Tag: Google

Google tells News Corp to get lost

Posted on September 25, 2014 by - News

OgleA senior VP at Google has released a detailed rebuttal to an attack on its business practices by Rupert Murdoch of News Corp.

In her Dear Rupert letter, Rachel Whetstone said that Google is on the side of publishers “which used to be controlled by a relatively small number of media organisations”. Ouch.

Google, she said, also invests in training journalists in its Google for Media programme.

She claimed  that far for being a platform for piracy, as Murdoch alleged, Google had done more than practically anyone else to tackle online piracy, by removing 222 million web pages from Google Search due to copyright infringement last year.

She said Google is not the gatekeeper to the web, and has plenty of competition from other companies including Amazon, Kayak, Expedia and Yelp.

She revealed that Google changed its search algorithms 500 times a year. She defended the Android operating system.

She denied that Google is commoditising the ability of specialist publishers to generate advertising revenue.

She rebutted News Corp’s claim that “the shining vision of Google’s founders has been replaced by a cynical management”.

She has a lot more to say too.

Motorola leaks phablet Nexus 6

Posted on September 25, 2014 by - News

Google the OgleMotorola is rumoured to be working on two devices for Google which include an upgraded Nexus 5 and a phablet-like Nexus 6.

According to Nine to Five  the Nexus 5 will extend the screen up to a 5.2in diagonal, but the Nexus 6 will arrive with a huge 5.92in display.

The handset,  codenamed ‘Shamu’, will be based on the second generation Moto X, with a few minor tweaks to make it easier to use given the larger screen. The volume and power buttons would be moved further towards the centre of the side of the handset, but the overall design would remain the same. That means it will have an aluminium outer frame, curved rear and forward-facing speakers.

The 2,560×1,440 resolution display will have a pixel density of 498ppi. Under the bonnet is a 2.6GHz quad-core Snapdragon 805 processor, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage.

The rear-facing camera will reportedly use a 13-megapixel sensor and the ring flash first seen on the new Moto X. It should also use a 3,200mAh battery.

The new handset will run Android L, presumably in 64-bit mode.

It will be the first time Google has tried to release two smartphones simultaneously and the Tame Apple Press claims that it is just copying Apple’s move. After all Apple was the first to introduce phablets wasn’t it?  A 5.92in screen would make the Nexus 6 one of the largest mainstream handsets around.

Climate deniers are liars says Schmidt

Posted on September 24, 2014 by - News

google-apple-maps-eric-schmidtSearch engine outfit Google has pulled out of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) saying that the outfit is a bunch of liars.

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt  said that it had been a mistake for Google to join that particular lobby outfit because it was pretty much against everything that the outfit believed.

ALEC thinks that human-created climate change could be “beneficial” and opposes environmental regulations. It is backed by a lot of big US companies who want a philosophy that will allow them to cheaply pollute.

Schmidt said groups trying to cast doubt on climate change science are “just literally lying”.

However ALEC also has some other strange views which are opposed to Google’s.  It thinks that Net Neutrality and municipal broadband projects are all a communist plot.

Earlier this month, Google refused to comment after 50 advocacy groups called on the company to end its affiliation with ALEC.

Schmidt appeared on The Diane Rehm Show and was asked by a listener whether Google is still supporting ALEC. The listener described ALEC as “lobbyists in DC that are funding climate change deniers.”

Schmidt responded, “we funded them as part of a political campaign for something unrelated. I think the consensus within the company was that was sort of a mistake, and so we’re trying to not do that in the future.”

He said that Google has a very strong view that decisions in politics should be based on facts and the facts of climate change are not in question anymore.

“Everyone understands that climate change is occurring, and the people who oppose it are really hurting our children and grandchildren and making the world a much worse place. And so we should not be aligned with such people. They’re just literally lying,” Schmidt said.

Google was a member of ALEC’s Communications and Technology TaskForce, along with Facebook, Microsoft, and Yahoo. Microsoft also cut ties with ALEC recently.

ALEC CEO Lisa Nelson spat the usual right wing US bile against its former ally saying it was unfortunate to learn Google has ended its membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council.

She said it was all due to public pressure from left-leaning individuals and organisations who intentionally confuse free market policy perspectives for climate change denial.

No one can stand up to what big business wants in the US without being labelled a left wing pinko.

