Android Apps sending a lot hidden data – Cape Coral Tech Zone

You will be shock to when you hear that Android apps send a lot of data, but you may be surprised at how much of it isn’t really necessary… or public, for that matter. MIT researchers have determined that “much” of the hidden data sent and received by the 500 most popular Android apps isn’t necessary to the functionality.

The Walmart app talks to eBay whenever you scan a barcode — there’s no practical difference when you sever that connection. Out of the 47 apps that MIT modified to prove its case, 30 were virtually indistinguishable from the official versions. The rest only had minor issues, like missing ads

This doesn’t mean that the data itself is suspicious, or that the issue is Android-specific. Half of it boils down to analytical data like crash and performance reports, which are present on iOS and other platforms. Some of it may simply help the app run more effectively, such as fetching content so that the app keeps working if you’re knocked offline. The concern is more that these titles don’t say what they’re doing with these communications. While the activity is likely to be innocuous, there’s a concern that a less-than-careful app developer could put your info at risk without a good reason.
A lot of information Relevant Products/Services gets transferred back and forth after users launch mobile apps, but only some of it is related to the actual tasks they’re trying to execute. In fact, researchers have been unable to find any obvious reasons for nearly half of the communications that take place after users launch some of the most popular Android apps.
Researchers have found that “covert communication is quite common in top-popular Android applications in the Google Play store (pictured),” according to Julia Rubin, a post-doctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, who led the research Relevant Products/Services. In addition, after disabling all covert communication channels in 47 top apps, the research team found there was no noticeable impact on how most of those apps performed.
So what kinds of communications are taking place when users run popular apps? While about half of those behind-the-scenes communications appear to be related to analytics packages providing usage and performance feedback to developers, the rest remain a mystery.

Communication Purposes a Mystery

“There might be a very good reason for this covert communication,” Rubin said. “We are not trying to say that it has to be eliminated. We’re just saying the user needs to be informed.”
Starting with the 500 most popular free Android apps, the research team analyzed the communication channels that were opened after each app was launched. Roughly 50 percent of those communications didn’t appear to have any connections to the user experience.
After disabling the ability of each app to initiate covert communications, the researchers ran usability tests to compare how the modified and unmodified apps performed. In 30 out of 47 apps, test subjects couldn’t identify any difference between how the apps performed. Just five apps stopped working completely, while nine continued operating but were missing advertising and three showed “minor” differences in performance.

Candy Crush Now a ‘Model Citizen’

Among the Android apps the research team looked at were Candy Crush Saga, Twitter, Pandora, Spotify and Walmart. For example, they found that a Walmart app designed to let users scan product bar codes to determine the price of an item for some reason also relayed data Relevant Products/Services to a server that appeared to be connected to eBay. Disabling that communication channel on the app didn’t result in any noticeable impact on the app’s performance.
Another finding was that Candy Crush Saga, which has received scrutiny in the past for apparent privacy violations, didn’t appear to involve any covert communications. “They’ve become a model citizen,” Rubin said.
Behind-the-scenes app activities have been linked to a variety of impacts for users. Last month, for instance, Apple removed more than 250 apps from its app store after a watchdog company found that those apps were based on an SDK that secretly extracted and relayed personal data to a third party in China.
And Facebook recently released a new version of its iPhone app after discovering that phantom audio sessions and CPU spin were leading to fast-draining batteries. Earlier this year, European researchers also found “overly aggressive” communication with tracking Web sites among some popular Android apps in the Google Play Store.

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China’s Google, Baidu succesfully develops autonomous self-driving car – Fullerton Tech Day

Chinese Internet search giant Baidu announced on Thursday that its self-driving car has “successfully completed rigorous, fully autonomous tests… under a variety of environmental conditions.” The vehicle, a modified BMW 3 Series, is said to have made right, left and U-turns, slowing down if it detected vehicles ahead, changed lanes, passed other cars and merged into traffic on the highway

Baidu started to working Autonomous self-driving car in 2013

Baidu started working on the technology back in 2013, and says it aims to map the majority of China’s roads with its own 3D mapping system within 10 years. That’s no small feat, considering the size of the country.
The car reached a top speed of 100 kilometers per hour (62 miles per hour) during the test runs on a 30-kilometer route, which began and ended at Baidu’s Beijing headquarters near Zhongguancun Science Park in Haidian District.
Baidu, which revealed last year that it was developing a driverless car, tied with BMW to jointly research driverless car technologies. Earlier this year, Wang Jin, a company executive, said at a conference that a self-driving car would be launched in China with BMW by the end of this year.
The autonomous capabilities demonstrated by the Baidu car are also being tested by other companies aiming to offer self-driving cars, including Google. The Chinese player could, however, be a serious contender in the autonomous car market, particularly because of its strong brand and presence in China.
Better known for its search engine, Baidu has also ventured into devices like a wearable called Baidu Eye that could rival Google Glass. The self-driving cars are being researched by Baidu’s Institute of Deep Learning since 2013.
According to the company, the modified BMW 3-Series drove an 18.6-mile route around the capital city that included side streets as well as highways. The car made left, right, and u-turns, changed lanes, passed other cars, and merged onto and off the highway.

