Category Archives: Google

The logo of Google is seen on a building at La Defense business and financial district in Courbevoie near Paris, France, September 1, 2020. REUTERS/Charles Platiau/File Photo

Googles Russian arm said on Thursday it had lodged an appeal against a Moscow court order obliging it to unblock the YouTube account of a Christian Orthodox news channel owned by a Russian businessman who is under U.S. and EU financial sanctions.

Tsargrad TV, which is owned by Konstantin Malofeev, says YouTube blocked its account in July 2020 without providing a reason. Google said at the time that it has a policy of suspending accounts found to violate sanctions or trade restriction rules.

In April, the Moscow Arbitration Court said Google must restore Tsargrad's account or face a daily 100,000 rouble ($1,358.29) fine, which would double each week that Google failed to comply.

Malofeev was placed under U.S. and EU sanctions in 2014 over accusations that he funded pro-Moscow separatists fighting in Ukraine, which he denies. Russia considers such Western sanctions illegal.

The dispute with YouTube is one of a number of cases in which U.S. tech and social media giants have drawn the ire of the Russian state. President Vladimir Putin accused social media companies of "monopolism" in a speech this year to the World Economic Forum.

Russia has been punitively impeding the speed of Twitter since March and warned other tech platforms, including YouTube, over failing to delete content it deems illegal. read more

"We've now filed an appeal against last month's Tsargrad ruling, because it sets aside the prior decisions of multiple Russian courts, and comes with a penalty that is out of all proportion to the matter at hand," Google Russia said in a statement.

"We're also appealing because the decision creates a great deal of uncertainty for foreign investors - like Google - in Russia. We look forward to presenting our arguments in detail at the appeal hearing."

Malofeev's representatives said they categorically disagreed with Google's appeal and its interpretation of the ruling.

"We believe that the earlier ruling is absolutely legal and we will prove this in the appeal hearing, which is likely to take place at the end of June," Malofeev's press secretary Valeriy Rukobratskiy told Reuters.

Google Russia said the appeal had been filed on Wednesday.

($1 = 73.6220 roubles)

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Google appeals court order to unblock YouTube account of sanctioned businessman - Reuters

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There are multiple ways to launch Assistant on Pixel smartphones and Android devices. The list of options increased with the release ofAndroid 12. Instead of long-pressing the Side button to open a power menu, Pixels default to launching Google Assistant. Thankfully, you can disable this feature.

Like Apple and Samsung, the change introduced in Android 12 allows you to launch Google Assistantat least on Pixel phonesby long-pressing the physical power button. Up until its release, long-pressing the power button is how you restarted the phone. Thankfully, its easy to reverse this functionality and get the old action back.

RELATED: The First Android 12 Beta Arrives with Big Changes in Tow

First, swipe down (once or twice depending on your devices OEM) from the top of the screen to reveal Quick Settings. Tap the gear icon to open the Settings app.

In the Settings menu, navigate to the System section.

Next, go to Gestures.

Select the Power Menu option at the bottom of the list.

Finally, all you need to do here is toggle off the switch for Hold for Assistant.

Thats it! The power button will now bring up the traditional Power Off and Restart options that youre used to. Small changes like this can be frustrating, so its nice that it can at least be disabled.

With the feature now turned off, here are other ways to launch Google Assistant easily.

RELATED: How to Use Google Assistant Without Unlocking Your Android Phone

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How to Turn off the Google Assistant Power Button on Android - How-To Geek

Every year, Google shows off some of the new features it is working on at a developers conference called Google I/O. Last year, the event was canceled due to the pandemic and this year it was scaled back.

Follow Rich DeMuro onInstagramfor more tech news, tips and tricks.

Although this years event didnt quite have the excitement of previous events, we still got some notable announcements.

At Google, the past year has given renewed purpose to our mission to organize the worlds information and make it universally accessible and useful, started Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

This years theme centered around building helpful products everyone can use. Mostly by having machines and AI do the heavy lifting. There is also a renewed emphasis on privacy.

