Here's what we know so far, why it matters, and where you'll be able to get your hands on it.

The Problems Veo 4 Is Built to Solve

Today's AI video tools are impressive in short bursts. They can generate eye-catching visuals from a text prompt, and some can even produce synced audio. But once you try to use them for anything beyond a quick demo clip, the cracks show fast.

Clips are too short. Characters change faces between shots. The resolution looks great in a thumbnail but falls apart on a big screen. Camera movements feel random. And audio is a flat, unmixable mess. These aren't minor inconveniences. They're the reasons most professionals still treat AI video as a toy rather than a tool.

Veo 4, based on everything that's been leaked, looks like Google's attempt to fix all of these problems at once. And the early signs suggest they might actually pull it off.

Much Longer Clips in a Single Generation

The short clip problem is probably the most universally frustrating limitation in AI video right now. Most tools max out at a few seconds per generation. If you want to build a 30-second ad or a short narrative scene, you have to generate multiple clips separately and then manually edit them together. The results are often messy, with noticeable shifts in lighting, color, and character appearance between cuts.

Veo 4 is expected to generate continuous, coherent clips lasting 20 to 30 seconds in a single pass. That's not just a technical improvement. It's a practical one. A 25-second clip is long enough for a complete Instagram Reel, a product walkthrough, or a meaningful scene in a short film. And because the entire sequence is generated together, visual consistency should hold from start to finish.

For social media creators and digital marketers especially, this could eliminate one of the most time-consuming parts of the AI video workflow.

Native 4K That's Actually Native

Resolution claims in the AI video world deserve a healthy dose of skepticism. When most platforms say "4K," what they really mean is that they generated a 1080p video and ran it through an upscaler. The output technically has 4K dimensions, but it doesn't have 4K detail. Textures are soft, edges are smoothed over, and fine details get lost in the process.

Google is reportedly taking a different approach with Veo 4, using its massive TPU computing infrastructure to render video at true native 4K resolution. Every pixel generated from scratch, at full resolution, with no upscaling shortcuts. If this is accurate, the visual quality jump will be immediately noticeable, especially on large displays, in professional broadcast contexts, or anywhere that genuine sharpness matters.

For anyone producing stock footage, commercial content, or anything destined for a screen bigger than a phone, real 4K output would be a significant upgrade over what's currently available.

Character Consistency That Actually Works

Here's a scenario every AI filmmaker knows too well. You generate a beautiful shot of a character walking down a street. Then you generate the next shot, same prompt, same description, and suddenly the character has a different jawline, different hair, and a completely different outfit. Continuity is destroyed, and your short film looks like it stars five different actors.

Character persistence has been one of the hardest challenges in generative video, and it's the feature creators have been begging for the loudest. Veo 4 is rumored to include a lightweight identity-embedding system that lets you upload a small set of reference images, around three to five, of a specific person, character, or product. The model then locks onto that identity and maintains it across different scenes, camera angles, and lighting environments.

If this works as described, it opens up use cases that are currently impractical with AI video. Serialized content with recurring characters. Brand campaigns where a mascot or spokesperson looks identical across dozens of clips. Product videos where the item is visually consistent from every angle. This single feature could be what pushes AI video from novelty into genuine production utility.

Layered Audio for Real Post-Production Flexibility

Veo 3.1 already impressed people by generating synchronized audio alongside video. It was a cool trick, but the output was a single, flat audio track. You couldn't separate the dialogue from the background noise or adjust the volume of a specific sound effect without affecting everything else. For anything beyond a rough draft, you'd still need to redo the audio from scratch.

Veo 4 is expected to generate multi-layered audio, with dialogue, ambient sounds, and individual sound effects on separate, editable tracks. That's a huge difference. It means you could lower the background traffic noise without touching the character's voice. You could replace a specific sound effect without re-rendering the entire clip. You could drop in your own music track and have it sit cleanly in the mix.

There are even rumors of spatial audio support, where sounds shift directionally as the virtual camera moves through a scene. A car passing from left to right would move through the stereo field accordingly. This kind of detail is standard in professional film and game audio, but having it generated automatically is something new entirely.

Precise Cinematic Camera Control

Camera movement is where current AI video models tend to be the most unpredictable. You can ask for a "slow dolly in" and end up with a chaotic spin. You can request a "tracking shot" and get something that looks more like a security camera glitch. The AI understands that you want movement, but it doesn't reliably understand the specific language of cinematography.

Veo 4 is expected to change that by supporting precise, professional camera commands. Terms like "rack focus," "whip pan," "crane shot," "orbital drone shot," and "slow push-in" should produce results that match what those terms actually mean in filmmaking.

This matters more than it might seem at first glance. Camera movement isn't just decoration. It's storytelling. A slow zoom into a character's eyes creates tension. A wide crane shot establishes a world. A rack focus shift tells the viewer exactly where to look. Giving creators reliable control over these tools through AI would be a meaningful step toward making AI-generated video feel intentional rather than accidental.

Where You'll Be Able to Use Veo 4

One of the practical questions creators always ask about a new model is where and how they'll actually be able to access it. Google will likely make Veo 4 available through its own platforms, but that's not the only option.

Pollo AI has confirmed that it will integrate Veo 4 as soon as the model becomes available. For creators who already use Pollo AI as their go-to video generation app, this means you won't need to jump to a different tool or navigate a new interface. You'll be able to access Veo 4's capabilities right within the workflow you're already familiar with.

This is worth highlighting because platform accessibility matters just as much as raw model capability. A powerful model locked behind a clunky interface or a complicated API doesn't help most creators. Having Veo 4 available on Pollo AI means that filmmakers, marketers, social media creators, and small business owners can start experimenting with it immediately, without a steep learning curve or a complex setup process.

If you're already working with Pollo AI for your video projects, you'll essentially get a massive capability upgrade the moment Veo 4 goes live, without changing anything about how you work.

What This Means for Creators and Businesses

If Veo 4 delivers on even most of what's being rumored, the practical impact will be felt across multiple industries. Advertising teams that currently spend weeks and thousands of dollars producing a single 30-second spot could generate polished drafts in minutes. Independent filmmakers who can't afford professional crews could produce visually cinematic work on their own. E-commerce brands could create high-quality product videos at scale without booking studio time.

