Jaikumar Vijayan

Sometime in the not-too-distant future, cars from many automakers could feature a version of Google’s Android operating system built directly into the vehicles. If Google’s plans take shape, its operating system will power the car’s entertainment and navigation systems, connect it to the Internet, and integrate with the vehicle’s sensors, camera, fuel gauge and other […]

Google is making it easier for software developers to write and integrate applications with its Cloud Dataflow managed service for processing large data sets. The company on Dec. 18 released a Java software development kit for Cloud Dataflow into the open-source community as part of what it described as an effort to spur application development […]

Google’s efforts to deliver an end-to-end encryption tool for Chrome users are taking shape with help from Yahoo and members of the open-source community. The company this week released an updated alpha version of its End-to-End Chrome extension to the GitHub code hosting service. The prerelease version contains several contributions from the security team at […]

Google plans to introduce a warning system to alert users about potential security risks when they visit websites that do not use the HTTPS protocol. Starting in 2015, users of Google’s Chrome browser who visit an HTTP site will receive an alert that the site may not be fully secure. Initial alerts will simply mark […]

Online shoppers who use Google Shopping to search for products may soon also be able to directly purchase items from search results without having to visit the Website of the retailer that is actually selling the product. The Wall Street Journal Dec. 15 reported that the search giant is planning on introducing a “Buy” button […]

In a repeat of what happened in Germany earlier this year, Spanish newspapers want Google to reverse its decision last week to shut Google News down in the country, citing the company’s vital role in driving traffic to their sites. The Spanish Newspaper Publishers’ Association (AEDE), a major proponent of a new copyright law that […]

Just a day after Google announced its decision to pull the plug on Google News in Spain, the company has decided to shutter its engineering operations in Russia as well. The motivation behind the latest move though appears to be completely different from the dispute over copyright fees that prompted Google’s decision in Spain. In […]

Google has decided to permanently shut down its Google News service in Spain in response to a new law that requires search engines and news aggregators such as Google to pay a fee for every text snippet they use to link to a news article. The law, scheduled to go into effect in January, amends […]

Google will soon start sending out refunds to parents of children who made unauthorized in-app purchases on Google Play without first obtaining parental consent. The company this week began notifying consumers on how to claim the refund after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) formally signed off on a settlement agreement entered into by Google over […]

Google has increased support for Windows workloads on its Google Cloud Platform. The company announced Dec. 8 that it will now offer Microsoft License Mobility, Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter Edition and a free version of the Chrome Remote Desktop (RDP) application on its Google Compute Engine infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) platform. The enhancements are designed to […]