TheNewsGuru

Tag: Google

  • Google warns EU against copyright reforms as compromise looms

    Google has warned against planned EU copyright reforms that would make internet companies liable for infringements and require them to pay for publishing press snippets, amid signs that a compromise is emerging on the controversial measures.

    The overhaul, proposed by the European Union’s executive in 2016, aims to make EU copyright rules fit for the digital age by ensuring that artists and news publishers are fairly remunerated for work that appears online.

    However, critics charge that the measures will damage the free exchange of information, with some media outlets warning they could spell “the death of the internet.”

    Google Senior Vice President and General Counsel Kent Walker warned of the reform’s unintended consequences, in a blog post published on Thursday.

    “Restricting the amount of news Google can republish to weblinks and short fragments of headlines would cause a substantial traffic loss to news publishers,’’ Walker said.

    He added that holding internet companies liable for copyright infringements would harm Europe’s creative economy.

    EU member states are trying to hash out a common position on the reforms in order to strike a deal with the European Parliament, which agreed its position in September.

    According to a draft text seen by dpa, in recent days, France and Germany agreed on a compromise that would exempt smaller companies from the provisions on copyright infringements.

    This paves the way for a possible agreement among member states as soon as Friday, with a view to concluding negotiations with parliament coming week.

    Efforts to strike a deal failed three weeks ago due to disagreement between France and Germany.

    However, the parliament’s chief negotiator, Axel Voss, told dpa he was disappointed with their compromise.

     

  • Google laments changes in data privacy would hurt

    Google’s parent company, Alphabet has said changes to data privacy practices could have adverse effect on its business.

    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports Alphabet made this known in its annual report filed on Tuesday.

    The company suggested it is adjusting to increased regulatory scrutiny and evolving consumer attitudes toward data and privacy online.

    “Changes to our data privacy practices, as well as changes to third-party advertising policies or practices may affect the type of ads and/or manner of advertising that we are able to provide which could have an adverse effect on our business.

    “If we do not provide superior value or deliver advertisements efficiently and competitively, our reputation could be affected, we could see a decrease in revenue from advertisers and/or experience other adverse effects to our business,” the company wrote in the filing.

    Due to abuse of users data, regulators have tightened their grip in scrutinizing how tech firms manage users data, and especially Google has faced a number of fines in this regard.

    The Alphabet Tuesday’s filing also warned about software errors.

    “Bugs or defects in our products and services have occurred and may occur in the future, or our security measures could be breached, resulting in the improper use and/or disclosure of user data.

    “Due to these factors and the evolving nature of our business, our historical revenue growth rate and historical operating margin may not be indicative of our future performance,” the company wrote.

     

  • Google deletes malicious beauty apps

    Google deletes malicious beauty apps

    Google has deleted 29 malicious “beauty camera” apps that were sharing pornographic content and forwarding users to phishing websites to steal their information.

    Some of these Android apps have been downloaded millions of times and a large number of the download counts originated from Asia – particularly in India, said a report from US-based cyber security firm Trend Micro.

    The apps have now been removed by Google from the Play Store, Trend Micro said.

    “A user downloading one of these apps will not immediately suspect that there is anything amiss, until they decide to delete the app,” said Trend Micro.

    Such an app will push several full-screen ads when users unlock their devices, including malicious ads (such as fraudulent content and pornography) that will pop up via the user’s browser.

    “During our analysis, we found a paid online pornography player that was downloaded when clicking the pop up,” the report added.

    None of these apps gave any indication that they were the ones behind the ads, thus users might find it difficult to determine where they’re coming from.

    Some of these apps redirected to phishing websites that asked the user for personal information, such as addresses and phone numbers.

    “For example, the package com.beauty.camera.project.cloud will create a shortcut after being launched. However, it will hide its icon from the application list, making it more difficult for users to uninstall the app since they will be unable to drag and delete it,” Trend Micro noted.

    Furthermore, the camera apps used packers to prevent them from being analysed.

     

  • Google pays $7,600 fine to Russia after faultering

    Google pays $7,600 fine to Russia after faultering

    Google has paid a fine of 500,000 rubles (7,616 dollars) for failing to remove search links to banned information, Russia’s telecommunications watchdog Roskomnadzor said on Friday.

    Roskomnadzor imposed the fine in December, accusing Google of breaching the Russian legislation that search engine operators are obliged to exclude links to Internet pages with prohibited information from search results.

    Meanwhile, Roskomnadzor will on Monday start a comprehensive scheduled check of the personal data storage system of Apple Rus, the Russian division of U.S. high-tech giant Apple Inc., TASS news agency reported on Friday.

    The watchdog said Apple Rus had sent it a notification that the company had started processing personal data of Russian citizens in Russia as required by law.

    In December, Roskomnadzor initiated administrative cases against U.S. companies Twitter and Facebook for non-compliance with the Russian law.

     

  • EU seeks more efforts against fake news from Facebook, Google, others

    The European Commission on Tuesday called on social media giants including Facebook and Google to take stronger action against disinformation ahead of EU-wide elections in May.