And the competitive ripple effects will be significant too. Other major players in the AI video space will need to respond, which means faster innovation and better tools for everyone. When Google raises the bar dramatically, the entire ecosystem levels up.

Should You Wait or Start Now?

If you've been holding off on exploring AI video because the current tools felt too limited, the arrival of Veo 4 might be the moment that changes your mind. But there's also no reason to sit on the sidelines until launch day. The best way to hit the ground running with a powerful new model is to already be comfortable with the workflow.

Platforms like Pollo AI already offer access to strong current-generation models, and building familiarity now means you'll be ready to take full advantage of Veo 4 the moment it drops. Learning prompt structure, understanding how to guide camera movement, and developing an eye for what works in AI video are all skills that transfer directly to a more powerful model.

The Bottom Line

Google's Veo 4 is shaping up to be the most ambitious AI video model we've seen yet. Longer clips, true 4K resolution, reliable character persistence, professional-grade layered audio, and precise camera control would collectively address nearly every major limitation that holds current tools back.

With a potential launch just weeks away, this is a moment worth paying attention to. Whether you're a professional filmmaker, a marketing team, or someone who just wants to make better content, Veo 4 could be the release that turns AI video from a promising experiment into an essential part of how you work.

Google's Veo 4 Is Almost Here—and It Looks Powerful

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New Delhi, Feb 29 (IANS)

The doodle portrays Rukmini Devi in the traditional dance attire, with flowers in her hair holding up a mudra amid the trademark lettering of the search giant in trailing pink.

Born in 1904, Rukmini Devi realised the value of Bharatnatyam which was considered a low art in the early 1920s. Her upper caste status and strong public disapproval could not dampen her spirit for presenting the art form on stage.

She was one of the artists who worked for the re-establishment of traditional Indian arts and crafts and revived the classical dance form from its original "sadhir" style.

She, along with her husband, established her own dance academy Kalakshetra near Chennai.

Rukmini Devi was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1956 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship in 1967.

She served as a Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) for two terms.

Rukmini Devi was also offered nomination as a presidential candidate by Morarji Desai in 1977 which she refused.

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The feature is great for browsing the internet on mobile devices because web-pages built with AMP load an average of four times faster and use 10 times less data than equivalent non-AMP pages, the search engine giant said in a statement.

AMP will allow publishers to deliver content to readers when they are on the move -- faster, consistently and along with a uniform experience.

"Starting today, Google will make it easy to find AMP webpages in relevant mobile search results, giving users a lightning-fast reading experience for top stories," said David Besbris, vice president (engineering), Search.

AMP is a collaborative effort with publishers and key technology companies who believed that poor mobile internet speed is one of the biggest problems of the web.

Since AMP works across devices, platforms and browsers, publishers can publish instantaneously and monetise everywhere.

Additionally, users will also have control over the look and feel of their content just as they do on their desktop and mobile sites today.

Basis research data has shown that people abandon websites after just three seconds if the content doesn't load quickly.

The new feature does away with such problems as it helps improve the mobile ecosystem for users, content providers, creators, advertisers and platforms by solving speed and performance problems.

AMP enabled webpages are easy to scroll through and do not take much time to load, Google said.

Big Indian publishing houses such as Network18, NDTV, India Today, The Hindustan Times and DNA, among others, have already come on board to support the initiative.

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The new update allows users to search for and add an extra stop to their route, without having to exit navigation mode in Google Maps, a company statement said.

"Google Maps has enabled travellers to navigate with greater ease, safety and convenience for years now. This new update will ensure that they can make a sudden or anticipated pit-stop and detours without having to exit navigation mode," said Suren Ruhela, director of Google Maps, in a statement.

"They can also add these to their routes for subsequent use if required, thereby easing the navigation process and also saving time," Ruhela added.

Google Maps will also show the users how long a stop will add to their trip while keeping them on their route.

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Washington, Feb 18 (IANS) Google's Indian-American chief executive Sundar Pichai sided with rival Apple in its battle over a court order to help the FBI access information on the encrypted iPhone used by a Pakistani-American shooter in San Bernardino.

Pichai Wednesday directed followers to Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook's open letter Tuesday night arguing that helping the FBI try to get into the phone used by Syed Rizwan Farook would sabotage the security of "tens of millions of American citizens."

Farook and his Pakistani origin wife, Tashfeen Malik, gunned down 14 people at a social services agency Dec 2 in San Bernardino, California, before being killed in a shootout with police.

FBI Director James Comey said last week that investigators still haven't been able to get at the information on Farook's iPhone 5c.

A Riverside, California court Tuesday directed Apple to help FBI crack the phone by developing software to hack into one of its own devices.

In a series of tweets Wednesday evening, Pichai argued that even that would essentially put tech companies in the position of hacking their own customers:

1/5 Important post by @tim_cook. Forcing companies to enable hacking could compromise users' privacy.

2/5 We know that law enforcement and intelligence agencies face significant

challenges in protecting the public against crime and terrorism 3/5 We build secure products to keep your information safe and we give law enforcement access to data based on valid legal orders 4/5 But that's wholly different than requiring companies to enable hacking of customer devices & data. Could be a troubling precedent 5/5 Looking forward to a thoughtful and open discussion on this important issue

The government, Cook contends, is asking Apple to create a "backdoor" to its own security systems.

"Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them," Cook wrote in a letter published on the company's website.

"But now the US government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create."

Reacting to Cook's stand, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said he was floored that Apple had not volunteered to aid the FBI. "Who do they think they are?" he asked on Fox News.

Speaking to reporters in South Carolina, Senator Marco Rubio said he hoped the tech giant would voluntarily comply with the government's request, but acknowledged the court order is far from a simple issue.

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New Delhi, Feb 17 (IANS)

Prior to the invention of the stethoscope by the French physician, placing the ear or hand to the chest of the patients for examining heart complications was the norm.

But late in 1816, while examining an overweight woman suffering complications of the heart, Laennec realised that a simple device can aid physicians in avoiding the embarrassment of placing an ear to the chest of a woman and also help them better detect the symptoms of the diseased heart.