 

Driverless car growth set to surge

Posted on September 15, 2014 by - News

Rolls Royce Silver GhostA staggering 42 million driverless vehicles will be on our roads by 2035.

That’s the prediction of market research company ABI Research which said the numbers of driverless cars will ramp from 1.1 million in 2024 to over 42 million in 2035.

But these optimistic forecasts don’t take into account bottlenecks including user acceptance, security, liability and regulation.

Google has already been forced by the California Department of Motor Vehicles to test prototypes with steering wheel, brake and acceleration pedals installed.

Tesla said last week that it will move into the driverless car market but other car manufacturers are havering over making a decision.

“While autonomous driving under the control of a human standby driver is quickly gaining acceptance, robotic vehicles mostly remain out of bounds, especially for car manufacturers, despite Google’s recent announcement to start prototype testing. However, only driverless vehicles will bring the full range of automation benefits including car sharing; driverless taxis, and delivery vans; social mobility for kids, elderly, and impaired; and overall economic growth through cheaper and smoother transportation critical in an increasing number of smart mega cities. Many barriers remain but the path towards robotic vehicles is now firmly established with high rewards for those first-to-market,” said ABI Research director Dominique Bonte.

Google: Change your passwords!

Posted on September 11, 2014 by - News

google-ICSearch engine behemoth Google advised users of its Gmail email software to change their passports after a Russian website was hacked.

Apparently five million passwords were hacked from a Russian site called Bitcoin Security with people from the UK, Spain and Russia.

It’s not entirely clear what all those passwords were doing on the Russian site in the first place.

Google said it was advising folk to set up two step verification on their accounts.

A representative said Google had no evidence that its own servers had been compromised.

The passwords relate not only to Gmail but other Google services.

Google pushes further into health care

Posted on September 11, 2014 by - News

330ogleAmbitious search giant Google has bought a company which helps people with Parkinson’s disease.

The firm, Liff Labs, will become part of Google’s R&D division – Google X.  Google X works on projects such as driverless cars and Google glasses.

Financial terms are not disclosed but according to a Google blog, a spoon made by Liff includes sensors that can pick up tremors in a patient’s hand are cance them.

Google has already made forays into health care, including the collection of genetic and molecular data and “smart” contact lenses. It is understood that Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s mother has Parkinson’s and his chance of developing the disease is greater than average.

Liff Labs said in a prepared statement that the acquisition will let its invention reach more people living with Parkinson’s.

Google squeezed by Europe again

Posted on September 9, 2014 by - News

330ogleGoogle is facing further pressure from the European Commission over its dominance of the search market.

EC competion czar Joaquin Almunia said that the organisation is likely to take a look into its Android mobile operating system as well as its dominance in the mobile market.

The EC first started an investigation into possible abuse of its leading position in 2010, and believes the search giant may be anti-competitive.

Last weekend, Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google, said on his blog that his company’s search engine was just part of the web landscape.  That follows adverts from a group of publishers accusing the company is too dominant .  It has an estimated 90 percent market share in Europe.

Schmidt rebutted those claims, saying that it isn’t promoting its own products at the expense of its competition. People often go directly to news sites and go to travel sites directly, rather than using Google.

He claimed that the increasing use of apps on smartphones and tablets bypassed Google completely.  He claims that Google is just interested in helping users.

Google is not evil.  But it’s not a non-profit organisation.

Google panics over privacy rules

Posted on September 8, 2014 by - News

330ogleSearch giant Google has got itself in a flap because it is being forced to remove thousands of items that people don’t like on the web.

Reuters said Google will hold its first meeting in Madrid tomorrow in a bid to discuss the free flow of information.

This all follows a ruling in May that allows citizens  of the European Union the right to be anonymous on the web.

Apparently, by mid July, Google had received over 90,000 requests to remove information on its search engine. Google has refused a chunk of the requests but people have the right to appeal against the refusals.

Reuters quotes French watchdog Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin as saying that the seven debates to be held over Europe were part of a spin war.

This month, representatives of Microsoft, Yahoo and other companies operating search engines are being asked to cooperate to create guidelines for the removal of personal data, if requested.

Tech companies start talking about hiring

Posted on September 4, 2014 by - News

Slaves_ruvumaApple, Google, Intel and Adobe have gone back to the drawing board to come up with a more reasonable deal with tech workers in a high-profile lawsuit over hiring practices in Silicon Valley.

