Daily Archives: June 20, 2021

Google announced today its updating and expanding its digital safety and citizenship curriculum called Be Internet Awesome, which is aimed at helping school-aged children learn to navigate the internet responsibly. First introduced four years ago, the curriculum now reaches 30 countries and millions of kids, says Google. In the update rolling out today, Google has added nearly a dozen more lessons for parents and educators that tackle areas like online gaming, search engines, video consumption, online empathy, cyberbullying and more.

The company says it had commissioned the University of New Hampshires Crimes Against Children Research Center to evaluate its existing program, which had last received a significant update back in 2019, when it added lessons that focused on teaching kids to spot disinformation and fake news.

The review found that program did help children in areas like dealing with cyberbullying, online civility and website safety, but recommended improvements in other areas.

Google then partnered with online safety experts like Committee for Children and The Net Safety Collaborative to revise its teaching materials. As a result, it now has lessons tailored to specific age groups and grade levels, and has expanded its array of subjects and set of family resources.

The new lessons include guidance around online gaming, search engines and video consumption, as well as social-emotional learning lessons aimed at helping students address cyberbullying and online harassment.

For example, some of the new lessons discuss search media literacy meaning, learning how to use search engines like Googles and evaluating the links and results it returns, as a part of an update to the programs existing media literacy materials.

Other lessons address issues like practicing empathy online, showing kindness, as well as what to do when you see something upsetting or inappropriate, including cyberbullying.

Concepts related to online gaming are weaved into the new lessons, too, as, today, kids have a lot of their social interactions in online games which often feature ways to interact with other players in real time and chat.

Here, kids are presented with ideas related to being able to verify an online gamers identity are they really another kid, for example? The materials also explain what sort of private information should not be shared with people online.

Image Credits: Google

Among the new family resources, the updated curriculum now points parents to the recently launched online hub, families.google, which offers a number of tips and information about tools to help families manage their tech usage.

For example, Google updated its Family Link app that lets parents set controls around which apps can be used and when, and view activity reports on screen-time usage. It also rolled out parental control features on YouTube earlier this year, aimed at families with tweens and teens who are too old for a YouTube Kids account, but still too young for an entirely unsupervised experience.

Google says the updated curriculum is available today to parents, families, teachers and educators, via the Be Internet Awesome website.

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Google updates its kids online safety curriculum with lessons on gaming, video and more - TechCrunch

Starting today, Nvidias Shield devices are getting a revamped user interface, similar to what we saw come to other Android TV devices in February. The biggest change is a new Discover tab, which features content recommendations grouped by genre. The All Apps screen has also been tweaked: its now simply called Apps and uses a full-screen layout that Nvidia says shows more apps at once.

The new design appears to have drawn inspiration from the Google TV software on last years Chromecast. Theyre not identical (Google TV has the recommendations-focused For you tab as its home screen, for example), but there are obvious similarities. Most notably, the large circular app icons on the left side of the display have disappeared, and Nvidias screenshot also shows a large promotion for Disneys Loki at the top of the Home screen, replacing the blank space that was there before, which some (many?) might find annoying.

Signs of the redesign appeared back in April, when 9to5Google reported that a screenshot of the new design briefly appeared in the Play Store listing for the Nvidia Games app. Nvidia says the update should start appearing today, with the rollout expected to take around a week in total. Customers in the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, and Australia will get the new UI and Discover tab, while those in Italy and Spain will only get the new UI.

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The Nvidia Shields Android TV interface is getting a Google TV-inspired revamp - The Verge

The UKs competition regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), will collaborate with Google as it attempts to rework online ad targeting, the regulator and Google have announced. It comes as Google is attempting to phase out the use of third-party cookies for tracking and targeting users with ads and instead use a new set of technologies its calling Privacy Sandbox.

In its announcement, Google said this is the first time regulators and technology companies have worked together on new technologies like this. As well as the CMA, the UKs data protection regulator (the Information Commissioners Office, or ICO) will also be involved. The CMA is taking a leading role in setting out how we can work with the most powerful tech firms to shape their behaviour and protect competition to the benefit of consumers, the CMAs chief executive Andrea Coscelli, said in a statement.