"While examining a patient suffering complications of the heart, Rene Laennecs memory of a stroll taken months prior came rushing back," Google wrote in a statement.

He observed two children playing with a long stick -- one scraped it with a pin while the other listened giddily to the amplified sound on the other end.

Recalling this, Laennec rolled up a piece of paper and pressed it to his patient's chest.

The beating of her heart was suddenly audible and clear, and the stethoscope -- an innovation that would fundamentally change the detection and diagnosis of lung and heart problems -- was born, the statement said.

After several prototypes, he settled on an instrument that resembled a long, wooden tube. Using his invention, Laennec continued his research on sound in diagnostic medicine and made several important contributions to the field.

The google doodle depicts Laennec's very first stethoscope besides the one that we know today.

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New York, Feb 13 (IANS) After the launch of Google Photos service, internet search giant Google is shutting down its photo editing software Picasa, the company announced on Saturday.

“Since the launch of Google Photos, we have had a lot of questions around what this means for the future of Picasa. After much thought and consideration, we have decided to retire Picasa over the coming months in order to focus entirely on a single photo service in Google Photos,” Anil Sabharwal, head of Google Photos, wrote in a blog post.

“We believe we can create a much better experience by focusing on one service that provides more functionality and works across mobile and desktop, rather than divide our efforts across two different products,” he added.

Picasa is a software that enables users to easily manage photos on personal computers, transform them with effects and upload and share them online.

The company has said that the photos and videos, which are in the user’s Picasa Web Album could be accessed, modified and shared through Google Photos.

“For those of you who don’t want to use Google Photos or who still want to be able to view specific content, such as tags, captions or comments, we will be creating a new place for you to access your Picasa Web Albums data,” Sabharwal noted.

The company will start rolling out changes from May 1, 2016. However, the Picasa desktop application will no longer be in service from March 15, 2016.

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New Delhi, Feb 10 (IANS) Internet users in India today are more conscious about their online safety, internet giant Google India said on Wednesday as it rolled out several new features and resources designed to protect users online.

Google India released some key interesting search trends of last year that point towards the demand for greater cyber security.

The trends showed that in the past year there has been 20 percent more searches for "change password" and 97 percent more searches for "two-step verification".

Two-step verification requires more than just a password to sign into your Google account, such as a 6-digit code that is sent to your phone for more protection.

Google said that in the past year itself, there has been 591 percent more searches for "how to track a lost phone".

So to ramp up the online security, Google is offering initiatives like simplifying security settings to making trustworthy messages easier to spot in Gmail. Google will also be driving multiple initiatives to drive awareness about online safety among Indian Internet users.

"With an increase in the number of users coming online and the rise in the penetration of smartphone users in India, we at Google are committed to offering users a safe Internet experience," Sunita Mohanty, director, trust and safety, Google India said in a statement.

"We are adding five million new users a month taking the user base of connected' Indians to 500 million online by 2018-2019. It's more important now than ever before to ensure the data and profiles of these users are safe online," Mohanty added.

While supporting Safer Internet Day, Google is also offering its users 2 GB of extra Google Drive storage on completion of the security check-up by February 11.

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New Delhi, Feb 9 (IANS) The Delhi High Court on Tuesday asked Google Inc and Google India whether its video sharing site Youtube was making money out of content placed by the Indian information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry.

A division bench of Justice B.D. Ahmed and Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva asked the counsel representing Google to take instruction in this regard and file an affidavit on the issue.

Advocate Virag Gupta, appearing for former BJP ideologue K.N. Govindacharya, who filed the PIL, told the court that the government has given rights to its contents to Google free of cost which he said was "illegal".

He added that Google is using the same content to generate money through advertisements.

To this, the bench said: "Youtube is accessible to millions, so government is actually saving money. If the government is to telecast an event through Youtube, is it not a free of cost advertisement for it?"

It also asked Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain to file affidavit on agreements that the central government has with other companies such as Facebook, Twitter and other social networking app like Whatsapp.

During the hearing, advocate Gupta also alleged that Google was dodging the corporate social responsibility (CSR) of spending 2 per cent of its average net profit in India.

CSR is an enforceable law in India under the Companies Act and applies to Indian Companies including foreign companies operating in India with effect from April 1, 2014.

He further contended that as per contracts the government has with Google, it was "transferring/ surrendering" all intellectual property rights of the data being uploaded. He added: "These are government data and its rights cannot be surrendered."

The court was hearing a PIL by filed by Govindacharya raising questions on social media usage by the government.

The next hearing will be held on March 9.

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Delhi: Google CEO Sundar Pichai during a press conference in Delhi on Dec. 16, 2015. (Photo: Sunil Majumdar/IANS)

New Delhi, Feb 9 (IANS) In an effort to enhance disaster preparedness in India, tech giant Google on Tuesday announced public emergency alerts for floods in the country.

Along with flood alerts, Google users will also be able to access "river level" information for more than 170 areas in which the Central Water Commission (CWC) has active observation stations, the company said.

"Timely information is the first step in disaster preparedness and has the potential to save thousands of lives lost to natural disasters each year. By making critical information more widely available to people, flood alerts will enable citizens across the country to make quicker and more informed decisions," said Payal Patel, product manager, Google India.

These alerts can be accessed on Google web search, Google Now cards in the Google app, Google Maps, and on the Google Public Alerts homepage, on both desktop and mobile devices. The alerts will be created and shared using data provided by the CWC.

Among all the natural disasters that occur in India, floods are the most common. Chronic floods during the monsoon season on an average affect more than 30 million Indians annually. According to the Central Water Commission (CWC), on an average 7.21 million hectares (roughly 72,000 sq km) go under floodwater annually, Google said.

Heavy rains and floods also account for nearly 1,700 lives lost annually.

In 2015, the internet search giant introduced cyclone alerts to show information about cyclones in India. Clicking on the alert help users find information with details about the hazard, including a map and expected timeline, as well as tips on how to stay safe.

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New York, Feb 9 (IANS)

According to a Financial Times report, the new device with better Android VR technology will succeed the mobile VR viewer Cardboard that Google launched 12 years back.

