A long time ago, in a ride-hailing era that now seems far away, Google and Uber were friends, with the internet giant plugging $258 million in Uber in 2013. Four years later, the two sides are embroiled in a legal battle over self-driving cars, and the tech company is pouring money into Uber’s biggest rival, Lyft, instead. [More]
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Google Reportedly Planning To Build Ad-Blocker Into Chrome
By 4.20.17
Unless you work in the advertising industry, chances are you hate online ads that slow down, interrupt, or just plain ruin your browsing experience. That’s why the use of ad-blocking technology has soared in recent years. But would Google, which makes a mountain of money off web ads, actually build an ad-blocker directly into its Chrome browser? [More]
Facebook, Google, Twitter Told To Revise User Agreements Or Face Fines In Europe
By 3.17.17
Operating globally is tricky: You have to know, and follow, the rules not just of the country where you’re based, but of the countries and regions where you serve customers, too. And for a major silicon valley trio, the way they serve customers in the European Union is apparently not up to snuff. [More]
Google’s Waymo Sues Uber For Stealing Trade Secrets About Self-Driving Cars
By 2.24.17
It’s no secret that self-driving car tech is a growing, multi-billion-dollar, highly competitive new space. What is supposed to be secret, however, are confidential design documents about how each company makes their autonomous cars work. Google, however, says that roughly 10 GB of those secrets — in the form of 14,000 files — walked out the door with a former employee who took them with him to Uber, swiping Google’s work and designs for the competition. [More]
Google Fiber Shrinks Once Again, May Be Restructuring For A More Wireless Future
By 2.16.17
Bad news for Google Fiber fans… and worse news for employees. Word on the street today is that the division is shrinking even more, sending its workers into other parts of the company and slimming down everything it can. [More]
Google Spinning Self-Driving Car Project Off Into Company Called ‘Waymo’
By 12.13.16
Google’s self-driving car project is now a separate company and it has a new name: it wants you to call it Waymo. Perhaps short for “way more” driverless cars? [More]
Google, Facebook To Fight Fake “News” Sites By Blocking Them From Ad Money
By 11.15.16
Google and Facebook are, hands down, the two most common ways for basically everyone to find information: either you’re searching for links on one, or browsing your news feed on the other. They’re also the two biggest advertising companies in the world, which gives them some leverage to feed or starve some content. And when it comes to totally bogus news, both are now going to take the “starve” approach. [More]
Google To Fiber Cities: Don’t Freak Out, We’re Not Cancelling Anything
By 11.4.16
When Alphabet joyously announced last week that Google Fiber was so great that they were going to stop expanding it, lay people off, and lose the CEO, some confusion followed. Google Fiber is, after all, still kind of a nascent business — in most cities where it has a presence, it’s still just a toe-hold, with more expansion waiting on the horizon. So are the other towns and neighborhoods who have been waiting for service still going to get it? [More]
Google Fiber Hitting “Pause” On Expansion; CEO Departing, Layoffs Planned
By 10.26.16 — Updated: 11.1.16
The CEO of Google Fiber wants you to know that Fiber is doing great. Super great, y’all. So great, in fact, that he’s leaving, employees are being laid off, and expansion into any “potential” city is totally halting immediately. [More]
Google Wants You To Switch From iPhone; Announces Home, Pixel Pre-Orders Start Today
By 10.4.16 — Updated: 10.5.16
In an event today in San Francisco, Google executives announced some of the worst-kept secrets in tech since the iPhone 7 turned out to exist. And although everyone expected the Pixel phone and Google Home to be today’s showcases, Google still managed to cram a whole lot into its 90 minutes… including a whole lot of not-so-subtle digs that anyone who wants to walk out on Apple might find today’s the time. [More]
Early Posting Leaks Pictures, Specs Of New Google Pixel Phone
By 10.3.16
Home isn’t the only new product Google will be launching this week. Joining it is the new, long-awaited Pixel phone. Except thanks to an “oops” on one retailer’s site, the wait for news ended a bit early. [More]
Google Launching Home AI Competitor To “Accidental Winner” Amazon Echo This Week
By 10.3.16
If growing up on Star Trek: The Next Generation reruns taught us anything, it’s that the future would be brought to us by computers that could recognize our voice commands and do whatever we asked. And while none of the products on the market today sound like the late Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, we are still surrounded by machine-generated female voices that answer our questions, queue up our favorite tunes, and dim our room lights on request. But the dominant player in that space is one that, just a few years ago, nobody would have expected — because it’s Amazon, not Google, connecting homes. [More]
Google Will Actually Deliver Burritos By Drone To Some Lucky College Kids
By 9.8.16
The eternal college conundrum: I am hungry, but too tired, busy, lazy, hungry, or hung-over to go to the place where the food I want is being sold. Why can’t lunch just appear on command and drop out of the sky? [More]
Report: Google Scrapping Modular Smartphone Project
By 9.2.16
Remember that fancy-pants, fully modular, user-customizable smartphone Google was working on? Well, if you do, you may as well go ahead and forget it now, because the project has been cancelled. [More]
Google, GlaxoSmithKline Partner For $715M Bioelectronic Medicines Firm
By 8.1.16
Most of us have used Google to find out more about existing medications, but the tech giant also has a life sciences division, which has now entered into a $715 million partnership with big pharma biggie GlaxoSmithKline to form a new company focused on fighting disease through technological innovations. [More]
Nest May Compensate Revolv Users Who Will Own $300 Paperweights As Of May 15
By 4.6.16
There’s a serious problem with “smart” devices that can power items in your home: many of them are designed so that they only work with their creators’ cloud service. That’s fine, as long as your internet access is reliable and the company doesn’t go out of business or decide to shut off the servers where those cloud services run. Unlike Nest, companies should probably anticipate that some users might be a bit upset about this. [More]
Not Sure If That EMail Is Authenticated Or Secure? GMail Will Start Warning You
By 2.11.16
A solid 25 years into the all-digital era, email continues to evolve. So this week, one of the world’s biggest providers is adding a few small features to help protect consumers. [More]
Nest Thermostats Were Leaking ZIP Codes Over WiFi
By 1.20.16
The Nest thermostat is a popular smart device that supposedly helps users to save money on heating and cooling, and also have a cool-looking round electronic device on their walls. Yet two researchers at Princeton University pointed out a problem that should terrify most Nest users: their thermostats were broadcasting their location, unencrypted, over WiFi. [More]
