A new Google feature that will allow users to search using both images and text combined in to find local retailers who offer the apparel, home goods or the food you’re looking for will soon roll out to users in the U.S., Google announced today at its “Search On” event. The company had first previewed this feature at its Google I/O developer conference this May, signaling a development that seemed to be built in a future where AR glasses could be used to kick off searches.

The capability builds on Google’s A.I.-powered “multisearch” feature introduced in April, which let users combine a photo and text to craft custom searches, initially around shopping for apparel. For instance, you could search Google using a photo of a dress but then type in the word “green” to limit search results to just those where the dress was available in that specific color.

Multisearch Near Me, meanwhile, expanded this functionality even further, as it could then point the user to a local retailer that had the green dress in stock. It could also be used to locate other types of items, like home goods, hardware, shoes, or even a favorite dish at a local restaurant. 

“This new way of searching is really about helping you connect with local businesses, whether you’re looking to support your local neighborhood shop or you just need something right away can’t wait for the shipping,” said Cathy Edwards, VP and GM of Search at Google.

Image Credits: Google

At Google’s developer conference, the company had previewed how the feature would work, as users could leverage their phone’s camera or upload an image to begin this different type of search query. The company also demonstrated how a user could one day pan their camera around the scene in front of them to learn more about the objects in front of them — a feature that would make for a compelling addition to AR glasses, some speculated.

However, this feature itself was not yet available to users at the time — it was just a preview.

Today, Google says Multisearch Near Me is going to roll out to U.S. users in the English language “this fall.” It didn’t give an exact launch date.

Plus, the multisearch feature itself (without the local component) will also expand to support over 70 languages in the next few months.

Google to launch its image and text-based ‘Multisearch Near Me’ local search feature in the U.S. by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

Google today announced it’s revamping the traditional Google Search experience to allow users to more naturally explore information. To accomplish this, the company is introducing a number of new features, including tools to drill down into topics and other changes that will make using search a more visual experience, highlighting maps snippets, imagery and even video in new ways.

The update follows Google’s disclosure earlier this year of internal research which indicated younger people had begun turning to other services, like TikTok and Instagram, instead of Google to kick off their web searches. The changes it’s introducing now show it’s taken some inspiration from how younger people use the web — preferring easily accessible and visual content, as well as more guidance as they begin to make queries.

To start, one new feature will introduce shortcuts to some of Google’s helpful tools directly on the home screen of the Google app, under the search box. Here, users will be presented with buttons that let users take quick actions to do things like translate text using their camera, solve a math homework problem, identify music, or shop from your screenshots, for example.

Some of these are clearly aimed at younger audiences, like those who grew up Shazam’ing music or online shopping then saving images of favorite products, as well as those who are comfortable trying out newer technology, like Google Lens.

These buttons don’t necessarily link to new features, but to Google’s services that may not be as well-known as they could be because they’ve not necessarily been well-highlighted in the past.

Image Credits: Google

Another change will improve Google’s search refinement tools for text-based queries by expanding upon its existing list of auto-complete suggestions to provide buttons below the search box that can help you drill down into various sub-topics as you search.

For instance, if you were researching a place or vacation destination, the buttons might suggest topics like culture, history, weather or other things you may need to know.

Image Credits: Google

More Visual Search

However, the biggest change coming to Google Search is how it will present information to users for some of its search results. While it’s not abandoning the list of blue links, it is giving its informational boxes known as “Knowledge Panels” a visual makeover.

Here, Google will pull in a variety of information from various sources and in a range of formats.

Image Credits: Google

If researching a place, for example, you may find photos, a small map showing its location, directions, weather, and even short videos. These aren’t presented as a list of links or in a text-heavy format, but rather in colorful, card-style blocks interspersed with media and imagery.

“This builds on our launches over the last year of introducing this really browsable visual-first results as well as continuous scroll on mobile,” noted VP and GM of Search Cathy Edwards, in a briefing ahead of today’s event.

In some cases, these visual search results will highlight YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok content, Google says.

The tech giant has been thinking about how to best showcase creator content in Google Search results for some time. In 2020, it began piloting a feature that aggregated short-form videos from TikTok and Instagram into their own carousel in the Google app. The following year, The Information reported it was seeking search deals with Instagram and TikTok that would allow it to get the data it needs to index and rank videos.

The company today is downplaying any specific agreements it may have, though, noting that TikTok’s content is all indexable on the public web — which means, for now at least, Google can access it and present it however it sees fit. YouTube Shorts content will also be indexed in the same way, she added.

“We index content and we return it when we think it’s relevant to the user’s results. And we’ll continue to do that,” Edwards said.

Image Credits: Google

Google has other plans to better integrate TikTok into its search results, as well, but didn’t go into detail on that front, beyond acknowledging the user demand for more easily searchable TikToks.

“We definitely know that there is a class of user who really does like the results that they see on TikTok,” Edwards acknowledged. “I think part of that is just because TikTok has reduced the barrier to entry for content creation, so there’s some really good content there. And we are looking at more ways to bring that into our search results,” she said.

This visual update won’t impact all Google Search results, however. Instead, it will begin to appear on search result pages where the visual format would be more helpful, like travel searches, Google said.

Image Credits: Google

The updated Google Search experience was one of several changes the company announced today at its Search On event, which focused on improvements to various Google products like Search, Maps, Translate, Shopping and more.

There’s a very real sense amid these updates that Google is trying to adapt its business to a world where users are often no longer starting their queries on its own platform, as they did in the earlier days of the web. Google’s own research showed that almost 40% of young people would often just search TikTok or Instagram to find a place to for lunch, instead of Google or Google Maps, said Google Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan, who runs Google’s Knowledge & Information organization, when speaking at a tech conference earlier this summer.

While Google won’t go so far as to admit Gen Z’s web usage is driving the change, it did acknowledge their influence.

“There’s definitely this really strong preference for visual there,” Edwards said, referring to Generation Z, but noted that Google had a responsibility to develop products for a larger user base than just one segment. Still, she added, “we certainly are particularly interested in these user segments and they did give us some ideas.”

Google unveils a more visual search experience for the TikTok generation by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

Google is revamping its Play Store in an effort to help users better discover and install apps to other devices via their phone. The company announced a series of changes to the Google Play Store that will enable cross-device discovery and new tools to help developers better showcase their non-phone apps, it says.

