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.
GM CEO Mary Barra says consumers should expect the full phase out of CarPlay and Android Auto over the next few years.
Google gave us room for infinite email. What did we get? Infinite email.
After a ten-month investigation, the Competition and Markets Authority has designated Apple and Google’s mobile platforms with “strategic market status,” describing them as having “substantial, entrenched market power.” The companies now face extra anti-competition regulations in the UK, following a similar ruling for Google Search.
Google appears to have pulled the latest Android 16 QPR2 beta release just hours after it went out, amidst reports of it causing crashes linked to Android’s desktop mode.
[Android Authority]
After about an hour or so of reports from around the world of problems with YouTube, the video streaming platform is back online, and a support forum post confirms the issue is now resolved.
The only problem left now is for people criticizing its newly updated and now more transparent video player.
You can now add or remove photos to a collage, as well as change your layout without losing your progress. Google has also rolled out new templates that you can browse before you decide which photos to put in them.
Apple’s quiet announcement that its streaming service is now just Apple TV, which definitely won’t create confusion with its Apple TV app and Apple TV hardware, brought the best out of The Verge’s comment section, but there was only going to be one winner:
PSVita:
It’s your turn Google, change Android Auto to Google Drive
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Four new Farsight face options have landed for the latest Nest Learning Thermostat, the best of which might be a recreation of the original, colorful Nest face from way back when. There’s also a minimalist face, a temperature controller, and a seasonal number with 12 monthly floral designs by artist Mathilde Loubes.
Keep your eyes peeled for a new photo feature coming to Google Search soon. Google says Create mode will let you transform images with AI, courtesy of its popular image editor Nano Banana.
Nano Banana is also coming to NotebookLM’s Video Overviews and, eventually, Photos.
In the teardown, it got a 9/10 for repairability. Most smartwatches score a 3 or a 4. Where there was glue and heartbreak, there’s now screws and gaskets. This is monumental for the category and a big reason why I wrote this is the Android smartwatch to beat.
It only took nine months, but the Competition and Markets Authority has designated Google Search with “strategic market status,” meaning it’s eligible for extra UK regulation. AI Mode has been factored in, but not AI assistants like Gemini. Similar decisions on Android and iOS are due this month.
Google published a deeper dive on the Pixel 10 Pro Fold’s new folding mechanism, highlighting the work of the hingeneers and as MKBHD christened them. The blog post offers a few more details on the process to create the gearless mechanism, which instead relies on CAMs to turn the rotational motion of the hinge into linear motion. It’s interesting stuff, and the beefed up dust resistance is no joke.
According to the companies, these will be secure AI workspace systems that can be tailored to draw only from internal documents and information. Google’s Gemini Enterprise and AWS’s Quick Suite both offer AI agents, chatbots, and automated workflows to take on repetitive tasks.
It’s been a while since a major software update hit the Pixel Watch 2 and 3, but Google’s October update that’s rolling out now is a big one. The update introduces Wear OS 6, which features the new “youthful” Material 3 Expressive design language, plus other features.
Vivo is teasing OriginOS 6, its latest take on Android, and I can’t help but notice that it’s looking very... wet. And glassy. Funny that. It arrives along with the X300 phones next week, and for the first time it’s rolling out globally, killing off Vivo’s cursed international offering, Funtouch OS.
The company has... let’s just say a rep for killing its products off. So I’m going to celebrate the fourth Pixel Watch turning out to be the best Android smartwatch around, and hope Google learns that there are upsides to seeing something through.
Ollieollieollie:
Amazing what happens when you actually stick with a product, isn’t it?
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Verge Score
Google’s latest folding phone isn’t afraid of a little sand. Ask me how I know.
