Google delays return to office and eyes 'flexible work week'- NYT

Alphabet Inc's Google will allow its employees to work from home until September next year, extending the return to the office by a few months, the New York Times reported on Monday.

The company was also testing the idea of a "flexible workweek" once it is safe to return to the office, Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai told the company's staff in an email on Sunday, according to the report.

As part of the plan, Google's employees would be expected to work at least three days a week in the office while working from home the other days, the newspaper report said.

"We are testing a hypothesis that a flexible work model will lead to greater productivity, collaboration, and well-being," Pichai wrote in the email.

Google was one of the first companies to ask its employees to work from home due to the pandemic. 

It has previously delayed the timing by when the employees should return to the office from January next year to July. 

(Reporting by Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

-reuters-

Google pledges new $10 billion investment in US in 2020

SAN FRANCISCO - Google said Wednesday it would invest more than $10 billion in US offices and data centers in 2020, including its new campus planned for New York City and projects in 10 other states.

The pledge comes on top of some $22 billion invested by the US tech giant unit over the past 2 years.

"These investments will create thousands of jobs -- including roles within Google, construction jobs in data centers and renewable energy facilities, and opportunities in local businesses in surrounding towns and communities," said a blog post by Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google parent Alphabet.

One of the big projects will be the opening of the Hudson Square campus in New York City, where Google has the capacity to double its workforce by 2028.

Google's investments are spread over all US regions and will include expanded offices in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The plans also call for an expanded Google Cloud campus in Seattle, Washington and new locations around San Francisco and Los Angeles. 

The money includes a previously announced $1 billion committed to easing the housing crunch in the Bay Area near Google's Silicon Valley headquarters.

Google cited a study by the Progressive Policy Institute which indicated its parent Alphabet was the largest investor in the United States last year.

Alphabet reported a profit in 2019 of $34 billion on $162 billion in revenues, and added some 20,000 jobs to bring its total workforce to 118,899 at the end of December.

Pichai said Google, which has a presence in 26 states, will focus the new investments on 11: Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York, Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and California. 

Agence France-Presse

Alphabet CEO backs temporary ban on facial-recognition, Microsoft disagrees

BRUSSELS -- The EU's proposal for a temporary ban on facial-recognition technology won backing from Alphabet Chief Executive Sundar Pichai on Monday but got a cool response from Microsoft President Brad Smith.

While Pichai cited the possibility that the technology could be used for nefarious purposes as a reason for a moratorium, Smith said a ban was akin to using a meat cleaver instead of a scalpel to solve potential problems.

"I think it is important that governments and regulations tackle it sooner rather than later and give a framework for it," Pichai told a conference in Brussels organised by think-tank Bruegel.

"It can be immediate but maybe there's a waiting period before we really think about how it's being used," he said. "It's up to governments to chart the course" for the use of such technology.

Smith, who is also Microsoft's chief legal officer, however cited the benefits of facial recognition technology in some instances such as NGOs using it to find missing children.

"I'm really reluctant to say let's stop people from using technology in a way that will reunite families when it can help them do it," Smith said.

"The second thing I would say is you don't ban it if you actually believe there is a reasonable alternative that will enable us to, say, address this problem with a scalpel instead of a meat cleaver," he said.

Smith said it was important to first identify problems and then craft rules to ensure that the technology would not be used for mass surveillance.

"There is only one way at the end of the day to make technology better and that is to use it," he said.

The European Commission is taking a tougher line on artificial intelligence (AI) than the United States that would strengthen existing regulations on privacy and data rights, according to a proposal paper seen by Reuters.

Part of this includes a moratorium of up to five years on using facial recognition technology in public areas, to give the EU time to work out how to prevent abuses, the paper said.

Pichai urged regulators to take a "proportionate approach" when drafting rules, days before the Commission is due to publish proposals on the issue.

Regulators are grappling with ways to govern AI, encouraging innovation while trying to curb potential misuse, as companies and law enforcement agencies increasingly adopt the technology.

There was no question AI needs to be regulated, Pichai said, but rulemakers should tread carefully.

"Sensible regulation must also take a proportionate approach, balancing potential harms with social opportunities. This is especially true in areas that are high risk and high value," he said.

Regulators should tailor rules according to different sectors, Pichai said, citing medical devices and self-driving cars as examples that require different rules. He said governments should align their rules and agree on core values.

Earlier this month, the US government published regulatory guidelines on AI aimed at limiting authorities' overreach, and urged Europe to avoid an aggressive approach.

Pichai said it was important to be clear-eyed about what could go wrong with AI, and while it promised huge benefits there were real concerns about potential negative consequences.

One area of concern is so-called "deep fakes" - video or audio clips that have been manipulated using AI. Pichai said Google had released open data sets to help the research community build better tools to detect such fakes.

