Sept. 12, 2022, 10:00 AM In an earlier period of its history, Google became famous for pursuing a range of long-shot projects, such as space elevators, as well as kites that doubled as wind turbines. Among the most whimsical was Loon, a plan to use high-flying balloons to beam superfast internet to areas that couldn’t be served by more traditional means. The company shut down the project last year, and it’s uncertain whether anyone will ever build a significant balloon-based wireless… Source link
Read More »Google’s HD Chromecast will probably look a lot like the 4K one
It seems increasingly likely that Google’s going to be announcing a budget Chromecast at its hardware event on October 6th, and Brazilian site Tecnoblog has posted purported pictures of the device, which the publication says showed up in documents from the National Telecommunications Agency. The device looks pretty much identical to the white model of Google’s current Chromecast with Google TV, but leaks from earlier this week suggest it’ll only be able to stream in 1080p instead of… Source link
Read More »Quick Phrases come to Google’s Nest Hub Max
If you have a Nest Hub Max smart display and you’re tired of saying “Hey Google” 50 times a day, a new feature could cut that number down a bit. Quick Phrases — a feature on the Pixel 6 phones, and which Google announced for the Nest Hub Max last year — are now live. This lets the Nest Hub Max (and only the Max so far) respond to certain commands without the phrase “Hey Google,” making talking to the voice interface a little easier. At launch, Quick Phrases — which you… Source link
Read More »Google’s Crackdown On Employee Trips Is Another Blow To Business Travel Recovery
Business travel has not recovered as quickly as leisure travel. getty Google has told its senior managers to limit employee travel only to “business critical” trips, according to a leaked internal email seen by The Information. No more team off-sites or social functions, and no more in-person meetings when a virtual option is available. Moving forward, Google’s executives were told, there will be a “high bar” for what is now deemed critical. Last month, Microsoft asked employees to cut… Source link
Read More »Google’s new rules against intrusive ads are a win-win for consumers and the search giant alike
The updates should also be welcome for users: On the whole, website ads are more annoying to US internet users than ads on social media or TV/streaming. The problem is more pronounced on mobile: 42% of worldwide mobile users say there’s too much advertising and it can be obtrusive, including 36% of US users. The big takeaway: Just as a grocery wouldn’t reward a supplier who keeps supplying expired products, so too Google is taking steps to disincentivize website owners that supply the… Source link
Read More »Google’s ‘News Showcase’ Stalls in U.S. as Media Outlets Balk at Terms
A Google product that pays publishers to feature their content is almost a year behind its intended launch schedule in the U.S., as negotiations with some media outlets have bogged down, people familiar with the situation said. Google News Showcase allows publishers to curate panels of related stories that appear on Google News and some other Google platforms. Links bring readers to news organizations’ websites and, in some cases, allow users free access to normally paywalled content. Source link
Read More »Google’s image-scanning illustrates how tech firms can penalise the innocent | John Naughton
Here’s a hypothetical scenario. You’re the parent of a toddler, a little boy. His penis has become swollen because of an infection and it’s hurting him. You phone the GP’s surgery and eventually get through to the practice’s nurse. The nurse suggests you take a photograph of the affected area and email it so that she can consult one of the doctors. So you get out your Samsung phone, take a couple of pictures and send them off. A short time later, the nurse phones to say that the GP… Source link
Read More »Google’s Immersive Street View Could Be Glimpse Of Metaverse
Fifteen years after its launch, a Google Maps feature that lets people explore faraway places as though standing right there is providing a glimpse of the metaverse being heralded as the future of the internet. There was not yet talk of online life moving to virtual worlds when a “far-fetched” musing by Google co-founder Larry Page prompted Street View, which lets users of the company’s free navigation service see imagery of map locations from the perspective of being there. Now the… Source link
Read More »Why Trump-backed Truth Social still isn’t available on Google’s app store
The app favored by many of Trump’s supporters still has not met the Google Play Store’s standards, including policies against incitement and physical threats of violence, the company told CNN on Tuesday. “On August 19 we notified Truth Social of several violations of standard policies in their current app submission and reiterated that having effective systems for moderating user-generated content is a condition of our terms of service for any app to go live on Google Play,” the Google… Source link
Read More »Google’s open-source bug bounty aims to clamp down on supply chain attacks
Google has introduced a new vulnerability rewards program to pay researchers who find security flaws in its open-source software or in the building blocks that its software is built on. It’ll pay anywhere from $101 to $31,337 for information about bugs in projects like Angular, GoLang, and Fuchsia or for vulnerabilities in the third-party dependencies that are included in those projects’ codebases. While it’s important for Google to fix bugs in its own projects (and in the software… Source link
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