Among the new features now coming to the Google Play Store phone app, is the addition of homepages dedicated to non-phone devices. Google notes that Android users today are in search of apps that can run on their watches, tablets, TVs and even in their cars, which is why it wanted to make those different types of apps more easily found.

Another feature allows users to access a new device search filter that helps them find apps and games for other devices besides their phones. The search results that appear when using this filter will only include those apps and games that are compatible with the selected device. That way, you don’t have to waste time trying to figure out if the Android app you liked had a watch counterpart, for example.

Image Credits: Google

And, when users find an app or game they want to install, they’ll be able to now click a button to remotely download that app to their non-phone device through the Play Store phone app. This works similarly to the functionality available today which allows users to remotely install to other phones under their same Google account.

The changes follow the recent launch of a major Google Play Store redesign on the web which now allows users to access the website on their PC or non-Android phone to remotely install apps to their various Android devices, as well. This update also included simplified navigation, improved accessibility and other changes to the way information is presented to end users with the goal of making it simpler to find non-phone apps.

For developers, the combination of updates should allow the ability to help them better market their non-phone apps to consumers as they’ll no longer be crowded out in search by those that are phone-only or that don’t support the given device. And if their app is exclusive to one platform, they may even now have a better chance at being discovered, for this same reason.

Google officially announced the updates on Tuesday, but the features had already begun rolling out to global users in the weeks prior.

Google updates the Play Store to make it easier to find non-phone apps by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

Hi, friends! Welcome back to Week in Review, the newsletter where we very quickly sum up the most read TechCrunch stories from the past week.

Want it in your inbox every Saturday morning? Get it here.

most read

• GTA 6 footage leaks: Roughly 90 clips of the next Grand Theft Auto game leaked out this week, with the uploader claiming to have hacked Rockstar Games’ internal Slack. Rockstar confirmed the “network intrusion,” adding that they are “extremely disappointed” to see things leaked this way but that development will “continue as planned.”
• Wipro fires 300 employees for moonlighting: India’s IT giant Wipro “has fired 300 employees in recent months who were found to be moonlighting for competitors,” writes Manish, with Wipro chairman Rishad Premji calling moonlighting an “act of integrity violation.”
• Revolut hacked: Banking/financial services startup Revolut confirmed this week that hackers were able to breach details for a “small percentage” of its customers. The company declined to get specific about exactly how many customers that works out to, but a breach disclosure filed with authorities in the company’s home country of Lithuania suggests it’s around 50,000.
• Brelyon’s wild monitor: Want something more immersive than a standard monitor but don’t want a VR headset strapped to your face? Brelyon is trying to reimagine the display, and they’ve raised $15 million from a pretty impressive roster of investors to get it done.
• Kia and Hyundai sued over design flaw: Earlier this year, a TikTok went viral that publicized a not-very-complicated way to steal certain models of Kia and Hyundai vehicles. Now a class action lawsuit has been filed against the automakers, with the complaint claiming the cars were “deliberately” built without “engine immobilizers,” which Rebecca describes as an “inexpensive and very common device” meant to prevent this issue.
• Google’s new Chromecast: Two years ago, Google launched a 4K version of the Chromecast — the first Chromecast to come with a dedicated remote, rather than requiring a smartphone for everything. They’re now bringing the same design plus a remote to the more affordable HD (1080p) model. The HD model will cost $30, while the 4K version will cost $50.
• Facebook users sue Meta over iOS tracking: “The complaint,” writes Taylor, “alleges that Meta evaded Apple’s new restrictions by monitoring users through Facebook’s in-app browser, which opens links within the app.”

audio roundup

You like podcasts? We’ve got podcasts! Good ones. Great ones. Award-winning ones, even! This week:

• The Equity team asked, “What does breaking into venture capital look like today, and how is it changing?”
• My friends on Found talked to the co-founders of Change about how/why they built a crypto-centric API for charitable giving.
• The Chain Reaction crew talked about — what else? — the recent massive changes to the way Ethereum works, and the perhaps-surprising impact “the merge” had on the market.

techcrunch+

Most stuff on TechCrunch is free. So what’s behind the TechCrunch+ paywall? Here’s what TC+ members were reading most:

• Why did ETH tumble after “the merge”?: Was the market just correcting after a stretch of hype? Did they “alienate a core demographic?” Jacquelyn does a deep dive on the possibilities.
• Stop spending so much time on your product when pitching to investors: That may seem like wild advice, but Haje makes good points here. Your product might be everything to you, but it’s really not the only thing investors are considering.
• YC’s Seibel clarifies “misconceptions” about the accelerator: What do people get wrong about Y Combinator? YC’s Michael Seibel stopped by the Equity podcast to chat, and Natasha and Alex pulled some key excerpts out of the transcript for your perusal.

GTA 6 footage leaks, Revolut gets hacked, and Wipro fires 300 for “moonlighting” by Greg Kumparak originally published on TechCrunch

As antitrust regulators around the world dial up scrutiny of platform power, Mozilla has published a piece of research digging into the at times subtle yet always insidious ways operating systems exert influence to keep consumers locked to using their own-brand browsers rather than seeking out and switching to independent options — while simultaneously warning that competition in the browser market is vital to ensure innovation and choice for consumers and, more broadly, protect the vitality of the open web against the commercial giants trying to wall it up.

Mozilla is not a bystander in the browser arena, as it of course developers the Firefox browser and the Gecko engine that underpins it. But it’s a non-profit, free software developer, rather than a commercial player. It also remains the underdog in market share terms — with the market being dominated by Google’s Chrome browser and Apple’s Safari (especially on mobile); and by the technical infrastructure the pair develop via their respective Blink and Webkit browser engines. Just those three browser engines (Blink, Webkit, and Mozilla’s Gecko) are the only ones left in play — powering all browsers available to consumers. (Microsoft’s Edge, for example, runs on Google’s Blink).

Perhaps the most striking thing about Mozilla’s report is how unexceptional most of its conclusions are.

It’s hardly news that Google bundles Chrome with Android and Apple preloads Safari on iOS and that most mobile users won’t bother changing those defaults — especially as neither mobile platform makes it easy to switch default browser, even as their brand name familiarity exerts its own stickiness discouraging consumers from seeking out smaller, less well known alternatives.