The world's most popular internet search engine said last month that Google Cloud was not offering general-purpose facial-recognition application programming interfaces (APIs) while it establishes policy and technical safeguards.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Google parent Alphabet valuation hit $1 trillion

NEW YORK — Google's parent company Alphabet saw its value reach $1 trillion for the first time Thursday, becoming the fourth US tech company to hit the milestone.

Shares in the online giant rose 0.76 percent for the day to reach the trillion-dollar mark at the close of trade.

The Silicon valley group joins Apple, which first reached $1 trillion in 2018 and on Thursday showed a valuation of some $1.38 trillion; and Microsoft, now valued at some $1.26 trillion.

Another tech titan, Amazon, rose above the trillion-dollar mark in September 2018 but has since declined to a value of around $930 billion.

Google is the leading online search engine and produced the popular Android mobile operating system.

Alphabet, formed as a holding company in 2015, has a number of other units working on "moonshot" projects including Waymo on autonomous cars and Verily for life sciences.

The company announced last year that Google chief executive Sundar Pichai would also assume the CEO functions at Alphabet, raising speculation on whether a fresh reorganization is planned.

Pichai's promotion enabled Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to step away from daily operations at the company.

Agence France-Presse

Google antitrust probe to expand into Android

The several dozen attorneys general investigating advertising practices at Alphabet Inc's Google are planning to expand their antitrust probe into the unit's flagship Android business, CNBC reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The investigation, led by the Texas attorney general's office, is known to have focused on Google's search and digital advertising businesses since it began in September.

Google has said it is cooperating with the probe by US states and territories and that previous investigations have considered similar issues without charging the company with wrongdoing. It did not have further comment on Thursday.

The Alphabet unit also faces 2 other major inquiries — a US Justice Department investigation and a probe by the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee — both of which have broad reviews of the big internet companies underway.

Last year, Google was fined 4.34 billion euros by the European Commission, which said the tech giant gave itself an unfair advantage by pre-installing its Chrome browser and Google search app on Android smartphones and notebooks.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Google parent beats Wall Street estimates, but spending worries investors

SAN FRANCISCO -- Alphabet Inc's fourth-quarter revenue and profit beat Wall Street's expectations on Monday but sharply higher spending, as it added data centers, cloud engineers and marketed its services heavily during the holidays, worried investors.

The company's shares, which have risen almost 17 percent over the past six weeks, fell 2.3 percent to $1,114.60 in after-hours trading.

Partly because of the higher spending, Alphabet reported an operating margin of 21 percent in the fourth quarter, down from 24 percent a year ago.

"Google saw a steep decline in operating margins," said Richard Kramer, analyst at Arete Research "They have plenty of cash to invest, and $7 billion in capex is a huge spend."

Alphabet Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat said capital expenditures this year would "moderate quite significantly," speaking to investors and analysts after results were announced.

The company has authorized a plan to buy back an additional $12.5 billion worth of its shares, Porat also said.

Facebook Inc's better-then-expected fourth-quarter results last week had lifted expectations for Alphabet as they suggested that concerns about a global economic slowdown may be overblown.

Alphabet's fourth quarter revenue rose 22 percent from a year ago to $39.28 billion, compared to the average expectation of $38.93 billion among analysts tracked by Refinitiv. About 83 percent of the revenue came from Google's ad system, chiefly mobile search and YouTube, the company said on a call with analysts.

The company had $31.07 billion in total fourth-quarter costs and expenses, up 26 percent from last year. Capital expenditures rose 64 percent compared to last year, up to $7.08 billion.

Porat said increased operating costs stemmed from licensing content for YouTube, expanded data center operations and Google's hardware business.

A run-up in spending has reflected Google's efforts to boost staffing on its cloud computing division, promote its consumer devices and YouTube subscription packages and acquire office buildings in Silicon Valley and New York.

Quarterly profit was $8.95 billion, or $12.77 per share, compared with a $3 billion loss a year ago. That compared to analyst estimates of $7.69 billion, or $10.87 per share.

The loss last year related to a one-time charge from new US tax rules, while earnings since then have benefited from new rules about valuing Alphabet's dozens of investments in external startups. Fourth-quarter earnings also benefited from a $1.3 billion unrealized gain related to a non-marketable debt, Alphabet said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Google to invest $1 billion in new New York campus

Google's parent company Alphabet on Monday said it was investing more than $1 billion to set up a new campus in New York City.

In a blog post, Alphabet and Google CFO Ruth Porat said it would lease large office buildings in Manhattan's West Village neighborhood which will become the centerpiece of a campus of more than 1.7 million square-feet (160,000 square meters).

The new campus, which should be operational starting in 2020, will be known as Google Hudson Square and "will be the primary location for our New York-based Global Business Organization," Porat wrote.

"New York City continues to be a great source of diverse, world-class talent -- that's what brought Google to the city in 2000 and that's what keeps us here," she said.

