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#Google is adding more Indian languages to its services and developing an AI model that would be able to handle 100+ Indian languages across speech and text.
Google Bets On Local Languages to Fuel Android’s Growth in India
Google is adding more Indian languages to its services and seeking ways to make its Android smartphones cheaper, eager to win more users in the world’s most populous country.Sankalp Phartiyal (Bloomberg)
Google just released a 100% free learning path on Generative AI with 9 Courses
Link: https://www.cloudskillsboost.google/paths/118
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36192195
Generative AI learning path | Google Cloud Skills Boost
This learning path guides you through a curated collection of content on Generative AI products and technologies, from the fundamentals of Large Language Models to how to create and deploy generative AI solutions on Google Cloud.Qwiklabs
***** Google's worst decision *****
The decision for #YouTube to allow 2020 election disinformation denial videos, a decision already being celebrated among the supporters of the Jan 6 insurrection, is in my opinion the single worst and likely most negatively consequential decision in the history of #Google.
***** How #Google employees are reacting to YouTube permitting 2020 election fraud videos *****
Just FYI, I'm hearing from numerous Googlers I know who are absolutely dismayed and embarrassed by the decision to permit 2020 election fraud videos back on #YouTube. These denials led directly to the Jan 6 insurrection and the violence that resulted -- not to mention almost destroying our democracy -- and they feel, as do I, that Google's claim that this is just ordinary political speech is self-serving, hypocritical, and vastly dangerous.
Google has been making a series of serious unforced errors lately in this toxic political environment. This does not bode well for its future, for its users, or for the world at large. I find this extremely distressing. -L
Music Company Asks Google to Delist 'YouTube Downloader' Wikipedia Article
Link: https://torrentfreak.com/music-company-asks-google-to-delist-youtube-downloader-wikipedia-article-230528/
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36106741
Music Company Asks Google to Delist ‘YouTube Downloader’ Wikipedia Article
A recent DMCA anti-circumvention notice asks Google to remove a Wikipedia entry that lists a comparison of YouTube downloaders.Ernesto Van der Sar (TF Publishing)
Aurora Store Accounts Blocked by Google
Link: https://gitlab.com/AuroraOSS/AuroraStore/-/issues/912
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36074646
Anonymous account unable to login (#912) · Issues · Aurora OSS / AuroraStore · GitLab
Description On the latest stable release of AuroraStore and the 24/05/2023 nightly build I am unable to login with anonymous accounts....GitLab
So yesterday, I grabbed a Braille display from work that is compatible with TalkBack's current Braille support. I opened a book in Google Play Books. I began to read. I crossed a page boundary, and continued reading. And again. And I didn't have to press any other button but the panning key to scroll forward to the next line of Braille. I still saw "page content," but it looks like the Play Books team has indeed made one able to read continuously. Pretty nice!
A brand new Pixel 6 Pro, which I got in December last year and which I haven't used as my daily driver, is having a hardware issue that this phone should not have. I mainly use it as a testing device. The speakers are dying and bluetooth is not workingon a regular basis. The attached hardware keyboard works intermittently and the Pixel Buds often cut out.
no wonder that Samsung is eating Google's lunch when it comes to #Android hardware. And #Google wants $1800.00 for a foldable?
Hands-on with #Google's #Duet #AI writing aid: a stiff style, inaccurate information, inconsistent Docs and Gmail behavior, great at drafting complaints, and more. Lots more.
https://www.wired.com/story/googles-duet-ai-writing-assistant-review-test/
#GenerativeAI #MachineLearning
We Put Google’s New AI Writing Assistant to the Test
I used Duet AI to send emails and plan my wedding. Its writing can be stuffy and stereotyping—but it’s a glimpse of the future of productivity apps.Paresh Dave (WIRED)
So I just got done playing Mortal Kombat on my iPhone, and I wanted to unpack my thoughts on it, mobile gaming, and accessibility across mobile systems. So, I never thought I'd ever be playing Mortal Kombat on my phone. I mean, this is a little iPhone SE 2 with 64 GB storage and 3 GB RAM. And yet, on my AirPods Pro 2 even, I'm able to win fights, in the classic combat tower thing. My account is at like level 11, and I was able to even drag my Fujin card to be my main team member. Your main is in the middle, BTW.
