Category Archives: Google

New Delhi: The Delhi police on Wednesday wrote to the Clubhouse app and the search engine Google seeking details about the organiser of the alleged audio group chat in which obscene comments were made against Muslim women, official sources said.

The police have also identified some members of the group audio chat, which included men and women from both communities, as part of the investigation, they said.

Google has been asked to provide information about the Clubhouse application as well as the reason behind hosting it on their play store, they said.

We have identified five to six suspects as of now who were part of the alleged chat room. Many among them are also based outside Delhi and other states. Suspects include both men and women and all of them are adults, one of the sources said.

Police officials said that as per preliminary investigation, it has emerged that all the suspects were using fake names and operated from fake accounts, and efforts are underway to trace their exact locations and nab them.

Also read: Media Bodies Condemn Bulli Bai App, Criticise Police Inaction in Previous Auction

They said that suspects belong to both the communities and alleged that some among them had also modulated their voice and edited it in order to erase any digital footprint.

The development comes a day after the Delhi polices Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations unit, which works under the supervision of Special Cell, filed an FIR against the unknown persons in the matter.

The FIR was registered Tuesday just hours after the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) issued a notice to the Delhi police demanding action against some people who made obscene comments against Muslim women on the app.

A case has already been registered in the matter under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code. We have also written to Google and to Clubhouse app seeking details about the organiser of the alleged audio chap group in which some obscene comments were made against Muslim women, the official source said on Wednesday.

The sections include 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony), 295A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) and 354 A (sexual harassment and punishment for sexual harassment), according to police.

In its notice to the Cyber Crime Cell, the DCW had said it had taken sou-moto cognisance of a video posted on Twitter which showed a Clubhouse conversation where Muslim women and girls were being referred to in a disparaging way.

This comes days after hundreds of Muslim women were listed for auction on the Bulli Bai mobile application with photographs sourced without permission, and doctored. The app appeared to be a clone of Sulli Deals which triggered a similar row last year.

(PTI)

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Delhi Police Writes to Clubhouse, Google Over Targeting of Muslim Women in Group Chat - The Wire

Google is announcing no fewer than 13 different new software features at CES 2022, ranging from AirPods-like fast switching to promised software that will mirror your Android text apps on a Chromebook. Its part of an initiative that Google calls Better Together but that the rest of the industry is more likely to refer to as catching up to Apples ecosystem.

The biggest updates come to Googles Fast Pair framework, an Android UI designed to make pairing Bluetooth headphones easier. This year, Google will extend it to support auto-switching between devices, faster pairing to Android TV and Google TV, and more. It will also adopt the Fast Pair framework for installing new smart home devices using the upcoming Matter standard, which should mean that getting a new smart lightbulb or door lock going will be a lot easier.

Google will also enable smartwatches running Wear OS 3 to unlock paired Android phones or Chromebooks, much in the same way an Apple Watch can unlock an iPhone. That feature will arrive in the coming months, and hopefully, there will be more Wear OS 3 watches available when it launches. Right now, the only major smartwatch running the new OS is Samsungs Galaxy Watch 4.

All of the features Google is announcing today are planned to arrive later this year, in timespans ranging from in the coming weeks to in the coming months to later this year. They will hit Android phones via software updates (that may not require full OS updates), Chromebooks, Android TV, Bluetooth headphones, and even some Windows laptops from Acer and HP.

That last detail may turn out to be one of the more important announcements from Google: HP, Acer, and Intel are partnering with Google to support some of its Better Together features on their laptops. Users will be able to use Fast Pair, sync text messages, and use Androids Nearby Share feature to share files to their upcoming Windows PCs. Alongside Googles announced plans to bring Google Play games to Windows, its another sign that the company wont cede Android integrations on Windows entirely to Microsofts software and partnerships.

The Windows integrations are notable, but there are, of course, more planned features for Chromebooks beyond Fast Pair. Google says it will create a system so that any messaging app on your phone can be mirrored on a Chromebook, allowing users to directly use their messaging apps. It will also add a feature called Camera Roll on Phone Hub that will make it easier to move photos from your phone to your Chromebook.

