Daily Archives: April 21, 2021

Gupta took to social media to announce his appointment and said that he will be responsible for leading and building from scratch the company's technology hub in India.

We expect to open a physical office, initially in Hyderabad, for Indian employees as COVID-related conditions allow, the company had said in a blog.

The company is now aggressively hiring in India and has openings for product and engineering roles. India has world-class tech expertise and some of the brightest minds in the industry. Coinbase plans to tap and develop this local talent. The plan is to hire hundreds of employees, across all levels in Eng, PM & UX (engineering, product management and user experience) within the next 12 years to build out a full tech hub, wrote Gupta on Twitter.

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SEE ALSO:Apple AirTag, iPad Pro, new iMac with M1 chip India pricing and availability detailsSaaS startup Chargebee is the 11th unicorn of 2021 and the sixth for Tiger Global this year alone

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Coinbase hires former Google Pay exec to lead India ops, is hiring aggressively and looking for startup acquis - Business Insider India

Everyone knows the fear of losing their smartphone. There are plenty of ways you could try to find it, but the easiest might be with the help of Google Assistant. Just say Hey Google and find your iPhone or Android phone.

Using Google Assistants Find My Phone feature with Android doesnt need any setup. As long as the device is turned on, has an internet connection, and is signed into your Google account, you should be able to find it. The iPhone method requires a little more work, but its easy to do.

To use the feature, all you need to do is say Hey Google, find my phone to a Google Nest smart speaker or display. If you have multiple devices on your account, it will ask you to clarify which handset you want to find.

As long as your lost Android phone is powered on, connected to the internet, and signed in to the same Google account as your speaker, it will start ringing.

RELATED: How to Find Your Lost or Stolen Android Phone

For the iPhone, youll need to do a little setup before the feature works. First, install the Google Home app from the App Store and sign in to your Google account.

Next, tap Settings.

From the Settings menu, select Notifications.

Open General Notifications.

Youll see a few different types of notifications that the Google Home app can provide. The one you need to enable is Critical Alerts.

With that out of the way, you can use the feature. SayHey Google, find my iPhone to one of your Google Nest smart speakers or displays.

As long as the iPhone is turned on, connected to the internet, and using the same Google account on both the speaker and Home app, it will begin ringing.

Thats all there is to it! This is a clever little workaround to use Google Assistant to find your iPhone, though it may not be as reliable as Apples built-in method.

RELATED: How to Locate a Lost iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch With Siri

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How to Find Your Android Phone or iPhone with Google Assistant - How-To Geek

The companies are joining forces to create industrial applications, optimize processes, improve productivity and help manufacturers innovate using AI.

Image: Krongkaew/Moment/Getty Images

Google Cloud and German industrial giant Siemens announced Monday a new partnership to optimize factory processes and improve factory-floor productivity. As part of the agreement, Siemens will integrate Google Cloud's data cloud, artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) technologies into its factory automation offerings.

"We offer a number of off-the-shelf AI products ranging from Vision AI to Dialogflow, to Recommendations AI that will serve as building blocks for new joint solutions with Siemens," said Dominik Wee, managing director manufacturing and industrial at Google Cloud. "These solutions will address common factory automation use cases, such as quality control, energy efficiency and more. Ultimately, this collaboration is about providing a unique, end-to-end offering to unlock the value for manufacturing companies through the convergence of IT and OT [operating technology]."

SEE: Natural language processing: A cheat sheet (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

Combining Google Cloud's data cloud and AI/ML capabilities with the Siemens Digital Industries Factory Automation portfolio is intended to help manufacturers harmonize data from multiple, heterogeneous systems and vendors, run cloud-based AI/ML models on that data and deploy algorithms at the network edge. These capabilities will enable manufacturers to deploy applications such as predictive maintenance and allow machines to conduct visual product inspections.

Data drives today's industrial processes, but many manufacturers continue to use legacy software and multiple systems to analyze plant information, which is resource-intensive and requires frequent manual updates to ensure accuracy. In addition, while AI projects have been deployed by many companies in "islands" across the plant floor, manufacturers have struggled to implement AI at scale across their global operations.

Deploying AI to the shop floor and integrating it into automation and the network is a complex task, requiring highly specialized expertise and innovative products such as Siemens Industrial Edge.

The goal of the cooperation between Google Cloud and Siemens is to make the deployment of AI in connection with the Industrial Edgeand its management at scaleeasier, empowering employees as they work on the plant floor, automating mundane tasks and improving overall quality.

SEE: 5 Internet of Things (IoT) innovations (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

"The potential for artificial intelligence to radically transform the plant floor is far from being exhausted," Axel Lorenz, Siemens' vice president of Control at Factory Automation said in a statement. "Many manufacturers are still stuck in AI 'pilot projects' today. We want to change that."