Anyway, look at this though. The whole time, from navigating the interface, and in battles, VoiceOver is on. The app uses a Direct Touch Area during battles, then switches to an interface view when done. So, during battles, a tap or swipe is sent to the app, but the app can still send text to be spoken by VoiceOver. Then the interface is navigated using VoiceOver's usual commands. This isn't using some self-voicing screen reader made by the devs. And while one *could* do that on Android, the user would have to turn off TalkBack, and the game creator would have to design a whole self-voicing interface for the thing. And y'all know what? That's fucking sad. It's sad that people with Android can't play a game cause Google can't possibly have spent resources over the last ten years to make frameworks that devs can make intuitive, powerful, seemless experiences with. And I'm not saying this game is perfectly accessible either. It'll tell you VO functionality on the iPhone isn't perfect yet. But on the iPhone, game developers can use this stuff, and Injustice 2, not the original, has this kind of stuff too, although I wasn't able to get far into it. And if big studeos like NetherRealm can do this much, it ain't because it's the right thing to do as much as it's gotten easier and better to do this. The iPhone can *definitely* be a great gaming system, even for blind people.
You don't need to download the #android #sdk #binaries from #google .
You can compile the #sdk by yourself from the source code to write #android #apps.
Check this repository at #codeberg , it will do the job for you.
All you need are the scripts from this #repo , 32 GB #ram , approx. 300 GB free disk space and some patience.
Then, you can start coding for #android without the proprietary #sdk binaries from #google!
Google banned me – open sourcing all my apps
Link: https://old.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/13lf6jb/open_sourcing_all_my_apps_quitting_android_dev/
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35996463
Open Sourcing All My Apps - Quitting Android Dev After Almost 10 Years
Posted in r/androiddev by u/StoryOfDavid • 327 points and 78 commentsreddit
#Google just announced that going forward, any account not logged into for two years gets deleted.
This means huge amounts of rare or unique #video is about to disappear from #YouTube as accounts get flagged as inactive, such as when the user dies. Families' #HomeMovies (often posted by an older relative for their family's benefit), historical footage, rare #television clips, etc. What an incalculable loss to human #history and culture!
If there are videos important to you on someone else's video channel, find a way to download them. And if you have rare #media of historical importance, consider leaving it to institutional #archives or lending it to archives for digital preservation.
BREAKING: #Google to start deleting unused #email accounts so other people can use them.
🤔 What could possibly go wrong?
🤦♂️ Techbros are (still) idiots.
https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/updating-our-inactive-account-policies/
Updating our inactive account policies
Starting later this year, we are updating our inactivity policy for Google Accounts to 2 years across our products.Ruth Kricheli (Google)
So like, Apple sits here and brings even more AI accessibility stuff. Meanwhile, Google, the AI company, struggles along and just added icon and text recognition into TalkBack a year or so ago. Like, Apple isn't even known for AI. Yet, here we are. VoiceOver may be having a big infestation of bugs, and has for the past major version, but shoot at least they're boldly trying new things. Image descriptions everywhere, not just in the browser. Screen recognition which, even though it doesn't always work, works well enough in a pinch. People and Door detection. Android, well bluntly they're catching up. And the more they passively sit there and don't light a fire under Google to do things right, and do them well, the more this kind of thing will continue to happen.
Even during their announcements, Google talked about a lot of things that'd been out for months now, adding in a few new things. Apple though? They talked about things that'll be released in months. Apple doesn't *need* to rehash things that they'd done. And they could have. They could have talked about adding in support for formatted Braille, so that Braille readers can know if something in the Books or Notes app is italicized, or bolded and such. But they went for the big stuff, which is what people want. Google just needs help. Lol. That's the best I can say about them. And I love both platforms. I love how long my Galaxy Watch 5 Pro battery lasts. I love that my Galaxy S20 FE has 5G, and speech rarely if ever crashes. But my goodness they're so behind on the AI front. It makes you kinda wonder if their AI chops aren't as good as they've hyped them up to be, and the best thing they actually have is all our data. And they can't even do much with that. All those pics, and all they can give us now is icon descriptions. Granted, those are good for what they are, but like, it's 2023. Year of AI. And that's all Google has. Apple did that like 3 years ago. 3. Years.
