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Google developer conferences, called Google I/O , always have an "Oprah moment." During the keynote, the company gives developers a phone, a tablet or some other new mobile hardware product.

Facing stiff competition and tepid demand, Google Wallet has not made a big splash in the world of mobile payments.

As soon as I published the post about Astrid being bought by Yahoo and mentioned I was looking for a new app, my in-box started chiming with suggestions.

Today in international tech news: British members of Parliament bust out the heavy rhetoric for Google on taxes; British hackers are sentenced ; Foxconn's got some work to do to meet July deadline; and Samsung might double-dip on Apple suppliers.

BlackBerry on Tuesday announced that its BlackBerry Messenger product, long heralded as one of the company's defining services, would be available to Apple's iOS platform soon and to Google's Android platform later this summer.

Satellite TV provider DirecTV is thinking about buying all or parts of streaming-video site Hulu, according to news reports Friday.

Samsung once again is the smartphone leader, representing 41.1 percent market share of all smartphone shipments.

So I unwrapped a spanking new Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone the other day. It's Samsung's most popular handset, earning iPhone-level sales in the first two weeks on sale, and I had to wonder whether I had a mobile gadget, or a doorway to a magical world with all the publicity it has received.

If you have an iPad or an iPhone, you can now host a video Google Hangout on your mobile device-connecting with your writing group, book club or editor in a face-to-face chat.

Larry Page is turned off by treating his life's work as a kind of sporting competition.

If enabling Google Wallet money transfers via Gmail works, said analyst Greg Sterling, "it could be quite a significant boost for Google's embattled Wallet program, which recently lost its product manager and saw the last-minute decision not to introduce a physical payment card -- to broaden the mainstream appeal of the service." Google first ... (more)

Apple announced its app store has hit 50 billion downloads. Earlier this month the company announced a contest promoting the occasion.

How would you like to do a search without touching a computer or phone? Or have your next question answered before you even ask it? Or get a reminder to pick up a carton of milk when you drive by a grocery store? These are some of the new upgrades to Google's search tools that the company announced Wednesday at Google I/O , its annual developers' ... (more)

Google's new education initiative, Google Play for Education, wants to put more tablets into K-12 classrooms, the company announced Wednesday at its Google I/O developer conference.

Hands up if you use the same password at more than one website. Now keep your hand up if all your passwords are more than 12 characters, contain a mixture of upper and lower case letters, numbers and characters.

Microsoft is also engaged in a substantial ad war to convince users that Google Apps are just too risky.

Attention, Gmail users. This could be good for all 425 million of you . Google is changing the way it allocates storage space on Gmail.

Lots of cool stuff to report on for this mid-month Tuesday, but the lead story won't be good news for those of you who have been vacillating about grabbing an iPhone 5 on T-Mobile US -- the handset will now cost you an extra 50 bucks compared to last week, proving once again that you snooze, you lose.

Airbnb, the company that connects travelers with people looking for temporary tenants , is adding several features to Android in hopes of increasing reservations.

Sherpa combines elements of Siri and Google Now. Thanks to the advanced natural language processing, you can "talk" to it using everyday speech, and the predictive algorithm pushes relevant information to you before you ask for it.