Tag Archives: sergey-brin

Google Doodle celebrates the search engine’s 23rd birthday

Google is marking its 23rd birthday on Monday with a new Doodle. The animated Doodle features a layered birthday cake with rainbow sprinkles and the number 23 written on the top. The search giant’s name, which is also covered in frosting and sprinkles, is floating above and the flickering green birthday candle stands in for …

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Alphabet’s Loon sets record for stratospheric flight by a balloon

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has revealed that one of its internet-broadcasting Loon high-altitude balloons broke the record for stratospheric flight after spending 312 days aloft and traveling 135,000 miles, nearly circumnavigating the globe.  The balloon’s journey, which was detailed Wednesday in a blog post by Loon Chief Technology Officer Salvador Candido, began in Puerto Rico in May 2019 and ended …

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Google’s problems in China are bigger than Huawei

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 …

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Google CEO denies search launch in China, commits to transparency

Google CEO Sundar Pichai signaled Tuesday that his company will take a cautious approach to going back into China, if it ever does. The search giant has been under persistent criticism for its Project Dragonfly, which would bring a censored search engine to China. The project has prompted employee protests and resignations, as well as criticism from Amnesty International. Now playing: …

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Google’s CEO says it may never launch that censored search engine it made for China

Google has been experimenting with a censored search engine that would work in China, but it’s not sure if it will ever launch the service, CEO Sundar Pichai said Monday.  Pichai, speaking during the Wired25 conference at the SFJazz Center in San Francisco, said Google started the internal project — dubbed Project Dragonfly — to see what was possible in …

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1,000 Google employees reportedly protest work on censored Chinese search engine

When Google employees learned the company was working on a secret drone project for the US government that could weaponize their AI research, thousands protested the so-called Project Maven — and some employees reportedly quit. Now, The New York Times reports that 1,000 employees are protesting another secret project — one that would produce a new search engine that would …

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Alphabet to deploy Loon internet balloons in Kenya’s skies in 2019

Alphabet’s Loon project said Thursday that its balloons will bring internet to remote parts of Kenya next year. This’ll be the project’s first deal in Africa, Reuters reports, and it’ll see Loon working with Telkom Kenya to get high-speed internet to the East African country’s rural and suburban populations. Loon became its own company only last week — having started …

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Google Lens is augmented reality you can actually use

Snapchat made a big mark on augmented reality by putting digital flower crowns on real people. Now Google may make its own mark by showing you digital information about real flowers. On Wednesday, the search giant announced a big push into augmented reality, which overlays digital images on what you’d normally see through a camera. The new technology, announced at …

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Google pizza delivery drones? Sounds like a plan

In Google’s version of the future, a drone could deliver your pizza. The search giant’s parent company, Alphabet, is considering the launch of a drone delivery endeavor, called Wing Marketplace, for shuttling food through the air to consumers, according to a report Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal. The company has met with Domino’s Pizza and grocer Whole Foods as …

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