#accessibility #Apple #GAAD #Google #blind
"Moreover, researchers have also discovered that it’s probably mathematically impossible to secure the training data for a large language model like #GPT-4 or #PaLM 2. This was outlined in a research paper that Google themselves tried to censor, an act that eventually led the Google-employed author, El Mahdi El Mhamdi, to leave the company. The paper has now been updated to say what the authors wanted it to say all along, and it’s a doozy."
https://softwarecrisis.dev/letters/google-bard-seo/
Google Bard is a glorious reinvention of black-hat SEO spam and keyword-stuffing
Google's own researchers argued it was impossible to secure, then they quit.Out of the Software Crisis
Google's plummeting search quality made the company desperate to please its "activist investors"
https://doctorow.medium.com/googles-ai-hype-circle-6158804d1299
#SecurityThroughObscurity #SearchQuality #Enshittification #Google
![Having to build a search-ranking algorithm that can withstand relevancy attacks funded by every legitimate business, every scammer, every influencer, every publisher, every religion and every cause on the entire planet Earth might just be an unattainable goal. As Elizabeth Lopatto put it:
[The] obvious degradation of Google Search [was]caused in part by Google’s own success: whole search engine optimization teams have been built to make sure websites show on the first page of search since most people never click through to the second. And there’s been a rise of SEO-bait garbage that surfaces first.
Search was Google’s crown jewel, its sole claim to excellence in innovation. Sure, the company is unparalleled in its ability to operationalize and scale up other peoples’ ideas, but that’s just another way of saying, “Google is a successful monopolist.” Since the age of the rail barons, being good at running other peoples’ companies has been a prerequisite for monopoly success. But administering other peoples’ great ideas isn’t the same thing as coming up with your own.
With search circling the drain, Google’s shareholders are losing confidence. In the past year, the company caved to “activist investors,” laying off 12,000 engineers after a stock buyback that would have paid all 12,000 salaries for the next 27 years.](https://mamot.fr/system/media_attachments/files/110/368/163/266/270/293/original/aa51b9329fd07f7d.png "Having to build a search-ranking algorithm that can withstand relevancy attacks funded by every legitimate business, every scammer, every influencer, every publisher, every religion and every cause on the entire planet Earth might just be an unattainable goal. As Elizabeth Lopatto put it:
[The] obvious degradation of Google Search [was]caused in part by Google’s own success: whole search engine optimization teams have been built to make sure websites show on the first page of search since most people never click through to the second. And there’s been a rise of SEO-bait garbage that surfaces first.
Search was Google’s crown jewel, its sole claim to excellence in innovation. Sure, the company is unparalleled in its ability to operationalize and scale up other peoples’ ideas, but that’s just another way of saying, “Google is a successful monopolist.” Since the age of the rail barons, being good at running other peoples’ companies has been a prerequisite for monopoly success. But administering other peoples’ great ideas isn’t the same thing as coming up with your own.
With search circling the drain, Google’s shareholders are losing confidence. In the past year, the company caved to “activist investors,” laying off 12,000 engineers after a stock buyback that would have paid all 12,000 salaries for the next 27 years.")
Google’s AI Hype Circle - Cory Doctorow - Medium
Next Saturday (May 20), I’ll be at the GAITHERSBURG Book Festival with my novel Red Team Blues; then on May 22, I’m keynoting Public Knowledge’s Emerging Tech conference in DC.Cory Doctorow (Medium)
#Google's #AIHype Circle: We have to do #Bard because everyone else is doing #AI; everyone else is doing AI because we're doing Bard.
https://doctorow.medium.com/googles-ai-hype-circle-6158804d1299
Google’s AI Hype Circle - Cory Doctorow - Medium
Next Saturday (May 20), I’ll be at the GAITHERSBURG Book Festival with my novel Red Team Blues; then on May 22, I’m keynoting Public Knowledge’s Emerging Tech conference in DC.Cory Doctorow (Medium)
After spending about a year and a half with both iPhone and Android, I think I understand both operating systems very well. iPhone can do so, so much. A blind person even wrote a book about using the iPhone, on the iPhone with Ulysses and a Bluetooth keyboard. But as iOS ages, it looks more and more tattered, with some parts thinning, and others having large holes in it at times. Yes, those get patched up, but how long must we wait until then?
