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  TikTok rival YouTube Shorts is now averaging over 30 billion daily views -- four times as much as a year ago, as short-form content is witnessing huge adoption across the globa, including India. According to Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai , viewers are watching over 700 million hours of YouTube content on televisions every day. "Just as YouTube evolved from desktop to mobile, and that created huge opportunities, we are excited about the new opportunities we see now. Short-form video is one," he said during the company's earnings call late on Tuesday. YouTube Shorts has been rolled out to over 100 countries, and is helping creators monetise their short-term videos. Read More

  Krafton, the developer of famous mobile game PUBG (PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Mobile), has sued Apple, Google and another game developer Garena in the US for copying and distributing its original battle royale game. In a lawsuit filed in the US District Court in California, South Korean video game developer Krafton accused Garena of copying its 'PUBG: Battlegrounds' game and developing copycats Garena Free Fire and Garena Free Fire Max. The company also sued Apple and Google for distributing those Garena games on their respective app stores. Krafton even accuses Google of hosting YouTube videos with gameplay of the two games in question, as well as "numerous posts containing a feature-length Chinese film that is nothing more than a blatantly infringing live-action dramatisation of Battlegrounds", reports The Verge. Click Here

  With the aim to extend the benefits of India's growing digital economy to more people, tech giant Google on Thursday announced several initiatives to help India's digital transformation journey. The company announced a pilot of the first-ever Google Assistant-enabled, end-to-end vaccine booking flow that will guide users through the process of booking a vaccination appointment on the COWIN website. "We have worked closely with COWIN to enable this integration, where people everywhere will be able to easily book a vaccine appointment in a more guided manner," the company said in a blogpost. This feature will work in English and eight Indian languages including Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu and will begin rolling out in early 2022. Read More

  After announcing robust quarterly results during the earnings call, Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the new Pixel 6 series and Google Tensor chipset lay a good foundation. The new Pixel 6 and 6 Pro bring together the best of Google Artificial Intelligence (AI), software and hardware, with the most advanced and inclusive cameras the company has ever built, Pichai added. "If you look at the Google Tensor bet, these are multiyear bets, which finally play out and I couldn't be more excited by the reception for Pixel 6 and Google Tensor," he said. "And I think it lays a good foundation of what we want to do in the future," he added. The Google CEO said he is excited about the range of Pixel phones available this holiday season. Click Here

  Google launched the latest Google Pixel smartphones Tuesday, betting on its first custom-designed system processor and a new version of the Android operating system to lure buyers away from Apple Inc.’s iPhone. The Pixel 6 and 6 Pro differ only slightly in size, memory and camera specs, with both built around Google’s Tensor system-on-chip, a custom semiconductor that took four years of development. Tensor is optimized for Google’s strengths in image processing and artificial intelligence, helping deliver faster and more accurate speech recognition and better battery life. While Google’s Android is the top smartphone operating system globally, the Alphabet Inc. unit has a minuscule market share in mobile handsets. The company is now trying to stand apart from the competition with its own processor, joining Apple in making such a move. Click Here

  Google 's free email service Gmail is reportedly down in some parts of India on Tuesday as users were unable to send or receive emails. According to Down Detector , 68 per cent users reported that they are facing issues in website, 18 per cent reported server connection and 14 per cent mentioned about login issue. Users in India and in some other countries went to social media platforms complaining they were unable to access Gmail. "I am not able to send or receive mails, is Gmail down," one use said. "I guess, again Gmail is not working, or I'm the only user who is facing issue," mentioned another user. Read Full Article Here

  American tech-giant Google is working on a new Android 12 accessibility feature to let users control their phone using facial expressions. Mashable India quoted a report by XDADevelopers that says the 'Camera Switches feature', which is one of the accessibility services in the Android Accessibility Suite app, will support setting gestures to specific controls. Google Android 12 Smiling, opening the mouth, and looking out right, left, or down are reportedly the possible gestures, the app will include. The corresponding camera actions include getting to the homepage, scrolling backward and forward, and selecting. The app will also allow the users to adjust the gesture size and duration. Click Here

  Google has released the fourth beta of its upcoming Android 12 operating system that offers several new consumer-focused capabilities for the developers including Game Mode, AppSearch, new notification style for phone calls and others. The Game Mode allows developers to optimise gameplay by prioritizing characteristics, such as performance or battery life based on users settings or game specific configurations. Android 12 introduces AppSearch, a high-performance on-device search engine, as a system service. "AppSearch allows applications to index structured data and search over it with built-in full-text search capabilities," according to a Google update. Click Here

  With just hours to go before the new IT rules for social media companies take effect, large digital platforms Facebook and Google on Tuesday asserted they are working towards meeting the compliance requirements. The new rules, announced on February 25, require large social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp to follow additional due diligence, including the appointment of a chief compliance officer, nodal contact person and resident grievance officer. 'Significant social media intermediaries' -- defined as those with over 50 lakh registered users -- were given three months to comply with the additional requirements. Click Here

  Google I/O is an annual developer conference where the technology giant showcases its innovation competence with regard to products and services. This year, the company showcased some futuristic technologies besides detailing the upgrades coming to Android and Wear OS operating systems for smartphones and smartwatches, respectively. The Google I/O 2021 was full of surprises and interesting announcements. Here is a quick recap of everything announced at the Google I/O 2021: Android 12 Google has come a long way enhancing its Android operating system for smartphones. The next iteration of the OS is set to get major design changes, including a revamped look called ‘Material You’ that dynamically changes the user interface and its elements based on users activity, apps, time of day, weather, etc. In retrospective, OPPO experimented with something of similar sorts in its Android 11 based ColorOS11 custom skin. The Chinese smartphone maker integrated tons of UI customisation optio...

