Google News

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon has talked up the retail company’s generative AI search capabilities, one more threat to Alphabet’s internet dominance. Alphabet has been among the big tech losers in the stock market this year, alongside Apple, both struggling to tell investors winning AI stories. Google founder Sergey Brin recently conceded missteps in gen AI but said the company will figure out the right business models; analysts say online retailers will be more competitive in search within their… Source link

There is little to choose between premium Samsung or Apple or even Google smartphones these days. It’s the iPhone versus Android operating systems that set them apart. Now that’s changing as well—and Google’s surprise new update plugs another iPhone-shaped hole on Android devices. 3/10 update below; article originally published 3/8. Android is changing and changing quickly. On the device side, there’s now little between premium devices—primarily from Samsung—and the latest… Source link

We have all come to live with the endless succession of online meetings that dominate our working lives. But beware, some of those meetings might suddenly be more dangerous than you think… Beware—online meetings just became more dangerous getty It turns out that a dull online meeting might not be the worst thing that can happen when yet another Zoom or Google Meet invite turns up. “Beginning in December 2023,” researchers at Zscaler have just warned, “[we] discovered a threat actor… Source link

Angle down icon An icon in the shape of an angle pointing down. Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images Google confirmed it fired an employee who protested publicly against Israel. The worker stood and shouted during a presentation by Google Israel’s managing director. The employee was protesting Project Nimbus, Google’s $1.2 billion contract with Israel’s government. A Google engineer who publicly protested a talk by the head of Google Israel is now out of a job. The employee… Source link

An update to Google Wallet has further simplified the process of getting all your passes in one place. Per this week’s release notes for , spotted by Android reporter ​​, Google says movie tickets and boarding passes will now be surfaced automatically after purchase, as long as the confirmation email has made it to the user’s Gmail inbox. It might not work for every theater chain or airline just yet, but Google says the feature is live for “some” and more should be added in… Source link

In its latest updates, Google Wallet has added support for automatically pulling movie tickets and travel boarding passes from your Gmail account. Announced in developer release notes for Wallet, Google explains that the app is now able to automatically import data from confirmation emails for movie tickets and boarding passes. Wallet has already supported showing both of these for some time now, but they’ll now appear automatically instead of being added… Source link

In addressing a Pixel feature that’s disappeared, Google has confirmed that the Pixel 8a is on its way. Back in Android 14’s QPR1 update, Google added a new extension of battery stats, which showed charging cycle counts and the date the battery was manufactured. This was a welcome addition, but also limited in how useful it actually was. In the March 2024 update for Pixel phones, though, this feature disappeared. According to Google on a bug tracker page, that’s… Source link

So in January, when the Amazon founder invested in a company seeking to take Google’s place in the food chain, people sat up and took notice.  Bezos took part in a $74m investment in Perplexity, a San Francisco start-up that aims to answer queries with artificial intelligence rather than a list of links.  Type a question into the app – how to roast a chicken – and it will confidently answer with a couple of sentences and a few bullet points, rather than… Source link

Angle down icon An icon in the shape of an angle pointing down. Google Google has unveiled its new headquarters in New York. The office, which is next to the Hudson River, features 1.5 acres of plants. The tech giant has doubled its New York headcount from 7,000 in 2018 to 14,000 in 2024. Google opened the doors to its new headquarters in New York in February. The structure was built on top of a three-story 1930s rail terminal, which used to be the end point of the High Line, a… Source link

There was more internal controversy this week, also tied to the crisis in Gaza. Ahead of an International Women’s Day Summit in Silicon Valley on Thursday, Google’s employee message board was hit with an influx of staffer comments about the company’s military contracts with Israel. The online forum, which was going to be used to help inform what questions were asked of executives at the event, was shut down for what a spokesperson described to CNBC as “divisive content that is disruptive to… Source link