Android, on the other hand, is much, much smaller, but is smoothe and mostly clean, with very few thin patches, and if there are holes, they're not generally as noticeable, or can be worked around easily. So, the question is, do you want something they can do a lot but has, well, issues that will make you want to just throw it away sometimes, or do you want a mostly good experience that you can't do that much with?
And no, the analogy doesn't work very well, since on Android, even using voice assistants are a pain because you have to silence TalkBack or Google will be listening while TalkBack will be speaking. Really annoying bullcrap. But other apps, like Element and Telegram, work better on Android than they do on iOS.
But what really gets to me sometimes is that none of our issues at either company are handled equitably. If a sighted person opened their notification center, only to have their screen go blank, that wouldn't even have made it into a beta release, let alone production. If a popular keyboard and mouse only worked through USB and not Bluetooth as is the main use case, sighted people would be all over the Android team, asking why, and when. Instead, even though news orgs are on Mastodon, blind voices are still small, swept away, and drowned out.
In the years after, T-bird got better. #Google got worse, and T-bird became the place to be.
If (when!) the bird integrates simply with #ProtonMail, I'll be able to dump #Pichai entirely.
Based on the presentation about the latest on #Android #accessibility at #Google IO, NLS EReader Braille display will be supported via USB HID and not bluetooth HID. There has been some confusion about it in the discussions I've seen here.
If you'd like to review the presentation, it's here. It's about 23 minutes in whole.
https://io.google/2023/program/dc29f421-2842-4838-bd87-1ac50f1ac00a/
What's new in Android Accessibility
Learn about new Android accessibility features and developer updates to help you build apps for everyone.io.google
Google Bard blocks all European Union countries
Link: https://9to5google.com/2023/05/11/google-bard-european-union/
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35914705
Google Bard blocks all European Union countries
Google Bard is blocking all European Union countries, presumably due to issues with GDPR compliance of the AI chatbot.Ben Schoon (9to5Google)
You know that internal #Google memo leaked last week about open #LLMs, here's an example of one of its points. Lots of things happening in the open source #AI model space. I'm seeing something new every day.
Allen Institute is working on a new open #LLM
#MachineLearning #OpenSource #Research
Announcing AI2 OLMo, an open language model made by scientists, for scientists
Our goal is to collaboratively build the best open language model in the world – join us.AI2 (AI2 Blog)
#XMPP + #Google Summer of Code 2023
Two XMPP projects have been accepted!
It's #Moxxy: https://codeberg.org/moxxy/moxxy
and @dino: https://dino.im/
#GSoC Page: https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/programs/2023/organizations/xmpp-standards-foundation
XSF blog post: https://xmpp.org/community/gsoc-2023/
#GSoC2023 #interoperability #standards #federation
Considering this set of principles by which #Anthropic tries to train its #AI, I found that it does not always meet those principles.
Anthropic, an AI startup founded by former OpenAI staff and that raised $1.3B, including $300M from #Google, details its “constitutional AI” for safer #chatbots.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/9/23716746/ai-startup-anthropic-constitutional-ai-safety
#safety #MachineLearning #GPT #GenerativeAI
AI startup Anthropic wants to write a new constitution for safe AI
AI startup Anthropic has revealed the written “constitutional” principles used to train its systems. These include principles taken from the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Apple’s terms of service.James Vincent (The Verge)
Q&A with Vint Cerf, chief internet evangelist at #Google and recipient of IEEE's Medal of Honor, on how Google has changed since 2005, the hazards of #LLMs, #accessibility for disabled people, and more.
So they're going to crapify search even more while trying to retain their #advertising edge.
WSJ reports that #Google plans to make #search more "visual, snackable, personal, and human", incorporating short videos, social media posts, and conversations with #AI.
Google Adding AI Chatbot, More Video to Stay On Top of Search
Changes aim to respond to queries that can’t be easily answered by traditional ‘10 blue links’ web resultsMiles Kruppa (The Wall Street Journal)
So. They're turning into #Apple.
#Google, a prolific publisher of #AI papers, plans to share them only after the research work is turned into products, due to competition with #OpenAI.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/05/04/google-ai-stop-sharing-research/
Wichtige Frage an Android-Entwickler bezüglich Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM). Ist Google Firebase zwingend erforderlich für den Empfang von Push-Nachrichten? 👇
Google Firebase zwingend erforderlich für den Empfang von Push-Nachrichten?
