Daily Archives: February 5, 2022

Alex McLenon

With another partner onboard at Michigan Central, a team of Detroit city officials has been set up to help companies seeking approval for mobility testing.

Google says it will join Ford as a tenant at Michigan Central Station in Corktown when restoration of Detroits largest monument to blight is complete. Ford Motor Company officials say that work could be finished by early 2023.

The announcement comes as City of Detroit and Michigan officials detail commitments theyre making to the public-private effort.

Every time an inventor has an idea in mobility we are going to vet it and find the safest, most prompt way for them to try it out. Mike Duggan, Detroit Mayor

Ruth Porat is chief financial officer at Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary Google. She says the company will use the location to help prepare local students for high-tech jobs.

What well be doing here, says Porat, is providing computer science training skills for high school kids after school, on weekends so that they too have access to one of these exciting new jobs of the future.

Porat says entering Michigan Central as a founding member also opens up long-term options for Google.

Last year Ford Motor Company entered a partnership with Google to assist the automaker in developing autonomous vehicles. Officials with the tech giant, whose self-driving car company Waymo has infrastructure in Detroit, say it views its presence at the old train station as an asset for future mobility projects.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan says the city will help with those efforts. He says the area around Michigan Central Station will be designated as a Transportation Innovation Zone.

The City of Detroit has a team now of our lawyers, our engineers, our permitting folks, our roads folks, says Duggan. Every time an inventor has an idea in mobility we are going to vet it and find the safest, most prompt way for them to try it out.

The State of Michigan says its putting $126 million toward new and existing projects aimed at turning the area around the former train depot into a hub for mobility.

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Alex McLenon is a Reporter with 101.9 WDET. McLenon is a graduate of Wayne State University, where he studied Media Arts & Production and Broadcast Journalism.

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Google to join Ford at Michigan Central Station - WDET

The new Chrome logo, at right, is brighter and has a larger interior blue circle.

For the first time in eight years, Google is changing its Chrome browser logo, adopting a simpler look intended to better match Google's current brand, a company designer said Friday. But you might not even notice.

It's got the same general scheme as the circular, four-color basic design that arrived in 2009 with the very first Chrome and that Google flattened in a 2011 revamp. But subtler changes are now on the way to your screens. The new logo has brighter colors, a larger blue circle in the center and no more shadows.

Know everything about Google, from breaking news to reviews and Android tips. Delivered Wednesdays.

Icon revamps can be controversial, as in 2016 when Uber dropped its U logoandInstagram adopted a stylized 2D icon, dropping its skeuomorphic camera. On top of irritating customers, it can make apps just plain hard to find on your phone's home screen until you learn the new look.

Chrome's modest change probably won't be confusing, though. The company started making the change in its Canary test version of Chrome, but it'll spread to developer, beta and mainstream releases in coming weeks. With Chrome's overwhelming dominance, accounting for 63% of web usage according to analytics firm StatCounter, there's a strong disincentive for Google to make big changes.

Google also is tweaking it further with different variations designed to look more at home on Windows, MacOS and iOS. "We want the icons to feel recognizably Chrome, but also well crafted for each OS," Chrome designer Elvin Hu said in a tweet thread.

For example, on Windows 10 and Windows 11, the icon colors are graduated, getting darker toward the bottom. Colors are brighter on Chrome OS. And the icon gets a 3D look, like a thin disk, on MacOS.

Less noticeable is that the green changes slightly from the left side to the lower side. That's to avoid a jarring "vibration" that can occur when the brighter green abuts the red at the top, Hu said.

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Google Chrome logo gets simpler and brighter, the first change in 8 years - CNET

A technician gets cabling out of his truck to install Google Fiber.

George Frey | Reuters

As Google Fiber contractors in Kansas City attempt to become the first members of the Alphabet Workers Union to win bargaining power, workers there are facing a union-busting effort by their contracting firm.

