Google

Google announced Monday an open source version of DeepVariant, the artificial intelligence tool that last year earned the highest accuracy rating at the precisionFDA’s Truth Challenge.

The open source tool comes as academic medical centers, hospitals, insurance companies and other healthcare organizations are gearing up for if not already embarking on artificial intelligence, cognitive computing and machine learning as well as precision medicine and the genomic sequencing that entails.

A British organization representing 5.4 million people in England and Wales brought a massive lawsuit against the American tech-giant Google on November 30 in the United Kingdom, accusing the California-based company of illegally harvesting data from its customers’ iPhones to then use for individually targeted advertising

Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs will develop a futuristic, billion-dollar community along a sizable swathe of Toronto’s waterfront.
On Wednesday, the City of Toronto and Sidewalk Labs – which is the urban innovation arm of Google’s parent company Alphabet – announced a partnership to radically re-imagine 800 acres of the city’s largely vacant, post-industrial Eastern Waterfront, and turn it into a tech-integrated neighborhood called Quayside.

Despite the best efforts of cell companies, the vast majority of Puerto Rico is offline. Internet coverage might seem like a luxury when people are struggling for clean water and power, but communications make moving essential supplies much easier, and enables lost families and friends to find each other.

And while some are providing food and other necessary materials, Project Loon, a division of Alphabet’s X lab (formerly Google X), is trying to set up temporary internet and cell service using giant balloons.

Three months after it was fined €2.4 billion by the European Commission for abusing its position on its online shopping service, Google is changing its website to comply with the Commission’s demands and avoid a new penalty.
On Thursday morning (28 September), the US company’s shopping service will treat its own ads the same way as ads from external services.

Google parent company Alphabet is in talks to invest around $1 billion in Lyft, according to published reports. The talks are being driven by top officials at Alphabet, according to Axios. The potential investment could come from either Google or from CapitalG, Alphabet’s investment division, Bloomberg reported.

A class action filed Thursday against Google claims the tech company systemically pays women less than men in similar jobs and also enables unequal promotions and opportunities for male and female workers.

The sex discrimination case filed in San Francisco Superior Court, Ellis v. Google, accuses the Mountain View, California, company of paying women at all levels less than men in comparable positions, assigning women lower-tier jobs with lower pay and compensation than men and promoting women less frequently. The lawsuit also claims Google failed to correct these issues even after being made aware of them.

Internet giant Google is appealing against a record 2.4 billion euro fine the European Commission handed down in June, 2017.

The world’s most popular Internet search engine, a unit of the U.S. firm Alphabet, launched its appeal two months after it was fined by the European Commission for abusing its dominance in Europe by giving prominent placement in searches to its comparison shopping service and demoting rival offerings.