Tag: Alphabet

Google CEO becomes the Highest Paid CEO in the US

In a securities filing, Alphabet revealed that it awarded Sundar Pichai, the Indian-born CEO of Google 273,328 class-C Google stocks. These stocks at the time of transfer were valued at $199 million. The company has revealed that these were transferred to him when he took over the role last October, and reportedly makes him the best-paid CEO in the United States.

The new shares granted to him lifts the value of Sundar Pichai’s stake in Alphabet to more than $650 million which is around 14,400 times the average wealth of a US citizen but still comfortably below the shares the stakes held by co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, whose net wealth is around $34.5 billion $35.3 billion.

Google’s stock price has reportedly grown over 17% since Sundar Pichai took charge of work at Alphabet’s prime business earning the company billions in revenues.

February 13, 2016
Facebook and Alphabet Team Up For New Drone Project to Provide Internet

Alphabet (Google’s parent company) and Facebook have brought their forces together to develop drones that can provide broadband internet access from above the Earth. Both companies have reportedly registered new drone designs with the US Federal Aviation Administration.

Apart from this, Alphabet is currently planning a secret operation at the Spaceport America allegedly creating a solar-powered drone. With smaller drones gaining the attention of big business firms like Alphabet and Amazon with their project Wing and Prime Air respectively, Google and Facebook are working on a larger drone that will be able to operate even as high as 90,000 feet above ground level.

If their assessments are to be trusted, we can safely assume that these drones could possible be flying for weeks or months, thereby could also potentially provide cities and towns with high-speed internet in underdeveloped countries.

“We’re working on ways to use drones and satellites to connect the billion people who don’t live in range of existing wireless networks,” said Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, in July.

This project was preceded by Facebook last year, setting up an initiative with Nokia, Samsung and others to provide online access to two-thirds of the world via internet.org. However, that was a lone project, this one on the other hand, is a collaboration with Alphabet which would in turn help both companies reach new users in their advertising market. All we can hope for is that this initiative churns out something good. What do you think of this collaboration? Feel free to post your comments in the comment section below.

November 7, 2015
Google Now Has Your Entire Recording History, Here’s How You Can Delete It

Here’s something you probably didn’t know. Google has the entire recording history of your Google Now conversations. All the questions you’ve asked Google Now is stored by Google in a vast pool of information that it has already on you. You can find your recording history in the archives and The Guardian’s Alex Hern tells you how.

Hern recently discovered all the recording he had ever had with Google Now and felt a little unnerved about it since some of the recording was done when he wasn’t exactly sober. “I found a recording of me asking for the nearest Waitrose in Glasgow (well, I am a Guardian journalist), lazily doing Fahrenheit conversions for cooking, trying to get driving directions to an Ikea, and just hurling random obscenities as a dumb, unfeeling computer,” he writes in an article.

This is not the only way Google has collected user information. The company also offers location history, showing users every location that it has tracked them to, through apps like Google Maps. Such features can make one feel very uneasy as it brings into question just how much companies like Google know about you. Google has already stated that it would start suggesting tailor-made ads based on the users Gmail account and YouTube search.

But why does Google need to store your voice recordings? According to the company it is to “help recognize your voice and improve speech recognition.”

However, there is a way to delete the cache of recordings. All you have to do is log into your Google account and open the page for your Voice and Audio Activity Controls. To delete in bulk, click on the three-dots menu icon and select ‘Delete options’.

The ‘Delete option’ will give you three choices. You can choose to delete voice activity for ‘Today’, ‘Yesterday’, and by selecting the ‘Advance’ option, you can remove activity for ‘All Time’

You can also turn off the voice activity as well from ‘Activity controls’, but it won’t stop Google from storing the recordings it already has. It will, however, be kept under an anonymous identity which can be traced back to your account.

October 15, 2015
You Won’t Believe the Domain Name Google’s Parent Company Alphabet Finally Got

A couple of months back Google announced that it will be taken over by a parent company Alphabet. A bunch of people were confused then, and probably still are. Basically Alphabet is owned by Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Google’s new CEO is Sundar Pichai. Alphabet was formed as an administrative move by the Google founders in order to efficiently see-over all the companies under Google.

When they first announced their existence, the domain name they came up with was abc.xyz. However, there were some reports of the domain name already having been used by BMW. But, for whatever reason, during it’s first official week on Wall Street, Alphabet has decided upon, and now owns a new domain name. This time it’s cheeky as hell, it’s -wait-for-it- abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.com. Oh, and they even have an explanation for this mouthful of a domain name –

“We realized we missed a few letters in abc.xyz, so we’re just being thorough.”