Nor is it a news flash that Windows-maker Microsoft bundles its own Edge browser on desktops running its operating system. Although some of the sneaky tactics it uses to promote its browser to users and actively discourage the downloading of alternatives might be new if you’re not a regular Windows user. (Examples cited in the report include a “recommended browser settings” pop-up which pushes consumers to pick Edge as their default browser by deploying messaging that implies the pre-selected choice is a necessary setting for security; or the tech giant actively targeting Firefox users with an ad for Edge that appears as “suggested” content in the Windows start menu, alongside the message “Still using Firefox? Microsoft Edge is here”.)

But the visibility and extent of operating system lock-ins — combined with increasingly low diversity in browser engine technology — should act as a wake up call to regulators, galvanizing the case for intervention.

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority signalled recently it’s intending to probe Apple and Google market power in mobile browsers, after taking a deep dive look at the mobile market, so scrutiny around browsers does look to be — finally, tardily — on the rise.

“Billions of people across the globe are dependent on operating systems from the largest technology companies. Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft and Meta each provide their own browser on their operating systems and each of them uses their gatekeeper position provider to preference their own browsers over independent rivals. Whether it is Microsoft pushing Firefox users to switch their default on Windows computers, Apple restricting the functionality of rival browsers on iOS smartphones or Google failing to apply default browser settings across Android, there are countless examples of independent browsers being inhibited by the operating systems on which they are dependent,” Mozilla writes in a summary of its findings. 

“This matters because American consumers and society as a whole suffer. Not only do people lose the ability to determine their own online experiences but they also receive less innovative and lower quality products. In addition, they can be forced to accept poorer privacy outcomes and even unfair contracts. By contrast, competition from independent browsers can help to drive new features, as well as innovation in areas like privacy and security.”

Firefox gets a privacy boost as Total Cookie Protection becomes the default for all users

US consumers stuck on defaults

One perhaps (more) surprising finding from the report — which is entitled Five Walled Gardens: Why Browsers are Essential to the Internet and How Operating Systems Are Holding Them Back — is that US consumers were found to be among the most affected by pre-installations and defaults across the five markets Mozilla’s researchers looked at.

For the report, Mozilla conducted a survey of more than 6,000 people in five markets (the US, UK, France, Kenya and India) to learn about attitudes and preferences to web browsers and search engines — and generally found what it describes as a “complex” picture, with many people expressing confidence in having a wide choice of browsers and saying they knew how to install a browser but a similarly large proportion not actually thinking about the browser or search engine they use and many never changing defaults or installing an alternative browser.

“The research showed that U.S. respondents were the least likely to know how to install browsers across desktop/laptop and smartphone devices. They were also among the least likely to know how to change default browser settings and the least likely to actually do so on desktop/laptops computers,” it writes in a summary of its findings. “Between one third and one quarter of U.S. respondents reported being uncomfortable or ‘very uncomfortable’ with downloading and installing or changing the default browser on their device. We know from this data that people who were less comfortable with downloading browsers and changing defaults were significantly less likely to do so.”

Table from Mozilla Survey Study: The Installation, Use, and Personalization of Web Browsers, 2022

“These findings point to the importance of operating systems offering consumers clear and easy routes for American consumers to change their software and select alternatives. However, in reality, operating system providers have the ability and incentive to preference their own browsers; we found many examples of them using dark patterns and negative design practices to undermine consumer selection of independent browsers,” Mozilla adds.

The report looks timely given rising FTC attention to dark patterns — with a recent report by the US regulator warning firms against using deceptive design tactics to, for example, trick consumers into sharing data. (Another of the egregious Microsoft examples cited in Mozilla’s report is a Windows 10 setup screen that users a “time pressure” tactic to push users to accept sweeping Microsoft data-sharing defaults at the point of set-up — with the pre-selected “express setting” that’s being recommended by Microsoft meaning users who accept it are agreeing to send Microsoft and unknown third parties (“trusted partners”) their location, location history and ad ID, as well as sending browsing data to Microsoft.)

Citing other recent research on negative online choice architecture (OCA), Mozilla highlights the case for regulation to focus on mild or subtle uses of dark patterns — which were found to be much more likely to be effective than more aggressive ones which tend to generate a powerful customer backlash.

“OCA is a neutral term; there is of course nothing inherently wrong with companies marketing their services. However, where these marketing messages are in fact deceptive design practices used by powerful platforms to undermine consumer choice and prevent switching away from their affiliated browsers, it harms competition and ultimately consumers,” Mozilla adds in the report. “Similarly, companies are and should be free to build their brands. But where branding is used by gatekeeper operations systems alongside negative OCA, or brands are built and promoted using harmful design practices, it also leads to consumer harm.”

Mobile sameness and sludge

Mobile browsers were found to be particularly sticky and prone to consumers not switching, with Mozilla noting that combined factors of pre-installation satisfaction, utility, lack of differentiation and inertia meaning consumers are “even less likely to seek out alternative mobile browsers that may better suit their needs, align with their values or offer more privacy and security”.

“The experience of mobile browsers as basic utilities and the perceived lack of differentiation among them mean that the browser that comes pre-installed on a device is at a huge advantage,” it writes in the report. “This benefits the operating system and not necessarily the consumers. Many people are hesitant to switch to a new browser because they quickly become accustomed to their pre-installed browser and do not have a strong incentive to seek out an alternative, or may be hindered from discovering one. This conditioning of consumer behavior over a long period of time means that moving away from a satisfactory pre-installed browser is an active choice that takes some amount of cognitive effort. If people are busy or if the process is too confusing, people put off making a change or decide not to make it all. For many people, it is easier to simply continue with the status quo or put off the decision for a later time.”

The report also throws up an interesting link between desktop and mobile browser use — with Mozilla saying that “nearly all” users of Firefox’s (alternative) mobile browser also using Firefox on their desktop computers.

“Our research shows that in the U.S. less than 6% of people who use a desktop browser other than Firefox report using Firefox on their smartphone,” it notes. “This suggests that the more people use Firefox or another alternative browser on their desktop computer, the more likely they may be to try that browser on their mobile device.”

That in turn implicates Microsoft’s aggressive promotion of its own browsing software to Windows users — and especially the anti-Firefox messaging it injects into its desktop OS — as contributing to reducing Firefox’s share of the mobile browser market (despite Microsoft not having a mobile platform in play these days).