Chromebooks will also be getting a new setup flow if you have an Android phone pair them during setup, and some settings and account information will be transferred over automatically. Theyll also be unlockable via Wear OS watches.

Finally, there are a few smaller announcements. On the audio side, Bose speakers and soundbars will begin supporting Chromecast in the coming weeks, and spatial audio with head tracking is coming for Android.

Google is also still working on adding support for unlocking cars via UWB (currently available on Samsung phones and the Pixel 6 Pro), and as always with these car locking announcements, the first partner will be BMW. Volvo, which uses Android Auto as its native system for running the dashboard computer, will integrate with the Google Assistant so you can use your smart speaker for functions like remote start.

Stepping back and looking at the features as a whole, its difficult not to draw nearly one-to-one parallels to Apple ecosystem features. Headphones are extending Bluetooth to support auto-switching and head-tracking spatial audio, just like AirPods. iPhone users with Mac have long had their default texting experience fully synced. Nearby Share is very similar to AirDrop. Unlocking with a smartwatch is also a big Apple ecosystem benefit.

Normally at CES, Google has emphasized the power of the Google Assistant. This year, its hoping to get you to believe that Android can work better with your other devices. The challenge for Google is to actually get lots of different devices and manufacturers to support all of these features. That will be no easy task and its likely one of the main reasons there are no firm dates or even specific hardware products attached to any of these announcements.

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Google will spend 2022 trying to match Apples ecosystem integrations - The Verge

The pioneering work of physicist Stephen Hawking is honored in a Google Doodle today (Jan. 8), including a video with Hawking's quotes concerning everything from cosmology to disability.

On what would have been Hawking's 80th birthday, the cosmologist was cited not only with his work in probing the fate of the universe and the nature of black holes, but also his quick wit, his ability to engage popular audiences around the world, and his living example to people with disabilities.

"Todays video Doodle celebrates one of historys most influential scientific minds, English cosmologist, author, and theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking," Google said in a statement about the Doodle, which was created by Matthew Cruickshank.

"From colliding black holes to the Big Bang," Google added, "his theories on the origins and mechanics of the universe revolutionized modern physics while his best-selling books made the field widely accessible to millions of readers worldwide."

Related: Famous Stephen Hawking theory about black holes confirmed

Stephen William Hawking was born in England on Jan. 8, 1942, 300 years to the day after the death of the astronomerGalileo Galilei.While studying cosmology (or the universe's history and composition) in 1963 at the University of Cambridge, Hawking was diagnosed with motor neuron disease, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease oramyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Hawking, then just under 21 years old, was only expected to live two more years, but he completed his doctorate in 1965 and continued his work at Cambridge. Just nine years later, Hawking discovered that particles could escape black holes. The 1974 discovery of Hawking radiation "is widely considered his most important contribution to physics," Google said of the scientist.

In 1979, Hawking was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, the most famous academic chair in the world. His career work also covered aspects of the ending of the universe, as well as Albert Einstein'sTheory of General Relativity.

Hawking eventually shifted his activities to a wheelchair, and in 1985, lost his speech due to an emergency tracheometry. For the rest of his career, a speech-generating device made at Cambridge, along with a software program, became his electronic voice. (Hawking picked the words he wanted to use, using muscles in his cheek.)

You can hear Hawking's now-famous voice in a YouTube video (Google owns YouTube) accompanying the Google Doodle, which replays some of the cosmologist's most notable phrases. One of the included quotes is his pithy observation of how his life turned out: "My expectations were reduced to zero at 21. Everything since then has been a bonus."

Later in his career, Hawking authored numerous popular books and appeared frequently in the media, including appearances on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and a cameo on the television show "Big Bang Theory."

Hawking died at his Cambridge home on March 14, 2018, at the age of 76. "His courage and persistence, with his brilliance and humour, inspired people across the world," children Lucy, Robert and Tim said in a statement at the time.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace.Follow uson Twitter @Spacedotcomand onFacebook.

