Google to invest over $7B in US, create 10,000 jobs – CEO

Washington, United States — Google will invest more than $7 billion in the United States this year and create thousands of jobs, the tech giant’s CEO said Thursday.

“We plan to invest over $7 billion in offices and data centers across the US and create at least 10,000 new full-time Google jobs in the US this year,” Sundar Pichai said in a statement.

Pichai said Google “wants to be a part” of America’s economic recovery from the pandemic and is investing in some communities that are new to the company, as well as expanding in others across 19 states.

The announcement comes as Google faces pressure from dozens of US states that accuse the internet giant of abusing its search dominance to eliminate competition.

Google will spend $1 billion in its home state of California.

Outside of the San Fransisco Bay Area, Google said it would add thousands of jobs in Atlanta, Washington DC, Chicago, and New York.

“This will help bring more jobs and investment to diverse communities as part of our previously announced racial equity commitments,” Pichai said.

Google’s parent company Alphabet last month reported a 50-percent jump in quarterly profit to $15.2 billion as its digital ad business thrived.

Agence France-Presse

Google CEO says 'important to explore' China project

San Francisco - Google chief executive Sundar Pichai has acknowledged publicly for the first time that the tech giant is considering a search engine for China, saying it could offer "better information" to people than rival services.

Speaking at the Wired 25th anniversary conference late Monday, Pichai said Google leaders "feel obliged to think hard" about China despite criticism over the possibly of cooperating with Chinese censorship.

"We are always balancing a set of values," he said, while adding that "we also follow the rule of law in every country."

Pichai described Project Dragonfly, which has drawn criticism from Google employees, lawmakers and human rights activists, as an effort to learn about what Google could offer if it resumed its search operations in China.

"It turns out we would be able to serve well over 99 percent of the (search) queries," he said onstage in a question-and-answer session.

"And there are many, many areas where we would provide better information that what is available."

Pichai offered no details on the status of the effort but said he was taking a "long-term view" on China.

"We don't know whether we would or could do this in China but we felt it was important to explore," he said.

"I think it's important for us given how important the market is and how many users there are. We feel obliged to think hard about this."

He said one area where Google's presence could help in China would be for information on medical treatments including for cancer.

"Today people either get fake cancer treatments or they actually get useful information," he said.

Google shut down its search engine in China in 2010, refusing Beijing's requirement to censor search results.

Pichai also addressed Google's decision to withdraw from a bid for a major Pentagon cloud computing project, saying the company was not opposed to working with the military but did not want to be part of automated weapons.

"We do work with the (US) military and deeply respect what they do to protect our country," he said.

Pichai added that Google continues to work on projects with the military on cybersecurity and transportation planning, for example but that "where we are being more deliberate is where AI (artificial intelligence) is used for autonomous weaponry."

source: philstar.com

Google challenges Apple’s Siri by opening digital assistant to iPhone

Alphabet Inc’s Google said on Wednesday it would make its digital assistant available on Apple Inc’s iPhone, making a play for the higher end of the smartphone market and challenging Apple’s Siri feature on its own devices.

The announcement heralds a step by Google, whose Android system runs on the majority of the world’s smartphones, to get a foothold on Apple’s phones, which have smaller market share but are used by people who tend to spend more on technology.

It comes as Google, Apple and Amazon.com Inc are competing to establish the dominant voice-powered digital assistant, which many in the industry believe will supplant keyboards and touch screens as a primary way that users interact with technology.

Speaking at an annual developer conference in Mountain View, California, Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai touted the company’s progress with the Google Assistant, which allows users to complete various tasks through voice commands.

“Humans are interacting with computing in more natural and immersive ways,” he said. “We’ve been using voice as an input across many of our products. We’ve had significant breakthroughs.”

The Assistant debuted last year on Google’s own hardware, and the company has gradually extended the tool to devices from other manufacturers running on its Android operating system.

Google, which gets most of its revenue from its dominant search engine, also released a host of new features for Google Home, a speaker released last year. Users will soon be able to make phone calls using the device, and the HBO Now streaming service, owned by Time Warner Inc, will be integrated as well.

In addition, the company announced that it will offer physical photo albums through its photo app.

source: beta.interaksyon.com

Google coming out with two new Android phones

SAN FRANCISCO — Google revealed Thursday that it has two new sophisticated Android smartphones in the works, one of which will have the unprecedented distinction of being made in the United States.

An HTC One smartphone customized to be “Google’s take on Android” will make its US debut on June 26 at a price of $599, the head of Android, Chrome and Google Apps said at an AllThingsD conference in California.

“It’s a great device,” Google executive Sundar Pichai said during an on-stage interview.

Google Edition handsets by Taiwan-based HTC will be compatible with carriers AT&T and T-Mobile.

Pichai made the disclosure a day after Motorola Mobility head Dennis Woodside said on the same stage that the company’s was preparing to release its first smartphone since being bought by Google.

The smartphone would be called Moto X and be made in a facility near Fort Worth, Texas, Woodside said.

“It is the first smartphone that is going to be built in the United States,” Woodside said, noting that the plant would employ about 2,000 people by August.

“We think that it is going to allow us to innovate and iterate that much faster.”

Components for Motorola smartphones will come from Taiwan, South Korea, the United States and elsewhere with about 70 percent of the assembly done in Texas, Woodside said.

Moto X would set itself apart from other smartphones with advanced use of sensors such as gyroscopes and accelerometers to make devices adapt to the conditions or circumstances in which they are being used, Woodside said.

“It knows it is in my pocket or out of my pocket, and can anticipate use cases so it knows when I may want to take a picture and fires up the camera,” Woodside said, declining to show the smartphone on stage.

“Imagine you are in the car,” he continued. “The device will know, whether on or off, it is driving at 60 MPH (96 kilometers per hour) and it will act differently.”

Google makes its Android operating system for mobile devices available free to electronics manufacturers.

The company completed its $12.5 billion purchase of the Motorola unit — which makes smartphones and other devices — a year ago, eyeing both its mobile phone line, which uses Google’s Android platform, and some 17,000 valuable patents.

Motorola Mobility was created in 2011 when US-based Motorola Inc split the company into a mobile devices unit and a government and public safety division known as Motorola Solutions.

source: interaksyon.com