However it’s clear there are a combination of factors making competing on mobile especially tough going for indie browser makers. And the report underlines how the mobile space is challenging on account of it being a more tightly controlled and/or integrated (and branded so bundled) experience than desktop OSes. 

Google, for example, uses contract restrictions with OEM partners to maximize the proportion of Android devices that come with own-brand services such as its Chrome browser preloaded, despite Android being open source. (And the tech giant has of course got into antitrust hot water over some of these restrictions — such as in the EU, where it has been forced to offer a choice screen promoting search engine rivals).

However consumer familiarity (and comfort) with Big Tech products can clearly work in lock-step with lock-ins — albeit, again, platforms may well seek to shape that outcome by actively over-selling integration benefits through suggestive messaging (and/or by creating friction for alternatives).

“Our research shows that many consumers have a perception that Chrome is the browser that works best on Android phones, and that products from the same company will perform better together (e.g. Gmail will work better in Chrome),” notes Mozilla — pointing to Google’s use of such messaging as part of its “cross-product promotion” as one example.

“It is also closely linked to web compatibility issues and the extent to which operating system providers restrict or allow interoperability of third party browsers, including accessing the same features and APIs afforded to their own browsers,” it goes on, also critically discussing Apple banning alternative browser engines from its App Store which limits differentiation for competing with Safari since rivals must also develop on Webkit (which, historically, slowed down their ability to compete and continues to restrict how much difference they can offer).

“Feature development remains at a standstill for alternative browsers on iOS because Apple — in control of both the browser engine and operating system — does not make available to rivals some of the necessary APIs and functionality, thereby limiting differentiation.”

Choice undermined

Mozilla’s report also highlights instances where even where a consumer has succeeded in selecting an alternative browser as their default, a platform may still revert to a self-serving choice — bypassing their election to resurface their browser in certain circumstances, such as when performing a ‘lookup’ after selecting text in iOS (which it notes “would historically always open web search results in Safari, regardless of which default browser is selected by the user”); or opening up a web link in the Windows search bar or icon — which opens Edge (“again regardless of the default browser setting; or using the search widget on Android — which “will always open results in a Google browser”.

“This demonstration of OCA highlights just some of the practices used by operating systems to preference their own browsers and undermine consumer choice. Lawmakers and policymakers in some countries have started to take action against deceptive patterns to protect consumers. And others have begun to address the lack of effective competition in digital markets, including through introducing regulation. However, very few have recognized the connection between these issues and the importance of browser competition, or studied the role of OCA practices as a way to implement (or thwart) consumer choice and welfare,” Mozilla argues.

“We believe that if people had a meaningful opportunity to try alternative browsers, they would find many to be compelling substitutes to the default bundled with their operating system. These opportunities have been suppressed for years through online choice architecture and commercial practices that benefit platforms and are not in the best interest of consumers, developers or the open web. It is difficult to underestimate the impact of years of self-preferencing and undermining consumer choice, including its effect on consumer behavior. It is also difficult to estimate the disruptive innovation, alternative products and features, and the independent competitors which have been lost as a result of these practices.”

Mozilla’s report does not go into specific recommendations for regulatory interventions to force platforms to “do better for consumers and developers”, as it puts it — as it says it plans to publish further work on remedies in the coming months — but it urges lawmakers to act to prevent “further harm to consumers from continued inaction and competitive stagnation”.

“As these companies have so far failed to do better, regulators, policymakers and lawmakers have spent considerable time and resources investigating digital markets. They should therefore be in a good position to recognize the importance of browser competition and to act to prevent further harm to consumers from continued inaction and competitive stagnation,” it suggests.

“We call on them to enforce the laws which already exist and the laws and regulations which will soon come into force. And where existing laws and regulations are lacking, we call for them to be introduced and their importance for the future of the internet to be highlighted. Regulators, policymakers and lawmakers in many jurisdictions can take this moment to create a new era in the internet’s story — one in which consumers and developers benefit from genuine choice, competition and innovation.”

As noted above the EU has taken antitrust enforcement action in relation to Google’s Android contract restrictions that has led to a choice screen being offered to users in the EU — at least for default search engine. However Mozilla’s report is generally dismissive of existing remedies that have featured online choice architecture and software design, arguing: “The remedies that have so far been deployed have had many limitations and have largely failed.”

Its conclusion is backed up by the lack of a meaningful shift in Google’s market share for search on mobile in Europe — where it holds a 96.6% market, which is a drop of only 0.3% since 2018 when the Commission fined the company $5BN and ordered it to case infringing consumers, as not-for-profit Google alternative, Ecosia, recently pointed out.

Google rival DuckDuckGo has also called for regulators to go much further in regulating choice screen remedies — arguing in recent years that the design and integration of such tools must enable a truly ‘one-click’ and universally accessible experience if they are to actually move the competition needle against ingrained platform power.

Google fails to overturn EU’s €4BN+ Android antitrust decision

The Web Foundation is taking on deceptive design

Mozilla urges action to unpick platform browser lock-ins by Natasha Lomas originally published on TechCrunch

In recent months, Google has been steadily adding new tools to help consumers choose more sustainable options when using its services like Google Maps, Google Flights, and hotel search. On Tuesday, the company announced it’s expanding these efforts with the addition of a handful of new features that allow travelers to better filter their searches to make sustainable choices when booking flights or hotels as well as improved options for trains.

The new features complement Google’s existing options that have allowed consumers to view eco-related information about their travel choices — like the estimated carbon emissions on flights, or whether or not the hotels carry an “eco-label” from a trusted third-party group, Google noted.

Now, web searchers will be able to directly filter their flight and hotel searches to remove non-sustainable options from their search results entirely, and they’ll be able to more easily book trains through Google’s services.

To address the needs of eco-conscious air travelers, Google Flights is adding a “Low Emissions” filter that will allow you to see only those flights that have lower emissions compared with similar trips when performing searches.

Image Credits: Google

Similarly, when searching for hotels on Google.com/travel, you can click on a new “eco-certified” filter to browse a list that only contains eco-certified properties.

Google noted it had worked directly with organizations including the U.S. Green Building Council, which provides LEED ratings, and the Global Sustainable Tourism Council in order to improve the accuracy of its travel search results by importing their databases of eco-certified hotels.

