Google

Google on EU Antitrust Case: ‘We Don’t Always Get it Right’

Google’s issued its first first public statement since the European Union opened an anti-trust investigation against it back in April. And it’s… surprisingly humble. In an interview with Politico, Google’s president in Europe, Matt Brittin, explained: “We don’t always get it right.As far as Europe is concerned: we get it. We understand that people here…

Future Versions Of Chrome Will Kill Flash, In The Name Of Battery Life

It’s no secret that Google Chrome hogs RAMand battery life like an Overly Attached Browser. In an effort to reduce the strain on your poor overwhelmed laptop, Google is introducing a feature that will auto-pause ‘unimportant’ Flash elements on a webpage. Hell yes. In a blog post, Google’s Tommy Li, a Software Engineer and Power…

Chrome for Android Just Got a Killer Time-Saving Search Trick

An update rolling out to Chrome on Android devices comes with a neat little search trick that lets you search for that word within the same Chrome tab. It’s called Touch to Search, and it’s bound to make the often frustrating task of mobile browsing a hair more convenient. So for example, I highlighted the…

How Android Is Becoming the New Windows

It’s more nuanced than you think. Last week at Google I/O, one of the striking themes of the keynote was Sundar Pichai’s focus on Android as the future of Google. Android isn’t just the core of Google’s booming smartphone and tablet business; it’s also core to the company’s next phase, as they move into what…

How to Use Google Photos from the Desktop

Google Photos has got a lot of people excited about rediscovering their long-lost picture library—thousands of images that were previously doing nothing but gathering dust—and there’s more to the service than you might realize. Here we’ll guide you through the desktop tools Google has made available to sort the pictures that aren’t on your phone.…

NASA Wants to Track Drones Using Cell Towers

NASA is said to be working with Verizon to develop a new means of tracking drones. According to documents acquired by The Guardian, the pair will use radar, satellites, and cellular signals to keep track of both civilian and commercial unmanned aerial vehicles. The newspaper reports that a $500,000 project investigating the possibilities of such…

The Google Photos Moment

I’ve got 300+ GB of photos and videos sitting on a couple hard drives. I never look at them. I’ve never found the time to organize them. They just sit there. The new Google Photos claims it can fix that. It’s like Gmail for your photos, the company whispers. You know what? It’s the rare…

Google’sbig and beautiful Nexus 6 is on sale right now for $499, down $150 from the normal asking price. If you’ve been hankering to try Project Fi — or just need 6 inches of Androidy goodness in your life — it’s apretty fantastic option. [Google] Contact the author at [email protected].

Google Just Made It Easier To See Exactly How Late Your Bus Is

Real-time public transit updates are the holy grail for straphangers. And Google’s making this sparsely-available feature more ubiquitous—announcing today that it’s adding four cities and two new countries to its real-time list. In a blog post today, the company said its Maps app will now include real-time transit updates for Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Budapest,…

Go Check Up On Your Google Privacy Settings in the New Accounts Page

Do you really want to trust a giant company like Google to make privacy choices for you? No! Take control. Google’s got a redesigned account page that should make it easier to understand exactly what you’re handing over to the big G. The new My Account page doesn’t offer you any new privacy and security…

Everything Google Stayed Curiously Quiet About at I/O This Year

In tech journalism, rumors are like editorial gambits. Some seem like a sure thing, some just smoke and mirrors, while others still are very real but very far off. Earlier this week, I took a good guess at what I thought might pop up at Google I/O 2015. But there were a few things that…

Google’s Skynet Drone Crash-Landed in the Desert and Nobody Noticed

While everybody’s eyes were on Google I/O this week, another little bit of Google news nearly managed to slip under the radar: The tech giant’s high-flying, solar-powered Solara 50 drone apparently crashed landed in the sands east of Albuquerque weeks ago. Whoopsie. The drone, perhaps inspired by one of those giant dragonflies that ruled the…

Google I/O Wrap-Up: Android M, Photos, Cardboard, and Everything Else

Woohoo! Google I/O is just the best. We just got a view of Google’s plans for the your future. Here’s all the most interesting stuff you might have missed. Android M Is Here, and So Is Google’s Smartphone Future The future of Android is here. Android M (I’m still hoping for Muffin) is the software…

The Incredible Calculations That Keep Google’s Project Loon Aloft

When we last checked in on Project Loon—Google’s moonshot project to blanket the world with internet-packing weather balloons—one had just circumnavigated the globe in a very quick 22 days. I just attended a talk at Google I/O and got some more info about the challenges the team faces in making this wild-ass project happen. First…

Android M And Chrome Are Doing Something Great For Users

The most important news about Android M is how it will handle the way apps get permission to access your private data. That sounds like a humble little technical detail until you realize what a revolution it will be when we can set our own permissions on apps, any time we want. And Chrome is…

Hands-On: Google’s Project Tango Is Now Sized for Smartphones

Google’s Project Tango is amazing, but it’s taking its sweet time making it to market. This crazy alien head of a camera could change all that. Qualcomm and Google just teamed up to shrink it down to a size suitable for your pocket. You’re looking at the Project Tango Smartphone Development Platform, coming later this…

The New Moonshots: These Are The Most Futuristic Ideas From Google I/O

The most futuristic projects at Google come out of its advanced technologies and projects group, or ATAP. And today at Google I/O, the ATAP team unveiled their vision of tomorrow, where your body, behavior and clothing will be the new interfaces that control your gadgets — and keep them secure, too. Project Soli: A Radar…

Google’s New Hands-Free Feature Will Let You Pay With These Magic Words

“I’d like to pay with Google.” Say that phrase at a shop’s register, and you could soon check out without even touching your wallet—or phone. It’s called Hands Free, and it comes on the heels of Google announcing its upcoming payments app, Android Pay, at I/O. With this hands-free method, it seems you simply approach…

Project Ara Update: Still Not Available, But Looking Cooler Than Ever

At this morning’s ATAP session at Google I/O we got another little tease of Project Ara, Google’s modular smartphone. I mean, it was a tiny tease. Basically, it still a thing that exists. But! We got to see a little of it in action and it was pretty damn impressive. Google engineer Rafa Camargo came…

Google Now Just Became the Most Compelling Reason to Use Android

In the early years (like 5 years ago tbh), iPhone and Android were at odds. Closed vs. open; Design vs. customization. Now, those lines are more blurred than ever. But Android has always had one absolute ace, and Google I/O 2015 just proved it: Google Now. I don’t really need to explain that Google Now…