The four were sued for conspiring to avoid poaching each other’s employees. Last month, US District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California rejected a proposed $324.5 million settlement in the class action case, saying it was too low, considering what the four actually did.

Both sides have said they had resumed mediation but provided no additional details on the talks. They also asked Koh to set a new trial date.

The employees said that the conspiracy limited their job mobility and  kept a lid on salaries. The case, filed in 2011, has been closely watched because of the possibility of big damages being awarded. It also showed the antics of the likes of Apple’s Steve Jobs, former Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt and some of their rivals.

Koh cited “substantial and compelling evidence” that Jobs “was a, if not the, central figure in the alleged conspiracy”.

Jobs had previous form for setting up conspiracies which helped him and Apple at the expense of workers or customers. He was also named and shamed as the bloke who set up a conspiracy to make sure that customers paid more for ebooks.

Given the strength of the case against the companies, the plaintiffs should have got more money, Koh wrote.

Google gets into Quantum Lolcats

Posted on September 3, 2014 by - News

OgleSearch engine Google has decided that it wants to get into the business of working out if cats are potentially alive or dead.

It has created a research team led by physicist John Martinis from the University of California Santa Barbara to build new quantum information processors based on superconducting electronics.

Dubbed the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab, the whole thing is a  collaboration between Google, NASA Ames Research Centre and the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) to study the application of quantum optimisation related to artificial intelligence.

The idea is that by having an integrated hardware group, the Quantum AI team will now be able to implement and test new designs for quantum optimisation and inference processors based on recent theoretical insights as well as our learnings from the D-Wave quantum annealing architecture.

It will also be able to have someone who can feed and stroke the cats, which may or may not be alive.

Google has become more interested in artificial intelligence in recent years, probably because human intelligence seems to be suffering in the US as the nation stops teaching science in favour of a theory that someone’s invisible friend created the universe 6,000 years ago.

In January, Google bought privately held artificial intelligence company DeepMind Technologies, which says it all, really.

 

Google serves up tat

Posted on September 3, 2014 by - News

telescopeSearch engine Google has come up with a novel way of getting people to update their browsers to something a little more recent.

Users of browsers which can remember the use of shoulder pads and Duran Duran are suddenly getting served up search results which are just as old.

An Opera 12.17 user complained on a Google help desk that, Google’s homepage reverted to the old version him. If he searched for something, the results are shown with the current Google look, but the homepage itself is the old look with the black bar across the top. It seemed to affect only the Google homepage and image search. However he still got the latest news.

Opera is currently using version 24, version 12 was bought out in June 7, 2011.

A Google spokesman said that there was not a fault with Google, in fact it was proof that the “encouragement” to upgrade was working perfectly. He suggested politely that if the user wanted a modern Google they should run a modern browser to support it.

“We’re continually making improvements to Search, so we can only provide limited support for some outdated browsers. We encourage everyone to make the free upgrade to modern browsers — they’re more secure and provide a better web experience overall,” the spokesman wrote on the thread.

Strangely, the help desk thread continued with people using old browsers insisting that there must be a fault with Google’s programming. After all, there was nothing wrong with working with the same version of Safari which was blessed by Steve Jobs while he was young and healthy is there?

Microsoft to release a Chromecast rival

Posted on August 27, 2014 by - News

tvMicrosoft thinks that there is room for another TV casting dongle and is apparently thinking about releasing a rival to Chromecast.

Redmond has not mentioned the dongle so far but it did pop up in an FCC filing.

The filing  lacks much info to identify the device, but it carries the model number HD-10.

The FCC filing says that this device has an HDMI port, Wi-Fi and a USB charging unit.

But if you look at the Wi-Fi Alliance product database you can spot that Microsoft’s HD-10 is described as a Miracast dongle.

Miracast is a wireless standard that lets devices connect to one another and share media.  It is not as sexy as the Chromecast or Apple AirPlay. Miracast doesn’t let users queue up multiple files from different sources or play multiplayer games, and it requires media to be played on other devices and sent to the TV, rather than directly from online and cloud sources.

However, this does mean that Microsoft will get its Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 devices casting to the TV which, at the moment, it cannot do.