Alphabet earlier this year said it was buying the Manhattan Chelsea Market for $2.4 billion, and planned to lease space at Pier 57.

The company currently employs some 7,000 people in New York.

"With these most recent investments in Google Chelsea and Google Hudson Square, we will have the capacity to more than double the number of Googlers in New York over the next 10 years," Porat said.

She said the company's "investment in New York is a huge part of our commitment to grow and invest in US facilities, offices and jobs."

The new site is located close to the Hudson river.

The expansion would make California-based Alphabet one of the city's largest commercial tenants, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The announcement comes after rival Amazon said last month that it was splitting its new headquarters between the Long Island City district in New York and Crystal City, a Virginia community across the Potomac River from the US capital Washington.

It also comes after Apple unveiled plans for a $1 billion campus in Austin, Texas.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Google races to parry the rise of Facebook in India

SAN FRANCISCO/MUMBAI -- Google retains only a slight lead over Facebook in the competition for digital ad dollars in the crucial India market, sources familiar with the figures say, even though the search giant has been in the country far longer and has avoided the controversies that have dogged its rival.

Facebook's success has shaken Alphabet Inc's Google, led by an Indian-born CEO, Sundar Pichai, who has made developing markets a priority.

Google officials in India earlier this year were alarmed to learn that Facebook Inc was likely to generate about $980 million in revenue in the country in 2018, according to one of the sources. Google's India revenues reached $1 billion only last year.

Facebook and Google declined to comment on Indian revenue figures or the competition between the 2 companies.

Google is now pushing back, attempting to lure customers with better ad-buying tools and more localized services. The revamped strategy mirrors initiatives that have succeeded in boosting the time Indian consumers spend with Google services.

The battle in India reflects an epic challenge for Google in developing markets around the world that are crucial to the company's long-term growth - many consumers in those country's are gravitating to Facebook and it's siblings, Instagram and WhatsApp, at the expense of Google search and YouTube, and advertising dollars are quick to follow.

"Facebook is a far more user-friendly platform even though they haven't created features specifically for Indian advertisers," said Vikas Chawla, who runs a small ad-buying agency in India.

Facebook ads, compared with those on Google search or YouTube, tend to transcend language barriers more easily because they rely more on visual elements, said Narayan Murthy Ivaturi, vice president at FreakOut Pte Ltd, a Singapore-headquartered digital marketing firm. Pinpointing younger consumers and rural populations is easier with Facebook and its Instagram app, he and other ad buyers said.

And Facebook is succeeding in India, which boasts the fastest-growing digital ad market of any major economy, despite internal turmoil and political controversy. It has been without a country head for the last year, and has faced a series of incidents in which rumors circulating on Facebook and WhatsApp have prompted mob violence.

Facebook and Google between them took 68 percent of India's digital ad market last year, according to advertising buyer Magna. Media agency GroupM estimates digital advertising spending will grow 30 percent in India this year.

The Facebook phenomenon is evident close to home for Google. During a recent lunch period, six out of 10 people who walked out of Google's Bangalore offices while looking at their phones told Reuters they were checking WhatsApp. All 10 said they regularly used Whatsapp.

Eight Indian ad buyers interviewed by Reuters were divided on whether Facebook would overtake Google in Indian ad revenue. That such a question would even be debated explains why Pichai, Google's chief executive, has pressed to flip the company's approach to emerging markets.

"India is the most important market for the 'Next Billion Users' initiative," Caesar Sengupta, the head of the effort, told Reuters on the sidelines of the annual "Google for India" event in New Delhi last week.

NEW TACTICS

For many years Google designed its services for early adopters of new technology, who tended to be in Silicon Valley, said Nelson Mattos, who oversaw Google's Europe and Africa operations for several years. Great products would then find a broad global audience.

"Over time, as you saw the growth of Facebook, the importance of WhatsApp and other tools in these new markets, and not the same adoption of Google, the company started to realize that maybe they had to change that approach," Mattos said.

Shortly after taking the helm 3 years ago, Pichai mapped a new strategy for places such as India: More services tailored to locals; more marketing on radio, billboards and TV; more local staff and start-up investment.

Google's India workforce has more than doubled since to more than 4,000 employees, or about 8 times Facebook's presence, according to a tally of LinkedIn profiles and company statements.

Its products evolved too, becoming easier to use with low data plans. Smartphone apps such as Files Go and Tez - rebranded last week as Google Pay - were aimed at Indians.

"There's definitely a sea change," said Asif Baki, a user researcher at Google who oversees two-week "immersion trips" in developing markets for senior executives and staff.

The efforts are bearing fruit. Indian users during the first half of this year spent more time on Google services than on Facebook services, according to estimates from audience measurement firm Comscore. Over a similar period a year ago, Facebook came out on top.

Extending those gains to the ad business is a work in progress. A handful of Google executives, including leaders for display ads and small business advertisers, traveled to India earlier this year in a previously unreported trip to better understand the needs of Indian clients.

