Category Archives: Google

You can bring Google Assistant up by saying OK Google or Hey Google wake words. But if youre in a noisy environment, that might notwork well.

To solve that, the firm is working on a new way to invoke the AI Assistant by long-pressing the power button. Sleuths at XDA Developers uncovered this mystery in the latest version of the GoogleAndroid app (12.18.6.29).

The new app has lines of code indicating that this feature might be soon heading to a ton of Android phones:

To talk to your Assistant, touch and hold power button, then releaseLong press power for the Assistant

The report also notes that at the moment, this feature shows up in Pixel 5 under Settings > Apps & Notifications > Assistant with Android 12 developer beta installed. However, its not dependent on Android 12, so it should show up in other phones with this Google App version soon.

[Read: This dude drove an EV from the Netherlands to New Zealand here are his 3 top road trip tips]

Other phone makers such as Oppo have this customization on their phones, and Samsung uses it to trigger Bixby. Apple has had a long press power button gesture to bring up Siri since the iPhone X. So its nice to see Google include this right into the operating system.

While this functionality will be rolled out to many Android phones, Google is also experimenting with a double back tap gesture to bring up Assistant in Pixel phones with Android 12.

Did you know we have a newsletter all about consumer tech? Its called Plugged In and you can subscribe to it right here.

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You'll soon be able to activate Google Assistant with power button on Android THE FUTURE IS NOW - The Next Web

Will Federated Learning of Cohorts preserve user privacy? The jury is still out

Over the years, web developers have dreamed up dozens of cute error pages to remind visitors to switch on cookies in their browsers.

Most are riffs on the eponymous baked snack (Will work for cookies) or Sesame Streets Cookie Monster.

But the Cookie Monster may soon have fewer job opportunities at least, thats if Google gets its way. The internet giant plans to replace at least part of the cookie ecosystem with its own technology. And these changes could have a far-reaching impact on security and privacy on the web.

In 2020, Google announced that it would phase out support in Chrome for third-party cookies, which are used by advertisers, and others, to track users as they move across the internet.

According to Gareth Haken, an analyst at the Information Security Forum (ISF), third-party cookies are favored by the large social media companies and are often placed on sites via social media buttons. But, he says, the tide has been turning against third-party cookies for some time.

Catch up on the latest data privacy news and breaches

Safari and Firefox blocked the technology some time ago, so Google is playing catch-up.

This will speed up the death of third-party cookies, especially with Chrome banning them but this will affect only those looking to track users around the internet, such as advertisers, Haken told The Daily Swig.

What will not change is the way websites use their own cookies. Cookie technology is here to stay, with Google and others maintaining that first-party cookies are essential to the smooth running of the internet. First party cookies are really useful. For instance, they mean you dont have to log in each time you navigate to a new page on a website, Haken explains. It is third-party cookies that are more contentious.

Unlike Apple and Firefox developer Mozilla and unsurprisingly given its dependence on advertising revenues Google is not doing away with tracking altogether. Instead, it aims to replace third-party cookies with its own technology: FLoC.

The system is part of Googles wider Privacy Sandbox initiative.

FLoC or Federated Learning of Cohorts allows advertisers to track internet users without revealing their identity. Instead, users will be placed within cohorts, according to their interests.

Internet privacy watchers say it is not yet clear exactly how this will work, although it is understood that browser history will play a part. All information will, though, be processed client side.

Google FLoC allows advertisers to track internet users without the need for cookies

According to a paper provided by Google to The Daily Swig, federated learning simply means using machine learning and analytics without collecting and storing any raw data away from users devices.

The main advantage of federated learning is that it enables product improvements and privacy without requiring sensitive data to be uploaded to datacenters. Instead machine learning models run on users devices and only the results of the computation are securely uploaded to servers.

This also helps protect against potential risks relating to centralised data collection like theft and misuse of many users data at once. (Google declined to comment further.)

Advertisers will be able to target ads at these interest-based groups. And, as the system combines cohorts, Google should be able to offer more granular targeting.

But it is the intersection between cohorts that raises worries among privacy advocates.

