In the few markets where it exists — however sparingly — Google Fiber has managed to provide enough of a threat of competition that the nation’s biggest cable/telecom providers have been willing to cut prices and/or improve service. But a number of recent developments, including a report that the Fiber staff is being significantly downsized, have some questioning the future of the service. [More]
Downsizing Rumors, Wireless Tests, Few Subscribers: What Exactly Is Going With Google Fiber?
By 8.29.16
Proposed European Law Change Could Make Google Pay Publishers For Your News Results
By 8.26.16
Regulators in Europe are proposing a big update to copyright law in the region that, if adopted, would likely to lead to major changes in the way your news aggregators, well, aggregate. [More]
Google Fiber Is Now Signing Up Customers For Service In Salt Lake City
By 8.25.16
Almost a year and a half after Google announced it would be bringing its new fiber service to Salt Lake City, the company has started the sign-up process for the city’s residents. [More]
Google Knows How Much You Hate Getting Giant Pop-Up Ads On Your Phone
By 8.24.16
It is one of the small but ubiquitous frustrations of the modern era: You tap an interesting-looking link on your phone, only to be greeted by some giant ad that takes up the whole screen and has some stupid tiny X mostly hidden, and in trying to close the ad you end up opening it and it’s annoying. If you are like most human phone-using people, you really hate that. Well, for stories you get to through search at least, Google’s got your back. [More]
Portland Joins The “Don’t Hold Your Breath Waiting For Google Fiber” List
By 8.15.16
Remember how last week, it turned out Google was temporarily suspending their plan to build out more Google Fiber in their own silicon valley back yard? Well, metro San Jose can feel special about one thing with the delay, at least: it’s not alone. [More]
Google Begins Testing Tech That Could Become Fiberless Fiber Service
By 8.11.16
People like fast internet. Google sells fast internet. People like Google’s fast internet. So far, so good. But Google doesn’t really like building Google’s fast internet, because it costs a lot of money, takes a lot of time, and is logistically complicated to build and maintain. One answer to that problem? Taking the wires out of the equation. [More]
Yelp, TripAdvisor Not Happy With Google’s New Critics’ Review Search Results
By 8.8.16
TripAdvisor and Yelp, two of the biggest names in crowdsourced reviews, say that Google is using its position as the dominant online search engine to push Google-backed reviews ahead of links to review sites. [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]
Google Plans To Work With All Carmakers On Self-Driving Vehicles
By 7.29.16
Google recently announced it will work with Fiat Chrysler to develop driverless minivans, but the tech titan has plans to make several more deals with automakers to ultimately put its autonomous vehicle tech in a variety of cars. [More]
Google Wants To Make Mobile Ads Less Annoying By Making Them Load Faster
By 7.19.16
Mobile ads are horrible. They eat up too much data [link] and load slowly, resulting in a growing number of wireless users turning to ad-blockers. In an effort to improve the mobile browsing experience — and, oh yeah, protect its sizable stream of ad revenue — Google is looking to speed up load times for ads. [More]
Google Fights Piracy By Making It Less Convenient For You — And It Works
By 7.14.16
People, by and large, will do the thing that’s easiest and most convenient to do. In 1999, the easiest way to get digital music was to log onto Napster and leave it running overnight, and so an era of widely-distributed internet piracy was born. These days, it’s pretty easy to access legal digital goods, so more people do that — but piracy still lurks around the edge. So how to quash it? [More]
Nest Adds An Outside Security Camera To Its Lineup
By 7.14.16
Generally, delivery people and other visitors to our homes seem to operate under the assumption that regular citizens do not have security cameras. As systems become smaller and cheaper, this turns out to be a bad assumption. Now Alphabet-owned connected-home company Nest has announced that its popular cameras now have an outdoor sibling. [More]
While You Collect Pokémon, Pokémon Go Collects Your Data
By 7.12.16
Even if you aren’t playing Pokemon Go, you know people — probably a lot of people — who are. And that means you, and your friends, should keep an eye on the permissions the popular app wants to access on your phone. [More]
Google Says Its Self-Driving Cars Can Learn Cyclists’ Hand Signals
By 7.6.16
From cars that squeeze cyclists out of their lanes to vehicles that fail to see when a biker is turning, people traveling on two wheels have many complaints with those traveling on four wheels. Cyclists might be happier to ride alongside self-driving vehicles in the future, as Google says its driverless cars can not only recognize their hand signals, but can understand them, remember them, and then reference those signals in the future. [More]
Google Chrome Browser Now Comes With Chromecast Feature Built In
By 7.6.16
Before now, if Chromecast users wanted to send whatever was displayed on their internet browser to a TV, you’d have to have the Chromecast extension installed in Google Chrome. That’s changing now, as Google has baked the casting feature right into the newest version of Chrome. [More]
Here’s How To Make Google Forget All Those Embarrassing Things You’ve Done Online
By 7.6.16
Remember that night you stayed up late watching every Crazy Town video you could find? Or when you scoured the internet for effective eye stye remedies? Google remembers those moments, but it doesn’t have to. Here’s how to scrub Google’s brain and make it forget you did any of that. [More]
Google Creates One-Stop Shop To Show You Just How Much It Knows About You
By 6.29.16
Google is everywhere. It’s the world’s biggest search engine, the most popular phone operating system, the most popular web browser, an incredibly popular e-mail service, and a thousand other things. That means it knows a lot about you, especially if you you log in to a Google account and sync or unify your profile about services. Seeing exactly how much it is they know about you, and how it’s used… well, that’s been a little harder. Until now. [More]
Google Chrome Has A Bug That Makes It Super Easy For Pirates To Purloin Streaming Video
By 6.27.16
Lots of things made our modern all-online, all-video era possible: Internet connections got faster, tech got cheaper, and so on. But the thing that made companies like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu willing and able to become household names in TV is a little invisible: it’s the ability to keep you paying for content. [More]
