Samsung is starting its Developer Conference 2016 with live streams of the keynote addresses including the opening keynote scheduled to kick things off today at 9:30am PST/12:30pm EST.
Google is on a role with their Fiber deployment. This Monday, they announced Fiber service is coming to Huntsville, Alabama. Today, they’ve announced that Fiber will be coming to certain properties in San Francisco.
According to a recent post on Google+, Google’s new cute self-driving car prototypes are now driving the roads of Mountain View. As was mentioned previously, they’re taking some cues from how the company’s previous line of Lexus self-driving vehicles. This first run of a few of the new ‘Koala’ prototype will have a safety driver on board with a “removable” steering wheel, accelerator, and brake — just in case…
These prototype vehicles are designed from the ground up to be fully self-driving. They’re ultimately designed to work without a steering wheel or pedals, but during this phase of our project we’ll have safety drivers aboard with a removable steering wheel, accelerator pedal, and brake pedal that allow them to take over driving if needed. The prototypes’ speed is capped at a neighborhood-friendly 25mph, and they’ll drive using the same software that our existing Lexus vehicles use—the same fleet that has self-driven over 1 million miles since we started the project.
According to Google, the speed of the cars is currently capped at a pretty conservative 25 miles per hour, and they’re driving around at that “neighborhood-friendly” speed using the same software that powered the Lexus line. Ultimately, the goal is for them to be completely autonomous, but it would make sense that Google wants to take that slow to avoid any more sensationalized stories about their safety…
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As we told you earlier this month, Xiaomi is holding an event in San Francisco today. While we aren’t expecting any new products to be announced, the company definitely has some interesting information to share with us as those of us stateside get an opportunity “to get to know the company and leadership a bit more.”
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Xiaomi is known as being the rising star in the smartphone arena, making its way past LG last year to become the third-largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world. The success of the company is to be blamed largely on its Chinese reception, as it hasn’t launched a single device on this side of the Pacific.
That said, Xiaomi is going to hold a press conference in San Francisco, California later this month (via Android Police), but don’t get too excited if you’re hoping to hear about a North American launch, as the company has already confirmed that that’s not happening…
Contract workers driving shuttle buses for a range of Silicon Valley companies have voted to unionize, reports USA Today.
A majority of the 120 full-time and part-time drivers who transport those companies’ employees have signed authorization cards with the union, said Rome Aloise, International vice president and secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 853.
The drivers are employed by South San Francisco-based Compass Transportation, which has contracts with Apple and the other firms to transport its workers to and from work.
Although the hourly rates for the drivers range from $18-20, they argue that high living costs make it difficult to live close to work, and working further out does not allow them to return home between split shifts in the morning and evening–meaning they are effectively at work for far longer than their paid hours.
William Gould, a professor at Stanford Law School said: “These workers, as a practical matter, have to wait in certain areas to do their work (and) they are not compensated for that wait.”
Facebook shuttle bus drivers joined the Teamsters union in November. Although Google is not specifically named by the Teamsters, it’s believed that Google drivers will also be invited to vote on joining a union.
Google has faced criticism over its impact on the housing market in San Francisco as a result of well-paid employees being able to buy and rent property in the area, partly as a result of the wifi-equipped shuttle buses–with protestors blocking the buses. The company responded by donating $6.8M to a program offering free transit to low income kids, and funding four electric shuttle buses for use by the local community in Mountain View.
Photo: wired.com
The city of San Francisco announced today that Google has made a $2 million donation to three charities benefiting the homeless. The money will go to Larkin Street Youth Services, Hamilton Family Center, and HandUp, according to a report from Mashable.
A full $1 million will go to the Hamilton Family Center, which locates homeless families through the public school system and helps them find a place to live.
First we had the mystery about why Google was building floating structures on a set of barges based in San Francisco and Portland, before Google finally revealed that they were to become “interactive spaces where people can learn about new technology.”
Then we had the equally mysterious apparent cancellation of the project, with one of the barges sold for scrap and another sitting unused on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
The WSJ used Freedom of Information Act requests to get hold of documents which seem to provide an explanation: email correspondence suggests that Google was unable to satisfy the Coast Guard’s fire-safety concerns.