Removing the need to store web users information on servers should boost privacy. And Google argues strongly that FLoC offers stronger privacy controls than third-party cookies, or alternatives such as browser fingerprinting.

Google describes FloC as a privacy-preserving API, in part because advertisers only have access to the cohort ID, not the identity of individual users.

But as cohorts shrink or in advertiser speak, become more targeted the risk of inadvertent identification grows.

If I am a trader specialising in performance motorbikes anybody visiting my site will be placed into a cohort based partly on their interest in performance motorcycles, explains the ISFs Haken.

If we say 1,000 people visit my site in one month and 500 of those people also visit a football website, they would in theory become part of the football liking motorcycle enthusiast cohort. If 300 of this cohort also visit sites concerning craft ale a new cohort would be formed and so on.

DONT FORGET TO READ Raising the bar: Tiki app aims to hand data ownership back to the individual

The privacy risk would become greater still if cohorts are created based on small geographical areas, or other links, such as to an employer. If just one craft ale-drinking biker worked for a particular employer, it might be possible to identify him or her.

Some interests will be kept out of cohorts adult sites and medical information will not be tracked, for instance. But, Haken says, these interests are grouped together as sensitive by FLoC; the system might not be able to distinguish between a history of viewing adult material from researching, say, Covid-19 symptoms.

Potentially, a website owner with access to their customers personal identifiable information could use that data to associate cohorts with individuals, Haken warns.

As yet, its not clear exactly how FLoCs cohorts will work in practice, but Google staff have admitted that the system will not be trialed in the EU, over concerns that it breaches parts of the GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive.

Instead, FLoC is being tested in Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, and the US.

Privacy groups have urged caution over the rollout of FLoC

Support for FloC outside Google appears to be limited.

Privacy group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), for instance, describes the technology as a terrible idea.

The maintainers of WordPress, the most widely used content management system (CMS), are suggesting that FLoC should be treated as a security issue, while developers working with Drupal, another popular CMS platform, have similar concerns.

So far, no major browsers besides Google Chrome are planning to include an implementation of FLoC, Joshua Long, chief security analyst at Intego, told The Daily Swig.

Mozilla, the developer of Firefox, has explicitly stated that it has no current plans to implement [FLoC] at this time.

Developers of other Chromium-based browsers, including Brave and Vivaldi, are even stronger in their opposition, even though they share much of the same codebase as Google Chrome.

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As of last year, the most-used Chromium-based browser is Microsofts Edge.

If Microsoft opts not to support FLoC and the company is working on its own alternative proposal, Parakeet the system could struggle to gain traction.

There is also skepticism about Googles motives.

What Ive been saying all along, whether it is FLoC or [other] alternatives to cookies, is who stands to make money here, Cory Munchbach, a privacy advocate and former industry analyst, and now chief operating officer at customer data platform BlueConic, told The Daily Swig.

That is why you can insert a layer of skepticism about this proposal. FLoC benefits Google and consolidates their influence under the guise of privacy.

Most privacy and security experts do concede, however, that FLoC is preferable to the status quo.

Whether many internet users will worry about FLoC will depend largely on their perception of targeted advertising and sharing data.

Without revenues from targeted advertising, some web companies would no doubt struggle, although publishers will, of course, still be able to use first-party cookies.

We are heading to the point where we need to have a conversation about why we say the internet is free, says Munchbach. Its never been free!.

Many internet users will no doubt continue to willingly trade privacy for free access to content.

For the rest, blocking FLoC is relatively easy. The easiest way to avoid FLoC is to use literally any browser other than Google Chrome, says Integos Long. And even Chrome users can block the technology by blocking third-party cookies in the browser settings.

Web developers can opt out of FLoC too. Mainstream web applications are unlikely to be impacted directly, as they use first party, rather than third party, cookies.

The main impact of replacing third-party cookies with FLoC will be on advertisers. To continue tracking, they may have to get on board with FLoC, or accept that advertising can no longer be so finely targeted.

Integos Long suspects a cynical motive behind FLoC.

