Daily Archives: September 27, 2021

The Google exhibit building shows off a variety of devices with Google Assistant, including Android smartphones and Wear OS smartwatches during the CES tech show in 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Ross D. Franklin/AP hide caption

The Google exhibit building shows off a variety of devices with Google Assistant, including Android smartphones and Wear OS smartwatches during the CES tech show in 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

LONDON Google headed to a top European Union court Monday to appeal a record EU antitrust penalty imposed for stifling competition through the dominance of its Android operating system.

The company is fighting a 2018 decision from the EU's executive Commission, the bloc's top antitrust enforcer, that resulted in the 4.34 billion-euro ($5 billion) fine still the biggest ever fine Brussels has imposed for anticompetitive behavior.

It's one of three antitrust penalties totaling more than $8 billion that the commission hit Google with between 2017 and 2019. The others focused on shopping and search, and the California company is appealing all three. While the penalties involved huge sums, critics point out that Google can easily afford them and that the fines haven't done much to widen competition.

In its original decision, the commission said Google's practices restrict competition and reduce choices for consumers.

Google, however, plans to argue that free and open source Android has led to lower-priced phones and spurred competition with its chief rival, Apple.

"Android has created more choice for everyone, not less, and supports thousands of successful businesses in Europe and around the world. This case isn't supported by the facts or the law," the company said as the five-day hearing opened at the European Court of Justice's General Court.

The EU Commission declined to comment. The court's decision is not expected until next year.

Android is the most popular mobile operating system, beating even Apple's iOS, and is found on four out of five devices in Europe.

The Commission ruled that Google broke EU rules by requiring smartphone makers to take a bundle of Google apps if they wanted any at all, and prevented them from selling devices with altered versions of Android.

The bundle contains 11 apps, including YouTube, Maps and Gmail, but regulators focused on the three that had the biggest market share: Google Search, Chrome and the company's Play Store for apps.

Google's position is that because Android is open source and free, phone makers or consumers can decide for themselves which apps to install on their devices. And because it's the only one bearing the costs of developing and maintaining Android, Google has to find ways to recoup that expense, so its solution is to include apps that will generate revenue, namely Search and Chrome.

The company also argues that just because its apps come pre-installed on Android phones, it doesn't mean users are excluded from downloading rival services.

The Commission also took issue with Google's payments to wireless carriers and phone makers to exclusively pre-install the Google Search app. But Google said those deals amounted to less than 5% of the market, so they couldn't possibly hurt rivals.

Following the ruling, Google made some changes to address the issues, including giving European Android users a choice of browser and search app, and charging device makers to pre-install its apps.

Read more here:

Google Is Appealing A $5 Billion Antitrust Fine In The EU - NPR

A sign is pictured outside a Google office near the company's headquarters in Mountain View, California, U.S., May 8, 2019. REUTERS/Paresh Dave/File Photo

Sept 26 (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google will take a smaller cut when customers buy software from other vendors on its cloud marketplace, CNBC reported on Sunday.

The Google Cloud Platform is cutting its percentage revenue share to 3% from 20%, CNBC said, citing a person familiar with the matter. https://cnb.cx/2XZp7ep

"Our goal is to provide partners with the best platform and most competitive incentives in the industry. We can confirm that a change to our Marketplace fee structure is in the works and we'll have more to share on this soon," a Google Cloud spokesperson said in a statement to Reuters.

Earlier this year, Google cut the service fee it charges developers on its app store by half on the first $1 million they earn in revenue in a year. read more

Reporting by Juby Babu in Bengaluru; Editing by Daniel Wallis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Google to slash amount it keeps from sales on its cloud marketplace- CNBC - Reuters

Ashish BhatiaContributor

Facebook recently announced its highly anticipated wearable sunglasses that can record video from a users perspective. Despite many of our legitimately squeamish reactions to this new product, one of Facebooks decisions in this launch is likely to make it a success where Google Glass failed.

Taking a page from the business school curriculum, Facebook leveraged an effectual approach to its launch by partnering with Ray-Ban a lesson all new product managers would do well to remember.

To best understand this, we need to first revisit Google Glass. It launched in 2011 as a prototype for only select users. Consistent with Googles approach with beta launching at the time, these users paid $1,500 for their chance to play and test out what looked and felt like the future.

