Elon Musk’s social media platform X (formerly Twitter) is preparing to launch a streaming video app for smart TVs. Though still in development, with no formal launch date announced, X CEO Linda Yaccarino posted a “sneak peek” that indicates the app will have a “trending” algorithm that pushes popular content and will be AI-powered to deliver a “personalized experience.” Yaccarino said the X video app will also have “effortless casting” so content can be easily sent to a larger screen from a mobile device. Availability is billed as “coming soon to most smart TVs.” Continue reading Yaccarino Says X Streaming Video App for TVs ‘Coming Soon’

Google is implementing an internal reorganization that combines its Android and hardware teams. Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced a new Platforms & Devices team headed by Rick Osterloh, which includes Android, Chrome, ChromeOS, Photos and all Pixel products. Pichai says the move will help speed development. Osterloh’s mandate is full-stack platform development that smoothly incorporates AI across all Google platforms, including smartphones, TVs and anything with Android OS. Hiroshi Lockheimer, who previously ran ops for Android, Chrome and ChromeOS, moves on to other projects at Google and Alphabet. Continue reading Google Merges Android and Hardware Units for AI Efficiency

Google is attacking slow-loading web pages with the new JPEG image encoder/decoder Jpegli, which offers a 35 percent compression ratio improvement using high quality compression settings, the Alphabet company says. The Jpegli JPEG coding library offers backward compatibility via “a fully interoperable encoder and decoder complying with the original JPEG standard and its most conventional 8-bit formalism, and API/ABI compatibility with libjpeg-turbo and MozJPEG,” Google says. The resulting images compressed using Jpegli are “more precise and psychovisually effective” as a result of computations that make images “look clearer” with “fewer observable artifacts.” Continue reading Google Introduces Faster, More Efficient JPEG Coding Library

Google.org, the charitable arm of the Alphabet giant, has launched a program to help fund non-profits working on technology to support “high-impact applications of generative AI.” The Google.org Accelerator: Generative AI is a six-month program that kicks off with more than $20 million in grants for 21 non-profit firms. Among them, student writing aid group Quill.org, job seeker for low- to middle-income countries Tabiya, and Benefits Data Trust, which helps low-income applicants access and enroll in public benefits. In addition to funds, the new unit provides mentorship, technical training and pro bono support from “a dedicated AI coach.” Continue reading Google GenAI Accelerator Launches with $20 Million in Grants

The European Commission has opened five investigations targeting Apple, Google, Meta and Amazon with regard to its new Digital Markets Act (DMA) antitrust rules. Under examination are steering practices with regard to Google and Apple and their app stores, potential “self-preferencing” tactics by Google and Amazon, Meta’s “pay or consent” policy for ad targeting, Apple’s compliance with “user choice” obligations, and also its recent App Store price adjustments for third parties. The vetting is expected to last for 12 months. The DMA was adopted in 2022 and goes into force this May. Continue reading EU’s Digital Markets Act Investigation Targets Big Tech Firms

Community message board and social news aggregator Reddit, founded in 2005, has filed to go public on the New York Stock Exchange in an IPO observers say may be complete in a matter of weeks. It is the first social media company to go public in many years, with Snap Inc.’s 2017 offering cited as the most recent stock market splash. Reddit’s bankers are reportedly seeking a $5 billion valuation, about half the $10 billion it was valued at for a 2021 private funding round. Reddit filed with the SEC the same day it announced an “expanded partnership” with Google to use Vertex AI. Continue reading Reddit Announces IPO on Heels of Expanded Deal with Google

Google has unveiled a new policy, the AI Cyber Defense Initiative, designed to harness the power of artificial intelligence to improve global cybersecurity defenses. The proposed policy aims to counteract rapidly evolving threats by using AI to improve threat detection, automate vulnerability management and enhance incident response effectiveness. The Alphabet company introduced its new plan at the Munich Security Conference, where it also announced it has a pool of $2 million to award businesses and academic institutions for research initiatives involving large language models, code verification and other AI uses for cyber offense and defense. Continue reading Google Targets Global Security with AI Cyber Defense Initiative

Nvidia is investing $30 billion in a new business unit focused on custom chips for high-performance computing. The company already controls about 80 percent of the advanced chip market but wants to avoid losing ground as alternatives spring up. Alphabet, AWS, Intel and AMD market high-end processors to third-parties, and Meta is expected to begin deploying its own Artemis AI chips this year. Nvidia has had discussions with Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI about helping them create bespoke chips and is also talking to automakers, cloud service providers (CSPs) and telecom companies, according to reports. Continue reading Nvidia to Launch Unit Devoted to Building Custom HPC Chips

