Google

The European Commission has levied its highest ever fine in an antitrust case, ruling that Google must pay €2.42B ($2.72B) for favoring its own shopping comparison service in search results. This is far higher than the €1B fine expected.

Further fines – equivalent to 5% of parent company Alphabet’s daily worldwide turnover – will apply unless Google resolves the issue within 90 days …

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Over the weekend, a new leak surfaced that reportedly sheds more light on the upcoming Walleye and Taimen devices. The leak hints at both of the devices’ specs, hardware design, and IO. Based off of these leaks, which of the two new upcoming Google smartphones are you most interested in?

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Google is refusing to hand over salary data to the government after the Labor Dept accused it of underpaying female employees …

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The first step in an ambitious plan by Google to turn downtown San Jose into a “mixed-use, transit-oriented office space” was approved last night. For the company, the campus portion could fit up to 20,000 Googlers, while the surrounding area would be drastically reshaped.

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Google has been found guilty of antitrust behavior over the way it promoted its own shopping services over that of competitors, reports the Financial Times. This is one of three separate European investigations into the legality of the company’s trading practices.

The paper says that a formal announcement will be made ‘in the coming weeks,’ and that the search giant will be fined a billion Euros ($1.12B) by the European Commission …

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Google today announced an update to its Local Guides program — perhaps the biggest one in a while. Starting today, Local Guides can reach up to level 10, whereas previously the “game” was capped at level 5. That means those who previously maxed out their points have reason to start updating Google Maps data again…

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Every smartphone and tablet has an end-of-life date when the manufacturer will stop spending the money and effort to keep it updated. Although some companies don’t actually tell customers when their devices will no longer receive updates, Google guarantees that its Pixel and Nexus devices will get feature updates for at least two years and security updates for three.

Now, Google has updated its Android updates page to clarify how long they will cover both Nexus and Pixel devices with telephone and online support…

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Alphabet Class A shares ($GOOGL) hit new record highs today, soaring past the $1,000 per share mark. Alphabet Inc Class A is up 7.80 points on the day, or 0.78%. Alphabet Inc Class C, on the other hand, is straddling the line just below the $1,000 mark, sitting at 983.28 at the time of this writing and up nearly the same amount.

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Despite being a rather popular Android smartphone, there aren’t as many great cases available for the Google Pixel as there are for the Galaxy S8 or LG G6. Although late to the game, Mophie has finally released a version of its Juice Pack battery cases for the Pixel XL. The Juice Pack does add a bit of thickness to the handset but it also almost doubles its battery life and adds wireless charging.

But is it worth the $99 pricetag?

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Google’s plans for a new London campus have taken a while to come to fruition, but the company has now submitted a formal planning application for the redesigned building. It will be situated directly opposite Kings Cross station, close to the Eurostar terminus.

Initial plans were filed back in 2013, but the company later decided the design lacked ambition. In 2014, Google asked for an all-new design, and later commissioned the team behind its Mountain View campus to carry out the work …

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For those that actually use Google+, its flaws aren’t exactly a secret. The site is plagued with spam, and many still haven’t adjusted to the relative sluggishness of its new web interface. And, with the recent refocus on Communities, Collections (and most recently, Topics), the site in general is getting somewhat confusing to anyone but seasoned G+ veterans (of which there aren’t many).

Now, one Google+ Engineering Manager Leo Deegan has come out on Google+ (appropriately) to let us know that Google is aware of the network’s flaws and is working on a variety of improvements.

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Over the last couple of years, Google I/O has become less of a spectacle where people are literally skydiving onto the top of the Moscone Center and more of a place for Google to talk directly to developers. Because of this, people have started calling Google dull. Do you think that this year’s Google I/O developer conference was boring?

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Nest, an Alphabet-owned company, is known for its high-tech smart home devices — like its thermostat and smoke detector. In particular its descendants-of-Dropcam home WiFi security cameras have been popular for the last couple years, thanks to being extremely user-friendly. Now, Nest is reportedly prepping to release a 4K indoor security camera to add a new option to the top of the lineup…

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Google I/O 2017 might have ended last week but if you missed any of it, don’t worry as Google has now posted its yearly highlight video to showcase the best things to happen at this year’s developer conference…

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The Google Pixel and Pixel XL are arguably two of the best Android smartphones on the market, but unlike other major handsets such as the Samsung Galaxy S8 and LG G6, there aren’t that many cases out there for it. Today, there’s another option on the market as mophie, a well-known battery accessory company, has announced the availability of a battery case for the Pixel XL…

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One struggle felt by all developers is getting users to pay for mobile applications. This issue affects developers creating $0.99 games as well as those coding $5 photo editing applications. To make up for lost revenue, developers have turned to using in-app purchases as well as subscription-based models. To make subscriptions a more viable option for companies and individual developers alike, Google has introduced several new tools within the Google Play Console…

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Today is day three of I/O 2017, and that means that we are nearing the end of this year’s Google developer conference. So far we have seen the company announce new features coming to Android, VR, a bunch of new tools for developers to help them make great apps, and much more.

However, if you missed any of the keynotes or sessions, don’t worry at all because Google recorded every single one of them so that you can go back and watch them when you’re ready…

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For years now, Google’s emoji have stood out from the crowd because they didn’t share the typical round design seen on other smartphones. Many called these emoji “blobs” because of their shape and it was pretty hit or miss as far as if someone liked them. Now that they have been updated in Android O, do you miss them or are the new emoji better?

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One of the main issues with mobile VR such as Daydream or Samsung’s Gear VR is that even the top of the line smartphones just don’t have the processing power required to smoothly render graphically intense visuals. To help with this, Google has created Seurat, a tool that takes full 3D environments and turns them into scenes that can be viewed on mobile VR, all without losing huge amounts of quality…

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