Tag Archives: alphabet-inc

Google’s parent company Alphabet will reportedly open its first smart city buildings in Toronto as early as 2023. Google will eventually move into the Canadian smart campus, the report said. Dan Doctoroff, founder and CEO of Alphabet subsidiary Sidewalk Labs — which focuses on innovation in urban environments — told the Collision Conference in Canada of …

Google’s troubles in China now include Huawei. For years, the tech giant has been dogged by its relationship with the world’s biggest country. In 2010, Google pulled out of the search market in China after co-founder Sergey Brin cited the government’s “totalitarian” policies, including censorship of the web. Since then, Google has tried to tiptoe back into the huge and appealing …

When Google unveiled Duplex last year, it was touted as a booking system that uses eerily human-sounding artificial intelligence to make reservations. Turns out that about 25% of the time, it actually is a human — and not a robot — placing the call to book an appointment, Google said Wednesday. And about 15% of the time, a call is …

Google said Tuesday it will continue working with Huawei for 90 days, after the US government announced it’s temporarily scaling back trade restrictions on the Chinese smartphone maker. On Monday, the US Commerce Department said it’s creating a general license that for now lets Huawei keep existing networks and issue updates to its phones and tablets. The reprieve is meant …

From the very moment Google pushed play on a mundane recording of a guy booking a dinner reservation last year, the search giant became embroiled in an intense debate over the ethics of artificial intelligence. The unremarkable nature of the recording was what made it so unnerving. The guy wasn’t a guy at all. It was Google Duplex, a chatbot …

Google hopes a more wallet-friendly price tag will have you looking at its Pixel family again. The search giant on Tuesday unveiled the Pixel 3A, a mid-tier version of its flagship Pixel 3 phone released in October. The biggest difference between the two phones: about $400. The 3A costs roughly half as much as its predecessor, starting at $399 for …

Last year, Google stoked intense controversy when it announced Duplex, a technology that uses eerily human-sounding artificial intelligence software to book restaurant reservations and hair appointments. Immediately, the project spurred a debate over ethics in artificial intelligence and generated fear over a robot’s ability to deceive people. Now Google is unveiling its follow up — and it’s a lot less …

Google has been prototyping technology for foldable phones, but don’t expect a folding version of the search giant’s flagship Pixel phone or its cheaper Pixel 3A anytime soon. Phones with screens that bend and hinge have been touted as the future of smartphones, generating tons of hype and excitement with their ability to transform from a phone into a tablet.  Some of …

Congress wants answers from Google about a database that law enforcement has been using for location data to help with criminal investigations. The database, called Sensorvault, has detailed location records from hundreds of millions of phones around the world, according to a report earlier this month from the New York Times. It’s meant to collect information on the users of …

The US Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Transportation gave Wing, a drone startup under Google parent company Alphabet, the same certifications as small airlines, Wing confirmed Tuesday. The clearance makes Wing the first drone company to get the same government approval as an airline.  “Air Carrier Certification means that we can begin a commercial service delivering goods from …