According to statistics firm Quantcast, Android devices now account for 25 percent of North America’s mobile Internet traffic. Traffic for Google’s Android OS increased 2 percent, while the market share for Apple’s iOS 4 and other mobile operating systems decreased.

In a previous post on its blog, Quantcast noted that web traffic for the iPad is not included in the figures for Apple’s iOS, which could significantly raise Apple’s market share if included. Quantcast did not specify if the iPad’s figures were included with the firm’s latest statistics.

Within the past year, Apple has lost 11 percent of its web market share to other operating systems, while Google has gained 17 percent. Steve Jobs & Co. still hold the most market share with 56 percent of all mobile Internet traffic coming from iOS 4.

AppleInsider points out that if Google can “maintain another year of comparable growth, Android will be nearly neck-and-neck with iOS.” Research in Motion, the makers of the BlackBerry devices, are steadily losing ground as its market share slips to 9 percent.

Greg Abbott, the Texas attorney general, is currently investigating Google for the way the website  ranks websites in the search listings after complaints that Google has been abusing its power as the Internet’s most popular search engine.

The investigation aims to make sure that Google is not manipulating its search results to sabotage its competitors. Attorney General Greg Abbott confirmed the investigation, but declined to comment further when questioned by The Huffington Post.

This is not the first time that the 12 year old company has been investigated for possibly favoring its own services over rivals in its search rankings, but Google did say that Abbott was the first attorney general to investigate such claims. European regulators have been investigating Google for quite some time over the same issues.

Google currently processes two-thirds of the search requests in the United States, and handles even more volume in other parts of the world. Being ranked on the front page can mean more ad revenue and more traffic to websites.

The opposite can also have a pretty devastating effect on websites, and has been blamed for some Internet companies flopping due to poor results.

Google wrote in a blog post on Friday that it is ‘welcoming’ Abbott’s investigation and any questions that he and his office may have.

“Given that not every website can be at the top of the results, or even appear on the first page of our results, it’s unsurprising that some less relevant, lower quality websites will be unhappy with their ranking,” Don Harrison, Google’s deputy general counsel, wrote.

Google noted that if users were unhappy with its results, they would use a different search engine. The company is also under investigation over privacy concerns.

The Financial Times is reporting that Google is currently in negotiations with major Hollywood movie studios to launch a streaming pay-per-view service on YouTube by the end of the year. Google is pitching the idea of the on-demand service being intertwined with existing Google products.

Sources close to FT say that the service will more-than-likely launch in the United States first, with other countries “added over time”. The search company is looking to its search engine and YouTube to market the new service.

The movie rental service has been in beta testing since January, claimed one source, and has been in discussion for months. Competition from Netflix’s streaming service and Hulu have created a deeper interest and a greater urgency from movie studios and Google.

Apple is also set to unveil its new Apple TV and a $99 version of its set-top box at an event this week, which will connect TV sets to the Internet, and users being able to download apps — like on an iPad — and purchase/rent movies straight from the studio.

Google has been searching for YouTube’s next big thing since the search conglomerate acquired the video sharing website in 2006.

Paul Allen, who co-founded Microsoft in 1975 with Bill Gates, has filed suit against 12 major corporations over technology he claims to have patented.

The companies: Google, Facebook, eBay, Apple, Yahoo Inc., AOL Inc., Netflix, Office Depot Inc., OfficeMax Inc., Staples Inc. and YouTube, a subsidiary of Google.

All four patents are for technology innovated more than 10 years ago by a software company that Allen owned. Interval Research Corp was financed for about $100 million by Allen during the Dot Com bubble, and was shut down soon after.

The second patent,which allows a website to offer suggestions related to items that the user is viewing, is a feature on Amazon, but Amazon has not been listed. (Maybe for being Seattle-based?) Microsoft, the company that Allen co-founded with Bill Gates, is also missing from the list of companies being filed upon.

The other patents are for technology that enables ads and stock quotes (among other things) to flash on screen, and provides links of related news stories for readers who are viewing a topic.

No doubt that the reason Allen and his firm, Interval Licensing LLC, are suing is from the success of NTP Inc, who won the suits it had with Apple, BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion Ltd, and Microsoft in 2006.

One result was RIM settling out of court with NTP at the price of $612.5 million. So maybe Allen has a chance?

Yesterday, Google officially launched a Google Voice plugin for Gmail that the search company had been rumored to be in testing for the last couple weeks. Google announced today, via Twitter, that over 1 million calls had taken place over Gmail.

The service might seem worthwhile to users in the United States and Canada, as those calls are free for now. International calling rates are offered at a discount. Even though there is a discount on the rates (and a good one at that), the International rates still pay for the North American calls.

