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Google no longer forces its search on Android users in Russia
Back in April the Russian government ruled that Android phones in the region would have to allow Yandex -- essentially Russia's version of Google -- as a default search provider. Now that's playing out in real time. With the latest version of Chrome (v.60 if you're keeping track at home), Russians are asked to pick their default search engine when the browser launches, according to Yandex. "This is a huge milestone for Russian users and something we have been working toward for a long time," it wrote in a blog post. Now that this is settled, Yandex can get back to evaluating its relationship with Uber.
Uber’s answer to ride-sharing in Russia is a merger
Uber and Yandex, the 'Google of Russia', have agreed to combine their Russian ride-sharing businesses. The move further heralds the slowdown of Uber's global expansion, while it bolsters Yandex's position in its field: the company has invested $100 million into the venture compared to Uber's $225 million, but will own 59.3 percent. Yandex.Taxi chief executive Tigran Khudaverdyan will become the CEO of the combined business. Both companies will work together to provide ride-hailing and food delivery services in Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia and Kazakhstan. Customers can complete their transactions using either the Uber or Yandex app, while driver apps are set to be integrated once the merger is complete at the end of the year.
Russian internet giant Yandex shows off its self-driving car
When Russia's Yandex revealed that it, too, was working on self-driving cars, it was hard not to be a bit skeptical. Wouldn't it be well behind American counterparts with a years-long head start, like Waymo? Clearly, it's making up for lost time: Yandex (or specifically, its on-demand service Yandex.Taxi) has unveiled a prototype self-driving car. The heavily modified Toyota Prius V touts loads of sensors, AI and "proprietary computing algorithms" that can help it navigate around traffic and tricky obstacles. The demo video below doesn't show any mind-blowing concepts, but that's really the point -- Yandex is showing that it already has a functional machine.
Russia's main search engine defeats Google in antitrust complaint (updated)
A little over two years ago, Russia's largest search provider, Yandex, filed a complaint against Google for what it believed were anti-competitive practices. Now, Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service has given credence to Yandex's claims and "issued a prescription to Google in order to require the company to remove anti-competitive restrictions from its agreements with manufacturers," according to a press release.
Russia's search giant is making a self-driving shuttle bus
Internet search giants making self-driving cars appears to be a trend, and Russia's Yandex wants in. It's partnering with Daimler, truck maker Kamaz and government-backed researchers at NAMI on an autonomous shuttle bus that could carry up to 12 people and travel about 124 miles on a charge. Yandex is contributing its experiences with artificial intelligence, computer vision and voice recognition, and it'll even be central to the interface -- you'll use a Yandex-linked mobile app to pinpoint your destination.
Google fined $6.8 million by Russian antitrust body
Russia's antitrust body has slapped Google with a $6.8 million fine after ruling that the firm didn't do enough to open Android up to other companies. Officials believe that the search engine has abused its dominant position by crowding-out domestic rivals like Yandex, commonly known as Russia's Google. For instance, other firms aren't able to pre-load rivals apps for navigation or search on Android devices that are certified ready for Google Play. It's an accusation that Google denies and its representatives have already told the New York Times that it's reading the charges "closely."
Russia finds that Google is abusing its mobile dominance
Remember how Russian search firm Yandex claimed that Google was abusing its lead in mobile by making Android phone makers pre-install some Google apps, and precluding some third-party apps? Well, Russia agrees. The country's anti-monopoly regulator has determined that Google's app policy violates national competition law. The exact penalty won't be decided until sometime after September 28th, but Google will at least have to alter its approach to apps. It may also have to cough up as much as 15 percent of its Russian revenue from 2014.
Russia's largest search engine files antitrust complaint against Google
Yandex, Russia's largest search provider, has filed a complaint against Google for what it believes are anti-competitive practices. The complaint specifically relates Google's bundling of its search engine and apps into Android, which is, by far, the most popular mobile OS in Russia. According to Yandex, Google is actively preventing local smartphone vendors from pre-loading competing services onto devices running Android. It claims the belief that Android is an open platform is merely an illusion, as, in order to put the Google Play store on their devices, manufacturers are required to install the entire suite of Google services and set Google as the default search engine.
Google's Russian rival offers free alternative apps and services on Android
Android is famed for being an open-source operating system. Well, kind of. Anyone can cruise and caress Android's code thanks to the AOSP, but if you want a package complete with Google's services -- like the Play store, Mail, Maps and better-than-basic apps for messaging, imaging, etc. -- then you have to pay the piper. Yandex is to Russia as Google is to most other places, in that it's the country's most popular search engine, has its own browser and provides email and cloud storage services, among others. And now, with the launch of Yandex.Kit, it also has an alternative to the bits of Android only a licence'll get you. Available to those making devices for the Russian market, Yandex.Kit comprises 15 apps from browser, mapping, store and email clients to a launcher and dialer. (There's a slimmed-down version of the firmware for outside Russia, too). Most importantly, it's totally free, and has already attracted the likes of Huawei and local manufacturer Explay. Chinese firm Xiaomi forgoes Google's wares in its Android-based MIUI OS due to censorship issues. Here, however, Yandex is intentionally wedging itself between Android and Google to erode any reliance on the latter's ecosystem in Russia. The fact it allies you to Yandex instead being pure coincidence, of course.
Jolla phone will use Nokia Here map data, get Android apps through Yandex
Those who pick up Jolla's first smartphone won't be hurting for content. The mobile startup has just struck a deal to use Nokia's Here services for map data in Sailfish OS; early adopters will have detailed location info in 190 countries. They'll have an easy time finding software, too, since the company has also unveiled plans to include Yandex's Android app store. The Russian web giant will give Sailfish users access to about 85,000 apps, including major titles like Skype and Twitter. Between these two agreements, Jolla is practically ready for prime time -- about all it has left to do is ship its inaugural device to carriers.
