On Thursday, Google has unveiled a free smartphone application that converts your mobile phone to an electronic debit card.

The leading name in the Internet industry announced that the “Google Wallet” is currently tested and will be available to the market summer of this year. Google announced their latest innovation in a press conference held in its headquarters in New York with MasterCard, Citibank, First Data and Sprint.

The company said that the Google Wallet will be available only with the Nexus S 4G during the first few months of its release but will eventually cover more phones that have NFC technology. Google is partnering with the third largest wireless provider in the US – Sprint – in this project.

An NFC chip that has been initially embedded in a smart phone will allow a user to “tap-and-pay” at checkout registers that has a PayPass system from CitiMasterCard. The user must first enter his or her credit or debit card details in the software.

The vice president of Google for commerce and payments, Stephanie Tilenius, said that Google Wallet paves the way for a new generation of mobile commerce. The Google Wallet technology will be available in at least 124,000 merchants within the Unites States and more than 300,000 worldwide during its launch.

Mobile payments have already been tested in several countries like Japan and France. However, Google Wallet will be the first of its kind to be used in US shops. T-mobile, Verizon Wireless, and AT&T have already announced late last year that they are teaming up to build a network called “lsis”. The network is said to make mobile phones payment possible for their users.

Senator Patrick Leahy authored an amendment to the 1986 law that will require our law enforcement officials to secure search warrants to gain access to cloud data and use the information in investigations. This is to address the growing concern in the lack of or limited cloud data privacy.

Cloud data is a growing trend in data storage that has started a few years back. It is basically an alternative to storing hard copies of your personal or office files. The data are sent to the “clouds” or a server that stores everything and it can be accessed anywhere with internet connection.

Those who want to retrieve all data stored in the cloud will need a unique password. However, there is still a looming concern on whether or not privacy is maintained especially when law enforcement is concerned.

Leahy’s amendment also wants to protect the geolocation data of the users that is usually saved in our mobile phones. Should it be approved, a warrant will be required to access data in electronic devices that track the location of the user.

The amendment follows Senate hearings with the makers of smarthphone operating system, specifically GOOG for Google, AAPL for Apple, and RIMM for Research in Motion. The hearings were conducted due to a recent discovery that Apple iPhones can store location data. These data are stored in a folder with minimal protection. In fact, law enforcers are already accessing these data during their investigations without any warrant.

The amendment will also cover email searches by police officers. Our current laws give law enforcement officials full access to emails that have been stored longer than 180 days in a remote server.

As two of the biggest networks battle to gain collaboration with Skype, Facebook is more aggressive than Google. Analysts, however, say that the world’s biggest social network may actually be a better fit.

On Wednesday, Reuters reported that both Google and Facebook are trying to win partnership with Skype separately. Skype is currently the leading web video telephone services used by millions all over the world for cheap online communication.

Two undisclosed sources told Reuters that discussions about partnership are still in the preliminary phase however any deal that will stem out from this assures a joint venture partnership. One of the sources said that any partnership with Skype right now is valued at $3 to $4 billion.

Technology analysts and enthusiasts are rooting on Facebook, saying that the well-loved networking site that will complement Skype by giving it great features it currently lack.

Rory Maher, an analyst from Hudson Square Research, said that there is no doubt that Google will benefit from this partnership, but it is a bit sketchy compared to Facebook. He added that Google already has video and chat capabilities that Skype offers.

Moreover, Maher said that communication is very vital to Facebook and what its users do. It would be very interesting if Skype features will be enjoyed by Facebook users.

Skype was founded on 2003 and just last year, they boast a 124 million clientele. However, only 8.1 million of their total customers pay for their services to make traditional phone calls.

Apple’s iPad will continue to reign the swelling tablet market this year even though it already has several competitors from various computer and mobile-device companies, according to a report released by research firm Gartner.

Gartner said iPad, which is synonymous to the term “tablet,” sets the standards for what the device really is, thus, leaving a small room for alternatives.

The firm expects 70 million tablets to be sold within this year and about 108 million in 2012. The expected number is way beyond the 17.6 million tablet sales in 2011.

Google trails behind Apple in the second position. The firm said Google’s Android operating system is still insufficient to match up with Apple.

However, Gartner said Google’s shares will rise to 39 percent in 2015 from 20 percent this year while Apple’s shares will gradually drop to 47 percent from 69 percent.

