Google on Wednesday unveiled a new premium Chromebook called the Pixelbook. The keyboard of the $1,000 convertible laptop and tablet has one key with a bunch of dots on it. It’s a dedicated key for accessing the Google Assistant digital helper. (The dots are the Assistant logo.) Right now it’s just on the Pixelbook, but …
Read More »Richard Nieva
Instagram brings face filters to live video
The Snapchat-ification of Instagram rolls on. On Thursday, the Facebook-owned photo site said it’s bringing face filters, which superimpose digital graphics like sunglasses or a dog nose on your face, to its live video feature. The filters were already available for photos and Instagram Stories, which lets people post strings of videos and photos that disappear after 24 hours. Both …
Read More »Nest comes knocking again with smart doorbell, security system
It’s been more than two years since Nest entered a new product category, but the smart home company is now coming off the sidelines. On Wednesday, Nest, which is owned by Google‘s parent Alphabet, showed off two new devices during a press event in San Francisco. The first is an internet-connected doorbell called Nest Hello, which has a camera, speaker …
Read More »Inside Facebook’s plan to turn the world into the MoMA
On Facebook‘s industrial-looking campus in Menlo Park, California, a mundane white wall makes up the exterior of one of the buildings, not far from Mark Zuckerberg’s desk. In April, the social network’s founder and CEO insisted someone put a plaque on the wall to commemorate the space. All over Facebook’s offices worldwide, the walls are decorated by work from artists …
Read More »Instagram Stories arrive on the mobile web
Instagram is bringing one of its most popular features, the Snapchat clone Stories, to web browsers on your phone. Now people can watch Stories on a handset outside the Instagram app by heading to Instagram.com. Stories are strings of photos and videos that disappear 24 hours after you’ve posted them on the Facebook-owned photo app. Instagram copied the concept — …
Read More »SanDisk touts largest microSD card ever
If you love large amounts of digital storage, today’s your lucky day. Western Digital, SanDisk’s parent company, announced on Thursday a microSD memory card with 400GB of storage, which it claims is the world’s largest. It’ll cost you though — $250. The extra space is good for storing HD videos and photos. Western Digital says the card is ideal for …
Read More »Google’s Gboard gets stickers
Google’s smartphone keyboard app is joining the sticker club. On Thursday, the search giant announced that it’s adding stickers and Bitmoji to Gboard. For now, the new feature is available only to people with phones that run Android, Google’s mobile operating system. Stickers are like emoji but instead are more detailed cartoon drawings. Facebook’s Messenger app has them, as does …
Read More »Google wants Android to bring you new layers of reality
Now playing: Watch this: ARCore is Google’s augmented-reality platform for Android 1:17 Google wants to get augmented reality on more phones with ARCore. Google If Google knows one thing, it’s how to get a lot of people to use its technology. The search giant has seven products with more than a billion users, including Google Maps, Gmail and its iconic …
Read More »Facebook puts cork in chatbots that created a secret language
A pair of chatbots has recently done something children often do: create a secret language. Last month, researchers at Facebook found two bots developed in the social network’s AI division had been communicating with each other in an unexpected way. The bots, named Bob and Alice, had generated a language all on their own: Bob: “I can can I I everything …
Read More »Facebook tries to make chatting with bots more natural
Facebook has bot fever. The social network wants to turn its chat app Messenger into a customer service utopia, where people can text with chatbots instead of having to talk to agents on the phone. A chatbot is software that can automatically perform simple tasks for you, such as taking an order or making a reservation. Now the company wants …
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