Microsoft has poured over 100 billion into developing its Bing search engine over the past two decades but has little market share to show for it. About nine out of every 10 web searches in the US are made through Google, with Bing splitting the remaining queries with a long list of small competitors. On Thursday the US government asked a federal judge in Washington, DC, to rule that Google maintains that lead illegally, by unfairly manipulating users to keep Microsoft and other competitors down. Google's dominance drove the US Department of Justice to sue the company in 2020 alleging that it had violated antitrust law by using exclusionary contracts to maintain a monopoly. The two sides went into a secretive trial at the end of last year before breaking for nearly five months for US Judge Amit Mehta to digest the evidence.

The world's richest tech billionaires increased their fortunes by 750 billion last year - with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Facebook tsar Mark Zuckerberg topping the list. Forbes has released its annual roster of the world's wealthiest technology tycoons - and the profit increases they saw in 2023 are eye-watering. Bezos, 60, added 80 billion to his net worth, while Zuckerberg, 39, enjoyed a whopping 113 billion increase to his net value. Of the planet's 342 billionaires who made their fortune in the tech industry - earning a combined income of 2.6 trillion last year - Bezos tops the list. Bezos' net worth surged 80 billion to 194 billion in 2023, according to Forbes.

Kennedy initially launched his presidential bid as a Democrat last April, but he later announced an independent run in October. Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced Tuesday that attorney and tech entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan will be his vice presidential running mate heading into the November general election. A native of Oakland, California, the 38-year-old Shanahan is a philanthropist with a long history of donating to Democrat and left-leaning causes, including supporting President Biden in his 2020 election bid before switching to Kennedy when he launched his own run for the Democrat nomination last year. Kennedy announced Shanahan by praising her insight into "how Big Tech uses AI to manipulate the public," her athletic ability, and willingness to be a "partner" in a number of policy areas, including on securing the border. Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., left, and entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan, right.

On Wednesday, author David Brin announced that Vernor Vinge, sci-fi author, former professor, and father of the technological singularity concept, died from Parkinson's disease at age 79 on March 20, 2024, in La Jolla, California. The announcement came in a Facebook tribute where Brin wrote about Vinge's deep love for science and writing. "A titan in the literary genre that explores a limitless range of potential destinies, Vernor enthralled millions with tales of plausible tomorrows, made all the more vivid by his polymath masteries of language, drama, characters, and the implications of science," wrote Brin in his post. As a sci-fi author, Vinge won Hugo Awards for his novels A Fire Upon the Deep (1993), A Deepness in the Sky (2000), and Rainbows End (2007). He also won Hugos for novellas Fast Times at Fairmont High (2002) and The Cookie Monster (2004).

Google's co-founder Sergey Brin has kept a low profile since quietly returning to work at the company. But the troubled launch of Google's artificial intelligence model Gemini resulted in a rare public utterance recently: "We definitely messed up." Brin's comments, at an AI "hackathon" event on 2 March, follow a slew of social media posts showing Gemini's image generation tool depicting a variety of historical figures – including popes, founding fathers of the US and, most excruciatingly, German second world war soldiers – as people of colour. The pictures, as well as Gemini chatbot responses that vacillated over whether libertarians or Stalin had caused the greater harm, led to an explosion of negative commentary from figures such as Elon Musk who saw it as another front in the culture wars. But criticism has also come from other sources including Google's chief executive, Sundar Pichai, who described some of the responses produced by Gemini as "completely unacceptable".

It's not often you meet someone who's genuinely changed the world, but that's what happens the day I greet Niantic CEO John Hanke. Sipping his coffee alone in a gargantuan San Franciscan boardroom, I wonder whether the man on the other end of this Zoom call realises just how often people use his former company's creation, Google Maps. Hanke's yearning to create started young. Fresh out of business school in the 1990s and already with one of the first online gaming successes to his name, he was snapped up – along with his company, Keyhole, by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and folded into the team that made Google Maps, now arguably the most useful thing on your smartphone. "None of us were interested in doing the thing where you got your driving directions, printed them out and took it with you on a sheet of paper," Hanke says.

When co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced that they were leaving their day-to-day roles at Google parent Alphabet in 2019, handing Sundar Pichai the keys to the kingdom, they mused about Google's age. "If the company was a person, it would be a young adult of 21 and it would be time to leave the roost," they wrote. "We believe it's time to assume the role of proud parents--offering advice and love, but not daily nagging!" Four years later, as Google faces incursions from AI rivals dead set on dethroning the company's iconic search business, the absent parents have returned home. Microsoft, a once-dormant rival, has sprung to life with a new version of Bing, aided by OpenAI, the upstart maker of the generative AI bot ChatGPT.

The race for AI dominance is on. Google is apparently feeling the heat from the sudden interest in AI-enabled chatbot systems, in particular – OpenAI's ChatGPT. According to a recent report from The New York Times, Google has earmarked plans to "demonstrate a version of its search engine with chatbot features this year" alongside more than 20 AI-powered projects, all of which will help bolster its existing portfolio and take on the rising threat. You'll also love: Hum a Song and Google Can Tell You What it is What Are Google 3D Animals? Google Maps Lifelike'Immersive View' Puts the World in the Palm of Your Hand ChatGPT is on its way to LinkedIn, send help pic.twitter.com/b2ghKuNgjg

Last month, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google's founders, held several meetings with company executives. The topic: a rival's new chatbot, a clever A.I. product that looked as if it could be the first notable threat in decades to Google's $149 billion search business. Mr. Page and Mr. Brin, who had not spent much time at Google since they left their daily roles with the company in 2019, reviewed Google's artificial intelligence product strategy, according to two people with knowledge of the meetings who were not allowed to discuss them. They approved plans and pitched ideas to put more chatbot features into Google's search engine. And they offered advice to company leaders, who have put A.I. front and center in their plans.

Computer scientist and entrepreneur Sergey Brin is one of the co-founders of search engine giant Google. He currently has a net worth of $83.6 billion, making him one of the world's wealthiest people. Here are some of the things you should know about the successful billionaire businessman. Sergey Mikhaylovich Brin was born on Aug. 21, 1973, in Moscow, Russia, to Jewish parents Michael and Eugenia. He and his family moved to the United States in 1979.