It will also give tough competition to Gear VR - the flagship headset launched by South Korean electronic giant Samsung in collaboration with the US virtual reality technology company Oculus which is now available in India.

How is the new Google VR headset going to beat its rivals? According to the report, the company is embedding a new software directly into its Android operating system rather than relying on the app that is there with Cardboard for a better VR experience.

The updated Google headset will be compatible with a much broader range of Android devices than Gear VR that requires a compatible Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

A Cardboard unit consists of a cardboard housing, velcro and two lenses.

To use the headset, place a smartphone in front of the lenses and let the app on the smartphone replicate a virtual environment for you.

As you turn and move your head, the app adjusts based on the phones sensors that detect movement.

Google is expected to release the updated VR headset this year.

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Panaji, Feb 8 (IANS)

"We have written to email hosting agencies like Google for information about his online history. They are in the process of sending it back," Inspector General of Police V. Renganathan told reporters at the police headquarters in Panaji on Monday.

During the day, a court extended Sardana's police custody by four days.

Sardana, a chartered accountant by profession, was arrested on February 2, under Section 41 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, after he was reported by railway police to the Anti-Terror Squad of Goa Police for his mysterious behaviour and repeated visits to the Vasco railway station.

Police claim to have recovered five Indian passports and several mobiles phones from his possession.

Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar has also confirmed that information about bomb blasts in Goa was recovered from his laptop, which was seized by police.

Parsekar also said Sardana was a new convert to Islam and that he could have gone through online radicalisation.

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London, Feb 8 (IANS) A comparative study of Google and Microsoft smart glasses by Britain-based market research firm Juniper Research has found that the Microsoft’s HoloLens will be better poised at dominating the market by 2020, a media report said.

In a recently published report, Juniper Research said that more than 12 million smart glasses, like Google Glass and Microsoft HoloLens, will reach consumers by 2020. However, Microsoft has the upper hand because the HoloLens is advertised as a product people could use at home or at work whereas Google Glass is marketed as a mobile computing device, winbeta.org reported.

Juniper Research classified smart glasses as “head-mounted devices that provide display and computing capabilities while overlaying, but not replacing the visual world”. The Oculus Rift and HTC Vive were not included in Juniper’s definition due to their closed head-mounted displays.

"While Google Glass has similar features to a smartphone like a camera, phone messaging alerts, and directions. Smart glasses should not entirely replace the functionality of a smartphone," said James Moar, a research analyst with Juniper Research.

He added that HoloLens is different from Google Glass because the former is more about solving problems, creating new products, and editing models in a 3D environment to better visualise the final product.

"“For a consumer who does not need constant hands-free computing, most smart glasses functions can be more easily and cheaply done on a smartphone, which is now a much more common item in many markets", ” Moar added.

As HoloLens are smart glasses that are designed and equipped to handle indoor spaces (for now), Google Glass faces a significant challenge because it has to process the large amount of information needed to handle the demands of the outside world, according to the report.

Google Glass also presented a huge challenge to privacy concerns, it added.

While Microsoft is expected to ship out HoloLens developer units sometime soon, Google has gone back to the drawing board with Project Aura to remake the Google Glass experience into a more private system.

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New Delhi, Feb 8 (IANS)

Born on February 8, 1834, Mendeleev is popularly known as the "Father of Periodic Table".

He formulated the Periodic Law, created a farsighted version of the periodic table of elements, and used it to correct the properties of some already discovered elements and also to predict the properties of eight elements yet to be discovered.

Mendeleev's table, published in 1869, correctly organised the 63 known elements based on their atomic mass.

The table was expanded and refined over the years with further discoveries. Its seventh row was finally completed in January -- just weeks ahead of Mendeleev's birth anniversary.

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New York, Feb 5 (IANS) A Google engineer has developed a smart Android-powered bathroom mirror which automatically displays the latest updates on date, time and weather, and lets you do voice searches on Google, a media report said.

Max Braun, a software engineer with the multinational technology company, used a two-way mirror, a controller board, a display panel, components, arts and crafts supplies to create a device, which can be considered an early prototype of a Google Now mirror, techtimes.com reported.

Braun built the device because he wanted his bathroom mirror to be like the "future we were promised in the movies".

"There doesn't seem to be anyone selling the product I was looking for. The individual parts, however, were fairly easy to get. A number of people have done similar custom builds recently, but I had something different in mind," Braun was quoted as saying.

According to Braun, he plans to add more functions and features that work with Google Now, including traffic updates and reminders.

The software still has a long way to go, as the user interface is currently on a couple hundred lines of code. Braun also needs to settle on a platform and tidy up the innards of his creation. But he has managed to develop a fully functional display that is only a few millimetres in thinness.

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Washington, Feb 4 (IANS) India-born Amit Singhal, the longtime chief of Google's Internet search business, will leave the company on Feb 26 and be replaced by the head of the technology giant's artificial intelligence (AI) business.

With John Giannandrea, currently a vice president of engineering, taking Singhal's place, Google is merging its research efforts with search, an indication of the priority of machine learning inside the company.

Singhal, a 15-year Google veteran, was named "Google Fellow" in 2006 for his engineering work on the early search engine. In recent years, he has led the aggressive push for Google to improve its search results on mobile.

"Search is stronger than ever, and will only get better in the hands of an outstanding set of senior leaders who are already running the show day-to-day," Singhal wrote in his retirement message on Google Plus.

"My life has been a dream journey," he wrote. "From a little boy growing up in the Himalayas dreaming of the Star Trek computer, to an immigrant who came to the United States with two suitcases and not much else, to the person responsible for Search at Google, every turn has enriched me and made me a better person."

"It fills me with pride to see what we have built in the last fifteen years. Search has transformed people's lives; over a billion people rely on us," Singhal wrote.

"Our mission of empowering people with information and the impact it has had on this world cannot be overstated. When I started, who would have imagined that in a short period of fifteen years, we would tap a button, ask Google anything and get the answer.

"Today, it has become second nature to us. My dream Star Trek computer is becoming a reality, and it is far better than what I ever imagined," Singhal said.

Giannandrea, who joined Google in 2010, led Google's machine learning efforts, applying the technology to products such as image recognition for Google Photos search and the smart reply for Google Inbox.