The collaboration comes in response to the CMAs announcement in January that it would be formally investigating Googles proposals, which involve using AI to bundle users together into anonymised groups to target them with ads (you can read more about the proposals here). Googles new approach is intended as a more privacy-orientated alternative to tracking cookies, which the company intends to phase out of its Chrome browser over the next year.

However, concerns have been raised that Googles Privacy Sandbox could harm competition, and concentrate yet more power in the hands of the search giant. There have also been concerns raised about whether the proposals are compatible with Europes tough GDPR data protection regulation. Meanwhile, the plans are also facing antitrust scrutiny in the US.

Google has made a series of commitments to the UK regulator about how it will develop and implement the changes. It says it will develop the plans transparently, in a way that doesnt give itself an unfair advantage, or discriminate against its rivals. Its also making a commitment to not combine user data from Chrome browsing histories or Google Analytics with its ad products.

For its part, the CMA says these commitments address its concerns, but its opening up a public consultation to help it decide whether to accept them. If accepted, the commitments would become legally binding.

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Google to work with UK regulators on its big ad-tracking shakeup - The Verge

Nearly a year-and-a half since Airbnb had to shut down its plans to debut flights because of the Covid crisis, chief financial officer Dave Stephensen said the company sees revenue opportunities beyond booking stays in potential smart home partnerships with Google, Amazon, and Apple.

Speaking at a Nasdaq investor conference Thursday, Stephensen said he welcomes competition from the smart home trio, and sees an opportunity to work with them on automating home technology. He said Airbnb has lagged in this arena, and is under-penetrated.

Im actually very bullish in the long-term, he said without specifics on how Airbnb might work with hosts and these would-be partners on smart home technology.

From Nest to Alexa, Google, Amazon, and Apple have a variety of smart home solutions.

He said smart home technology, as well as keyless entry, could be revenue drivers long-term for Airbnb.

Curiously, while talking about smart homes, Stephenson also brought up opportunities for Airbnb to facilitate keyless entry to homes without elaboration. That statement came one day after Bloomberg broke the news that Airbnb paid $7 million to basically silence an Australian woman guest who was raped in a Manhattan Airbnb in 2015.

The rapist, who was not a fellow guest, had a set of keys for that Airbnb. The host regularly left keys to the popular Airbnb at a local bodega, and guests could obtain them there with no identification required.

Airbnb doesnt have much of a policy on how hosts and guests need to exchange keys, and the process varies wildly. It is debatable whether keyless entry, the practicality and legality of which varies widely around the world, would enhance guest and host security.

Of course, during the Nasdaq conference, the interviewer from Jeffries did not bring up the Bloomberg story even though the incident and Airbnbs way of dealing with these brand and guest calamities is highly relevant to Airbnbs operations.

Stephensen addressed the possibility of Airbnb eventually returning to launching flights, an initiative that was close to debuting before Covid forced it into hiberation.

He said Airbnb is focusing on recruiting individual hosts, and would not be launching flights in the immediate future. However, if Airbnb eventually indeed decides to launch flights, then Airbnb would do so in a unique way specific to the company, and would not offer flights in a generic way that one could typically find elsewhere.

While Booking Holdings and Expedia Group, as well as Marriott and Hilton, have multiple brands, Stephensen Airbnb sees it as more efficient to operate one brand globally.

He said Airbnb doesnt have to waste money marketing sub-brands. We have one brand to feed Airbnb, Stephensen said.

He added that long-term stays also differentiate Airbnb from competitors. He claimed Airbnb average around 4.5 nights per booking and that would be longer than a typical online travel age icy booking, he said.

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Airbnb Sees Opportunities in Smart Homes in Partnerships With Apple, Amazon and Google - Skift

A set of sinuous lines found in the Thar Desert of India may be the largest geoglyph ever discovered.