Research in Motion’s Playbook tablet, which uses the new QNX platform, gets the third spot in the market this year with a 5.6 percent market shares, which Gartner believes will rise to 10 percent in 2015.

The firm said time and remarkable effort is required for RIM to obtain more customers and developers that will deliver a more innovative group of services and applications around QNX. Carolina Milanesi, Gartner analyst said this method will make a feasible alternative to Android or Apple.

Milanesi said organizations that will be interested in RIM’s new QNX-run tablet will consist of those who have RIM’s infrastructurre or those who have strict security requirements.

YouTube has pulled off another yearly prank to celebrate April Fools’ Day. The site, early Friday, announced its 100th year on its blog and completed the prank with promotional videos and sepia tone platform to depict what it had looked back in 1911.

The video-sharing website updated its logo and included a classic 1911 button on each video. This will transform any video clips to an old-style motion picture with a yellowish skin and vintage piano soundtrack.

The site also featured a promotional video that reveals the top five finest or viral pictures of 1911. However, they were actually clips taken from various videos uploaded by different users in YouTube.

It was difficult not to distinguish the prank with the cameo appearances of Annoying Orange for the Irksome Citrus, Rickroll or Ruth Roll in 1911 and Keyboard Cat for Flugelhorn Feline.

YouTube made a pretty fun start to celebrate April Fools’ Day.

YouTube is owned by Google, which has been practicing April Fools’ pranks for years. Last year, the search engine company said it would allow users to upload any physical objects such as remote controls and keys to Google Docs.

Two years ago, Google Mobile promised users that search results will come out if they will put their phone on their forehead and think about their search. In 2004, Google advertised jobs about planned research center on the moon, which was also considered as their most famous prank for April Fools’ Day.

YouTube and Google are not alone. However, other pranks also started showing up in many social-networking sites and online video space.

Microsoft Corporation supported, Thursday, the European Union’s probe against Google Incorporation’s suspected monopoly of the online search market. Brad Smith, General Counsel of Microsoft, said that they are planning to file a complaint against Google with the European Commission.

Microsoft said that the entire point of the case is Google’s pattern of thwarting competition and stopping anyone who might provide creative competition. No one from the European Commission confirmed receipt of such complaint.

The European Commission started a formal investigation on Google on November 2010. They did this after receiving a couple of complaints from other web companies saying that Google was intentionally making sure the smaller companies do not rank in the search results.

Al Verney, Google’s spokesperson, said that they are not surprised of Microsoft’s actions as the initial complaints stemmed from one of the company’s subsidiaries. The very first complaint started from Ciao, an online shopping website, which is owned by Microsoft’s Bing. However, Microsoft’s complaint will definitely add weight on the case as it is said to have a detailed and specific examples of Google’s alleged monopoly of their industry.

Verney said that they are always willing to explain the mechanics of their business. He also said that they are currently discussing this matter with the European Commission.

Brad Smith of Microsoft said that Google has ensured some technical measures to make sure competing sites cannot properly access YouTube videos. With that, Microsoft and even Yahoo, can never come close to Google.

Smith further said that Windows operated phones of Microsoft is blocked from properly operating with YouTube, whereas its Google counterpart Android perform better with YouTube.

The internet marketing space is full of big product launches. Some of them good, some of them not so good.  Brian Johnson is one of the leaders of better quality product launches over the years.  His products are not only how to videos, but live coaching programs.

His last big launch was last year for Halloween Super Affiliate and was widely successful.  Both in terms of sales and Students who did well with the course. His new course is prices twice as high as the last one, but its launch could still do as well if not better.

He also managed to stir up some Google related controversy when he had his Google Adsense account banned shortly after the launch of Halloween Super Affiliate. Instead of hiding this fact from his students, he was first to acknowledge that this happened in a video. He stated that he was manually targeted with his Adsense account for teaching what he teaches and the students should have no worries about anything like this.

That is what happens when a teacher publicly reveals real life example of websites currently ranking and making money. But according to Brian Johnson the risk is worth it.

Today Brian is Launching his new coaching program . This coaching course includes; 3 months worth of live interactive weekly webinars, live case studies, a premium WordPress theme, 1 month access to Blogging Underground, complete set of prerecorded training videos and a private forum exclusively for members of the program.

Many programs falsely indicate that there is a limited time offer or the doors will be closed soon. Since this is a true coaching program, the doors will be closed once coaching begins in mid April.