U.S. President, Barack Obama, is reportedly meeting with Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Google’s (News 
– Alert) chief executive Eric Schmidt, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg today in San Francisco. Though Jobs’ declining health has been the subject of recent news, he is also scheduled to attend a business leaders’ event this evening with the President.
Schmidt recently announced his step down as CEO of Google, which will officially happen in April of this year as Google’s co-founder Larry Page (News – Alert) steps into the position.
White House officials said that Obama and the business leaders will discuss the goal of promoting American innovation and new investments in research and development at the event this evening.
In more news from Google, yesterday Schmidt announced a new service called Google One Pass, that enables publishers to set their own prices and terms for their digital content. Using the service, publishers can give readers access to digital content across websites and mobile applications while maintaining direct relationships with their customers.
Publishers will now be able to customize how and when they charge for content offering subscriptions or single articles for sale from mobile apps or websites. All payments are handled via Google Checkout, and the service gives One Pass publishers access to their content across tablets, smartphones, and websites using a single sign-on email and password.
The service is currently available in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and the US.
Even though Mark Zuckerberg has denied plans to create a Facebook (News – Alert) phone, it looks like the industry is going ahead with that idea with or without him. At the Mobile World Congress happening this week in Barcelona, Spain, HTC (News – Alert) unveiled the ChaCha and the Salsa : two phones that are essentially built around Facebook and incorporate Facebook’s features directly into the interface of the devices.
The phones break out Facebook features such as messaging, chat, and status updates into their own, separate applications that accompany Web browsers on the phones. The devices simply make it easier to access everything Facebook-related directly from the phone, and are targeted towards those mobile phone users who take advantage of the Facebook application that is currently available on all smartphones.
Juliana Kenny graduated from the University of Connecticut with a double degree in English and French. After managing a small company for two years, she joined TMC (News – Alert) as a Web Editor for TMCnet. Juliana currently focuses on the call center and CRM industries, but she also writes about cloud telephony and network gear including softswitches.
Edited by Juliana Kenny
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