Earlier this month, Google announced that it would kill free Google Workspace accounts that were using the G Suite legacy free edition. As spotted by Ars Technica and following customer backlash, Google has updated its support page and says that it plans to offer more options to existing users. Google Workspace as it exists today is a very different product from its predecessor. Google’s productivity subscription package is now primarily designed for businesses. The company offers… Source link
Read More »Google to invest up to $1 billion in Indian telecom operator Airtel – TechCrunch
Google will invest as much as $1 billion in the Indian telecom operator Airtel, the latest in a series of bets the search giant has made in the world’s second largest internet market as part of a $10 billion commitment to the country. Google said it will invest $700 million to acquire a 1.28% stake in Airtel, the second largest telecom operator in India with over 300 million subscribers, and pour up to $300 million more to explore multi-year commercial agreements… Source link
Read More »Google Play is getting an ‘Offers’ tab to display deals on games and apps – TechCrunch
Google Play is introducing a new “Offers” tab to help users discover deals on games and apps, Google announced on Thursday. The company says the tab will surface deals across travel, shopping, media, fitness and entertainment apps. The new tab is rolling out over the coming weeks to users in the United States, India and Indonesia. Google plans to launch the new tab in more countries later this year. The tab includes an “offers for apps you might like”… Source link
Read More »Google kills off FLoC, replaces it with Topics – TechCrunch
FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts), Google’s controversial project for replacing cookies for interest-based advertising by instead grouping users into groups of users with comparable interests, is dead. In its place, Google today announced a new proposal: Topics. The idea here is that your browser will learn about your interests as you move around the web. It’ll keep data for the last three weeks of your browsing history and as of now, Google is restricting the number of topics to… Source link
Read More »Tunisian enterprise AI startup InstaDeep raises $100M from Alpha, BioNTech, Google – TechCrunch
A recent survey carried out by CNBC reported that 81% of executives worldwide say AI will play a prominent and critical role in how their businesses operate this year. Companies are phasing from the first generation of AI, which deals with pattern, text and image recognition, to decision-making AI, which helps them make timely decisions in complex spaces. InstaDeep, a Tunis and London-based enterprise AI startup that creates decision-making systems for solving real-world problems, has… Source link
Read More »Google has a Wordle Easter egg and it’s cute, okay – TechCrunch
I know, I know, you’re tired of Wordle. Just mute the word “wordle” on Twitter and don’t be like the guy who made a Wordle-spoiling bot and got banned from Twitter today for being a party pooper (actually, it’s because it’s against Twitter guidelines to make a bot that is designed to bother people, but that’s some definitively party-pooping behavior). Okay, now that we’re alone — all the curmudgeons have closed out of the article — let’s talk about Wordle…. Source link
Read More »As its data flows woes grow, Google lobbies for quickie fix to EU-US transfers – TechCrunch
As the legal uncertainty in Europe clouding use of US cloud services cranks up, Google has responded by firing up its lobbying engines to call for US and European lawmakers to get a move on and come up a new rubberstamp to grease transatlantic data flows as usual as the bloc’s regulators finally start to find their banhammers. Last week, Austria’s data protection authority decided that a local website’s use of Google Analytics to have breached the bloc’s General Data Protection… Source link
Read More »a16z, Avenir and Google back South African mobile games publisher Carry1st in $20M round – TechCrunch
Carry1st, a South African publisher of social games and interactive content across Africa, has raised a $20 million Series A extension led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). This is a16z’s first investment in an Africa-headquartered company (the firm has previously invested in Branch and Zipline, companies with some of its operations in Africa but headquartered in the U.S). Carry1st also received investments from Avenir and Google; it’s the latter’s second check from its Africa… Source link
Read More »Big Tech has an IP piracy problem – TechCrunch
Adam Mossoff is a patent law expert at George Mason University who has testified before Congress on the STRONGER Patent Act and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. The U.S. International Trade Commission ruled on January 6 that Google infringed Sonos’ patented innovations in wireless speaker technology. This may sound like an obscure legal ruling about a complicated fight over intellectual property. But it confirms a problem that threatens America’s innovation… Source link
Read More »In bad news for US cloud services, Austrian website’s use of Google Analytics found to breach GDPR – TechCrunch
A decision by Austria’s data protection watchdog upholding a complaint against a website related to its use of Google Analytics does not bode well for use of US cloud services in Europe. The decision raises a big red flag over routine use of tools that require transferring Europeans’ personal data to the US for processing — with the watchdog finding that IP address and identifiers in cookie data are the personal data of site visitors, meaning these transfers fall under the purview… Source link
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