Google has sent out invitations today to various Indian media for an business-focused event scheduled for January 4th, 2017 in Delhi. Google CEO Sundar Pichai is said to be hosting the event, and India’s Information and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is also scheduled to attend…
Cybersecurity is one of the most important — and talked about — aspects of our digital lives, and a high priority amongst tech companies. Just this past week, Google made it easier for users to adopt its two-factor authentication system, but ironically, it was none other than its CEO Sundar Pichai that saw his account hacked earlier today…
In this week’s top stories: Samsung unveiled new wearables and wireless earbuds this week as hints at the upcoming Galaxy Note 7 surfaced. We also had some more OnePlus 3 announcements and leaks ahead of an official launch, talk of Huawei manufacturing Googles’ next Nexus device, and an interview with Google’s Sundar Pichai discussing Nexus phones and a number of other topics. Head below for the handy links to these and our other top stories from this week.
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Google CEO Sundar Pichai took the stage at Recode’s Code Conference 2016 today, and while much of what he said were PR-friendly reiterations, he did elaborate and provide more color on some of the moves Google made at I/O late last month. Of course the topics of artificial intelligence, Google Home, Android OEMs, the Nexus program, search, and others came up, and Pichai also elaborated on Google’s bigger plans for the world — namely China and India…
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Update: In a comment made to TNW, a Telegram spokesperson denied all acquisition rumors with a strongly-worded rebuttal.
“This is complete bullshit. There were no acquisition talks, no plans for any such thing either.”
You may remember quite a few years ago, it was rumored that Google was looking in to buying WhatsApp for $1 billion, and again later on for $10 billion. Both times, those rumors were denied by Google and — of course — we now know that even if they did bid, the deal didn’t go down.
Facebook bought the popular messaging app for a cool $19B, but Google seemingly hasn’t given up on strengthening its messaging portfolio. Reports from Russia are claiming that Google chief, Sundar Pichai once met with Telegram’s founder to discuss a $1 billion acquisition.
Every year, Larry Page and Sergey Brin write a Founders’ Letter to inform stockholders of recent developments and their vision for the future. For 2016, Page had recently-anointed Google CEO Sundar Pichai write the letter as a majority of ‘bets’ are under his purview. The letter focuses on six main areas.
Google’s Sundar Pichai has made TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People List this year after taking over as CEO of Google last summer following a long run heading Android, Chrome and other notable projects at the company.
According to an extensive profile piece from BuzzFeed’s Mat Honan this morning, Google’s now-CEO Sundar Pichai announced Google Cardboard having not even seen the final product. The piece details how Clay Bavor, Google’s VP of VR, first showed Pichai the project just 8 weeks before I/O, and Pichai was so impressed that he wanted to give the virtual reality viewer a full debut at the company’s developer conference…
It has been a wild 24 hours when it comes to smartphone encryption and user privacy versus national security. Last night, a U.S. judge ruled that Apple must help the FBI obtain data from a passcode-locked iPhone 5c used by one of the gunmen in the fatal San Bernardino shooting. Just hours later, Apple CEO Tim Cook responded by posting an open letter on Apple’s homepage saying that Apple would not comply with the court’s request. Now, Google CEO Sundar Pichai has chimed in on the matter, saying that he agrees with Cook.
After successful Q4 2015 earnings and a brief time as the most valuable company in the world, Alphabet is awarding Sundar Pichai and other top executives lucrative stock grants. Pichai’s award of 273,328 Class C shares worth $199 million would make him one of the highest-paid executives of a public company.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai has announced that the company will be rolling out its recently-launched in-app Tap to Translate feature in India in the first quarter of 2016. The feature offers a simple way to translate text from within third-party apps like chat apps and Facebook.
Our most active users in India translate between Hindi and English multiple times a day, spending lots of time copying messages from friends or colleagues, translating them, writing responses, translating their responses, and then pasting them back into an app. With Tap to Translate you can copy text anywhere on your Android phone and instantly get the translation, right then and there — without ever leaving the app. No more copy/paste, no more app switching, just instant translations.
All devices that run Marshmallow will get access to the feature …
A great read and important message from the newly minted, foreign-born CEO of Google.
I walk around the campus where I work and see a vibrant mix of races and cultures. Every one of those people has a different voice … a different perspective … a different story to tell. All of that makes our company an exciting and special place to be, and allows us to do great things together. We are urgently working to become much more diverse, because it’s so important to our future success. I firmly believe that whether you’re building a company or leading a country, a diverse mix of voices and backgrounds and experiences leads to better discussions, better decisions, and better outcomes for everyone.
Head over the Medium for the rest.
Sundar Pichai was given the title of Google CEO as part of the company’s Alphabet restructure and now Pichai has made his first changes according to Re/code. In a company wide email sent out recently, the Google CEO appointed three executives to new roles…
Google’s Sundar Pichai has taken to the Indian YouTube channel today to welcome Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Google headquarters.”It is an honor to welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Silicon Valley this weekend,” Pichai said in the video. “I hope Prime Minister Modi’s visit will energize people in Silicon Valley.”
