Google

You may remember that time Google was under fire for wrongfully indicating that photos of black people were gorillas, and the time Microsoft’s AI bot named Tay turned incredibly racist. Today at Google’s Mountain View headquarters, the company acknowledged its shortcomings, as well as the shortcomings of other technologies in relation …

Google’s head of diversity, Nancy Lee, is retiring from Google after several years of leading the company’s global diversity and inclusion team, TechCrunch has learned. Lee, who originally joined Google’s legal team back in 2006, has been working on diversity at Google for the last few years. She started her diversity …

Improbable, the London startup backed by Andreessen Horowitz that has been developing a platform for third parties to build virtual and simulated worlds, is today launching the alpha of its first product, SpatialOS. And with it, Improbable is also announcing a strategic partnership with Google, the first part of which will see Google providing …

Google has reportedly shelved its long-standing plan to develop its own autonomous vehicle in favor of pursuing partnerships with existing car makers. The Information reports that Google’s self-driving car unit — known internally as Chauffeur — is working with established automotive names to develop cars that will include some self-driving features, …

Google has acquired the company and team behind CoWatch‘s software, an Android-based smartwatch OS that differed from most in that it also offered Amazon Alexa access on your wrist. Cronologics announced on its site that it will be joining Google, working on Android Wear, after having developed its Android-based OS …

Google dropped a single National Security Letter into its most recent transparency report without much fanfare, but today the company published eight more NSLs in an attempt to shed more light on government surveillance of Google users. The eight letters published today were sent to Google from FBI offices across …

Google has now lifted a controversial ban which wiped out the digital identities — meaning Gmail accounts, access to photos, voicemails and files — of those consumers who used a tax loophole to profit from reselling their Pixel smartphones. The affected people were, in fact, in violation of Google’s Terms of …

Facebook has followed Google’s lead by trumpeting plans to expand its presence in the UK — despite ongoing uncertainty over the impact of this summer’s Brexit vote for the country to leave the European Union. Speaking at the annual CBI conference in London today, Facebook’s Nicola Mendelsohn, VP EMEA, announced plans for the …

Google is opening up applications to businesses interested in testing its new file-sharing product called Team Drives. Announced earlier this fall, the focus of Team Drives is to offer companies an easier way to share files across their organization, along with more granular access controls over the content those shared folders …

With Popular Times, Google introduced a nifty little feature for its search engine last year that lets you know how busy a restaurant, coffee shop or bar typically is at any given time of the week. Today, it’s taking this concept a step further by making this tool real-time. So now, you …