Google was among the first hyperscalers build custom silicon for its services, starting first with tensor processing units (TPUs) for its AI initiatives, and then video transcoding units (VCUs) for the YouTube service. But unlike its industry peers, the company has been slower to adopt custom CPU designs, prefering to stick to off-the-shelf chips from the major CPUs. This is finally changing at Google, with the announcement that the company has developed its own in-house datacenter CPU, the Axion. Google's Axion processor is based on the Arm Neoverse V2 (Arm v9) platform, which is Arm's current-generation design for high-performance server CPUs, and is already employed in other chips such as NVIDIA's Grace and Amazon's Graviton4. Within Google, Axion is aimed at a wide variety of...
Google Updates Hangouts: Merging IM and SMS
Today, Google announced an update to Hangouts that brings some new features. The first mentioned is merging conversations, which brings feature parity with iMessage in that regard. Google has...
15 by Joshua Ho on 4/21/2014
Android Wear, Moto 360, and LG G Watch: Initial Thoughts
Google has finally announced its entrance into the smartwatch segment with the platform Android Wear. Much like how Android is a broadly adopted platform by many smartphone OEMs, Google...
30 by Joshua Ho on 3/18/2014
Examining MicroSD changes in Android 4.4
While Samsung Galaxy devices had new restrictions on microSD read/write access, it was hard to say whether this was the start of a trend for all Android OEMs as...
43 by Joshua Ho on 3/13/2014
Modular Smartphone Project Ara from Google to Start Development Conferences
Joshua talked about Project Ara (from Motorola at the time) back in October as a campaign that focused on attracting OEM interest into a modular smartphone design. The...
28 by Ian Cutress on 2/26/2014
Some Thoughts on Lenovo's Acquisition of Motorola Mobility from Google
Earlier this evening Google announced the sale of Motorola Mobility to hardware manufacturer Lenovo for a deal valued at just below $3 billion. Given my fondness for the Moto...
77 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 1/29/2014
Google Announces Moto G Google Play Edition
We've already taken a look at the international Moto G, and today Google surprised us with the formal announcement of a Google Play edition Moto G based on that...
19 by Brian Klug on 1/14/2014
Google Nexus 5 Review
Each year, Google picks a silicon vendor, a hardware partner, and releases a new version of Android running on top of them. The result is a Nexus phone, and...
231 by Brian Klug on 12/5/2013
Google Announces The Nexus 5 and Android 4.4 Details
It’s been leaked, teased, and practically dissected for a while now, but today Google is finally making the Nexus 4’s successor official. The Nexus 5 is finally formally announced...
120 by Brian Klug on 10/31/2013
Nexus 5 Briefly Appears on Google Play - Starts at $349
In what may be one of the most interesting leaks thus far in the road to the official Nexus 5 announcement, today Google seems to have accidentally confirmed both...
28 by Brian Klug on 10/17/2013
HP Chromebook 11 Review
We’re in the midst of a netbook renaissance. Armed with lighter weight OSes, faster hardware and a better appreciation for what matters in a consumer device, OEMs are giving...
90 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 10/15/2013
The Nexus 7 (2013) Review
Truth be told, Google has made (or at least directed the making of) some of the best tablets on the market today. The original Nexus 7 was groundbreaking in...
203 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 8/22/2013
Nexus 7 (2013) JSS15Q OTA Update Rolling Out - Fixes GPS/GNSS and Multitouch Issues
We published the full Nexus 7 (2013) review today, and liked it so much we gave it our Editors Choice Silver award. I'm a huge fan of the updated...
18 by Brian Klug on 8/22/2013
IBM Offers POWER Technology for Licensing, Forms OpenPOWER Consortium
The CPU wars are far from over, but the battlegrounds have shifted of late. Where once we looked primarily at the high-end processing options, today we tend to cover...
32 by Jarred Walton on 8/7/2013
Google Chromecast Review - An Awesome $35 HDMI Dongle
So I have a confession to make – I didn’t hate the Nexus Q. While I didn’t necessarily love it and use it daily like a small minority of...
105 by Brian Klug on 7/29/2013
Google's Breakfast With Sundar Pichai Event - Live Blog
We're in San Francisco again for Google, and this time we're expecting news about the next release of Android, and perhaps some news on the Chrome OS front, and...
27 by Brian Klug on 7/24/2013
HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S 4 Google Play edition Review - Nearly Nexus
Back at Google I/O, the search giant announced the Samsung Galaxy S 4 with Nexus User Experience, a device which combined Samsung's SGS4 hardware and the stock Android experience...
82 by Brian Klug on 6/26/2013
The Chromebook Pixel Review
It arrived in a white nondescript cardboard box, with just a flash of color, and one word on the lid: Google. Inside was a Chromebook. Chromebooks are dull. Chrome...
75 by Jason Inofuentes on 5/31/2013
HTC One with Nexus Experience Announced
At Google I/O 2013, the search giant announced the Samsung Galaxy S4 with Nexus Experience, and almost immediately rumors began circulating about a potential HTC One with the same...
41 by Brian Klug on 5/30/2013
A Quick Look at the White Nexus 4
We got a special care package from LG earlier today containing the elusive but recently-announced White Nexus 4. This is the same hardware we saw at Google I/O just...
24 by Brian Klug on 5/29/2013
The Nexus Experience Galaxy S 4 - What We Know
Just two days ago, Google announced a variant of the Galaxy S 4 packing the "Nexus user experience." Although not an I/O giveaway, Google chose I/O to announce the...
34 by Brian Klug on 5/17/2013
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