 

 

Amazon getting into advertising business

Posted on August 25, 2014 by - News

amazonOnline bookseller Amazon is getting into the internet advertising business.

The Wall Street Journal has been telling the world+dog that the in-house platform aims to replace ads supplied by Google on Amazon’s own website.

However the plan is to later expand the program to challenge Google and Microsoft advertising business in the future.

Amazon’s system is similar to Google’s AdWords, and is planned to make it easier for marketers to reach the company’s users.

The retailer is also building a tool that would help advertising agencies buy in bulk for thousands of advertisers.

Analysts have been wondering how long it would take Amazon to try to stick its foot in the door of the advertising industry. After all, if you know what a person reads you can target a lot of advertising their way.

Amazon is sitting on a huge consumer data but has so far been reluctant to use it for advertising.

The company already has an advertising service it employs chiefly on its own website but it is extremely low key in comparison to the potential.

 

Gmail a doddle to hack

Posted on August 25, 2014 by - News

black holeA hole in Android, Windows, and iOS makes Gmail a doddle to hack to steal personal information.

Researchers at the California Riverside Bourns College of Engineering and the University of Michigan have identified a weakness they believe to exist across Android, Windows, and iOS operating systems that could allow malicious apps to obtain personal information.

So far the attack has been tested only on an Android phone, but it is believed that the method could be used across all three operating systems because all three can access a mobile device’s shared memory.

Zhiyun Qian, an associate professor at UC Riverside aid that one app can in fact significantly impact another and result in harmful consequences for the user.”

First, a user must download an app that appears benign, such as a wallpaper, but actually contains malicious code. Once installed, the researchers can use it to access the shared memory statistics of any process, which does not require any special privileges.

The researchers monitored changes in this shared memory and can correlate see if someone is logging into Gmail, H&R Block, or taking a picture of a cheque to deposit it online via Chase Bank. They managed to hack with a success rate of 82 to 92 percent. Using a few other side channels, the team was able to accurately track what a user was doing in real-time.

It is not that easy. The attack needs to take place at the exact moment that the user is performing the action. Second, the attack needs to be conducted in such a way that the user is unaware of it.

Of the seven apps tested, Amazon was the hardest to crack, with a 48 percent success rate. This is because the app allows one activity to transition to another activity, making it harder to guess what the user will do next.

The team will present its paper, “Peeking into Your App without Actually Seeing It: UI State Inference and Novel Android Attacks” (PDF), at the USENIX Security Symposium in San Diego on August 23. You can watch some short videos of the attacks in action below.

Megacorps get the hard word

Posted on August 11, 2014 by - News

Judge-DreedA settlement between Apple, three other IT outfits and their employees has been rejected by a judge saying it was too low given the strength of the case against the employers.

Apple, Google, Intel  and Adobe failed to persuade  US District Judge Lucy Koh to sign off on a $324.5 million settlement to resolve a lawsuit by tech workers, who accused the firms of conspiring to avoid poaching each other’s employees.

Koh in San Jose, California, said there was “substantial and compelling evidence” that Apple Messiage founder Steve Jobs “was a, if not the, central figure in the alleged conspiracy,” Koh wrote

In their 2011 lawsuit, the tech employees said the conspiracy had limited their job mobility and, as a result, kept a lid on salaries. The case has been closely watched because of the possibility of big damages being awarded and for the opportunity to peek into the world of some of America’s elite tech outfits.

The whole case was based largely on emails in which Jobs and Google’s  Eric Schmidt hatched plans to avoid poaching each other’s prized engineers.

In rejecting the settlement, Koh referred to one email exchange which occurred after a Google recruiter solicited an Apple employee. Schmidt told Jobs that the recruiter would be fired. Jobs then forwarded Schmidt’s note to a top Apple human resources executive with a smiley face.

The four companies agreed to settle with the workers in April shortly before trial. The plaintiffs had planned to ask for about $3 billion in damages at trial, which could have tripled to $9 billion under antitrust law.

The plaintiffs are worried because workers faced serious risks on appeal had the case gone forward.

But Koh repeatedly referred to a related settlement last year involving Disney and Intuit. Apple and Google workers got proportionally less in the latest deal compared to the one involving Disney under the settlement.

To match the earlier settlement, the latest deal “would need to total at least $380 million,” Koh wrote.

A further hearing in the case is scheduled for September 10.