Google expands Chromebook school programme in India

Hyderabad: Google is expanding to India an initiative to popularise the use of its Chromebook laptops in schools, starting with a pilot in four schools in Andhra Pradesh.

The internet search company that makes the world's most popular software for smartphones and tablets will initially make available 25 Chromebooks to each school and train the teachers and instructors in the use of the required software applications.

"The school instructors will teach core subjects using applications and software. We believe with interactive learning, the student will understand better and will take interest in the subjects," Ponnala Lakshmaiah, the state's minister for information technology, said.

Chromebooks require an internet connection to use, and most of the data, such as files that users work on, are stored on Google's storage network connected to the internet. Earlier this month, Samsung released a Chromebook model specifically for the Indian market. Schools are among the most popular market segments for the Chromebooks.

Google is running this programme in some 3,000 schools in the US, Singapore and Malaysia, a Google executive with direct knowledge of the plan to expand it to India told ET. The executive requested not to be named as Google was yet to announce the plan.

"Google aims to increase access to information and knowledge for all students, and encourages tools that support effective teaching and learning in the classroom, but we have nothing to announce at this time," a company spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.

The pilot project, in collaboration with Andhra Pradesh department of information technology, will start next month, a senior government official said. It will be launched in three government schools and one private school in Jangaon in Warangal district.

After the pilot, which benefits students of grades nine and 10, discussions are on to expand the programme statewide, the government official said.

The state's IT department will provide the schools with Wi-Fi internet connectivity with 1 Mbps speed and power backups for unhindered use. Each school will be assigned dedicated mentors who would train the teachers and instructors, the official said.

Training will include using the Google Apps Training Center, an online learning environment that offers six modules including Google Apps Education Edition, Apps Mail, Calendar, Docs, Sites, and other tools

Google India unveils search format for ads

Bangalore: Google India on Tuesday unveiled a new format for media advertisements to target, pay for and experience video ads on its Web search engine.

“The new ads format is designed to ensure users find the information they are looking for and enable advertisers to reach potential customers with the right information,” Google India sales head, Mr Praveen Sharma, said in a statement here.

As a standalone format designed to put video ads front and centre, the search target is automated.

“The format is launched with Star TV campaign built around its new channel Life OK. The media and entertainment category search volumes have shown phenomenal growth. In the last two years, the query volumes have grown at 125 per cent year-on-year,” Mr Sharma said.

“Our research has shown that a substantial number of users are looking to watch the movie trailer or TV show clips on the search results page, which translates into a high response rate for this ad format,” Mr Sharma noted.

Apple and Google dominate smartphone space while others scramble

Google’s Android platform and Apple’s iOS dominated the U.S. smartphone space in 2011 while a number of companies that helped shape the market as we know it were forced to reboot. Market research firm The NPD Group on Tuesday issued a report on the smartphone market through October 2011, stating that Android and iOS extended their lead while companies like RIM and Microsoft scrambled to reform their respective strategies. Google’s Android platform represented 53% of the U.S. smartphone market through October in 2011 and Apple’s share grew to 29%. RIM’s market share with the BlackBerry OS dropped to 11% and Microsoft’s Windows Phone continued to struggle out of the gate with less than 2% of the market.

Google to finance $100 million worth of original programs for YouTube

Google plans to create 20 special channels on its YouTube site, and will spend $100 million to create original programming to populate them, according to sources who talked with the Wall Street Journal.


Like Netflix announced last month, Google wants to create its own streaming video programs, however, according to the WSJ sources, the company will create low-cost programming designed specifically for the web and YouTube, and support the shows with advertising. The sources said this will be a “major overhaul” to YouTube, which already has a lucrative advertising system in place.

It was unclear when Google would begin spending the money to create the new programs, but the source said that Google has visited top Hollywood talent agencies in search of ideas, and will probably end up making deals with production companies and directors to produce the content.

Good move, Google. The direction broadcast television is taking is beginning to look obvious, where web-connected screens are finding their way into the living room and home theater in ever-increasing numbers. In addition to a plethora of set top boxes, many new TV sets are equipped with Internet connections, and Google’s own Google TV hardware is starting to make sense in light of this latest initiative.

With original content produced specifically for the web inserted into the battle for viewers, it’s going to be more difficult for cable TV, broadcast and satellite TV to dominate television broadcasting as they still do. Now, instead of 500 channels and nothing on, there will be 5 million channels, and if Google has anything to do with it, there will be something on. It might be cats playing the piano — now dressed up in tuxedos because of their expanded budget — but it will be something. And that something is just the beginning