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Google Doodle celebrates the life of cosmologist Stephen Hawking for his 80th birthday - Space.com

Googles $500 million acquisition of Israel-based startup Siemplify is supposed to help the company bolster its own cloud security initiative, Chronicle, according to a report from Reuters. In a blog post announcing the deal, Google describes Siemplify as a security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) organization and plans to integrate its capabilities into Chronicle.

Siemplify is an intuitive workbench that enables security teams to both manage risk better and reduce the cost of addressing threats, Sunil Potti, the vice president of Google Cloud Security, states in the blog post. Siemplify allows Security Operation Center analysts to manage their operations from end-to-end, respond to cyber threats with speed and precision, and get smarter with every analyst interaction.

Siemplify got its start in 2015, and as Reuters notes, it has raised a total of $58 million from investors to date. A source close to the situation told Reuters that the Alphabet-owned Google became interested in purchasing the startup after it heard Siemplify was gearing up for another round of funding. Siemplify will now join Chronicle under the Google Cloud umbrella.

Chronicle was first launched in 2018 after spinning off of X Development (formerly Google X), Alphabets moonshot factory, and is supposed to help large enterprises detect, analyze, and store security-related information. According to Vice, security experts were excited about the up-and-coming company when it first launched, as it was supposed to use innovative machine-learning technology and telemetry data to boost companies cybersecurity. But after becoming an arm of Google Cloud in 2019, Vice reports that some employees quit including co-founder Mike Wiacek as a result of feeling that the company lost its original purpose.

Googles acquisition of Siemplify doesnt come long after the tech giant promised to spend over $10 billion over the next five years to help improve US cybersecurity. In May, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to help strengthen national cybersecurity in light of the major attacks on the Colonial Pipeline and Microsoft Exchange Server.

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Google is buying a company for half a billion dollars to boost cloud security - The Verge

Apple has an agreement with Google that it won't develop its own internet search engine so long as Google pays it to remain the default option in Safari, a new class action alleges.

Filed in a California court earlier this week against Apple, Google, and their respective CEOs, the lawsuit alleges the two companies have a non-compete agreement in the internet search business that violates US antitrust laws.

Specifically, the complaint charges Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai of participating in "regular secret meetings" in which Google agrees to share its profits with Apple if it is given preferential treatment on devices like the iPhone and iPad.

The class action also alleges that Google pays Apple annual multi-billion-dollar payments based on an agreement that Apple won't launch its own competing search engine, and that the non-compete agreement includes plans to actively suppress smaller competitors and acquire actual and potential competitors.

The complaint claims that advertising rates are subsequently higher than rates would be in a competitive system. It therefore seeks an injunction prohibiting the non-compete agreement between Google and Apple, a cessation of the profit-sharing agreement and preferential treatment, and an end to the multi-billion dollar payments.

Lastly, the complaint calls for "the breakup of Google into separate and independent companies and the breakup of Apple into separate and independent companies in accordance with the precedent of the breakup of Standard Oil company into Exxon, Mobile, Conoco, Amoco, Sohio, Chevron, and others."

It's no secret Apple and Google have a considerable monetary agreement that ensures Google's position as the default search engine on Apple devices. Neither company has ever confirmed exactly how much Google pays to be the default search engine on Apple devices in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries, but it's rumored to be in the billions.

In 2020, The New York Times reported that Apple receives an estimated $8-12 billion per year in exchange for making Google the default search on its devices. According to one analyst, Google's payment to Apple in 2021 to maintain this status quo may have reached up to $15 billion.

This is believed to be the single biggest payment Google makes to anyone, and could account for up to a fifth of Apple's annual profits. But it has also drawn scrutiny in the past, in particular from the US Justice Department, which claims that the deal is representative of illegal tactics used to protect Google's monopoly and stifle competition.

The UK Competition and Markets Authority has also called the arrangement a "significant barrier to entry and expansion" for rivals in the search engine market, and in 2020 asked for enforcement authorities to be provided with a range of options to address the deal between Apple and Google to provide a more level playing field for other search engines.