Despite being named one of Time Magazines best inventions of the year, Google Glass was riddled with problems and very much an unfinished product. Many have commented previously on how one of the key failures of Google Glass was that it was a classic example of putting out new technology without a clear use case. What were people to do with Google Glass?

Another important aspect of the Google Glass launch was that the design of the product was done in-house and marketing was carried out by a somewhat unintentional public relations campaign led by co-founder Sergey Brin, seen wearing them everywhere from Silicon Valley to Fashion Week. Effectively, Google was surfing on the wave of its success and offering up a new toy that seemed to be inevitable but had no clear use.

Fast forward to earlier this month. Facebook launched new wearable sunglasses that are immediately and often compared to Google Glass. The question on everyones mind (other than whether the person next to me will be recording me without my permission) is whether Facebooks attempt will tank like Google Glass. However, the decision to partner with top sunglass maker Ray-Ban to utilize one of the most recognized brands, the Wayfarer glasses, as the actual wearable is likely to make Facebooks version a success.

While Facebook is more than a decade from its entrepreneurial beginnings, like many large technology companies, it necessarily must explore at the edges of innovation in order to prevent the product or service from making its platforms outdated. This means that many of the product launches that Facebook considers require them to navigate not risky nor unknown situations but unknowable ones. Whats the difference?

The issue that Facebook and many technology futurists face is what many refer to as Knightian uncertainty. In 1921, Frank Knight published research that emphasized an important difference between risk and uncertainty. For the Big Four technology companies, the risk is the management of revenue to ensure that the market share between Facebooks ad revenue growth next year continues to outpace Googles.

Both companies have a track record of revenue growth, so we can utilize some historical data to make fairly decent predictions about the future. The key here is that tools of prediction have strength and thus are leveraged in decision-making.

Now comparing that situation to whether Facebooks glass will be successful is an entirely different situation. What historical records can we draw from? Will demand be similar to Apple Watch in its first year? Or will it be more like Zune, Microsofts attempt at competing with the iPod? The point is that the demand for this product is unknowable, and there is very little value to prediction in unknowable situations which we can also refer to as Knightian uncertainty.

So why will Facebook be more successful? Because while Facebook is no longer a startup, it leveraged a key entrepreneurial method to improve its chances. Namely, it leveraged an effectual approach to its launch of the Facebook glass by partnering with Ray-Ban.

While Google tried to invent the design of its new glasses using its imagination about what people wanted Facebook leveraged a design that already has some certainties around it. When a company or entrepreneur is launching a new product or service, working collaboratively is a key way to gain control of outcomes when predictive tools fail. Effectuation is an entrepreneurial method that encourages entrepreneurs to leverage aspects that are in or can be in their control.

You do this by starting with who you are, what you know and who you know. Instead of trying to predict what people will like in a pair of glasses and instead of learning itself how to market those glasses, Facebook chose to leverage the know-how of the largest player in the market.

Facebook moved forward through the unknowable by finding someone it knew to help it navigate a key uncertainty of its new product. For that reason alone, it has a better chance of success.

Ultimately, new consumer product innovations are incredibly uncertain (not risky), and most will fail. That means that even with Ray-Bans partnership, it can easily flop on so many other parameters, but like a good entrepreneur, Facebook has upped its chances by leveraging a key entrepreneurial approach to its product launch improving its chances of success.

Original post:

Facebooks wearable glasses can succeed where Google Glass flopped - TechCrunch

Reliance Industries Ltd. is in talks to buy a stake in Indian mobile content provider Glance InMobi Pte, according to people familiar with the matter.

The conglomerate is considering investing about $300 million in the unicorn backed by Alphabet Inc.s Google, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private. The transaction could be completed as soon as in the next few weeks, one of the people said.

Glance InMobi pushes curated news and entertainment content onto phone lock screens and also runs a short-video app. Reliances investment could involve strategic co-operation along with the financial element, a different person said.

Such a deal would give Reliance access to valuable lock-screen real estate on the affordable mobile phones its co-developing with Google and slated to hit the market in time for the Diwali shopping season in end October. It would also give Reliance strategic entry into short-video content, a category where users are skyrocketing.

Deliberations are ongoing and Reliance could decide not to proceed with the investment, the people said. A representative for Glance did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment, while a Reliance representative declined to comment.