The whole idea seems to be that, since a lot of people block third-party cookies anyway, Google needed an excuse to develop a new tracking technology that they claim is better than cookies, he says.

Google is well known as a company that makes the majority of its revenue from ads and tracking. The fact that everyone else in the industry seems to be saying no to FLoC is quite telling.

Back in the late 1800s, the US retailer John Wanamaker is reported to have said: Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I dont know which half.

If privacy proponents get their way, that could eventually become true again for online advertisers.

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What the FLoC? Everything you need to know about Googles new ad tech that aims to replace third-party cookies - The Daily Swig

Sharing files on Google Drive or OneDrive isn't hard.

Need to share a big file, or photos or videos that won't fit in an email? Never fear. It's easy to send almost anything to co-workers, family members and friends online -- and often for free.

Enter two of the most popular options for sharing files, photos and videos: Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive. Here, we'll walk you through how to choose which cloud file sharing service is best for you, how much it costs to use, and how to actually share files with others. (Make sure you check out our comparison of the best cloud storage services of 2021, too.)

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

Which file sharing service you want to use likely depends on whose ecosystem you're already in: Google Workspace (formerly called G Suite) or Microsoft 365. If your workplace is governing which you use, you probably don't have a choice. But if you're looking to sign up for personal use, you might want to know a bit about each service.

If you use any of Google's productivity apps (Gmail, Docs or Calendar, for example), using Google Drive makes sense. With Drive, you get 15GB of free storage for anything you upload, including photos, videos and documents. Those who need more space can sign up for Google's storage subscription service, Google One. Google One plans start at $2 a month in the US for 100GB of storage and other features, like Google Store discounts.

If you use Outlook or Windows 10 (which you can still download for free) and are used to Microsoft's ecosystem, OneDrive might be the better choice for you. Microsoft 365 subscribers (who also have access to apps like Word and Excel) have 1TB of storage available. Non-subscribers can sign up for OneDrive Basic for free, which gets you 5GB of storage. Or, similar to Google One's base tier, the OneDrive Standalone plan costs $2 a month for 100GB of storage.

Both Google Drive and OneDrive are compatible with Android and iOS, as well as Windows and MacOS desktops.

Read more: 6 of the best photo storage options for 2021: How to back up your photos in case of emergency

Google Drive gives you 15GB of free storage -- but you need to share it between all of your Google accounts.

Using Google Drive? Here's how to share files step by step:

1. On your computer, go to drive.google.com.

2. Right-click on the folder or file you want to share.

3. If you want to share with people or groups, click Share. Enter their email addresses in the Add people and groups field. On the next screen, you'll see that they are set to Editor as a default, which means they can make changes to the file or add photos. You can click the drop down and change them to Commenter or Viewer. Add a message if you want, and click Send. The people you share it with will get an email with a link to the file or folder.

4. If you want to get a shareable link that you can send to a person or group, right-click on the folder or file, and click Get link (you'll also see this if you click Share, at the bottom of the window). The default setting is Restricted, which means only people you've shared the file with in the step above can open the link. If you click that, you can change it to Anyone, which means anyone with the link can open it. If you choose Anyone, you can then decide if you'd like those people to be able to edit, comment or view the file from the dropdown. Click copy link.

Alternately, you can open any file and click Share in the top right corner to see these options.

The free OneDrive Basic plan gives you 5GB of storage.

If you're using OneDrive, here's how to share files:

1. Go to the OneDrive website, and sign in with your Microsoft account (or your work or school account).

2. Select the file or folder you want to share by clicking the circle in the upper corner of the item. You can also pick multiple items to share them together (though you can't do this on work or school accounts).

3. At the top of the page, click Share.

4. Enter the email addresses or groups you'd like to share with. Click the pencil icon next to this field, and choose if you want those you share with to be able to edit, or just to view the file. Add a message if you want to, and click Send. The people you share it with will get an email with a link to the file or folder.

5. If you'd rather get a link for sharing, click Share, and click the top box, which says People you specify can edit. You can change this setting to anyone with the link, anyone in your organization, people with existing access or specific people. Under Other settings, you can uncheck the allow editing box, which means people you share with can view, copy or download the file without making changes. Click Apply. Then, click Copy to copy the link.