The company is also making it easier to book trains through its travel services — something that had been difficult to do previously as finding both prices and schedules required separate searches, it said. Now, a new module will appear when you search for a train-related search like “Berlin to Vienna trains” which will let you pick a departure date, then compare the various schedules.

This allows travelers to consider trains, which can be the more sustainable option over car or plane travel, but it’s only launching in select countries to start — Germany, Spain, Italy, and Japan.

Google said it would expand this feature to more locations over time as it onboarded other rail providers and is working to create a similar feature for bus tickets as well.

Google rolls out a new set of search tools for eco-conscious travelers by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

Hello, friends! Welcome back to Week in Review, the newsletter where we quickly sum up the most read TechCrunch stories from the last sevenish days. The goal? Even if you’ve had a busy week, a quick skim of WiR should keep you in the (tech) loop.

Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here.

This week was a bit all over the place, with another big story breaking every couple hours. Let’s just drop right in, shall we?

most read

• Cutbacks at Area 120: Area 120 is Google’s in-house incubator, meant to let Googlers with potentially big ideas tap the mega company’s resources to turn said ideas into something real. This week, however, Google confirmed that it’s slashing half of the Area 120 projects currently in development, with the incubator “shifting its focus” to AI projects. Impacted employees are being given until early 2023 to find a new job within Google.
• Adobe buys Figma: In one of the biggest tech acquisitions of all time, Adobe announced this week its intent to buy the collaborative/web-based design tool Figma for a whopping $20 billion. Figma saw ridiculous growth throughout the pandemic, as many, many tech teams went remote and adjusted their workflows accordingly. Even for a company as big as Adobe, winning that part of the workflow back would’ve been tough.
• Layoffs at Twilio: Twilio confirmed this week that it’ll lay off roughly 11% of its workforce — somewhere between 800 and 900 people — as the company focuses on reaching profitability in 2023.
• iOS 16 goes live: As expected, iOS 16 rolled out to Apple devices this week. Want our thoughts on it? Find Romain’s review here. Want to know all of the not-so-obvious new features hiding within the update? Check out Ivan’s list. Most of our readers seem to be looking for interesting ways to use those new Lock Screen widgets.
• South Korea issues an arrest warrant for Terraform Labs’ founder: “A court in South Korea has issued an arrest warrant for Do Kwon, the founder of Terraform Labs,” writes Manish, “escalating its probe into the crypto ecosystem whose two tokens lost $40 billion in value in a span of days earlier this year.”
• Uber hack: Late Thursday night, Uber confirmed that it’s “responding to a cybersecurity incident” after a hacker seemingly breached the company’s internal network, with the hacker reportedly announcing their presence (and protesting how Uber pays its drivers) right within Uber’s Slack.

audio roundup

If you like TechCrunch for your eyes, check out TechCrunch for your ears. This week in TechCrunch podcast land, the Equity team talked about how Y Combinator has evolved in recent years, the Chain Reaction crew “dug into the institutional embrace of blockchains by stodgy financial powerhouses,” and the Found team went all “greatest hits” by revisiting an interview with Figma founder Dylan Field from earlier this year.

techcrunch+

Want to know what TC+ members are reading most behind the paywall? I’ve got that list below. Want to become a TC+ member yourself? Sign up here and use promo code “WIR” for 15% off an annual pass.

• How Zoho became a $1B company without external investment: Ron Miller takes us on a deep dive of the history of Zoho, the web-based business tool company that has grown, slowly but surely, into a billion-dollar powerhouse without “so much as a penny of external investment.”
• Alex looks at the current state of the early-stage startup market: “Call it the glass half-full/glass half-empty seed market,” he writes. “If you are bullish, there’s good news aplenty. And if you are bearish, well, we have enough data to make that argument as well.”
• Has France figured out YC?: Anna takes a look at France’s growing presence within Y Combinator, and the eight French startups from this latest batch.

Adobe buys Figma, Uber gets hacked, and Google shrinks Area 120 by Greg Kumparak originally published on TechCrunch

Google CEO Sundar Pichai, speaking at the Code Conference last week, suggested the tech company needed to become 20% more efficient — a comment some in the industry took to mean headcount reductions could soon be on the table. Now, it seems that prediction may be coming true. TechCrunch has learned and Google confirmed the company is slashing projects at its in-house R&D division known as Area 120.

The company on Tuesday informed staff of a “reduction in force” which will see the incubator halved in size, as half the teams working on new product innovations heard their projects were being canceled. Previously, there were 14 projects housed in Area 120, and this has been cut down to just seven. Employees whose projects will not continue were told they’ll need to find a new job within Google by the end of January 2023, or they’ll be terminated. It’s not clear that everyone will be able to do so.

According to Area 120 lead Elias Roman, the division aims to sharpen its focus to only AI-first projects, as opposed to its earlier mandate to fuel product incubation across all of Google.

TechCrunch learned of the changes from a source with knowledge of the matter. Google confirmed the changes in a statement.

“Area 120 is an in-house incubator for experimental new products. The group regularly starts and stops projects with an eye toward pursuing the most promising opportunities,” a Google spokesperson said. “We’ve recently shared that Area 120 will be shifting its focus to projects that build on Google’s deep investment in AI and have the potential to solve important user problems. As a result, Area 120 is winding down several projects to make way for new work. Impacted team members will receive dedicated support as they explore new projects and opportunities at Google.”

Over the years, the division has launched a number of successful products, including the HTML5 gaming platform GameSnacks, now integrated with Google Chrome; an AirTable rival called Tables which exited to Google Cloud; an A.I.-powered conversational ads platform AdLingo, which also exited to Cloud; video platforms Tangi and Shoploop, which exited to Google Search and Shopping, respectively; the web-based travel app Touring Bird, which exited to Commerce; and a technical interview platform Byteboard, a rare external spinout.

One of the projects now being cut with the changes is Qaya, a service offering web storefronts for digital creators, launched late last year. Similar to “link in bio” solutions available today like Linktree or Beacons, Qaya additionally integrated with Google Search and Google Shopping. It could also be linked with a YouTube Merch Shelf, to promote the creator’s products and services.