According to Wee, the manufacturing industry has not benefited from cloud and AI technology to the same extent as other verticals. According to Google research, three-fourths of surveyed manufacturers (76%) revealed that the pandemic increased the use of digital enablers and disruptive technologies such as cloud, AI, data analytics, robotics, 3D printing/additive manufacturing, Internet of Things and augmented or virtual reality.

"We want to accelerate the adoption of AI for manufacturers," said Wee. "By tightly integrating the two companies' technology stacks, deploying AI at scale will become much easier, empowering employees as they work on the plant floor, automating mundane tasks and helping prevent mistakes before they become more serious issues."

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Google and Siemens teaming up and bringing AI to the factory floor - TechRepublic

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has had a significant win against Google. The Federal Court found Google misled some Android users about how to disable personal location tracking.

Will this decision actually change the behaviour of the big tech companies? The answer will depend on the size of the penalty awarded in response to the misconduct.

In theory, the penalty is A$1.1 million per contravention. There is a contravention each time a reasonable person in the relevant class is misled. So the total award could, in theory, amount to many millions of dollars.

But the actual penalty will depend on how the court characterises the misconduct. We believe Googles behaviour should not be treated as a simple accident, and the Federal Court should issue a heavy fine to deter Google and other companies from behaving this way in future.

The case arose from the representations made by Google to users of Android phones in 2018 about how it obtained personal location data.

The Federal Court held Google had misled some consumers by representing that having Web & App Activity turned on would not allow Google to obtain, retain and use personal data about the users location.

In other words, some consumers were misled into thinking they could control Googles location data collection practices by switching off Location History, whereas Web & App Activity also needed to be disabled to provide this protection.

Read more: The ACCC is suing Google for misleading millions. But calling it out is easier than fixing it

The ACCC also argued consumers reading Googles privacy statement would be misled into thinking personal data was collected for their own benefit rather than Googles. However, the court dismissed this argument on the grounds that reasonable users wanting to turn the Location History off

would have assumed that Google was obtaining as much commercial advantage as it could from use of the users personal location data.

This is surprising and might deserve further attention from regulators concerned to protect consumers from corporations data harvesting for profit.

The penalty and other enforcement orders against Google will be made at a later date.

The aim of the penalty is to deter Google specifically, and other firms like Google, from engaging in misleading conduct again. If penalties are too low they may be treated by wrongdoing firms as merely a cost of doing business.

However, in circumstances where there is a high degree of corporate culpability, the Federal Court has shown willingness to award higher amounts than in the past. This has occurred even where the regulator has not sought higher penalties. In the recent Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft v ACCC judgement, the full Federal Court confirmed an award of A$125 million against Volkswagen for making false representations about compliance with Australian diesel emissions standards.

In setting Googles penalty, a court will consider factors such as the nature and extent of the misleading conduct and any loss to consumers. The court will also take into account whether the wrongdoer was involved in deliberate, covert or reckless conduct, as opposed to negligence or carelessness.

At this point, Google may well argue that only some consumers were misled, that it was possible for consumers to be informed if they read more about Googles privacy policies, that it was only one slip-up, and that its contravention of the law was unintentional. These might seem to reduce the seriousness or at least the moral culpability of the offence.

But we argue they should not unduly cap the penalty awarded. Googles conduct may not appear as egregious and deliberately deceptive as the Volkswagen case.

But equally Google is a massively profitable company that makes its money precisely from obtaining, sorting and using its users personal data. We think therefore the court should look at the number of Android users potentially affected by the misleading conduct and Googles responsibility for its own choice architecture, and work from there.

The Federal Court acknowledged not all consumers would be misled by Googles representations. The court accepted many consumers would simply accept the privacy terms without reviewing them, an outcome consistent with the so-called privacy paradox. Others would review the terms and click through to more information about the options for limiting Googles use of personal data to discover the scope of what was collected under the Web & App Activity default.

Read more: The privacy paradox: we claim we care about our data, so why don't our actions match?

This might sound like the court was condoning consumers carelessness. In fact the court made use of insights from economists about the behavioural biases of consumers in making decisions.

Consumers have limited time to read legal terms and limited ability to understand the future risks arising from those terms. Thus, if consumers are concerned about privacy they might try to limit data collection by selecting various options, but are unlikely to be able to read and understand privacy legalese like a trained lawyer or with the background understanding of a data scientist.

If one option is labelled Location History, it is entirely rational for everyday consumers to assume turning it off limits location data collection by Google.

The number of consumers misled by Googles representations will be difficult to assess. But even if a small proportion of Android users were misled, that will be a very large number of people.