Alternately, you can open any file and click Share in the top left corner to see these options.

For more, check out how to get Microsoft 365 for freeand 10 Gmail tricks you'll use every day.

Now playing: Watch this: Google: How it got so big

9:34

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File-sharing 101: How to actually share files in Google Drive and OneDrive - CNET

clubhouse

Everyone remembers Google+. Well, thats a lie. Everyone remembers forgetting Google+. The platform, designed to compete with LinkedIn and Facebook, launched in 2011, bringing Google into the social media game. Actually, it was Googles fourth attempt; Google+ was preceded by Google Buzz, Google Friend Connect (great name, right?), and Orkut, all of which were abject failures. What can the new audio-based social network Clubhouse learn from the failure of Google+? Probably a lot.

Google+ grew at a record breaking pace, but in almost every other way it was a huge disappointment. The company stated there were issues, creating and maintaining a successful Google+ that meets consumer's expectation. But the problem was far deeper than that, most users didnt even want to be users in the first place; they had just signed up because they were forced to when they enabled Gmail or Google Drive. In fact, the majority of sessions on the platform were less than five minutes, vastly underperforming their competitors and failing to take a position in the average users daily routine. It was a fancy solution in desperate need of a problem.

But the real reason that Google+ died was content, or rather, their lack thereof. So, the platform was laid to rest in 2019, fading into obscurity, remembered for being forgotten, and a huge waste of money. It actually did help make Google Photos dramatically better, but failing to find a place among the major social media players still put this in the loss column.

Is Clubhouse experiencing something similar? If you know me, you know I had big expectations for Clubhouse, the audio-chatting platform. At first, it seemed like the Wild West, lawless and free, and there were interesting people on there talking about interesting things at all times.

Part of this was driven by the original exclusivity. As you probably know, Clubhouse acted like a private club; you had to be invited to join, and each member had precious few invites. It thrived off of its exclusivity. People were literally dropping cash on an invite (upwards of $125). You had people like Oprah Winfrey, Tiffany Hadish, and Mark Cuban coming in to talk about their lives.

And the platform thrived. In February 2021, the app had 9.6 million downloads. But in April, it only had 900,000.

The model it thrived on, exclusivity and expertise, quickly died beneath a wave of startups, marketers, and self-promotion. The novelty of being in a room with Oprah faded after tens and hundreds of mediocre conversations with John talking about his great new idea that hes just getting off the ground.

Gimmicks can only get you so far. When your model relies on exclusivity, it will die to the masses.

Sadly, Clubhouse looks like it will go the way of Google+, unless it evolves once again into something more than another place to marketers and pitchmen (pitchpeople?) to sell you their wares.

If you believe there is hope for this underdog of a platform, Id love to hear from you. In all honesty, I hope Clubhouse survives. I really enjoy the small chats about big topics, but it has to be a conversation for the sake of conversation. If selling and marketing overwhelm Clubhouse, it will not survive.

Feel free to tweet me @adriandayton with your hot takes on Clubhouse and what comes next.

Read the original here:

Will Clubhouse Die The Death of Google+? - Forbes

Theres little telling how messy the situation will get between Roku and Google as it pertains to YouTube TV, but the tech behemoth is certainly trying its best to work around the current impasse between the two.

Its been a week since users have been unable to download YouTube TV on Roku devices, while YouTube has still been available.

More: Roku: Google yanks YouTube TV live TV streaming service from platform

In a way to appease current YouTube TV subscribers, a change within the YouTube app, beginning with the one for Roku devices, will allow its customers to access YouTube TV in the coming days and weeks, according to an email sent to YouTube TV customers. Google said that its still negotiating with Roku regarding carriage of the YouTube TV app.

"Were still working to come to an agreement with Roku to ensure continued access to the YouTube TV app for our mutual customers," read the email. "As of right now, existing YouTube TV members still have access to the YouTube TV app on Roku devices."

So whats the big deal?

