Pixel Buds Pro are Google’s premium wireless earbuds featuringactive noise cancelation. They’re some of our favorite earbuds, particularly for Android users. They get up to 11 hours of battery life per charge and offer good voice-calling performance. They also sport a transparency mode. Normally $200, you cansnag a pair for $160right now. The top pick from a budget perspective, though, is the Pixel Buds A-Series. And for Android users, there is also access to Google Assistant for hands-free voice commands....

Google didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. Issues with inner foldable displays aren’t unheard of. Early press samples of the firstGalaxy Fold had so many issuesthatSamsung delayed the launchof the gear. Samsung didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Foldable screens present a difficult engineering problem. The fragile displays don’t have a layer of glass covering them, like on a traditional smartphone. Instead, manufacturers opt forUltra Thin Glass, a superthin glass that allows for folding at extreme angles....

The latter option will contact emergency services. If a person doesn’t respond after a minute, the watch will attempt to call emergency services. The Pixel Watch isn’t the first smartwatch to have fall detection. The Apple Watch got thefeature in 2018 with the Series 4along withfall detection for bike riding in 2021. Other smartwatches with fall or incident detection include theGarmin Forerunner, theGarmin Epixand theSamsung Galaxy Watch 5. Last year,iPhone’s iOS surpassed Google’s Androidas the top mobile operating system in the US....

The company has already approvedthousands of employees' requests to continue working remotely or to change locations. Google offices are currently open and are allowing people to come back on a voluntary basis. Pichai said the extension of the company’s return-to-office date will give employees more flexibility when coming back. The announcement rankled lower-level workers because they said he had in the past been unsupportive of remote work. Under the new structure, 20% of the company would work remotely....

Return to office remains a contentious issue in Silicon Valley and a group ofGooglecontractors are pushing back. Google, Cognizant and the AWU didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Google employees have been told to come into workthree days a weekby comparison. The differing RTO demands between full-time workers and contractors show the imbalance between the company’s workforce. Contractors make up more than half of Google’s 200-thousand-plus workforce, according to a 2019 New York Timesreport....

Google is exploring ways artificial intelligence could assist journalists and news publishers. This reportedly includes testing an AI tool that can take in information and turn out news articles. Google has also started adding AI tools toGmail, Docs and other Workspace tools. With prompts, these tools can produceemail responses, travel itineraries and even poetry, among other things. Their rapid adoption hasraised concerns over potential problems, including spreading misinformation and deepening bias....

Like ChatGPT, it would aim to be conversational. And it would populate ads, the main way Google makes money. Google pointed out it’s been integrating AI into Search for years, improving products such asLensandMultisearch. Microsoft declined to comment. Samsung didn’t respond to a request for comment. Microsoft quickly expanded its partnership with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, integrating the tech into its Bing search engine. Of the three chatbots,ChatGPT remains the superior experience, whereas Bard falls short....

Google Drive no longer has a5 million item limit, a Google Workspace spokesperson said Monday evening. We recently rolled out a system update to Drive item limits to preserve stability and optimize performance. The team also tweeted that in the future it would do a better job communicating changes. If we need to make changes, we will communicate them to users in advance. Google declined to comment. When Google began rolling out a Drive limit in February, it went against industry norms....

Google is cancelling its plans to kill off third-party cookies in Chrome, it said in ablog poston Monday. Cookies are small bits of data that track browsing histories across the web to serve personalized ads to browsers. It also gave Google much more control over valuable consumer data. Google initially planned to kill off third-party tracking cookies in Chrome by 2022, but wasconstantly met with setbacks. Google declined a request for comment....

Spam sites use search engine optimization, or SEO, techniques to artificially improve their search rankings. Google filters out spam sites designed to trick its algorithm. SpamBrain led to a 70% reduction in hacked spam, Google said. Other types of hacked spam can inject malware onto people’s computers and redirect them to malicious sites. SpamBrain helps keep these websites out of Google Search, Google said. Google said it also reduced gibberish spam by 75%....

Google users will soon see search results giving them two new ways toidentify trustworthy news sources. Starting Thursday, Google searches for developing stories will come with tips for verifying the trustworthiness of a source. Both features will appear in the Google search results. The label for highly cited sources will roll out in the coming weeks. Google and other tech giants likeFacebookandTwitterhave made moves to combat misinformation on their platforms before....

Other Google services, like Google Maps, were affected too. Reports of an outage started flowing intoDownDetector, a website that monitors service disruptions, around 6:11 p.m. PT. The outage peaked 30 minutes later before subsiding. The problems hit countries across the globe, from Portugal to Pakistan. The incident critically injured three electricians around midday Iowa time. One person was flown to a nearby hospital and the other two were transported by ambulance....

Lemoine also sought outside counsel for LaMDA itself, according to The Post. On Saturday, Lemoinepublisheda series of “interviews” that he conducted with LaMDA. Lemoine didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment via LinkedIn. In a statement, Google dismissed Lemoine’s assertion that LaMDA is self-aware. About 2,700 Googlers signed anopen letter in support of Gebru, who Google says resigned her position. Two months later, Margaret Mitchell, who co-led the Ethical AI team along with Gebru, wasfired....