My dad was a tax / estate attorney and he said there’s different kinds of folks who don’t like to pay taxes. Those who evade (work outside the law) and those who avoid (use the tax law to their benefits). Turns out the folks at Google are getting great advice from their accountants. According to Bloomberg Business Week Sergei, Larry, Eric and the gang are only paying 2.4% in taxes to Uncle Sam due to an elaborate structure of offshore companies that somehow allow Google to move their profits to Bermuda where there is no corporate income taxes.

The New York Times reported that Google was out testing robot cars. I guess this is an outgrowth of their participation in the Darpa Challenge, a US government funded competition to encourage the development of “an autonomous vehicle capable of driving in traffic, performing complex maneuvers such as merging, passing, parking and negotiating intersections”.

We at Observer Publishing feel that the US is on the verge of becoming a ‘nanny state’ that’s already trying to legislate away our enjoyment of fried food (trans fats & obesity) and our economic independence (health care reform and punitive taxes on small biz owners). If you subscribe to our theory, you should enjoy while you can the ability to pilot a sports-tuned automobile down a twisty road with no one in sight (other drivers, pedestrians or police).

So why this political diatribe? What does it have to do with Google? Because the Intellectual Property around cars that drive themselves will be REALLY, REALLY valuable due to governmental regulation of our driving habits. If the brains within the GooglePlex can capture this IP, the company will stand to make OODLES over the next decades from this technology. The insurance companies are already lobbying regulators to install 24/7 monitoring devices in your car to measure speed and driving behaviors. Why not take this a step further and mandate automobile technology that automates the process very politely and uninterestingly to your destination without you, the driver, ever touching the steering wheel. In the process Google would get a sliver of the value of every new auto transaction and possibly every older car retrofit as demanded by state and local government.

I can see a few bits of upside to this. Now you can spend all your traveling time to the office reading the paper, eating your McDonald’s drive-thru with two hands and no more distracted driving – text or read facebook all you want! Also, if you have young children who are approaching driving age, one could sleep easier at night knowing that your Ford Taurus is guarding their safety.

However, if you’re like me, watching Top Gear religiously, always looking for a reason to drive across town to the hardware store and enjoying spirited but safe driving in a vehicle that uses a bit too much gas but is a hoot to manuver both around town and on a 70MPH highway, the thought of an autonomously guided car is one more reason to head to the old folks home and dream of winning that day’s ‘Bingo’ pot.

I have to admit that Google Streets is a pretty neat feature. When I moved to NC, I spent a lot of time online shopping for homesand got a great feel for various neighborhoods by moving along Google’s virtual world.

Don’t say Google doesn’t do anything complete! First they put up their own satellite to improve ground imagery in Google Maps. Then it was revealed today that they now provide ground level imagery of Antarctica.

More on this over at Discovery.com

Recently, Google announced GoogleTV, the company’s inroads into assisted TV viewing.

Thing is, folks like me have been using Media Center type devices for ages. First there were Media Center PC’s enabled with TV Tuner cards and Windows XP/Vista/7 Media Center Editions. Then, over the past couple years, we’ve seen dedicated streaming devices that can play back in HD resolution video streams over the internet and from shared home storage devices.

Our friends at Gigaom did a great piece that’s worth a read that compares the new Google TV with a few of the incumbent devices out there and the online services that they provide. Now I only wish that they gave details on the ability to play media files from one’s home network!

article @ GIGAom

The stories keep coming about Google’s efforts to dominate the smartphone market with their Android Operating system. Well itturns out another internet media powerhouse is trying to make a play for stardom and riches in the world-wide mobile market.

TechCrunch (no relation to Observer Publishing LLC) reported this week that Facebook may be trying to develop its own smartphone OS and accompanying hardware.

Specifically, Facebook wants to integrate deeply into the contacts list and other core functions of the phone. It can only do that if it controls the operating system.