The visit spurred them to consider ideas such as enabling advertisers to reach users only in a particular Indian state, since language and literacy vary greatly around the country, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

At the New Delhi event, Google unveiled a plan to bring Indian newspaper content online, to increase the supply of search results - and ads - available in regional languages.

Google still has to reckon with other issues. Small businesses in emerging markets are less likely to have websites, a foundation for Google ad campaigns but unnecessary for Facebook.

Executives met with one Indian merchant who recorded product videos on YouTube then messaged the links to potential customers on WhatsApp, said Kim Spalding, the company's general manager and product lead for small business ads.

Facebook, meanwhile, is already on to commercializing such behavior. Just weeks ago, it began charging for text-based marketing features on WhatsApp, with video ads expected to launch next year. 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Google employees demand more oversight of China search engine plan

SAN FRANCISCO - Google is not close to launching a search engine app in China, its chief executive told staff on Thursday, the New York Times reported, as employees of the Alphabet Inc unit called for more transparency and oversight of the project.

Chief Executive Sundar Pichai told a company-wide meeting that though development is in an early stage, providing more services in the world's most populous country fits with Google's global mission, the report said.

Hoping to gain approval from the Chinese government to provide a mobile search service, the company plans to block some websites and search terms, Reuters reported this month, citing unnamed sources.

Disclosure of the secretive effort has disturbed some Google employees and human rights advocacy organizations. They are concerned that by agreeing to censorship demands, Google would validate China's prohibitions on free expression and violate the "don't be evil" clause in the company's code of conduct.

Hundreds of employees have called on the company to provide more "transparency, oversight and accountability," according to an internal petition seen by Reuters on Thursday.

After a separate petition this year, Google announced it would not renew a project to help the US military develop artificial intelligence technology for drones.

The China petition says employees are concerned the project, code named Dragonfly, "makes clear" that ethics principles Google issued during the drone debate "are not enough."

"We urgently need more transparency, a seat at the table and a commitment to clear and open processes: Google employees need to know what we're building," states the document seen by Reuters.

The New York Times first reported the petition on Thursday. Google declined to comment.

Company executives have not commented publicly on Dragonfly, and their remarks at the company-wide meeting marked their first about the project since details about it were leaked.

Employees have asked Google to create an ethics review group with rank-and-file workers, appoint ombudspeople to provide independent review and internally publish assessments of projects that raise substantial ethical questions.

Three former employees involved with Google's past efforts in China told Reuters current leadership may see offering limited search results in China as better than providing no information at all.

The same rationale led Google to enter China in 2006. It left in 2010 over an escalating dispute with regulators that was capped by what security researchers identified as state-sponsored cyberattacks against Google and other large US firms.

The former employees said they doubt the Chinese government will welcome back Google. A Chinese official, who declined to be named, told Reuters this month that it is “very unlikely” Dragonfly would be available this year.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Google parent Alphabet profit leaps on ad growth

SAN FRANCISCO - Google parent Alphabet on Monday reported a surge in quarterly profits, lifted by strong growth in the digital advertising segment it dominates along with Facebook.

Profit in the first 3 months of 2018 soared more than 70 percent from a year to $9.4 billion, Alphabet said in an earnings report that was well above forecasts.

Revenue at the California-based internet giant during the first 3 months of this year was $31.1 billion, up 26 percent from the same period last year.

Alphabet shares were up slightly in after-market trades that followed release of the earnings report.

The firs-quarter profit included one-time gains of $3 billion on its equity investments, believed to have come mainly from a rise in the value of its stake in leading smartphone-summoned ride service Uber.

The amount of revenue taken in by "other bets" was up, but included an accounting shift in money taken in by smart-home products unit Nest, which has moved back under the Google umbrella.

"We have a clear set of exciting opportunities ahead, and our strong growth enables us to invest in them with confidence," Alphabet chief financial officer Ruth Porat said in an earnings release.

Alphabet is the first major Silicon Valley firm to report first-quarter earnings, and the report comes amid heightened concerns over how private user data is protected in light of the hijacking of data on millions of Facebook users.

With their platforms allowing targeted ads, Google and Facebook dominate the online advertising ecosystem although there have been signs the "duopoly" is weakening slightly.

According to the research firm eMarketer, the two companies will capture a combined 56.8 percent of US digital ad investment in 2018, down from 58.5 percent last year, as smaller players such as Amazon and Snapchat are experiencing faster-than-expected growth.

The research firm estimated that Google and Facebook's share of new digital ad dollars is declining as well -- to 48 percent compared with nearly 73 percent in 2016.

Monday's report showed the Google segment still accounting for the overwhelming majority of revenues with $30.99 billion, up from $24.6 billion last year.