Bringing the antitrust case to a San Francisco court this week, lawyer Joseph M Alioto said: "These powerful companies abused their size by unlawfully foreclosing and monopolizing major markets which in an otherwise free enterprise system would have created jobs, lowered prices, increased production, added new competitors, encouraged innovations, and increased the quality of services in the digital age."

Apple and Google would likely argue that while the payments are indeed for Google to remain the default search option, users can select other search engines in Safari including Microsoft's Bing, Apollo Fund's Yahoo, and independent search engines DuckDuckGo and Ecosia.

Apple would also likely point out that it is already in the search engine business and maintains an active web crawler, called Applebot. The crawler chiefly operates in the background to improve Siri and Spotlight search results, although past reports have interpreted Applebot's increased activity as Apple "stepping up efforts" to develop its own search technology should its agreement with Google become incompatible with antitrust laws.

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Google Basically Pays Apple to Stay Out of the Search Engine Business, Class Action Lawsuit Alleges - MacRumors

Google is giving four of its top execs a significant pay bump, raising their salaries from $650,000 to $1 million, just weeks after the company told staffers it wouldnt automatically adjust salaries to account for inflation. The new executive salaries were disclosed in an SEC filing.

The executives receiving the $1 million base salaries are chief financial officer Ruth Porat, senior vice president Prabhakar Raghavan (who is in charge of Google search); senior vice president and chief business officer Philipp Schindler; and president of global affairs and chief legal officer Kent Walker. All four executives are eligible to participate in a maximum $2,000,000 annual bonus program, based on contributions to Googles performance against social and environmental goals for 2022, according to the filing. Each person has also been granted stock awards with target values in the millions of dollars.

Google has been very financially successful as of late it posted its fifth quarter in a row of record profits in October. But in contrast to giving the four execs huge pay raises, Googles vice president of compensation told workers at an all-hands in December that the company doesnt plan to make broad salary adjustments to account for the rising inflation rate in the US.

The raises were also given as Google is embroiled in a legal battle with employees over charges that they were illegally fired in 2019. The employees are planning to call one of the recipients of a new $1 million salary, Kent Walker, to testify as an adverse witness. Employees are also reportedly dissatisfied with the companys seemingly different remote work policies for higher-ups. In July, senior vice president for technical infrastructure Urs Hlzle announced he was moving to New Zealand, which two employees told CNET was emblematic of a double standard for executives.

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Google will pay top execs $1 million each after declining to boost workers' pay - The Verge

Google has announced that cars with its services built-in will be getting the ability to play YouTube videos while parked later this year, starting with Volvo. For those with a V90, XC40 Recharge, or other supported cars, this should make waiting in a parking lot more bearable since youll be able to see videos on your cars built-in screen, which is probably going to be slightly larger and more ergonomic than a phone.

Google also seems to leave the door open for other video apps as well, so its possible other developers could let you access their content from your cars infotainment system.

Youll also be able to control some Volvo cars using Google Assistant from outside the car in a video embedded in its blog, Google shows the example of someone using a Nest Audio to turn on their cars heat without having to brave the snow outside. The blog also says the Assistant will be able to lock or unlock the car and tell you its battery status. While some Volvos have had in-car control with Assistant for a while, its nice to get some functionality that wont require you to make the journey out to the garage or parking lot.

Google says its also expanding what youll be able to do with your voice inside the car as well this spring, Volvos with Android Automotive will let you access things like lane-keeping assist and service information with the Assistant.

Google details more car-related features coming in its blog post. It says that later this year, its digital car key feature will be coming to even more Android phones and vehicles (its currently only supported on Pixel 6 and Galaxy S21 handsets). Google also says that the unlock feature will get support for Ultra Wideband later this year, so people wont have to take their phones out and tap them to their car to unlock with NFC.

Finally, Lyft and Kakao Mobility will be adding Android Auto support to their driver apps, which should let people working for these rideshare apps choose which riders to pick up from their cars touchscreen.

