While Eric Schmidt and Steve Jobs may have had a “no poaching” agreement before, it seems like it is no longer in place. According to Venture Beat, Google has just hired Simon Prakash, Apple Senior Director of product integrity.

Prakash worked with Apple for eight years, and most recently was in charge of quality control for all Apple products. We do not yet know what Simon will be bringing to the table, though, or if it will be related to Android. Google has hired him to work in a “secret project.”

It is said that this “secret project” is ran by Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Sergey has worked with Google on multiple secret projects. With Android being one of the main products for Google, though, we hope this man can work on something related to our favorite mobile OS.

Apple is very well known for product quality, probably making Simon a great asset to the company. Who knows, he might be getting involved in the Nexus program.

Either way, the Department of Justice is investigating both companies, since it seems they might have agreed on not “poaching” each other’s employees (along with other companies). We will have to wait and see how things work out, and what this “secret project” is all about.

We love speculation, though. So hit the comments! What do you guys think this project is all about?

[Source: Venture Beat Via: The Verge]

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There are dozens of photo-editing options available in the Android Market (I probably have 7-8 installed in my phone). So when I learnt of Aviary releasing an Android version of their app, I wasn’t too interested in checking it out.

I’ve only used it to edit one picture so far, and I’ll come back to share a proper opinion about it after some serious usage. But I felt it deserved some attention over the weekend. So here are my earlier impressions.

The first thing to note is that it isn’t really an app – it’s a plugin. This is the reason why you won’t find it in your app tray.

So, how do you use it? As you browse your photos in your gallery app, choose the image you want to edit, click share and choose Aviary from the options available.The image is now open in the app, from where you can edit using an interface that isn’t very different from competing applications.

The approach is interesting. And I believe it’s the right way to go about it, considering it allows you to quickly jump to the image editor as you browse your photos.

The UI is a beauty, too. There are quite a few filters available in the free version. However, the lack of options to share the image (once fully edited) from the app itself is disappointing. Once you finish, you’re taken back to the gallery with your edited image in focus. All it needs is another tap on “share” to pass it on from there, but the option should be available in the app, itself.

Maybe I’m nitpicking, but I’m hoping they have it planned in their update. To click share once, edit the app, and require another click on share doesn’t seem right to me.

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I never use ad-blocks. Not on my phone, or my computer. I completely understand that a developer has put in a ton of effort to create something that I’m using for free, and the least I can do is let them try to make money through advertisements.

But I have one golden rule: Keep those ads out of my notifications. I don’t care how good the app is, if you do that, I am going to uninstall you and give you a 1-star rating.

Only problem is, it can at times get extremely difficult to realize which app, in particular, is sending those notifications. Especially after downloading a substantial amount of them. Luckily enough, Lookout has us covered with their new Push Ad Detector.

The process is quite simple – just install the Detector and run a scan. It’ll give you a list of which apps use push-ad networks. the service also lists the networks used and helps you opt-out of these networks.

However, I don’t opt-out of them. I simply uninstall them. I’m not going to give a service private information, such as my IMEI, to stop them from spamming me.

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DISCLAIMER: This bit of news is based from a post on the forums over at The Verge. It is based entirely on rumors. But it just seems worth sharing.

December of 2011 was a very exciting month for Android – No, not because of the availability of the Galaxy Nexus, or the roll-out of Ice Cream Sandwich. Rather, the rumors of a secret project inside of the secret Google X lab, called Majel: a voice-action technology said to be far more advanced than anything we’ve seen so far.

If a post on Reddit by an alleged former Google employee is to be believed, the artificial intelligence behind Majel is so powerful, that it passes the Turing Test (which rates a machine’s capability to exhibit intelligent behavior) 93% of the time. But to make it work accurately at a personal level, it needs a great degree of data.

Where is this data available? Why, with Google of course! Only issue was, Google’s individual services kept their data about a user independent from other services. As is suggested in the forum post on The Verge, this posed as a hindrance for Majel. It would require the provision of permission to Majel explicitly by the user for each and every service.

Now, I’m not going to say this is the only reason behind the new policy. I was honestly surprised that Google hadn’t brought the personal data together earlier, itself. For a company that makes its revenues by an understanding of our nature and our needs, it seemed foolish to have the data separate for so long.

Yet, despite spending quite some time thinking, I couldn’t come up with any current Google service that would benefit from the new policy to the degree Majel would. Maybe Google has something else up its sleeve. I might help them improve their search algorithm or ads.

But I’d like to dream that it’s about Majel. I personally can’t wait to have such technology available soon.

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Yahoo may be losing a lot of ground in terms of search engine marketshare, but it isn’t going to go down quietly. They’ve just added a tab to their search engine allowing users to search for Android Market and the Apple App Store applications.

After performing a search, you can filter results by category, as well as a free or paid option. Once you select an app, you can install it by having a text sent to your phone with a link, via a QR code or by going to the Market/App Store. Yahoo is also pulling in the reviews from the Market/App Store, while at the same time offering Yahoo users an opportunity to give their own feedback in Yahoo.

Honestly, I can’t imagine why anyone would ever use it. It’s not an alternative store, meaning you would have to download from the Android Market, itself. All I can make out, though, is that the "trending" section on the right hand side seems a bit flawed. Only 3 of the 10 apps listed there have a Yahoo user’s review, with Angry Birds (it’s still trending?) accounting for 9 of the 11 reviews I counted.

How Yahoo is judging if an app is trending isn’t clear at this point. It probably has to do with search terms. But personally, I have a sneaky feeling those spots might have been bought or are curated.

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