Google is always markedly improving what it has and what it has is pretty remarkable, said Jeff Jarvis, a media professor at The City University of New York and host of the podcast This Week in Google.

Google showed off new AI technology they call LaMDA, which basically lets you talk to data. They demoed two examples. Talking to a paper airplane and talking to Pluto (the heavenly body, not the cartoon character).

It was strange, but Google is imagining a world where datasets can interact with humans in new ways.

For instance, a demo voice asked Pluto what to expect on a visit. The planet replied that it would be cold, so bring a jacket.

Google says 3 billion devices now run Android. Android 12 is getting a visual makeover thats more playful. There will be a new feature that instantly matches the color theme of your device to your wallpaper.

There will also be new global privacy toggles that let you shut off access to the camera and microphone instantly. This means no app can access them until you toggle the switch again. Also, just like on the iPhone, there will be new indicator lights whenever an app is accessing the camera or microphone.

Google Photos now stores more than 4 trillion photos and videos. Coming soon, there will be a locker to keep selected pictures private. Youll need a PIN code or fingerprint scan to get in.

Google also showed off a cinematic moments feature that uses AI to bring pictures to life in a new way. Sort of like little animated clips, it kicks in when you take two or three pictures of the same thing.

Also on the topic of privacy, Google Search is getting a new option that will allow you to instantly delete the last 15 minutes of your search history.

Apple has made a big deal about saying theyre more private but Google has lots of privacy protections and I think they wanted to show that off today, said Jarvis.

We got a sneak peek at the future of video chat. Something Google calls Project Starline. Its basically a 3D video chat booth where the person on the other side looks like they are actually there and not just a flat-screen.

Its as close as we can get to the feeling of sitting across from someone, concluded Pichai.

Google I/O runs all week, but the keynote is where the company unveils its biggest initiatives and new features. Google also revealed that they are working on more equitable camera software for Android that better represents various skin tones.

Additionally, Google says they are now working with Fitbit and Samsung to build a new generation of smartwatches that all use the same operating system. Perhaps we will see a viable Android alternative to the Apple Watch soon.

Listen to theRich on Tech podcastfor answers to your tech questions.

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Heres a look at the new features Google just announced for search, Android and privacy - KTLA

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Googling your symptomsisn't always the best idea, but Google wants to change that and it's starting with your skin.

The search giant has developed Derm Assist, a new web-based app that can identify skin conditions from a photo. Derm Assist was unveiled at Google I/O 2021, Google's annual developer conference, but you can't use it yet. Google is targeting for it to launch in the European Union by the end of this year.

Here's how it works. You spot a rash, lesion or strange-looking mole on your skin, snap a few photos of it, upload those pictures to Derm Assist. Google's artificial intelligence and machine-learning capabilities analyze the photos and look for a match in a database of 288 skin conditions. It then presents a handful of possible skin conditions you might have with an accuracy rate of up to 97%, the company says.

Derm Assist only needs three photos to match you with a few possible skin conditions, but to get more precise results, you can fill out an optional questionnaire that goes into more detail about your skin condition.

Google makes it clear that this is not a diagnostic tool, but rather a way to help narrow down possible conditions so you can determine if you should see a doctor or just grab some cream from the drugstore.

Why focus on skin? Each year Google gets 10 billion searches about skin conditions, so the demand is there. Skin conditions can also be tricky to identify on your own, which is where the AI and machine learning comes in. Google already knows that people use its search engine to look up medical conditions, so the company is leaning into that.

The step-by-step process of using Derm Assist.

Google is far from the first to do this, as apps like Aysa, Miiskin and SkinVision have been around for a few years. To set itself apart, Google intentionally made this as a web app, so that anyone with a phone that has a browser can use it. It's also betting that its large library of skin conditions will give it an edge.

While building this app, the company made it a point to pull in diverse data to teach the AI and machine learning how to identify skin conditions on people of color, not just white skin. The hope is that people all over the world can use Derm Assist, regardless of skin color, and get information where medical care might be limited.

Derm Assist could be instrumental in helping people get the medical care they need for potentially serious skin conditions, but it does raise privacy concerns. After all, Google already knows so much about you, do you really want to hand over your medical data too?

