عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Technology

Google Combining Its Android Software and Pixel Hardware Divisions to More Broadly Integrate AI 

Google logos are displayed when searched for Google in New York, Sept. 11, 2023. (AP)
Google logos are displayed when searched for Google in New York, Sept. 11, 2023. (AP)
TT
TT

Google Combining Its Android Software and Pixel Hardware Divisions to More Broadly Integrate AI 

Google logos are displayed when searched for Google in New York, Sept. 11, 2023. (AP)
Google logos are displayed when searched for Google in New York, Sept. 11, 2023. (AP)

Google will combine the software division responsible for Android mobile software and the Chrome browser with the hardware division known for Pixel smartphones and Fitbit wearables, the company said Thursday. It's part of a broader plan to integrate artificial intelligence more widely throughout the company.

In a letter to employees, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the changes will “turbocharge the Android and Chrome ecosystems” while helping to spur innovation.

The decision will place both operations under the oversight of Rick Osterloh, a Google executive who previously oversaw the company's hardware group. Not long ago, Google insulated Android development from the hardware division, saying it wanted to avoid giving its phone designers an unfair advantage over the other major smartphone makers who used Android — including Samsung and Motorola, as well as Chinese companies such as Oppo and Xiaomi.

Then a few years ago, Google started to position the Pixel as a flagship for demonstrating what AI could accomplish and leaned heavily into developing features that could demonstrate its potential. That meant more integration of AI hardware and software to power those features on mobile devices.

In an interview with The Verge, a tech publication, Osterloh noted that AI is the primary reason for bringing together Google's consumer hardware and software engineers. He argued that phone technology is already growing more dependent on AI, citing the development of the Pixel camera, which among other things uses the technology for features that enhance nighttime photos or automatically choose the best of several closely timed shots.

Combining the teams, Osterloh added, is a way for Google to move even faster on infusing AI into its features. Designing the Pixel camera several years ago, he said in the interview, required deep knowledge of not just the complex hardware and software systems involved, but also the then-early AI models used for image processing.

“That hardware-software-AI integration really showed how AI could totally transform a user experience,” Osterloh said. “That was important. And it’s even more true today.”

“What you’re now starting to see Google do is flex its core AI innovation engines,” said Chirag Dekate, an analyst with Gartner. “Google wants to dominate the AI, the commanding heights of the emerging AI economy, both on the consumer side as well as on the enterprise side, essentially by infusing AI everywhere and by connecting it.”

Meanwhile, the chief of Google's software division, Hiroshi Lockheimer, is left without a title and, according to Pichai's letter, will be starting some other unnamed projects. Lockheimer did join Osterloh for the Verge interview, though, and the two men insisted the changes weren't the result of a power struggle.

Google is also reorganizing its AI research and responsibility groups, although those changes mostly won’t directly affect consumer products — at least not for now.

Most Viewed

 
 
Technology

Google Unveils $6.4 Bn Investment in Germany

The Google logo is displayed during a press conference in Berlin, Germany, November 11, 2025. (Reuters)
The Google logo is displayed during a press conference in Berlin, Germany, November 11, 2025. (Reuters)
TT
TT

Google Unveils $6.4 Bn Investment in Germany

The Google logo is displayed during a press conference in Berlin, Germany, November 11, 2025. (Reuters)
The Google logo is displayed during a press conference in Berlin, Germany, November 11, 2025. (Reuters)

Google unveiled Tuesday its biggest-ever investment in Germany, pledging 5.5 billion euros ($6.4 billion) for a new data center and other projects, as Europe seeks to catch up in the AI race.

"We are driving growth in Germany," Chancellor Friedrich Merz said as the investments, to be made by 2029, were announced.

"Our country is and will remain one of the most attractive places for investment in the world," he said.

Google's plans include a new data center and expansion of an existing center in the western state of Hesse, providing computing power for artificial intelligence.

It also plans to expand its offices in Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich, and outlined various projects aimed at reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.

These included buying renewable wind and solar energy and a "heat recovery project" that would see excess heat produced by a data center re-used by local residents.

The plans will support around 9,000 jobs a year in Germany, Google said.

The investments are a boost for Germany, whose economy is struggling, as well as for Europe it seeks to catch up with AI leaders the United States and China.

Technology

AI Agents Open Door to New Hacking Threats

AI Agents Open Door to New Hacking Threats
TT
TT

AI Agents Open Door to New Hacking Threats

AI Agents Open Door to New Hacking Threats

Cybersecurity experts are warning that artificial intelligence agents, widely considered the next frontier in the generative AI revolution, could wind up getting hijacked and doing the dirty work for hackers.

AI agents are programs that use artificial intelligence chatbots to do the work humans do online, like buy a plane ticket or add events to a calendar.

But the ability to order around AI agents with plain language makes it possible for even the technically non-proficient to do mischief, AFP said.

"We're entering an era where cybersecurity is no longer about protecting users from bad actors with a highly technical skillset," AI startup Perplexity said in a blog post.

"For the first time in decades, we're seeing new and novel attack vectors that can come from anywhere."

These so-called injection attacks are not new in the hacker world, but previously required cleverly written and concealed computer code to cause damage.

But as AI tools evolved from just generating text, images or video to being "agents" that can independently scour the internet, the potential for them to be commandeered by prompts slipped in by hackers has grown.

"People need to understand there are specific dangers using AI in the security sense," said software engineer Marti Jorda Roca at NeuralTrust, which specializes in large language model security.

Meta calls this query injection threat a "vulnerability." OpenAI chief information security officer Dane Stuckey has referred to it as "an unresolved security issue."

