Alphabet

November 6, 2024 9:00 PM

Trump expected to shift course on antitrust, stop Google breakup

Donald Trump will likely dial back some of the antitrust policies pursued under the administration of President Joe Biden, potentially including a bid to break up Alphabet's Google over its dominance in online search, experts said. Trump is expected to continue cases against Big Tech, several of which began in his first term, but his recent skepticism about a potential Google breakup highlights the power he will hold over how those cases are run. "If you do that, are you going to destroy the c...

November 1, 2024 5:53 PM

Indonesia bans sales of Google phones days after blocking Apple’s iPhone 16

Indonesia said it has banned sales of smartphones made by Alphabet's Google due to rules requiring the use of locally manufactured components, days after blocking sales of tech giant Apple's iPhone 16 for the same reason. Indonesia blocked sales of Google Pixel phones because the company has not met the rules which necessitate certain smartphones sold domestically to contain at least 40% of parts manufactured locally. "We are pushing these rules so that there's fairness for all investors in In...

October 8, 2024 10:54 AM

US judge orders Google to open up app store to competition

A U.S. judge on Monday ordered Alphabet's Google to overhaul its mobile app business to give Android users more options to download apps and to pay for transactions within them, following a jury verdict last year for “Fortnite” maker Epic Games. The injunction by U.S. District Judge James Donato in San Francisco outlined the changes Google must undertake to open up its lucrative app store, Play, to greater competition, including making Android apps available from rival sources. Donato's or...

September 4, 2024 11:26 AM

Nvidia suffers record $279 billion loss in market value as Wall St drops

Shares of AI heavyweight Nvidia tumbled 9.5% on Tuesday in the deepest ever single-day decline in market value for a U.S. company, as investors softened their optimism about artificial intelligence in a broad market selloff following tepid economic data. Nvidia lost $279 billion in market capitalization, a major indication that investors are becoming more cautious about emerging AI technology that has fueled much of this year's stock market gains. The PHLX chip index plummeted 7.75%, its bigge...

August 15, 2024 4:29 PM

Google brings AI answers in Search to new countries

Google parent Alphabet said on Thursday it was expanding its AI-generated summaries for search queries to six new countries, just two months after it rolled back some capabilities following a problem-riddled launch. The search giant made AI Overviews - which are displayed atop a search results page before traditional links to the Web - available to all U.S. users in May after spending one year trialing a limited earlier version. The feature was widely panned after screenshots of factually inac...

August 6, 2024 2:08 PM

Google has an illegal monopoly on search, US judge rules

A U.S. judge ruled on Monday that Google violated antitrust law, spending billions of dollars to create an illegal monopoly and become the world's default search engine, the first big win for federal authorities taking on Big Tech's market dominance. The ruling paves the way for a second trial to determine potential fixes, possibly including a breakup of Google parent Alphabet, which would change the landscape of the online advertising world that Google has dominated for years. It is also a gr...

July 26, 2024 4:08 PM

Google AI systems make headway with math in progress toward reasoning

Alphabet's Google unveiled a pair of artificial intelligence systems on Thursday that demonstrated advances in solving complex mathematical problems, a key frontier of generative AI development. The current class of AI models, which work by statistically predicting the next word, have struggled with abstract math, which requires greater reasoning capabilities resembling human intelligence. DeepMind, the company's AI unit, published results showing that its new AI models in development, called ...

July 16, 2024 4:31 PM

Google deal for ‘hot market’ cyber firm Wiz would bolster cloud security

If Alphabet's Google is successful in its effort to buy cloud security company Wiz, it would bolster its cloud security offerings for large organisations, a hotspot for hackers, and help it take on cloud rivals Amazon and Microsoft, experts said. Alphabet is in advanced talks to acquire Wiz, a person familiar with the matter said on Sunday, in an up to $23 billion deal that would be Google's most expensive acquisition and provide it with cybersecurity products that defend against ransomware gan...

June 13, 2024 1:43 PM

AI-powered Apple overtakes Microsoft as world’s most valuable company

Apple once again became the world's most valuable company on Wednesday, dethroning Microsoft from the top spot, as the iPhone maker pushed ahead in a race to dominate artificial intelligence technology. Its shares jumped nearly 4% to a record $215.04, giving it a market valuation of $3.29 trillion. Microsoft's market capitalization stood at $3.24 trillion, falling behind Apple for the first time in five months. The stock surge comes as the tech-heavy Nasdaq hit a record high on fresh signs of ...

June 12, 2024 2:16 PM

How Apple used Google’s help to train its AI models

On stage on Monday CEO Tim Cook's Apple announced a splashy deal with OpenAI to include its powerful artificial intelligence model as a part of its voice assistant, Siri. But in the fine print of a technical document Apple published after the event, the company makes clear that Alphabet's Google has emerged as another winner in the Cupertino, California, company's quest to catch up in AI. To build Apple's foundation AI models, the company's engineers used its framework software with a range of...