Daily Archives: June 1, 2022

Google announced today that its combining two of its video-calling apps, Duo and Meet, into a single platform. Pretty soon, there will be only Google Meet, and Googles hoping it can be the one calling app users need for just about everything in their lives.

By bringing them both together, Googles hoping it can solve some of what ails modern communication tools. Whats been really important is understanding how people make the choice as to what tool theyre going to use, for what purpose, in what circumstance, says Javier Soltero, the head of Google Workspace. Our digital lives are filled with a million different chat apps, each with its own rules and norms and contact list, some for work purposes and some for personal ones. Googles hoping it can use Gmail addresses and phone numbers to bring all that together. Its really important and powerful to be able to reach you that way, Soltero says, and allow you then to decide whether you want to be reached or not, as opposed to having to manage all of these different identities and deal with the consequences.

Soltero has been preaching this idea of reachability for most of his tenure at Google, and it has led Google to integrate Meet and Chat into so many of its other services. Its a good goal, but it comes at a cost: adding everything to everything has made some of Googles services cluttered and complicated. You can start a meeting from anywhere! But... do you actually want to? Streamlining your communication choices is a good idea, but haphazardly cramming everything together doesnt work.

Over the last couple of years in particular, Meet has become a powerful platform for meetings and group chats of all kinds, while Duo has stayed more of a messaging app. Google promises its bringing all of Duos features to Meet going forward and seems convinced it can offer the best of both worlds.

Its not quite right to say that Duos being killed, though. The app, which Google originally launched in 2016 as an easy way to make one-to-one video calls, does a number of useful things that Meet doesnt. For one thing, you can call someone directly including with their phone number rather than relying on sending links or hitting that giant Meet button in your Google Calendar invite. Duo has always been more like FaceTime than Zoom in that sense. (Google also launched an iMessage competitor, Allo, at the same time as Duo. Allo didnt turn out so great.)

As the two services become one, Google is leaning on Duos mobile app as the default. Pretty soon, the Duo app will get an update that brings an onslaught of Meet features into the platform; later this year, the Duo app will be renamed Google Meet. The current Meet app will be called Meet Original, and eventually deprecated.

This sounds... confusing, but Google claims its the best way forward. The Duo mobile app had a lot of sophistication, especially under the hood, says Dave Citron, the director of product for Googles video products. Especially in emerging markets, where network connectivity was sparse or highly variable. On the web, its different; Meet is the much more developed web platform, so that forms the base of the new combined system. But in both cases, the idea is 100% of the functionality, Citron said, combined forces, and no users left behind.

This is yet another effort from Google to unify some of its previously disparate parts, making the Google suite of services make more coherent and cohesive sense. Soltero said that as Meet has grown during the pandemic, it became the obvious place for Google to concentrate its voice and video efforts going forward. And hes hopeful that over time, the Meet brand can come to mean more than just meeting.

Getting this right will be tricky for Google. If it wants to build a cross-platform, cross-purpose platform for audio and video calls, it has to get a lot of little things right. Should every single device and browser tab youre signed into ring every time you get a call? (Google says no, and that its getting better at recognizing which device youre actually using and sending calls and notifications to that one.) Should you be able to get calls on your personal and work device at the same time? (No good answer yet, but Soltero said hes leading the charge to figure it out.)

Meet is already baked into so many Google services that it could become a meaningful WhatsApp and FaceTime competitor practically overnight, but only if it can integrate without being annoying or complicated.

Originally posted here:

Google is combining Meet and Duo into a single app for voice and video calls - The Verge

Last April, Google launched Grow with Google Career Readiness for Reentry, a program created in partnership with nonprofits to offer job readiness and digital skills training for formerly incarcerated individuals. As a part of an expansion, Google today announced that itll invest just over $8 million in organizations helping justice-impacted individuals, including the formerly incarcerated, enter the workforce.

