Google to pay Mozilla thrice the amount in renewed search deal

It was only recently, after much speculation that Google and Mozilla renewed their search royalty agreement for a period of three years, after their previous agreement exhausted in November, this year. Google, as per reports has been paying Mozilla a hefty sum for being the default search engine on their Firefox browser. Initially, though, Google used to pay Mozilla close to $103 million each year to ensure prominence on their browser.

Paying thrice the amount to get visibility

Now, however, with competition getting fierce in the market with the likes of Bing trying to make more space, the rates have skyrocketed, too. AllThingsD confirms that now, to ensure the same level of visibility, Google will have to pay Mozilla thrice the amount it paid only till a year ago, i.e. roughly $300 million per year. Reportedly, last year, Google, by the way of this deal contributed to almost 84 percent of Mozilla’s $123 million in revenue.

The report further states that, "Google’s main rival in the bid, sources said, was Microsoft’s Bing search service, which was aggressively trying to hip-check it from the main search spot on the browser. That’s because the software giant has been spending a lot of money in efforts to grow Bing’s market share in the search market. Microsoft, of course, also owns the still-dominant Internet Explorer browser, but Google’s Chrome has recently been making major gains over both IE and Mozilla’s Firefox."

Also, despite paying such a hefty price, Google will still have to compete for space with Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Amazon and eBay, with whom Mozilla continues to retain its partnerships

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Groupon sues former employees of Google, according to a report

Groupon has sued two former sales managers who are said company trade secrets competition from Google when they leave the site daily deals, according to a Bloomberg report. 
Michael Nolan and Brian Hanna left the Chicago-based company last month in January to join Google offers, taking customer lists and marketing strategies with them, according to a lawsuit filed today in the Chancery Division of the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois. The lawsuit, which does not name Google as a defendant, seeks to prevent information sharing with Google, according to the report.
"In his new position in Google offerings and / or Google, Hanna and Nolan provide the same or similar services, as they provide Groupon," requiring them "to use confidential and proprietary information he learned while working at Groupon," according the complaint, copies of which have not yet been made available on the Internet.
Google offers was announced one month after Groupon reportedly rejected the company $ 6 billion offer to buy in December 2010. The search giant has launched a beta version of its service and offers discount coupons in Portland, Oregon, in April.
Groupon, expected to go public in September, has been the subject of increased regulatory scrutiny lately. The Securities and Exchange Commission forced the daily deals provider to check your presentation documents after finding that the company mistakenly reported higher revenues than it should.
The errors and market volatility have forced the company to reduce its IPO plans. Groupon is expected to offer less than 10 percent of the company at a valuation of $ 12.5 million. This is in contrast to the $ 20 billion to $ 25 billion that many thought the company was worth in presenting its IPO papers in June.

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Firefox body for Honeycomb tablets accessible for download

A brace of weeks ago, we appear that the Firefox browser was authoritative its way to Honeycomb tablets. A blog column by Lucas Rocha, one of the associates of the Firefox Adaptable aggregation has acquaint account of the availability of a nightly build. The downloads are accessible actuality for all platforms, including Android. The aggregation is accepting all kinds of acknowledgment for everything, from the user interface to torn features. There’s aswell an IRC approach bureaucracy for altercation on this affair (irc.mozilla.org #mobile)
Available for your Honeycomb tablet, as a development build

The Firefox body for Honeycomb tablets brings in a accomplished agglomeration of new appearance that cover a added absolute interface, all acknowledgment to the added workspace. It has the accepted Firefox feel and attending like you acquisition on the desktop. The Awesomebar as its alleged allows quick admission to bookmarks, history and a accomplished agglomeration of added features. It’s aswell synced with the Firefox accession on your desktop. Another advance is the ambuscade abroad of accidental elements on the interface while switching from mural approach to portrait. Firefox for adaptable platforms hasn’t absolutely best up massive ground, as a lot of users adopt to use the Google adaptable browser and Opera Mini. Hopefully, with above improvements on the book front, they’ll be able to. This is something that’ll be arresting alone afterwards the final body for Honeycomb is unleashed.

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Google doodles for the Muppets

Jim Henson, the man behind The Muppet Show and Sesame Street would have turned 75 today and Google's celebrating him with a Doodle. Henson was born on the 24th of September, 1936 in Mississippi in the United States. In 1954, while he was still in school, he worked for a local tv station making puppets for a morning show. After graduating in 1960 with a Bachelor of Science in home economics (which introduced him to the various materials he could use to build puppets) he created a five minute puppet show for television, Sam and Friends, which would have prototypes of some of the Muppets he would later make, including Kermit the Frog. He also evolved the way puppets were built, thinking that puppets in television needed more 'life and sensitivity'. He started using foam rubber to build puppets, which would allow a greater number of expression in comparison to the traditionally used wood. He also used rods to manipulate the limbs of his puppets which would allow for more movement control compared to the traditionally used string. Want to play with some muppets? In 1969, Henson was asked to create a show for children's television and that's when Sesame Street came about. Up until then, he was using his muppets for television commercials. In 1976, Henson started work on The Muppet Show. After being rejected by American television networks, the show was financed and produced in England. Henson was also a performer for a lot of his muppets including Kermit the Frog, the Swedish Chef, Waldorf, and Rowlf the dog. He died on the 16th of May, 1990 at the age of 53 from organ failure due to Streptococcus pyogenes. The Doodle itself is fun to play with. It comprises of six muppets from both The Muppet Show and Sesame Street. If you click on the hands under the head of the muppets presented, you can move them around. If you click and hold the hand, the muppet's mouth will stay open. The red muppet forming the first 'o' of Google does something fun when you play around with him if you're lucky. If your cards are played right, his glasses will be tossed off his head and land right back on his face animatedly. There's also another surprise in the green muppet forming the 'l' in Google and the red muppet forming the 'e'. If you bend the green muppet too far right, the red muppet will eat him up and spit him out. For those of you who grew up on the Muppet Show, this Doodle will definitely be fun to play around with. And, as an added treat, check out the video below. It's the pitch video Jim Henson used to get networks to buy the Muppet Show.

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