The contractors are employed directly by BDS Connected Solutions and work in a retail store for Google Fiber, the project that provides high-speed internet access to 19 U.S. markets, according to its website. Kansas City was Google Fiber's first outpost.

Last month, workers at the Google Fiber location petitioned the National Labor Relations Board for formal union recognition after Google and BDS didn't voluntarily agree to allow it. One staffer told CNBC that BDS had made changes to their pay structure and removed some of the helpful Covid-19 protections like gloves, sanitization shields and partitions.

The NLRB set the hearing date for Feb. 10, to confirm eligibility of union votes, which would precede an election, according to a filing viewed by CNBC.

Leading up to the vote, workers say they received a letter from BDS last week strongly discouraging them from continuing with their unionization effort.

"I want to make the Company's position on this matter clear," Marco Morin, BDS' national operations manager, wrote in the letter, which was obtained by CNBC. "We do not believe that it is in the best interest of our employees to unionize at this time. If the union comes in, they will force you to pay dues or fees. We do not believe that bringing in an outside organization to represent you is necessary."

Should the union get a majority of votes in the election, it will be certified by the NLRB, making it the first group of Alphabet Workers Union members with official rights to bargain with leadership.

While the Google Fiber location in Kansas City employs just 12 people, excluding temp workers, its unionization drive is part of a broader movement in the tech industry that's slowing gaining momentum.

Workers and supporters hold signs after filing a petition requesting an election to form a union outside the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) regional office in the Brooklyn Borough of New York, on Monday, Oct. 25, 2021.

Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Images

In 2019, 80 Google contractors in Pittsburgh joined the United Steelworkers Union, and in November of last year, over 100 workers for a Google staffing firm named Modis recovered hazard pay following organization efforts.

Meanwhile, Amazon workers across several locations are trying to unionize, including at a warehouse in Alabama, where they're set to vote for a second time on whether to form a union. The first attempt failed last year after after the NLRB ruled Amazon improperly interfered in the election.

The Alphabet Workers Union, the first union formed by company employees, was created a year ago amid increased tensions between workers and leadership. It now has more than 800 members, who pay 1% of their total compensation in dues, the organization said. However, it operates as a "minority union" model, meaning it doesn't have bargaining rights with leadership.

Even if the Kansas City Google workers are successful, bargaining rights would only apply to their group. But the victory would be a first for the Google union in obtaining negotiating leverage, and could potentially motivate other groups of workers to pursue their own elections.

In the letter to the Google Fiber contractors, Morin warned employees that "everyone will be stuck with the union and forced to pay dues" if the majority of voters chose to unionize. He said "Missouri is not a right-to-work" state, meaning employees wouldn't have a choice in joining the union.

Mike Knox, an employee at the Google Fiber location, told CNBC that BDS' tactics are upsetting.

"The letter kind of threw us a bit because they had never seemed to care about our pay before that," Knox said. "Our petition specifically asked they not try and use any union-busting tactics but that letter was confirmation that it wasn't going to happen."

Knox said he loves the Google Fiber product and enjoys his job. But during the pandemic, employees have had to consistently deal with impromptu business changes and understaffing. They've been asking Alphabet and BDS for help.

"We handle a lot of customer equipment, a lot of customers want to shake our hand and Covid spreads so easily," Knox said. "People working twice as hard, it's been very stressful."

The Alphabet Workers Union told CNBC that nine of the 12 Google Fiber workers in Kansas City are members of the Google union. In a statement, the union said it stands "shoulder to shoulder with the Kansas City workers."

"We are deeply disappointed that management at BDS Connected Solutions, a critical subcontractor of Google Fiber, has refused to commit to a fair and transparent union election process," the union said. "We call on Alphabet, Google and BDS Connected Solutions to commit to a fair union election process and end the use of union-busting practices."

CNBC reached out to multiple BDS employees, including a director of marketing, for comment, but didn't receive a response.

A Google spokesperson said in a statement that the matter is for BDS to handle and that Google works with contractors that have unions.