Revenues from its "other bets," which include the self-driving car unit Waymo and life sciences firm Verily, amounted to $150 million from $132 million.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Google launches news initiative to combat fake news

Alphabet Inc's Google is launching the Google News Initiative, to weed out fake news online and during breaking news situations, it said in a blog post on Tuesday.

Google said it plans to spend $300 million over the next three years to improve the accuracy and quality of news appearing on its platforms. 

The changes come as Google, Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc face a backlash over their role during the U.S. presidential election by allowing the spread of false and often malicious information that might have swayed voters toward Republican candidate Donald Trump.

In a separate blog post, Google said it was launching a tool to help subscribe to news publications. 

Subscribe with Google will let users buy a subscription on participating news sites using their Google account and manage all their subscriptions in one place.

Google said it would launch the news subscription with the Financial Times, the New York Times, Le Figaro and The Telegraph among others. The search engine said it plans to add more news publishers soon. 

(Reporting by Arjun Panchadar in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Google confirms investment in Indonesian ride-hailing firm Go-Jek

SINGAPORE - Google has made its first ride-hailing investment in Asia by pumping money into Go-Jek, as the Indonesian start-up and deep-pocketed rivals rapidly expand their app-based services and digital payments in Southeast Asia.

The funding deepens Google's commitment to Indonesia's internet economy," Caesar Sengupta, a vice president at Google said in a company blog on Monday.

The announcement by Alphabet Inc's Google comes two weeks after sources told Reuters that Google and Singapore state investor Temasek were among those investing in Go-Jek as part of a $1.2 billion fundraising round.

Rivals Grab and Uber are backed by Japan's SoftBank Group, while Go-Jek has secured investments from Chinese technology giants Tencent Holdings Ltd and JD.com Inc.

Google's blog did not specify how much Google is investing but two sources had told Reuters that Google was investing about $100 million.

Ride hailing firms are investing tens of millions of dollars to expand their digital payment systems and are also seeking to allow their users to pay for third-party services.

With more than 133 million people online, Indonesia is home to the fifth largest population of internet users in the world but half of the country's population has yet to connect to the internet, Google's Sengupta said.

Both Grab and Uber are expanding in Go-Jek's home market, which is Southeast Asia's most populous country and where locals are keen to lap up an array of mobile-based services. Southeast Asia is the world's third-biggest ride-hailing market after China and the United States.

Go-Jek, a play on the local word for motorbike taxis, delivers everything from meals and groceries to cleaners, masseuses and hairdressers across Indonesia's capital city Jakarta, all at the touch of a smartphone app.

The company, which began as a ride-hailing app for motorcycle taxis, was set up by Nadiem Makarim, a graduate of the Harvard School of Business and a former associate with McKinsey, who has quickly become a poster child for start-up success in Indonesia.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Google launches Mini Home, Pixelbook, PixelPhones

Alphabet Inc's Google on Wednesday launched a range of products, including an upgraded Chromebook named Pixelbook, Google Home Mini and second generation of Pixel smartphones.

Pixelbook, priced at $999, is the first laptop powered by Google Assistant and will support Snap Inc's Snapchat, the company said. It would be available in stores from Oct. 31

Google Home Mini would be priced at $49 in the United States and would rival Amazon.com Inc's Echo Dot. 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Debate swirls as power of US tech giants grows

WASHINGTON - With a handful of US technology giants growing more powerful and dominant, debate is intensifying on whether big tech's growth is healthy or not.

Over the past few years, Apple, Google parent Alphabet, Facebook and Amazon have become among the world's most valuable companies.

Along with stalwarts like Microsoft and rising stars like Netflix, the tech firms exercise enormous control over what people see and how they live.

Increasingly, policymakers and others have begun to consider breaking up or regulating the biggest technology companies, although imminent action appears unlikely.

While many consumers welcome innovation from the tech sector, critics have complained about the power of "gatekeepers" of information and other content.

Google holds around 90 percent of the internet search market in the United States and Europe. Facebook and Google scoop up some 60 percent of digital ad revenues and are eating up 90 percent of new ad growth in the United States.

Google's Android and Apple's iOS power the overwhelming majority of mobile devices. Amazon accounts for nearly half of US online sales and is expanding into new sectors.

CONCENTRATION OF POWER

Barry Lynn, executive director of the Open Markets Institute, said three firms -- Google, Facebook and Amazon -- "have more power than any previous monopolies we've dealt with in the past century."

"We have to be incredibly concerned about the power of Facebook, Google and Amazon," said Lynn, who launched his research center last month after his team was ousted from the Google-funded New America Foundation.

"They have their hands on the flow of news, the flow of books and they are manipulating that flow in a conscious way to promote their interests."

Even though the idea of taking on the tech giants appears extreme, the upheaval in US politics over the past year has brought together allies from across the spectrum worried about their concentration of economic power.

The recently formed "New Center" political alliance that includes leaders from the traditional right and left has placed "challenging big tech" on its agenda.

