google – Tech News

MapQuest’s app surges to No. 1 in Navigation after refusing to rename Lake Ontario

The “OG of online mapping,” as the company calls itself, announced on Thursday that it would not change the name of Lake Ontario on its maps to Lake America, despite Trump’s executive order directing the U.S. Department of the Interior to update the lake’s name in the U.S. geographic naming service. As a result, MapQuest’s mobile app downloads soared, sending the iOS app to the No. 4 position on the U.S. App Store’s Top Charts for apps (not including games) as of Monday morning on the U.S. east coast.
https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/31/mapquests-app-surges-to-no-1-in-navigation-after-refusing-to-rename-lake-ontario/

DuckDuckGo installs are up 30% as users reject being ‘force-fed’ Google’s AI Search

In response to Google’s changes, many have begun defecting to DuckDuckGo, a privacy-focused alternative that has never been able to break past Google’s dominance, accounting for only around 2% of the U.S. search market. “Google is force-feeding AI with no way to opt out,” Weinberg said Tuesday in a statement, referring to Google’s Search overhaul. “As a result, their results are getting worse, not better. We want to be the place that puts users in charge and allows them to decide how much or how little AI they want.”
https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/26/duckduckgo-installs-are-up-30-as-users-reject-being-force-fed-googles-ai-search/

Google announces its Chromebook successor: the Googlebook

Google is announcing a new line of laptops coming in the fall called Googlebooks. Details are sparse for now, as the tease is just a small part of various Android announcements during Google’s Android Show. But we do know this is a major new initiative in the laptop space for Google, seemingly designed to succeed Chromebooks with something more capable: a platform running a long-rumored new operating system based on a fusion of Android and ChromeOS.
https://www.theverge.com/tech/928479/google-googlebook-laptops-android-tease-aluminium-chromebook

Google Search is now using AI to replace headlines

Google is beginning to replace news headlines in its search results with ones that are AI-generated. After doing something similar in its Google Discover news feed, it’s starting to mess with headlines in the traditional “10 blue links,” too. We’ve found multiple examples where Google replaced headlines we wrote with ones we did not, sometimes changing their meaning in the process.
https://www.theverge.com/tech/896490/google-replace-news-headlines-in-search-canary-coal-mine-experiment

The last remaining subscription for unlimited Google Photos storage is dead [U]

Unlimited Google Photos storage was the biggest selling point of what quickly became the most popular photo storage service, but as it became hard to sustain with scale, Google pulled the plug. For a while, though, T-Mobile customers have had access to a special Google One subscription that included unlimited Google Photos storage, but it’s now dead.
https://9to5google.com/2026/03/16/google-photos-unlimited-storage-subscription-ends/

‘Immersive Navigation’ is the biggest Google Maps driving update in a decade

Google Maps is giving its driving experience the “biggest update in over a decade” with Immersive Navigation that redesigns visuals and offers “more intuitive guidance.” It starts with a “vivid 3D view that reflects the buildings, overpasses, and terrain around you.” Google Maps will highlight lanes, crosswalks, traffic lights, stop signs, and other critical road details “to help you make that turn or merge confidently.”
https://9to5google.com/2026/03/12/google-maps-immersive-navigation/