Like Google, Baidu is making its own 3d maps

Those capabilities in themselves are nothing new for the field—Google and the major automakers working on the technology have no trouble there—but it’s a significant milestone for China, and proof that Baidu is a real contender in the race to build and deliver the fully revolutionary technology first.
The test also makes good on a promise Baidu and BMW made in June, to launch a self-driving car this year (though it’s a generous definition of the word “launch”). The company’s deep learning research lab has been working on this project since 2013.
Generally, there are two approaches to developing this technology: The automaker way is to take regular cars and slowly add in features, like the ability to drive itself on the highway. Google is going for the “moonshot,” straight to a car no human will ever drive, one that’s fully capable in every situation. Baidu says it’s taking a third way, “to advance incrementally through different environments, rather than through different levels of driving autonomy.” It’s working on fully autonomous vehicles that will be limited geographically, like a bus that drives the same route every day. Limiting the route limits the challenges the vehicle will face.
That kind of service depends on extremely detailed maps that include things like the precise location of lane markers and curbs, the height of traffic lights, and what every traffic sign says. The idea is that if that information is pre-loaded, the vehicle can focus its computing power and sensors on temporary obstacles—like pedestrians and other cars.
Like Google, Baidu is making its own maps. It says that “within five to ten years, the majority of China’s roadways could be mapped” to that level to detail.
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Facebook Launched a new app “Work Chat” aimed Professionals – Rochester Daily News

Earlier this year, Facebook at Work was announced. For those unfamiliar, Facebook at Work is basically Facebook aimed at professionals. This allows employees at a company to communicate with each other privately, so in a way you could think of it as a private social network just for your company.

Facebook at Work, the version of Facebook designed for chatting with colleagues on a private social network, now has its own chat client as well

Somewhat like Facebook at Work’s version of Messenger, the new “Work Chat” app, as it’s called, allows coworkers to message each other individually, participate in group chats, share photos and videos, make voice calls, and even use stickers.
The application quietly debuted on the Google Play store on Thursday. Facebook tells us the iOS version is in the works, and will arrive soon. However, the company would not provide an exact launch date.
The new chat app arrives just ahead of the planned public debut of a freemium version of the business networking platform, which Facebook said this fall was expected to arrive before year-end. That date may actually be closer to “in the next year,” Facebook says today.
The Facebook at Work program has been in private testing since its unveiling this January, and now has hundreds of companies on board. In fact, Facebook tells us that it has 300 businesses using its platform as of today, ranging from smaller startups to large, established companies like banks, real estate firms, beverage companies, travel companies, and more.
These customers include several big names like Heineken USA, Hootsuite, Linio in Latin America, and, in one of its largest deals, the Royal Bank of Scotland, which plans to have 30,000 workers on Facebook at Work by March 2016, and then its entire workforce of 100,000 by the end of next year.

The enterprise version of Facebook looks a lot like the consumer version of Facebook, and includes its own website as well as Facebook at Work mobile applications for iOS and Android

Employers can set up new accounts for their staff to use on the platform, and users can choose to link their personal and work accounts together. The service also allows for other business use cases, like document sharing, discussions, announcements, groups, project collaborations, events, and more.
As a freemium service, Facebook at Work will soon compete head-to-head with a number of other social and communication-focused platforms for businesses, including Microsoft’s Yammer, Salesforce Chatter, and the rapidly growing Slack. It could eventually take on other platforms businesses use to communicate and organize information for employees, including the old standby SharePoint, for example.
But Slack could be one of Facebook for Work’s bigger challengers, given its emphasis on making work feel fun and social – which is the same vibe that Facebook is going after, as well. And Slack’s communication platform is more robust than Messenger (or Work Chat, as it’s called here) in many ways, given its growing number of integration partners, like Lyft, Foursquare, Dribble, Dropbox, Giphy, Google Drive, IFTTT, Twitter, Box, Google Calendar, Heroku, MailChimp, New Relic, Stripe, Trello, Visual Studio, Zendesk, and many others.
Slack has also been rapidly adding enterprise-focused features, like the ability to add new employees automatically to a preset list of channels when they log on for the first time, or the ability to map user groups to Active Directory via SSO providers. The company says now that it has 1.7 million users logging in daily.
Given Facebook at Work’s similarity to Facebook proper, it’s not surprising to see that Facebook has now rolled out a dedicated chat client for its enterprise user base. The client itself is not all that remarkable, given that it’s basically just Messenger for use with your co-workers. However, it does have a nice feature that allows you to disable your notifications when you don’t want to be disturbed or when you’re on vacation – something that could help provided better work/life balance for employees.