Bill Galston, a former White House advisor under Bill Clinton and co-founder of New Center, argued that tech monopolies are hurting wages, entrepreneurship and could be distorting the political landscape.

"The big tech firms have almost unlimited funds they can throw into lobbying, and they have been ramping this up steeply," Galston said. "Is that a good thing for democracy?"

Lou Kerner, partner at the investment firm Flight Ventures, said this monopoly power is more concentrated than any in recent history, and expressed concern it will "strangle innovation" and increase income inequality.

But Kerner said he opposes heavy-handed regulation or breakup of the tech giants.

"By their nature regulators move slowly and by the time they address the problems they are no longer problems," Kerner said.

"Historically the market has been much better at addressing monopoly powers in technology."

REWRITING THE BOOK

Ed Black, president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, which represents firms including Google, Facebook and Microsoft, said breaking up the tech giants could have a "chilling effect on innovation."

"If our goal is really to maintain innovation, spur the entire economy, and grow higher paying jobs, asking the government to penalize a successful foundational economic sector, absent bad behavior or consumer harm, seems illogical," Black said.

European regulators have taken a more aggressive approach, imposing a hefty fine on Google after concluding the search giant illegally favored its own shopping services, one of three antitrust investigations into the company.

In Washington, the rise of Donald Trump suggests a possible shift in US policy after years in which Silicon Valley was seen as close to the White House.

Former White House strategist Steve Bannon said recently he was leading an effort within the administration to turn Facebook and Google into "public utilities."

But Federal Trade Commission chief Maureen Ohlhausen, who would lead any US antitrust action, signaled any effort to break up tech firms is remote.

"Given the clear consumer benefits of technology-driven innovation, I am concerned about the push to adopt an approach that will disregard consumer benefits in the pursuit of other perhaps even conflicting goals," Ohlhausen said in a speech at Georgetown University.

She said some tech critics want "to rewrite the modern rules" of antitrust enforcement to "pursue a wide variety of goals other than consumer welfare."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Apple, tech lift Wall St as Nasdaq sets record

Wall Street climbed on Monday, boosted by gains in Apple and other big tech stocks that more than offset weak economic data and pushed the Nasdaq Composite to another record high.

Apple shares jumped 2 percent and set a record high, supporting the three major Wall Street indexes. The iPhone maker is due to report its results on Tuesday.

The S&P 500 technology index, the best performing major group this year, gained 0.9 percent, with big tech names including Microsoft, Alphabet and Facebook hitting records.

Investors braced for another heavy week of quarterly corporate results in an earnings season that has exceeded expectations.

Overall, profits at S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 13.6 percent in the first quarter, the most since 2011, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Market watchers have been looking for results to help justify stock valuations, as the S&P 500 has been trading about 20 percent above its long-term average, based on forward earnings estimates.

"This is shaping up to be the strongest earnings season in several years," said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia. "That has kind of got people gravitating back to equities and gravitating to the equities that are doing well.”

The S&P 500 gained 4.13 points, or 0.17 percent, to 2,388.33 and the Nasdaq Composite added 44.00 points, or 0.73 percent, to 6,091.60, a record closing high.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 27.05 points, or 0.13 percent, to 20,913.46, after notching its best weekly performance of 2017 last week.

The CBOE Volatility Index, a barometer of expected near-term stock market volatility, closed at its lowest level since Feb 2007.

Financials rose 0.6 percent despite volatility caused by President Donald Trump's comments that he was actively considering breaking up big banks.

US Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin said that economic growth of 3 percent is achievable in the next two years as the Trump administration sets out to dramatically cut taxes.

Stock gains may have been muted by a series of tepid US economic reports. US factory activity slowed in April, consumer spending was unchanged in March and a key inflation measure recorded its first monthly drop since 2001.

Investors girded for more data later in the week, including Friday's employment report, as well as for the two-day US Federal Reserve meeting starting on Tuesday.

"The economic data today is causing some investor nervousness ahead of the jobs report this Friday," said Matt Miskin, senior capital markets research analyst at John Hancock Investments in Boston.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.32-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.37-to-1 ratio favored advancers.

The S&P 500 posted 42 new 52-week highs and 12 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 145 new highs and 55 new lows.

About 6 billion shares changed hands in US exchanges, below the 6.5 billion daily average over the last 20 sessions.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Google parent's 'internet balloons' closer to deployment

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California - Google parent Alphabet said Thursday that artificial intelligence-infused navigation software has significantly sped up plans to deploy Project Loon internet balloons to serve remote regions of the world

Word that being able to more smartly guide high-altitude baloons promised to improve coverage while curbing cost came as Loon hit headwinds in some locales where it has been testing the technology.

"Out timelines are starting to move up on how we can do more for the world sooner," said Astro Teller, who heads the team at the Alphabet unit X, in charge of "moonshot" projects of the technology giant.