"We have many contracts with both unionized and non-union suppliers, and respect their employees' right to choose whether or not to join a union, just as we do for these employees of BDS Solutions Group," the spokesperson said. "We expect all our suppliers to treat and pay their employees fairly, whether they are unionized or not."

WATCH: Amazon union vote may get a 'do-over'

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Google Fiber workers in Kansas City face union-busting efforts ahead of vote to organize - CNBC

On Tuesday, Google announced its earnings for the final quarter of 2021. Like for many of its tech brethren, it was a very good quarter. Google reported record revenue of $75 billion, most of which came from the company's advertising business.

In fact, Google's advertising business is so good that the company loses money on everything else, but still managed to post one of the most profitable quarters of any company, ever. For the three months ending in December, Google made almost $21 billion in profit. That's one way to measure success.

It's certainly the one that most companies and investors use. It's why companies have earnings calls in the first place, to talk about what they sold and how much money they made. That's fine;companies certainly exist to make money.

On the company's earnings call with analysts, however, I wasstruck by a phrase Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai, used as he summarized its results.

Our deep investment in A.I. technologies continues to drive extraordinary and helpful experiences for people and businesses, across our most important products.

Without going too far into the weeds, Pichai was talking about how Google uses artificial intelligence (A.I.) and machine learning to improve its products like Maps, YouTube, and Search. Pichai went on to spend several minutes talking about A.I., and how Google is advancing in that area, but that's not the interesting part.

Google says it exists to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." That's not something a human can do. It's not something your computer or smartphone can do. Instead, it requires massive amounts of dedicated machine learning and artificial intelligence to make sense of the vast amounts of information created every second.

All of that computing power is focused on one thing: helping Google deliver "extraordinary and helpful experiences."

The thing is, that's exactly why Google is so successful. Sure, in dollar terms, Google is successful because it's the world's largest advertising platform. But the reason it's the world's largest advertising platform is that billions of people find its services helpful. It adds value to their lives by making it easier for them to find information.

That's because Google, as much as any company, focuses on creating "extraordinary and helpful experiences."

Think, for a minute, about the number of Google services you use on a daily basis. Gmail is the default email service for both individuals and many small businesses. Google Search is where billions of people first access the internet. Google Maps is how people understand and navigate the world around them.

Google Maps is actually a great example. We rarely think of things as extraordinary once they become the default, but I can't think of a better word to describe all of the things you can do with Maps.

Not only can it tell you the best way to get from one place to another, but you can also actually explore your destinationfrom within the app. When you consider the amount of effort that goes into mapping and then photographing most of the world around us, Street View is definitelyextraordinary. That's what makes it so helpful.

I think that's actually a pretty compelling challenge for every business. If you think about it, your job is to do exactly that--create extraordinary and helpful experiences for your customers.

Even if you're not building the world's largest email service or the most widely used website on earth, you can still deliver something extraordinary. Often that's not just about building something better. Sometimes it's about the experience of buying or using your product or service. Sometimes it's about the small details that no one else would think about.

Creating something ordinary is not a competitive advantage. Extraordinary and helpful is the new default expectation among your customers. It's also the best way to define success.

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

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With One Sentence, Google's CEO Just Gave the Best Explanation of Success I've Heard Yet - Inc.

We all know how annoying group conversations can be when one of the bubbles is green, but its about to get better. Googles solution to iPhone tapbacks is rolling out to Android phones beginning today and its very slick.

Tapbacks in iMessage are the reactions that appear when you long-press on a text. On the iPhone, you can choose one of six reactions and they appear above the message when texting between iPhone users. But when an Android user joins a group conversation, tapbacks become clunky text strings that clutter the conversation with Mike laughed at or Karen loved and then repeats the message.

Thats gotten a whole lot better now. We were able to test the feature on a Pixel 5 and the implementation is surprisingly solid. Instead of Jason liked this message when an iPhone user selects a tapback, Android users will see small emoji under the message rather than above it, but otherwise they function just like they would if they were using an iPhone. As a result, iPhone users wont have their conversations cluttered with tapback texts and Android users wont feel like second-class citizens. Its a true win-win and the smartest messaging feature Googles implemented in years.