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Some Volvos will get a YouTube app and Google Assistant-controlled AC - The Verge

Google is bringing an update to older Pixel devices to fix a dangerous bug that prevents users from calling 911, as noted by a post on a Google support page. The bug stems from an unintended interaction between the Android OS and Microsoft Teams it only affects devices with Android 10 or later and could occur if you have Teams installed but arent signed in.

On the support page, Google notes that the update resolves the issue preventing emergency calls in certain conditions while some third-party apps are installed. Its available on devices running Android 12 (including the Pixel 3 and up), but the update hasnt rolled out to the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro yet. Google paused updates for these devices following reports of dropped calls when it released the December update but says a fix will arrive later this month. Last month, Teams also issued an update to its app to fix the bug, however, its unclear whether Google will release a patch for other Android devices that could be affected as well.

Aside from the 911 calling bug, the Pixel update also fixes an issue that causes the navigation bar to disappear when the device orientation is changed, a picture-in-picture (PIP) window rendering glitch, and a memory leak in the system UI. A fix for the problem that causes the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro to drop calls over Wi-Fi is also listed, but that still hasnt been rolled out due to the aforementioned delay.

Google also released a separate security update, offering some fixes for Pixel devices running Android 11 and above, and once again excludes the Pixel 6. This includes a problem that causes certain apps to restart intermittently, an issue that blocks users from making calls on specific MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) networks, and also improves auto-rotation response in certain device orientations.

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Latest Google Pixel update fixes bug that prevents 911 calls with Teams installed - The Verge

A few days after the Capitol insurrection last January, the FBI got two tips identifying an Ohio man named Walter Messer as a participant, and both cited his social media posts about being there. To verify those tips, the FBI turned to three companies that held a large amount of damning evidence against Messer, simply as a result of his normal use of their services: AT&T, Facebook, and Google.

AT&T gave the FBI Messers telephone number and a list of cell sites he used, including one that covered the US Capitol building at the time of the insurrection, per the criminal complaint against Messer. Facebook told the FBI that the phone number provided by AT&T was linked to Messers Facebook account, where he posted several selfies from inside the Capitol during the riot.

Google gave the FBI precise location data showing Messers journey from Ohio to DC and back again between January 5 and 7, as well as his location on the afternoon of January 6 as he wandered around and ultimately inside the Capitol building. The complaint also lists videos of the riot posted on Messers YouTube channel, Messers YouTube searches, internet searches, and emails from his Gmail account all used to help build a case against him.

Messer was arrested in late July. He has pleaded not guilty to charges including trespassing and violent entry on Capitol grounds.

This case is just a small part of whats become one of the largest investigations in FBI history, as agents and other law enforcement officers scramble to identify hundreds, if not thousands, of people who invaded the Capitol on January 6 in an unprecedented attempt to stop the democratic transfer of power.

A year later and with more than 700 people charged, we now have a look at how the law enforcement agency handles such an enormous task (or at least, as much as theyre willing to reveal to the public). Rather than revealing the breadth of the FBIs domestic surveillance capabilities, the majority of cases show the power of the tech industry to collect and collate vast amounts of data on its users and their obligation to share that data with law enforcement when asked.

Case files on the hundreds of people arrested so far show a heavy reliance on the vast stores of data obtained from companies like Facebook and Google. Many defendants were identified simply by getting tips from the public. The FBI used its various social media accounts and a section of its website dedicated to the investigation to call for tips. The agency has received more than 200,000 of them, supplied by everyone from close family members to complete strangers. In some cases, amateur sleuths and crowdsourced investigations yielded better results faster than the professionals.

Even as the insurrection unfolded, it was apparent that there would be plenty of evidence for investigators to find if they wanted to pursue cases against the rioters. In fact, the rioters generated so much evidence that the Department of Justice has paid more than $6 million to build a database of it to provide to defendants attorneys as the cases wind their way through the legal system.

I dont think we can conclusively say that the social media evidence was the only thing that got them caught, but an element of social media evidence was involved, Jon Lewis, research fellow at George Washington Universitys Program on Extremism, told Recode. He added that social media evidence has played a role in about 75 percent of cases so far.