Continuing its work with nonprofits including The Last Mile, Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO), Defy Ventures, Fortune Society and The Ladies of Hope Ministries, Google says that $4 million of the new roughly $8 million its investing will go toward Grow with Google Career Skills, aiming to help people impacted by the justice system develop career specializations. Nonprofits with which Google hasnt previously collaborated will be able to apply for up to $100,000 in grants to offer Googles reentry skills training to their community.

Meanwhile, Google.org, Googles charitable arm, will provide $4.25 million in grants to assist state governments in reducing barriers to employment with Code for Americas Clear My Record tool, which uses an open source algorithm to review records and produce clearance motions. Other grants from Google.org will focus on connecting justice-impacted people with jobs through the National Urban Leagues Urban Tech Jobs Program and Columbia Universitys Justice through Code.

In an email interview with TechCrunch, Maab Ibrahim, racial and criminal justice lead at Google.org, said that it was always Googles intention to bring the Career Readiness for Reentry program to scale. Theres a real urgency to this work more than 640,000 people are released from prison each year in this country, and nearly all of them could benefit from the digital skills and job readiness training were offering through our partners, she added. We co-created the program with five nonprofits who have a track record of successfully developing and delivering high-quality job training to returning citizens. After implementing the program in 2021 and getting partner feedback, we saw what works really well and how we can have more impact.

The formerly incarcerated community faces many challenges, including a lack of digital skills. Inmates can go well over a decade without access to technologies like smartphones and only limited familiarity with the internet. For example, U.S. Department of Education data from 2014 showed that 62% of correctional educational programs in the country didnt allow prisoners access to the internet.

Searching for jobs or making a resume using web tools is beyond the knowledge of some former inmates. According to a recent University of Kansas study, many women coming out of prison struggle with basic skills like protecting their online privacy. This lack of literacy, too, hinders ex-prisoners ability to take advantage of government services, which often require online applications.

Ibrahim asserts that programs like Career Readiness for Reentry can make a difference with a curriculum thats designed to be integrated into the programming of nonprofit partners. Given Googles technological expertise, one of our focus areas is helping people learn digital skills, she said. [W]e believe that companies, nonprofits and government working together can be a powerful force for good. Thats what were trying to facilitate here.

Studies have shown that digital literacy can reduce recidivism, or relapse into crime. But theres some reason for skepticism. When asked how many of the 10,000 formerly incarcerated people reached by Career Readiness for Reentry programming last year found a job, Ibrahim demurred.

Stymying efforts was the pandemic, which forced several of Googles partner organizations including The Last Mile and Defy Ventures to shift from in-person to remote instruction. AGoogle spokesperson later told TechCrunch that, out of a survey of 400 Career Readiness for Reentry participants, 75% reported they had a job or were enrolled as a student somewhere by the end of the program.

Ibrahim argues the expanded program has the potential to make a lasting impact via a new embedded team of Google.org fellows who will work with nonprofits or civic organizations to build tech solutions. One of their first projects is an end-to-end automatic record clearance service built on top of the existing Clear My Record that theyll work with Code for America to design, pilot and implement.

Googles lofty goal is to help 100,000 formerly incarcerated people build career skills by 2025. To achieve this, the tech giant will have to facilitate a massive expansion of access to digital literacy programs across federal and state penitentiaries. Underlining the challenge, New York State offered three programs with some degree of digital literacy training that capped out at 1,400 seats combined as of March 2020. There are over 77,000 people incarcerated in New York across the state and New York City correctional systems.

Criminal records for many can be a life sentence to poverty, creating barriers to jobs, housing, education and more, Ibrahim said. There are so many great organizations out there doing work in this space, but we know that no one organization will reach everyone in need As we continue to refine and evaluate this work, we hope that we will be able to scale it further in the coming years.

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Google expands program to help train the formerly incarcerated - TechCrunch

An Android phone without Google. No Google apps, no Google Play Services, no peppy Google Assistant. No Google surveillance and data snooping, no incessant ad targeting, no feeling like privacy is a pointless exercise. Some companies, like Huawei, have been forced to figure out how to build this kind of device. A few others have tried for the sake of maintaining your privacy and as a way to fight back against the tyranny of Big Tech. None of it has ever really worked.

