The name Google is synonymous with online searches, but over the years the company has grown beyond search and now builds multiple consumer products, including software like Gmail, Chrome, Maps, Android, and hardware like the Pixel smartphones, Google Home, and Chromebooks. Its name can also be found on internet services such as Google Fi, Flights, Checkout, and Google Fiber. Here is all of the latest news about one of the most influential tech companies in the world.
Google is required to change its policies for both Search and the Play Store.
You can prove you’re the account owner by capturing a short video of you turning your head.
It’s a sizeable jump from the 750 million Gemini users Google reported in February. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, shared the stat as part of its Q2 2026 earnings report (pdf), which also revealed a 24 percent increase in revenue to $119.8 billion.
Plus the first specs, including a battery life better than Meta’s.
A federal judge dismissed Google’s lawsuit against the web-scraping service SerpApi after finding that the tech giant’s allegations were “insufficient” to prove a copyright violation.
Google accused SerpApi of using “deceptive means” to scrape its search results, to which SerpApi argued that it’s just doing “what Google does to everyone else.“ The judge is giving Google 21 days to amend its complaint.
[Search Engine Roundtable]
It’s been in beta for a little while, but Samsung’s new foldables mark the official launch, together with an expansion to more than 40 apps.
Samsung Smart Switch will make it easier to jump from iOS to a Galaxy Z Flip 8 or Fold 8, sharing photos, videos, contacts and more with just a QR code, no iOS app install required. Similar features are already rolling out on some Pixels with Android 17.
The smart glasses come with Google’s Gemini AI on board and will debut this fall with the designs we first saw in May — plus these two new ones from Gentle Monster and Warby Parker.
Reddit has discussed shutting off Google’s access to data used to train its Gemini AI models. Or maybe it’s just a renegotiation bluff now that its $60 million-a-year deal is coming to an end. According to The Wall Street Journal:
… with AI-generated answers to queries reducing clicks to outside websites, Reddit executives are assessing what the upside is of continuing to feed its content to Google, said the people familiar with the matter.
Google Zero comes for us all, eventually.
The “revamped” homepage, rolling out starting today, lists all of your upcoming meetings with links to notes and calendar attachments for each one. It also has options for navigating through weeks and months to see past and future meetings.
According to a Droid Life report, spotted by 9to5Google, an image of the phone briefly showed up on the Google Fi website, ahead of an August 12th Pixel launch event. Google appears to have removed the image, but the phone in Droid Life’s screenshot matches the “Dune” colorway in an earlier Pixel 11 leak.
Nilay called it back in 2024, and now the Gray Lady is on board with recognizing the demise of the open web. It takes a look at how Google went from being a gateway to the internet to becoming the internet for many users who never leave the cozy confines of its AI summaries.
It used to be easy to tell which photos you took on a certain day in Google Photos. I didn’t realize how much I appreciated those little visual gaps breaking up time until a new update removed them, smashburgering my photos and videos, in favor of a persistent bar hovering at the top of the screen. Thankfully, you can reinsert them by clicking the three vertical dots to the right of that floating bar, then select “Show dates in grid.”
The Google Contacts app is rolling out a new “Your info” card, which shows your image, phone number, email address, and other information — similar to “My Card” on iPhones. Tap into the card, and you’ll see an option to share your details with one of your contacts.
[Android Authority]
San Francisco city attorney David Chiu sent cease-and-desist letters to both companies, demanding that they remove 13 apps that can be used to generate nude images of someone without their consent, according to a report from Wired. The letters ask Google and Apple to stop “aiding and abetting” the sale of sexualized AI deepfakes, which is prohibited under California law.
Google spokesperson Dan Jackson tells The Verge that the company suspended the five Android apps cited in Chiu’s letter, adding that the Play Store “does not allow apps that contain sexual content.”
Google has been working on beefing up the model’s skills, “particularly in coding,” Bloomberg reports.
At I/O in May, Google said that 3.5 Pro was “already being used internally” and that “we look forward to rolling it out next month.”
The petition, signed by more than 4,500 workers, calls for protections like guaranteed severance and offers of voluntary buyouts before the company does layoffs. You can read it on the Alphabet Workers Union website.
The petition will be delivered on Thursday to CEO Sundar Pichai and the heads of Google Cloud, platforms and devices, and Google Search.
[Alphabet Workers Union-CWA]
With a selfie and a voice clip, you can generate what Google calls “personal avatars” — a digital representation of you that can speak a script you type out. Vids got AI-generated avatars last year, but they were initially pre-made options.
Vids is also getting support for generating and editing clips with natural language using its Gemini Omni model.
Starting this week in the US, you’ll be able to ask linked apps like Instacart, Canva, or YouTube Music to help you out right from AI Mode, Google says. Another step on Google’s path of becoming a search box that does everything.
Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode pose an “unacceptable risk,” with both features failing to properly and consistently respond to kids showing signs of crisis, “reinforcing signs of psychosis and mania,” as well as “validating disordered eating.”
Common Sense Media’s risk assessment (pdf) also found that AI Mode completed 100 percent of the homework assignments researchers fed it. A response from Google published by PBS called the tests “a narrow set of ambiguous and contrived queries that don’t reflect how people use Search.”
The “Whoop, but for the Apple Watch” app now integrates with Google Health. If you didn’t think the Fitbit Air was a Whoop competitor before, it sure might be now. Especially considering Whoop is suing them.
It’s taken over a year, but starting today, British Chrome users can access Google’s chatbot interface directly in the Chrome browser to compare information across multiple tabs, summarize content, and ask questions about what’s on their open web pages. It still isn’t available in the EU, however.
Until now, the Android version of Chrome has relied on the swipe gesture to go back a page. But Chrome 150 ditches the info button from the top-right menu and adds an actual back button in its place. The update is rolling out now through the Play Store.
Google’s Video Remix feature, running on Gemini Omni, adds new editing options like “cinematic relighting,” custom backgrounds, and “artistic treatments” such as watercolor and sketchbook effects. The AI video editing templates are rolling out starting today for Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra subscribers.
In an update on Tuesday, Google says it will block users from downloading its Google Earth Pro desktop app starting June 25th, 2027. People can continue to use the app after that date, which offers access to more advanced mapping tools, but Google suggests sticking to Google Earth on the web to get access to the latest updates.
[Google Earth Community]