Oh well, nobody’s complaining as long as it’s coming in with a sense of humour. Although, as of now, the URL will lead you to an inactive site. But, it should be up soon enough. Till then – abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.

October 8, 2015
Google and BMW Tussle Over Domain Name Alphabet.com

Reports suggest that Google’s new parent company, Alphabet might have encountered an issue with German automaker BMW. Apparently, BMW also owns the same name and the domain as Alphabet.com and does not plan to sell it to Google anytime soon.

Image Source: New York Times

Yesterday Google had announced its administrative restructuring by launching Alphabet as a parent company above all other companies owned by Google. This move is said to have been designed, so as to, separate the core products from the far reaching projects such as Fiber, Calico etc. Alphabet was launched along with its domain name as abc.xyz.

Reports also suggest that BMW is looking into whether Google’s Alphabet has infringed on its trademark or not. However, no legal action has been announced just yet.

Alphabet.com has been down due to increased traffic while it has been noted that BMW isn’t the only company with Alphabet as its trademark. Reuters has reported over a hundred companies in the Unites States with the same trademark.

While it has been suggested that it is necessary for companies to own the .com domain, it is not important for finding a company’s online presence. Larry Page has stated earlier, that Alphabet won’t be introducing products under its own name and that it wouldn’t be a public facing name like Google. So this might not be a huge problem for the new Alphabet, after all.

August 12, 2015
China Blocks Alphabet Within Hours Of its Announcement

Yesterday was dedicated to Google’s new parent company, Alphabet, and the new CEO of Google, Indian-born resident of US, Sundar Pichai. The social media feeds have been trending with these two names in countries all over the world. Well, all but one.

China, the country made infamous on the grounds of not allowing its citizens access to sites like Google and Facebook, banned Google’s new Alphabet website in less than 24 hours of the announcement. China has one of the most sophisticated Internet censorship systems in the world, named as the ‘Great Firewall’. This has blocked the website that only contains Google’s co-founder Larry Page’s letter and a link to Google’s existing investor relation page. Though, this is not a new story. Google withdrew from China in 2010 over censorship issues where China drew the last ball when Beijing blocked Google’s widely used Gmail service last year.

The latest news on Google Inc. is that it has renamed itself as Alphabet, an umbrella company that owns Google and the other companies that Google owned. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will run Alphabet as CEO and President, respectively, while Sundar Pichai will be the new CEO of Google.

In an official blog post, former Google CEO Larry Page claimed that the major restructuring is to make “things cleaner and more accountable.” The official Google announcement on its blog, suggest that there will be a new placeholder site called abc.xyz. However, the entire list of companies that come under Alphabet is unclear.

August 12, 2015
Google Rebrands Itself as ‘Alphabet’

The biggest Internet-based tech company in the world has major announcements for us today. The latest news on Google Inc. is that it has renamed itself as Alphabet. Alphabet is now the umbrella company that owns Google and the other companies that Google owned. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will run Alphabet as CEO and President, respectively, while Sundar Pichai will be the new CEO of Google under Alphabet.

What is Alphabet? Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies. The largest of which, of course, is Google.

In an official blog post, former Google CEO Larry Page claimed that the major restructuring is to make “things cleaner and more accountable.” The official Google announcement on its blog, suggest that there will be a new placeholder site called abc.xyz. However, the entire list of companies that come under Alphabet is unclear.

“The whole point is that Alphabet companies should have independence and develop their own brands” – says Larry Page, CEO of Alphabet.

Alphabet’s aim, as mentioned in their official blog – is to have a strong CEO who runs each business, while the CEO and President of the umbrella company, handles capital allocation and work, to make sure that each business is doing well. This seems like a more consolidated administrative measure, more than anything else. It will help the founders to have a better hold over all the companies along with competent leadership. As of now there are no reports suggesting that this interior change would in any way affect the user’s day to day dealings.

[tw-toggle title=”A draft list of the companies under Alphabet”]
Alphabet (the main company) B (rumoured to be Boston Dynamics, however it is unclear whether it is under Google or not) Calico (focused on longevity) Capital (investment) D E Fiber Google (now led by Sundar Pichai and includes search, ads, maps, apps, YouTube, and Android) Hooli J K Life Sciences M Nest O P Q R S T U Ventures W X lab Y Z Please note that this is only a suggested list and not the confirmed one

[/tw-toggle]
For more information: [tw-button size=”medium” background=”#07ABE2″ color=”” target=”_self” link=”http://googleblog.blogspot.in/2015/08/google-alphabet.html”]Google Blogspot[/tw-button]

[tw-button size=”medium” background=”#07ABE2″ color=”” target=”_blank” link=”https://abc.xyz/”]abc.xyz[/tw-button]

August 11, 2015