"Machine intelligence is crucial to our Search vision of building a truly intelligent assistant that connects our users to information and actions in the real world," Google said.

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)

Google Search Chief Amit Singhal Handing Baton to AI Head John Giannandrea

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London, Feb 2 (IANS) Social media giant Facebook's official mobile app is slowing Android smartphones by 15 percent and is consuming excess battery power, a media report said on Tuesday.

The hugely successful smartphone app has been hit with controversy this week after a number of reports showed it drained battery life and slowed phones, express.co.uk reported Monday.

Facebook fans discussed the impact of the app on Reddit, with one user publishing a chart to show the drain caused by the Android app, the report said.

It was found during the test that involved launching 15 popular apps in succession. Each app loaded significantly faster when Facebook was not installed on the same smartphone.

"So yeah, I think that settles it for me... I am joining the browser-app camp for now," a Reddit user posted.

"Messenger seems to be worse than FB. Both apps individually caused a slow-down of roughly five percent in the test," the user claimed.

Another user said that "I think it had just become so bloated with features, things they kept adding to the main site that people wanted in the mobile apps also," adding, "Combine this with Android's tendency to let apps run wild in the background."

Last year, some iPhone users reported a similar problem saying the app began draining almost 40 percent of the battery.

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San Francisco, Feb 2 (AFP)

Alphabet yesterday reported that quarterly profit rose five per cent to USD 4.92 billion on the back of strong online advertising revenue.

The California-based Internet colossus said its revenue topped USD 21.3 billion in the final three months of last year.

Alphabet shares jumped more than five percent to USD 794 on earnings figures that beat expectations.

If those gains hold in official trading, Alphabet would overtake Apple as the world's biggest company by market value.

At the official close of trade, Apple was worth USD 534.7 billion based on its share value to USD 530.1 billion for Alphabet.

"Our very strong revenue growth in Q4 reflects the vibrancy of our business, driven by mobile search as well as YouTube and programmatic advertising, all areas in which we've been investing for many years," Alphabet chief financial officer Ruth Porat said in the earnings release.

"We're excited about the opportunities we have across Google and Other Bets to use technology to improve the lives of billions of people."

The earnings report was the first in which recently formed parent corporation Alphabet separated money made by Google from "other bets" such as its work on self-driving cars or delivering Internet using high-altitude balloons.

Alphabet's earnings listed a loss of about USD 3.6 billion last year in a consolidated "other bets" category that brought in USD 448 million in revenue.

Alphabet reported that its overall revenue for last year rose to USD 74.5 billion from USD 65.7 billion in 2014.

Alphabet subsidiaries include Google, Nest Labs, and Google X labs devoted to big-vision new technologies such as self-driving cars.

The move unveiled last year gives the tech giant more ability to focus on its core business, while offering startup-like flexibility to long-shot, trailblazing projects.

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New York, Jan 31 (IANS)

It has wiped all the related data regarding this $1,500 smart device, which it stopped selling in January 2015, from the social-media channels, including Facebook and Twitter, CNET online reported.

According to the report, the project on which Google is currently working is a product currently nicknamed Project Aura which will be redesigned from the ground up.

The in-charge of the new specs is Tony Fadell -- a Google employee since it bought his company Nest in 2014.

Fadell is man behind Apple iPod and the one who persuaded the tech world to fall for a thermostat, Nest's first product.

The social-media blackout seems to be Google's attempt to expunge from the internet the last vestiges of a brand that never achieved mainstream coolness, the report pointed out.

"Thanks for exploring with us. The journey doesn't end here," says a message on the Google Glass website.

Although the device made wearing spectacles and keeping them in place, especially while doing physical work such as running, much easier and guiding a group of cardiologists successfully opening up of a chronically blocked right coronary artery in the cardiac catheterisation lab, some Glass wearers have reported problems with device.

The main objections to the camera-equipped device were privacy-related, with many concerned about hacking, surreptitious photography and filming, the report said.

The device was also banned from many movie theatres due to concerns about piracy.

The photos of a new prototype appeared online last December.

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New Delhi, Jan 30 (IANS) Google on Saturday paid tribute to India's eminent painter Amrita Sher-Gil by dedicating a doodle of her famous painting of three girls on her 103rd birth anniversary.

Born to a Punjabi Sikh father and a Hungarian Jewish mother on January 30, 1913, she was also known as India's Frida Kahlo.

"Today's Doodle honours the 'Indian Frida Kahlo', who left no holds barred in her work, or in her life," a statement on Google Doodle's official website mentioned.

"Her paintings speak volumes of her passionate lifestyle and relentless desire to express herself through her canvasses," the statement added.

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New York, Jan 28 (IANS)

DeepMind, Google's taciturn artificial intelligence arm, announced that its programme AlphaGo defeated Fan Hui - the current champion of the game that was developed in China 2,500 years ago.

Fan Hui has devoted his life to the game since the age of 12 and extended his streak five games to nil in October last year in London.

Go -- a game of profound complexity -- is played by more than 40 million people worldwide. The number of possible positions in the game are more than, as they say, the number of atoms in the universe.

"When we set out to crack Go, we took a different approach. We built a system, AlphaGo, that combines an advanced tree search with deep neural networks," Demis Hassabis, the chief executive of Google DeepMind, said in a statement.

"After all that training, it was time to put AlphaGo to the test. First, we held a tournament between AlphaGo and the other top programmes at the forefront of computer Go," added David Silver of Google DeepMind, the lead author of the study authored by 20 DeepMind researchers that were published in the journal Nature.

Facebook is also working on beating Go and on Tuesday, the social website shared its advancements. Its CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted about the game, noting that while his artificial intelligence (AI) scientists have not beaten it yet, they are “getting close”.

"“The ancient Chinese game of Go is one of the last games where the best human players can still beat the best artificial intelligence players. Scientists have been trying to teach computers to win at Go for 20 years", ” he wrote.

"“We are getting close, and in the past six months we have built an AI that can make moves in as fast as 0.1 seconds and still be as good as previous systems that took years to build", ” he posted.

The first game mastered by a computer was noughts and crosses (also known as tic-tac-toe) in 1952. In 1997, IBM's Deep Blue computer famously beat Garry Kasparov at chess.