Google agreed last year to invest $4.5 billion in a partnership with Reliance, which included plans for a low-cost smartphone as part of Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambanis efforts to build a local technology titan. The phone was set for its debut earlier this month, but the launch was delayed due to the global shortage of semiconductors.

Glance InMobi was founded in 2019 and has about 130 million daily active users. Its Roposo app offers short videos in a dozen Indian languages. The company, whose backers also include Peter Thiels Mithril Capital, agreed to acquire e-commerce startup Shop101 in June.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.

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Reliance nears investment in Google-backed Glance InMobi - Mint

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. Googles first office was a cluttered Silicon Valley garage crammed with desks resting on sawhorses.

In 2003, five years after its founding, the company moved into a sprawling campus called the Googleplex. The airy, open offices and whimsical common spaces set a standard for what an innovative workplace was supposed to look like. Over the years, the amenities piled up. The food was free, and so were buses to and from work: Getting to the office, and staying there all day, was easy.

Now, the company that once redefined how an employer treats its workers is trying to redefine the office itself. Google is creating a post-pandemic workplace that will accommodate employees who got used to working from home over the past year and dont want to be in the office all the time anymore.

The company will encourage but not mandate that employees be vaccinated when they start returning to the office, probably in September. At first, the interior of Googles buildings may not appear all that different. But over the next year or so, Google will try out new office designs in millions of square feet of space, or about 10 percent of its global work spaces.

The plans build on work that began before the coronavirus crisis sent Googles work force home, when the company asked a diverse group of consultants including sociologists who study Generation Z and how junior high students socialize and learn to imagine what future workers would want.

The answer seems to be Ikea meets Lego. Instead of rows of desks next to cookie-cutter meeting rooms, Google is designing Team Pods. Each pod is a blank canvas: Chairs, desks, whiteboards and storage units on casters can be wheeled into various arrangements, and in some cases rearranged in a matter of hours.

To deal with an expected blend of remote and office workers, the company is also creating a new meeting room called Campfire, where in-person attendees sit in a circle interspersed with impossible-to-ignore, large vertical displays. The displays show the faces of people dialing in by videoconference so virtual participants are on the same footing as those physically present.

In a handful of locations around the world, Google is building outdoor work areas to respond to concerns that coronavirus easily spreads in traditional offices. At its Silicon Valley headquarters, where the weather is pleasant most of the year, it has converted a parking lot and lawn area into Camp Charleston a fenced-in mix of grass and wooden deck flooring about the size of four tennis courts with Wi-Fi throughout.

There are clusters of tables and chairs under open-air tents. In larger teepees, there are meeting areas with the dcor of a California nature retreat and state-of-the-art videoconferencing equipment. Each tent has a camp-themed name such as kindling, smores and canoe. Camp Charleston has been open since March for teams who wanted to get together. Google said it was building outdoor work spaces in London, Los Angeles, Munich, New York and Sydney, Australia, and possibly more locations.

Employees can return to their permanent desks on a rotation schedule that assigns people to come into the office on a specific day to ensure that no one is there on the same day as their immediate desk neighbors.

Despite the companys freewheeling corporate culture, coming into the office regularly had been one of Googles few enduring rules.

That was a big reason Google offered its lavish perks, said Allison Arieff, an architectural and design writer who has studied corporate campuses. They get to keep everyone on campus for as long as possible and theyre keeping someone at work, said Ms. Arieff, who was a contributing writer for the Opinion section of The New York Times.

But as Googles work force topped 100,000 employees all over the world, face-to-face collaboration was often impossible. Employees found it harder to focus with so many distractions inside Googles open offices. The company had outgrown its longtime setup.

In 2018, Googles real estate group began to consider what it could do differently. It turned to the companys research and development team for built environments. It was an eclectic group of architects, industrial and interior designers, structural engineers, builders and tech specialists led by Michelle Kaufmann, who worked with the renowned architect Frank Gehry before joining Google a decade ago.

Google focused on three trends: Work happens anywhere and not just in the office; what employees need from a workplace is changing constantly; and workplaces need to be more than desks, meeting rooms and amenities.

The future of work that we thought was 10 years out, Ms. Kaufmann said, Covid brought us to that future now.

Two of the most rigid elements in an office design are walls and the heating and cooling systems. Google is trying to change that. It is developing an array of different movable walls that can be packed up and shipped flat to offices around the world.