He puts emphasis on Google’s hope to bring the next billion users online, with the majority of those coming from developing smartphone markets in India, China, and elsewhere. He also outlined a couple of Google’s initiatives intended to make this happen, including Android One. Modi will be visiting Google HQ later this week.
Yesterday, Google announced a massive restructuring and the creation of a new parent company, Alphabet. While Google will still focus on the traditional internet-related products like Chrome, Android and web search, other company’s will be set up to focus on more exploratory ventures. Along with the announcement yesterday, Alphabet launch its new domain: abc.xyz. Unsurprising to anyone, this new domain is already 100% blocked in China.
The news comes via GreatFire, a site which actively and constantly monitors URLs blocked within China’s borders. Alphabet’s home page has been blocked since it went live yesterday. Although it could be easy to see this as a pre-emptive, and active blocking against Google from China, it’s more likely that the country already blocks any site bearing Google’s SSL certificate. If that’s the case, then it doesn’t matter what site Google launches, it’s blocked before it even goes live in China.
Google and China’s relationship is an interesting one to say the least. Which is to say: They don’t really have one. Google’s products and services are blocked almost completely. Android phones in the mainland don’t have access to Google’s Play Store to download apps, and Play Services are a complete no go. It’s one of the reasons it’s been rumored the company could be partnering with Huawei to launch the next Nexus smartphone. Google apparently hopes it can use Huawei’s Chinese influence to build its own presence and launch services in China.
The newly-announced Android Pay is pretty cool – it allows you to pay at retail stores and inside mobile apps without having to take out your wallet or punch a bunch of card details into your glass-screened phone. But the logical conclusion to reducing the friction of paying for things is not tapping my phone against an NFC reader, but rather just not having to take out my phone at all! Well, without the same fanfare that was given to Android Pay, Google said they’ll have a solution for just that.
Stephen and I are off to Google I/O 2015 this week (the first time we’ve sent 2 people – for double the coverage!) but we wanted to preview what we we’re excited about this week. I’d run through the list of expectations but Chance already made 90% of the list when the sessions were launched. Go check it out. Here’s what I’ve been hearing…
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During an interview at Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona today, Google’s Android chief Sundar Pichai made a few interesting announcements, including confirming the company will launch its own wireless service as an MVNO in the coming months.
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Google SVP Sundar Pichai sat down with Bloomberg’s Brad Stone at the Mobile World Congress today in Barcelona, Spain, and as happens often, he had some pretty interesting things to say. Among other topics, the Chrome and Android lead at Google talked about the company’s goals for improving the world’s Internet connectivity through various projects (including the company’s MVNO plans), Google’s further mobile payment ambitions with Android Pay, how Android will tie into virtual reality, and more…
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Google’s Sundar Pichai recently sat down with Forbes to talk about the Mountain View company’s ambitions in China, its relationship with Apple, and what its overall vision looks like. Some interesting quotes from Google’s Android and Chrome head have surfaced as a result, and among other comments, Pichai took a moment to respond to constant criticism from Apple that Google is in the business of monetizing its users. Pichai also touched on Google’s aspirations in China as well as the sponsored ad program it is testing in Google Play…
Google’s executive team has undergone a shakeup according to a new Re/code report. CEO Larry Page has apparently decided to hand control of many of Google’s products over to SVP of Android, Chrome, and Apps Sundar Pichai in order to take a step back and guide the ‘big picture’ of the company’s future.
Page has reportedly been concerned for some time that as Google ages it will become less and less innovative. The executive reorganization is designed to help him ensure that doesn’t happen. Pichai will take over what Re/code refers to as “core Google products,” except for YouTube, which will remain under Page’s control.
Sergey Brin has said in the past that Chrome and Android were likely to one day conjoin, but that it was likely going to be a slow process that occurred over time. According to a report this afternoon from The Wall Street Journal, Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google’s VP of engineering for Android, has now been put in charge of overseeing the Chrome engineering team as well.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsek9-KwIHo]
During its Atmosphere Live event, Google’s Sundar Pichai announced that the company’s Drive cloud storage platform has over 240 million active users, up 190 from million since June. The Google executive also revealed that Chromebooks are the largest selling EDU device in the US approaching a 50 percent share compared to 5 percent 18 months ago.
According to a new report out of The Information, the already tense relationship between Samsung and Google has begun to worsen thanks to both of their own lines of wearables. The report claims that Google CEO Larry Page and Samsung Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee took part in an a “tense” private meeting at the Allen & Co. conference last week in Sun Valley. The meeting reportedly centered around Page being frustrated that Samsung was investing more in its smartwatches running Tizen than the ones running Android Wear.