and Dogfish Head have very similar philosophies. Yes, they slam that product out there and wait for the data to come barreling in.

The ideas for the beer's ingredients came from all over the world. Yes, even wattleseed from Australia and green rooibos from Africa. All of these ideas came in, naturally, through Google Moderator. Although one apparently was rejected on the grounds that it can induce severe vomiting.

This would be contrasted with the relatively controlled vomiting that can be induced by, say, excess of hops from your average American beer.

Google's Adam Lutz, who coordinated the project, did concede that his main function was "Staying the hell out of the way." However, the company managed to get one of its own ingredients into the beer: honey from the Hive Plex. You didn't know there was a Hive Plex? Of course there's a Hive Plex. 

The beer--a limited edition--won't be available for a while, but the Huffington Post reports that this week's Great American Beer Festival in Denver may be graced by URKontinent.

Legend has it that Urkontinent was the original supercontinent. One can only imagine that this brew will be a highly original superbeer that everyone will want to download--"Beer without the fluff," as one brewer describes it.

And, yes, of course the video shows how the initial tasting for the beer was carried out via a Google+ Hangout. This is advertising, people.

Updated 9:43 a.m. Saturday: Google wants to make it very clear that it isn't making any money out of this foray into inebriation. A spokesman told me: "We encourage our employees to pursue their interests--whether they are training for a marathon, inviting their favorite author to speak, or creating the perfect cafe latte. Similarly, the project with Dogfish Head brewery was a Googler-driven project organized by a group of craft brewery aficionados across the company. While our Googlers had fun advising on the creation of a beer recipe, we aren't receiving any proceeds from the sale of the beer and we have no plans to enter the beer business." Such a pity. 

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Google's first store pops up in London

Chromezone: a customer is introduced to the Chromebook 

in London

It is the ultimate brand of the internet era. But today Google embraces a more traditional form of retail technology for the first time in its short history.

The world's first "Google store" opened not in California but in the less glamorous setting of PC World in Tottenham Court Road at 9am.

The 285sqft pop-up "shop within a shop", which only sells Google's Chromebook laptop and a few accessories such as headphones, will run for three months up to Christmas.

But if the low-key experiment is successful Google could follow its great rival Apple in opening permanent stores around the world.

Unlike the hugely hyped launch of the first Apple Store in Regent Street, very few customers were even aware of the Google shop - officially known as "the Chromezone" - and there were certainly no queues round the block.

Arvind Desikan, head of consumer marketing at Google UK, said: "It is our first foray into physical retail. This is a new channel for us and it's still very, very early days. It's something Google is going to play with and see where it leads."

He said the company's research had shown that 80 per cent of laptop sales are through shops.

He added: "We found anecdotally that when people tried the device and played with it, that made a huge difference to their understanding of what the Chromebook is all about. People will be able to go in and have a play with the devices. We want to see whether people understand what this device is all about and monitor their reaction when they try it out."

To date the Samsung-made Chromebook, which costs £349 for the wi-fi only version and £399 for wi-fi and 3G, has only been available in the UK online from Amazon and PC World.

A second pop-up store will open at Lakeside shopping centre in Essex on October 7 and more pilot shops are planned around the world in the coming months. A spokeswoman said: "We've put a lot of effort into making it feel welcoming, homely and, dare I say it, 'Googley'."

The store is the latest stage in Google's accelerating colonisation of London, where it now employs about 1,500 people.

As well as two large offices close to Victoria station, the company behind gmail, Google Earth and Google Street View has signed a deal to take 160,000sqft of space in the Central St Giles development in Midtown.

Google has also signed a lease for a seven-floor building in east London, where it will "incubate" new London based technology start-ups, as part of a government-backed expansion of the "Silicon Roundabout" area.

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Google buys German bargain website

Google has bought German local bargain website DailyDeal as the internet titan seeks to expand its own local deals program to users outside the United States.

"As more and more people go online to find the latest, most relevant deals, we're exploring new ways to help consumers get the best local deals out there," a Google spokeswoman said in an email response to an AFP inquiry.

"The DailyDeal team has an incredible track record in this space, and we look forward to working with them," she said.

Google currently offers local bargains in a number of US cities, a program called Google Offers, and the DailyDeal acquisition comes just days after Google announced it has bought restaurant review guide Zagat.

DailyDeal was a two-person operation when it was founded in Berlin in December 2009. The startup boasts seeing "tremendous growth."

People throughout Germany, Austria and Switzerland have used DailyDeal to find local deals on restaurants, travel, entertainment and shopping, according to the startup's website.
"We see great opportunity to better connect businesses with consumers on a much larger scale, and we have found a team that shares our vision," the DailyDeal team said in an online post announcing it was bought by Google.

"By combining our expertise with the Offers team at Google, we hope to expand our efforts to provide even greater deals to consumers," DailyDeal added.

Google expanded Google Offers to five more cities earlier this month in a challenge to online deals giants Groupon and LivingSocial.

Google said it had begun offering the deals from local businesses in Austin, Texas, Boston, Denver, Seattle, and the nation's capital, Washington.

Google launched a test of Google Offers in Portland, Oregon, in June and expanded it to San Francisco and New York a month later.

 

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Baidu really is China’s Google: Search engine develops a mobile phone OS

 

 

Chinese company Baidu is often referred to as the Google of China. The company operates the largest search engine in China… and now Baidu is getting ready to take another Google-like step. Baidu is preparing to launch a smartphone operating system called Baidu Yi.

Right now the Baidu Yi experience is actually built on top of Google Android software, but future versions could be built from the ground up.

As you’d expect from a smartphone experience designed by a search company, the Baidu Yi phones show a search box prominently. In fact, the search box appears and allows users to search the web even before all the other portions of the operating system have fully loaded.

Baidu Yi also offers users up to 180GB of online storage space for email, photos, contacts, and other data, allowing the OS to run on mobile devices that may not have much local storage.

Baidu isn’t the first Chinese company to announce a mobile operating system with a cloud-based focus. Internet commerce site Alibaba recently introduced Aliyun OS, an operating system designed to run mobile web apps rather than native apps. Like Baidu Yi, Aliyun OS is based on Google Android, but it’s been modified to offer a very different user experience.

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