Yandex introduces Twym online payment system for Twitter-based transfers
Russia's Yandex has been in the online payment business for more than a decade now with its Yandex.Money service, but it's branching out into some slightly more uncharted territory with its latest addition. Dubbed Twym, the company's new service will let folks send actual rubles to other Twitter users with nothing more than a tweet like the one above. Before that transfer takes place, though, both the sender and receiver of the money will need to link their Twitter and Yandex.Money accounts, and there are expectedly some limits on the amounts that can be transfered. 100,000 rubles (or roughly $3,300) is the maximum limit allowed by Yandex, but that can be changed by each user. You can also thankfully keep things private via direct message if you'd rather not broadcast your money transfers to all your followers.
Yandex passes Bing to become fourth largest search provider according to comScore
Bing, Microsoft's attempt to take on Google directly. When it first launched there was quite a bit of fanfare and its market share grew quickly. It didn't exactly hack away at Mountain View's dominance, but it certainly made a small dent. Since then, things have slowed down and other players have asserted themselves in the global search battlefield. While Baidu has been riding high for quite some time, Yandex is a relative new-comer to the leader board. And, somewhat surprisingly, has already surpassed Microsoft for global market share according to stats provided to us by comScore. Though the margin is small, the Russian company saw more searches performed through its site than Microsoft in both November and December of 2012. The difference is small enough that those positions could swap again but, where as Bing has seen its numbers plateau over the last six months, Yandex has continued to grow. Of course, neither is anywhere near challenging Google which accounts for roughly 65 percent of the search traffic according to comScore's numbers and both only see about half the traffic of the number three competitor, Yahoo. Microsoft can still claim one victory over Yandex in the number of unique searchers, though. If you're curious for more we've put the entire chart after the break.
Vine's friend-finding feature already blocked by Facebook
Facebook obviously isn't interested in welcoming new social media players, and not long after stopping Yandex's Wonder app from combing its precious data, it's decided to block the friend-finding feature in Twitter's Vine video embed app. Using the "find people" option in Vine now presents users with an error message, essentially killing that labor-saving option. Facebook, as we all know, is notorious for keeping rivals' noses out of its database, and let's not forget it pulled Instagram Card support from Twitter last year. We've contacted the social network for comment, and will update you if we get a response.
Yandex launches Wonder, a voice-controlled social search app for the US market (update)
Yandex, the Russian search giant, has just launched its first product for the US market: a voice-controlled social search app called Wonder. Available on iOS, the app pulls data from your Facebook, Foursquare, Instagram and Twitter accounts to answer questions like "What music do my friends listen to?" Essentially, it's a mobile version of Facebook's new Graph Search, which also uses data from your social network contacts to answer questions. Wonder uses Nuance's speech-recognition tech to record and convert your words into text, and Yandex's own language software then processes those words (you can also type your queries, if you're so inclined). According to TechCrunch, which spoke with the company about the new app, Wonder is launching as a "pure experiment," with the intent to collect feedback as well as data from English-speaking users. Currently, the app is only available in the US, and it only supports questions about places, music and news. If you're packing an iDevice, you can click through to the App Store to download Wonder for free. Make sure to check out a video demo past the break, too. Update: Facebook has thrown a spanner in the works, preventing the new app from accessing its API. The two sides are now discussing a way out of the impasse, which would need to meet Facebook's requirement that outside search engines only access its data with written permission. TechCrunch has more.
Russian technology firms agree to avoid poaching each other, keep salaries in check
American companies that reach no-poaching agreements do so behind closed doors, as it's considered illegal and anti-competitive. No such reservations appear to exist in Russia, as several of the country's top technology giants have openly admitted to reaching an unprecedented verbal deal: Acronis, Epam, Kaspersky Labs, Parallels and Yandex have all promised not to actively recruit each other's staff. They contend to CNews that it's a way to prevent salaries from getting out of control as staff are lured away, and that fear isn't entirely without justification -- there's a well-known salary war between Facebook and Google in Silicon Valley, for example, that makes it tough for smaller companies to attract the same talent. Whether or not the pact stands may be another matter. There's no history of Russian court action versus anti-poaching deals, but concern exists that the truce may not be strictly above-board. [Image credit: Jennifer Boyer, Flickr]
Yandex launches its own browser targeting Russian market
How many browsers is enough? Between Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer, (not to mention, Baidu, Amazon, Maxthon, Dolphin, etc...) you'd think we'd have plenty ways to surf the web. Not according to Yandex. The Russian search company has just released its own branded browser built around a Webkit base using Chromium as a starting point. This isn't its first foray into the world of software though, it's been offering a customized version of Firefox for some time, with Yandex as the default search engine. The new entry into the crowded browser market also borrows threat scanning technology from Kaspersky and Opera's Turbo for quickly loading content on slow connections. Tigran Khudaverdyan, head of mobile services at the company, even suggested to Business Week that a mobile version was in the works. For now it's only available for OS X and Windows, however. Check out the PR after the break and hit up the source link to download it now.
Firefox demotes Yandex, makes Google the default search engine in Russia
It looks like you can chalk up one more win for Google in its bid to be the number one search engine in as many places as possible. When the next version of Firefox rolls out in Russia, Google will be the default search engine, ousting local site Yandex from its long-held spot (though it will still be the second listed in the search bar). In a bit of a preemptive move, though, Yandex has also put out a press release to remind folks that it will continue to offer its own customized version of Firefox, in which it will remain front and center.
