Google News

Google is announcing no fewer than 13 different new software features at CES 2022, ranging from AirPods-like fast switching to promised software that will mirror your Android text apps on a Chromebook. It’s part of an initiative that Google calls “Better Together” but that the rest of the industry is more likely to refer to as “catching up to Apple’s ecosystem.” The biggest updates come to Google’s “Fast Pair” framework, an Android UI designed to make pairing Bluetooth… Source link

Google’s $500 million acquisition of Israel-based startup Siemplify is supposed to help the company bolster its own cloud security initiative, Chronicle, according to a report from Reuters. In a blog post announcing the deal, Google describes Siemplify as a security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) organization and plans to integrate its capabilities into Chronicle. “Siemplify allows Security Operation Center analysts to manage their operations from end-to-end”

LONDON (AP) — Germany’s antitrust watchdog paved the way Wednesday for extra scrutiny of Google by designating it a company of “paramount significance,” the first to get that label since regulators got more power to curb abusive practices by big digital companies. The Bundeskartellamt said its decision comes after rules were introduced last year that allow it “to intervene earlier and more effectively” to ban companies from using anti-competitive practices. The… Source link

In a decision as significant as it is unexpected, Germany’s antitrust regulator has concluded that Google’s business meets the threshold for special abuse control which was established under an update to competition law targeted at digital giants and passed at the start of last year. The finding that Google has “paramount significance across markets” is the first such decision taken by Germany’s Federal Cartel Office (aka the Bundeskartellamt) — which has ongoing procedures… Source link

Advertising technology provider Smartly.io Solutions Oy said it is buying Ad-Lib.io, a company that offers creative tools for various Google platforms, for more than $100 million, as it seeks to widen its offerings beyond social media. Newsletter… Source link

Apple has an agreement with Google that it won’t develop its own internet search engine so long as Google pays it to remain the default option in Safari, a new class action alleges. Filed in a California court earlier this week against Apple, Google, and their respective CEOs, the lawsuit alleges the two companies have a non-compete agreement in the internet search business that violates US antitrust laws. Specifically, the complaint charges Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai of… Source link

BERLIN, Jan 5 (Reuters) – Germany’s cartel office said it was examining Google’s use of personal data and its Google News Showcase product under its new powers to regulate internet companies, and was also considering cases involving Amazon, Apple and Facebook owner Meta. The regulator said on Wednesday it had determined that Google’s owner Alphabet met the scale threshold required for a company to be subject to new extended supervisory powers to regulate large internet companies that it… Source link

Fossil fuel companies and firms that work closely with them are among the biggest spenders on ads designed to look like Google search results, in what campaigners say is an example of “endemic greenwashing”. The Guardian analysed ads served on Google search results for 78 climate-related terms, in collaboration with InfluenceMap, a thinktank that tracks the lobbying efforts of polluting industries. The results show that over one in five ads seen in the study – more than 1,600 in total… Source link

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here. Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for January 4, 2022! Yesterday we noted that startup news was kicking off the year a little light, but that that would change quickly. And change it has. In the following we have IPO news, robot news, canned-water startup news, acquisitions and more. Let’s go! —Alex The TechCrunch Top 3

Google is giving four of its top execs a significant pay bump, raising their salaries from $650,000 to $1 million, just weeks after the company told staffers it wouldn’t automatically adjust salaries to account for inflation. The new executive salaries were disclosed in an SEC filing. The executives receiving the $1 million base salaries are chief financial officer Ruth Porat, senior vice president Prabhakar Raghavan (who is in charge of Google search); senior vice president and chief… Source link