Google | Pixr8 News

13Jul By AdityaNo Comments

INDIA

Google to Invest $10 billion in India: Sundar Pichai

New Delhi, Jul 13, 2020: Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that they plan to invest $10 billion (Rs 75,000 crore) in India over the next five to seven years to help accelerate the adoption of digital technologies in the country. Pichai, who held a virtual meeting with Prime Minister of India Mr. Narendra Modi on Monday morning, made the announcement at the annual ''Google for India'' event via video conference. Announcing the $10 billion investment in India over the next 5-7 years through ''Google for India Digitization Fund'', Pichai asserted that the move is a reflection of the company's confidence in the future of the country and its digital economy. Pichai said a whole new generation of technologies are happening in India first, and that people in the country no longer have to wa...

Google Meet will now blur your background during live video calls

30Jun By PriyankaNo Comments

News

Google Meet will now blur your background during live video calls

Google video conferencing app Meet will soon let users to add images or a blur effect to backgrounds on video calls. Google is also working on several other features like real-time captioning, low-light mode, hand-raising, and a tile view of up to 49 meeting participants that would make Meet more competitive against rival videoconferencing platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams, reports The Verge. The company did not disclosed details about when the changes would be available. However, Meet is already previewing some of the upcoming features for its education and enterprise customers. Meet recently received AI noise cancellation feature update to help attendees reduce the background noise significantly. The feature was originally announced in April with a couple of other feat...

Flatfile Raises $7.6M from Two Sigma Ventures & Google

11Jun By AdityaNo Comments

FUNDING

Flatfile Raises $7.6M from Two Sigma Ventures & Google

DENVER, June 11, 2020-- Flatfile, a drop-in spreadsheet importer raises $7.6 million in funding led by Two Sigma Ventures, with participation from existing investors including Afore Capital, Designer Fund, and Gradient Ventures, Google's AI-focused venture fund. New investors HNVR, Work Life Ventures, Quiet Capital, Basecamp Fund, and Soma Capital also participated in this round. The funding coincides with the launch of Concierge, its newest product focused on data onboarding for large enterprises. Founded in 2018 by David Boskovic (CEO) and Eric Crane (COO), Flatfile's mission is to remove barriers between humans and data. The company's software products focus specifically on solving the problem of data onboarding, the process businesses use to accept data...

Anvil Raises $5M from Google and Citi Ventures

4Jun By AdityaNo Comments

FUNDING

Anvil Raises $5M from Google and Citi Ventures

SAN FRANCISCO, June 4, 2020-- Anvil, a paperwork automation platform raises $5 million in Series A investment. Gradient Ventures Google's AI-focused investment fund led the round, with participation from Citi Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Financial Venture Studio, and 122 West. Anvil is a low-code paperwork automation platform that helps businesses quickly build simple online experiences for paperwork processes. Paperwork is at the core of office work in America; every day millions of forms are shared, filled out, signed, and then returned to the requester for processing. The process is insecure, error-prone, tedious, and requires countless human hours to transcribe information from PDFs into various computer systems. Endless forms also waste valuable time and cause frustration...

Google delays Android 11 Beta Launch Amid Protest in US

1Jun By AnkitaNo Comments

Tech

Google delays Android 11 Beta Launch Amid Protest in US

San Francisco, May 31, 2020: Google has apparently delayed the launch of the Android 11 Beta version as several US cities are currently under protests over the death of George Floyd in Minnesota. The tech giant earlier planned to showcase new features in Android 11 on June 3. "We are excited to tell you more about Android 11, but now is not the time to celebrate," tweeted Android''s developer account. "We are postponing the June 3rd event and beta release. We''ll be back with more on Android 11, soon," it added. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has activated "full mobilization" of the National Guard after four straight nights of violent protests in the US state's biggest city of Minneapolis over the death of Floyd, an unarmed black man, in police custody. In New York, officials ...

29May By AnkitaNo Comments

News

Google gives Emergency Funds to 5,300 local Online News Organizations

New York, May 29th, 2020: 5,300 small and medium local newsrooms around the world have been selected by Google to receive emergency funding from $5,000-$30,000 (approximately Rs 3.7 lakh-Rs 22.7 lakh). Covid-19 has upended the news industry, hitting local news particularly hard with job losses, furloughs, cutbacks, and even closure, Google said in a blog post. To provide some help, the Google News Initiative last month launched the Journalism Emergency Relief Fund. "Applications covering a number of publications under one organization will be capped at $85,000. As we await a final funding tally, we expect to spend tens of millions of dollars through the Journalism Emergency Relief Fund," said, Ludovic Blecher, Head of Google News Initiative Innovation. Google said in just two ...