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To quell any privacy fears, Google says it will not use the information and photos you provide for advertising purposes and that your data is private and encrypted.

Before you use the tool, you have to sign a consent form allowing Google to collect your personal data, but if you want to remove it from Derm Assist at any time, you can. You can also opt to donate your photos and data to Google, so it can use it to improve the tool and contribute to research studies.

Google also announced at I/O that it's using AI technology to screen mammograms for potential issues in a research study. This is not something the average person can use, but it could help speed up the process to review a mammogram in the future.

Now playing: Watch this: Google execs talk Android 12, privacy, skin health and...

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The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.

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Google will help you identify that suspicious mole or rash - CNET

At its I/O confab, Google announced a new way for you to scrub your recent search history.

Google wants to make it easier for you to delete your last search -- whatever your reason may be. The new feature, which the search giant unveiled Tuesday at its Google I/O developers conference, is among a handful of new options designed to protect user privacy.

While Google didn't get into the nitty gritty reasons why someone might want to expunge the record of their search history, the company did demonstrate how to do it, along with hiding select pictures from Google Photos. You can watch in the video below, or scroll down for instructions on how to delete your recent search history.

Note that the new feature covers a select time period to batch-delete search terms.

Now playing: Watch this: Google now lets you delete recent search history and...

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Step 1: Tap on your profile picture to access your menu.

Step 2: Click Delete last 15 minutes.

That's it! When you've done that, Google will erase all your search history from the previous quarter of an hour.

For more, check out how to control what information your apps can access in Android 12, and six hidden Google Maps tricks.

Learn smart gadget and internet tips and tricks with our entertaining and ingenious how-tos.

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That embarrassing Google search is history. Now you can delete it from the record for good - CNET

For years, Wear OS has been, at best, something of a dark horse among Google operating systems. Its certainly not for lack of partnership or investment, but for whatever reason, the company has never really stuck the landing with its wearable operating system.

Its a category in which Apple has been utterly dominant for some time. Google has largely failed to chip away at that market, in spite of enlisting some of the biggest names in consumer electronics as partners. Figures from Strategy Analytics classify Wear OS among the others category.

Googles strategy is, once again, the result of partnerships or, more precisely, partnerships combined with acquisitions. At the top of the list is an if you cant beat em, join em approach to Samsungs longstanding preference for open-source Tizen. It seemed like one of the stranger plays in the category, but building out its own version of Tizen has proven a winning strategy for the company, which trails only Apple in the category.

During todays I/O keynote, the company revealed a new partnership with Samsung, combining the best of Wear OS and Tizen. Were still waiting to see how that will play out, but it will be fascinating watching two big players combine forces to take on Apple. You come at the king, you best not miss, to quote a popular prestigious television program. On the developer side, this seems to allude to the ability to create joint apps for both platforms, as third-party app selection has been a sticking point for both.

The other big change sheds some more light on precisely why the company was interested in Fitbit. Sure the company was a wearables leader that dominated fitness bands and eventually created its own solid smartwatches (courtesy of, among other things, its own acquisition of Pebble), but health is really the key here.

Image Credits: Google

Health monitoring has become the dominant conversation around wearables in recent years, and Googles acquisition seems to be, above all, about integrating that information. [A] world-class health and fitness service from Fitbit is coming to the platform, the company noted. Beyond adding Fitbits well-loved tracking features, the company will also be integrating Wear features into Googles hardware, working to blur the line between the two companies.

Health and fitness tracking is essential for wearables, Google notes in a blog post. With the latest Wear update, we welcome Fitbits many years of health expertise to the experience. The best of Fitbit, including features like tracking your health progress throughout your day and on-wrist goal celebrations, will motivate you on your journey to better health.

The consumer-facing experience has been revamped here, as well. Apps like Calm, Sleep Cycle and Flo are getting their own tiles, while shortcuts are now accessible from anywhere. A number of Googles own apps are getting a refresh, as well, including Maps, Assistant and Pay, the latter of which is rolling out to an additional 26 countries adding to the 11 currently available. Later this year, the company will also be introducing a Watch version of the YouTube Music app.