Ich beobachte immer öfter die Verwendung von Google Firebase – eine Entwicklungs-Plattform für mobile Apps und Webanwendungen, die von ...Kuketz IT-Security Blog
#Google is enabling #passkey support for all its accounts. You can create passkeys on supported devices like finger-print enabled phones, laptops, or based on FaceID. It includes Android devices, iPhones, Windows and Macs. No need for passwords or 2FA for Google accounts. This is fantastic news.
Check out this blog. Passkeys are easy to create from the link provided in the blog post.
So long passwords, thanks for all the phish
https://security.googleblog.com/2023/05/so-long-passwords-thanks-for-all-phish.html
So long passwords, thanks for all the phish
By: Arnar Birgisson and Diana K Smetters, Identity Ecosystems and Google Account Security and Safety teams Starting today , you can create a...Google Online Security Blog
#Apple and #Google submit an industry specification proposal to address unwanted location tracking by Bluetooth devices and ask for input from other companies.
This has everything to do with #Airtags and potential tags from Google.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/02/apple-and-google-team-up-to-stop-unwanted-airtag-tracking.html
To me, Geoffrey Hinton failed his female colleagues when they needed him most. When #Google fired Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell for voicing ethical qualms about #AI, he remained quiet. His current vocal concerns about the direction of research only highlights that silence. As a leader in the field, his voice would have caried weight. But he held back, and there's no undoing that failure. Do his words today serve his own interests? How much is self-serving?
Minecraft clones stealthily load ads on millions of Android devices.
https://grahamcluley.com/minecraft-clones-stealthily-load-ads-on-millions-of-android-devices/
#cybersecurity #adware #minecraft #google #googleplay #android
Minecraft clones stealthily load ads on millions of Android devices
Boffins at McAfee have identified 38 Android apps in the Google Play store that unashamedly rip off the ever-popular gaming sensation Minecraft…Graham Cluley
Google Authenticator cloud sync/backup is not E2E encrypted
Link: https://defcon.social/@mysk/110262313275622023
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35708869
Google has just updated its 2FA Authenticator app and added a much-needed feature: the ability to sync secrets across devices.TL;DR: Don't turn it on.
The new update allows users to sign in with their Google Account and sync 2FA secrets across their iOS and Android devices.
We analyzed the network traffic when the app syncs the secrets, and it turns out the traffic is not end-to-end encrypted. As shown in the screenshots, this means that Google can see the secrets, likely even while they’re stored on their servers. There is no option to add a passphrase to protect the secrets, to make them accessible only by the user.
Why is this bad?
Every 2FA QR code contains a secret, or a seed, that’s used to generate the one-time codes. If someone else knows the secret, they can generate the same one-time codes and defeat 2FA protections. So, if there’s ever a data breach or if someone obtains access .... 🧵
#Privacy #Cybersecurity #InfoSec #2FA #Google #Security
Google has just updated its 2FA Authenticator app and added a much-needed feature: the ability to sync secrets across devices.
TL;DR: Don't turn it on.
The new update allows users to sign in with their Google Account and sync 2FA secrets across their iOS and Android devices.
We analyzed the network traffic when the app syncs the secrets, and it turns out the traffic is not end-to-end encrypted. As shown in the screenshots, this means that Google can see the secrets, likely even while they’re stored on their servers. There is no option to add a passphrase to protect the secrets, to make them accessible only by the user.
Why is this bad?
Every 2FA QR code contains a secret, or a seed, that’s used to generate the one-time codes. If someone else knows the secret, they can generate the same one-time codes and defeat 2FA protections. So, if there’s ever a data breach or if someone obtains access .... 🧵
#Privacy #Cybersecurity #InfoSec #2FA #Google #Security
Competition is just a click (and $45b) away
https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1328941/download
> #Google pays $45 billion a year for contracts to lock out rivals, signing deals with “Apple, LG, Motorola, and Samsung; major U.S. wireless carriers such as AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon; and browser developers such as Mozilla, Opera, and UCWeb— to secure default status for its general search engine and, in many cases, to specifically prohibit Google’s counterparties from dealing with Google’s competitors.”