It has a prototype of a fabric-based overhead air duct system that attaches with zippers and can be moved over a weekend for different seating arrangements. Google is also trying to end the fight over the office temperature. This system allows every seat to have its own air diffuser to control the direction or amount of air blowing on them.

If a meeting requires privacy, a robot that looks like the innards of a computer on wheels and is equipped with sensors to detect its surroundings comes over to inflate a translucent, cellophane balloon wall to keep prying eyes away.

A key part of our thinking is moving from whats been our traditional office, said Ms. Kaufmann.

Google is also trying to reduce distractions. It has designed different leaf-shaped partitions called petals that can attach to the edge of a desk to eliminate glare. An office chair with directional speakers in the headrest plays white noise to muffle nearby audio.

For people who may no longer require a permanent desk, Google also built a prototype desk that adjusts to an employees personal preferences with a swipe of a work badge a handy feature for workers who dont have assigned desks because they only drop into the office once in a while. It calibrates the height and tilt of the monitor, brings up family photos on a display, and even adjusts the nearby temperature.

In the early days of the pandemic, it seemed daunting to move a 100,000-plus person organization to virtual, but now it seems even more daunting to figure out how to bring them back safely, said David Radcliffe, Googles vice president for real estate and workplace services.

The Landscape of the Post-Pandemic Return to Office

In its current office configurations, Google said it would be able to use only one out of every three desks in order to keep people six feet apart. Mr. Radcliffe said six feet would remain an important threshold in case of the next pandemic or even the annual flu.

Psychologically, he said, employees will not want to sit in a long row of desks, and also Google may need to de-densify offices with white space such as furniture or plants. The company is essentially unwinding years of open-office plan theory popularized by Silicon Valley that cramming more workers into smaller spaces and taking away their privacy leads to better collaboration.

Real estate costs for the company arent expected to change very much. Though there will be fewer employees in the office, theyll need more room.

There will be other changes. The company cafeterias, famous for their free, catered food, will move from buffet style to boxed, grab-and-go meals. Snacks will be packed individually and not scooped up from large bins. Massage rooms and fitness centers will be closed. Shuttle buses will be suspended.

Smaller conference rooms will be turned into private work spaces that can be reserved. The offices will use only fresh air through vents controlled by its building management software, doing away with its usual mix of outside and recirculated air.

In larger bathrooms, Google will reduce the number of available sinks, toilets and urinals and install more sensor-based equipment that doesnt require touching a surface with hands.

A pair of new buildings on Googles campus, now under construction in Mountain View, Calif., and expected to be finished as early as next year, will give the company more flexibility to incorporate some of the now-experimental office plans.

Google is trying to get a handle on how employees will react to so-called hybrid work. In July, the company asked workers how many days a week they would need to come to the office to be effective. The answers were divided evenly in a range of zero to five days a week, said Mr. Radcliffe.

The majority of Google employees are in no hurry to return. In its annual survey of employees called Googlegeist, about 70 percent of roughly 110,000 employees surveyed said they had a favorable view about working from home compared with roughly 15 percent who had an unfavorable opinion.

Another 15 percent had a neutral perspective, according to results viewed by The New York Times. The survey was sent out in February and the results were announced in late March.

Many Google employees have gotten used to life without time-consuming commutes, and with more time for family and life outside of the office. The company appears to be realizing its employees may not be so willing to go back to the old life.

Work-life balance is not eating three meals a day at your office, going to the gym there, having all your errands done there, said Ms. Arieff. Ultimately, people want flexibility and autonomy and the more that Google takes that away, the harder it is going to be.

Google has offices in 170 cities and 60 countries around the world, and some of them have already reopened. In Australia, New Zealand, China, Taiwan and Vietnam, Googles offices have reopened with occupancy allowed to exceed 70 percent. But the bulk of the 140,000 employees who work for Google and its parent company, Alphabet, are based in the United States, with roughly half of them in the Bay Area.

Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Alphabet, said at a Reuters conference in December that the company was committed to making hybrid work possible, because there was an opportunity for tremendous improvement in productivity and the ability to pull in more people to the work force.

No company at our scale has ever created a fully hybrid work force model, Mr. Pichai wrote in an email a few weeks later announcing the flexible workweek. It will be interesting to try.

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Googles Plan for the Future of Work: Privacy Robots and Balloon Walls - The New York Times