Thursday , November 7 2024

Google parent hit by higher costs, names new chairman

Google on Thursday expanded its YouTube Go application tailored for emerging markets to more than 130 countries, promising to deliver local, relevant video despite spotty or unreliable mobile data networks.

More than 1.5 billion people watch videos at YouTube each month, and a subscription YouTube TV service was recently made available on Roku devices.

Smart home devices by Nest, another subsidiary, boasted a strong holiday season, and ended the year in 12 new countries more than doubling its markets from the year 2016, according to Google.

Google executives also said that progress at its self-driving car unit Waymo was “accelerating,” and that it was the first company to have a fleet of cars navigating public roads without humans in the driver seats.

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They declined to discuss how they planned to make money at Waymo, saying it was still early days for the unit o Google.

A billion-dollar trade secrets trial pitting Alphabet-owned Waymo against Uber starts Monday, with jurors finally getting to hear evidence rival attorneys have spent months dueling over.

The case stems from a lawsuit filed last year by Waymo — previously known as the Google self-driving car unit — which claimed former manager Anthony Levandowski took a trove of technical data with him when he left to launch a competing venture that went on to become Otto and was later acquired by Uber.

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