Its now clear that the FBI either failed to recognize or neglected to act upon a threat that should have been hard to miss, if the agency had been thoroughly monitoring social media in the days leading up to the attack.

As the FBIs investigation ramped up in the days and weeks following January 6, the agency found itself with images of thousands of potential suspects. To put names to faces, it appealed to the public for help, which has been quite effective. The FBIs wanted posters have led to some of those 200,000 tips, while many others came from people who saw alleged participants own social media posts, read local media interviews with people who freely admitted to breaching the Capitol building, or even gotten confessions from matches on dating apps (this has happened at least twice on Bumble).

At the same time, loosely organized groups of online amateur sleuths, like the Sedition Hunters, have amassed their own pool of suspects. Sometimes, the sleuths find clearer photos than what the FBI has. Theyve also given them clever hashtags #BloatedCuomo and #ZZTopPB, for instance to help their photos circulate and be more memorable.

In some ways, they kicked the FBIs butt in the early days in terms of using these investigative techniques and open source intelligence to figure out who a lot of these individuals were, said Ryan Reilly, senior justice reporter at HuffPost, who has been tracking the Sedition Hunters efforts for an upcoming book.

There is at least one case of the Sedition Hunters doing a better job of identifying a suspect than the FBI did. The FBI falsely identified an Alaska woman as a person who helped steal a laptop from House Speaker Nancy Pelosis office. Agents went so far as to break down the womans door and search her home last spring. But looking through Facebook and using publicly available facial recognition tools, online sleuths were able to identify another woman, Maryann Mooney-Rondon, as the suspect. They found photos of Mooney-Rondon wearing the same jewelry as the woman in the video inside the Capitol building. She and her son Rafael Rondon were arrested in October and pleaded not guilty to charges including theft of government property and trespassing.

The FBI might not have to rely so heavily on others to make these initial identifications if the alleged participants were on their radar in the first place. Despite having months, if not years, to recognize the growing threat of QAnon conspiracy theorists, white supremacists, and right-wing extremists, including the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, and the Three Percenters, the FBI failed to realize the potential for violence those groups could do.

They also didnt seem to take seriously the widely publicized Stop the Steal rally that immediately preceded the insurrection and prompted thousands to march to the Capitol in an attempt to stop Joe Biden from becoming president. There was at least one FBI informant in the crowd, and reports about what law enforcement knew and when have varied. But many see January 6 as a fundamental failure to either collect or correctly assess intelligence (if not both), given the ultimate result.

The FBI and Justice Department have long deprioritized white supremacist and far-right militant violence in their domestic terrorism program, Michael German, a former FBI agent and current fellow with the Brennan Center for Justices liberty and national security program, told Recode. So it would seem that this was the prime opportunity for the FBI to engage. But they chose not to.

Contrast this apparent lack of action with reports of law enforcements close monitoring and infiltration of groups associated with left-leaning movements, such as in Portland, Oregon. The New York Times recently reported that activists involved in Portland protests against police violence were subject to extensive surveillance operations in the summer of 2020. The FBI is also famous for decades of history surveilling Black activists, and there are countless reports of law enforcement monitoring of Muslim communities for years following 9/11.

So much of the organizing went on in places that the FBI would never be allowed to surveil (particularly under a Trump presidency), explained Joseph Brown, a professor of political science at University of Massachusetts Boston. The agencys surveillance capabilities are very good, but they could never have been employed fully in this case.

German, the former FBI agent, says he finds it troubling that so many allegedly violent participants remain unidentified. He expected the agency to make it a priority to find and arrest the most dangerous offenders as soon as possible. Instead, it appears that the FBI has gone after the low-hanging fruit the people who essentially told on themselves, as Lewis, the extremism researcher, noted.

The numbers back up these claims. Of the more than 725 people who have been arrested for Capitol riot-related crimes, less than a third of them have been charged with assaulting or resisting law enforcement officers, and only 75 people have been charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer. At least 350 people the FBI suspects committed violent acts on Capitol grounds remain unidentified, though its likely this list will grow, with as many as 2,000 people expected to be charged by the time the investigation concludes. Meanwhile, the Sedition Hunters have listed hundreds more in their own unofficial database.