The other six projects being canceled weren’t yet launched, but included a financial accounting project for Google Sheets, another shopping-related product, analytics for AR/VR, and, unfortunately, three climate-related projects. These latter projects had focused on EV car charging maps with routing, carbon accounting for I.T., and carbon measurement of forests.

The changes follow last year’s reorg of the Area 120 team, which saw the group moved into a new “Google Labs” division led by veteran Googler Clay Bavor. The incubator was then grouped alongside other forward-looking efforts at Google, like its virtual and augmented reality developments and its cutting-edge holographic videoconferencing project known as Project Starline. We understand Google Labs and Starline are not impacted for the time being.

Pichai announced in July that Google would slow its hiring and sharpen its focus, but the company had said larger layoffs were not planned — it would still hire in engineering, technical and other critical roles. However, as part of its renewed emphasis on productivity, the company acknowledges it may need to restructure teams, deprecate products or even, at times, eliminate roles.

As for the Area 120 team members whose projects have now been discontinued, Google’s recruiters will work to help them find new roles, though placement is not a given in situations like these.

Google has north of 170,000 full-time employees. Area 120 had over 170 employees at the beginning of the year but is now under 100.

Editor’s Note: The article was updated moments after publication with Google’s comment. 

Google cancels half the projects at its internal R&D group Area 120 by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

As consumer social apps shift their focus to video for social expression and adopt more creative tools, like those for collage-making, Google Photos’ often more utilitarian app will now do the same. The company today announced an upgrade to Google Photos and its app for mobile devices that will better highlight users’ videos, create visual effects with photos set to music, introduce its own collage editor, and more.

The additions are a part of a larger upgrade to Google Photos’ Memories feature, first introduced in 2019.

A combination of something like Stories and Facebook’s Memories, Google Photos Memories similarly helps users look back at their older photos, organized into collections at the top of the app’s main screen — where Stories are often found in social apps. Last year, Google Photos upgraded Memories using machine learning technology to identify patterns across your photos, and added other types of Memories, like those that highlighted things like events and holidays.

Now, Google is rolling out another redesign to Memories, which introduces more video into the experience.

The service will automatically select and trim the best snippets from your longer videos using machine learning as part of this enhancement, Google says.

The changes come at a time when tech companies are seeing increased use of video among users. Meta earlier this year said Reels was making up 20% of time users spent on Instagram and video overall makes up 50% of the time users spent on Facebook, for example. Google Photos is seeing a similar trend. The company tells TechCrunch video uploads grew 4 times faster than photo uploads over the past two years, which is why it’s chosen to invest in more video tools.

The updated version of Google Photos will also do more with music, including by adding music to more Memories and setting multiple still photos to music in its “Cinematic Photos” visual effect feature. Launched in 2020, Cinematic Photos leverages machine learning to create 3D versions of your photos by predicting the image’s depth, then animating a smooth panning effect. It later expanded this effect to include stitched-together photos it called Cinematic Moments, which also give an illusion of a more 3D-like image.

Another new set of features in today’s update is focused on enhancing creativity and social sharing.

This includes a new feature called Styles, which automatically adds graphic art to your Memories by placing them on colorful backgrounds, for instance. Artists Shantell Martin and Lisa Congdon contributed to this feature at launch.

And as demand for Pinterest’s new collage maker Shuffles heats up, Google Photos is jumping on this trend with its own collage editor that will let users select a design, pick out and edit photos, then rearrange their layout using drag-and-drop controls.

Image Credits: Google

Photo Memories can also now be shared with friends and family, starting on Android with iOS and web to come.

A smaller, but interesting addition — and one not noted by Google’s official announcement — involves how you navigate through Memories following the update.

While you can still tap left or right to move between the photos within a given Memory — as you would with most Stories — when you move through Memories, you’ll now swipe up and down.

This user interface design choice, of course, is a nod to TikTok, whose vertical video feed has infiltrated so many top consumer apps.

And with Memories becoming more video-heavy with this update, it’s possible that some users’ retrospectives will now feel more like personal, private TikToks rather than static Stories going forward.

The updates are rolling out today to Google Photos and its mobile app.

Google Photos redesigns its Memories feature with vertical swiping, more video, and other creative tools by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

In 2022, the amount of corporate data stored in the cloud (versus on-premise servers) reached 60%, a signal of how the world of enterprise IT is evolving. But lest you think that cloud=modern=more efficient, when it comes to security, the picture is more complicated: multiple silos mean multiple challenges to visibility, creating security vulnerabilities and resulting in half of all data breaches last year happening in the cloud, according to IBM.

Now a startup called Dig Security, which is building security tools specifically to address that complexity, has raised investment that speaks to the demand it’s seeing.

The company — which assesses and the provides real-time monitoring for clients’ data assets sitting multi-cloud-based environments — has raised $34 million, a Series A investment that it’s going to be using to continue expanding its platform.

The startup’s focus today, said Dan Benjamin, CEO and co-founder, is on data in public rather than private clouds. It integrates with all of the major providers — Azure, AWS, Google Cloud — as well as big names in data warehousing like Snowflake and Databricks, and the services that it provides include data security posture management (DSPM), data loss prevention (DLP), and data detection and response (DDR).

The investment is being led by SignalFire, with Felicis Ventures, Okta Ventures and previous backer, cybersecurity-specialist incubator and investor Team8, also participating. Dig emerged from stealth and announced its $11 million seed round only in May of this year. The reason for the rapid follow-up is that the seed round had actually closed (and been used) some time before it was actually announced, said Benjamin; and because the emergence from stealth found the company getting a lot of inbound contacts from customers and investors.

Okta Ventures, the strategic investment arm of the identity and access management giant, falls into both of those categories: Dig has a strong integration with Okra’s sign-in management products to both monitor potentially malicious activity and also to help set up stronger protections to head off bad actors before they take hold.

Dig’s founders — Benjamin, Ido Azran (VP of R&D) and Gad Akuka CTO) — are repeat founders who have track records at companies like Microsoft, Google, Mimecast, SAP and more, and as Benjamin explained it, there is a strong argument for a big third-party player to provide security services for cloud data, simply because it’s grown up to be a huge, but very fragmented market with no proprietary ‘owner’: because of the prevalence of micro services, organizations rarely use only one service like AWS or Azure; and data is run over multiple instances.

“A typical organization has 30 different types of data stores across tens of thousands of instances,” Benjamin said. Even a smaller organization might have 10 different types of data stores.