Skype, a company who has already been offering this for 7 years, must be keeping a close tab on the Gmail / Google Voice adoption rate. It’s obvious that users are quick to take advantage of the service due to the amount of users that Gmail has globally.

The Gmail plugin is only available to US users for now, but it’s probably safe to assume that all of you folks across the water will see it soon.

Nielson has published its monthly report on the market share percentage for search websites, where Google remains the top search website with 64.2 percent. Yahoo followed with 14.3 percent, while Bing held a 13.6 percent share.

Top U.S. Search Sites for July 2010, Ranked by Share of Search
Rank	Brand	Share of Search	MoM change %	YoY change %
1	Google Search	64.2%	-1%	-1%
2	Yahoo! Search	14.3%	4%	-17%
3	MSN/Windows Live/Bing Search	13.6%	2%	51%
4	Ask.com Search	2.1%	2%	24%
5	AOL Search	1.9%	-3%	-38%

Bing’s market share percentage has risen 51 percent in the last 12 months, and AOL has suffered a 38 percent decline in market share in the last 12 months.  All combined, the top three search engines account for more than 9 out of 10 searches (92.1 percent).

Google’s market share has stayed the same for most of the past 12 months, which is not necessarily a good thing. While Bing and Ask.com are increasing their market share percentages, Google remains the same and the service is not attracting new users.

Overall, the number of searches in the US has decreased by 16 percent from 10.5 billion last year to only 8.8 billion in July 2010.  Bing, with the help of the constant marketing, was the only search engine out of the Top 3 to increase percentage-wise in terms of search volume, creating a 28 percent increase (0.9 billion to 1.2 billion).

If you remember, yesterday iWinUX reported an article about a new calling service from within Gmail, and today, Google has officially announced that Google Voice will be a plug-in for the Gmail web client.

You can dial or answer calls, and just talk directly into your computer’s microphone. No special software or hardware. Google says that the call quality is “really good”, and the service is supposed to have a decent echo cancellation filter.

Google, who has been trying to turn itself into a communications hub, will also be setting up phone booths in major universities and airports. Here’s an awesome picture courtesy of Gizmodo:

Even with the snazzy marketing, does Google Voice have what it takes to be a Skype killer? Skype, a 7-year-old company, has been really dominating the market, bringing in 6.4 billion minutes in the first quarter of 2010. With that being said, Gmail has a huge user base, and could make people stick with Google instead of another company with a similar product.

Calls within the US are free, while international calling is offered at discounted rates. There is also an ability to have video chat after installing the Google plugin.

Ever wanted to make phone calls through your email client? Google is testing just that: the ability to make phone calls from the Google Chat interface on Gmail.com, the search’ company’s flagship email service.

The ability is launched from the bottom left-hand side, where the Google Chat box has always been, and will give users the ability to receive and make phone calls to landlines and cell phones from numbers that are associated with contacts in the Address Book.

The new feature’s user interface resembles Google Voice, but it is not known as to whether or not the new feature will be included in Google Voice or something entirely on its own. And Google hasn’t said much:

“Google is always testing new features and products, but we have nothing specific to announce right now,” said a representative for Google.

The service allows free phone calls in the US with discounted rates for international compared to standard fee.

When SEO consultant Rob Ousbey was using Google yesterday, he noticed that live updates of results were showing as he was typing every letter. Google confirmed the capability, but would not state on how soon the search company was planning on implementing the feature to everyone.

It’s safe to say that only a small fragment of Google searchers are getting to preview the live updates, as Ousbey has been the only one to mention it thus far. Gabriel Stricker, a spokesperson for Google, told TechCrunch that Google usually runs “50-200″ experiments at a time, and referred them to its blog.

When Google announced that it would be no longer selling the Nexus One, the search company arranged that developers, who are registered through the Android Market, could be able to purchase the device as a development platform.

It was obvious that Google was about to cancel production on the phones, as the Nexus One only selling 80,000 devices in the same amount of time as the iPhone’s 1 million. The cease in production has almost been like a brilliant marketing plan, because Google has hit a shortage of AMOLED screens.

The Nexus One has sold out, and are currently on back-order with HTC. According to the Android Developers official blog:

“A couple of weeks ago, we arranged that registered developers could buy an unlocked Nexus One via their publisher page in Android Market. We think it’s a good development platform and a nice phone. Apparently, you agree. Somewhat too many of you, in fact; we blew through the (substantial) initial inventory in almost no time, and they’re back-ordered from HTC, who are doing a pretty good job of managing runaway success amid a worldwide AMOLED shortage. Everyone appreciates that it’s important to the platform to get phones in the hands of developers, so we’re working hard on re-stocking the shelves; stand by.”