28May By reutersNo Comments

INDIA

Google faces Antitrust case in India over payments app

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India’s antitrust body is looking into allegations that Alphabet Inc’s Google is abusing its market position to unfairly promote its mobile payments app in the country, five sources familiar with the case told Reuters. The complaint was filed in February and the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has kept the identity of the complainant confidential, the first source with direct knowledge of the case said. The complaint alleges the U.S. tech giant more prominently showcases its Google Pay app inside its Android app store in India, giving it an unfair advantage over apps of competitors which hurts consumers, the source added. Google did not respond to a request for comment. Two of the sources said the watchdog informed Google about the case being filed a f...

Google developing its own Smart Debit Card

20Apr By AdityaNo Comments

Tech

Google developing its own Smart Debit Card

US-based online Search giant Google is working on to develop its own smart debit card which can work physical and virtual both. According to Techcrunch, Google is currently developing its own virtual debit and credit cards which will be associated with Gpay accounts of users. Users can purchase things with a card, mobile phone or online. The card will attach with Google payment service which known as Google pay has 67 million users across the globe. The card will connect to a Google pay app that will allow users to monitor purchases, check account balance or lock their account. To make the card payment work, Google partners with several banks which include CITI and Stanford Federal Credit Union. After launch, Google Pay will directly compete with Apple's own virtual pa...

Google Stop Employees from using Zoom Video Conferencing App

13Apr By NitishNo Comments

News

Google Stop Employees from using Zoom Video Conferencing App

Search engine based company Google ban employees from using popular video-conferencing app Zoom after end to end security flaws. Video-conferencing app Zoom which gained over 200 million users worldwide in March amid shutdown due to coronavirus pandemic has recently been under the scanner after few countries reported security issues. Apart from Google, the Singapore education dept, Taiwan Government, Elon Musk's SpaceX, etc has banned video conferencing app over security concerns. The app has also been banned by New York City officials for schools who were earlier using the app to facilitate remote classes and sessions. As Pixr8 News mentioned in its earlier report that Zoom videos had been exposed on the open web due to end to end security flaws. Also, a data-mining feature o...

Google building Self-check Website for Coronavirus

14Mar By AnkitaNo Comments

News

Google building Self-check Website for Coronavirus

Internet giant Alphabet is creating a website where people will be able to check whether they have symptoms of the novel coronavirus. Verily Life Sciences, once a project in a Google X lab devoted to "moonshot" projects and now its own health business unit, is testing a "tool to help triage individuals for COVID-19 testing," Google confirmed on Twitter. "Verily is in the early stages of development, and planning to roll testing out in the Bay Area, with the hope of expanding more broadly over time," the tweet said, referring to San Francisco and surrounding communities. Trump thanked Google while declaring a state of national emergency due to the deadly coronavirus pandemic. Google is helping to develop a website "to determine whether a test is warranted and to facilitate test...

Larry Page, Sergey Brin step down; Sundar Pichai promoted as Alphabet CEO

4Dec By AdityaNo Comments

News

Larry Page, Sergey Brin step down; Sundar Pichai promoted as Alphabet CEO

Google's India-born Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai will assume the leadership role at its parent firm Alphabet after the internet giant's co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin stepped down from its active management, making him one of the most powerful corporate leaders of the world. Page and Brin are stepping down as CEO and president, respectively, of Alphabet, the company announced on Tuesday. Pichai, 47, the current CEO of Google and a longtime executive at the company, will take over as CEO of Alphabet in addition to his current role. Considered as a significant shakeup in the Silicon Valley company, the shuffle comes at a time when Google is facing mounting scrutiny over its size, data privacy practices and potential impact on society. With Alphabet now well-esta...

Google to buy Wearables Maker Fitbit for USD 2.1 billion

1Nov By AdityaNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Google to buy Wearables Maker Fitbit for USD 2.1 billion

Google has agreed to buy Fitbit for USD 2.1 billion in a move giving the US tech giant entry into the wearable technology space, the two companies announced Friday. The move comes with Google seeking to expand beyond its core business of online search into hardware, and with Fitbit struggling against rivals including Apple. "We have built a trusted brand that supports more than 28 million active users around the globe who rely on our products to live a healthier, more active life," Fitbit co-founder and chief executive James Park said in a statement by the two firms announcing the deal. "Google is an ideal partner to advance our mission. Fitbit will be able to accelerate innovation in the wearables category, scale faster, and make health even more accessible to everyone. I could ...