Jaikumar Vijayan

Chris Urmson, chief technology officer of Google parent Alphabet’s autonomous car initiative, and one of its longest-serving engineers, has left the project apparently to explore other opportunities. In a post on Medium, Urmson offered no explanation for his seemingly abrupt decision to resign from his position seven and a half years after leaving Carnegie Mellon […]

Several businesses that make their money bundling third-party software with other applications are using deceptive practices to distribute unwanted apps on user systems, researchers from Google and New York University warned in a report released this week. The report is based on a yearlong study of the internet’s so-called pay-per-install (PPI) ecosystem, in which a […]

Google and password management firm Dashlane have launched a new initiative to develop an opensource application programming interface to help developers build secure login routines for Android applications. Dubbed OpenYOLO (You Only Login Once) the API is designed to give developers a way to write Android applications that can readily access secure application logins stored […]

Google has been working over the past two years to implement full encryption across all of its products, as part of an effort to ensure people using its services are better protected against online eavesdroppers, man-in-the middle attacks and other online threats. This week the company outlined the progress it has made so far in […]

Google this week announced general availability of an option that lets customers of its cloud services use their own keys for encrypting sensitive data stored online. Google first introduced its Customer-Supplied Encryption Keys (CSEK) for Compute Engine in beta form last year. The feature basically enables enterprises to protect their data using encryption keys that […]

Verily Life Sciences, a company owned by Google parent Alphabet, and pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline have established Galvani Bioelectronics, a firm that will focus on developing a new category of so-called bioelectronic medicines. Under an agreement announced Aug. 1, the two companies will jointly invest around $715 million in the new venture over the next seven […]

A set of new add-ons for Google Docs and Sheets aims to give users of the two apps the ability to do a lot more work-related tasks with their mobile phones. Google this week announced that products from eight vendors have now been tightly integrated with its Docs and Sheets productivity tools. The new Android […]

Google parent Alphabet’s stock soared up by over 6 percent late Thursday afternoon on news of a better than expected performance from the company for the second quarter of 2016 ended June 30. Alphabet announced earnings per share of $8.42 on revenues of $21.5 billion last quarter. The numbers handily beat Wall Street expectations of […]

People who purchase a movie, TV show, book or mobile app via Google Play can now share it with up to six family members without having to pay any additional fees, courtesy a new “Family Library” feature that Google announced this week. The feature will become available starting this week in a dozen countries, including […]

Google has updated its Maps application with visual changes and additions designed to provide users with what it says is cleaner and more actionable information. The company is rolling out the changes to Maps users on the desktop, Android and iOS devices, and they will become apparent to users around the world soon. According to […]

One of the major drawbacks of using a mobile phone to call emergency services is that first responders often have a hard time pinpointing the caller’s exact location. Google hopes to address this issue with a new optional feature that could make it easier for first responders to locate Android mobile device users in emergency […]

Google is making it easier for Google Maps users to add places or suggest edits to existing information on a business or landmark worldwide. The company has also added a new way for Maps users to approve edits to business and location information that have been suggested by others. The new options are part of […]