Reading through the cases of the people who have been charged paints a picture of just how extensively various companies track us, and how much more of our data a company like Google has than the actual government apparently does. The January 6 investigation is not an isolated example of this, although it makes for a pretty good one, given its scale, notoriety, and just how much digital evidence was left by so many people.

Social media has become a place where investigators, more and more often, are getting formally trained to look for evidence on a regular basis, said Adam Wandt, professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and cybercrime investigations expert.

While those accused of taking part in the riot posted plenty of evidence on various platforms, tracking that goes on underneath the surface can also be used against them in the coming months and years. Though controversial, law enforcement has used some of these methods of tracking and data collection in the Capitol insurrection investigation.

For example, the FBI admits to using commercial facial recognition technology systems, including Vigilant Solutions and Clearview AI, which scrape the internet for photos, rather than relying on license photos and mugshots. Stephen Chase Randolph was identified by using an open source facial recognition tool that matched a photo of him on his girlfriends Instagram page. Randolph is accused of assaulting a police officer and rendering her unconscious. He has pleaded not guilty.

Geofence warrants are another tool that has drawn concern among privacy and civil rights groups. Also known as reverse search warrants, these orders require companies to provide all the accounts that were in a certain area at a certain time, in the hope that a suspect can be identified within that group. That means the devices of perfectly innocent people might be caught in, essentially, a digital dragnet. Law enforcement agencies are using them more and more with little oversight. Documents in multiple January 6 cases say the FBI has and is using geofence data of all devices on the Capitol grounds during the insurrection. Anyone inside the Capitol building who had an Android phone turned on or used a Google application during the riot was likely caught in the geofence warrant.

This seems to be how the agency found Amy Schubert. After receiving a tip that a woman wearing a jacket with a Joliet, Illinois, unions logo on it could be seen in a YouTube video of the insurrection, the FBI searched its geofence database for Google accounts that had a Joliet area code. There were six. Two of those belonged to women, and a quick search revealed Schuberts Facebook page, which featured a photo of a woman who looked just like the woman in the video. Investigators got a search warrant for Schuberts Google account and found that her phone was inside the Capitol building on January 6 and that it took several photos and videos while there. Some of them showed her husband, John. He was also arrested. Both Schuberts pleaded guilty to demonstrating in a Capitol building in December.

Thats not to say that the Schuberts and other Capitol rioters wouldnt have been caught if not for Google; the FBI may have other tools at its disposal it could have used to identify and catch them. But Google certainly seems to be the simplest, and bound by the fewest legal restrictions when it comes to collecting and keeping so much data on so many people unlike the government, which has to get warrants and show cause to monitor American citizens this way. That means a bunch of private businesses are almost certainly tracking you right now. Unless it has a good reason to do so, the government probably isnt.

While tech companies have helped the FBI find the people who didnt make much or enough of an effort to hide their actions, one of the most potentially dangerous suspects remains at large: The person who placed pipe bombs outside the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee headquarters the night before the insurrection has yet to be identified. The FBI is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to an arrest, and has released surveillance videos and photos of the suspect with their face obscured, a map of their likely route, and detailed information about the shoes they were wearing.

The FBI also says its interviewed hundreds of people, collected tens of thousands of video files, and followed up on more than 300 tips trying to find the pipe bomber, yet they remain unknown and on the loose as far as we know. The Sedition Hunters have even dedicated a section of their site to them. But without a preponderance of social media evidence and mobile device data, it seems to be a lot harder for the FBI to identify people who make efforts to stay hidden.

Others have been less careful. In the weeks after the Capitol riot, Walter Messer, the Ohio man, did some internet sleuthing of his own, according to the web search history the FBI obtained from Google. He looked up news articles about Capitol arrests, FBI billboards, and Brian Sicknick, a Capitol Police officer who died shortly after the riot. Messer also wanted to know what the penalties were for violating federal trespassing laws. A few months later, when he was charged with breaking federal trespassing laws, these searches were used as probable cause to arrest him.