In his annual letter about the state of YouTube, CEO Neal Mohan shared that YouTube TV has passed 8 million subscribers in seven years. Mohan also revealed that YouTube viewers watch a daily average of 1 billion hours of the 19-year-old streaming video platform on a TV screen. With more than 3 million channels in the YouTube Partner Program, the platform has in the past three years paid over $70 billion to creators, artists and media companies. Now, as YouTube integrates AI, Mohan envisions developing “entirely new ways of empowering creative expression, managing rights, and driving revenue.” Continue reading Milestone: YouTube TV Surpasses 8 Million Global Subscribers

Amazon’s net sales for Q4 were $170 billion, a 14 percent increase year-over-year. For the full year 2023, net sales were up by 12 percent to $574.8 billion. “This Q4 was a record-breaking holiday shopping season and closed out a robust 2023 for Amazon,” CEO Andy Jassy said in the recent earnings release. The results included October Prime Day and holiday season shopping. Outstanding Q4 performers included ad sales, up 27 percent to $14 billion, and Amazon Web Services, which brought in $24.2 billion, growing 13 percent.”What we’re most pleased with is the continued invention and customer experience improvements across our businesses,” Jassy added. Continue reading Growth in Ad Sales, AWS Drive Amazon Profit Up 200 Percent

Nvidia and Cisco Systems want to simplify the process of creating in-house AI computing infrastructure with a new joint service offering end-to-end artificial intelligence solutions that aim to allow any enterprise firm to host its own AI data center. Along with its own networking gear, Cisco will globally broker Nvidia AI software and GPU cloud products along with jointly configured “purpose-built Ethernet networking-based solutions.” European cloud services provider ClusterPower is an early customer, using the new offering “to help drive data center operations with innovative AI/ML solutions.” Continue reading Cisco and Nvidia Team to Offer Help Developing In-House AI

Google and Samsung have joined forces to make file sharing between Android devices easier and quicker. The companies have unified Google’s Nearby Share and Samsung’s Quick Share, “bringing the best of our sharing solutions together into a singular cross-Android solution under the Quick Share name,” and introducing the new utility across the entire Android ecosystem. “We’ve integrated the experiences and created the best default, built-in option for peer-to-peer content sharing across all types of devices in the Android and Chromebook ecosystems,” Google said at CES 2024 in Las Vegas. Continue reading CES: Google and Samsung Simplify File Sharing with Android

Alphabet is celebrating 25 years in search with a 25-Year Video Time Capsule on YouTube in conjunction with Google’s annual Year in Search global and local trend charts for 2023. Delving into local interests and traversing the globe, the lists demonstrate how human curiosity connects us across the planet through universal common interests. Topping the global searches for 2023 news is the Israel-Hamas war, followed by June’s Titanic-bound submersible disaster, then the earthquakes that devastated Turkey and Syria in June. In the entertainment world, “Barbie” was Hollywood’s most-searched film. Continue reading Google Touts 25 Years and 2023’s Top Global, Local Trends

Epic Games has prevailed against Google in U.S. District Court, scoring a victory in the 2020 lawsuit filed against the search giant over antitrust behavior related to its Google Play store. Epic claims that Google leverages control over the Android mobile operating system to require content creators who want a presence on an estimated 71 percent of the world’s smartphones to sell through the Play Store. The verdict “proves Google’s app store practices are illegal and they abuse their monopoly to extract exorbitant fees, stifle competition and reduce innovation,” Epic wrote of the win. Google disagrees with the ruling and says it plans to appeal. Continue reading Court Rules in Favor of Epic Games in Google Antitrust Case

Google personalized AI assistant NotebookLM is an experimental product that has been in early access since July. Now the company is integrating its new Gemini Pro LLM with NotebookLM and making it available to U.S. residents 18 and older. NotebookLM is engineered “to help you do your best thinking,” Google says, with documents uploaded to the service making it “an instant expert in the information you need,” allowing it to answer questions about your data. Unlike generic chatbots, NotebookLM draws responses from the documents you feed it, meaning it will be hyper-focused — a lite version of a custom trained model. Continue reading Google’s NotebookLM is a Personalized Lite Language Model