Uh oh, Google voice app video pulled from Youtube..Apple not letting it into store?

9to5 Staff

Update: TechCrunk has talked to some Googlers who tell them that Apple originally said it was going live on Friday then moved the day to Monday.    They also harsh on Apple plenty.

Our worst fears realized?  The Google speech recognition app hasn’t hit the iPhone yet after being touted yesterday.  "So what?" you say?  "Give Apple a few days to look at it" you say? 

More bad news.  Google has taken the video down from Youtube.  It is also removed from its Website.   Is this just us being paranoid or has Apple slapped Google for releasing the video prior to release?…or perhaps Google was pressuring Apple to release the update by leaking the video and information to the New York Times?

We really hope this is just a blip…but just in case…Can someone call Eric Schmidt to clear this all up? 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYLTiecN-EE

IBM forced to pay $3 million bond to continue Papermaster case

9to5 Staff

The stakes keep getting higher and higher in the Mark Papermaster case.  Last week, a New York Judge ordered that Mark Papermaster quit working at Apple until further order from the court.  This week, that same court has ordered IBM pay a $3 million dollar bond in the event that Papermaster was found to be damaged by the suit.

The $3 million bond is designed to pay for any costs or damages that Papermaster might suffer if it’s later determined that IBM wasn’t entitled to an injunction.

Karas noted that district courts are allowed "wide discretion" in setting the bond’s dollar figure, then added: "Based on a careful reading of the letters sent by the parties to the court, which are being filed under seal, the court finds that a bond in the amount of $3 million is appropriate to guarantee payment of the costs and damages that defendant may suffer, if the injunction should not have been issued."

Papermaster,  today, counter-sued IBM saying  that non-compete clause he signed with IBM is irrelevant because:

1. Apple and IBM aren’t direct competitors

2. The agreement only applies in New York, not in California or Texas who have much more lax laws and would be where Papermaster was hired and would now be working respectively.

3. The agreement’s interpretation is too broad, the time is too long.

How long will IBM pursue Mark Papermaster.  Prospective hires have to be worried about their eerily harsh tactics in punishing an exiting employee.

Google Search now does speech recognition on iPhone (Updated Video)

9to5 Staff

Google is really stepping up to the plate with their iPhone apps lately.  The New York Times is reporting that Google’s updated search app will allow voice-search with results based on location.  So things like "where is the nearest Starbucks" can be asked and answers will be given via the Maps application.  Amazingly cool if it works as promised.  It is hard not to be impressed by Google sometimes. 

From the Times:

The service can be used to get restaurant recommendations and driving directions, look up contacts in the iPhone’s address book or just settle arguments in bars. The query “What is the best pizza restaurant in Noe Valley?” returns a list of three restaurants in that San Francisco neighborhood, each with starred reviews from Google users and links to click for phone numbers and directions.

Raj Reddy, an artificial intelligence researcher at Carnegie Mellon University who has done pioneering work in voice recognition, said Google’s advantage in this field was the ability to store and analyze vast amounts of data. “Whatever they introduce now, it will greatly increase in accuracy in three or six months,” he said.

Google has obviously spent some time and put some polish on this:

An intriguing part of the overall design of the service was contributed by a Google researcher in London, who found a way to use the iPhone accelerometer — the device that senses how the phone is held — to set the software to “listen” mode when the phone is raised to the user’s ear.

We are hitting refresh on the App store every few seconds and will update when this goes live…

For more analysis, check distorted loop