Ultimately, consumers will see.But it appears on its surface to be an escalation of sorts. For those who still want to subscribe to YouTube TV (and that can be done at the website), but could not get the app for Roku prior, it provides a backdoor to being able to use the service on Roku devices.Google said it will ultimately come to the YouTube app on all platforms.

George M. Thomas dabbles in movies and television for the Beacon Journal. Reach him at gthomas@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @ByGeorgeThomas

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Google appears to escalate in its battle with streaming giant Roku - Akron Beacon Journal

New Delhi: Google is testing a new feature in Google Maps to locate available hospital beds and medical oxygen in India, even as the country continues to clock a record number of Covid-19 cases and deaths on a daily basis.

The new feature, currently in pilot stage, uses the Q&A function in Google Maps to allow people to ask about and share local information on availability of beds and medical oxygen in select locations.

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The Mountain View, California-headquartered company has also rolled out a COVID Aid campaign on Google Pay to allow people to contribute to non-profit organisations (NGOs) involved in Covid-19 response. It will help NGOs like GiveIndia, Charities Aid Foundation, Goonj, Save the Children, Seeds, UNICEF India (National NGOs) and United Way to raise funds, helping those most in need. The internal campaign has so far raised over $4.6 million (Rs 33 crore) to date, Google said.

In addition to showing 2,500 testing centres on Search and Maps, Google is also sharing the locations of more than 23,000 vaccination centres nationwide, in english and eight regional languages. "Were continuing to work closely with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to make more vaccination center information available to users throughout India."

"As India battles this devastating wave, well keep doing all we can to support the selfless individuals and committed organizations on the front lines of the response. Theres a long way to gobut standing together in solidarity, working together with determination, we can and will turn the tide," the company said in a post.

The government had on Friday sent an advisory to social media platformssuch as Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and Instagramto initiate awareness campaigns among users to not circulate any false news or misinformation" that is likely to create panic among the public and disturb the public order.

They were also asked to take immediate action to disable or remove such content, promote dissemination of authentic information related to the Covid-19 outbreak and issue warnings to imposters who misuse the platforms.

More here:

Google to map oxygen, hospital beds amid surging Covid-19 cases in India - Economic Times

Google has teamed up with Dublin City Council for a year-long project that will measure air quality across the city and help inform future clean air initiatives.

The Air View Dublin project will see one of Googles Street View cars capture air pollution and measure greenhouse gases across the city, developing maps of street-by-street air pollution. The Jaguar I-Pace electric car will be deployed on the streets of Dublin, the first time one of the vehicles has been used to monitor pollution data in addition to the Google Maps Street View imagery.

The car uses Aclimas mobile air sensing platform to measure and analyse nitrogen dioxide, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide (CO), fine particulate matter and ozone.

The project is part of Dublin City Councils Smart Dublin programme which has seen the local authority partner with Googles Environmental Insights Explorer, to inform smart transit programmes, cut emissions and increase the use of cleaner modes of travel.

The initiative was launched by Lord Mayor of Dublin, Hazel Chu. Dublin City Council is dedicated to fulfilling its commitment to the UN Breathe Life Campaign and it is projects like this that leverage innovation and forward thinking to allow us to make informed decisions for the benefit of our city and citizens, she said.

Environmental air quality is an issue that affects everyone, especially people who live in cities and I look forward to learning more about how our city lives and breathes.

The resulting data will be available for use by city authorities, other governments, scientists, non-profit organisations, and the public.

The UN Breathe Life Campaign, which Dublin City Council joined in 2020, involves a commitment to meeting World Health Organisation guide values for air quality by 2030.

Air quality is a serious concern, especially for cities, but there is a gap in terms of localised data and insights available to decision-makers. As part of this project, were using technology to capture this important data and make it accessible so that, together with Dublin City Council, we can gain a deeper understanding of air pollution locally and provide important data to help drive solution planning, said Paddy Flynn, vice-president of Google Geo operations.

Mapping of street-by-street air pollution has never been captured or used in Ireland before, and our ultimate goal is that they will support new actions towards a cleaner, more sustainable Dublin.