The team at Murena has been working on de-Googling Android phones for the last few years, starting back in 2017 when Gael Duval created an operating system he originally called Eelo. Like millions others, IVE BECOME A PRODUCT OF GOOGLE, Duval wrote in 2017. He said he wanted to build something just as good as other Android software, minus all the surveillance. I need something I could even recommend to my parents or my children, he wrote. Something appealing, with guarantees for more privacy. Something that we could build in a reasonable amount of time, something that will get better and better over time.

The operating system, now called /e/OS, has been available on a few devices for a while, but now the product is supposedly ready for prime time: Murena is releasing what it calls /e/OS V1, along with the companys first-ever smartphone, the $369 Murena One.

As a first hardware effort, its reasonably impressive: a slick slab of glass with a 6.5-inch display, an eight-core MediaTek processor, a fingerprint reader on the side, and three cameras in a small hump on the back. The photography specs are impressive, too, including a 48-megapixel main sensor on the back and a 25-megapixel pinhole camera on the front for selfies. The camera was the one place Murena seems to have splurged here, which COO Alexis Noetinger says was by necessity. People are ready to make quite a lot of tradeoffs when they move to an environment that is more oriented toward privacy, he said, but weve seen that the camera is the most likely thing people can be very picky about.

Well have to test them both more before we can deliver a full verdict, but in my limited testing, they both seem to be decent cameras but a far cry from whatd youd expect on a recent Google, Apple or Samsung phone.

In order to rid its device of every possible remnant of Google, Murena had to build an incredible amount of stuff. The /e/OS software comes with: a custom-made messaging app, so you dont need Google Messages; a browser to replace Chrome; a maps app that uses OpenStreetMap data instead of Googles; an email client, a calendar, a file-storage system, a contacts app, and practically everything else youd get in the Google Workspace suite; apps for notes and tasks and music and even voice recordings. Murena is even planning its own virtual assistant, named Elivia, so you wont miss Google Assistant.

Murena built cloud back ends for many of those services, too, so you can check your email in the /e/OS email app but also use your /e/ email address instead of one ending in gmail.com. All your online services live in Murena Cloud instead of on Google or Microsoft services. To some extent, all youre really doing here is swapping one centralized provider for another, but Murena says all its products are designed with the same anti-surveillance privacy principles as its smartphones.

Its an admirable effort, but even Murena can only go so far in ditching Google. Every company that has ever tried this, from Huaweis Harmony OS to ill-fated projects like Ubuntu Touch and Firefox OS, eventually discovered the same thing: without the Android app ecosystem, your phone is dead on arrival. So Murena tried to have its cake and eat it too: the company swapped Googles Play Store for the App Lounge, which lets you install all major Android apps including, yes, those made by Google but has no sign of Google branding.

In order to use the App Lounge, though, you have to accept its Terms of Service, which says right up at the top that you have two options log in with your Google account or browse the Lounge anonymously but either way, your app-downloading relationship is mostly with Google. Youre just downloading Play apps in a different-looking store. The Lounge fetches its information directly from the Play Store (without telling Google who you are, Murena says) and uses Google for all forms of payment.

The App Lounge does include some non-Play Store apps, and you can dig into settings and choose to only see open-source apps and progressive web apps, but that pretty seriously limits the number of apps available to you.

Connecting to Google flies pretty directly in the face of Murenas promises and has made a lot of Murenas early testers mad, but I dont think Murena had another choice but to handle it this way. A smartphone without Googles surveillance is a compelling idea to many users, but a smartphone without any of the apps you want is a dealbreaker for just about everybody. Noetinger says that sure, Murena could have built a Linux phone that fulfilled everyones privacy dreams, but it wouldnt have run any apps. And nobody would have wanted it. We need people to find apps, he says, otherwise were going to connect to a small amount of people, who will find the project great, but it will end there. Murena is trying to walk a fine line here, but the truth is that line just doesnt exist. You just cant have the full Android experience without inviting Google into the equation.