The game Go involves players taking turns to place black or white stones on a board, trying to capture the opponent's stones or surround empty space to make points of territory.

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New Delhi, Jan 26 (IANS)

The colourful doodle showed men on top of elaborately decorated camels.

Unlike many of Google's previous doodles, this doodle does not have any animation.

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Delhi: Google CEO Sundar Pichai during a press conference in Delhi on Dec. 16, 2015. (Photo: Sunil Majumdar/IANS)

Jaipur, Jan 21 (IANS) In an effort to get Indian languages better represented on the internet, Google said it was hosting a "Love Your Language" forum at the five-day Jaipur Literature Festival that commenced here on Thursday.

Google has invited participants of the festival and anyone passionate about Indian languages to contribute to the Google Translate Community.

Presently, Google Translate is available for nine out of Indias 22 official languages. But languages that are "under-represented" on the internet like Bengali, Telugu and Tamil could use a little help, a company statement said.

With more input from the community, Google Translate can boost the translation of these languages, making content on the internet more accessible to millions of people.

By putting Googles tools in the hands of our Indian users, we believe we can help build the web that works for millions around the world," said Sapna Chadha, country marketing manager, Google India.

"The Jaipur Literature Festival brings together people who are passionate about Indian languages and culture, so we can't think of a better place to invite people to contribute to the Translate Community and experience Indian heritage online, she added.

A demo zone has been set up at the Google Mughal Tent at the Jaipur Literature Festival to help people learn more about the Google Translate Community.

Festival visitors can also view highlights of Indias culture and heritage on the Google Cultural Institute. Monuments, artworks, crafts and narratives from across India will be on virtual display at a dedicated space at the literary fest.

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Detroit, Jan 13 (AFP) Google plans to partner with automakers on its self-driving car project, but is not yet ready to announce anything concrete, the head of the project has said.

"We are going to be partnering more and more and more," Google self-driving project chief executive John Krafcik said at a conference held in the shadow of the Detroit Auto Show.

As the project evolves, Google is going to need a "lot of help" expanding self-driving cars, said Krafcik, a longtime auto executive, most recently at Hyundai.

Major automakers will be able to help it produce "at scale," Krafcik said.

Google has been testing self-driving cars in two US states, California and Texas.

Other automakers, including Audi, BMW, Lexus, Mercedes and Tesla, have also been working on bringing self-driving capacities into vehicles.

Krafcik was tight-lipped about details of the program, declining to tell a moderator how many Google staff work on the project or to estimate when self-driving cars might reach the general public.

The chief motivation is to expand mobility to more people, including the elderly and disabled, Krafcik said.

The tech giant also sees the technology as critical to addressing deadly car crashes.

Short-term goals include improving the technology's performance in bad weather and in complex traffic scenarios.

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New York, Jan 5 (IANS)

Facebook and Google are at odds with each other given their competing ad and search interests, but according to sources, the world's largest social network is ready if things ever really go down the tubes, engadget.com reported on Tuesday.

To begin with, Facebook would replicate many of the services that one gets through Google Play-enabled apps, like in-app purchases and updates.

It has also explored ways to help people download its app outside of a store, and considered alternatives to Google Maps for location info, the report said, adding that Facebook may have even gone so far as to test Android users' dependence on its app.

It's not known if Google was aware of this fallback before now, but it wouldn't be surprising if the search giant had at least considered the possibility.

The report added that it's doubtful that Zuckerberg and crew would give up a competitive tool like Facebook app any time soon, as this would mean shooting itself in the foot given the social network is a big draw to the Play Store and a source of in-app revenue.

Facebook did not comment on the apparent leak.

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New Delhi, Dec 31 (IANS)

In the doodle, a combination of five animated birds can be seen with their party hats on. The birds are waiting for an egg - 2016 - to hatch.

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New Delhi, Dec 30 (IANS) Are you among those who log in to Google every time you are down with body ache, fever or cold, only to get more confused and scared? Many young Indians with smartphones in their hands are falling prey to the "Google-as-your-doctor" phenomenon and the dangerous trend is on the rise in the country, health experts feel.

Although there is nothing wrong in checking your symptoms or trying to find more about your illness on the internet, they say that one should know where to stop.

The ideal situation is to use search engines only when someone is diagnosed with a certain medical condition and wants to know more about it. The information available on the internet should be used to educate oneself rather than trying to find a cure for the disease.

"The biggest problem is that the internet is loaded with enormous information which could be correct too but then your symptoms could be similar to some other disease which may cause confusion. Therefore, correct diagnosis of your health abnormality is very important," Dr. Satnam Singh Chhabra, head (neuro-spine surgeon) at the Sir Gangaram Hospital here, told IANS.

He has observed many young Indian adults getting hooked to the internet to look for every little thing, even self-diagnosis.

For instance, if one has a health abnormality, then the instant reaction is to Google the symptoms before seeing an expert or a doctor.

"But one should be careful as people normally look for symptoms to get rid of curiosity and anxiety but to the contrary, it just worsens the scenario and leaves them more anxious," Chhabra said.

According to Dr. (Prof) Raju Vaishya, senior consultant (orthopaedic and joint replacement surgeon) at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, one should beware of getting trapped into "Google as your doctor" behaviour as this may cause more harm than good.

"Yes, there is an increasing surge in young Indians with smartphones who google common health symptoms. I find more such patients coming to me with queries related to hand, wrist and elbow," Vaishya told IANS.

Dr. R K Singal of the BLK Super-specialty Hospital had an interesting case study to share: "Once a patient in his mid-30s came to me with severe headache. He told me that he thought he had a brain tumour. After diagnosis, we found that headache was due to prolonged sore throat and rhinopharyngitis (common cold)."

"The patient visited me after a month of self-diagnosis through the internet. Whatever he found on the internet made him believe that he had a brain tumour," Singal told IANS.

According to Singal, people in the 25-40 age group are more hooked on to the internet and such self-diagnosis only increases one's anxiety.

Dr. Rahul Gupta, a senior neuro and spine surgeon at Fortis Hospital in Noida, is attending too many young Indians who come to him with weird health queries after scanning Google.