The aforementioned updates are set to arrive later this year.

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After closing Fitbit acquisition, Google is going big with Wear OS - TechCrunch

During Google I/Os Keynote today, the company announced that its been quietly testing a new concept called Project Starline. This is Googles technology for two-way communication from a distance, but made to feel as though the other person is sitting right across from you.

Project Starline applies a few things to make this possible: research in computer vision, machine learning, spatial audio, and real-time compression. The display in front of each recipient uses a breakthrough light field display system that creates a sense of volume and depth that can be experienced without the need for additional glasses or headsets. The effect is the feeling of a person sitting just across from you, like they are right there.

Google VP Clay Bavor explains that one of the things Google is most proud of is that one can sit down and forget about the technology and instead focus on the person sitting in front of you.

Google is currently testing Project Starline in a few of its offices and it currently uses custom-built hardware and highly specialized equipment. Google believes this is the future of person-to-person communication and its goal is to make the technology more accessible and affordable.

Currently, with the technology, Google has connected its workers between Bay Area, New York, and Seattle offices. Its also demoing the technology with select enterprise partners in areas like healthcare and media to get early feedback on the technology and its applications. It hopes to deploy trial hardware to enterprise partners sometime later this year.

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Googles Project Starline makes two-way communication immersive and realistic - GSMArena.com news - GSMArena.com

At its I/O developer conference, Google today announced a slew of updates to its Firebase developer platform, which, as the company also announced, now powers over 3 million apps.

There's a number of major updates here, most of which center around improving existing tools like Firebase Remote Config and Firebase's monitoring capabilities, but there are also a number of completely new features here as well, including the ability to create Android App Bundles and a new security tool called App Check.

"Helping developers be successful is what makes Firebase successful," Firebase product manager Kristen Richards told me ahead of today's announcements. "So we put helpfulness and helping developers at the center of everything that we do." She noted that during the pandemic, Google saw a lot of people who started to focus on app development -- both as learners and as professional developers. But the team also saw a lot of enterprises move to its platform as those companies looked to quickly bring new apps online.

Maybe the marquee Firebase announcement at I/O is the updated Remote Config. That's always been a very powerful feature that allows developers to make changes to live production apps on the go without having to release a new version of their app. Developers can use this for anything from A/B testing to providing tailored in-app experience to specific user groups.

With this update, Google is introducing updates to the Remote Config console, to make it easier for developers to see how they are using this tool, as well as an updated publish flow and redesigned test results pages for A/B tests.

Image Credits: Google

What's most important, though, is that Google is taking Remote Config a step further now by launching a new Personalization feature that helps developers automatically optimize the user experience for individual users. "It's a new feature of [Remote Config] that uses Google's machine learning to create unique individual app experiences," Richards explained. "It's super simple to set up and it automatically creates these personalized experiences that's tailored to each individual user. Maybe you have something that you would like, which would be something different for me. In that way, we're able to get a tailored experience, which is really what customers expect nowadays. I think we're all expecting things to be more personalized than they have in the past."

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Image Credits: Google

Google is also improving a number of Firebase's analytics and monitoring capabilities, including its Crashlytics service for figuring out app crashes. For game developers, that means improved support for games written with the help of the Unity platform, for example, but for all developers, the fact that Firebase's Performance Monitoring service now processes data in real time is a major update to having performance data (especially on launch day) arrive with a delay of almost half a day.

Firebase is also now finally adding support for Android App Bundles, Google's relatively new format for packaging up all of an app's code and resources, with Google Play optimizing the actual APK with the right resources for the kind of device the app gets installed on. This typically leads to smaller downloads and faster installs.

On the security side, the Firebase team is launching App Check, now available in beta. App Check helps developers guard their apps against outside threats and is meant to automatically block any traffic to online resources like Cloud Storage, Realtime Database and Cloud Functions for Firebase (with others coming soon) that doesn't provide valid credentials.

