In August, Google entered a $2.7 billion agreement with AI chatbot startup Character.AI. The official reason? Getting a license to use Character’s technology. The unofficial reason? According to a Wednesday Wall Street Journal report, the consensus within Google is that the tech giant primarily wanted to rehire a former employee who quit in 2021 after...
Apple’s iPhones have been criticized for existing within a “walled garden” and commanding a high price in exchange for entry. And while the big tech companies are competing with the latest smartphones from the likes of Google, Apple, and Samsung, there might be competition from an unexpected place: the “dumbphone.” These phones, which usually go...
After resigning as president of Google’s parent company Alphabet in 2019, co-founder Sergey Brin is back at Google — and working on AI “pretty much every day,” he confirmed for the first time in a conversation with Climate Corporation co-founder David Friedberg earlier this week. In a fireside chat at the All-In Summit, Friedberg asked...
Google released its new Pixel 9 phone lineup last week, but some reviewers say they faced an unexpected “Brand Love” requirement: They couldn’t place the Pixel phones next to competitors, like iPhones, and if they seemed to prefer other brands, Google would stop giving them early access to review units. The requirement, shared on social...
Burning Man is in nine days. Why are there still tickets on sale? The August desert festival, which brings over 70,000 people to Black Rock City, Nevada for eight days, has had some of the world’s wealthiest in attendance over the years, including Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk. The event has sold out...
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said he “misspoke” at a Stanford University talk when he said that remote work was to blame for Google falling behind in the AI race. In a video posted on Tuesday to YouTube by Stanford’s School of Engineering, which has since been taken down at Schmidt’s request, professor Erik Brynjolfsson...
Google beat Apple to the punch by releasing new smartphones packed with AI. At the Made By Google event on Tuesday, Google interspersed the Pixel 9 release with celebrity appearances and jabs at Apple. Keke Palmer and NBA all-star Jimmy Butler were on stage and Google executives demonstrated what the Pixel camera could do. At...
Four years after the U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google, the judge presiding over the case has reached a decision: “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly.” Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled on Monday that...
Google parent company Alphabet reported second-quarter results after the bell Tuesday that were in-line with analyst estimates on revenue and earnings, but missed on YouTube advertising revenue. Alphabet shares were down about 2% in after-hours trading. Here’s how the company did, compared with estimates from analysts polled by LSEG: Earnings: $1.89 a share vs. $1.84...
Despite mass layoffs in recent years, the tech industry still has major appeal for job applicants seeking generous salaries; it’s not uncommon for entry-level roles at big tech firms like Google and Facebook to start in the six-figure range. Of course, those attractive salaries and other benefits often mean serious competition for the role, particularly...