There was evidence before the Federal Court that, after press reports of the tracking problem, the number of consumers switching off the Web option increased by 500%. Moreover, Google makes considerable profit from the large amounts of personal data it gathers and retains, and profit is important when it comes deterrence.

It has also been revealed that some employees at Google were not aware of the problem until an expos in the press. An urgent meeting was held, referred to internally as the Oh Shit meeting.

The individual Google employees at the Oh Shit meeting may not have been aware of the details of the system. But that is not the point.

It is the company fault that is the question. And a companys culpability is not just determined by what some executive or senior employee knew or didnt know about its processes. Googles corporate mindset is manifested or revealed in the systems it designs and puts in place.

Read more: Inducing choice paralysis: how retailers bury customers in an avalanche of options

Google designed the information system that faced consumers trying to manage their privacy settings. This kind of system design is sometimes referred to as choice architecture.

Here the choices offered to consumers steered them away from opting out of Google collecting, retaining and using personal location data.

The Other Options (for privacy) information failed to refer to the fact that location tracking was carried out via other processes beyond the one labelled Location History. Plus, the default option for Web & App Activity (which included location tracking) was set as on.

This privacy eroding system arose via the design of the choice architecture. It therefore warrants a serious penalty.

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Privacy erosion by design: why the Federal Court should throw the book at Google over location data tracking - The Conversation AU

Google shifted more than $75.4 billion (63 billion) in profits out of the Republic using the controversial double-Irish tax arrangement in 2019, the last year in which it used the loophole.

The technology giant availed of the tax arrangement to move the money out of Google Ireland Holdings Unlimited Company via interim dividends and other payments. This company was incorporated in Ireland but tax domiciled in Bermuda at the time of the transfer.

The move allowed Google Ireland Holdings to escape corporation tax both in the Republic and in the United States where its ultimate parent, Alphabet, is headquartered. The holding company reported a $13 billion pretax profit for 2019, which was effectively tax-free, the accounts show.

A year earlier, Google Ireland Holdings paid out dividends of 23 billion, having recorded turnover of $25.7 billion.

Google has used the double Irish loophole to funnel billions in global profits through Ireland and on to Bermuda, effectively putting them beyond the reach of US tax authorities.

Companies exploiting the double Irish put their intellectual property into an Irish-registered company that is controlled from a tax haven such as Bermuda.

Ireland considers the company to be tax-resident in Bermuda, while the US considers it to be tax-resident here. The result is that when royalty payments are sent to the company, they go untaxed unless or until the money is eventually sent home to the US parent.

The double Irish was abolished in 2015 for new companies establishing operations in the Republic. However, controversially, it allowed those already using it until the end of 2020 to phase it out.

Google overhauled its global tax structure and consolidated its intellectual property holdings back to the United States in early 2020, meaning 2019 was the final year in which it availed of the arrangement.

Up to late 2019, Google Ireland Holdings Unlimited Company was an intellectual property licensing company with turnover derived from the licensing of IP to subsidiaries. The accounts state it had no employees and that it was tax resident at the time in Bermuda, where the standard rate tax is 0 per cent.

Commenting on the movement of the profits out of its Irish unit, a spokeswoman for Google said: In December 2019, in line with the OECDs base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) conclusions and changes to US and Irish tax laws, we simplified our corporate structure and started licensing our IP from the US, not Bermuda. The accounts filed today cover the 2019 financial year, before we made those changes.

Including all annual and one-time income taxes over the past ten years, our global effective tax rate has been over 20 per cent, with more than 80 per cent of that tax due in the US, she added.

The accounts state that Google Ireland Holdings Unlimited Company became tax resident in Ireland from January 1st, 2021, and that it now just operates as a holding company.

Turnover for the holding company rose from $25.7 billion in 2018 to $26.5 billion in 2019. The increase was primarily due to a rise in turnover recorded by the companys subsidiaries, which results in higher royalty payments.

Dividend income from shares in group undertakings jumped from just $2.9 million in 2018 to $597.5 million a year later. The accounts also show a $3 billion increase in research and development costs in 2019, with the company incurring R&D expenses of $10.4 billion under a cost-sharing agreement with other Google entities globally.

Google Ireland, the tech companys main operating Irish subsidiary with over 4,000 employees, recorded 45.7 billion in revenues in 2019 with pretax profits amounting to 1.94 billion. It paid 263 million in tax that year, down nearly 9 million versus 2018.

It is estimated that US multinationals were holding more than a $1 trillion in profits offshore via mechanisms such as the double Irish and the so-called Dutch sandwich by the end of 2017. Tax cuts introduced by former US president Donald Trump in 2019 have led to some of those profits being repatriated to the United States.

