Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin loved pulling pranks, so much so they began rolling outlandish ideas every April Fools' Day not long after starting their company more than a quarter century ago.

Google is introducing its artificially intelligent chatbot named Bard to other members of its digital family — including Gmail, Maps and YouTube — as it seeks to ward off competitive threats posed by similar technology run by Open AI and Microsoft.

The Republican National Committee has filed a lawsuit against tech giant Google, alleging the company has been suppressing its email solicitations ahead of November’s midterm elections.

A Troy resident was scammed out of thousands of dollars while trying to buy Shih Tzu dogs online, officials said.

The icon for the social media app Clubhouse is seen on a smartphone screen in Beijing, Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2021. You can also download the app and get on a waiting list to be let into Clubhouse. Although Clubhouse hasn't divulged how many people are using its service, its app has been downloaded 5.3 million times, according to analytics firm App Annie. Thousands of Chinese users have flocked to the app in recent months, lured by the unfettered discussions it allowed with people abroad — particularly about democracy, Taiwan and other sensitive topics. Users still could download it if they had access to an Apple app store abroad.

LONDON – Google users in the U.S., Europe, India and other parts of the world were briefly unable to access their Gmail accounts, watch YouTube videos or get to their online documents during an outage Monday. The vast majority of those people, about 90%, could not log in, according to the site Downdetector. The inability to sign in prevented users accessing other platforms through Google, including mobile video games. The disruption was an early jolt on the East Coast for parents who were waking children up for school Monday. Millions of students are relying on Google for online instruction during the pandemic, including platforms like Google Docs.

Google, YouTube and other Google services reported massive outages on Monday morning. According to DownRightNow, Gmail, YouTube, Google Drive, Google Docs and other Google tools were not working on Monday morning across the globe. TechCrunch reports that some services are coming back online as of about 7:45 a.m. (I tried to access Google and YouTube and was successful)We are aware that many of you are having issues accessing YouTube right now – our team is aware and looking into it. We'll update you here as soon as we have more news. — TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) December 14, 2020The outage comes as many schools around the world are using these services to facilitate remote learning.

LICreate/iStock(CNN) - The highly-anticipated dark theme option for Gmail is now rolling out to Android and iOS users. Dark mode is a preferred appearance for some users because it's easier on the eyes. Facebook is also testing a dark mode, according to multiple reports. For Android 10 users, the dark theme is accessible in the Android Display system setting, and it's enabled in Gmail after the whole operating system is set to dark mode. On Pixel devices, Gmail will default to the dark theme when Battery Saver mode is activated.

Huawei's new Mate 30 smartphone is about to go on sale, but it won't come with YouTube, Gmail or Google Maps. The Mate 30 phones will come with Google's open source Android operating system, but won't have access to the Google Play Store or apps like YouTube, Gmail and Google Maps. Third party apps like ride-hailing platforms and food delivery services that rely on Google Maps would also no longer function without access to Google services. Huawei's Mate 30 series is expected to come with a better camera system and faster hardware under the hood. Leaked promotional photos published by The Verge show the Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro will have four Leica cameras on the back of the phone contained in a circular cutout, one-upping the three cameras housed on the back of the iPhone 11.

Threaded conversations: Sometimes we chat with the same folks for years, or chat with a lot of folks at once. It can be tough to keep up with it all. A lot of e-mail services now offer "threaded" conversations, but it was Gmail that popularized the concept. In Gmail, replies, replies to replies and, yes, replies to those replies are displayed in one place, in order, making it easier to follow the entire conversation. Hide Caption