Google is bidding “smell ya later!” to its Wallet Card, the physical debit cards linked to Google Wallet accounts. In a blog post, the company said it plans to focus instead on the Google Wallet app, which relaunched last September with a new focus on online peer-to-peer payments. People who hold a Wallet Card won’t […]
Google has reversed one of its April Fools’ Day pranks after it caused a number Gmail users to unwittingly insert GIFs into business emails and other important communications. The U.S. internet giant is usually celebrated for its creative April Fools gags — some of its others today are funny — but the Big G’s attempt to inject humor into email […]
Microsoft’s Cortana personal assistant competes against the likes of Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and the unnamed mystery voice behind Google Now. It’s part of a new wave of services slowly making talking to computers mainstream, but because of Microsoft’s weak position on mobile, it hasn’t quite had the same impact as some of its competitors. Cortana is front-and-center at Build […]
In case you thought the recently and abruptly terminated fracas in San Bernardino was an isolated incident, the ACLU has put together a handy map of cases around the country where the All Writs Act has been used to justify an order to unlock a smartphone. A total of 63 cases are shown; nine seek […]
Google Fiber may be the holy grail of Internet service for many, but many people still rely on landlines for everyday communication purposes or emergency use. In order to allow its subscribers to sever connections with the old local ISPs and telecoms completely, Google will soon offer home phone service for Fiber subscribers. For $10 […]
Not to be left behind as companies like IBM, Cisco and Microsoft all expand their services for enterprises opting for hybrid cloud environments, Google today announced a raft of partnerships to advance its position in the market, too. Google Stackdriver, the company’s platform for managing IT ops between Google’s cloud platform, AWS, and other servers, is […]
Google is increasing the visibility of security warnings inside Gmail to help protect the service’s billion-plus active users more adequately. The company is expanding its ‘safe browsing’ security notifications, which warn users when they are about to open suspicious links contained within emails, so that they show before the link has opened and as a full-page notice. […]
Good news for amateur and professional photograph enthusiasts. Google has just made its Nik Collection photo editing software available completely free of charge. That collection includes seven different desktop services that fell into Google’s lap after it acquired Nik Software back in 2012. That deal was largely about getting control of popular photo app Snapseed, a pretty powerful tool […]
Google is launching the Android Experiments I/O Challenge today in an effort to bring more interesting open-source apps to its Android Experiments showcase. The three winners of the challenge, which will run until April 13, will get a trip to this year’s Google I/O developer conference. The five runner-ups will get Nexus 6Ps (which in […]
A new report from U.S. consumer rights and privacy advocacy group, the Center for Digital Democracy, has set out the case for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to tighten data protection rules around how ISPs and telcos collect and use consumer data. The FCC is currently consulting on proposals to changes to the rules on how ISPs […]