#google

#google

Alphabet Inc.'s Google was ordered to pay 573 million ($666 million) in two antitrust-damages cases brought by German price-comparison websites following on from a European Union case against the search-engine giant. In a suit brought by Axel Springer SE-owned Idealo, which sought 3.3 billion, the Berlin Regional Court awarded 374 million plus 91 million in interest. In a second case brought by Producto GmbH, another price-comparison service that sought 290 million, the judges granted 89.7 million plus 17.7 million in interest.

Google says it has pulled AI model Gemma from its AI Studio platform after a Republican senator complained the model, designed for developers, "fabricated serious criminal allegations" about her.

On Wednesday, Alphabet, Google's parent company, reported its first-ever $100 billion quarter. Revenue rose 16 percent to $102.3 billion. Net income jumped 33 percent to $34.98 billion. Those are not the numbers of a company whose main business is being disrupted. It's more like the numbers of a company that's quietly figuring out how to change with the behavior of its users.

It's the latest move by Google and other tech companies to revitalize nuclear energy in the US, which has struggled to compete with falling costs for gas, solar, and wind power over the years. As power grids scramble to keep up with growing electricity demand from AI, nuclear energy has become a more attractive option for generating carbon-free energy around-the-clock for data centers.

In one case, according to Starbuck, Google's AI claimed he had been a person of interest in a murder case when he was just two years old. For each source, Google's AI provides a URL, giving the impression that these are real news articles with headlines like, Robby Starbuck Responds to Murder Accusations,' he said. The only way to discover that these URLs are fake is to click on them.

The way we download apps onto our phones could be about to change after a ruling from the UK's competition regulator. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has designated the two tech giants as having "strategic market status" - effectively saying they have a lot of power over mobile platforms. This means Apple and Google may have to make changes, after the CMA said they "may be limiting innovation and competition".

"Having taken into account the feedback received following our proposed decision, we have today designated Google's search services with strategic market status," according to the authority.

The breakup that wasn't supposed to be possible: Publicly, Google has argued that breaking up its ad tech stack would be all but impossible. Privately, it's been mapping out how to do exactly that. Internal documents during the trial revealed that for years, Google has been pressure-testing how a separation might work. "Project Sunday", launched in 2020 and revisited in 2021, explored how to split key components of its ad tech stack within its own infrastructure.

Google upgraded the Try On feature to now support shoes, in addition to other forms of clothing. Plus, Try on will soon also work in Australia, Canada and Japan, Google announced. Google wrote, "Try on's state-of-the-art AI accurately perceives shapes and depths, preserving those subtleties when showing you what something would look like on you. Finally, you can answer the age-old question: "Can I pull off these shoes?."

Google told employees who want health benefits that they must allow a third-party AI healthcare tool to access their data, a move that has rankled some staff members. If they decline it, they will not receive health coverage. The company announced this month that US-based employees who wish to sign up for health benefits through its parent company Alphabet in the coming enrollment period must grant access to AI-powered tools provided by Nayya, which offers personalized benefits recommendations, according to internal documents reviewed by Business Insider.

On Monday, Google security engineering managers Jason Parsons and Zak Bennett said in a blog post that the new program, an extension of the tech giant's existing Abuse Vulnerability Reward Program (VRP), will incentivize researchers and bug bounty hunters to focus on "high-impact abuse issues and security vulnerabilities" in Google products and services.

"Providing "publishers with these detailed insights, I think, is a good idea," Berntson said Tuesday.

Google is making the gradient "G" its new company-wide logo, according to an announcement on Monday. The new logo first began to surface across the Google app on Android and iOS in May, but soon, the design will begin to appear across all of the company's platforms, marking Google's first big logo change in 10 years. Google separated the red, yellow, green, and blue in the colorful "G" logo it introduced in 2015.

"Instead of the typical way you'd search, which is type in something, wait for an answer," DeMuro told host Larry Mendte, "you can now just point your camera at something, or you can just ask a question and have that back and forth."

With Google's latest feature, you can now ensure Cyclingnews is front and centre when searching for the latest news from the world of cycling. The search engine recently released a 'Preferred Sources' feature, which allows users in the United States and India to optimise their results in Google's Top Stories feature. With the rise of attention-grabbing headlines and unverified information online, it's important to have your favourite, tried-and-tested publications at your fingertips.