Items tagged with Google
To succeed in business, as the saying goes, you need to do it first, do it cheaper, or do it better. Google's Stadia platform certainly is not the first game streaming platform to hit the market, with incumbents like NVIDIA with its GeForce Now service deployed for a while now. Pricing models are not yet disclosed either, though we would not expect Google to undercut the market per se. If Google is going to keep its head above water in this competitive but quickly expanding market, the company will need to bring platform improvements its competition cannot match. Sony's Playstation Now, Nvidia's GeForce Now, and several other platforms have been growing in game streaming space and justifying...
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The European Commission is hardly afraid to hand out hefty fines to tech firms, as Google knows as well as any company. In case Google was in need of a reminder, though, European Union regulators smacked the company with a fine of 1.49 billion euros, which is nearly $1.7 billion in US currency. Google's latest fine is for breaching EU antitrust rules as it relates to search and advertising. According to the Commission, Google abused its market dominance by imposing numerous restrictive clauses in contracts with third-party websites. Those clauses prevented Google's rivals from placing search advertisements on affected websites, the Commission said. "Today the Commission has fined Google €1.49...
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The European Commission does not mess around when it comes to slapping tech firms with hefty fines, if and when a company is found to be violating antitrust laws. Google knows this as well as any firm—the European Union levied a gargantuan $5 billion fine over Android abuses last year, and specifically in regards to smartphone makers being forced to pre-install Google Search and Chrome to gain access to other apps. As perhaps a preemptive move to avoid another big penalty, Google announced a key change it is making to Android. In an effort to "do more to ensure that Android phone makers know about the wide choice of browsers and search engines available" for their for phones, Google plans...
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After a public beta test last year with Project Stream and weeks of teasers, Google today officially unveiled its new game streaming service: Stadia. Stadia is a culmination of years of development work and infrastructure buildup, and is Google’s attempt to bring high-quality AAA games to every display in your home or on-the-go with your smartphone/tablet. You can seamlessly shift your current gaming experience from a TV to smartphone to a laptop or any other supported device. In fact, streaming can take place on Chromecast and Pixel devices along with the Chrome browser. Gamers will be able to purchase games straight from a YouTube or Twitch live stream (i.e....
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Later today, Google will hold a keynote at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) where the sultan of search is expected to unveil a new game streaming service. You can check it out right here, starting at 10 am PT (1 pm ET), as we have embedded the livestream below. Alternately, you can hit the link in the Via field below. Either way, it should be an interesting keynote. There have been numerous leaks and rumors of what Google is about to announce. The prevailing theory being is that this will be a subscription-based streaming service, one that could possibly be distributed through a Chromecast device or even a console made directly by Google. While a dedicated console is up in the air, it seems...
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We’ve heard a lot of rumors surrounding the upcoming Google Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL, and today a new leak is giving us some more insight into how the smartphones may actually look. Our first taste of the new design came back in mid-January, when drawings of a supposed Google Pixel 4 with a notch-free display and dual speakers showed up online. The latest “leak” comes courtesy of new drawings sourced from SlashLeaks. While the overall design of the drawings match the January leak, there are three key differences. For starters, there are two cameras on the back, which bucks the trend of the previous three generations of Pixel smartphones. It’s possible,...
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If 2018 was the year of the notch, it looks as though 2019 may be the year of the folding smartphone. So far, we’ve seen the launch of the Samsung Galaxy Fold and the Huawei Mate X; and Motorola is confirmed to be working on a folding smartphone that will likely be branded as a Moto RAZR. We’re now learning – thanks to patent uncovered by Patently Mobile – that Google has its eyes on folding smartphones as well. We all know that Google is supporting folding smartphones on the software side with Android Q, but this patent relates to actual hardware. The patent shows two different folding display designs, one of which has a single fold,...
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Although there were suspicions that the first Android Q beta would drop on Monday, that day came in went. Luckily, we didn't have to wait much longer as Android Q Developer Beta 1 is now available to download. Google isn't providing a lengthy list of tangible, user-facing features that are the hallmark of all new Android releases, but it is detailing new developments that are happening under the hood. For starters, Android Q is placing a heavy emphasis on privacy, which is something that Apple has made it a point to criticize every chance it gets. Android Q puts further limits on access to device location data, and when an app requests location data a new prompt will be presented...
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The next version of Google's massively popular mobile operating system is expected to be called Android Q, and we've already seen plenty of leaks regarding the features we can expect to see when the OS lands. One of the big rumors is that Android Q will eliminate the back button in favor of using gesture control. One thing we didn't know is when the operating system will land for users to try out. It appears the first chance for Android fans to try out Android Q could be today according to the bug tracker for the beta. The bug tracker for the Android Q beta has just opened up, and in that tracker, a date filter was discovered with today's date: March 11. There is no indication given as to what...
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Google has something big planned for the Game Developers Conference (GDC), and the company first tipped us off about its announcement last month. Today, we’re getting a one-two punch concerning a major component to its upcoming game streaming service: the controller. The first hint comes via a patent for the game controller, which shows a publication date of January 31st, 2019. The patent shows a number of line drawings for the controller which features a traditional D-pad, twin thumb sticks, four primary buttons and a four triggers buttons. In addition to those functions, there is a Home button, a menu button, a Google button and a microphone button on the controller. Google's...
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Google's current Android smartphones are the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL. Rumors are swirling that Google is getting ready to unveil new flagship devices in the coming months. The new phones, logically, are expected to be named Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL. And there of course has been a swirl of rumors hinting at some of the features that these smartphones will offer. Google Pixel 3 One of the features that folks who travel internationally frequently, or have a line for personal and a line for business, will appreciate is support for dual SIM cards. The Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL do offer a sort of dual SIM functionality with a single physical SIM and an eSIM, but the catch is that both SIMs can't be...
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A new report is out that looks at the smart speaker market in the U.S. for 2018, and the market grew significantly year-over-year. Voicebot.ai, an analytics company, reports that smart speaker owners in the U.S. increased by 40% in 2018 to close the year at 66.4 million smart speaker owners. The total number of smart speakers in use across the U.S. reached 133 million units. Key takeaways in the report include that Amazon is still far and away the leader in the smart speaker market with its Alexa devices. Amazon owned 71.9% of the market in January 2018 with Google holding 18.4% of the market; all other smart speaker makers totaled 9.7% of the market. Interestingly, in 2019 Amazon is seeing...
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If you are reading this, there is a good chance you are doing so on a Chrome browser, based on the available market share data. And if that is the case, do yourself a solid and update Chrome, "like right this minute." That suggestion is not coming directly from us, but from Justin Schuh, Google Chrome's security boss and engineering director. Schuh made the suggestion on Twitter, in which he pointed to a recent update to Chrome's Stable Channel for desktop systems. The reason he is sounding the alarm is because the latest update to Chrome mitigates a zero-day security hole labeled as CVE-2019-5786. The exact details of the zero-day vulnerability have not yet been disclosed, but it's presumably...
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Google initially shocked and amazed us all with its dazzling Google Duplex AI at last year's I/O conference. The demos highlighting surprisingly life-like interactions between a "synthetic" caller and human reservation taker on the other end of the line for booking things like a hair appointment or dinner date. After first bringing Duplex to Pixel phones last year in a few major cities across the United States (New York, San Francisco, etc.), Google is now ready for a broader rollout across much of the country. It announced that Duplex is now available for all Pixel owners in 43 states. You can see the full list of supported states by clicking the following link. But that's not...
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