  India’s one of the oldest and largest music labels Tips Music on Thursday announced a music licensing deal with Google for the latter’s newly introduced short-video platform YouTube “Shorts”. As part of this deal, Tips will license its large catalogue to YouTube platform allowing the huge Indian diaspora across the world to create content inspired its ever popular and superhit music library in diverse Indian languages like Hindi, Punjabi, Bhojpuri, Haryanvi, Marathi, Gujarati, amongst many others. “The deal will allow our community of fans to create fresh new content alongside their favourite music from Tips music library. This partnership will open possibilities for creators and users to explore their creativity which may give us our next future star. What better way to celebrate our new generation of talent,” said Kumar Taurani, founder, Tips Music.  Read More

  Google CEO Sundar Pichai and his Microsoft counterpart Satya Nadella have assured help to India as the country grapples with a ravaging coronavirus crisis that has put enormous pressure on its hospitals due to a shortage of beds, oxygen and medical supplies. India logged a record of 3,52,991 new coronavirus infections in a day on Monday, taking its total tally of COVID-19 cases to 1,73,13,163. The death toll increased to 1,95,123 with a record 2,812 daily new fatalities, according to the Union Health Ministry data. "Devastated to see the worsening Covid crisis in India. Google & Googlers are providing Rs 135 crore in funding to @GiveIndia, @UNICEF for medical supplies, orgs supporting high-risk communities, and grants to help spread critical information," Indian-origin Google CEO Pichai said in a tweet. In another tweet, Microsoft's Indian-origin CEO Nadella said that his company will continue to use its resources and technology for relief efforts and suppo...

  Australia's government said on Tuesday it will amend draft laws that would make Google and Facebook pay for news to clarify that publishers would be paid in lump sums rather than per click on news article links. The legislative changes described in a government statement as clarifications and technical amendments follow Australian ministers' weekend discussions with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary Google. The conservative government hopes to enact the so-called News Media Bargaining Code before the current session of Parliament ends on Feb. 25. Read Full Article Here

Google-owned YouTube on Tuesday blocked a music video by famous Punjabi singer Kanwar Grewal titled 'Ailaan' that was related to the farmer protests and raked in over 60 lakh views. YouTube has placed a notification on the original video, saying "This content is not available on this country domain due to a legal complaint from the government". A YouTube spokesperson said in a statement: "We comply with valid legal requests from authorities wherever possible, consistent with our longstanding policy and act quickly to remove identified content". However, the fans of the singer posted the same music video on various other channels on YouTube which can still be accessed. Click Here

(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp said on Wednesday it fully supported proposed new laws in Australia that would force internet giant Google and social media heavyweight Facebook Inc to pay domestic media outlets for their content. "While Microsoft is not subject to the legislation currently pending, we'd be willing to live by these rules if the government designates us," the software giant said in a statement. Both Alphabet Inc's Google and Facebook have called the laws unworkable and said last month they would withdraw key services from Australia if the regulations went ahead. Read More

The popular automated transcription service Otter.ai can now transcribe Google Meet calls in real time with a new Chrome extension. "The Otter.ai Chrome Extension lets you transcribe and caption Google Meet in real time, and save audio transcripts to your Otter account," the company described in a new update. Otter.ai said the Chrome extension works with all its plans, including the free version. Otter.ai also has integration with Zoom video calls. Read More

  Google Pixel 5 and 4a 5G users can no longer use their ultra-wide cameras to take pictures of the stars Google Pixel 5 and 4a 5G users can no longer use their ultra-wide cameras to take pictures of the stars. The company apparently removed the lens's astrophotography capabilities with the Google Camera 8.1 update. According to The Verge, the feature was a selling point of the Pixel 4 and was available on the regular and telephoto cameras. When the 4a 5G and 5 were announced with new wide-angle lenses, the feature was added to those as well. Now it's been taken away. On Pixel 4a (5G) and Pixel 5, astrophotography only works on zoom settings equal to or greater than 1x. Read More

  Though not the company's top-end offering, the Sony Bravia A8H is a premium model in the Japanese electronics maker's OLED smart TV portfolio in India Sony has a history of making technology-rich televisions, and the legacy continues with the Bravia A8H OLED 4K Android smart television. Though not the company’s top-end offering, the Bravia A8H is a premium model in the Japanese electronics maker’s OLED smart TV portfolio in India. Except the 8K resolution and 120Hz refresh rate available on the LED-based Bravia Z8H series, the Bravia A8H does not lack any of the Sony’s premium technology and features. On paper, the Sony Bravia A8H OLED 4K Android TV seems to be a tech-rich smart TV worth your money. But is it? Let’s find out: Design The Bravia A8H OLED 4K Android TV is based on Sony’s ‘One Slate’ design concept. It seems carved from a single piece of metal, with vivid 65-inch OLED screen dominating the entire front profile and a plush design on the back. Read More Full...