Geoglyphs, which are sprawling designs formed with earth or stone, have not previously been found in India, though they are known from other deserts in Peru and in Kazakhstan. The Indian glyph consists of several spirals and a long, snaking line that doubles back on itself again and again. All told, the patterns cover 51 acres (20.8 hectares) of the arid region near the border with Pakistan. A hike along all the lines would make for a journey of 30 miles (48 kilometers).

It's not clear why the lines were made, though they are situated near several rock cairns, or stacks, and memorial stones, the latter carved with images of the Hindu deities Krishna and Ganesha. The lines may have some sort of religious or ceremonial meaning, discoverers and independent French researchers Carlo Oetheimer, and Yohann Oetheimer, wrote for the upcoming September issue of the journal Archaeological Research in Asia. The overall pattern is not visible from the ground, as there is no high point nearby and the terrain is flat. Only by scouting the region on Google Earth were the Oetheimers able to discover the geoglyphs.

Related: Photos: Ancient circular geoglyphs etched into the sand in Peru

The researchers first discovered the lines on Google Earth in 2014 while conducting a virtual survey of the region. In 2016, they visited a collection of intriguing sites. Several promising spots turned out to be furrows for failed tree plantations. But near the village of Boha, the researchers found patterns that had nothing to do with farming.

"The Boha lines stand out in regard to their monumental size, their shape (a giant spiral, a boustrophedon and a small, ovoid spiral, plus some portions of lines related to the main motives) and the orientation of the giant spiral," the Oetheimers wrote in an email to Live Science.

Related: 25 strangest sights on Google Earth

A boustrophedon refers to a line that doubles back on itself, first going from right to left and then left to right, in an alternating pattern. Some ancient written languages, including ancient Greek and Etruscan (from what is now Italy), were written in this back-and-forth style.

For all their size, the lines are fairly subtle on the ground. They are dug into the desert soil about 4 inches (10 centimeters) deep and are just 8 to 20 inches (20 to 50 cm) wide. Though the researchers aren't sure how the lines were made, they could have been formed with a plow pulled by a draft animal, like a camel.

Based on weathering and the sparse vegetation growth in and around the lines, the researchers estimate that the designs are around 150 years old, or perhaps as old as 200 years. That older age would put them in line with the age of the memorial stones found nearby. The area is uncultivated, the Oetheimers told Live Science, with no available water for irrigation nearby; the land is currently used to graze goats and sheep.

"[T]he shape of the lines are not fields," the Oethemiers wrote to Live Science. "They are definitely designs."

The largest of the geoglyphs is a giant spiral covering 0.05 square miles (0.13 square kilometers), which would measure 7.5 miles (12 km) if stretched out into a straight line. Nearby is a serpent-shaped line that's 6.8 miles (11 km) long and the boustrophedon-style pattern, which consists of 23 nearly parallel lines. Those lines total 5.7 miles (9.2 km). There is also another small spiral and a number of faint lines nearby, suggesting that the geoglyphs were once much larger.

There are a total of nine stone structures in and around the lines; the largest is a pillar just over 5 feet (1.6 m) tall. Three of the structures are rock cairns, four are carved memorial stones with inscriptions that are still being studied and three others are simple rectangular stones used for memorials or landmarks. The final stone is a sati stone, which was erected to memorialize a widow who threw herself on her husband's funeral pyre after his death in battle.

But old carvings and memorials are common in the Thar Desert, the researchers wrote, so the stones may have had little to do with the geoglyphs around them. For now, the researchers added, the lines need to be protected; they have already been damaged by vehicles cutting across them since the 2014 satellite images were taken.

The purposes of other geoglyphs around the world remain unexplained, as well. The famed Nazca Lines in Peru depict birds, cats and other animals, and have been studied by modern archaeologists since the 1920s. Nevertheless, no one knows why the lines were made. Circular and hexagonal geoglyphs in the Amazon show no signs of habitation inside, and archaeologists' best guess is that the designs had some sort of ceremonial function. And sometime between the third and fourth millennia B.C. in Russia, geoglyph makers sculpted a giant elk out of rocks. Why? It's yet another earthen mystery.

Originally published on Live Science.

The rest is here:

Google Earth reveals the world's largest geoglyph - Livescience.com