Read the original here:

Google teams up with Dublin City Council on air pollution project - The Irish Times

The European Travel Commission (ETC) has attracted Google as an associate member to help drive the tourism sectors recovery this year.

The Google-ETC collaboration will help build the digital capabilities of tourism organisations in Europe through tailored training events for members, equipping them for digital transformation and market agility.

It will also guide policy and decision making in the tourism sector through joint research and thought leadership initiatives.

ETC and Google will exchange insights to promote sustainable travel, drive tourism growth and provide an economic boost to Europe through joint-marketing services, webinars and events, and research projects.

The membership announcement builds on a 2017 Google destination marketing organisation partnership scheme to encourage and train DMOs to use data and insights to understand how to target their travel offerings.

ETC executive director Eduardo Santander said:We are thrilled to welcome Google as an associate member of our organisation at a time when our role in promoting European tourism is more important than ever.

A significant announcement for the European tourism sector, Googles membership will allow us to work together towards a brighter, stronger future for travel in Europe, for the benefit of all Europeans.

The promotion of sustainable growth in the European tourism sector is at the core of the ETCs strategy and we believe that Googles membership will allow both organisations to work better on this common objective.

Diego Ciulli, Googles government affairs and public policy senior manager, added: We are proud to join the European Travel Commission, we look forward to working together to contribute to the travel sector recovery in Europe.

The travel landscape changes quickly, and we are committed to continue to provide digital skills trainings, data insights and tools to help travel and tourism organisations adapt their offerings to meet new travel demands.

This is a community-moderated forum.All post are the individual views of the respective commenter and are not the expressed views of Travel Weekly.By posting your comments you agree to accept our Terms & Conditions.

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Google pledges to aid travel recovery in Europe - Travel Weekly UK

Google is so sick of you relying on passwords that the company hopes to one day ditch the authentication method altogether. But in the meantime, the search giant is introducing a simpler way of improving security online: activating two-factor authentication (2FA) on your Google accounts by default.

The Big G currentlyoffers 2FA also known as two-step verification (2SV) as an optional setting, but will soon turn it on automatically.

[Read:3 new technologies ecommerce brands can use to connect better with customers]

Mark Risher, Googles director of product management, identity, and user security, announced the plan in a Thursday blog post:

Today we ask people who have enrolled intwo-step verification (2SV)to confirm its really them with a simple tap via a Google prompt on their phone whenever they sign in.Soon well start automatically enrolling users in 2SV if their accounts are appropriately configured.

An appropriately configured account will already include recovery information, such as a secondary email or a phone number.You can check your setup on Googles Security Checkuppage

Youll also have the choice to opt-out of 2FA, but thats normally an unwise move. Studies by Microsoft found that your account is more than 99.9% less likely to be compromised if you use multi-factor authentication.

That doesnt mean that2FA is perfect, but its a lot safer than following Kanye Wests lead and securing your account with just the password 000000.

More:

Google will soon automatically enroll users in 2FA - The Next Web

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Google loves to be different. So its no surprise that the company has out-there ideas for the post-pandemic office.

As Google starts to bring employees back to offices in some regions, it plans to experiment with ways to give them more elbow room and blend elements of virtual work with in-person collaboration. The goal, as my colleague Dai Wakabayashi described in an article on Googles vision of the new office, is to reimagine a happier and more productive workplace.

Dai spoke to me about what Google learned from the last year of employees working mostly away from offices, and whether a company with limitless resources will be a model of the future workplace.

Shira: What did Google find from more than a year of mostly remote work?

Dai: Google was surprised at how productive its work force was. Some employees liked working away from the office, or liked aspects of it, and werent willing to go back to an office full time. One downside that Google executives talked about was missing some creativity and collaboration, and a difficulty in establishing workplace culture and trust, when people werent together in person.

But even before the pandemic, Google had started to believe that its current office work environment was broken.

Broken in what way?

Part of the problem is that Googles work force has grown so quickly, and the company was packing people into offices. Googles parent company, Alphabet, now has 140,000 full-time employees, more than twice as many as it had five years ago.