Your Android to iPhone conversations will be a lot cleaner now that Google translates tapbacks.

IDG

To get the feature, you must be using the Google Messages app and have the Show iPhone reactions as emoji toggle turned on in the Advanced settings. It appears to work with every carrier, though the rollout is staggered. As of now, it only appears to be live on some Pixel phones. WhatsApp is also reportedly readying its own tapback system that should appear in an upcoming WhatsApp beta before rolling out to users.

The emoji dont exactly line up with Apples reactions, but theyre relatively close enough where there shouldnt be too much confusion. Heres what Google has chosen for the six tapback responses:

Tapping the emoji brings up a banner at bottom of the screen that says Translated from iPhone with the appropriate emoji. Responses come in as quickly as a text message would and even have a nice bit of animation that all feels incredibly natural.

Googles solution to one of the most annoying parts of the iMessage experience is admirable. While some may take issue with the choice of emoji, its hard to not be impressed with the results. As with all things Android, itll take a while for it to become widespread, but its safe to say that one of the biggest annoyances about texting between iPhones and Android phones has been solved.

Update 2/3: WhatsApp is also working on its own tapback solution.

Michael Simon has been covering Apple since the iPod was the iWalk. His obsession with technology goes back to his first PCthe IBM Thinkpad with the lift-up keyboard for swapping out the drive. He's still waiting for that to come back in style tbh.

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Google's solution to the green bubble iMessage problem is insanely great - Macworld

With Apple setting the tone, the stock market rose until Wednesday, buoyed by a series of fairly upbeat earnings reports. They included:

Exxon Mobils disclosure that, thanks to soaring oil and gas prices, it had earned the most profit in seven years.

The declaration by Starbucks that it had raised prices and would keep doing so. We have additional pricing actions planned through the balance of this year, which play an important role to mitigate cost pressures including inflation, Kevin Johnson, the president and chief executive of Starbucks, said on a conference call.

Alphabet's report that it was earning far more than Wall Street analysts had anticipated. Its fourth quarter profit reached $20.6 billion, an increase of 32 percent over the same period a year earlier.

That mini rally was a welcome reprieve after a dismal January, when the S&P 500 briefly plunged more than 10 percent the territory that denotes a correction, a decline of moderate seriousness on Wall Street. There were a series of odd records: It was the worst January for that benchmark index since the financial crisis of 2009, and the worst month since March 2020, as much of the world shut down at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Yet on Jan. 3, the first day of trading in 2022, the S&P 500, also reached a high-water mark, after climbing to a new high 70 different times in 2021.

The stock markets direction has shifted, many times, already in 2022.

What should one make of these various, head-spinning records, and of the evident ephemeral influence of earnings calls?

I find them fascinating as an observer but irrelevant as an investor. Try to anticipate them at every step and you will eventually stumble. The markets constant swings in response to corporate disclosures are, in my estimation,an argument for using index funds to invest in the entire global market, not in individual stocks.

Instead of worrying much about any single company, you hold a small share of all of them in the hope that over the long run, the better performers will outweigh the weaker ones.

Whether that will be the case in the next year is questionable. U.S. stocks overall are still expensive and the supply of money in the economy is likely to be reduced, which could be a difficult combination for the stock market, especially in the United States.

You can understand these issues by taking the long view looking at the economy as a whole, without ever focusing on the struggles and profits of specific companies. But these companies matter. Grasp the details and you may have a richer understanding of a vibrant but precarious economy.

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Google, Facebook, Apple, Starbucks and Exxon Mobil Reveal Earnings - The New York Times

When you think of "Googling," you almost certainly think of entering text and getting millions of results, so much so that the Google search page has become a cultural icon. But some of the most interesting Google results arise from images, live camera views, or the sounds around you, making them not only useful but a taste of what's to come in augmented reality and metaverses. Here's a quick look at ways to Google without words.

