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Google’s Larry Page has posted a blog post today on the company’s website that is going to come as a bit of a shock for some.  Google is about to become a part of an all new start up of Larry and Sergey Brin.  The company, Alphabet, will become the parent company of Google along with many of the other projects that will become companies in their own right.  It’s a big and ambitious move.

What is Alphabet? Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies. The largest of which, of course, is Google. This newer Google is a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main Internet products contained in Alphabet instead. What do we mean by far afield? Good examples are our health efforts: Life Sciences (that works on the glucose-sensing contact lens), and Calico (focused on longevity). Fundamentally, we believe this allows us more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren’t very related. Alphabet is about businesses prospering through strong leaders and independence. In general, our model is to have a strong CEO who runs each business, with Sergey and me in service to them as needed. We will rigorously handle capital allocation and work to make sure each business is executing well. We’ll also make sure we have a great CEO for each business, and we’ll determine their compensation. In addition, with this new structure we plan to implement segment reporting for our Q4 results, where Google financials will be provided separately than those for the rest of Alphabet businesses as a whole.

The changes coming to Google are not insignificant and they will likely impact many of the services we use today.

For those of you patiently-impatiently-patiently waiting for the OnePlus 2 here in the United States and Canada, your wait just got a little longer.  In their forums today, OnePlus confirmed that the release of their latest flagship phone has been delayed by 2-3 weeks.

The production of the OnePlus 2 is in full swing and we’re excited to get the OnePlus 2 in your hands. However we do want to tell our users in North America that due to production schedules, shipping to the States and Canada will commence 2-3 weeks after shipments to Europe.

The news will certainly be disappointing to those who are waiting to buy the phone.

Amazon has released an update to their Android phone shopping app, Amazon Shopping, that brings deep and impressive voice integration into the app.  The update is available now and is build 5.7.2.100 for those keeping score at home and it brings it on par with the Amazon app for Android Tablets which has voice search functionality.  The update for the phone version of the app is a bit more sophisticated in what you can do with it just by talking to the app.

Amazon Shopping for Android Phone – Free – Download Now

Yelp has updated their Android phone app this weekend with several improvements that will make your restaurant, bar and coffee shop searching a bit easier. The latest update is version 7.8.1 for those keeping score at home and with it brings a much improved photo sharing ability with other apps you have installed on your phone.

For those who may not be familiar with Yelp, it is an app and service that allows you to find local businesses and see how other users of Yelp have rated them. It’s a great way to find a new place to eat or for that perfect cup of coffee but it isn’t limited to just foodie centric. You can also find local pharmacies, shopping locations and fuel stations all within Yelp.

Yelp for Android Phone – Free – Download Now