Image Credits: Google

The other update worth mentioning here is to Firebase Extensions, which launched a while ago, but which is getting support for a few more extensions today. These are new extensions from Algolia, Mailchimp and MessageBird, that helps bring new features like Algolia's search capabilities or MessageBird's communications features directly to the platform. Google itself is also launching a new extension that helps developers detect comments that could be considered "rude, disrespectful, or unreasonable in a way that will make people leave a conversation."

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Google updates Firebase with new personalization features, security tools and more - Yahoo Tech

Google Cloud and PayPal have announced they are expanding their relationship to further accelerate PayPal's digital transformation and evolving customer needs. Under this partnership, Google Cloud will provide both infrastructure and analytics capabilities to support PayPal's growth, in an effort to help the company process transactional data on a massive scale.

PayPal has seen big growth since it became an independent company in 2015. Now it endeavors to scale its infrastructure globally, while also creating new products and services for customers. PayPal is moving more of its core infrastructure to Google Cloud as a major step forward in its hybrid cloud strategy. One key reason for this shift? The surge in digital commerce and user traffic triggered by the global pandemic, which led to a 24% spike in PayPal's total active customer accounts. As of the end of Q1 2021, PayPal is now totalling 392 million active users.

With Google Cloud's infrastructure solutions, PayPal added capacity to their infrastructure. With the majority of its online transactional data residing in its SAP S/4HANA database, PayPal was able to leverage SAP's Financial Products Subledger, delivered at massive scale on Google Cloud, to quickly process transactions at high volume, while analyzing purchasing trends at volume with low latency.

"We can only develop fast, build fast, and deploy fast if we have infrastructure that's as nimble as we are. By leveraging the power of the cloud, our teams can focus on providing the best products, capabilities and services to our customers," said Wes Hummel, vice president, Site Reliability and Cloud Engineering, PayPal in a press statement. "As a part of our strategic partnership, we're working side-by-side with Google Cloud to scale and secure our infrastructure for the future."

After introducing PayPal as a payment method for Google Ads and Google Workspace, Google is in a position to better serve PayPal's ecosystem of consumers and merchants. This payment option, which is currently available in the United States and select European countries, builds on the existing payment integration with Google Play and Buy on Google, where consumers and businesses can use PayPal at checkout.

"E-commerce has spiked during the pandemic, with people using less cash. As a result, payments providers have been in high demand, " said Derek White, vice president of Global Financial Services, Google Cloud in a press statement. "We're working with PayPal to leverage the power of the cloud to make shopping and e-commerce easier, faster, and more secure. And that's a win for businesses and consumers."

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How Google Cloud and SAP HANA Are Helping Paypal Accelerate Their Digital Transformation Efforts - CMSWire

Google announced its 3D AR (Augmented Reality) search feature at Google I/O 2019. Two years later, the search giant has now added new features to its 3D AR search platform. Along with the animals, the company has also added in some famous athletes. Heres all you need to know about the new features.

With an AR model of famous athletes, Google plans to bring out a live real-time demonstration of athletes and their techniques right to Google Search. Rather than being just static objects that you can compare heights with, these 3D athletes will bring their own actions with them.

This takes the game a step up from the 3D AR animals that Google added previously to the feature that lets you see how big a horse or a tiger is inside the space of your living room, but not how the horse gallops or the tiger pounces on prey. Unfortunately, the animals are still stationary. However, the new athletes that Google has added can do actions related to their sport on any flat surface of the right size that a user points the phone at.

For instance, gymnast Simone Billes 3D figure will be able to demonstrate her gymnastic routines, while all the user needs to do is point the phones camera at a flat surface and set an angle for the action.

Currently supported athletes include gymnast Simone Biles, soccer player Megan Rapinoe and tennis player Naomi Osaka. More athletes from different outdoor sports are expected to be added to the platform soon, although Google has not confirmed this yet. So those of you waiting to see Cristiano Ronaldo striking a free kick in your backyard might have to wait a little longer.

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I/O 2021: Google adds animated athletes to AR search - The Indian Express