Todd R. Weiss

Google officials have sold the renowned Frommer’s travel book line back to its founder, just seven months after buying it to add to the search giant’s rich content and only two weeks after announcing that the print versions of the books would end. The dramatic move came to light with reports that Arthur Frommer had […]

Google has won an FTC Technology Achievement Award from government regulators who are seeking better technologies to fight annoying, illegal robocalls that harass consumers in their homes and on mobile phones. The robocalls inspire about 200,000 complaints to the Federal Trade Commission each month, which is why the agency announced the first-ever contest in October […]

Google’s Quickoffice app for iPad debuted in December, giving iPad users the ability to make quick edits to Microsoft Office documents shared by others without having to have Office on their devices. Now Google has expanded Quickoffice to Android and iPhone users, giving them the same capabilities to modify and edit Office documents on the […]

Google isn’t proceeding quickly enough with its own proposals to improve its user privacy policies in Europe, so six European Union nations are planning their next steps, which could mean hefty fines and deeper investigations into Google’s actions. That’s the position of a European task force being led by France’s National Commission for Computing and […]

Google’s first-ever privacy director, Alma Whitten, is retiring in June and will leave the post she has filled since October 2010, when the job was created. Whitten will be replaced by Lawrence You as the new director of privacy for product and engineering at Google, according to the company. Whitten was appointed as privacy director […]

Google is making it easier for users to employ language-translation services on their mobile devices, even when they don’t have access to an Internet connection. For travelers and others who need to quickly find out how to say something in a foreign language but aren’t within range of an available cell tower or WiFi network, […]

Google is launching a test of a new service that allows online shoppers in the San Francisco Bay Area to make purchases online and get same-day local delivery through arrangements with a growing number of area retailers. The new delivery service is being piloted by Google to collect customer reaction and see how it works […]

Google’s upcoming Google Glass wearable computer headsets reportedly will be assembled in Santa Clara, Calif., by well-known Taiwanese device builder Foxconn to showcase electronics manufacturing capabilities in the United States. “The decision to manufacture in California will boost President Barack Obama’s drive, set out in his State of the Union address, to ensure the next […]

A Google Street View crew has produced its first haunting images of the Japanese town of Namie-machi as part of the project to document the evacuated town two years after radiation leaked from a nearby nuclear power plant following the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan. The Street View crew arrived about […]

Google Glass users won’t have to worry any time soon about taking the devices off if they drive through West Virginia, because a proposed ban on driving while wearing such devices is going nowhere fast in the state’s House of Delegates. The proposed ban on driving while wearing head-mounted displays was introduced in the state’s […]

Google’s latest Chrome 26 Web browser has debuted as a stable release with several notable new features, including improved spell-checking and the ability to create individual profiles so that multiple users can keep their own bookmarks and other preferences. The availability of the new official version of Chrome 26 was announced March 26 in a […]

Google has released reworked versions of its Google+ apps for Android and iPhone users, adding several improved features for photos, posts, user profiles and user communities. Amar Gandhi, director of product management for Google+, announced the upgrades in a March 25 post on the Google+ Project Blog. The new iPhone edition is version 4.3, while […]