Google

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Google to Launch New Ride-Share Service: Report

It'll target commuters in SF, is based on Waze: WSJ

(Newser) - There's about to be a new ride-sharing service in town—at least in San Francisco. Google will soon launch a carpooling service in the city using its Waze app, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The company has been using employees of Google, Adobe, and Walmart to test...

Late to the Video-Chat Game, Google Launches FaceTime Rival

New 'Duo' video-calling app faces stiff competition

(Newser) - Knock knock, Google's video-chatting app has arrived. The app, dubbed Duo, represents Google's response to other popular video-calling options, including Apple's FaceTime, Microsoft's Skype, and Facebook's Messenger app. Duo isn't much different from the other video-chatting services, except that it gives a glimpse at...

Zagat's 30-Point Scale Is No More

The 35-year-old restaurant guide just got a major overhaul

(Newser) - Thirty-five years after it was founded in New York, the Zagat restaurant guide is ditching its 30-point rating scale to better compete with companies like Yelp and TripAdvisor, Bloomberg reports. A survey of Zagat customers found they wanted something simpler, so Google, which bought the company in 2011, launched a...

Oops: Google Docs' Filler Name Is a Real Person

Casey Baumer has been accused of hacking into people's Google accounts for 2 years

(Newser) - Google doesn't just use "lorem ipsum" as filler text. It has also used "Casey Baumer" as the randomly generated filler name on all its Google Docs prompts because, well, it's so much more personal than the ever popular Jane or John Doe, reports Gizmodo . But it'...

Man Loses 14 Years of Work When Google Deletes His Blog

Dennis Cooper's misfortune is raising new censorship concerns

(Newser) - Artist Dennis Cooper made a horrifying discovery June 27: His 14-year-old blog—the sole home of his experimental writing, research, photographs, and more—was gone, Art Forum reports. According to Fusion , Cooper's blog was hosted by Google-owned Blogger, and those headed to denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.com are greeted with the...

Is Google Trying to Replace City Buses With Uber?

Sidewalk Labs wants to change parking and transportation in US cities

(Newser) - Is Google trying to destroy America's public transportation system? It's possible, reports the Guardian , which obtained documents from Sidewalk Labs, a Google spinoff and "secretive subsidiary" of Alphabet. Columbus, Ohio, beat out more than 70 other cities for a chance to work with Sidewalk Labs and its...

What the UK's Late-Night Brexit Googling Reveals

People were trying to learn the basics, but AFTER the vote

(Newser) - So the United Kingdom voted for Brexit , PM David Cameron announced his resignation , and scores of people starting frenetically Googling "What happens if we leave the EU?"—just a few hours after they already voted en masse to do so, the Verge reports. Google Trends tweeted there was...

Google Launches New Feature to Give Better Medical Advice

It doesn't want to keep scaring users with unreliable search results

(Newser) - You know how it is: You wake up with a sore throat, then after five minutes of googling, you're convinced you have super-Ebola. Well, Google wants to do something about that. Consumerist reports the company is launching a "Symptom Search" feature this week to give better medical advice....

Grandma Wins Internet With Politest Google Search Ever

England's May Ashworth thought there was a person at Google HQ answering queries

(Newser) - When Ben John went to his grandma's house last week to do laundry, he decided to surf the Internet on her laptop while he was waiting. What he found on the Web page she had open blew his millennial mind, the Guardian reports. "Omg opened my Nan's...

Google's Self-Driving Cars Are Learning How to Honk

Engineers are teaching the autonomous vehicles

(Newser) - If you thought self-driving cars might cause honking to become a thing of the past, think again. Google engineers are teaching Google's autonomous vehicles how to honk, a company report from May reveals, per USA Today . "Our self-driving cars aim to be polite, considerate, and only honk when...

Here's What Each State Googles Weirdly Often

'Is Mr. T dead?'

(Newser) - Ever want to know what questions keep your neighbors up at night? Be careful what you wish for. Estately figured out what questions residents of each state Google more often than the others, and the results are both "inspiring and depressing." Estately used Google autocomplete to get a...

Google Patents 'Pedestrian Glue' for Self-Driving Cars

Invention aims to reduce secondary impacts

(Newser) - If you're unlucky enough to be hit by one of Google's self-driving cars, the company wants you to stay glued to the front of it, according to a patent that's dated May 17—not April 1. The patent describes an adhesive layer that "may be a...

Philly PD Admits Its SUV Was Masked as Google Maps Vehicle

SUV decked out with technology to spy on drivers (and fake Google decal)

(Newser) - The Philly PD has a "mystery" on its hands, and it involves one of its own vehicles. On Wednesday, a University of Pennsylvania professor spotted an SUV near the Philadelphia Convention Center, souped up with two high-tech license-plate readers and a placard linking it to the Pennsylvania State Police—...

Google Bans 'Deceptive' Ads for All Payday Loans

Some lenders say it's unfair to punish entire industry for predatory 'bad actors'

(Newser) - In a move that earned Google a big "huzzah!" from Wired , the company took a big step Wednesday against predatory lending practices. Starting July 13, no more ads will appear on the site for what it calls "deceptive" payday loans, the AP reports—the first time it'...

13 New Emojis Aim to Empower Women

Google team hopes they'll be available this year

(Newser) - Emojis recently became more diverse, but they're still lacking in representing women in the workforce. There's a flamenco dancer, a ballet dancer, and a princess, but that's about it, author Amy Butcher recently wrote in the New York Times . "We are told we are the new...

Google Really Wants Someone to Hack Chromebook

Not a single person has been able to, so the company has doubled the reward to $100K

(Newser) - For six years Google has been leaning on some of the world's best hackers to find problems in a wide range of its products through its bug bounty program, paying $2 million to hundreds of winners last year alone. But after announcing a $50,000 reward for the persistent...

Man Finally Triumphs Over AI in Ancient Game

Lee Sedol pulls a win out after 3 losses against AlphaGo

(Newser) - A champion Go player scored his first win over Go-playing computer software on Sunday after losing three straight times in the ancient Chinese game. Lee Sedol's victory over AlphaGo served as a reminder that Google's Go-playing program is not perfect. Lee had said that he lost earlier games...

Champion 'in Shock' After Losing Ancient Game to AI

Google machine wins first game in historic match

(Newser) - South Korea's Lee Sedol is ranked fifth in the world at Go, an ancient board game that relies on a player's intuition to surround and capture an opponent's stones on a grid. Yet he's just been schooled by a relative newbie. Google's 2-year-old computer program...

Google Self-Driving Car Blamed for Crash

Bad judgment caused 2mph collision with bus

(Newser) - After six years and millions of miles of driving, one of Google's self-driving cars has become a self-crashing car. The company has admitted that a self-driving Lexus SUV bears some responsibility for a Feb. 14 crash in Mountain View, Calif., the Verge reports. But no people—or robots—were...

Google's 'Robot' System Can Now Be Considered Legal Driver

This could be a big step

(Newser) - Up until recently, Google's self-driving cars have been limited to real-world activity only in certain states (i.e., not on the federal level), and only under certain conditions, Quartz notes. But this week the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration posted a Feb. 4 letter saying Google's self-driving system,...

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