Google Pixel, Chromecast, and smart speakers may be banned from US sale following Sonos lawsuit loss

The streaming space seems to be blowing up, whether for ethical issues, embarrassing lack of content, or ridiculous price hikes. Let's be honest here; it's pretty hard to pay for them all. Sometimes, you just have to cut one off. Amazon has given us more than enough reasons to want to put distance between ourselves and its Prime membership and streaming service. Between the constant barrage of news about alleged worker mistreatment and union-busting efforts, plenty of people might be questioning their loyalty to the company in general.

Hot on the heels of a Google executive explaining how Matter will be the next big thing for smart home gadgets, Google has taken it further today and announced on stage at Google I/O how Matter will work in its Home ecosystem and which of its devices will support which features. While Matter will only launch on Google Home sometime "later this year," Google already makes clear how it will work and how developers can take advantage of it.

It's been less than three weeks since Elon Musk's plan to buy Twitter for $44 billion was accepted by the company's board, and already, it's running into a few issues. On the heels of a filing in which Twitter stated less than 5% of its users were bots or spam, Musk announced his purchase is on ice while the veracity of this claim is investigated.

After months of leaks and rumors, Google took the stage today to debut the Pixel 6a as part of Google I/O 2022. As expected, it's an even more affordable version of the Pixel 6 series, powered by the same exact Tensor chipset as last year's flagship, and priced at just $449.

Sonos has long been heralded as the whole-home audio company that places sound fidelity, design, and material quality above the need for affordability. But given the market share it's losing to competitors like Google and Amazon on the smart speaker front, and Vizio, Samsung, TCL, and Sony on the soundbar front, it's attempting to find an appropriate price-to-performance compromise with its latest announcement.

As part of a lawsuit between shareholders and Elon Musk regarding his “funding secured” tweet, new text messages and emails between Musk and people involved have been released. The communications pretty much confirmed how most people saw the situation: Elon Musk took a meeting with the head of...

Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, who thinks tunnels are immune to natural disasters, is purchasing Twitter. The company confirmed on Monday afternoon that it had accepted the billionaire’s offer. “Twitter, Inc. today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Elon Musk, for $54.20 per share in cash in a transaction valued at approximately $44 billion,” reads the official press release. “Upon completion of the transaction, Twitter will become a privately held company.”

Google users will now be flagged for using politically incorrect words while searching as the technology giant launched an "inclusive language" function. The move of Google is to avoid the use of politically incorrect words. In a report by The Sun, if a user uses terms deemed politically incorrect by...

Jeff Bezos, the founder and former CEO of Amazon, and Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and soon-to-be owner of Twitter, don't strike me as best buds. The two men have competed over the past few years for the title of the world's richest man, a title Musk holds. They also sort of compete in space, with Bezos' Blue Origin competing against Musk's SpaceX.

Google's on a privacy bender at its Google I/O developer conference, highlighting how it's working to keep your data private. Of course, this affects ads, which aren't just Google's bread and butter, but the mechanism that keeps most of the internet running. Personalized ads have always felt a little skeevy, but Google's rolling out a tool later this year called My Ad Center that will let you fine-tune the sorts of ads you don't want to see and opt-in if there are specific subjects you do want to see more ads for.

Google I/O 2022 is rife with feature announcements promising tighter integration between Android phones and tablets, Chromebooks, and Wear OS watches, to name a few. While it’ll take some time to achieve connectivity as seamless as Apple’s ecosystem, the small improvements do add up. Aside from Matter for the Google Home ecosystem and screencasting for Chromebooks and cars, Google’s supercharging the Phone Hub on Chromebooks for a better messaging experience.

The stream of announcements out of the Google I/O 2022 keynote have been pretty extensive, but it's not stopping there. The What’s New in Google Play session continues with even more news focusing on new tools and features for developers aimed at enabling them to make more informed decisions, better support their users, and ultimately improve their business.

Today, at its annual I/O conference, Google briefly teased an upcoming Pixel-branded tablet. There were practically no hard details; all we know for sure is that it'll be powered by a Tensor CPU and that Google intends to launch it next year. But we also got a look at renders of the tablet, and it bears a striking resemblance to existing Nest devices. This has to be the rumored "detachable Nest Hub" we heard about this spring, and I'm excited it'll be a real product — sneaking back into the market with a smart home-focused device might be Google's ticket to actually selling some tablets.

Google is a company built on knowing about its users so it can serve targeted ads, but it strives to keep personal communication separate from its advertising arm. Last year, Google added end-to-end encryption to 1-on-1 RCS chats in the Messages app. Just because you're talking to more than one person doesn't mean everyone should be able to listen in, and as announced during the Google I/O keynote, that feature is now coming to group chats.

Google has made significant strides over the years in making interactions with Assistant as natural as possible. However, saying "Hey Google" every time you want to talk to it can still feel awkward. At Google I/O 2022, the company is announcing Look and Talk, its next big step in resolving this barrier by completely eliminating the need to use the wakeword.

Pixel users have had fun with Android 13 since the first developer preview arrived in February. Meanwhile, owners of other devices have been left to watch from the sidelines, missing out on all the goodies of the new operating system... until now. With Android 13 officially in the beta phase of development, manufacturers like Oppo, OnePlus, and Realme — plus a whole lot more — are now calling upon their customers to enroll their flagship devices in respective developer preview programs.

While the real deal isn't coming out until this fall, Google could stay quiet any longer. At Google I/O 2022, the company couldn't help but give us our first official look at the Pixel Watch — and our first official look at what Wear OS 3.1 will look like on it.

Since Android was first launched in 2008, it has become the most widely used mobile operating system in the world. As we move toward an all-connected world, smartphones have become an essential pylon in our society, and Android powers everything from bleeding-edge, ultra-expensive flagships to low-tier, under $100 smartphones, so its flexibility has allowed it to become hugely successful. Still, we're constantly impressed by how quickly Android is growing, even today. At Google I/O 2022, the company shared a few numbers to show the world Android growth is still more healthy than ever.

The OnePlus Nord Buds were officially revealed at the end of April, and we’ve now heard that they’ll be coming to the US in mid-June this year. The company has yet to share an official release date, but it has confirmed those in the US and Canada will be able to buy them from the middle of next month. OnePlus has also confirmed they’re coming to European markets, but we’ve yet to hear a release window, so it may be later in the year.

There are open source alternatives for most apps, but you may not even be aware of free and open source alternatives to Google Calendar. If you're unfamiliar with the idea of open source, the core concept is that the source code is accessible to anyone, so installing an open source calendar app prevents any of your data within the app from being tracked or shared without your knowledge.