Google is teaming up with the European Investment Fund (EIF) and two other organisations in Latin America and Asia to provide $75 million in funding to small- and medium-sized companies suffering from the impact of COVID-19.

The funds are part of an $800 million initiative announced in March last year in response to the pandemic.

Alphabet Inc is shutting down Loon after concluding the business, which offers balloons as an alternative to cell towers, is not commercially viable, Google’s parent company said on Thursday.
 

Founded in 2011, Loon aimed to bring connectivity to areas of the world where building cell towers is too expensive or treacherous using balloons the length of tennis courts and solar-powered networking gear.

APRNEWS - US internet giant Google, whose Android mobile operating system powers most of the world’s smartphones, said it was beginning to cut ties with China’s Huawei, which Washington considers a national security threat.

APRNEWS - Facebook Inc co-founder and former Mark Zuckerberg roommate, Chris Hughes, has called for the break-up of the social network in an opinion piece in the New York Times.

APRNEWS- Fiat Chrysler said on Tuesday it will use technology from Alphabet Inc’s Google and Samsung to connect all its vehicles by 2022, providing music and video and facilitating future car-sharing and self-driving capabilities.

APRNEWS - Fifteen years after its founding, Facebook has made strides toward Mark Zuckerberg’s goal of connecting the world. But it has also made some huge missteps that have turned some of its cheerleaders into vocal detractors.

REUTERS - Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) said in a filing late Thursday it had made $1.3 billion in cash payments in connection to its acquisition of coding hosting startup GitHub.

APRNEWS - Google said Wednesday it is making strides in helping internet users legitimately get songs, films and apps while choking off revenue to websites with stolen digital content.

REUTERS - Facebook Inc (FB.O), Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) and Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) collectively removed hundreds of accounts tied to an alleged Iranian propaganda operation on Tuesday, while Facebook took down a second campaign it said was linked to Russia.

APRNEWS - Hundreds of Google employees have signed a protest letter over the company’s reported work on a censor-friendly search engine to get back into China, The New York Times said Thursday.

The employees are demanding more transparency so they can understand the moral implications of their work, said the Times, which obtained a copy of the letter.