Google - AllThingsD

Yahoo Offer to Buy Contact Startup Xobni Is at a Price of $30M to $40M

Yahoo’s new HR rule: If you can’t hire them, buy their company.

Kara Swisher in News
June 17, 2013 at 5:39 pm PT

NSA Leaker Edward Snowden Says Tech PRISM Denials Were “Misleading”

Liz Gannes in News on June 17 at 9:06 am PT

In a live online Q&A at the Guardian today, Edward Snowden, the man who revealed the PRISM documents and much more, said the leaks were having his desired effect.

Until the Self-Driving Car for All, What Is Tech Doing Now to Drive Us to Non-Distraction?

Liz Gannes in Mobile on June 17 at 8:15 am PT

Before we get autonomous cars, apps like voice news readers and context-dependent personal assistants might help drivers be a little more safe.

Udacity Hires Former Zynga COO Vish Makhijani to Lead Operations

Liz Gannes in News on June 13 at 9:15 am PT

“This company is more missionary than mercenary,” Makhijani said.

News Byte

Now You Can Play Old-School Pong Via Newfangled Web Video Tech

Liz Gannes in News on June 12 at 11:10 am PT

Google has made another one of its nifty “Chrome Experiment” demos to show off new Web technology. It’s called Cube Slam and, using WebRTC, you can play the arcade game Pong face to face with a friend without installing any plugins (on desktop Chrome or Chrome OS, not mobile yet). Since you control the Pong paddle via off-camera arrow buttons, the live video part is kind of odd — so make sure to psych yourself up to trash-talk and be extremely visually expressive before you send your friend an invite link.

Google Officially Buys Waze in a $1 Billion-Plus Deal, Will Keep It Independent

Liz Gannes in News on June 11 at 8:40 am PT

Google now owns map startup Waze.

What Does a Bing-Powered Siri Mean for Google?

Liz Gannes and John Paczkowski in Mobile on June 11 at 3:24 am PT

If voice is the future of search, and Bing becomes Siri’s go-to search engine come fall, what does that mean for Google and its place in iOS?

Google Glass in Everyday Life: Now That’s a Little More Like It

Liz Gannes in News on June 10 at 7:15 pm PT

The latest Google Glass promo video is quite a bit more relatable.

News Byte

The Google Movie Does Just Okay at the Box Office

Liz Gannes in Media on June 10 at 5:17 pm PT

“The Internship,” which reunites the “Wedding Crashers” duo Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson as a set of middle-aged interns at Google, brought in $18.1 million on its opening weekend. That was above expectations, but only good enough for fourth place at the box office with a B+ rating from moviegoers. Too bad the movie studio can’t say it was just the beta version.