This means that while a cloud company might develop strong cloud security product, we are still some ways away from those products working effectively across data regardless of where it is.

I should also point out that Benjamin also predicted that approach would likely change over time: he worked in corporate development at Microsoft and knows that the appetite among big players like these will be to see how cloud data security companies — like Dig — will evolve over the coming years and potentially snap one up to bolt on that kind of functionality.

For now, however, companies like Dig have a clear opportunity to make some traction in the market.

“Dig is uniquely positioned to help make DDR the standard for data security,” said Nir Polak, venture partner at SignalFire, who himself has a strong cyber profile as the founder and chairman of Exabeam. “The rise of remote work and the increasingly high stakes of cloud attacks require real-time data security capabilities – too many organizations remain exposed to the risks that lurk behind the public cloud. SignalFire is thrilled to support Dig as the only vendor in the cloud data security market that provides real-time data protection across any cloud and any data store.”

It is not the only player here: a number of others are also moving in on the opportunity to provide more holistic security approaches to bridge the fragmentation of most enterprise environments. Others that have raised big funds include Laminar, HYCU, vArmour, JupiterOne. Bigger tech companies that are making acquisitions to bring more multi-cloud management and security capabilities into their platforms include Google acquiring Siemplify, and F5 buying NGINX.

Dig scoops up $34M to tackle the fragmented world of cloud data security by Ingrid Lunden originally published on TechCrunch

Google’s appeal against a €4.34 billion antitrust fine handed down by the European Union four years ago, after the bloc’s competition regulator found major violations in how it operated its Android mobile OS, has not succeeded in overturning the decision: The EU’s General Court largely confirmed the Commission’s decision in a ruling issued today.

It’s a much needed win for the EU which has had a number of its antitrust decision unpicked by the courts in recent years.

Reached for comment, a Google spokesperson sent us this brief line:

“We are disappointed that the Court did not annul the decision in full. Android has created more choice for everyone, not less, and supports thousands of successful businesses in Europe and around the world.”

The size of the fine issued by the EU to Google over the Android violations in July 2018 equated to a record-breaking $5BN at the time — and it remains unsurpassed for an EU antitrust sanction.

However the General Court has revised the size of the fine downward slightly — setting the final amount imposed on Google at (a still record-breaking) €4.125BN (~$4.3BN at current currency conversion rates which have seen the dollar and euro hit near parity).

A spokesperson for the Court said: “The General Court largely confirms the Commission’s decision that Google imposed unlawful restrictions on manufacturers of Android mobile devices and mobile network operators in order to consolidate the dominant position of its search engine.

“In order better to reflect the gravity and duration of the infringement, the General Court considers it appropriate however to impose a fine of €4.125BN on Google, its reasoning differing in certain respects from that of the Commission.”

Google had sought to argue that the Commission had made an error in its definition of the relevant markets and that its assessment of the restrictions Google imposed on device makers and carriers as abusive was incorrect, among a number of pleas its lawyers put to the Court.

The Court largely rejected its arguments — but in the case of a pre-installation condition included in portfolio-based revenue share agreements (with mobile makers and carriers) the justices did it find fault with the Commission’s reasoning (and some procedural errors), thereby upholding Google’s plea that the exclusivity agreements were not abusive and annulling that part of the Commission decision.

A Court press release summarizing the ruling notes that “that partial annulment does not affect the overall validity of the [infringement] finding… in the light of the exclusionary effects arising from the other abusive practices implemented by Google during the infringement period” — but this element of the ruling explains the slight downward revision of the final fine.

In setting the final amount, the Court said it took account of “the intentional nature of the implementation of the unlawful practices and of the value of relevant sales made by Google in the last year of its full participation in the infringement”, per the press release.

Should Google wish to appeal the General Court decision to the bloc’s top court, the European Court of Justice (CJEU), it may only do so on a point of law — with a timeframe of two months and ten days to file such a petition.

It’s not clear whether the company will seek to bring a point of law appeal to the CJEU. The company told us it is reviewing the judgement before deciding on any next steps.

The Commission has also been contacted for comment.

At the time of writing competition chief Margrethe Vestager had not posted publicly on the win but her Twitter account retweeted the Court’s press announcement…

Screengrab: Natasha Lomas/TechCrunch

Consumer groups and Google rivals were quick to welcome the Court’s decision.

In a statement, Monique Goyens, the director general of BEUC, the European consumer organization, dubbed the ruling a “crucial” win for consumers:

“Today’s General Court ruling on Google’s practices concerning Android is crucial because it confirms that Europe’s consumers must enjoy meaningful choice between search engines and browsers on their phones and tablets. The Court ruling makes clear that Google cannot abuse its strong market position to unfairly exclude competitors through a complex and illegal web of restrictions and requirements for phone manufacturers. The ruling will help to ensure that consumers can benefit from a more open and innovative digital environment,” she said, adding: “Google’s restrictions harmed many millions of European consumers by depriving them of genuine choice and innovation for a decade. In practice, many European consumers had no alternative to using Google’s search engine and Google’s browser Chrome on their mobile devices. If they preferred, for example, to use more innovative and privacy-friendly services, Google’s restrictions prevented them from doing so.”

While Ecosia, the environmentally focused not-for-profit search engines that competes with Google search — and has been a vocal critic of how the tech giant responded with ‘remedies’ following the antitrust decision — also welcomed the ruling, while emphasizing how much marketshare Google still retains in the region.

“Today’s decision is a significant victory for the European Commission (EC) and is a continuation of a positive trend in Europe towards fairer competition in the online search market,” said Sophie Dembinski, its head of public policy, in a statement. “Much remains to be done to bring about true fairness in the space — Google still maintains a 96.6% market share on mobile devices in Europe, down only 0.3% since 2018 when this ruling was initially made — thanks to the EC and European Parliament’s heroic efforts with the Digital Markets Act, this ruling strengthens the EU’s overall position as a leading regulatory force, capable of keeping up with fast-moving developments in the tech sector and taking the action necessary to hold tech giants accountable — something which European consumers and businesses alike will benefit from.”

The 2018 EU Android decision

The 2018 EU competition Commission decision against Android found Google had abused its dominant position by imposing anticompetitive contractual restrictions on manufacturers of mobile devices using its Android OS and on mobile network operators, in some cases since the start of 2011.