    In September, Facebook, Google, Mozilla and Twitter signed up to a voluntary EU code of conduct to tackle fake news online.

    At the time, the commission warned that it could introduce binding rules if the voluntary measures do not go far enough.

    The companies have made some progress, the commission on Tuesday said in its first assessment of measures taken.

    But it warned that additional action is needed ahead of this year’s European Parliament elections.

    “We are stepping up a pace on all fronts to ensure free and fair elections,” said EU Justice Commissioner, Vera Jourova.

    “I expect companies will fully follow on their rhetoric and commitment.’’

    Among other things, the commission calls on Facebook to provide consumer empowerment tools and cooperation with fact-checkers in more than just a handful of member states and asks Google to make its tools to fight disinformation more widely available.

    The EU executive also asks Twitter and Mozilla for more detail on their plans to tackle fake news.

    “We don’t want to wake up the day after the elections and realise we should have done more,” said Julian King, the Commissioner Responsible for Security Issues.

    On Monday, Facebook’s chief lobbyist Nick Clegg announced plans to increase electoral transparency in Europe from March, by showing, who had paid for any political advertising and keeping the ads in a public database for up to seven years, among other things.

    King welcomed the plans but stressed the need for any such initiatives to be in place before EU election campaigns gear up in earnest.

    The EU code of conduct commits companies to actions such as flagging political advertising, closing fake accounts, helping people make informed decisions and disrupting advertising revenues for accounts and websites that misrepresent information.

    Fears are rife that third parties, such as Russia, may try to influence voters ahead of this year’s EU elections, with a view to boosting populist, Eurosceptic parties.

    Member states have also been asked to assign a contact person for an EU rapid alert system aimed at shutting down disinformation.

    Twelve of the bloc’s 28 member states have not yet done so, the commission said.

    The commission is due to issue monthly reports on the progress made by social media giants until the European elections and will conduct an overall review once the code of conduct has been in place for a year, to see whether legislative steps are needed.

    Other EU measures to fight fake news include setting up a network of fact-checkers and researchers, introducing new technologies to detect and counter false information and more than doubling the EU’s strategic communication budget.

    EU negotiators have also agreed in principle on plans to fine political parties that misuse private data to influence elections.

     

  • Google’s consumer-facing services down

    A number of consumer-facing Google services, including popular Gmail, are currently down for some users around the world.

    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports Google confirmed the development on its website.

    “We’re aware of a problem with Gmail affecting a significant subset of users.

    “The affected users are unable to access Gmail.

    “We will provide an update by 1/29/19, 6:20 PM detailing when we expect to resolve the problem.

    “Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change.

    “Users are getting 404s when signing-in,” Google wrote for Gmail in dashboard.

    The affected services are Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Google Groups, Hangouts, Hangouts Chat, Hangouts Meet, Google Vault, Google+, and Google Forms.

    Impacted users were receiving 404 page not found error code but Google noted that the services were restored for some users.

    However, the exact geographical details of the disruption are unclear at the moment.

     

  • Lagos Gov Debate: Google’s plan to introduce Internet in schools frustrated by APC- Agbaje

    The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Jimi Agbaje, has criticised the Lagos State Government under the leadership of All Progressives Congress, for allegedly frustrating the plan of technology giant, Google, to introduce Internet in schools in the state.

    Agbaje, who said pupils in Lagos schools were not exposed to technology, claimed that the state government blocked Google plan for selfish reasons.

    He spoke during a governorship debate organised by The Platform.

    The governorship hopeful said, “The new knowledge out there is about innovation. Our children today in public schools have no exposure to technology. So, for me, technology is important.

    “If you put technology, every primary school will have Internet connection. And if you have Internet connection, you must have power and teaching. And you are using technology to drive education. It is very key.

    “Those that have been there for the past 20 years have put obstacles for technology.

    “We have heard that Google wanted to give us free Internet, but they keep putting blockage for vested interests and that is what we are going to correct.”

  • Google’s plan to introduce Internet in schools was frustrated, Agbaje declares

    The People’s Democratic Party governorship candidate Jimi Agbaje, has condemned the Lagos State Government for allegedly frustrating the plan of technology company, Google, to introduce Internet in schools in the state.

    Agbaje, noted that pupils in Lagos schools were not exposed to technology, because the state government allegedly hindered Google’s plan for selfish reasons.

    He made this statement during a governorship debate organised by The Platform.

    He said, “The new knowledge out there is about innovation. Our children today in public schools have no exposure to technology, so for me, technology is important. If you put technology, every primary school will have Internet connection. And if you have Internet connection, you must have power and teaching. And you are using technology to drive education. It is very key.

    “Those that have been there for the past 20 years have put obstacles for technology. We have had Google that wanted to give us free Internet, but they keep putting blockage for vested interest and that is what we are going to do.”

     

  • Google gets approval to deploy new sensing technology

    Google gets approval to deploy new sensing technology

    The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has given Google approval to deploy a new sensing technology known as the Project Soli.

