The biggest mistake in the debate, however, was missing the reason why Google is not about to change its position on network neutrality: It's not in Google's interests to do otherwise.
It's not just Google Maps for iOS that's been revamped.
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It's not enough for Google to be the world's biggest search and advertising company.
It's not quite as flashy as Google Earth, but it looks a whole lot more useful.
ENGADGET: Google Maps 5.0 hits Android, includes new 3D map view and offline Navigation
So it's not clear what Google plans to do with the spectrum.
We're business-to-business and not business-to-consumer like Google, so it's not a direct competition.
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There's lots of information that Google cannot search, yet, especially if it's not on a Web site.
Walk through the numbers, as I did with the aid of a new research firm called Triton Research, and it's hard not to see the ghosts of Google past.
Tony Hirst says that relevance is a key part of Google's offering but equally it is not good for business to overdo the filtering.
That would let the search giant throw ads or other data about the product your way, giving you the info you need to snap it up -- and likely not hurting Google's bottom line.
It's not something you'll necessarily see in the Google Play store, however, as we were told the company intends to license the platform out to various Android OEMs. We pressed CEO Kostas Eleftheriou for more details on possible partnerships, but he remained tight-lipped, only assuring us that talks were in progress.
In the end, Google's revolution was not that it abolished content portals or even refuted them except in presentation style.
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The court order is made in secret and remains secret - meaning it would not show up in things such as Google's transparency reports, which aim to document data requests from governments around the world.
"It's a big resource, it's got a good cost curve, and it's not getting enough attention, " says Dan W. Reicher, Google.org's director of climate and energy initiatives.
It's not a done deal just yet, but Bloomberg is reporting that Google could be about to make some big changes to the way it does business with Google Wallet.
ENGADGET: Google reportedly rethinking Google Wallet strategy, may share revenue with carriers
For its part, Google is remaining mum on the matter, and it's not clear when we can expect the networks to actually roll out.
Still, Google's business will not likely be impacted even if it were for some reason forced to abandon the project.
As we said, the slate is built on ICS this time, not Gingerbread, and unlike Amazon's Kindle Fire tablets, it's Google-certified, meaning you have full access to Google Play for all your application needs.
Being a creature of Silicon Valley, it's a big deal to Google to be considered a "thought leader" and not a follower.
To fight Microsoft it will encourage users to store their files not on their personal computers but on Google's remote machines.
It has been popular outside the U.S., where Google first introduced it, especially in countries where online mapping technology was not widely available.
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When a hacker tries to steal data--or a court subpoenas it--the task of keeping those sensitive bits private is in Google's hands, not yours.
While the FISMA accreditation did not particularly advance Google's existing security policies, company officials said, it did improve them by bringing them to regular standards of use.
It's also really handy to use Google image search as your source because you're likely not to have hundreds of images on one specific subject, but google does.
It will start to advertise Ovi in 2009, but it will not be easy to create a brand that can rival the coolness of Apple's iPhone or Google's new mobile-phone software, called Android.
You know the story, but I'm not going to tell you it's happening again in the smartphone market between the iPhone software and Google's Android software.
"It's clear to us that we do not want to be in the search engine marketing business, " Google spokesperson Tom Phillips wrote on Google's official blog.
But to hear Mr. Schmidt tell it, the real challenge is one not yet on most investors' minds: how to preserve Google's franchise in Web advertising, the source of almost all its profits, when "search" is outmoded.
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