“These vessels will have over 5,000 gallons of fuel on the main deck and a substantial amount of combustible material on board,” warned Robert Gauvin, the Coast Guard’s acting chief of commercial vessel compliance, in a March 27, 2013 email to the contractor, Foss Maritime Co.
Google argued that the barges would have no more than 150 people on board at any one time, despite estimating a total of 1200 visitors a day, but the Coast Guard was unimpressed.
“I am unaware of any measures you plan to use to actually limit the number of passengers,” Mr. Gauvin wrote in the March 27 email about fire safety. He criticized the effort by Google and Foss to seek quick approvals. “While I understand there is a sense of urgency, I am concerned that significant work has already been performed without full consent of the Coast Guard.”
Speaking of Nest, lodge booking service Airbnb announced a new partnership with the Google-owned company today. As part of the partnership, Airbnb will be providing some Airbnb hosts with the Nest smart thermostat for use in locations available on the booking service.
We provided selected Airbnb hosts in the US with the Nest Learning Thermostat with features such as Auto-Away which turns down the heat when a host or guest is not home, and can be controlled from anywhere in the world with a mobile app – perfect for travelers! And with Nest’s MyEnergy service, hosts can easily track their energy consumption and improve their home’s efficiency.
Our community is passionate about environmental sustainability. In a recent study on the environmental impacts of home sharing, we found that Airbnb guests in North America use 63 percent less energy than hotel guests. This partnership with Nest gives our hosts more control over their home’s energy consumption, with technology that is both beautiful in design and good for the planet.
The partnership focuses on the Nest thermostat’s ability to be controlled remotely and save energy. Nest says it already has a list of some homes using the Nest Learning Thermostat for potential bookers to browse.
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Well, that was an anti-climax. After all kinds of speculation about why Google was building floating structures on a set of barges based in San Francisco and Portland, with Google finally revealing in not too much detail that they were to become “interactive spaces where people can learn about new technology,” it turns out that at least one of them is being sold for scrap.
The Portland Press Herald reports that the 250-foot Google barge that has been sitting in Portland Harbour since last October is now being sold and the container building sitting on it will be scrapped …
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Samsung announced today that its official Developers Conference is returning again this year and will kick off November 11 at Moscone West in San Francisco. Last year, Samsung held its first developer conference in San Francisco in October and showed off a number of new features for developers across its product lineups. That includes its Mobile SDK for Android, Smart TV SDK 5.0 Multiscreen Gaming SDK, Multiscreen SDK, and its KNOX Enterprise SDK beta that’s arriving this year natively in Android. This year Samsung makes a venue change to the Moscone West Center used by both Apple and Google for their developer conferences that took place earlier this year.
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A Re/code piece on Google’s Shopping Express service says that the company is investing $500M to expand the service beyond San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City and roll it out nationally.
The service lets shoppers buy things from local retail stores through Google, which then delivers them to consumers from the physical retail store on the same or next day.
A source familiar with the company’s plans says senior Google execs have set aside as much as $500 million to expand the service nationwide …
The US Supreme Court rejected Google’s attempt to appeal a class-action lawsuit claiming the search giant violated federal wiretap laws when its Street View vehicles collected data from private WiFi networks. In 2010, Google said that it accidentally recorded data from unencrypted WiFi networks, stating it immediately grounded its cars and reached out to regulators to find out how to properly dispose of the information that it collected.
Amid protests, Google tries to make nice with the city of San Francisco both with a showing of local bands and some San Francisco related tracks (20) on Google Play available for free. Rumor has it there will also be lots of San Francisco beers at the event this evening.
About a year later than first expected, Samsung has finally announced its first smartphone running Tizen instead of Android, the Samsung Z.
