On Wednesday, Internet search giant Google showed off an enhanced version of its voice-enabled search program as an app for the Apple iPhone and iPad; and also announced that tests were currently underway of a new service which will combine the company's Web-based email with its search engine.

Google's unveiling of the enhancements to its voice-based search technology for the Apple devices chiefly underscores the fact that the search giant's offering will directly compete with Apple's voice-enabled Siri personal assistant.

Google's mobile operating system Android is losing market shares to Apple's iOS in the United States, fresh stats released by Strategy Analytics revealed.

According to the released figures, Google's Android suffered a year-on-year loss of 4 per cent in its market share to 56 per cent in the second quarter of 2012.

This was the second quarter in row when Android's market shares slipped.

The shipments of Android-based handsets also slipped, from 15.3 million in the second quarter of 2011 to 13.4 million in the corresponding quarter of this year.

The Thursday rollout of Google Earth's version 7.0.0 marked the availability of Google's Earth 3D imagery for some of Apple's popular iDevices, including the iPad 2, the iPhone 4S and the newest iPod Touch.

Though the new Google Earth for iOS app is comparatively inferior to the beta version of Apple's forthcoming iOS 6 Maps app in terms of detailing as well as overall resolution, it still is the first iOS mapping app which boasts 3D imagery.

Within weeks of its last-month unveiling of `Google Glass' headset/eyewear device during the keynote at its I/O developer's conference in San Francisco, Google recently sent out emails to the Google Glass "explorers" - that is, people who had placed pre-orders for the device at the conference.

With Google's popular video-sharing platform YouTube being infamous for having anonymous commenters leave a series of disagreeable remarks, a Wired report has recently revealed that the site is attempting to clean up its image by gently prodding users to use their real names.

With YouTube users using anonymous identities like cutepuppies99, joeysam87, origamiboys1981, and hordes of other similar names, the Wired report said that the site's move to urge the users to use their real names is essentially aimed at cleaning up the cesspool in its `comments' section.

With the overwhelming demand for the 16GB version of the new Google Nexus 7 tablet far surpassing the company's expectations, the tablet is now officially `out of stock' on the Internet search giant's Google Play store.

According to a recent The Guardian report, citing unidentified sources familiar with the proceedings at Google, the company has acknowledged that it "seriously underestimated" the demand for the $249-priced 16GB version of its
7-inch tablet, the stocks of which had already dried at the bigwig retailers last week.

According to a number of reports, the 8GB version of the much-raved-about Google Nexus 7 tablet is the only model which is currently available in the US and, that too, only on Google's own Google Play store --- with all other bigwig retailers having sold out their stocks of the 16GB version of the device!

In its Thursday email to customers, Google revealed that the shipments of its eagerly-awaited new tablet – the much-raved-about ‘Nexus 7’ – have begun for customers who had placed pre-orders for the device this week.

The Google disclosure – which comes in the midst of reports that the demand for Nexus 7 is overwhelming – specified that while some versions of the company’s 7-inch tablet are in the mail, the others versions will be shipping to customers by Thursday evening.

At its earnings call on Thursday, Internet search giant Google reported positive results for the second-quarter, revealing that the company’s revenue had increased 35 percent year-on-year, to touch $12.21 billion.

The quarterly earnings report from Google also included its newly-acquired Motorola Mobility subsidiary, which – in its first contribution to the Google earnings – accounted for $1.25 billion revenue; that too in only 39 days, after its mid-May acquisition by Google for $12.5 billion.

In a late-last-week report, Reuters revealed that the newly-released Google branded tablet computer – the Google Nexus 7 – had already started selling out across the US, as of last week, even though the devices is, technically speaking, still to hit the stores!

The report came close on the heels of Google’s confirmation that the shipments of its Nexus 7 tablet – running the latest Android 4.1 ‘Jelly Bean’ version – had commenced on Friday, quite in line with the company's earlier July
12-July17 launch window for the device.

On Thursday, Internet search giant Google launched a new tool - the "Google+ circles transfer tool" - which will help Google+ users to merge their accounts, so as to bring together all circles and circle information in one account.

The new tool - which is part of Google data portability initiative called Google Takeout - facilitates the Google+ users with profiles attached respectively to their regular Gmail account to merge them with the profiles attached to their Google apps account.

According to a Dot429 report, the Global LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) Workplace Summit in London on Saturday witnessed Internet search giant Google announcing its worldwide `Legalize Love' campaign --- asking governments, especially those which still have anti-gay legislation in place, to legalize gay love.

The campaign - with Singapore and Poland as its first governmental targets - marks Google's latest stance in support for gay marriage, and is an indication of the fact that the company is publicly confronting the politicians on the issue.

According to a recent disclosure from industry tracker DisplaySearch, online retail giant Amazon apparently has plans underway to manufacture three new Kindle Fire tablets, to compete with Apple's iPad and Google's recently-announced 7-inch Nexus tablet.

Going by the DisplaySearch report, the three new tablets which Amazon is planning to produce will all have 7-inch screens, and will probably be scheduled for release in time for the holiday shopping season this year.

Close on the heels of Russia-based security vendor Kaspersky Lab's detection of the "Find and Call" Trojan app on the Apple App Store, the app has now been removed from the App Store as well as from Google Play, where it was also available.

The "Find and Call" Trojan app largely pilfered the private details of the users, and spammed their address book contacts with invitations for downloading the same app.

According to the most recent statistics released publicly by Internet search giant Google, only about 10.9 percent of the devices running the company's increasingly popular Android mobile operating system have been updated to the software's latest version - Android 4.0 `Ice Cream Sandwich.'

The latest data from Google has been disclosed in a developer information page, which gives a comprehensive breakdown - via Business Insider - on devices from which the Google Play app store was accessed during a two-week period that ended on July 2, 2012.