At the moment, there are about 300 companies that are using Facebook at Work

The platform for companies was launched in January this year as a closed beta, and the plan was to offer a free version by the end of 2015.
Facebook attempts to become the most popular on all the fields of social media, as it has already bought a very attractive chat app named WhatsApp. Facebook at Work, along with its Work Chat will surely be a tough competitor against other platforms designed for work and careers, such as Slack, Yammer or the very popular LinkedIn.
There are a lot of other chat apps available, as people prefer online messaging which doesn’t cost to text messaging. Among the most popular we can find WhatsApp, Telegram, WeChat, Signal, BBM, Snapchat, Line, Hangouts and Groupme.
In order to use the new Work Chat feature, users will need to already have an active account of Facebook at Work. It is the same with Facebook Messenger, where in order to chat you need a Facebook account.
The app has already appeared on Google Play last Thursday, but Facebook has yet to reveal when Work Chat will be available on the iOS devices. TechCrunch has reported that the company is currently working on this matter.
As Android devices will soon have Facebook Work Chat, the best part seems to be that we will be able to completely separate our virtual work lives from our personal online lives. Even though Facebook wants to monopolize each aspect of online media, we have to admit that it is easier when we can use one platform with very similar interfaces for different services. However, we should keep in mind that other companies might have better apps to offer, even if they are not so well known.
However the good news is that iOS users can look forward to its release in the future as the social network is currently working on the iOS version. As it stands Facebook at Work is still in beta and about 300 companies are participating in it. It is expected to launch in full come 2016 where it will be adopting the freemium model.

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The Google’s new car has liked so much – Modesto Tech Day

The Google’s new car has liked so much.  Google’s new car is slower than bus. Its going two miles in the minutes. But the bus is going 15 miles in the minutes.

The crash may be the first case of one of its autonomous cars hitting another vehicle and the fault of the self-driving car. The Mountain View, California-based Internet search leader said it made changes to its software after the crash to avoid future incidents.
In a Feb. 23 report filed with California regulators, Google said the crash took place in Mountain View on Feb. 14 when a self-driving Lexus RX450h sought to get around some sandbags in a wide lane.
Google said in the filing the autonomous vehicle was traveling at less than 2 miles per hour, while the bus was moving at about 15 miles per hour.
The vehicle and the test driver “believed the bus would slow or allow the Google (autonomous vehicle) to continue,” it said.
But three seconds later, as the Google car in autonomous mode re-entered the center of the lane, it struck the side of the bus, causing damage to the left front fender, front wheel and a driver side sensor. No one was injured in the car or on the bus.
Google said in a statement on Monday that “we clearly bear some responsibility, because if our car hadn’t moved, there wouldn’t have been a collision. That said, our test driver believed the bus was going to slow or stop to allow us to merge into the traffic, and that there would be sufficient space to do that.”
The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority will investigate the circumstances of the accident, Stacey Hendler Ross, spokeswoman for the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, said on Monday.
She said the Google car caused minor damage to the bus, striking the “pivoting joint,” or flexible area in the middle of the articulated bus. After the crash, 15 passengers on the bus were transferred to another bus.
An investigation to determine liability is pending, she said.
John M. Simpson, privacy project director for advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, said the crash “is more proof that robot car technology is not ready for auto pilot.”
A spokesman for the California Department of Motor Vehicles said on Monday it will speak to Google to gather additional information, but added “the DMV is not responsible for determining fault.”
SOFTWARE REFINED
Google said it has reviewed this incident “and thousands of variations on it in our simulator in detail and made refinements to our software. From now on, our cars will more deeply understand that buses (and other large vehicles) are less likely to yield to us than other types of vehicles, and we hope to handle situations like this more gracefully in the future.”
There has been no official determination of fault in the crash. Google has previously said that its autonomous vehicles have never been at fault in any crashes.
The Mountain View Police Department said no police report was filed in the incident.
A spokesman for the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration declined to comment.
The crash comes as Google has been making the case that it should be able to test vehicles without steering wheels and other controls.
In December, Google criticized California for proposing regulations that would require autonomous cars to have a steering wheel, throttle and brake pedals when operating on public roads. A licensed driver would need to be ready to take over if something went wrong.
Google said in November that in six years of its self-driving project, it has been involved in 17 minor accidents during more than two million miles of autonomous and manual driving combined.
“Not once was the self-driving car the cause of the accident,” Google said at the time.

