Tag Archives: google

Imagine you’re on a guided tour in Chartres cathedral in France along with tourists from Brazil, China, Russia and Germany — but none of you speaks French. For the last few decades, you’d each need your own tour guide. A new app from Microsoft aims to flatten this multilanguage barrier, though. The Microsoft Translator app, …

Oculus is shaking things up. Brendan Iribe, CEO of the Facebook-owned virtual reality company, said Tuesday he’s leaving the top job to lead a new division within the company. Oculus will be split into two groups: one focused on developing VR that’s powered by personal computers, and one for VR that’s powered by mobile phones. Iribe said he’ll be leading …

Slack, which has become the chat software of choice in the workplace, now lets users set up videoconferencing from within Slack’s desktop apps. Users can make video calls to one person or to a group by clicking on the same icon that launches voice calling. That, in turn, brings up another button with an icon of a video camera, the …

If you thought Apple’s last couple of years were big, just wait for 2017. The launch of the large-screen iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in late 2014 sent Apple’s fortunes soaring. Apple became the most profitable company in the world, and the following year, with the 6S and 6S Plus, was even bigger. But enthusiasm waned in 2016 — iPhone …

Google‘s Pixel phone ($695 at Amazon) launched without any sort of feature to make notifications quickly viewable on a locked device. In order to view an alert, you had to pick up the phone and press the power button or touch the fingerprint sensor. In early December, Google released a software update for the Pixel that adds two important, and …

Virtual reality is a somewhat understandable concept in 2016. You put on a headset, you find yourself in 3D worlds. But augmented reality — AR — is still a bit less understood. You could engage with augmented reality with a headset, and see 3D objects “projected” into your real world — something that’s usually called “mixed reality.” Augmented reality doesn’t …

Google‘s YouTube will now be able to load a lot faster in Cuba. Google on Monday signed an agreement with Cuba’s national telecom provider, ETECSA, to store data for Google services on the Caribbean island. Previously, signals had to travel from Cuba through Venezuela, which hurt the quality of the data. Google sites like YouTube and Gmail should be able …

Android Pay, Google’s mobile payments service for phones running the OS, is up and running in Japan, two months after Apple’s rival service went live on the island nation. The launch will allow Android handset owners to use their devices to complete transactions at more than 470,000 locations that already accept Rakuten Edy, a prepaid e-money service, Google said in …

Recently a friend asked for help setting up her new cable modem and router. I was only too happy to help, and she was as grateful as if I’d given her an expensive gift. Which, come to think of it, I sort of had. Help with technology is worth a lot to people who aren’t especially tech-savvy. Lightbulb! If you’re …

Now playing: Watch this: This VR/AR headset uses your iPhone to make mixed reality 1:00 Odds are, you might have tried VR. But maybe you’re not as familiar with “augmented reality” or “mixed reality” headsets that blend virtual things into actual reality, like Microsoft’s HoloLens does. That could change once more affordable phone accessories start to arrive. Occipital Bridge is …