Google denies it is keeping Chinese censored search engine alive

Still, employees are concerned about the number of changes being made to the code repository for major parts of Project Dragonfly.

Pichai tells DC pols Chinese Google search isn’t imminent, but is being modeled

Google has been developing potential search engine products for the restrictive Chinese market, its CEO tells Capitol Hill lawmakers.

iOS and macOS Spotlight web search preferences move from Bing to Google

Siri, Spotlight on Mac and Search Inside iOS functions will refer to Google engine results rather than Bing from here on out.

Google estimated to be paying Samsung even more than Apple for search engine pre-loading

As the world's number one smartphone vendor, Samsung is likely charging Google around $3.5 billion a year for search engine preinstallation.

Google pays billions a year to be the default iPhone search option

Financial firm Bernstein estimates that this year's total will be $3 billion, based on multiple financial line items on Google's and Apple's sheets.

Microsoft joins AMP project with Bing results showing them off

Bing will load Accelerated Mobile Pages from content partners who have agreed to participate in the open source project. The result? Faster access.

Microsoft Word Flow 2.0 has Bing-powered GIF search, contact and business lookup

The big "Bing" heard around iOS. You can chew through GIFs, restaurants and a whole bunch more and spit it out into your conversation.

Gesture typing among features for possible Google Keyboard on iOS

The search engine wants to drive up the amount of queries from its mobile users. Its new keyboard would heavily implement Google search.

Siri now gives relevant results when looking up abortion clinics

Apple has known about this problem for five years. After a slew of coverage on the bug, it has framed a fix to this issue as part of larger patches.

Ask Google complex questions — it’ll give its best try

We’re somewhat used to asking Google Now to set an alarm for 11:30pm. After all, we can find and play back that very request we made, along with the hundreds of times that we’ve made it. When we asked about Sandra Bullock’s birthday, Google’s Knowledge Graph would pop up a card with her date of birth, her age and a picture of her because you forgot what she looked like.

Now, we can finally ask who the US President was when the Angels won the World Series. That and other such complex questions have been tested with Google’s additions of some query [...]

App Store searches get new algorithm, more relevant results

With the Mac App Store fiasco sorted out, it’s time to refocus on the apps themselves. Specifically, how to find them.

Online advertising offers a direct way for potential customers a direct land on your app’s page. But what if you’re promoting in that real life kind of space — ordering billboards and such? Moreover, if people find themselves in a situation where they’ll “look it up later” for any reason, what are the chances that they’ll find your application?

It turns out that Apple’s working on improving [...]

You can switch up Microsoft Edge’s search engines on Windows 10 Mobile soon

Microsoft is clingy. It’s implanted Internet Explorer as your default web browser for the longest time. And if you happen to use Microsoft Edge on a frequent basis, you’ll have found out how to switch your search engine: you have to go to the search engine site, then go into “Advanced Settings” and then choose from a list of possible (if implausible) search providers.

Very intuitive, indeed.

The Microsoft Edge app for Windows 10 Mobile does not have this feature right now, but it will soon. One Russian Windows Insider is on the case.

Google is getting more search volume from smartphones than PCs

Google is web search around here. Below all the smartphones and IoT devices and Fiber and that kind of goodness, Alphabet makes money having Google put up advertisements to those who look for things on this here internet. But where that traffic comes from matters and with the introduction of full-scale ad-blocking on iOS 9 (which Google Play has previously shunned), we have some issues to chew over.

The big news comes from Amit Singhal, Google SVP of search, at re/code’s Code/Mobile conference:

This summer for the first time we are getting more searches on mobile [...]

Google Now, Siri and Cortana need to be more human

No, I’m not talking about their sound. I mean, sure, developers can definitely help relating voice assistants’ with the average user by fine-tuning their voices to sound like people and not cyborgs. I think, though, that they should retain some robotic quality so that users clearly know what they’re interacting with as opposed to who.

How Google Now, Siri, Cortana, or any other voice service interacts with you is more important. Important to you, the person who wants data from the internet. It’s most important to the companies behind the services which [...]