Google

We Just Tried Cortana on Android, And You Can Too

Right now you can download and install a leaked version of Microsoft’s Cortana voice assistant for Android. Suffice it to say, I am whelmed. With the launch of Windows 10 at the end of this month, we’ve been expecting a beta of Cortana on Android, and it seems like this is the real deal. We…

Humans Can’t Stop Crashing Into Google’s Driverless Cars

Google’s driverless cars keep getting into fender-benders, and the company keeps stressing that the crashes aren’t a result of a computer glitch or rogue robotics system. Google’s cars are getting dinged for the same reason regular cars do: because people who drive make mistakes. The most recent incident happened on July 1, when a driver…

When you snooze an email in Google’s Inbox app, it will now work out the best time to remind you about it—so it might remind you of a restaurant booking an hour in advance, or about your flight the day before.

Google Is Trying to Google Google Better 

Google wants to be better at Googling Google. The company is hiring an SEO program manager so Google sites get Googled better. What a world! Google controls the largest search engine in the world, so it’s kind of strange to think it needs to hire someone to improve the Google rankings of its pages. It’s…

Obama Announces New ConnectHome Plan to Get Poor Households Online

President Barack Obama has announced a new initiative that he hopes will take high-speed internet to all Americans—a plan that he hopes will “close the digital divide.” During a speech in Durant, Oklahoma, yesterday, the president explained that the new scheme, called ConnectHome, will take high speed broadband to families that currently go without. “In…

The Turing Phone Looks Like a Cross Between a Spaceship and Superman 

The Turing Phone is just one big piece of weird. Yep. That thing pictured above is super-strong and ultra-secure, like the spawn of galactic lovemaking between the U.S.S. Enterprise and Superman. That otherworldly design is intentional, says CEO Syl Chao, and so is its intention to herald the next age of mobile devices. Big words…

Samsung Galaxy A8: Its Slimmest Phone Ever

Samsung has announced the latest in its A series of phones: the Galaxy A8. It isn’t the most powerful phone, but its all-metal body makes it Samsung’s thinnest ever—but sadly, you might not be able to buy one. The new phone measures just 5.9 millimeters in thickness and weighs 5.3 oz. In terms of specs,…

Google Accidentally Released Details of Right To Be Forgotten Requests

A year has passed since the EU ruled that people have the “right to be forgotten” online, and Google has been busy removing links when people ask it to. But now it’s accidentally revealed details about the requests—and it turns out the truth is less salacious than you may have hoped for. The Guardian stumbled…

Someone Finally Resurrected the Commodore Brand for Something Useful

Various entrepreneurs have tried to bring back the legendary Commodore computer brand for years, all of them inevitably ending up bankrupt. Now a couple of Italian designers think they’ve got the silver bullet solution to tapping into 80s nostalgia: a smartphone. It’s too bad they decided to make it look so boring. The soon-to-be-released Commodore…

Google Is Reopening Map Maker and Wants You to Police It for Pranks

Google’s Map Maker feature is coming back after getting shut down for too many prank entries. But now, Google will no longer deal with joke edits to Maps—the company is washing its pee-stained hands of moderation, shifting most of that responsibility to the Map Maker community. Google temporarily kiboshed Map Maker, which lets people add…

Google Photos Collects Pictures After You Delete the Android App

If you’ve tried Google Photos and didn’t like it, you probably deleted the app. But you may not realize that, if you use Android, it’s potentially still collecting and storing all of your photographs. Here’s how to stop it. David A. Arnott noticed this was the case when hundreds of his images appeared on Google…

You’re Using Neural Networks Every Day Online—Here’s How They Work

If you use Google’s new Photos app, Microsoft’s Cortana, or Skype’s new translation function, you’re using a form of AI on a daily basis. AI was first dreamed up in the 1950s, but has only recently become a practical reality — all thanks to software systems called neural networks. This is how they work. Making…

Who Needs Google’s Dreaming Robot? Just Eat Some Shrooms Instead

The first week of July 2015 will forever be known as the week the internet freaked out about a bunch of triiiiiiippy images generated by a snoozing computer. Please. In my day we didn’t need Google to help us see melting dog faces with six eyes that are actually snails with centipedes crawling on their…

Watch How Google’s Artificial Brain Transforms Images in Real Time

In recent days, we’ve seen Google’s dream robot reimagine everything from internet memes to Hunter S. Thompson’s acid trips. But exactly how the artificial neural network creates these trippy images is hard to grasp…until you watch it all happening in real time. Johan Nordberg, an artist-developer with a penchant for visual fun, created a video…

Gmail Now Uses Artificial Neural Networks to Sniff Out Spam

Gmail’s spam filters have always been pretty good, but now they’re getting a shot in the arm. Google’s rolling out its artificial neural network technology, currently used in the likes of its Search and Now apps, to help reduce the weight of unwanted email even further. The filters that Google has used in the past…

Chromebook Flip: The $280 Google Laptop You Didn’t Know You Wanted

Remember when cheap laptops were crap? Not anymore—because you can buy this amazing new transforming Asus Chromebook for just $280. Oh, and did I mention it’s the first Chromebook that doubles as a tablet? What Is It? The Asus Chromebook Flip C100 is a Chromebook, which means it’s a laptop with a glorified web browser…

Why I Suddenly Care About Blackberry

For the last month or so, I’ve been reading lots of stories about a Blackberry smartphone running Android. Today, a Blackberry/Android partnership seems even more certain. Blackberry has seen better days, so we can expect a last-ditch effort. What I didn’t expect is having so many feels about it. Like many before me, I wrote…

The Best Chromebook For Every Need

I basically live in Google’s Chrome web browser. It’s a decision I made to save my sanity when it became part of my job to change laptops every few weeks. No need to back up files that way! But it made me wonder how well I could live with only Chrome—if I could replace my…

This Artist Is Making Haunting Paintings With Google’s Dream Robot

OH GOD. It’s been a week of nightmarish image-making, thanks tothe public release of Google’s “DeepDream” algorithm. If you missed this whole thing, let me explain: DeepDream is an artificial neural network that Google originally developed to identify the contents of an image using computer vision. To do this, the network is “taught” using thousands…

If you’re a Chromecast user suffering from the terrible 21st century disease of poor Wi-Fi coverage, help is at hand: Google just released a clever $15 Ethernet adapter for Chromecast, which will let you hook it up to a wired network. Pair it with a powerline adapter, and say goodbye to crummy Wi-Fi extenders. [Google…