Instead, when you log into Google or use its services, Murena tries to mitigate the data Google can collect. It leans on a project called MicroG thats essentially a more private clone of some of the libraries that Google requires to run its apps, so you can use apps that require Google Play Services without actually using Google Play Services.It mostly works, though it took a lot of digging around in Settings to actually log in to my Google account on the Murena One. I cant imagine many people are buying /e/OS devices and then rushing to install Google Maps and Chrome, but its still a frustrating bug.

Murenas overall approach to privacy seems to focus less on stopping data collection altogether and more on security by obscurity. If you turn on Advanced Privacy in /e/OS, it uses a VPN to mask your location either by picking a random plausible location somewhere in the world or letting you choose where you want to be and even hides your IP address from the sites you visit. It also tries to block trackers in every app you download and seems to do so pretty successfully.

Advanced Privacy comes with its own tradeoffs, though. For one thing, its tough to use weather or maps apps when your phone thinks youre in Singapore, as mine did when I first booted it up from my house in Virginia. Lots of apps are also geofenced in one way or another, so I wound up having to turn off all the protection for apps like Netflix and YouTube TV. (Oh yeah, and I downloaded YouTube and YouTube TV because Murena cant replace those, so Google got me there anyway.) Murena is trying hard to create set-it-and-forget-it privacy software, but it ended up requiring more fiddling than I wanted.

All of /e/OS is still based on Android, of course. The device Im using is running a forked version of Android 10 based on Lineage OS, an Android spinoff based on the old CyanogenMod project. (Its a fork of a fork! And LineageOS is all the way up to Android 12, though, so its a bummer to see /e/OS lag behind.) And for all of Murenas work, it still looks like Android. The organization has said that it plans to rethink the way notifications work, for instance, and make other changes to how Android works, but right now, its just a simple iPhone-style launcher on top of an otherwise familiar version of Android.

The Murena One is an ambitious device, and /e/OS is an even more ambitious operating system. But so far, theyve mostly shown me just how ingrained Google is in our digital lives and how much more control the company has taken over its supposedly open-source operating system. The only way to get Android free of Google, it seems, is to make everything about Android a little worse. And the only way to eventually make it better is to rebuild it from the ground up. Thats going to be tough for anyone to pull off, no matter how fervently they believe in the mission.

Continue reading here:

The Murena One shows exactly how hard it is to de-Google your smartphone - The Verge

New rules on mobile app stores could trigger a wave of creative, cheaper apps with more privacy options for users. Every budding developer dreams of creating an app that goes viral and makes lots of money overnight. The Angry Birds game became a worldwide phenomenon within weeks when it launched in 2009 and made US$10 million (8 million) in its first year.

But, overall, the numbers make it clear that mobile apps dont guarantee wealth. A 2021 study showed just 0.5% of consumer apps succeed commercially . Developers have to jostle for attention among the almost 3 million apps and games on Google Play and 4.5 million apps and games on the Apple store.

On Apples iPhone and iPad platforms, the App Store is the only way to distribute apps. Until recently, Apple and Googles stores charged a 30% commission fee. But both halved it for most independent app developers and small businesses after lawsuits such as in 2020 when video games company Epic Games claimed Apple has an illegal monopoly of the market.

Epic Games lost but Apple was subject to App stores changes that are on hold. Both Epic Games and Apple are appealing. Epic Games has filed a similar case against Google, which is set to go to trial in 2023. App stores set the rules on privacy, security and even what types of apps can be made.

Third-party stores could set different rules which might be more relaxed and allow developers to keep more of the money from apps they sell.

Independent developers say they are sometimes being Sherlocked by Google and Apple. They develop an app, and not long afterwards the platforms embeds the apps features in the operating system itself, killing the developers product.