"Self-medication via the internet can be dangerous. Patients at times do not follow our advice and waste our time with silly questions," he stressed.

According to Gupta, Google is good when it comes to searching for a good doctor, checking spellings of a medication and reading about general health-related issues.

Another danger of self-diagnosis is that you may think that there is more wrong with you than there actually is.

"For example, if you had insomnia, inattention and depression, you may believe that you have a sleep disorder or major depression. Thus, you may make things worse by worrying more as well," Singal noted.

Self-diagnosis is also a problem when you are in a state of denial about your symptoms.

One may think that generalised body aches started with a worsening of mood, but a doctor may elect to do an electrocardiogram for chest pain that reveals possible coronary artery disease, the experts felt.

Are health websites trustworthy when it comes to answering health symptom queries?

"I don't see any harm in doing that because it's about your health after all. In fact, a lot of times my patients come back with queries after surfing about their health abnormality on the internet," Chhabra said.

So, educate yourself as much before or after you visit your doctor, but let the experts do their job. Let your doctor prescribe you a treatment well-suited for your ailment.

"One should be wise enough to understand which is an authentic website with relevant content as there are a lot of paid sites which exist only to make business," Chhabra advised.

Vaishya asked youngsters to share their internet-acquired knowledge with the doctor but not to force it upon the doctor to follow it.

"Trust your doctor more than Google," Gupta summed up.

(Nishant Arora can be contacted at nishant.a@ians.in)

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New York, Dec 29 (IANS) Remember the Google Glass? Well, the project seems to be alive as a brand new model of it appeared on the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) website.

The pictures show a Google Glass unit that looks a lot like the existing Glass design. The biggest change seems to be that the device can now fold up, just like a regular pair of glasses, which will make it much easier to store when you aren't wearing it, Ars Technica reported.

Google has filed patents with the FCC for a new version of the Glass device with photos, internal photos, test reports, test set-up photos, a user manual and information on radio frequency absorption for the device.

According to the user manual, the power button is positioned on the back of the device.

"The plastic cube just above your right eye allows you to interact with the device. The Home Screen is your starting point. By default, the display shows you the current time," read a document describing the device.

The Glass prism looks longer than the first version of the device, which presumably offers a larger picture.

"The camera button is located on top of the device near the display. Press the camera button to take a photo. Hold it down to record a video. The green light shows when the camera is on," it added.

The biggest news from the manual is that there is now a camera light on the front of the device, which the manual states will turn green when the camera is on.

This might help Glass gain a little more acceptance in public a"one of the things that freaked people out about Glass was that wearers could silently record people.

The FCC docs also show the unit now supports 5GHz Wi-Fi -- an upgrade from the last version of Glass that came in 2013.

The charging port is different, too. There is a set of pogo pins with large circles on either side of the contacts.

The device will reportedly only be sold through the "Glass for Work" programme, and businesses will be expected to load custom software on the device.

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New York, Dec 23 (IANS) To challenge rivals like Facebook, global internet search engine giant Google may be building a new app that lets users chat with friends or message a chat-bot for answers.

With an intelligent twist, the app would be able to do everything that a normal Google search can, such as offering up answers and providing links to web pages, The Verge quoted The Wall Street Journal as saying on Tuesday.

The report said Google was working on this new service for at least a year though the launch date was not known.

Google does not have a successful messaging app and Hangouts has not been a success among the social-savvy youth.

Reports also said this service was meant to directly compete with Facebook M, a bot that Facebook was testing in Messenger.

Like Google, Facebook M automatically searches the web for answers to questions, but it takes that one step further: for more complicated queries, a human assistant will take over, allowing M to do things far beyond what a computer could.

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Mumbai, Dec 21 (IANS)

One is required to be of above 18 years of age to open an account on YouTube, the video-sharing website.

Social media networking sites are used by 81 percent of the teenagers while 72 percent of them log into social media more than once daily, the survey by Assocham said.

Of these, 65 percent of the kids aged below 13 used social media sites and 76 percent of the children below 13 have a YouTube account, and 51 percent of them also have a Smartphone.

Over one-third -- 35 percent -- of the teenagers use laptops and 32 percent use tablets to access their favourite websites said Assocham Secretary-General D.S. Rawat.

"The statistics are sad and worrying. YouTube requires account holders to be 18, but even a five-year-old can easily sign up with parents' permission. Despite these clearly stated and published age restrictions, large and growing numbers of children between the age of 7 to 13 are using social media networks and access YouTube assistance without their parents' knowledge and consent," Rawat said.

The survey by Assocham's Social Development Foundation (ASDF) of 4,750 parents of children in the age group of 6-13 was conducted in various Indian cities.

YouTube is accessed daily by 76 percent of those below 13 with music video clips being the most popular, and 40-50 percent below the age of nine are also active on other sites.

In the survey, Lucknow ranked first on the YouTube chart followed by Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Coimbatore, Chandigarh and Dehradun.

"Minors lack the experience or judgement to use a social network and this raises the scary predators tracking down kids who reveal their age in an online chat, cyber bullying and online sexual abuse," commented Assocham Health Committee chairman B.K. Rao on the findings.

This is despite government's strict norms that prohibit kids under the age of 13 from joining YouTube, but this is norm daily in tier I and II cities which can lead to negative outcomes, cautioned the Assocham.

"The easy availability of technology with lack of parental supervision is a significant reason for this ever-increasing menace of technology addiction... Having a genuine and transparent two-way communication with children is absolutely fundamental to establishing a safe and positive cyber experience," Rawat noted.

A noteworthy aspect, which emerged from the survey, was that children of working parents were more technology addictive in the absence of parental supervision, as compared to those whose single parent is working, especially in the metro where normally both parents are employed.

YouTube is now the world's third-most popular online destination and of the 3.2 billion people with internet access, more than 1 billion watch it.

It has more Indian viewers ages 18 to 49 just on mobile than any cable network, adds the survey.

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New Delhi: Google CEO Sundar Pichai during a programme at Sri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) in New Delhi, on Dec 17, 2015. (Photo: Sunil Majumdar/IANS)

New Delhi, Dec 17 (IANS) Global internet search engine giant Google will train two million new Android developers in the next three years, its chief executive Sundar Pichai said here on Thursday.