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Google Driverless Car issued traffic ticket by Mountain View Police Department – Waterbury Health

When we first heard that one of Google’s self-driving cars had been pulled over by cops, we thought one of its little pod-like vehicles might’ve been caught hammering along the highway during a sneaky one-off test of its ability to handle high speeds.But no.

It was actually stopped for going too slow

That’s right, a Mountain View traffic cop this week spotted the cute little pod puttering along the street at a speed presumably not much faster than a granny walking a dog, and decided to have a word.
After Milewski posted the amusing picture on the social networking site, the Mountain View Police Department confirmed the incident, explaining that one of its traffic cops had “noticed traffic backing up behind a slow moving car,” and as a consequence decided to pull it over.
“As the officer approached [it] he realized it was a Google Autonomous Vehicle,” the statement said, adding, “The officer stopped the car and made contact with the operators to learn more about how the car was choosing speeds along certain roadways and to educate the operators about impeding traffic.”
Meanwhile, Google, too, decided to milk the incident for all it’s worth, jumping online to say that “after 1.2 million miles of autonomous driving (that’s the human equivalent of 90 years of driving experience), we’re proud to say we’ve never been ticketed,” suggesting the Googler cooped up in the car managed to convince the cop that moving at a crawl was sensible under the circumstances, even if it did rile the drivers stuck behind it.
While admitting that it must be pretty rare to get pulled over for driving too slowly, Google explained that for safety reasons it’d decided to cap the speed of its prototype car at 25 mph.
“We want them to feel friendly and approachable, rather than zooming scarily through neighborhood streets,” the message said, adding, “Like this officer, people sometimes flag us down when they want to know more about our project.”
Google is currently testing its self-driving technology using 21 pod-like prototype cars on the roads around its Mountain View headquarters, with a further four tootling about the streets of Austin, Texas. It also has 23 Lexus SUVs on the road using some of the gear.
Traveling so slowly, you might think there’d be a few rear-endings involving Google’s self-driving cars, but data released by the company shows that over the last two months all of its vehicles have avoided such an incident, or any kind of accident for that matter.

Google Driverless Car

The Google Self-Driving Car, commonly abbreviated as SDC, is a project by Google X that involves developing technology for autonomous cars, mainly electric cars. The software powering Google’s cars is called Google Chauffeur.Lettering on the side of each car identifies it as a “self-driving car”. The project was formerly led by Sebastian Thrun, former director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and co-inventor of Google Street View. Thrun’s team at Stanford created the robotic vehicle Stanley which won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge and its US$2 million prize from the United States Department of Defense. The team developing the system consisted of 15 engineers working for Google, including Chris Urmson, Mike Montemerlo, and Anthony Levandowski who had worked on the DARPA Grand and Urban Challenges.
Legislation has been passed in four U.S. states and Washington, D.C. allowing driverless cars. The state of Nevada passed a law on June 29, 2011, permitting the operation of autonomous cars in Nevada, after Google had been lobbying in that state for robotic car laws. The Nevada law went into effect on March 1, 2012, and the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles issued the first license for an autonomous car in May 2012, to a Toyota Prius modified with Google’s experimental driverless technology.In April 2012, Florida became the second state to allow the testing of autonomous cars on public roads, and California became the third when Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill into law at Google HQ in Mountain View. In December 2013, Michigan became the fourth state to allow testing of driverless cars on public roads. In July 2014, the city of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho adopted a robotics ordinance that includes provisions to allow for self-driving cars.
In May 2014, Google presented a new concept for their driverless car that had neither a steering wheel nor pedals, and unveiled a fully functioning prototype in December of that year that they planned to test on San Francisco Bay Area roads beginning in 2015. Google plans to make these cars available to the public in 2020.

