Google

Facebook Home Plays Nice With Every Social Network That Isn’t Twitter

Hey, so remember Facebook Home? Yeah, probably not. Which isn’t surprising considering it wasn’t much more than Zuck’s half-baked attempt at getting his eager fingers into the phone market. But now, Home wants to be relevant once again for the first time by bringing in all your other favorite social media accounts—you know, everything that’s…

Alleged Android KitKat Screens Hint at Tiny Little Upgrades

Android 4.4 Key Lime Pie Kit Kat is on the horizon, so it’s no surprise that (possible) screenshots are (allegedly) leaking out. We’ve seen a few that boast a new, flat design, but now we’re seeing hints that there’s actually no big visual change in store. A series of maybe real screenshots from Gadget Helpline…

The Galaxy Note 3 Has a Hidden Tiny Screen Mode For Your Tiny Hands

If, like many of us, your hands are too small to to comfortably use the Galaxy Note 3’s giant 5.7-inch display, you’re in luck. Android Central has uncovered a hidden tiny screen mode for your tiny baby dwarf hands. It may look a little silly, but tiny screen mode is actually pretty darn useful. To…

Turn Your Samsung Galaxy S4 Into a TV-B-Gone

Sometimes you not only want a bar where everybody knows your name, but one that’s free of blaring TVs. It was that idea that inspired the original TV-B-Gone device that lets you discreetly turn off any TV, but now anyone with an infra-red equipped smartphone—like the Samsung Galaxy S4—can do the same thanks to a…

Hulu has finally added Chromecast support to its Hulu Plus app, which means you can gorge on Modern Family and Parks and Recreation to your heart’s content.

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Display: How Much Better Is It?

The OLED display on the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is the best-performing mobile OLED display to date in every way. But its most impressive achievement? It’s the brightest mobile display we’ve ever tested. The Samsung Galaxy Note and Galaxy S Smartphones are flagship products for Samsung to show off its latest and greatest OLED display…

Google Drive has just received a nice little graphical update, with document editors now neatly compressed to maximize space on the content itself. Go check it out.

Here’s a Closer Look at What the Nexus 5 Might Look Like

As far as heavily anticipated upcoming phones go, we’ve got a pretty good handle on what the Nexus 5 will look like. We’ve seen it accidentally leaked by Google, spotted it at a bar and seen it cross through the photo friendly desks of the FCC. https://gizmodo.com/did-google-accidentally-leak-the-next-nexus-phone-1247836161 So this new image, which apparently comes from…

Apple Is Now a More Valuable Brand Than Coca-Cola

In what could be seen as a defining moment for tech, Apple has surpassed Coca-Cola to become the most valuable brand on the planet. An annual report published by Interbrand has listed the biggest global brands each year, since 2000. Coca-Cola has consistently taken the top spot since the survey’s inception—but this year sees Cook…

A look under the hood of the latest Android Gmail app seems to suggest that ads might be coming your mobile inbox. Google, say it ain’t so?

For Google’s 15th birthday, Motherboard put together every single Google Doodle ever created into one looping animated GIF. Yeah. That’s 1,809 frames of doodles. Watch it in full here.

Microsoft Wanted Google to Censor a Wikipedia Page About Microsoft

After asking Google to censor Microsoft.com, Microsoft has given Google a copyright takedown request for a Microsoft Wikipedia page. Microsoft must want to scrub all mentions of itself on the Internet or something. It’s the only sensible explanation for its vigilance! Or, I guess, the other reason for vomiting out inane takedown requests like this…

Meet the Wildlife Inadvertently Captured By Google’s Street View Cameras

As part of National Geographic’s new Great Nature project, the magazine has collected more than 100,000 photographs that capture the world’s biodiversity—and some of them hail from very unusual sources. Case in point: An album “curated” by Google Maps, which collects wildlife accidentally captured by Google Street View. Some of these photos are clearly intentional…

Google’s Piñata-Bashing Birthday Doodle: A Perfect Friday Time-Waster

Today marks the confluence of Google’s 15th birthday (sort of) and the first Friday of fall. What’s that mean for you? Every excuse to waste the day playing with the search giant’s celebratory interactive piñata doodle. Have at it! https://gizmodo.com/the-greatest-google-doodles-from-each-year-of-google-hi-1252163926 The instructions are simple; just hit your space bar to whack. And keep an eye…

Try googling “Google in 1998” and see what happens. Yep, Google becomes a time machine. Nifty! [via Ben Greenman]

Google’s 15th Anniversary Easter Egg Lets You Search Like It’s 1998

Here’s a fun Thursday afternoon activity: Go to Google and search “Google in 1998.” You’ll be surprised by what the search engine returns. Or at least by the way the page looks. This is all part of Google’s 15 year anniversary celebration. Unlocking the Easter egg shows you what the site would’ve looked like a…

Google Search Is Getting Even Smarter

Today, 15 years after Google launched, the company’s SVP of Search Amit Singhal let us know where the search giant is heading. Not surprisingly, the primary focus is the engine’s ability to understand what you want, however you say it. Answers Knowledge graph—Google’s new and improved sentient know-it-all answer engine—is growing up. For example, if…

You Can Now Explore the Large Hadron Collider on Street View

Google Street View is a great way to explore parts of the world you’ve never visited. And thanks to Google’s European team, it’s now one of the easiest ways to explore a facility you’re not exactly allowed to just stroll through whenever you want. Google’s panoramic cameras were given access to CERN’s Large Hadron Collider,…

How Google Has Turned Language Translation into a Math Problem

Language translation is a notoriously difficult task for humans, let alone computers. But in trying to solve that problem Google has stumbled across a clever trick, that involves treating them like maps—and it really, really works. Technology Review has shone a light on a Google research paper published on the arXiv server. It spells out…

Google Talk Is Sending Messages to the Wrong Recipients

Well, this could be embarrassing. According to user reports, Google Talk appears to be delivering messages to the wrong recipients. The issues appear to have started earlier today, and has seen Talk delivering messages to contacts incorrectly, which should have been sent to others. Apparently some Google Talk users have even reported that users outside…