This is also called a reverse image search: Instead of searching for an image you search with an image. On the desktop, go to Google Images. There, you can drag and drop any GIF, PNG, JPG or WEBP image file into the search field. The results will include different sized versions of the image, sites where the image is found and images that are similar but not identical to it. You can use these results to identify what an image depicts, find higher-resolution versions of it or track down places where it's being used.

Google Images reverse image search will find many examples of an image you drag and drop to it.

Also called Google Lens, this is similar to image search above but uses a live image from your phone's camera instead of uploading an image file. The easiest way is to tap the Lens button on your Android home screen then aim your phone's camera at an object or scene. If you don't see the Lens button, you can add it to your phone via the official Lens app.

The Lens button should be right next to the search box and voice icon on most Android phones.

Most of the time Google will figure out what you're aiming it at and return results that include content and shopping links. It's a rudimentary cousin of augmented reality and a technique that's also used in the Amazon and Snapchat apps but Google results tend to be more agnostic than those two. To be fair, I find Lens to be a more brittle tool than image search, but when it works it can give you results you probably won't find any other way.

You can also use Lens to search text that you aim your camera at, or use the Google Translate app, which uses the same core technology to translate printed text into another language.

Google Lens image search is great for searching things you don't know the name or proper description of. Searching for "red power screwdriver" probably wouldn't have nailed it the way this Lens search did.

Finding the name of a song that's playing is nothing new -- anyone can holler out, "Hey, Google, what song is this?" But the most elegant way of identifying music is one of the most overlooked tricks in Google's Pixel phones.

On aPixel 2 or later Pixel with Android 10 or highergo toSettings > Sound and Vibration > Now Playing and activate the Identify songs playing nearbyslider. While you're in there, turn on Show search button on lock screen. Now your phone will always be trying to identify the music around you and it'll show the title on your phone's lock screen.

The Android phone on the right automatically ID'd the song playing from the speakers of the phone on the left.

If it fails, you'll find a subtle new button on your lock screen that you can press to ID the music around you. And you'll find a history of all songs that have been detected around you when you click on the song title on the lock screen.

If you don't have a Pixel phone, there's at least one other way to graft it onto other Android devices via the Ambient Music Mod developed by Kieron Quinn and Varun Shanbhag. Installing it is not for the average phone user, however.

Keep on top of the latest news, how-to and reviews on Google-powered devices, apps and software.

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How to Google without words: The coolest searches you may not know - CNET

As Winter Olympics 2022 kick off in Beijing, China, on Friday, Google marked the occasion with an animated doodle.

Using adorable animations of various animals such as tigers and rabbits, the colourful doodle on the search engine homepage shows them participating in some of the winter events.

After clicking on the animated doodle that captures the excitement of all competing participants, users are directed to a Google search page showing news related to the Winter games and Olympics own website listing events and scheduling details, among other things.

The competitive critters featured in todays Doodle have gathered from all over the world under the winter sky to keep their cool and put their opponents on ice, the tech giant wrote on their blog accompanying the doodle for the two-week sporting extravaganza.

Who will be pouncing on victory and scurrying home an international legend? they asked.

With a motto of Together for a Shared Future, the Beijing Winter Olympics are taking place from February 4 to February 20 with around 3,000 athletes competing in 109 different events.

The Winter Paralympics hosted in Beijing will kickstart from March 4 and will conclude on March 13, with 736 competitors across 78 events.

While most events will be hosted in the title city of Beijing, some outdoor events are scheduled to take place in nearby cities of Yanqing and Chongli.

As the mega sporting events are being hosted amidst the pandemic, athletes and officials will be kept in secure bubbles with no spectator allowed.

While the game holds utmost importance to competitors, the event has has drawn criticism from various quarters. It is seeing protests from environmental groups over creation of artificial snow, while many countries like India are boycotting the event on diplomatic levels.

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Beijing Games 2022: Google kicks off Winter Olympics with cute animated doodle - The Indian Express