Two high level Facebook employees – Joe Hewitt and Matthew Papakipos – are said to be secretly working on the project, which is unknown even to most Facebook staff.

Its a novel concept to hear about Facebook trying to find a deeper connection with its userbase. Back in 2006, I often referred to Facebook as an online operating system and that was before they opened the platform up to developers and proved that FB was more than an “app” but a network for its customers to connect via a number of applications. If you’ve ever used Facebook you’d realize how hard they make it to export contact info into other e-mail applications. This would allow FB to have a stranglehold on their customers information and relationships.

Personally, we don’t see this being successful if it happens at all. Its a lot easier to integrate Facebook into a smartphone UI like HTC’s ‘Sense UI’ than it is to have a stand-alone phone operating system. Some carriers may want to distribute a FB branded phone, but to think that they could capture a meaningful share is a bit of a stretch.

More to come as the story unfolds….

Google took time out of its busy schedule of world domination to share more details on its new TV service.

The service combines DVR, integrated google search, web browsing and on-demand video all within your TV set. Key partners include:Sony, Logitech, Intel, and DISH Network. (click on links to see their interpretations of what the partnership will bring).

In the meantime, check out this video from Google:

Two significant reports came out today from PC industry watchers which suggest that the exploding tabletform-factor, popularized by the Apple iPad and pending Google Android powered devices, will eat into traditional computer volumes.

Maynard Um with UBS Investment Research issued a note to investors this week, in which he increased his price target for AAPL stock to $350, up from $340. He said there is no evidence that the iPad is having a negative effect on Mac sales, but it is “adversely affecting the PC industry.”

“Sales of traditional notebooks appear to be feeling pressure from the iPad, causing a scramble by vendors to launch iPad-like tablets,” Um wrote. “We believe that a majority of this impact is occurring on the lower end of PC sales as the iPad is priced close enough to this range that it becomes attractive to consumers looking to make purchases within this segment.”

He continued: “We are not sold that the iPad is purely cannibalizing PC sales, as the functionality of the iPad cannot yet deliver the functionality of notebook PCs. However, consumers who purchase iPads may be more willing to delay purchases and upgrades of existing PCs.”

In the second report, Ben Reitzes an industry analyst from Barclay’s Capital, lowered his sales estimates for regular PC’s and raised his expectations for Tablets.

Reitzes tweaked his tablet estimates in the opposite direction, raising his 2010 forecast to 15.85 million units (up from 15.2 million earlier) and his 2011 forecast to 31.2 million (up from 28 million earlier). He cites three main factors for the increase: greater availability of the iPad; upcoming international launches of the device; and imminent tablet launches from other manufacturers. Though the tablet category remains relatively new, Reitzes points to “strong initial demand” as evidence that sales will rapidly increase over the next two years.

For retailers, Christmas Holiday 2009 was the year of the Netbook. Thanks to the iPad, industry insiders are predicting that Holiday 2010 will be the year of the Tablet.

Of course, the iPad will be a big seller, but others like me are not in the Apple camp and looking for the opportunity to purchase a tablet powered by Android or another operating system.

Since Microsoft hasn’t stepped up to the plate with either its Windows Phone 7 or Windows CE to encourage tablets, I’m now waiting lustily for an Android powered tablet (note to manufacturers, I’m ready and willing to do reviews of all your products).

Problem is, finding an Android Tablet is almost impossible. Here’s a list of what we have found out there, if you’re clamoring for an Android tablet:

Augen Gentouch 78: On paper, these specs make for a winner device (7″ diagonal viewing, Android 2.1 and on sale at Kmart for $149). Opps… Google revokes this device’s access to the Android Market making it a glorified paperweight.

Archos 7: Archos is a solid company, but this was one of the first tablets out there. Limited by Android 1.6, this 8gb tablet with 7″ screen is really a glorified movie viewer. Now selling for less than $200, its ok, but still a reason to wait.