FlickType was developed as a third-party keyboard for iPhones and Apple Watches in 2019. Shortly afterwards Apple apparently told the developer that keyboards for the Apple Watch were not allowed, they announced the feature themselves.

It can take between three and nine months to develop one app and can cost between US$40,000 and US$300,000 to build a minimum viable product. Some apps take much longer than this to develop.

In 2021 a group of UK-based developers filed a 1.5 billion collective action suit against Apple over its store fees. The case will be heard in the UK.

The European Commission told Apple it had abused its position and distorted competition in the music streaming industry and its restrictions on app developers prevent them telling users about cheaper alternative apps.

For instance, when Apple builds a music app, rivals such as Spotify argue this is unfair. They have to pay 15% or 30% of their revenues to Apple, their rival, which operates the store platform. Until recently, Apple prevented Spotify from telling users about cheaper options (like by subscribing via the services website).

A report from the UKs Competition and Markets Authority highlighted concerns that the tech giants are creating barriers to innovation and competition. Their full market study is due to report back in June 2022. The UK government has pledged to introduce new laws when parliamentary time allows.

The EUs Digital Markets Act could be in force by Spring 2023. The legislation is designed to open up mobile platforms by allowing users to install apps from alternative stores, and ensure app store providers dont favour their own products or services over third-party developers offerings.

In February 2022 a US senate panel approved a bill that aims to rein in app stores.

It is possible to install apps from other niche stores on Android hardware - such as the F-Droid store for open source apps. But the Play Store is available on almost every Android phone by default, meaning the apps available on it can reach a much larger number of users.

Both Apple and Googles app review processes (which looks at developers apps before making them available) have been heavily criticised for their lack of transparency, consistency, and general inequality. Independent developers have no real leverage against international billion-dollar companies.

Google has been criticised for failing to provide meaningful clarification when it remove apps from its store.

Apple expressed security and privacy concerns about allowing apps from other stores on its devices.

App store review processes can try to ensure that apps follow their privacy policies. Most users dont read these however, and apps can already access and share a lot more data than users realise.

Third-party app stores are likely to create a trade-off between user freedom and user safety. Some users may prefer Apple and Googles approach to privacy. Others may prefer a more open experience, where they can install apps from smaller independent developers, who can develop their apps without having to jump through the large app stores hoops.

The fact is that its possible to give users this choice - evidence from lawsuits shows that Apple originally planned to support running apps from outside its app store. The Digital Markets Act might force Apple to reconsider.

The DMA wont deliver results for users and developers unless it is properly implemented. The European Commission itself looks set to become a dedicated regulator for the first time. This will take time though, and the commission will need to grow a team large enough to provide meaningful oversight and enforcement.

Original post:

Why the Apple and Google app store monopoly could soon be over - The Conversation

TEA-seq, one of the tools available on the Human Immune System Explorer. Cell types are in different colors, with each dot corresponding to a single cell. Clusters of cells have similar RNA profiles. (Allen Institute Image)

The Allen Institute for Immunology unveiled a new interactive platform on Wednesday to showcase the human immune system, the Human Immune System Explorer.

Built in partnership with Google, the explorer is a central place for researchers and the public to find analysis tools, resources and data. The platform adds to the growing toolkit of similar resources across the Allen Institute, such as the Allen Cell Explorer and the Allen Brain Map.

Its also the first time the Allen Institute has leveraged Googles cloud offerings like Vertex AI to build such a platform. Googles team meets weekly with institute researchers.Theyve just been deeply committed to working with people in the Allen Institute, said Paul Meijer, director of software development, database and pipelines at the immunology institute.

As the platform matures, Meijer anticipates it will be broadly used by immunology researchers worldwide, who will add their data to the platform. It will track different cell types, molecules and other aspects of immunity in healthy people and in people with conditions like COVID-19 and cancer. Here are some of the platforms current features:

The platform ultimately aims to help simplify the cataloging, visualization and analysis of the massive amounts of data being collected in human studies of the immune system. The institute aims to promote open, collaborative and multi-disciplinary science.

