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It looks to me that Google is adding yet another thing for Google+ plus members, by integrating live streaming of your hangouts through YouTube. It is no surprise to me that Google is doing this, they have been trying to spice Youtube up for sometime since they acquired it. In past blogs we spoke about how they are looking to make Youtube channels to get more money through advertisements and such and now they are trying to add to the count of people who use the site with this Google+ hangout integration.

Hangouts has been joined at the hip with YouTube ever since the chat platform launched as part of Google+ at the end of June. Hangouts users can launch YouTube videos right from within the group video chat, and up to ten participants can watch the same video simultaneously.

So if you have read my blogs in the past you know there is ramp id speculation on when the iPhone 5 is coming out. Some thought it could be as early as August but most reasonable people have thought September. Well it looks like it is closer to the end of September. Now what makes me say that? Well it has been found that AT&T is doing a vacation blackout on all AT&T employees for the last two weeks of September. Now I have never kept my ear to the ground about this stuff really, mainly due to the fact that I never wrote blogs for technology before so I haven’t been at the pulse of the iPhone 4 launch so I am not sure if this is common practice for a huge phone release. Now let us be clear there are no confirmations on when the phone is actually coming. But it is looking awful close to an end of September launch.

The Twitter blog announced some interesting news for all you tweeter people out there. They are announcing that any brand, business, or charitable organizations that you are following are going to get first priority on your feed to get great exclusive offers from them through twitter. These tweets will be at the top of your feed so you won’t miss out on promotions or deals that could be had from your favorate companies. They will only appear just once on your time line and they can be easily dismissed as well if you are not interested in what they have to offer. Some the partnerships they have already gain are as follows, Best Western, Dell, Gatorade, Groupon, HBO, JetBlue, LivingSocial, Microsoft Xbox, Red Bull, Sephora, Starbucks, Summit Entertainment’s “50/50”, TNT and Virgin America among others — with more to come soon. During this phase, you may also see Promoted Tweets in your timeline from non-profit organizations you follow, including charity: water, Make-A-Wish Foundation, Room to Read, The American Red Cross and Water.org.

There are reports that a new case mold schematic for the firth gen iPhone has come to light. This shows a totally new redesign of the iPhone 5 which most people have been speculating for the longest time. Looking back at the reports there were rumblings going as far back as March stating that the iPhone 5 has a curved aluminum back and also not to mention the curvature of the glass. So it has come to pass that in about 2 months the iPhone 5 will be here, still banking on a September release and so these molds are not farfetched to be real. So my thought process is that these reports are true and the iPhone 5 will surely be different than any other iPhone to date both in clarity and in shape.

It seems that on Tuesday Facebook decided it would be a great idea to release an online guide that gives you a step by step guide to help the small business use social networking of Facebook. Please visit facebook.com/business. This is what is called an online education center to help small business make a business page to help drum up more business.
Facebook’s new business web page does not come along with any new features — it simply puts a lot of information that may be handy for small businesses in one place. Perhaps most importantly, it serves as a nicely timed reminder that unlike Google+, Facebook encourages companies to use its service for company branding. “Facebook allows small businesses to create rich social experiences, build lasting relationships and amplify the most powerful type of marketing –- word of mouth,” a Facebook spokesperson wrote in an email on Tuesday afternoon. “We created Facebook.com/business to make it even easier for people to reach these objectives and grow.”
The funny part about this is that Google+ just announced how to be a business on their site so now Facebook is going blow to blow with Google and this could only make our social networking experiences better.

So Google+ took their first step in the problem of real names only. I tell you that it is very funny that Google will not allow people to use nicknames and such for your profile, but require you to put your real name on it. So now that this has come to pass people have been really frustrated about this and Google is about ready to make a change for all you socials out there.

First, Bradley Horowitz, the VP of Google+ apologized for how Google had been handling many of its Google+ users’ choice of names. “We’ve noticed that many violations of the Google+ common name policy were in fact well-intentioned and inadvertent and for these users our process can be frustrating and disappointing. So we’re currently making a number of improvements to this process– specifically regarding how we notify these users that they’re not in compliance with Google+ policies and how we communicate the remedies available to them.“

So Google will be doing their best to lower the amount of violations that occur on names by trying to change the issues with name violations, things like this could cause people to just stick with Facebook and not make a full change over.

So funny enough there are two fake Apple stores in China that were shut down. The funny thing about the situation is that it was shut down due to not having a proper permit, not that it was violating any piracy or copyright laws funny enough

Five self-branded “Apple Stores” were found to be selling Apple products without authorization from the California-based company but only two were told to shut, officials said.

Apple has just four genuine Apple Stores in China, in Beijing and Shanghai, and none in Kunming in Yunnan province which these fake stores are stationed. The company, which has 13 authorized resellers in Kunming. This will be an interesting story to keep an eye on mainly because 3 of the 5 shops are not shut down and if these stores aren’t legit they are letting piracy run free in China, which is not a big surprise but surprising enough it would actually make news.

So Apple in just one day announced they have seen over 1 million users purchase and download the Mac OS X Lion, which is the eight major OS that Apple has launched. The price tag for this lovely OS, $29.99 through the Mac app store and a physical release due sometime next month for around $69.99.
“Lion is off to a great start, user reviews and industry reaction have been fantastic,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Lion is a huge step forward, it’s not only packed with innovative features but it’s incredibly easy for users to update their Macs to the best OS we’ve ever made.”

Lion introduces more than 250 new features to the Mac, including Multi-Touch® gestures; system-wide support for full screen apps; Mission Control, an innovative view of everything running on your Mac; the Mac App Store, the best place to find and explore great software; Launchpad, a new home for all your apps; and a completely redesigned Mail app.

So Microsoft’s announced a record for their fourth quarter and well it was huge. Revenue was marked at $17.37 billion for the quarter that ended on June 30th, 2011, which is about an 8% increase from last year. Now reasons for that are Microsoft Office 2010 which is being set as the fastest selling Office of all time. Windows Server, SQL Server and System Center also helped with this growth. The biggest winner for Microsoft by far was in the Entertainment and Devices Division and no I am not talking about the Windows Phone. This division grew 30% and that is large thanks to the Kinect, Xbox 360 and the Xbox Live service. No doubt we could see a surge of Xbox in the future as well, with all of the issues with Sony and there fight with hackers so people may skip the PS3 or the soon to be announced PS4 from what I hear in the rumor mills, and stick with Microsoft, and of course there is always Nintendo and the WiiU. The problem with the WiiU is that I worry there still will not be enough adult content to make it worth the price tag for many gamers. Yes it is innovative but I still don’t feel like it going to overtake the Xbox 360 or any other Microsoft systems that might come in the long run. So with that all being said Kudos to you Microsoft for being excellent in the field of gaming.

From what I have read lately Apple is in the running for the bid of Hulu an online video streaming service. So if Apple was to purchase Hulu the owners, Walt Disney Co, NBC Universal and News Corp are giving anyone who buys Hulu a five year extension of the program rights which includes two years of exclusive access. With AppleTV and all the innovations Apple is working on this could be a big time grab for Apple. The price tag for Hulu is skating around or over the $2 Billion mark. Although this is seemingly an interesting move as Apple typically doesn’t make large acquisitions like this one. But with iTunes just selling and renting out shows this streaming could add a big part to it and cement what Apple is trying to do in the internet television market.