Dell Streak: Hitting stores on August 13th, 2010, the Streak is really more of a large 5″ Android cell phone instead of a tablet / content viewer. Still, the largest screened Android phone (HTC Evo is 4.3″) makes for an interesting purchase. Biggest drawback is the price – $549 direct from Dell or $299 with a 2 year contract from AT&T.

aPAD: Surprisingly, this Chinese Clone of the iPad, is the closest to a real Android competitor of the lot. A 10″ screen, Android 2.1 and 256mb of onboard memory but supporting up to 16gb via the SDCard slot, could the aPAD be the real thing? Not sure – folks have ordered these from Chinese distributors on eBAY, DHgate and other US retailers who are importing the devices. No word yet on functionality, speed and ability to access the Android Market.

IN CONCLUSION… Don’t throw your money at any of these tablets. We all have our fingers crossed that a real Android tablet contender will be available by October (the time retailers start to stock their shelves for their Holiday sales). In the meantime, monitor developments on the Android Clone tablets at our friends androidtablets.net

Wired has a great write-up on the whole Google / Verizon deal on Net Neutrality.

In case anyone is wondering whether Google and Verizon hate their Internet freedom, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg insisted they don’t, calling their vision “a path to an open Internet.”

The net’s top tech journalists and bloggers are not convinced. Their write-ups range from slightly to completely skeptical of the proposal, even if they can’t agree on what to call it:

1. The Huffington Post’s Marvin Ammori thinks that the Google-Verizon “pact” makes them worse than BP. He compares the proposed $2 million liability limit “after all the loopholes are met,” to BP’s $75 million clean-up liability limit, in light of the billions the disaster response actually cost. ”You have to hand it to Google. Going from ‘Don’t Be Evil’ to “Greedier than BP” overnight is a pretty impressive trick,” he said.
2. The New York Times has a pretty standard take on what it calls the “Web Plan from Google and Verizon,” but skimps on the outrage.
3. The Economist blog Babbage unpacks Verizon’s recent fondness for the term “internet ecosystem,” stating flatly that “the internet is not an ecosystem,” and pretending that it is is nothing more than a ploy by Verizon to blur the lines between its expanding industry interests to avoid regulation:
   

   “The word ‘ecosystem’ is so meaningless that it obscures valid distinctions among Verizon’s different lines of business. And it obscures the fundamentally different incentive structures between maintaining a network and offering a service over that network.”

4. Regarding the “Google-Verizon net neutrality statement,” the USA Today technology blog voiced concerns from consumer advocates who feel “‘betrayed but not surprised’” by what it views as Google’s decision to abandon support for net neutrality.
5. Richard Adams of The Guardian noted that even though the initial excitement about the New York Times piece has died down, (the story was widely misread to see an operational “deal” between Google and Verizon) “the truth has turned out to be less dramatic but potentially more worrying for US consumers and net users.”
6. According to Stacey Higgenbotham at Giga Om, Google is “selling out the tech and startup community so it can advance its own economic interests.”
7. The Christian Science Monitor isn’t quite as negative about the companies involved in “the Google-Verizon compromise,” proposing that it is “the public that must ultimately decide the worth of their proposed governance of the Web.”
8. Dan Gillmor of Salon.com was uncomfortable with “ominous reference to the ‘public Internet,’” during a conference call with Google and Verizon. “I have no reason to disbelieve him,” he said, referring to Google CEO Eric Schmidt. “But plans change, managements change, and corporate goals change.”
9. One of the most muted voices was Cecila Chang of The Washington Post, which published the Google-Verizon op-ed Tuesday. Of the “Google-Verizon accord,” she said only that “some academics said the agreement appeared lopsided, favoring the positions of network carriers that have been loath to see new rules.”
10. On the other end of the spectrum is Jeff Jarvis of Buzz Machine, who has a bleak vision of the end of the Internet and the dawn of the age of the “Schminternet,” which is different from the Internet only in that it’s the Internet that you try – and fail – to access when you’re mobile.

Read More @ Wired