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Google ships first developer preview of Android 16 to speed up feature rollouts

Ivan Mehta — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 19:00:00 +0000

Google is releasing the first developer preview of Android 16 to speed up feature rollouts in devices. This is a major change in the Android rollout schedule as, over the past few years, Google released its first Android developer beta around Q2, with a stable release coming out post-July. With the new schedule, Android 16’s […]

Google’s Gemini chatbot now has memory

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 17:10:47 +0000

Google’s Gemini chatbot can now remember things like info about your life, work, and personal preferences. As flagged by posters on X (and Google’s official account), a “memory” feature has begun rolling out to certain Gemini users, including this reporter. Like ChatGPT’s memory, Gemini’s adds context to the current conversation. For example, tell Gemini to […]

Google Lens can now check prices and inventory when shopping in the real world

Aisha Malik — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 14:00:00 +0000

After building out Google Lens to help users shop online more easily, Google is now updating the product to help people shop when they’re in a physical store by offering product insights, price comparisons, and local inventory availability. Alongside this news, the company is bringing new shopping features to Maps, and adding more Google Pay […]

UK competition regulator clears Alphabet’s investment in Anthropic

Paul Sawers — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 12:32:54 +0000

The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has okayed Alphabet’s partnership and investment in AI rival Anthropic, concluding that it doesn’t qualify for investigation under current merger rules. The announcement comes a month after the CMA revealed it was launching a formal “stage 1” probe into Alphabet’s various investments in Anthropic, a 3-year-old San Francisco-based […]

Justice Department reportedly pushing Google to spin off Chrome

Kyle Wiggers — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 23:41:46 +0000

The Department of Justice is reportedly pushing to force Google to spin off its Chrome browser business. That’s according to Bloomberg, which reports that the Justice Department is also planning to recommend to a federal judge that Google face antitrust requirements related to AI and its Android mobile operating system. The enforcement actions are the […]

Google.org commits $20M to researchers using AI for scientific breakthroughs

Paul Sawers — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 17:00:00 +0000

Google is committing $20 million in cash and $2 million in cloud credits to a new funding initiative designed to help scientists and researchers unearth the next great scientific breakthroughs using artificial intelligence (AI). The announcement, made by Google DeepMind co-founder and CEO Demis Hassabis during a fireside chat at the closed-door AI for Science […]

Google tests removing news articles from search in EU, but it’s already backfiring

Romain Dillet — Fri, 15 Nov 2024 13:50:39 +0000

Under EU law, digital platforms have to pay for news reuse. But how much should Google pay for article previews? That’s what Google is trying to find out with an experiment in nine EU countries. During the test, 1% of users won’t see articles from EU-based news publishers in search and Google News so that […]

AI pioneer François Chollet leaves Google

Kyle Wiggers — Thu, 14 Nov 2024 16:08:06 +0000

François Chollet, a leading figure in the AI world, is leaving Google after close to a decade. In a post on X, the 34-year-old French developer said he’s starting a new company with “a friend,” but he declined to reveal many details. “I’m very grateful for my decade at Google,” Chollet wrote in the post. […]

Google launches Gemini app for iOS worldwide

Ivan Mehta — Thu, 14 Nov 2024 14:37:01 +0000

On Thursday Google launched a dedicated app for its AI-powered assistant, Gemini, on iOS globally. Until now, iOS users either had to use the Google app or mobile web to chat with the AI technology. The new Gemini iOS app supports text-based prompts in 35 languages. Plus, users can have a conversation with Gemini through […]

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau moves to place Google under supervision

Kyle Wiggers — Thu, 14 Nov 2024 14:22:01 +0000

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has taken steps to place Google under formal federal supervision, a move that could subject the company to the same inspections the government imposes on major banks. According to The Washington Post, the CFPB has been in talks with Google for months about the supervision order, which hasn’t yet […]

YouTube is testing a feature that lets select creators remix songs using AI

Ivan Mehta — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 05:17:36 +0000

YouTube last year started letting select creators in the U.S. create AI-generated songs with prompts using the vocals of artists like Charlie Puth, Charli XCX, Demi Lovato, John Legend, Sia, T-Pain, and Troye Sivan. Now, the company is adding a feature to its Dream Track toolset that lets creators remix tracks by describing how they […]

Chrome on iOS now lets you search using images and text at the same time

Aisha Malik — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 19:22:58 +0000

Google is rolling out a few new features for Chrome on iOS, the company announced on Tuesday. Most notably, Google Chrome on iOS now lets you search using images and text at the same time. While you could already do this using the Google Lens iOS app, you can now do so directly within the […]

Google ‘fixes’ issues with voting search results that weren’t actually broken

Sarah Perez — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 22:00:26 +0000

Google says it has addressed an issue with its search engine that saw it displaying a “where to vote” panel, which includes a map of polling places, for some specific voting-related searches but not for others. The tech giant even used the word “fixed” to respond to the matter, despite the fact that Google Search […]

Google Cloud to make multi-factor authentication mandatory in 2025

Paul Sawers — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 16:35:19 +0000

The move to enable the MFA security feature comes hot on the heels of major data breaches at cloud giants, like Snowflake.

Why Wiz really turned down Google’s $23B offer

Cody Corrall — Sat, 02 Nov 2024 20:15:00 +0000

Welcome back to Week in Review. This week, we’re coming at you right off the heels of TechCrunch Disrupt! If you missed it, we’re highlighting conversations from Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg, and Disney star turned space CEO Bridgit Mendler. Of course, we’ve got news from the rest of the tech world […]

Indonesia blocks Google Pixel sales after ban on iPhone 16

Manish Singh — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 06:13:31 +0000

Indonesia has banned sales of Google Pixel smartphones for failing to meet domestic content requirements, days after blocking Apple’s iPhone 16 in Southeast Asia’s largest phone market. The Indonesian Ministry of Industry said Google’s phones cannot be traded until they comply with rules requiring 40% local content in smartphones sold in Indonesia. Google must obtain […]

Google Maps is getting new AI features powered by Gemini

Aisha Malik — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 17:08:25 +0000

Google Maps is getting new features powered by Gemini, Google’s generative AI model. On Thursday the company announced incoming updates that will allow Google Maps users in the U.S. to tap into AI to help them find new places to visit and answer questions about different locations. The platform is also getting enhanced navigation features […]

Google’s Gemini API and AI Studio get grounding with Google Search

Frederic Lardinois — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 17:00:00 +0000

Starting today, developers using Google’s Gemini API and its Google AI Studio to build AI-based services and bots will be able to ground their prompts’ results with data from Google Search. This should enable more accurate responses based on fresher data. As has been the case before, developers will be able to try out grounding […]

This Week in AI: A preview of Disrupt 2024’s stacked AI panels

Kyle Wiggers — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 17:05:00 +0000

Hiya, folks, welcome to TechCrunch’s regular AI newsletter. If you want this in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. This week, the TechCrunch crew (including yours truly) is at TC’s annual Disrupt conference in San Francisco. We’ve got a packed lineup of speakers from the AI industry, academia, and policy, so in lieu of my […]

Google says its next-gen AI agents won’t launch until 2025 at the earliest

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 21:14:25 +0000

Google won’t ship tech from Project Astra, its wide-ranging effort to build AI apps and “agents” for real-time, multimodal understanding, until next year at the earliest. Google CEO Sundar Pichai revealed the timeline in remarks during Google’s Q3 earnings call Tuesday. “[Google is] building out experiences where AI can see and reason about the world […]