Showing off new tech to customers, the media and investors is key given the perception from analysts and industry observers that Google fumbled its March launch of the "Bard" chatbot, four months after OpenAI debuted ChatGPT and after Microsoft rebooted its Bing search engine with ChatGPT. For most of its two decades, Google has enjoyed a reputation as the undisputed leader in its core business areas. Google Search has no serious competitors, and Google Maps, Gmail, and the Chrome web browser dominate their product categories so deeply that antitrust authorities in multiple countries have launched investigations or filed lawsuits alleging that the company is breaking competition laws. That dominance allowed the company to grow ever bigger, hiring thousands of new employees in the past few years and expanding into new product areas.

The government aims to put a facial recognition system into practical use to prevent new coronavirus infections at large-scale events including the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, it was learned Friday. The government also hopes to improve the national capacity to conduct saliva-based polymerase chain reaction tests to simultaneously detect cases of influenza and novel coronavirus infection, informed sources said. The proposals are included in a draft program for developing new technologies for preventing coronavirus infection. The government will unveil the program shortly and carry out demonstration tests at relevant ministries and agencies. According to the draft, the government is looking at using security cameras equipped with a facial recognition system to record the movements of visitors to the Tokyo Games, which were postponed to 2021, and other large-scale events, the sources said.

Writing emails is so boring. Luckily, Google has a nice little hack to let AI do the work for you. Smart Reply--which Google first introduced on its Inbox app back in 2015 and is now rolling out to Gmail's one billion users--uses machine learning to scan the content of a message and suggest a reply. That email asking if you want to meet for dinner? Smart Reply might suggest "Sure," or "I already have plans," or "How about tomorrow instead?" and then sends your response with one click.