'Tis a sad day in the world of Google... at least for developers who use any of a handful of ill-fated APIs. As the search giant's API list has grown in recent months, it's making the decision to cull a few in the effort of "spring cleaning." In fact, a grand total of seven new APIs were launched during Google I/Oalone, but it looks as if the end is nigh for the Blog Search API, Books Data API, Image Search API, News Search API, Patent Search API, Safe Browsing API (v1 only), Translate API, Transliterate API, Video Search API and Virtual Keyboard API. Of those, Wave is most unsurprising, but Translate likely hurts the most -- particularly for jetsetters who relied on those baked-in services to wrap their heads around various tongues. According to Goog, the Translate API has been officially deprecated "due to the substantial economic burden caused by extensive abuse." A pretty ominous phrase, to be sure, and further proof that a few rotten apples can ruin things for the whole of us. Hit the links below to get a glimpse of the full damage -- we're warning you, it ain't pretty.
Android Market may have a lot going for it, but most would surely agree that it could use some improvement when it comes to discovering apps that you aren't specifically looking for. Thankfully, it seems Google has indeed been aware of those concerns, and it's now announced five new features that should go so some way towards improving things. Those include some newly revamped top app charts that promise to be "fresher" and country specific, a brand new Editors' Choice section that highlights apps chosen by Google, a new Top Developers feature that places a special icon next to the name of developers that make the grade (currently more than 150), improved related apps on individual app pages and, last but not least, a new trending apps section that shows the apps growing fastest in terms of daily installs. What's more, while all of those features are currently exclusive to the web-based version, Google says they're also "coming soon" to the Andr...
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