"As per the new plan (by Google), we will train two million Android developers in partnership with 30 universities. This will be done over the time period of next three years.

"For me, getting many developers in the workforce are going to solve many new things," the Indian-origin CEO, who is on a three-day visit to India - his first after becoming the CEO of the restructured Google, said at the Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC).

He later called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who said he had "a very good meeting" with Pichai.

"Had a very good meeting with Google CEO," Modi tweeted.

At his SRCC interaction, Pichai asked how Google evolves to stay relevant, said: "In the technology world, everything changes in such a fast pace. In the 1980s, the personal computers were just getting underway and then in 1990s the internet came into existence in US and 10 years after that the smart phones started getting popular.

"This shows you how things change. So a lot of what we do is to figure out what the next phase is. You have to reinvent yourself."

Speaking his mind, the 43-year old CEO said: "If I wouldn't have become the CEO of Google, I would still be building software products."

Talking about the recent startup wave in the country, an upbeat Pichai said: "I have always been waiting for this change in India. Last year when I visited India, I really felt that startup culture had really taken hold here.

"Its incredible to see for the scale of India overtime, you do need entrepreneurs to tackle and build things for India and globally and I think it's a unique opportunity that India has. All the elements you need (for startups) are already here (in India)."

On Wednesday, Pichai met Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who said the global search engine company has reached in-principle an agreement with the Indian government for its research and development project, Loon, which is aimed at providing internet connectivity in rural India.

"I have proposed Google to partner with the state-owned telecommunications company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited for the pilot project," Prasad said.

Talking about the public Wi-Fi project which he announced on Wednesday, Pichai said he was very excited about it as it is the largest such project in the world wherein 400 railway stations will get Wi-Fi internet.

"The reason we are doing it is that in India when you bring access to internet it changes lives of people," Pichai said.

On a lighter note, he also told the students at SRCC that he dreamt of becoming a cricketer! He said he is a big fan of Barcelona and Argentine footballer Lionel Messi.

He also mentioned that he is a fan of legendary cricketer Sunil Gavaskar. "I did dream of being a cricketer. I used to be a fan of Gavaskar and later on Sachin (Tendulkar). I always loved technology. So I used to read about Silicon Valley "

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New Delhi, Dec 17 (IANS) Hailed as one of the best composers of all time, Ludwig van Beethoven was paid a tribute with a doodle that lets Google users arrange his sheet music in the right order to proceed.

Its unclear when Beethoven was born, but December 17 marks the 245th anniversary of his baptism. Therefore, it provided the team of Google "a rare opportunity to construct a game in step with beautiful music, whose evocative moods, drama, lightness, and depth made conjuring visuals to match it rollickingly fun".

"Help Beethoven's unfortunate journey to the symphony hall by arranging his masterpieces in time for the big crescendo," reads google.com.

Google users need to arrange Beethovens sheet music, in a puzzle format, in the correct order to move on to the next step. It's not an easy task as the user has to mix up the pieces on his way to conduct a concert.

The game focuses on the composers works like "Fifth symphony" and "Moonlight Sonata".

The engineers involved in making it include Jordan Thompson, Jonathan Shneier, Kris Hom and Charlie Gordon, with the design lead by Leon Hong. Animatics/Additional Art is by Nate Swinehart and piano recordings by Tim Shneier, and production is by Gregory Capuano.

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Delhi: Google CEO Sundar Pichai during a press conference in Delhi on Dec. 16, 2015. (Photo: Sunil Majumdar/IANS)

New Delhi, Dec 16 (IANS) Google will build a new campus at Hyderabad, even as it is working towards including as many people as possible to use the Internet in India, its chief executive, Sundar Pichai, said here on Wednesday.

"In our attempt to provide Internet access to people, we have decided to provide Wi-Fi in 400 railway stations with RailTel. The 100 stations will come online by 2016 end. Mumbai Central station will be online by January," Pichai said at an event here.

This was also a part of the assurance which Google gave to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when he visited the search engine giant's headquarters at Mountain View, Santa Clara County in California in September this year.

Regarding the company's expansion plans in India, he said: "We will ramp up our engineering investments at our Bangalore and Hyderabad facilities."

"We will also build a huge new campus in Hyderabad," he said but did not disclose the amount of investment. The company now has 1500 employees in India.

"This country has given me and Google so much and I just hope we can give much more to the country," he said, adding: “A lot of what today is about is how we build products for the next billion Indian users, yet to come online."

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New Delhi, Dec 15 (IANS) Google CEO Sundar Pichai will meet President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his first visit to India since he took the top job in August.

There will be no new launches this time, but informed sources said Pichai will meet Google employees.

The India-born CEO, who will visit India on Wednesday and Thursday, is scheduled to address the media on Wednesday. He will meet Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad later.

On Thursday, Pichai will meet Modi after which he will attend a chat session with students of Shri Ram College of Commerce. In the evening, he will attend a banquet hosted by President Mukherjee.

Modi, during his US visit in September, met Pichai at the Google headquarters in Mountain View, Santa Clara.

Pichai was born in Chennai in 1972. He went to IIT-Kharagpur before going to Stanford University to pursue his Ph.D.

During his last visit to India in September 2014, Pichai launched Android One.

The telecom wing of the Indian Railways, RailTel, recently signed an agreement with the subsidiary of Google India to provide Wi-Fi facilities at 400 stations across the country.

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New York, Dec 13 (IANS/EFE)

Pier 57, located on the Hudson river, will be transformed into office, commercial and cultural space, offering more than 23,000 square metres in the heart of the Meatpacking district, one of the city's most desirable areas.

The project, being anchored by Google, includes a new public market featuring restaurants serving up local and international dishes under celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, Daily News reported.

The market planned by Bourdain, a CNN personality, will cost between $20 million and $30 million, and is expected to have about 100 vendors selling fresh products.

A large public park offering views of the Hudson river and neighbouring New Jersey, and a new centre for the Tribeca Film Festival will be part of the project.

Pier 57, located at the end of 15th Street on Manhattan's west side, was built in 1952 on pilings over the river.

The pier was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.

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