GOOGLE

Google invests $350 million in Flipkart as part of nearly $1 billion funding round

Flipkart secures $1 billion funding with investments from Google and Walmart. Walmart, which holds an 85% stake, invested $600 million in the round. Valued at $35-36 billion, Flipkart plans to expand with Google's cloud collaboration.

Airlines, hotels, retailers fear being left out in Google's search changes

Airlines, hotels, and retailers urge EU tech regulators for fair treatment in Google's compliance with DMA regulations. Concerns raised about revenue impact as Google's response focuses on changes favoring large intermediaries and aggregators, with ongoing investigations by the Commission.

AI relies on mass surveillance, warns Signal boss

Pushing back against the unquestioning enthusiasm at VivaTech in Paris, Europe's top startup conference where industry players vaunt the merits of their products, Meredith Whittaker said concerns about surveillance and those about AI were "two framings of the same thing".

Nvidia CEO Huang expects AI-generated videos to drive more demand for its chips

After riding a demand surge sparked by Big Tech's rush to roll out chatbots, Nvidia now expects new AI models that are capable of creating video and engaging in human-like voice interactions to spur more orders for its graphics processors.

Govts, tech firms vow to cooperate against AI risks at Seoul summit

More than a dozen countries and some of the world's biggest tech firms pledged on Wednesday to cooperate against the potential dangers of artificial intelligence, including its ability to dodge human control, as they wrapped up a global summit in Seoul. These dangers also include an AI model that could potentially "evade human oversight, including through safeguard circumvention, manipulation and deception, or autonomous replication and adaptation", they added.

Amazon to invest 15.7 billion euros in Spain

Amazon's cloud computing division AWS will invest 15.7 billion euros ($17 billion) to expand its data centres in Spain's Aragon region through to 2033, the US tech giant said Wednesday. Amazon in 2021 had planned to invest 2.5 billion euros in Aragon, where it has three data centres.

Amazon to launch AI-overhauled Alexa with paid plans, CNBC reports

While the e-commerce giant is yet to nail down the price of the new services, a subscription to Alexa will not be included in its popular $139 annual Prime offering, the report said, citing people with knowledge of the company's plans.

Google's new Product Studio features to be available in India in coming weeks

Google said it wanted to help retailers go beyond simply listing their products to creating experiences for shoppers. It has introduced three new ad formats powered by Google’s generative AI. Initially launching for retailers as a closed beta later this year, Google said a brand can connect their short-form product videos - or videos from creators - to their ads.

Google cuts mystery check to US in bid to sidestep jury trial

Google disclosed the payment, but not the amount, in a court filing last week that said the case should be heard and decided by a judge directly. Without a monetary damages claim, Google argued, the government has no right to a jury trial.

Can we rid artificial intelligence of bias?

Artificial intelligence built on mountains of potentially biased information has created a real risk of automating discrimination, but is there any way to re-educate the machines? The huge models on which ChatGPT is built "can't reason about what is biased or what isn't so they can't do anything about it," cautioned Jayden Ziegler, head of product at Alembic Technologies.

Online platforms take to gamification to boost user engagement

For instance, Linkedin says 72% of its surveyed users said playing games such as Pinpoint, Crossclimb, Queens etc. Zomato on the other hand seems to have perfected the art of customer conversions with its Zomato Premier League (ZPL). The gamification strategy is where hyper-casual, tap-and-play games are used to engage customers, speed up sales and enhance revenue.

OpenAI strikes deal to bring Reddit content to ChatGPT

The deal underscores Reddit's attempt to diversify beyond its advertising business, and follows its recent partnership with Alphabet to make its content available for training Google's AI models.

India is in line for a major AI platform shift: Google Labs VP

Google Labs is an incubator created by US technology firm Google to test and publicly demonstrate new projects.

India well positioned as shift to AI happens: Google CEO Sundar Pichai

Pichai, who is also the chief executive of Alphabet, Google's parent company, was talking a day after announcing several of Google's innovations in his keynote address at Google I/O connect, the company's annual developer conference. "AI tools for a lot of our products... India is number one country in terms of user base. To be able to serve them we're committed to bringing the same AI tools," Pichai said.

Google incorporates artificial intelligence into its search engine

Google I/O 2024: From Gemini 1.5 Pro, Project Astra to Trillium, ET brings you the low down

Gemini 1.5 Pro, with a one million token long context window, is now available with Gemini Advanced in 35 languages, the company announced at Google I/O, its annual developer conference on Tuesday.

Google unveils Trillium chip; Gemini 1.5 Pro with 2M tokens made available for developers

Google parent Alphabet on Tuesday unveiled a product called Trillium in its artificial intelligence data center chip family that it says is nearly five times as fast as its prior version.

Explainer: What is OpenAI's ChatGPT-4o all about?

ChatGPT maker OpenAI said on Monday it would release a new AI model called GPT-4o, which reasons across voice, text and vision. Here are all your questions answered.

Rumble sues Google over digital advertising practices

The suit alleges Google has monopolized the ad stack "by buying companies up and down the chain, concurrently representing both ad buyers and sellers, while also running the exchange that connects those parties."

Google Cloud to offer cloud solutions to Airtel customers

"We are happy to partner with Google Cloud and jointly address this market opportunity with secure and scalable Cloud solutions for government, enterprises, and emerging businesses," Bharti Airtel Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Gopal Vittal said.

KukuFM, Shaadi and IBDF appeal NCLAT against CCI’s interim order in Google Play Store case

Google given a week to respond to appeals against CCI order by KukuFM & IBDF. Startups accuse Google of discriminatory fees. The tribunal will address the matter on May 24.

OpenAI plans to announce Google search competitor on Monday, sources say

OpenAI to introduce AI search tool challenging Google. ChatGPT integrated with Microsoft's Bing to extract web info with citations. OpenAI's announcement could be timed a day before the Tuesday start of Google's I/O conference, which it conducts annually, and where the tech giant is expected to unveil multiple AI-related products.

Google Wallet is now available for Android users in India

It is different from Google Pay app which helps manage money and finances.