Google

Google has repositioned itself as an AI-focused company, with everything from Search and Android, to YouTube and its internal structure, shifting to accommodate for that pivot — and TechCrunch is here to cover every step of its evolution. Its Gemini model is being rolled out in more countries and across more use cases than ever, though its revenue remains tied to its existing advertising offerings.

Google said today that it globally paused its experiment that aimed to allow new kinds of real-money games on the Play Store, citing the challenges that come with the lack…

Google pauses its experiment to expand real-money games on the Play Store

Google is making reviews of all your movies, TV shows, books, albums and games visible under one profile page starting June 24, according to an email sent to users last…

Google is making your movie and TV reviews visible under a new profile page

Meta AI removes restrictions around answering election-related queries in India while Google is still restricting them.

Meta AI removes block on election-related queries in India while Google still applies limits

Google has released its dedicated AI mobile app Gemini in India — over four months after its debut in the U.S. — with support for nine Indian languages alongside English. The…

Google brings Gemini mobile app to India with support for 9 Indian languages

Perplexity could already fetch this data from the web and display results in a descriptive way, but the company is adding some visual flair to these results to make them…

Perplexity now displays results for temperature, currency conversion and simple math, so you don’t have to use Google

Android is losing one of its long-time engineering leads. Dave Burke, VP of engineering at Android, said on Thursday that he is stepping down from the role after 14 years.…

Android’s long-time VP of engineering Dave Burke is stepping down

After leading the social media landscape, TikTok appears to be interested in challenging Google’s dominance in search. The company confirmed to TechCrunch that it’s testing the ability for users to…

TikTok comes for Google as it quietly rolls out image search capabilities in TikTok Shop

Google is finally making its Gemini Nano AI model available to Pixel 8 and 8a users after teasing it in March.

Google’s June Pixel feature drop brings Gemini Nano AI model to Pixel 8 and 8a users

“We’re looking forward to doing integrations with other models, including Google Gemini, for instance, in the future,” Federighi said during WWDC 2024.

Apple confirms plans to work with Google’s Gemini ‘in the future’

Google says apps offering AI features will have to prevent the generation of restricted content.

Google Play cracks down on AI apps after circulation of apps for making deepfake nudes

Google said today it is partnering with RapidSOS, a platform for emergency first responders, to enable users to contact 911 through RCS (Rich Messaging Service).

Google partners with RapidSOS to enable 911 contact through RCS

Google on Thursday said it is rolling out NotebookLM, its AI-powered note-taking assistant, to over 200 new countries, nearly six months after opening its access in the U.S. The platform,…

Google’s updated AI-powered NotebookLM expands to India, UK and over 200 other countries

Google’s newest startup program, announced on Wednesday, aims to bring AI technology to the public sector. The newly launched “Google for Startups AI Academy: American Infrastructure” will offer participants hands-on…

Google’s new startup program focuses on bringing AI to public infrastructure

Microsoft, Meta, Intel, AMD and others have formed a new group to design next-gen interconnects for AI accelerator hardware.

Tech giants form an industry group to help develop next-gen AI chip components

Instead of opening the user’s actual browser or a WebView, Custom Tabs let users remain in their app while browsing.

Google Chrome becomes a ‘picture-in-picture’ app

The watch features a variety of different 3D games, unlocking more play time the more kids move.

Fitbit’s new kid smartwatch is a little Wiimote, a little Tamagotchi

Google said today it’s adding new AI-powered features such as a writing assistant and a wallpaper creator and providing easy access to Gemini chatbot to its Chromebook Plus line of…

Google adds AI-powered features to Chromebook

Google has been taking heat for some of the inaccurate, funny and downright weird answers that it’s been providing via AI Overviews in search. AI Overviews are the AI-generated search…

What are Google’s AI Overviews good for?

Google is investing nearly $350 million in Flipkart, becoming the latest high-profile name to back the Walmart-owned Indian e-commerce startup. The Android maker will also provide Flipkart with cloud offerings…

Google invests $350M in Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart

Google is preparing to build what will be the first subsea fiber-optic cable connecting the continents of Africa and Australia. The news comes as the major cloud hyperscalers battle it…

Google to build first subsea fiber-optic cable connecting Africa with Australia

Google says the new SDK would help Google expand on its core mission of connecting the right audience to the right content at the right time.

Google is launching a new Android feature to drive users back into their installed apps

Welcome back to TechCrunch’s Week in Review. This week had two major events from OpenAI and Google. OpenAI’s spring update event saw the reveal of its new model, GPT-4o, which…

OpenAI and Google lay out their competing AI visions

Welcome to Startups Weekly! We’ve been drowning in AI news this week, with Google’s I/O setting the pace. And Elon Musk rages against the machine.

Startups Weekly: It’s the dawning of the age of AI — plus,  Musk is raging against the machine

As part of 2024’s Accessibility Awareness Day, Google is showing off some updates to Android that should be useful to folks with mobility or vision impairments. Project Gameface allows gamers…

Google expands hands-free and eyes-free interfaces on Android

Google is launching a Gemini add-on for educational institutes through Google Workspace.

Google adds Gemini to its Education suite

Here are quick hits of the biggest news from the keynote as they are announced.

Google I/O 2024: Here’s everything Google just announced

Back in February, Google paused its AI-powered chatbot Gemini’s ability to generate images of people after users complained of historical inaccuracies. Told to depict “a Roman legion,” for example, Gemini would show…

Google still hasn’t fixed Gemini’s biased image generator

Google’s going all in on AI — and it wants you to know it. During the company’s keynote at its I/O developer conference on Tuesday, Google mentioned “AI” more than…

The top AI announcements from Google I/O

This latest release, one of many announcements from the Google I/O 2024 developer conference, focuses on improved battery life and other performance improvements, like more efficient workout tracking.

Wear OS 5 hits developer preview, offering better battery life

The company said it is increasing the on-device capability of its Google Play Protect system to detect fraudulent apps trying to breach sensitive permissions.

Google adds live threat detection and screen-sharing protection to Android