    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports Soli is a radar-based hand motion sensing technology that uses miniature radar to detect touchless gesture interactions.

    It is a purpose-built interaction sensor that uses radar for motion tracking of the human hand.

    The sensor tracks sub-millimeter motion at high speeds with great accuracy. It will allow people to control devices with a simple, universal set of gestures.

    The FCC said the decision to give Google approval for the project “will serve the public interest by providing for innovative device control features using touchless hand gesture technology.”

    The FCC said the sensors can be operated aboard aircraft but must still comply with Federal Aviation Administration rules governing portable electronic devices.

    The Soli chip incorporates the entire sensor and antenna array into an ultra-compact 8mm x 10mm package.

    The concept of virtual tools is key to Soli interactions: virtual tools are gestures that mimic familiar interactions with physical tools.

    Imagine an invisible button between your thumb and index fingers – you can press it by tapping your fingers together or a virtual dial that you turn by rubbing thumb against index finger, or imagine grabbing and pulling a virtual slider in thin air.

    These are the kinds of interactions Google is developing and imagining with Project Soli.

    “Even though these controls are virtual, the interactions feel physical and responsive.

    “Feedback is generated by the haptic sensation of fingers touching each other.

    “Without the constraints of physical controls, these virtual tools can take on the fluidity and precision of our natural human hand motion,” Google said of Soli.

    Soli sensor technology works by emitting electromagnetic waves in a broad beam.

    Objects within the beam scatter this energy, reflecting some portion back towards the radar antenna.

    Properties of the reflected signal, such as energy, time delay, and frequency shift capture rich information about the object’s characteristics and dynamics, including size, shape, orientation, material, distance, and velocity.

    Soli tracks and recognizes dynamic gestures expressed by fine motions of the fingers and hand.

    In order to accomplish this with a single chip sensor, Google developed a novel radar sensing paradigm with tailored hardware, software, and algorithms.

    Unlike traditional radar sensors, Soli does not require large bandwidth and high spatial resolution; in fact, Soli’s spatial resolution is coarser than the scale of most fine finger gestures.

    Instead, the fundamental sensing principles rely on motion resolution by extracting subtle changes in the received signal over time.

    By processing these temporal signal variations, Soli can distinguish complex finger movements and deforming hand shapes within its field.

    The Soli software architecture consists of a generalized gesture recognition pipeline which is hardware agnostic and can work with different types of radar.

    The pipeline implements several stages of signal abstraction: from the raw radar data to signal transformations, core and abstract machine learning features, detection and tracking, gesture probabilities, and finally UI tools to interpret gesture controls.

    The Soli SDK enables developers to easily access and build upon the gesture recognition pipeline. The Soli libraries extract real-time signals from radar hardware, outputting signal transformations, high precision position and motion data, and gesture labels and parameters at frame rates from 100 to 10,000 frames per second.

    The Soli sensor is a fully integrated, low-power radar operating in the 60-GHz ISM band.

    “In our journey toward this form factor, we rapidly iterated through several hardware prototypes, beginning with a large bench-top unit built from off-the-shelf components — including multiple cooling fans.

    “Over the course of 10 months, we redesigned and rebuilt the entire radar system into a single solid-state component that can be easily integrated into small, mobile consumer devices and produced at scale.

    “The custom-built Soli chip greatly reduces radar system design complexity and power consumption compared to our initial prototypes.

    “We developed two modulation architectures: a Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar and a Direct-Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) radar.

    “Both chips integrate the entire radar system into the package, including multiple beamforming antennas that enable 3D tracking and imaging with no moving parts,” Google stated.

    The Soli chip can be embedded in wearables, phones, computers, cars and IoT devices.

    Soli has no moving parts, it fits onto a chip and consumes little energy. It is not affected by light conditions and it works through most materials.

     

  • Judge dismisses $5 million lawsuit filed against Google

    A US judge who cited a lack of “concrete injuries” on Saturday dismissed a lawsuit filed against Google by consumers who claimed the search engine’s photo sharing and storage service violated their privacy.

    Edmond Chang, a US District Judge in Chicago, granted Google’s motion for summary judgment, saying the court lacked “subject matter jurisdiction because plaintiffs have not suffered concrete injuries”.

    The suit was filed in March 2016 alleging Alphabet’s Google violated Illinois state law by collecting and storing biometric data from people’s photographs using facial recognition software without their permission through its Google Photos service.

    Plaintiffs had sought more than $5 million collectively for the “hundreds of thousands” of state residents affected, according to court documents.

    Plaintiffs had asked the court for $5,000 for each intentional violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, or $1,000 for every negligent violation, court documents said.

    Attorneys for the plaintiffs as well as officials with Google could not immediately be reached to comment.

    Google had argued in court documents that the plaintiffs were not entitled to money or injunctive relief because they had suffered no harm.

    The case is Rivera v Google, US District Court, Northern District of Illinois, No. 16-02714.