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To catch an insurrectionist: Facebook and Google are helping the FBI find January 6 rioters - Vox.com

HP's Elite Dragonfly Chromebook looks like a winner for hybrid workers.

When it comes to CES, the most exciting announcements are usually centered around new devices that are expected to be released in the coming year. For Chromebooks at CES 2022, while there was some new hardware announced, the best news was Google's plans for new features coming to Chrome OS later this year.

For example, a new Fast Pair feature will make it easier for Android phone users to set up a new Chromebook by quickly transferring over all of the information like your Google login and your Wi-Fi password. Also, while you can currently unlock your Chromebook with your Android phone, you'll also be able to use a Wear OS smartwatch to unlock it as well.

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Read more:Google's vision for Android at CES 2022 promises one of Apple's best qualities

Also, the Phone Hub feature on Chromebooks is being expanded to do more. You can currently do things like view and respond to chat notifications, toggle Do Not Disturb, set off the ringtone to find your phone or continue browsing recent Chrome tabs. You'll be able to access your Android phone's chat apps on your Chromebook and access to your Camera Roll, even if you're phone is in another room than where you're working. Check out all the details on Google's CES 2022 announcementfor Android and Chrome OS.

There wasn't a huge number of Chromebooks announced for CES 2022 -- just five by my count, and three were from Acer. But what we got looks pretty good, especially HP's Elite Dragonfly Chromebook which might be the premium Chromebook to beat this year. And in amongst Asus' bevy of ROG gaming and Zenbook laptop announcements was the Chromebook Flip CX5 that looks like it'll be amazing.

HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook

This premium business Chromebook is modeled off of HP's ultralight Elite Dragonfly for Windows. The Chrome version, a convertible two-in-one, weighs in at 2.8 pounds (1.3 kilograms) and has features that will make it perfect for hybrid work like a 5-megapixel webcam with a shutter that blocks it when you want some privacy. HP will also offer its integrated privacy screen for the display to help stop people from seeing what's on your screen from off-angle.

It's also the world's first Intel vPro Chromebook giving it IT and security features thatare even better than the strong protection Chromebook Enterprise already offers.

Read more about the HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook.

Acer Chromebook Spin 513

The Spin 513 is a two-in-one with a 13.5-inch 2,256x1,504-resolution display with a 3:2 aspect ratio which means less scrolling when you're trying to get work done. Inside you'll find an octacore MediaTek Kompanio 1380 processor, up to 8GB of dual-channel memory and up to 128GB of eMMC flash storage.

Read more about the Acer Chromebook Spin 513.

Acer Chromebook 314

The 314 is a widescreen 14-inch model expected to start at $300 when it arrives in June. Made for students, it'll have either an Intel Pentium Silver N6000, Celeron N4500 or N5100 processor, up to 8GB of dual-channel memory and 64GB or 128GB of eMMC flash storage. Acer also used an OceanGlass touchpad that's made from plastic waste and has a glass-like texture.

Read more about the Acer Chromebook 314.

Acer Chromebook 315

The 315 trades a little mobility for screen space; instead of the 314's 14-inch display, it has a 15.6-inch display. It still only weighs about 3.5 pounds (1.6 kilograms), though, and with the extra screen space you get a full keyboard with a number pad.

It'll be available later in January starting at $300.

Read more about the Acer Chromebook 315.

Asus Chromebook Flip CX5

While there have been several 15.6-inch Chromebooks available, this is the first I've seen with a 16-inch 16:10 display, and it's a two-in-one no less. Asus dropped in a 12th-gen Intel Core i7 processor and 16GB of memory, so this thing should have great performance. Plus it has a full-HD webcam with a privacy shutter, which with everything else in it should make this an excellent pick for business or school. Asus didn't say when it will be available or pricing but I would expect this premium model to be up near $1,000.

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Here are the Chromebooks and big Chrome OS news from CES 2022 - CNET