Google

AI is the big selling point of the new Samsung Galaxy S24 series, and one of the features is support for AI-generated wallpapers. But an annoying little watermark takes away from those wallpapers just a bit.

So far, Google has made job cuts and reorganizations across hardware, Assistant, ads, core engineering, and YouTube. Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the layoffs are about “removing layers to simplify execution and drive velocity in some areas.”

AI features are a big part of the Samsung Galaxy S24 series and Google’s Gemini models are directly powering many of the new capabilities.

We’re not even two weeks into 2024, and Google has initiated a wave of layoffs across multiple teams throughout the company. In addition to cuts to the hardware division reported on Wednesday, further position removals have reportedly impacted other teams, including core engineering and Assistant.

Google is reorganizing the Devices & Services teams responsible for Pixel, Nest, and Fitbit hardware. This change was announced to employees today, and Google confirmed the changes in a statement to 9to5Google. 

Qualcomm today announced the Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 with a focus on providing “more realistic, detailed experiences.” 

Google has reached a settlement in a US antitrust lawsuit which will have effects on the future of sideloading on Android, and we’re getting an idea of what that means for app sideloading and more in court documents.

Budget phones are always coming and going, and some don’t deserve your time or money. This year has proven that there are great options out there. Here’s our list of best budget Android smartphones in 2023.

The Epic vs Google court battle has come to a verdict, with a jury unanimously voting in Epic’s favor, and declaring that Google has an “illegal monopoly” with the Play Store and Google Play billing.

The number of announcements that Google made in the past week or so truly felt like I/O. Gemini 1.0 was, of course, the highlight and most consequential for Google.

For the past several years, four Google Children’s Centers have operated in the San Francisco Bay Area. These Google-run day-care centers will be closing next year, but the company is expanding its parental benefits so that more employees, especially those around the world, can partake.

Back in May of this year, Google announced that it would launch the “Find My Device” network for Android, which would allow for AirTag-like tracking on Android devices. But, over the summer, Google announced that it would delay the “Find My Device” network until Apple implemented tracking protection in iOS, and now, amid the busiest travel season of the year, Google is still leaving Android users at the mercy of Apple.

Google has announced that it will pursue legal action against scammers attempting to mislead customers into trying to “download” Bard and other AI tools, with a lawsuit already underway.

The European Commission is currently investigating whether iMessage should fall under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and therefore be subject to interoperability rules. Google and local carriers have sent a letter to regulators in Europe arguing that iMessage should be considered a “core” service.

It’s not hard to find out what search queries are trending on Google, but it’s rare we get a peek into what searches drive the most ad dollars. Coming out from the ongoing antitrust trial, new documents have unveiled some of the highest-revenue search queries on Google, and a lot of them are about the iPhone.

The ongoing antitrust trial with Google is revealing plenty of secrets, including how much the company pays to remain the default search engine on Apple products. Another interesting tidbit that’s also come out that is Google has been using its revenue sharing program to push Android partners to actually get push updates.

Huawei phones have been unable to officially offer Google apps for the past few years, but now customers who have manually installed the official Google app on their devices are being warned that the app is a virus.