Google

Google says you can now use the AI chatbot to ask questions while using walking or cycling directions in Google Maps, which already worked for driving directions.

At least in the UK, where the walkback comes after the country’s CMA opened a consultation on forcing Google to do just that, having given the company “strategic market status” last year. Ron Eden, Google’s principal for product management, says:

The plan is rolling out in 35 new countries and territories. It includes access to tools like Gemini 3 Pro and the Nano Banana Pro image model. There’s also 200GB of storage.

It follows Snap in reaching an agreement to resolve the first of several cases slated to go to trial this year about social media’s alleged harm to users, an attorney for the 19-year-old plaintiff confirmed. That leaves Meta and YouTube as defendants in the case going to jury selection today.

When creating a new event in Google Calendar, Gemini will now find “suggested times” based on invitees’ calendar availability, similar to a Gmail feature announced in October. The Gemini-powered meeting time suggestions are rolling out now, but currently only available for Google Business, Enterprise, and AI Pro for Education users.

Parents since the ‘80s Satanic Panic have worried that kids playing Dungeons & Dragons wouldn’t be able to tell reality from fantasy, but maybe it was AI they should have been worried about all along.

According to a post from earlier this month, you can set a form to stop taking responses after receiving a certain number of them or on a certain date and time. Previously, you had to close forms manually. Handy update!

Chrome 151, which Google tentatively plans to launch on July 28th, will be the first to require support for macOS 13 Ventura or later.

And we’re done! Lawyers for Epic and Google have asked for a few weeks to talk amongst themselves and file one more brief by early March. Judge Donato says yes “just so long as we are clearly duel-tracked and the order is going forward.” He wanted to be sure Google is actually complying, and Google says it is. Epic says the court-ordered technical committee, where Google and Epic must hammer out the details of store-within-a-store and catalog access, is up and running too.

Sweeney, earlier today: “Every store will be able to do a much better job of serving US users if it can reach a worldwide audience.”

When we return from the short break, Epic’s lead attorney gets to ask Dr. Rose more questions, and the judge has asked he doesn’t use that time to come up with “800 more.” Dr. Bornstein, Epic’s CEO, and both Bornstein and colleague Yonatan Even seemed to be in a tight huddle drafting one or two, though, which Bornstein seemed to jot down. Now, Google lead attorney Glenn Pomerantz is whispering in Bornstein’s ear as well.

“You’ve got a hike to tell me that something has changed so much in the world that I should change that injunction, and I’m not hearing it,” he tells Epic and Google here in the courtroom.

Epic lead attorney Gary Bornstein is seemingly suggesting that that because the injunction doesn’t specifically stop Google from adding more friction, the proposed settlement where Google removes that friction would be better (by creating explicit programs for registered rival app stores).

Epic’s lead attorney is asking Dr. Rose whether her analysis took proper account of whether having rival appstores available worldwide on Android might be more helpful than only mandating US app stores. The court’s existing injunction would mandate that rival stores would have the whole catalog of Android apps from day one.

Google lead attorney Glenn Pomerantz says “it’s a lot” and seemingly wants to go point by point with her on a future date. The judge says they can do it right here and now in the courtroom. Epic lead attorney Gary Bornstein is going first.

You’ll have to scroll down in our Epic v. Google StoryStream until I have time to go find the link, but Dr. Rose is showing up Dr. Bernheim’s earlier ideas here.

She tells the court it’s like a market owner who bars the doors and locks the gates after customers arrive, then a ditch outside fills with water “too deep and wide for anyone to cross.”

Now that we’re done with Epic’s CEO and Google’s Android boss — both of whom are still in the room — Dr. Rose is here with her thoughts after evaluate the antitrust and economic effects of the proposed settlement. She says the court assigned her to do that.

Judge Donato asks Google’s Android boss whether he sees the catalog injunction (which would force Google to share its catalog of Google Play apps with rival stores) as a plus or minus. Samat says it’s a minus, primarily because Google doesn’t want to get blamed by developers and users when there are issues. He says he foresees Google getting caught in the middle between users, developers, and competing stores.

Judge Donato tells Android boss Sameer Samat that he already understands Google prefers the new proposed settlement to his injunction partly because it would settle litigation around the world. (Samat said he thinks international regulators may take their cues from the settlement too, because they see Epic as an advocate.) But he wants to know Google’s other motivations.

Samat says yes, he personally negotiated the new proposed settlement with Epic, starting last fall. He’s being questioned by Google’s lead attorney Glenn Pomerantz, as he’s Google’s witness; Epic and the judge have been asking all the questions up till now. Like Epic’s Sweeney, he says the reason to settle was to “reduce the amount of effort and energy” it would spend to keep fighting around the world.

“With the friction screens we lost 65 percent of users, with them removed we’re trending towards a 20 percent drop off rate,” he says, “which gives us confidence that installing stores from the web is a completely viable solution.” The point here is that Google and Epic’s new settlement no longer forces Google to host stores within its own store, but it does commit to removing the friction for web-based sideloading... as long as the stores are registered with Google’s proposed program and jump through whatever hoops Google has.

While Epic may be trying to make secret business deals with Google at the same time it’s trying to settle, Epic’s lead attorney Gary Bornstein made sure to ask Tim Sweeney to clarify one bit as soon as the courtroom re-opened for business. “Will the Epic Games Store get any special treatment from Android in the future under this deal?” he asked. Sweeney said no.