While this particular handset is only launching in Russia initially (sometime in Q3), it’s notable in a couple of ways. First, the spec – while not cutting edge – is pretty decent. Powered by a 2.3GHz quad-core processor and 2GB RAM, it has a 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED display (though only in 1280×720 resolution) and the fingerprint sensor that has so far been exclusive to the S5. It’s not the low-end spec many had expected from Tizen …
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Registration for Google I/O is officially open. The registration window will be available through April 18th, 2014 at 2:00 p.m. PDT. The event is scheduled to take place June 25th – 26th at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA.
Samsung has announced that the Samsung Galaxy S5 goes on sale today in 125 countries, along with the new Gear smartwatches. It was already known that it would be launched today in the USA.
The new Galaxy S5 and the Samsung Gear devices – Samsung Gear 2, Samsung Gear 2 Neo, and Samsung Gear Fit – are ready to hit the market in 125 countries in Europe, Middle East, North America, Latin America, and most of Asia.
The S5 has a 5.1-inch full HD display which was declared “the best smartphone display ever tested” by DisplayMate. Other key features include a fingerprint sensor and heartrate monitor. Reviewers considered it an excellent phone, albeit lacking in excitement …
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Registration for Google’s I/O developer’s conference, originally due to open today, has been pushed back by a week, now opening on 15th April.
Google hasn’t offered any explanation, though its brief statement suggests that a problem in the registration process has been spotted at the last minute …
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Amazon, just days after announcing its FireTV set-top box, has now announced a new home accessory dubbed the “Dash.” The Dash is a wand-sized device that has built in Wi-Fi, a barcode scanner and a microphone. The goal of Dash, according to Amazon, is to make shopping and remembering things you need even easier.
Simply hold down the microphone button and say the name of an item, like “orange juice”, and Dash will automatically add it to your shopping list. You can also scan the barcode of any item with the built in LED scanner to add items to your shopping list.
Google’s Android and Chrome chief Sundar Pichai just announced the official dates for Google’s upcoming 7th annual Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco. While last year’s even took place in May, this year Google is moving up the conference to June 25-26. Pichai also noted that Google will implement a new registration system that will avoid tickets selling out within minutes like last year:
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We’ve heard quite a bit about Google’s mysterious barge projects over the last few months, but it wasn’t until November that the company confirmed their existence. The SF Examiner now reports that Google is facing some regulatory issues in San Francisco and must move the construction site for its barge from its current island in the middle of the Bay to one of the fully permitted construction facilities in the Bay.
The request was made the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, which noticed that neither Treasure Island Development Authority nor the city of San Francisco had the correct permits to allow for Google to be constructing the barge at its current location.
“Obviously the bay is a valuable resource to everybody,” Flanders, program director at San Francisco Baykeeper said. “Requiring people and companies large and small to pass all environmental regulations before using the bay is essential.”
Google says it will use these barges as “an interactive space where people can learn about new technology.” The barges will be able to move around and dock in different cities, as well. Check out a video of the tentative design of the barges after the jump:
Google’s Barge projects have apparently been put on hold according a new CNET report this morning. The report indicates that Google is definitely planning on completing the project, but at this point it looks to be well into 2014 before it sees the light of day.
After expanding its same-day delivery service to the entire Bay Area back in September alongside new mobile apps, Google today announced the latest update to Google Shopping Express. The service is now officially available to Costco shoppers in the San Francisco Bay Area, allowing them to get same-day deliveries for items ordered online or through the Google Shopping Express mobile apps.
Google is also still offering six months of free same-delivery until the end of the year and $5 off your first order.
The Google Shopping Express mobile app is available for Android or iPhone.
The mysterious barge that appeared in San Francisco Bay has been confirmed by multiple sources to be Google’s first foray into retail space, reports CBS.
First rumored to be a data center, CBS first suggested a week ago that it could be the retail space we’ve been predicting since February, and is now stating this as fact – though suggesting it may be aimed at an exclusive clientele.
Google’s mysterious floating barge on San Francisco Bay will feature luxury showrooms and a party deck for the tech giant to market Google Glass and other gadgets to invitation-only clients, multiple sources told KPIX 5.
It’s not clear whether it’s just the upper entertainment deck that is reserved for VIP guests or the whole structure, but it appears the structure isn’t fixed: it’s a giant Transformer …
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