Google

Earlier today, a huge number of Google account usernames and passwords were leaked onto the internet via a Russian Bitcoin security forum. This afternoon, Google has officially responded to concerns about the more than 4 million supposed login credentials, saying that none of the company’s systems were breached in order to obtain the data. Furthermore, the company says that it found that “less than 2% of the username and password combinations might have worked,” and that those who were affected have been notified.
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As it does at the beginning of every month, Google this evening updated its Android distribution data to reflect a 7-day period ending on September 9th. The data shows Android 4.4 KitKat reach an all-time usage high of 24.5 percent, up from 20.6 percent last month. Jelly Bean continued its consistent decline, falling from 56.5 percent to 53.8 percent.

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Google has been battling allegations of burying rival companies in its web search results while promoting its own services, such as Maps and YouTube. The search giant was close to avoiding costly fines from the European Commission, but following negative feedback from its competitors, Google will now have to take additional measures to settle this multi-year investigation.

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Google has shown off its winning entry in an annual computer vision challenge whose entrants include both academic institutions and industry labs, and made its work available to other researchers.

In this year’s challenge, team GoogLeNet tasks, doubling the quality on both tasks over last year’s results. The team participated with an open submission, meaning that the exact details of its approach are shared with the wider computer vision community to foster collaboration and accelerate progress in the field …

Google cites its self-driving cars as one of the obvious applications of the technology.
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Motorola has finally officially launched its much-leaked circular smartwatch, the Moto 360. Pricing has been set at $250 with a leather strap, and it goes on sale in the U.S. at noon today ET . If you want it with a silver or black metal strap, you’ll have to wait until sometime in the fall and pay $300 – or buy it today and add the metal strap later for $80 …

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An ongoing investigation conducted by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that has accused Google — and other major tech companies — of making it too easy for children to make in-app purchases is finally set to come to a close for the Mountain View-based company.

Google has reached a settlement with the FTC that will see it pay out at least $19 million to parents billed for unauthorized in-app purchases by children. The FTC order also requires Google to change its mobile app billing practices to ensure that parental consent is properly obtained before charges are applied.
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Shortly after Google acquired Nest, Tony Fadell’s company behind the smart thermostat and smart smoke/carbon monoxide detector, the company ran into a patch of unrelated issues with its Nest Protect product launched months earlier with reports of false alarms from many users and an issue with the ‘wave to dismiss’ feature touted as a key benefit of the product. A soft recall later followed remotely disabling the dismiss feature after a safety bug was discovered followed by a reduced price once it went back on sale.

While the ability to motion to dismiss an alarm is still disabled as the company works toward better implementing it reliably, current and future Nest Protect owners will benefit from new features delivered through a software update for the product. Steam Check, a feature that takes advantage of the device’s humidity sensor and an advanced algorithm, now allows the Nest Protect to distinguish smoke from steam by determining the presence of moisture. Steam from hot water shouldn’t be a reason to panic, and the Nest Protect says this feature will reduce the number of false alarms for users.
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Image via WSJ

The founder and chairman of Google’s biggest and most important Google Glass partner, Luxottica, says that he would actually be embarrassed to be “going around” with the Mountain View company’s wearable device on his face (via WSJ). Why might this be interesting? As you may recall, Google made a partnership with the huge Oakley/Ray-ban parent company earlier this year and is supposedly planning to eventually release frames in collaboration with them.

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Google, according to several user posts on Google+, has recently opened up a replacement program for people who damage their Nexus 5. While the company has yet to officially announce this program, users are reporting that if you have a damaged Nexus 5, Google will offer a one-time replacement for free.

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The next big probably-hit from the famed game studio behind Halo is about to be released, and to help promote it Bungie has teamed up with Google Maps to create a virtual world built to resemble that of the one in-game. It’s called Destiny Planet View, and you’ll find the way you navigate the first person shooter’s worlds within the new website to be very familiar.

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Google on Tuesday announced the rebranding of its Enterprise products and services group to a friendlier “Google for Work” name that should resonate better with small businesses and anyone using Google services, such as Maps, Search, Chrome, Android and Cloud Platform, to perform their day-to-day work. Google chairman Eric Schmidt emphasized that the change was made to empower anyone, including a sole developer in his or her basement, to have an impact. 
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[tweet https://twitter.com/hbarra/status/506728176358133763]

Chinese Android manufacturer Xiaomi may be trying to compete at the high end of Android devices with it’s iPhone-inspired Mi 3 handset and unsubtley-named Mi Pad, but it isn’t neglecting the low-end of the market. Its Redmi 1S just launched in India and, according to a tweet by former Google exec and now Xiaomi Global VP, sold 40,000 units in 4.2 seconds … 
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Google today has started sending out invites to the media for a September 15 event in India. The invite teases that the event is for “an exciting new product announcement” and promises more details closer to the date of the event. Obviously, with it being held in India, the first thing that jumps to mind is that we will hear more details regarding Android One.

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Google’s self-driving cars may have notched up 700,000 accident-free miles without anyone needing to press the big red Stop button, but project director Chris Urmson’s personal deadline to have the cars on sale to the public is still five years away, reports the MIT’s Technology Review.

Most tech-heads know that the cars rely on inch-perfect modelling of the specific streets they will use, the cars unable to drive anywhere else, but the piece revealed that this is just one of the challenges ahead … 
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HERE, the competitor to Google Maps initially available only on Windows Phone, has arrived on Android for the first time. Initially, the beta version of the Android app will be limited to Samsung Galaxy smartphones.

The main claim to fame of the app is that it offers the ability to download entire regions or countries for offline use, in contrast to Google Maps which only allows you to cache areas you have viewed while online. HERE maps currently cover around 200 countries, though turn-by-turn directions are so far limited to about half of these … 
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