News

Saudi Telecom Company Partners With Cubic Telecom To Deliver In-Car Services

Published

5 years ago

March 12, 2021

saudi telecom company partners with cunic telecom to deliver in car services

Saudi Telecom Company (STC), the largest mobile network operator in Saudi Arabia, has recently announced a partnership with Irish company Cubic Telecom, a leading enabler of automotive connectivity. Together, the two companies will develop in-car services for Saudi drivers, making the country’s vision of a connected future a step closer to reality.

“Partnering with Cubic enables STC as a digital enabler to simplify the delivery and management of advanced in-car services and gives us a foundation for innovating and meeting the changing needs of customers as new services evolve,” commented Dr. Sultan bin Saeed, VP of Business Development at STC.

The suite of tools provided by Cubic, called Connected Car, includes a solution that makes it possible for drivers to remotely monitor and control their vehicles via a smartphone app. It also includes an emergency calling system capable of automatically notifying emergency services in the event of a car crash.

Currently, Cubic’s in-car connectivity solution can be found in more than five million vehicles across 100 countries. The solution is embedded into vehicles at the manufacturing stage, and it gives car manufacturers the ability to collect data on cars’ performance and issue remote software updates.

“Cubic’s connected software is driving performance for carmakers and providing in-car services in key markets. We are delighted to be working with STC to help car manufacturers activate new opportunities in a very significant market,” said Barry Napier, CEO of Cubic Telecom.

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Saudi Arabia has been making significant investments to improve its telecommunications infrastructure and prepare it for the era of the Internet of Things, enabled by 5G connectivity.

In the future, connected cars are expected to be part of a larger ecosystem consisting, among other things, of smart road infrastructure, such as intelligent traffic lights that are aware of real-time traffic conditions and are able to communicate with self-driving vehicles to help them safely reach their destinations.

News

At I/O 2026, Sundar Pichai Concedes AI Must Deliver Real Value

Gemini 3.5, a personal agent called Spark, agentic shopping, and Android XR eyewear are all aimed at making AI feel useful, not just impressive.

Published

6 days ago

May 20, 2026

Nour Nasir

at io 2026 sundar pichai concedes ai must deliver real value

Google

Google’s annual I/O developer conference (I/O 2026) has recently become a status update on the same question: can the company turn its AI spending into products people use every day? This year, chief executive Sundar Pichai described Google as being in a phase of hyper progress, while conceding this is the part of the cycle where people want to see real value in the products they use on a day-to-day basis.

The strategy on display was to push agents — AI systems that act on a user’s behalf — into nearly every Google product at once. Search now has an “intelligent search box” that returns generated explainer videos alongside links. Gmail, Docs, YouTube and Maps are gaining their own agent layers, including a Docs Live feature that turns spoken instructions into drafted text with citations.

Two new models, Gemini 3.5 and a cheaper Gemini 3.5 Flash, arrived the same day. Google says 900 million people now use Gemini, and that more than 50 billion images have been generated with it. The pricing tier names are likely to confuse buyers: a new AI Ultra plan launches at $100 a month, while the older Gemini AI Ultra drops from $250 to $200.

The flashier announcements were Gemini Omni, a video generator pitched as a more realistic answer to OpenAI’s discontinued Sora 2, and Gemini Spark, a personal agent that handles recurring tasks across a user’s Google account. A new universal shopping cart lets agents complete purchases across multiple retailers from inside Google itself, placing the company between the merchant and the buyer, and also owning the checkout.

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Google also confirmed its Android XR eyewear, built with Samsung and frames from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Audio-only glasses ship this autumn; a display-equipped version, which would superimpose live translations into the wearer’s field of view, is still in development. Both sets translate, however only the display version shows you the result.

What Pichai did not resolve is the bargain underneath all this. An agent is only useful to the degree it knows your calendar, your inbox, your shopping history and your physical surroundings. Google has now confirmed that, in time, the same context may carry advertising.