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Google used double-Irish to shift $75.4bn in profits out of Ireland - The Irish Times

How does a successful company keep growing? That's important, because new products don't accelerateforever--instead theyslow down and decline over time. Unless it invests the profits from its currentproducts onto ascending growth curves, such a company willcontract along with the maturing market.

This comes to mind in considering the digital advertising business.Google is the top dog--but despite its famous other bets like Google Cloud, Google Glass, Waymo,and others, parent company Alphabet still derives 81 percent of its revenue from advertising.

Interestingly, the number two search engine has just announced a new vision aimed at sustaining its growth. It's not Microsoft's Bing or Yahoo. The second-largest search engine is San Francisco-based Algolia--withmore than 10,000 business customers globally,it is used for over 1.5trillion searches a year, amounting to about 16% of all online searches.

Algolia was founded by French entrepreneurs, and I had the pleasure of visiting their Paris headquarters about three years ago. CEO Nicolas Dessaigne told me in a May 2020 interview that in September 2019, the company raised $110 million and he began the process of hiring someone with strong go-to-market skills to replace him as CEO.

In May 2020, his choice--Bernadette Nixon--became CEO. In a March 23 interview, Nixon told me that the company has surpassed $100 million in revenue, posting record revenues in the most recent two quarters.

As she told me, "We finished the fiscal year ending January 2021 with the best two quarters in its history. We have over 10,000 paying customers. Our search volume is 30 billion searches per week--1.5 trillion per year. That is four times bigger than Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex. We are second only to Google. We are growing rapidly, with over $100 million in annual recurring revenue."

Algolia has benefited from new sources of growth during the pandemic. "Why are we growing? We did an analysis with a cohort view. There is a steep curve starting before Covid. In May 2020, the top three sources of growth were e-commerce, media, and some high technology. Now, high technology has taken over the number two slot," she said.

Nixon directed Algolia to change its pricing model based on customer feedback. As she said, "We changed our business model from infrastructure-based to usage-based pricing. Customers wanted simplification. If they had a lower level of search traffic, they would pay less."

Can Algolia keep growing rapidly now that it has topped the $100 million mark? The answer depends on whether it makes the right investments in opportunities that will create growth in the future.

To find the right places to invest, companies ought to look for ways to provide customers a quantum value leap--a big increase in the benefits your product deliversforthe price you charge customers, a concept I described in Hungry Start-Up Strategy.

To figure out how to do that, observe how customers use your product and explore what's blocking them from achieving their goals.That's what Algolia did to craft its new vision--which is to give people what they are searchingfor right now

This vision is helping its customers boost sales. As Nixon told me, "Peopledon't want to forage--they want to get to it quickly. We speed up the search by predicting the user's intention. We give them a dynamic experience that [anticipates]and recommends by understanding what they're looking for right now--not just where they're from. [This approach drives]20 percentto 30 percentincreases in conversion rates."

What's more, Algolia's vision responds to the recent pressure from Apple to remove cookies as a way to track and market to consumers searching online. Withoutcookies, companies canno longerspendmonthspersonalizingtheir sites for each consumer. Instead, the winners will be e-commerce providers that deliver the right search results fastest.

To craft a clear, practical, and aspirationalvision, Algolia followed the approach I outlined above. "To develop the vision, we spoke with manycustomers. We couched our idea in the words they were using. What do we do for them today? How has Algolia changed their life? How has it become more relevant today? What's holding them back from achieving their goals?" she asked.

Your company could benefit from crafting a growth vision in a similar way.

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

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How Algolia's CEO Wants to Take On Google in Search - Inc.

Google is planning to roll out a new feature for its extension- Chrome 90 that will allow users to create a link to a section of a website that they have highlighted earlier.

This feature is, however, rolling out to some users as an experiment. Google said the copy link to highlight" feature is already available on desktop and Android devices for some users. The feature is coming soon" to iOS, the company added.

Google's product manager Kayce Hawkins in a blog post shared steps to follow to update the new feature:

Link to your highlighted text

"Visit a web page, highlight the text you want to create a link to, right click, and select 'copy link to highlight'. A URL ending in a pound sign will be generated, which you can then share with others. When they open the link, they'll be sent to the specific highlighted section instead of the beginning of the page."

This feature is rolling out now to desktop and Android and is coming soon for iOS. With Copy link to highlight", you can share a URL for selected text highlighted for the recipient.

In the blog post, Hawkins also mentioned other new product features including the new PDF updates. ''We added more features to make working with PDFs better: document properties, two-page view and an updated top toolbar, which puts the most important PDF actions (zoom, jump to page, save, print and more) within a single click. These features are rolling out now,'' she said.

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Google's new feature will let you share highlighted text on webpage - Mint