The three types of restrictions the Commission identified and sanctioned were found in contract clauses in distribution agreements: Those which required mobile device makers to pre-install Google Search and its Chrome browser apps in order to be able to obtain a licence from Google to use its app store — the popular Play Store; certain ‘anti-fragmentation’ agreements Google imposed on device makers that wanted to pre-install Google Search and Play Store which required them to undertake not to sell devices running versions of the Android operating system not approved by Google; and those contained in ‘revenue share agreements’, under which a cut of Google’s advertising revenue provided to device makers and mobile network operators was subject to their undertaking not to pre-install a competing general search service on a predefined portfolio of devices.

The Court did not agree with the Commission’s assessment that the latter restriction was abusive, as noted above.

As well as being sanctioned with a massive fine for the breaches, Google was ordered four years ago to cease the infringements. However the bloc’s competition regulator allowed the company to configure its own remedy. That resulted in several frustrating years for search competitors after Google started offering a choice screen to Android users in the EU but quickly moved to a paid auction model for assigning slots — thereby, they argued, creating an unfairly skewed playing field which penalized smaller, less well resourced competitors and those with not-for-profit business models.

It was only after further pressure from the EU that Google agreed to drop the paid auction — switching to a choice screen that’s free for eligible participants last year. At the same time it also expanded the number of participants displayed, showing a ‘top five’ (determined by per market popularity but displayed in a randomized order — so, of course, Google is always one of these top options given its regional marketshare… ) — after which, if the user chooses to keep scrolling, they can see up to seven further options (displayed in random order). If there are more than seven additional eligible options for the market Google says the choice of which it displays is also picked randomly.

The Court ruling largely upholding the EU’s Android decision suggests these choice screens are here to stay.

More such regulation-driven interventions could be on the way as the bloc starts to enforce updated competition rules on the most powerful “gatekeeping” platforms — under the incoming Digital Markets Act (DMA).

And it’s fair to say that EU lawmakers have taken their years of learnings from antitrust wrangles with tech giants such as Google and baked them into shaping the proactive operational rules that will be imposed on core platform services that fall in scope of the DMA. So the legacy attached to Google’s antitrust enforcements will be a lasting one.

Antitrust activity dialling up across Europe

The EU’s antitrust division has been very active in investigating Google over the past five+ years, landing a string of enforcements — including a $2.7BN fine related to shopping searches back in 2017 (which Google largely failed to overturn on appeal).

Google was also fined $1.7BN in a case related to AdSense, its search ad brokering business, in 2019. (Its appeal there is ongoing.)

The competition Commission also has an ongoing probe into Google’s adtech — opened in June 2021. And, on Friday, Reuters reported that the EU had widened this investigation.

The bloc is also looking into an ad deal between Google and Facebook — known as ‘Jedi Blue’.

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has similar probes of Google’s adtech ongoing too. As well as expressed concerns about the mobile duopoly — one half of which is Google Android.

While Germany’s antitrust scrutiny of the company — which touches a number of fronts — stepped up a gear at the start of this year when its regulator determined the tech giant falls under a special abuse controls regime brought in under a major reform of digital competition rules that’s aimed at tech giants’ market muscle.

France has also been aggressive in probing a variety of competition concerns around Google. And this summer the company dropped an appeal against an antitrust fine of well over half a billion dollars that France’s competition watchdog hit it with in July 2021 — related to breaches in how it negotiated terms with news publishers over copyright licensing.

All this regulatory activity is also leading to an uptick in antitrust litigation aimed at tech giants.

Google fails to overturn EU’s €4BN+ Android antitrust decision by Natasha Lomas originally published on TechCrunch

It’s become increasingly difficult to estimate how much money Apple’s App Store business makes, as it’s lumped in with other services on Apple’s balance sheet — and because Apple has adjusted its commission structure so it’s no longer a flat 30% across the board, making it difficult to work backward from the public figures Apple does provide to narrow down its numbers. But a new report indicates that overall, the prices consumers are paying to engage with apps listed on the App Store have grown considerably — a suggestion that Apple’s own cut has grown, as well.

And what’s more, this growth is not entirely organic, the report suggests. Rather, it’s more closely linked to Apple’s privacy changes — App Tracking Transparency, or ATT — instead of inflation or the broader macroeconomic factors that have impacted tech companies as of late.

Image Credits: Apptopia

This new data come from app intelligence firm Apptopia, which found that the average price of in-app purchases (IAP) on the App Store has climbed 40% since last year, while Google Play IAP prices only saw a 9% increase during that same time frame. The firm analyzed pricing across both app marketplaces between July 2021 to July 2022 to reach its conclusions.

Apptopia suspects ATT’s 2021 introduction is behind the rising prices for in-app purchases because the increases kick in before inflation began to hit the economy hard in 2022. In other words, it appears that app publishers were adjusting their rates in reaction to the increased effective cost per install (eCPI) that came about after Apple’s ATT made it more costly to acquire new users. To support this conclusion, the report cites data from measurement company Adjust which shows how the growth in eCPI directly correlates with the IAP price increases.

Image Credits: Apptopia & Adjust data

In addition, if the growing prices were more of a reaction to inflation than ATT, then it would go to reason that similar trends would be seen across Google Play — but that’s not the case. While it’s true that Google Play historically pulls in less overall revenue than the App Store through things like paid downloads, in-app purchases and subscriptions, it still hosts a number of apps reliant on in-app purchases to monetize. But Google Play’s average in-app purchase price increase was only in the single digits, compared with Apple’s 40%.

This news follows another recent report which found that ATT had helped boost Apple’s advertising business, as well, allowing it to earn a spot amid the Facebook-Google duopoly.

Apptopia’s new report also broke down how the different types of in-app purchases were impacted by the price changes.

It found that the average pricing of iOS single-purchase in-app purchases grew 36% year-over-year while other in-app purchases, including monthly and annual subscription options, grew only 19%.

Image Credits: Apptopia

The top iOS categories seeing the largest in-app purchase price increases were Navigation, Travel, Photo & Video, Sports, and Books. Food & Drink, Beauty and Events led the group on Google Play, though the overall average IAP price increases were much lower.

Apple’s in-app purchase prices jumped 40% year-over-year, likely tied to privacy changes by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch