- Google (GOOG, GOOGL) launches Slack competitor Hangouts Chat for G Suite customers this week.
- Hangouts Chat works for up to 8K users, is available in 28 languages, accessible through Android and iOS apps and the web, and comes free to G Suite users.
- Google brings in over $1B in revenue from G Suite and its Google Cloud Platform.
- Hangouts will also compete with Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Teams, which is part of the Office 365 portfolio.
- Featured snippets: Google launches “featured snippets” that will offer multiple answers for a vague search query.
- From Google: “When a user asks a question in Google Search, we might show a search result in a special featured snippet block at the top of the search results page. This featured snippet block includes a summary of the answer, extracted from a webpage, plus a link to the page, the page title and URL.”
- The snippets could help improve the answers from Google Assistant in its continual battle against Amazon’s Alexa.
- Self-driving demo: Self-driving unit Waymo releases a 360-degree video showing what it’s like to ride in a self-driving vehicle.
- Waymo has driven more than 5M miles on public rounds, up double since January 2017, and will soon test vehicles with no human behind the wheel in Arizona.
- A recent Gallup poll found that 54% of the 3,297 U.S. respondents were “unlikely” to use self-driving cars. Nearly three-fifths said they wouldn’t want to ride in an autonomous vehicle.
- Watch the video on YouTube here.
- Previously: CNBC: Alphabet's Verily in talks for insurance push (Feb. 27)
- Now read: Twitter, Snap, And Facebook (NASDAQ:FB): Three Thoughts For Social Media Investors
Original article