Obama's Tax Evaders of the Year
It's a Golden Pass for liberal millionaires and billionaires who support higher Obama taxes for everyone but themselves. Meet the Democratic tax evaders of the year.
-- Google. The left-wing Internet giant provided Silicon Valley's biggest campaign finance boost to Obama, with individual employee donations supporting the tax-hiking candidate by a ratio of more than 31-to-1. Google rank-and-file workers pitched in some $800,000 to Obama. Google's CEO Eric Schmidt, Google cofounder Sergey Brin, Chief Legal Officer and Senior Vice President David Drummond, and Google Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf are all vocal Obama supporters and top donors.
In December, Google's Netherlands subsidiary disclosed in a tax filing that it had shifted nearly $10 billion in revenues to a Bermuda shell company. That's "almost double the total from three years before," according to Bloomberg News. In response to criticism, Google defended the scheme as a legal response to government incentives. "It's called capitalism," Schmidt snarked defiantly.
Wonder what all of Obama's operatives and media lapdogs who bashed evil, selfish Republican offshore tax havens have to say about that? Cue crickets chirping.
-- The Washington Post. Speaking of media lapdogs, this newspaper sanctimoniously supported Obama for president and singled out his support for "revenue (tax) increases." Its endorsement editorial castigated Mitt Romney for embracing an America "in which an ever-greater share of the nation's wealth resides with the nation's wealthy, at a time when inequality already is growing."
The privileged wealthy barons at The Washington Post, however, increased that inequality at the end of the year when they joined a growing number of companies who are giving 2013 dividends in 2012 to protect investors from paying higher Obama taxes on dividend income. It's "proof positive," my friend and guest-blogger Doug Powers noted, "that no matter what happens in the negotiations, the country is definitely going off the irony cliff."
Move Over Siri: Google Now Comes to iPhone, iPad
Similar to the Android version, the iOS version will provide information tailored to your life. For instance, it will show you the weather when you start your day, remind you of your next appointment and show you the fastest way to get to work, complete with different routes based on traffic. The service learns your habits and your routines and provides you the information you need without having to go search for it.
"Our goal is to get you the right information, at just the right time," Google CEO Larry Page said of the service on the company's earnings call last week.
Focus on Design
Unlike the Android version, which is integrated into Google's operating system, the iPhone and iPad version are parts of the Google Search app. However, Google has brought the same look and feel of the Android version over to the iOS app, focusing on clean design and presenting those alerts or information on cards.
"One of the things you have started to see is that Google is finding a mature design language across all of its products," Matias Duarte, Google's Director of Android User Experience, told ABC News. "When we started working on Google Now last year, we had people from all over the company from Search to Google Labs to Android come help design it."
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Similar to the new Maps, YouTube and Gmail apps for the iPhone, the Google Now app uses a fresh, modern font and balances it with a good amount of white space. Duarte says that while the Now app for iOS has many of the same design elements as the Android version, some changes were made.
"We don't want to just uniformly force one experience on to anyone, regardless of the platform," he explained. "It has to be a good visitor in the country it lives in, while still retaining its unique identity. You need to accommodate the environment your experience lives in."
Aiming at Apple
Of course, that environment already has a similar personal assistant app -- Siri. Apple introduced the voice-controlled personal assistant in iOS in 2010 and has been improving it ever since.
Google Now also supports voice control. You can tap the microphone icon and ask the service what the weather is or if your flight is on time.
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When the iPhone was introduced, Google services, including Maps and YouTube, came preloaded on Apple's device. However, as Google's Android has surged in popularity, Apple has begun to focus on its own apps, removing Google's preloaded services. Google Maps and YouTube were not included in Apple's latest iOS 6.
When Google Maps was released for the iPhone, many quickly replaced Apple Maps app with Google's more accurate solution. People replacing Apple's apps with Google's iOS apps, even though they are no longer preloaded, is becoming a trend, analysts say.
"Even though Apple has been pursuing Cloud services, Google has placed a stronger emphasis on tying more of those services to apps. A lot of Apple's Cloud services are more of a background infrastructure," Ross Rubin, principal analyst of Reticle Research, told ABC News. "Google is either stronger or there is no real significant competition with many of its Cloud apps. Google Now is just the latest example."
Google's Search app, including Google Now, can be downloaded now from the App Store here.
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