"We are looking to move quickly, but to move thoughtfully," Teller told a small group of reporters inside a former Silicon Valley shopping center transformed into a "moonshot factory."

The acceleration was credited to software leaps that allow internet-serving balloons to ride high-altitude winds to ideal locations or loop in patterns that create consistent webs of internet coverage in the sky.

"We've been working to make the balloons smarter; almost like a game of chess with the winds," Teller said.

He expected Loon to be partnering in coming months with telecom companies to provide internet to "real users," in a step up from tests done to see how well the high-floating technology works with networks on the ground.

Teller declined to specify where Loon might first be integrated into telecommunications networks providing service to customers.

"We are not going to all of a sudden be everywhere," Teller said.

"We intend to be part of an ecosystem -- in any country where we are doing testing we would work with a local telco."

Part of the money-making vision for Loon would be to get revenue from telecom operators for extending their reach.

Teller said Loon is one of the more mature projects at X and that it "would be a natural state to graduate into its own company" but there were not plans at the moment for that to happen.

GROUNDED IN SRI LANKA?

The peek inside X lab and word of speedy progress came the same day that the venture to beam the internet to the ground via balloon hit a legal snag in Sri Lanka that could see the project abandoned on the island.

Project Loon uses roaming balloons to beam internet coverage and planned to connect Sri Lanka's 21 million people to the web, even those in remote connectivity black spots.

But just a year after testing began in Sri Lanka regulators have been unable to allocate Google a radio frequency for the airborne venture without breaching international regulations.

"There are lots of places excited to run experiments with us," Teller said.

"We encourage that, but there are lots of agencies and we need to dot 'I's and cross 't's."

He added that Loon planned to "do things by the book" in any country where it is active, using balloons to get internet signals far and wide, while local telecom companies tap into the network from the ground.

The first public launch of Loon took place in New Zealand in 2013, when the project was in an early experimental phase.

Alphabet recently told AFP that it gave up on its internet drone project, called Titan, about a year ago, to focus its resources on Loon where it saw more promise of success.

The economics and technical feasibility of balloons are seen as a more promising way to connect rural and remote parts of the world to the internet, according to X.

Leading online social network Facebook is continuing to develop an Aquila drone for beaming internet connection from the sky.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Google parent Alphabet profit edges up, revenue surges

SAN FRANCISCO - Google parent Alphabet on Thursday reported that its profit in the final three months of last year climbed on growth in mobile search and video-sharing service YouTube.

The California-based technology giant said its net income rose eight percent to $5.3 billion, which fell short of Wall Street expectations despite better-than-expected revenue.

Alphabet revenue in the quarter topped $26 billion, up 22 percent from the same period a year earlier.

Its shares slipped more than two percent to $838.29 in after-market trades that followed release of the earnings figures.

"Our growth in the fourth quarter was exceptional," Alphabet chief financial officer Ruth Porat said in the earnings release, crediting mobile search and YouTube with driving the performance.

"We’re seeing great momentum in Google’s newer investment areas and ongoing strong progress in Other Bets."

For earnings purposes, Alphabet separates operations such as self-driving cars into an "Other Bets" category, which nearly doubled revenue to $262 million in the quarter but still posted a loss of nearly $1.1 billion.

Its main operating unit remains Google and advertising remained the money-making engine for the company, but the number of paid clicks shrank, according to the earnings report.

Under its new structure, Alphabet is seeking to expand beyond its role as a search engine that provides advertising linked to queries. It has grown revenue in mobile search but is moving to further diversify its revenue stream.

Last year, Google took on rivals Apple, Samsung and Amazon in a new push into hardware, launching premium-priced, in-house designed Pixel smartphones and a slew of other devices showcasing artificial intelligence prowess.

Google also revealed its new "home assistant" which aims to compete with Amazon's Alexa-powered devices as a hub for the smart home, and has been working to become the platform for some connected cars.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Google grabs Twitter app platform Fabric

SAN FRANCISCO - Google is acquiring Twitter's mobile application developer platform Fabric, a move which could give some breathing room for the social network after charting an independent path without a suitor.

Terms of the deal were not announced.

Twitter last year was in talks to sell itself with several firms including Google parent Alphabet, but without a deal decided to continue on an independent path, cutting jobs and refocusing on its core services.

The sale of Fabric will shift to Google the platform used by developers for mobile apps.

"When we launched Fabric in 2014, our goal was to provide the best tools to help developers create amazing apps," the Fabric team said in a blog post.

"Today we enter the next chapter for Fabric and are pleased to announce that we've signed an agreement for Fabric to be acquired by Google and for our team to join Google's Developer Products Group, working with the Firebase team."

Google Firebase product manager Francis Ma said buying Fabric will "continue the great work that Twitter put into the platform," adding that "our missions align closely: help developers build better apps and grow their business."

