Google has just announced a brand new initiative to improve city life, Sidewalk Labs, which will tackle cost of living, transportation, and the environment for urban citizens. While details are scant, it’s worth noting that suburban-based Google is just the latest influential tech giant to join the “cities” bandwagon.
Google recently added compatibility for 1080p/720p video streaming at 60 frames per second (FPS) to YouTube. Users can stream content at 60 FPS in Elgato Game Capture HD, XSplit Broadcaster, and XSplit Gamecaster, establishing YouTube as a viable alternative to Twitch for streaming video games.
There are two great new email mobile apps from Google and Microsoft and both offer helpful features, such as location-aware emails and calendar scheduling. While both apps offer something unique, I think one way to compare them is based on a single metric: which app gets me to inbox zero fastest. I don’t enjoy email — I just want to get my daily digital chore done and get on with my life.
Socialist politicians in Venezuela are proposing a project that would force all Venezuelans to use an internet emanating from a single government-controlled server, as a way to prevent citizens from using Google, Twitter, and other social media to access sites that publish material unfavorable to the government.
Tech magnate Elon Musk is part of a group of science and technology celebrities—which includes Microsoft’s Bill Gates and physicist Stephen Hawking—who believe the impending development of artificial intelligence poses a threat to human society and perhaps even human survival.
From Business Insider: One of the biggest things that keeps Elon Musk up at night doesn’t have anything to do with Tesla or SpaceX — in fact, it’s a fear that sounds like something from a science fiction film. In
The Kremlin will stop at nothing to fully control all forms of media in Russia. The latest step included threats to Google, Facebook, and Twitter from Russia’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor.
On Monday, the 11-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overruled a prior decision by a three-member panel of the same court that forced YouTube to take down the video “Innocence of Muslims,” which sparked condemnation among Muslims globally and was falsely cited by the Obama Administrations as the catalyst for the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.
Buying AOL, Inc. was a deal Verizon had to make, given that Verizon’s bundled telephone, Internet and pay-TV services seem headed toward serious decline.
CNN’s report on the hunt for ISIS terrorists in the darkest corners of the Internet begins with a remarkably dour assessment of the war effort thus far: “After months of bombing by the U.S. and coalition forces, ISIS remains undefeated on the ground and has now entered a new phase, using the cyber-world as a weapon… It’s a trend that has captured the attention of law enforcement and now the military.”
In February, Google unveiled an expansion of its Silicon Valley campus that many dubbed the new Star Wars Fleet Command Headquarters. The worldwide acclaim for its eco-friendly biosphere design, which features translucent canopies and walkways around natural salt water lagoons, has been intense. But this week, the City of Mountain View decided, in order to maximize property tax revenue, to give the property to Linkedin to build 1970s-style conventional stack-and-pack office towers that maximize occupancy.
Google has announced it will release a biannual fashion trend report based on user searches to assist companies with fashion planning and forecasting.
Google unveiled an ambitious new plan to take on wireless carriers, with the launch of its own calling and data service, Project Fi. Americans are demanding a faster mobile experience, and Google CEO Larry Page is reportedly frustrated that AT&T and Verizon just have not been interested in building better infrastructure. So he launched his own wireless service — with a twist.
Google’s entire multi-billion dollar software utopia is designed to find the perfect search result. Back in 2005, before American and European Union government regulators painted Google as a monopoly, now-chairman Eric Schmidt was quite open about the search giant’s endgame.
The European Union has been involved in what seems like a permanent investigation of Google for abusing its search-engine dominance. There is a certain through-the-looking-glass quality to Reuters’ report on the latest developments, as Google is punished with anti-competitive regulations for allegedly engaging in anti-competitive practices.
Google thought it had agreed last year with European competition regulators that the company’s 90% dominance of Internet searches was “not an illegal business.” But new European Union antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager sought to put Google in chains on Wednesday by accusing the company of abusing its dominance in web searches to the detriment of competitors.
China Central Television (CCTV) suspended popular host Bi Fujian after a video surfaced that showed him insulting Mao Zedong. The station announced they will investigate the incident and Fujian recently apologized.
A Turkish court threatened Google with a nationwide ban should the popular search engine fails to comply with its ruling against the publication of images showing a kidnapped prosecutor slain by a Marxist terror group last week.
In what’s become something of an annual tradition, Google has unveiled a new online doo-dad on the first of April. This year, it’s a fully playable version of Pac-Man built into Google Maps.
Google, Inc. is complaining about what it says are unfair media reports regarding the company’s business practices, including lobbying.
In what is sure to lead to a customer scandal and heighten a U.S. Antitrust Probe, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) staffers determined in an undisclosed report that Google, Inc. allegedly used an algorithm to manipulate search results to favor their own less relevant search over competitors. The alleged Google fraudulent practice only became public when FTC staffers inadvertently shared the document with the Wall Street Journal.
At the TED conference in Vancouver this year, one of the main designers of the iPod and co-founder of Nest Labs, Tony Fadell, gave a few simple tips about creating awesome products. While most of us won’t be working on the next worldwide gadget phenomenon, his tips, especially those from the late, great Steve Jobs, seemed delightfully practical for all sorts of projects.
Google is floating a trial balloon that needs to be shot down: an algorithm that would rank web pages based on their “trustworthiness” by automatically detecting and tabulating “false facts” on each web page.
Google has been reconsidering its iconic motto, “Don’t Be Evil,” which the company adopted for its 2004 public offering. According to the founders, the company has grown so large and diverse that it has expanded beyond its original mission to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” As a demonstration of its new horizons effort, Google allowed its staff in Budapest, Hungary to design new office space in a very cool aquatic bathhouse theme celebrating the nation’s Cold War triumph.
President Obama is hosting a cyber-security summit at Stanford University today, but three of the top tech companies in the United States won’t be represented there.