Both companies are pouring billions of dollars into AI, the use of which is ramping up rapidly along with its capabilities.

AI 'off track'

Query injection can in some cases take place in real time when a user prompt -- "book me a hotel reservation" -- is gerrymandered by a hostile actor into something else -- "wire $100 to this account."

But these nefarious prompts can also be hiding out on the internet as AI agents built into browsers encounter online data of dubious quality or origin, and potentially booby-trapped with hidden commands from hackers.

Eli Smadja of Israeli cybersecurity firm Check Point sees query injection as the "number one security problem" for large language models that power AI agents and assistants that are fast emerging from the ChatGPT revolution.

Major rivals in the AI industry have installed defenses and published recommendations to thwart such cyberattacks.

Microsoft has integrated a tool to detect malicious commands based on factors including where instructions for AI agents originate.

OpenAI alerts users when agents doing their bidding visit sensitive websites and blocks proceeding until the software is supervised in real time by the human user.

Some security professionals suggest requiring AI agents to get user approval before performing any important task - like exporting data or accessing bank accounts.

"One huge mistake that I see happening a lot is to give the same AI agent all the power to do everything," Smadja told AFP.

In the eyes of cybersecurity researcher Johann Rehberger, known in the industry as "wunderwuzzi," the biggest challenge is that attacks are rapidly improving.

"They only get better," Rehberger said of hacker tactics.

Part of the challenge, according to the researcher, is striking a balance between security and ease of use since people want the convenience of AI doing things for them without constant checks and monitoring.

Rehberger argues that AI agents are not mature enough to be trusted yet with important missions or data.

"I don't think we are in a position where you can have an agentic AI go off for a long time and safely do a certain task," the researcher said.

"It just goes off track."

Technology

Nvidia and Big Tech Rally to Help Wall Street Recover Much of Last Week's Loss

A view of a Nvidia logo at their headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan May 31, 2023. (Reuters)
A view of a Nvidia logo at their headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan May 31, 2023. (Reuters)
TT
TT

Nvidia and Big Tech Rally to Help Wall Street Recover Much of Last Week's Loss

A view of a Nvidia logo at their headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan May 31, 2023. (Reuters)
A view of a Nvidia logo at their headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan May 31, 2023. (Reuters)

Big Tech and other superstars of the US stock market are rallying on Monday, as Wall Street recovers much of its loss from last week.

The S&P 500 climbed 1.2% to claw back more than two-thirds of its first weekly loss in the last four. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 183 points, or 0.4%, as of 10:15 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.9% higher.

Nvidia was by far the strongest force pushing the market upward and rose 4%. It and other winners in the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology had been at the center of last week’s drop. Critics say their stock prices shot too high and too fast in the mania around AI, drawing comparisons to the 2000 dot-com bubble that ultimately burst.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which makes chips for Nvidia and other companies, saw its stock that trades in United States rise 3.1% after saying its revenue climbed nearly 17% in October from a year earlier. While such growth is strong compared with other companies, it’s a slowdown from TSMC’s earlier performance.

Another AI darling, Palantir Technologies, jumped 8% for the biggest gain in the S&P 500.

The gains for tech helped offset losses across much of the rest of the market, as the majority of stocks within the S&P 500 index sank.

Health insurers fell as uncertainty remains about whether Washington will extend expiring health care tax credits, a sticking point in the disagreement on Capitol Hill that's created the longest-ever shutdown for the US government.

That's even though the Senate took the first steps on Sunday to end the shutdown.

President Donald Trump suggested in a social media post over the weekend — with few details — that the subsidies being sent to the “money sucking” insurance companies should instead be sent directly to people so they can buy their own health insurance.

Humana fell 2.6%, and Cigna slipped 0.7%, The AP news reported.

The effects of the government's shutdown have become more apparent following the cancellations of thousands of flights over the weekend. Towers are facing shortages as some air traffic controllers — unpaid for weeks — have stopped showing up for work.

Besides the pain at airports, the US government’s shutdown has also delayed many important reports on the economy. A resumption could upset financial markets if the released logjam shows data that dashes traders’ expectations for coming cuts to interest rates.

The wide expectation is that the Federal Reserve will continue to cut its main interest rate in hopes of shoring up what has been a slowing job market. Wall Street loves lower interest rates because they can give the economy a boost while also pushing prices for investments upwards.

But the Fed has said it may have to halt its cuts if inflation worsens because lower interest rates can give inflation more fuel.

Without updates from the US government on jobs and the economy, traders have been trawling profit reports from companies for clues about how things are going.

Tyson Foods, which sells chicken and other meat, climbed 2.1% after reporting a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It benefited from increases in prices of 11% to 17% for its beef and pork.

Roughly four out of every five companies in the S&P 500 have also been reporting stronger profits for the summer than analysts expected. Companies usually top analysts’ profit expectations each quarter, but the pressure was high this time around because they needed to justify the big moves upward their stock prices have made since April.

Delivering bigger profits is one of the easier ways they can quiet criticism that their stock prices have become too expensive.

Companies have also been giving generally strong forecasts for upcoming results, according to Bank of America strategist Savita Subramanian. That has analysts' overall expectations for earnings in 2026 nearly all the way back to where they were before Trump shocked the economy and financial markets with his “Liberation Day” announcement of worldwide tariffs.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rallied across much of Europe and Asia.

South Korea’s Kospi jumped 3% for one of the bigger gains. Chip company SK Hynix, which is cooperating with Nvidia on artificial intelligence, leaped 4.5%. Its bigger rival, Samsung Electronics, climbed 2.8%.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.10% from 4.11% late Friday.