Twitter has been in a reorganization phase as it seeks to hit profitability for the first time, and to boost user growth which has been stagnating in comparison with other social networks.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Google working on policy to restrict ads on fake news sites

Alphabet Inc.'s Google said on Monday it was working on a policy update to restrict its ads from being placed on fake news sites as concerns mount about the rapid spread of inaccurate information online.

The policy change is imminent, Google spokeswoman Andrea Faville told Reuters.

"Moving forward, we will restrict ad serving on pages that misrepresent, misstate, or conceal information about the publisher, the publisher's content, or the primary purpose of the web property," she said in a statement.

The policy change comes amid an intensifying debate over how much responsibility technology companies bear for monitoring the accuracy of content as more and more people access news through sites such as Facebook rather than traditional media companies.

Facebook, in particular, has been criticized over the spread of inaccurate articles promoting US president-elect Donald Trump on the site. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has denied that the site influenced the outcome of the election.

Google's AdSense advertising network is a key financial driver for many publishers. The company places various restrictions on where its ads may be placed, including bans on pornographic and violent content. Work on the policy update began before the election, Faville said.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Google takes on Apple, Amazon with new hardware push

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's Google on Tuesday announced a new "Pixel" smartphone and a suite of new consumer electronics products for the home, planting itself firmly in the hardware business and challenging Apple Inc's iPhone at the high end of the $400 billion global smartphone market.

The string of announcements - including the $649 Pixel, a smart speaker for the living room dubbed "Home," a virtual reality headset, and a new Wi-Fi router - is the clearest sign yet that Google intends to compete head-to-head with Apple, Amazon.com Inc. and even manufacturers of phones using its own Android mobile operating system.

Company executives, echoing Apple's longstanding philosophy, said they were striving for tighter integration of hardware and software.

"The thinking is that if we can work on hardware and software together, we can innovate much better," Google hardware chief Rick Osterloh said in an interview with Reuters, citing a recent reorganization that united once-disparate hardware teams.

Under the new structure, the company has begun to take a much more integrated approach to things like supply chain management and design, added Mario Queiroz, a vice president of product management.

"The learnings from one product are benefiting another product," he said.

Unlike earlier Google phone efforts under the Nexus brand, the Pixel devices are designed and developed by Google from the start, although Taiwan's HTC Corp will serve as the contract manufacturer.

SWIPE AT APPLE

Taking another page from the Apple playbook, Google said it would work exclusively with a single carrier in the United States, Verizon Communications Inc, on the Pixel, emulating Apple's agreement to launch the original iPhone with AT&T Inc. That deal gave Apple unprecedented control over the look of the phone and how it worked.

Shares of Alphabet closed up 0.3 percent, while Verizon fell 1.2 percent.

The phone comes in two sizes, and its high-end camera is one of few distinguishing features, analysts said. The phones come in black, blue and silver and will be able to get up to a seven-hour charge in 15 minutes. Pre-orders begin on Tuesday.

"Aside from the camera, the new Google Pixels are pretty undifferentiated compared to Samsung and iPhone seventh generation phones," industry analyst Patrick Moorhead said.

While the new phones are clearly aimed at competing with the iPhone - Google executives took several swipes at Apple in their on-stage remarks - analysts said Android rivals like Samsung Electronics could be the biggest victim if the Pixel takes off.

Google's strategy of licensing Android for free and profiting from embedded services such as search and maps made Android the dominant mobile operating system with some 89 percent of the global market, according to IDC.

But Apple still rules the high end of the market, and Google has long been frustrated by the emergence of many variations of Android and the inconsistent experience that has produced. Pushing its own hardware will likely complicate its relationship with Android licensees, analysts said.

ALL-PURPOSE ASSISTANT

Google kicked off the event Tuesday by touting the Google Assistant, the company's voice-activated artificial intelligence system and its answer to Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa. The presenter showed how a customers could make a restaurant reservation with a few phrases spoken into the phone.

The assistant will be embedded into the Pixel and Home products and is being positioned as the central feature in a family of integrated hardware and software products.

It is one of a handful of similar assistants that are vying for supremacy as more people search the web and make purchases online using voice commands, which may eventually supplant keyboards and touchscreens as the primary means of controlling digital devices.

While Google is often cited as the leader in artificial intelligence, Amazon stole a march on the company with its Alexa-powered Echo home speaker system, a surprise hit. The Home device and the Echo have many of the same features.

Google's "Daydream View" virtual reality headset, meanwhile, puts the company in competition with Facebook Inc, owner of Oculus. The device, which works with an Android phone, is far cheaper and simpler. It will be available in November for $79, in time for the end-of-year shopping season.

Home will also be available in November for $129, including a six-month trial of ad-free YouTube.

Google also unveiled a new version of its Chromecast digital media player and a router dubbed Google Wifi, both boasting the same sleek, minimalist design as the Home product.

"These look like products from a single company," said Queiroz, the Google executive.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com