The more tech companies know about their users, the more effectively they can direct them to goods and services that they are likely to buy. The more companies know about their users, the more competitive they are in the market.
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The first problem I encountered, as I gave up Google for a week, was that I couldn’t get my email. As the possibility of living without Android and Google services emerged as the US government banned American firms from dealing with Huawei, I tried to live without the world’s biggest mobile operating system (OS). The short answer: it’s virtually impossible to live without Google in this smartphone era.
No more guessing the speed limit between Vereeniging and Randfontein — Google Maps is rolling out the ability for users to see speed limits.
Over the past few days, we’ve seen US-based companies line up to sever their ties with the Chinese telecom giant, Huawei.
Talk about an unexpected comeback. Google’s Glass, those augmented reality specs that we were convinced had fallen off the map in 2015, have returned. And, like all good sequels, they’re better than ever in addition to being back. Meet the redesigned (and ponderously named) Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2. Catchy, yeah?
This week we saw the US Trump administration place Huawei, the Chinese smartphone maker on an ‘Entity List’, but Huawei seems surprisingly calm about it all.
Google suspended business operations with Huawei effective immediately. Meaning Huawei’s phones won’t get future updates, access to the Google Play Store, Gmail, YouTube and other Google apps.
The Chinese device maker has issued a statement reassuring existing Huawei customers that their devices will continue to receive support.
A sister company of Google, Alphabet’s Wing Aviation, just got federal approval to start using drones for commercial delivery. Amazon’s own drone-delivery program is ready to launch as well. As drones take flight, the world is about to get a lot louder – as if neighborhoods were filled with leaf blowers, lawn mowers and chainsaws.
Google’s annual I/O generally includes a focus on either hardware or software, but this year we got a healthy combination of the two.