Allen Institute researchers, for instance, are involved in a study examining the immune system in patients with long COVID. Scientists are cataloging proteins present on the surface of patient immune cells over the course of the first infection and for weeks afterwards. They recently found sets of proteins associated with long COVID suggesting that some affected people have high levels of inflammation. That data was recently released in a preprint study and will soon be entered into the new platform.

In a tweet, Google cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said he was inspired by his teams work with the Allen Institute. The past few years have put a spotlight on the importance of collaborating to diagnose and treat diseases, he said.

A multidisciplinary team of lab scientists and 10 software developers built the new platform over about three years, said Meijer. The team science and team development effort has been the real power that we have at the Allen Institute for Immunology, he said.

The researchers are also committed to increasing the diversity of human subjects represented on the platform. Ultimately users may be able to filter datasets by peoples pre-existing conditions, social conditions, or other factors.

The rest is here:

Allen Institute and Google team up to build platform exploring the immune system - GeekWire

Kim Komando| Special to USA TODAY

Most of us know at least some basic keyboard shortcuts. Ctrl + C for copy, Ctrl + V for paste, and the infamous Ctrl + Alt + Delete for when things arent going so well.

Thats not all. You can use your keyboard to paste text without its original messy formatting, take a picture of your screen, and create a virtual desktop to keep work and life separate. Tap or click here for seven shortcuts that will help you save even more time.

Speaking of time, heres a 30-second privacy check you need to do if you use Google or Facebook regularly. Do it now while youre thinking of it.

There are more ways to cut to the chase beyond a few keystrokes. If you use Googles Docs, Sheets, and Calendar, heres a smart, quick way to create new files and events without clicking through menus:

Microsoft Office is expensive. If you dont want to pay for Word, Excel, and all the rest, a free alternative is the way to go. Google isnt the only option out there. Tap or click here for seven free choices that do what Word does.

But if you do use Google Docs, heres a trick you need to know. The same goes for opening a new Google Sheet, Googles version of Excel.

A similar shortcut opens your Google Calendar with a new blank calendar entry for you to fill in, which is faster than going through your calendar itself or Google Drive.

First, make sure you're signed in to your Google account. Now open your browser. Enter in the type of file you want to create, along with ".new" in the browser's URL bar.

For example, you can open a Google Doc by typing in document.new or a calendar entry by typing cal.new.

Heres a handy list for reference. You can use any of the following shortcuts for each application:

Google Docs: document.new, docs.new, doc.new

Google Sheets: spreadsheet.new, sheets.new, sheet.new

Google Slides: presentation.new, slides.new, slide.new

Google Forms: forms.new, form.new

Google Keep: keep.new, notes.new, note.new

Google Calendar: meeting.new, cal.new

Google Meeting: meet.new

Like what youre reading? Get tech smarts right to your inbox with my free newsletters.

If you use Google Docs, theres a good chance you use Gmail, Chrome, and other Google products too. Do yourself a favor and check out these guides to lock down your browser and wipe your personal details from the web.

Privacy fix: How to remove your address and phone number from Google search results

10 tips to keep Googles Chrome browser secure

The hidden privacy report in your phone you should start checking

PODCAST PICK: Traffic trick, YouTube shortcuts, golden privacy tip Komando.com

Want to erase yourself from the internet? Heres how. I'll also tell you how to predict traffic conditions months in advance. You'll learn about some YouTube keyboard shortcuts youll always use and Netflix changes that may come later this year. Also, a piece of history died in a ransomware attack. Here's what you need to know.

Check out my podcast Kim Komando Today on Apple, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player.

Listen to the podcast here or wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for my last name, Komando.

Learn about all the latest technology on theKim Komando Show, the nation's largest weekend radio talk show. Kim takes calls and dispenses advice on today's digital lifestyle, from smartphones and tablets to online privacy and data hacks. For her daily tips, free newsletters and more, visit her website atKomando.com.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of USA TODAY.

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How to create Google files and events without clicking through menus. - USA TODAY