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Google cuts ties with Huawei, to stop licensing its Android OS to the Chinese phone maker

May 20, 2019

Alphabet Inc’s Google has suspended business with Huawei that requires the transfer of hardware, software and technical services except those publicly available via open source licensing, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Sunday, in a blow to the Chinese technology company that the U.S. government has sought to blacklist around the world. Holders of current Huawei smartphones with Google apps, however, will continue to be able to use and download app updates provided by Google, a Google spokesperson said, confirming earlier reporting by Reuters. “We are complying…

Google’s CSquared parnters with local firms to enhance Africa’s affordable broadband

February 13, 2019February 13, 2019 Editor

CSquared, a pan-African broadband infrastructure provider owned by Google and other partners, has said that one of its top priorities is ‘fiberizing’ Africa through affordable broadband internet connectivity. “Fiberizing Africa is about creating value by changing the way Africa perceives internet,” said Lanre Kolade, the newly-appointed CEO of CSquared. “The continent should transition from being just consumers of internet and move to the extra mile of generating its own local content.” Started as a project within Google to build and operate open-access broadband infrastructure in Africa and increase access to…

Competitive Edge: Tech Giants spent a combined $80 billion last year on big-ticket physical assets stockpile

September 26, 2018 Editor

General Motors Co. and Google couldn’t be more different. GM musters an army of people and machines to produce the 10 million cars it sells each year. What Google makes doesn’t really exist: You type on a laptop or click play on a YouTube video, and Google zips back bits of digital information. But Google parent Alphabet Inc. and the other four dominant U.S. technology companies—Apple, Amazon.com, Microsoft, and Facebook—are fast becoming industrial giants. They spent a combined $80 billion in the last year on big-ticket physical assets, including manufacturing…

Google reportedly paid millions of dollars in secret data deal with Mastercard to track retail sales

August 31, 2018 Editor

For the past year, select Google advertisers have had access to a potent new tool to track whether the ads they ran online led to a sale at a physical store in the U.S. That insight came thanks in part to a stockpile of Mastercard transactions that Google paid for. The revelation comes amid heightened concern about how much consumer data is consumed by tech companies like Google. Earlier this year, Facebook was criticized when data on as many as 87 million people was improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, raising…

Net giants urge court to reinstate repealed net neutrality rules

August 28, 2018

Representatives of internet giants like Facebook, Google and Amazon on Monday urged a federal appeals court to reinstate the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) net neutrality rules. Net neutrality rules, ideally prohibited internet service providers from blocking, throttling or prioritizing most web traffic. The FCC officially repealed in June causing a huge outrcry. The Internet Association (IA) and the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), two of Silicon Valley’s most prominent trade groups, filed in support of a lawsuit against the FCC for its repeal of the 2015 regulations late last year.…

Users Spent a Record 85 Billion Hours In WhatsApp vs 31 Billion In Facebook In The Past 3 Months

August 22, 2018 Editor

According to app analytics company Apptopia, among all the social media platforms, people globally spent a whopping 85 billion hours on the Facebook-owned WhatsApp in the last three months. By contrast, we’ve only spent 30 billion hours in Facebook, the company says. “It’s clear WhatsApp is the global messaging app of choice,” says Apptopia spokesperson Adam Blacker. “Apps having to do with communication take up most of our time spent on our mobile apps.” The data does not encompass all of China’s third-party Android app stores, or WeChat and other…