Google will pay you $20 an hour to sit in a self-driving car
As Google prepares to deploy its self-driving car fleet to Chandler, Arizona, the company is hiring local drivers to test its vehicles.
The company intends to hire local drivers in Arizona who will act as "vehicle safety specialists" that will be behind the wheel of its self-driving cars and ready to take over should an unforeseen problem or circumstance arise.
Evernote and Google Drive are coming together
If you're a fan of keeping notes and lists then you really have two main choices -- Evernote and Microsoft's OneNote. Both can be good methods of keeping track of things. For instance, keep a tab open in your browser to add items to a grocery list as you think of them, then arrive at the store and the list is on your phone.
Now Evernote is teaming up with another powerhouse in business, Google. The company is announcing that it will work with the search giant's cloud storage service, Drive.
Google to block Flash in Chrome and default to HTML5 except for these ten white-listed sites
By the end of 2016, Google aims to switch Chrome users away from Flash in favor of HTML5. The writing has been on the wall for Flash for some time now, with a seemingly endless torrent of security issues pushing increasing numbers of people toward HTML5.
Google says that by Q4 2016, it wants to make HTML5 the primary user experience. Flash support will still be built into the browser, but it will be disabled by default. Ten sites, however, will be given a year's reprieve.
Google makes Apple's iPhone even better with amazing 'Gboard' keyboard
Even though I own an iPhone, I am not an Apple "fanboy". I use both Linux and Windows on the desktop, and embrace most of Google's services. Quite frankly, if Google pulled its offerings from iOS, I would probably switch to Android. In other words, I am deeply entrenched in the search giant's ecosystem.
Today, Google releases a new keyboard for the iPhone. Called "Gboard", it drastically improves the typing experience on Apple's smartphone in many ways, including "Glide Typing", emoji search, and animated GIF search to name a few. If you own an iPhone, stop what you are doing and install it now. Trust me, folks.
Google slaps an AdWords ban on payday loans and other high interest finance services
In recent years Google has started to tighten up on the products that can be promoted through its services. After cracking down on porn, the latest victims of the ban hammer are payday loans and other high interest finance services.
Starting July 13, it will no longer be possible to advertise such products through AdWords. Ads for loans with repayment deadlines of under two months are now outlawed, as are ads for loans with high interest rates.
Nest makes Thread networking protocol open source -- names it 'OpenThread'
Some people still have the perception of open source being for hobbyists and Linux enthusiasts. I can understand this wrong viewpoint, however. After all, Microsoft has long had a stranglehold on both home and business workstation computing. That company has historically been a closed-source champion. Over time, open source ideology has matured, being embraced by many major companies -- the Windows-maker included.
Today, the Google-owned Nest makes a big announcement. Its 'Thread' networking protocol is now open source. Dubbed 'OpenThread', the source code is now available on GitHub. Will it see a large scale adoption?
Google proposes equality-boosting emoji showing professional women
Google workers feel that emoji could be used to promote gender equality. A quartet of employees have put forward a new set of emoji that portray women in a number of different professional roles such as technology engineer, mechanic, and farmer.
In a bid to balance things out a little, the emoji proposal sees women portrayed in more roles than ever before, including those traditionally thought of as being male-dominated. A set of 13 new emoji have been submitted to the Unicode Consortium for consideration. They may later be added to the official emoji set.
Think Android security updates take too long to roll out? So do the FTC and FCC
Both the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are starting to ask the questions that Android users have been asking for years: why do updates and upgrades take so long to roll out?
If you're in possession of a flagship or recent handset, the chances are you're in line to receive timely updates for the foreseeable future. But Android's fragmentation means that older handsets quickly drop off the radar, get forgotten and remain unpatched. The FCC and the FTC both want to know why security patches are slow to hit phones, and the agencies have launched separate, but parallel, investigations.
Google's AI is reading love novels to give 'humanized' answers
Soon enough, you can expect Google’s AI to start sending you love letters. And judging by the information you are just about to read, those might be some of the best love letters ever written, in the history of robotkind. Or humankind. Or both, I guess.
Here’s what’s going on. Google says its AI engine’s answers to human questions are too factual. Imagine the answers as being purely robotic. Subject, predicate, adverbial clause. Google, on the other hand, wants those answers to be more human -- it wants the robot to be able to answer the same question in different words, to change the tone and personality from time to time.
Hacker leaks millions of Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail usernames and passwords
A number of major webmail services have suffered one of the largest security breaches in recent years. The account details of Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, and Mail.ru are just four of the services affected.
Security firm Hold Security says that it has been contacted by a hacker in possession of 272 million unique pairs of email addresses and unencrypted passwords. This is far from an insignificant number, and the situation is made all the worse as the data is being freely shared for just about anyone to access.
Google Chrome now more popular than Internet Explorer, says NetMarketShare
Google Chrome has just passed Internet Explorer to become the most popular desktop web browser, according to web analytics company NetMarketShare. Based on the latest figures, the former has 41.71 percent usage share as opposed to 41.33 percent for Microsoft's longstanding PC browser.
NetMarketShare is the last major web analytics company to crown Google Chrome as the most popular desktop web browser. Other players in this field have it pegged as the leader with an even more comfortable lead over Internet Explorer.
HP Chromebook 13 is a business-focused Chrome OS laptop with USB-C
In the grand scheme of things, Chrome OS is hardly a major player from a desktop market share perspective -- for now. With that said, the Linux-based operating system has captured the hearts and minds of many consumers. It has matured quite a bit too, becoming a viable Windows alternative for home users. Actually, it is a great choice for some businesses too -- depending on needs, of course.
Today, Google announces the latest business-focused laptop running its desktop operating system -- the HP Chromebook 13. Not only is this Chrome OS laptop powerful, affordable, and beautiful, but very secure too. It can be argued that it is safer than a Windows notebook.
Amazon held to account for billing parents for in-app purchases made by their kids
A federal judge has ruled that Amazon is liable for sending out bills to parents of children who made in-app purchases without permission. Amounting to millions of dollars, the bills have now been deemed unauthorized, and Amazon faces having to pay back a large percentage of the money.
The case has echoes of similar legal action brought against Google and Apple for purchases made by children in the App Store and Google Play. Amazon, Apple and Google have all implemented systems to prevent unauthorized purchases since being investigated by the FTC back in 2014.
Google antitrust: Getty Images files complaint against search giant for image scraping and piracy promotion
Google is already embroiled in one antitrust case in Europe where the company stands accused of abusing Android's dominance. Now photo agency Getty Images is accusing Google of promoting piracy and engaging in anticompetitive behavior by 'scraping' images from third party sites.
In a familiar-sounding complaint, Getty Images also says that Google skews search results in favor of its own services -- such as Google Images. The photo agency says that this directly impacts upon rival services, but perhaps the big charge is that a change made to Google Images provided access to copyrighted material and "promoted piracy, resulting in widespread copyright infringement".
Mötley Crüe's Nikki Sixx wants YouTube to pay artists more royalties
YouTube is not paying artists enough in royalties for music videos, and Mötley Crüe's Nikki Sixx has had enough. He says that the Google-owned video site pays just a fraction of the likes of Apple and Spotify.
Sixx is calling on other musicians to join forces in a bid to make YouTube dig deeper into its pockets and pay artists a fair share. He is quick to point out that this is not just about getting more money for himself, insisting that he is also looking out for "the little guy -- the up and comers that we were at one point".
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