Some employees said that they had trouble focusing in the office because there were too many people and distractions. And some of Googles office complexes were so sprawling that it took people a long time to travel from one building to another. Office work didnt work for a lot of people.

What is Google trying to do differently now?

First, it wants to provide more safety or the feeling of safety by staggering how frequently people come to the office and eventually de-densifying its offices. Thats to reduce the potential spread of Covid-19 now, and Google is thinking ahead to annual flu seasons and potential future pandemics. Googles head of real estate said that ensuring six feet of distance in the office meant it could use only one out of every three desks from the current configurations.

Google also realizes that it cant demand that people come into the office five days a week anymore. And it wants to be more flexible to peoples changing needs. One example is work spaces that can be configured to the needs of a particular team or project. Its also experimenting with personal heating and cooling systems at desks and camp-themed outdoor meeting spaces. Google is calling these changes a pilot that will apply to 10 percent of its global work space.

Is this going to happen everywhere? Where are my outdoor work tents and personal heating system?

This is probably going to cost Google billions of dollars, and most companies cannot afford that. But Google has been a trendsetter for a long time in employment practices and office design. Tech companies like Google helped spread the concept of wide-open office spaces with high ceilings and desks crammed close together. If these new ideas about an office environment with the best of remote work and in-person wind up successful, elements of what Google is doing may filter down to other kinds of companies, too.

What questions do you have about how this will work for Google?

Some Google workers want to go back to an office full time, and others want to work remotely forever. How is Google going to cater to the individual desires of tens of thousands of people? If Google mandates that people must work from an office two days a week or so, will it fire people who refuse? Google knows that its workers are in high demand.

And there are so many unknowns about whether a mix of remote and office work will be the best of both, or the worst of each. This is all a big deal for Google and for its employees. There is nothing more personal than freedom and autonomy around your work.

Tip of the Week

If youre planning to restart your commute to the office soon, you might be surprised to see technologies newly in use for buses, subways and other shared transportation. Brian X. Chen, The New York Timess consumer technology columnist, runs down some of the options to digitally pay for transit:

With workers gradually returning to offices, many are preparing to commute. Something to be aware of is that your options to pay for public transportation may have changed over the past year to include touch-free options, like paying with the tap of a smartphone rather than inserting a ticket or a card. Thats a boon in a pandemic-induced era of germophobia.

For iPhone owners, Apple Pay is now accepted by many transit operators in areas like the San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. For Android owners, Google Pay is also accepted by dozens of transit agencies.

So how do you set this up? The sites will vary slightly depending on where you are commuting, but the first place to check is your transit agencys website. For example, Bay Area commuters can visit the Clipper website and click on Pay With Your Phone. From there, the site will list steps to transfer or start a new Clipper card on Apple Pay or Google Pay.

A big lawsuit with big stakes: In a trial that starts on Monday, the maker of the Fortnite video game is claiming that Apple uses the power of its App Store to stifle competition and hurt app developers. My colleagues Jack Nicas and Erin Griffith wrote about what this court case means for the world of apps and iPhone users. (Jack also told DealBook what hes eager to hear from witnesses.)

The Clubhouse town square, or a weapon of authoritarians? Vivian Yee and Farnaz Fassihi explore the ways that Clubhouse, the audio-only conference app, is becoming one of the few places for people in repressive countries across the Middle East to freely connect and discuss taboo issues. My colleagues also ask: Will Clubhouse like Facebook and Twitter morph from a tool of free expression to another way for many governments in the region to control their citizens?

Quarantine necessity is the mother of invention: Bloomberg News wrote about several websites that have sprung up in Singapore during the pandemic to rent stuff like exercise bikes, portable washing machines and electronic pianos to travelers who are required to isolate in hotels or other government-chosen facilities for two weeks.

The washer and dryer can be musical instruments? Yes, they can. (Turn the sound on for the full experience of this Rick Astley tune, belted out in laundry machine beeps and slamming doors.)

We want to hear from you. Tell us what you think of this newsletter and what else youd like us to explore. You can reach us at ontech@nytimes.com.

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Google's Back to Office Plans - The New York Times