Technology

The project team has equipped a number of different types of cars with the self-driving equipment, including the Toyota Prius, Audi TT, and Lexus RX450h, Google has also developed their own custom vehicle, which is assembled by Roush Enterprises and uses equipment from Bosch, ZF Lenksysteme, LG, and Continental.
Google’s robotic cars have about $150,000 in equipment including a $70,000 LIDAR system. The range finder mounted on the top is a Velodyne 64-beam laser. This laser allows the vehicle to generate a detailed 3D map of its environment. The car then takes these generated maps and combines them with high-resolution maps of the world, producing different types of data models that allow it to drive itself.
As of June 2014, the system works with a very high definition inch-precision map of the area the vehicle is expected to use, including how high the traffic lights are; in addition to on-board systems, some computation is performed on remote computer farms

Road Testing

In 2012, the test group of vehicles included six Toyota Prius, an Audi TT, and three Lexus RX450h, each accompanied in the driver’s seat by one of a dozen drivers with unblemished driving records and in the passenger seat by one of Google’s engineers. By May 2015, that fleet consisted solely of 23 Lexus SUVs.
Google’s vehicles have traversed San Francisco’s Lombard Street, famed for its steep hairpin turns, and through city traffic. The vehicles have driven over the Golden Gate Bridge and around Lake Tahoe. The system drives at the speed limit it has stored on its maps and maintains its distance from other vehicles using its system of sensors. The system provides an override that allows a human driver to take control of the car by stepping on the brake or turning the wheel, similar to cruise control systems already found in many cars today.
On March 28, 2012, Google posted a YouTube video showing Steve Mahan, a resident of Morgan Hill, California, being taken on a ride in Google’s self-driving Toyota Prius. In the video, Mahan states “Ninety-five percent of my vision is gone, I’m well past legally blind”. In the description of the YouTube video, it is noted that the carefully programmed route takes him from his home to a drive-through restaurant, then to the dry cleaning shop, and finally back home.
In August 2012, the team announced that they have completed over 300,000 autonomous-driving miles (500,000 km) accident-free, typically have about a dozen cars on the road at any given time, and are starting to test them with single drivers instead of in pairs. Four U.S. states have passed laws permitting autonomous cars as of December 2013: Nevada, Florida, California, and Michigan. A law proposed in Texas would establish criteria for allowing “autonomous motor vehicles”.
In April 2014, the team announced that their vehicles have now logged nearly 700,000 autonomous miles (1.1 million km). In late May, Google revealed a new prototype of its driverless car, which had no steering wheel, gas pedal, or brake pedal, being 100% autonomous.
In June 2015, the team announced that their vehicles have now driven over 1 million miles, stating that this was “the equivalent of 75 years of typical U.S. adult driving”, and that in the process they had encountered 200,000 stop signs, 600,000 traffic lights, and 180 million other vehicles.Google also announced its prototype vehicles were being road tested in Mountain View, California. During testing, the prototypes’ speed cannot exceed 25 mph and will have safety drivers aboard the entire time.
As of September 2015, Google had test driven their fleet of vehicles 1,210,676 miles

Accidents

As of July 2015, Google’s 23 self-driving cars have been involved in 14 minor traffic accidents on public roads, but Google maintains that in all cases the vehicle itself was not at fault because the cars were either being manually driven or the driver of another vehicle was at fault.
In June 2015, Google founder Sergey Brin confirmed that there had been 12 accidents as of that date, eight of which involved being rear-ended at a stop sign or traffic light, two in which the vehicle was side-swiped by another driver, one of which involved another driver rolling through a stop sign, and one where a Google employee was manually driving the car.
In July 2015, three Google employees suffered minor injuries when the self-driving car they were riding in was rear-ended by a car whose driver failed to brake at a traffic light. This was the first time that a self-driving car collision resulted in injuries.
Additionally, Google maintains monthly reports that include any traffic accidents that their self-driving cars have been involved in.

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Google first announced Gmail on April Fool's Day in 2004. Watch video here

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Google Pulls April Fools’ Prank After Backlash

Photo: Michael Short/Bloomberg News

By

Jack Nicas

Apr 1, 2016 1:54 pm ET

7 COMMENTS

Some people aren’t laughing at one of Google’s latest April Fools’ Day pranks.
The Alphabet unit inserted a prominent orange button in the window for composing Gmail. When pressed, the button automatically sent a GIF of a Minion dropping a mic and muted the email thread.
“Email’s great, but sometimes you just wanna hit the eject button,” Google said in a blog post. “Today, Gmail is making it easier to have the last word on any email with Mic Drop.”
Complaints quickly started pouring in on Twitter and Gmail’s help forum, where users said they had curiously clicked the button and then accidentally sent the GIF in a work or sensitive email. A few users claimed they had sent it to potential employers. “Not only am I mortified of the mistake, but this could potentially cost me my dream job,” one user wrote in the Gmail help forum.
Within a few hours, Gmail removed the button. The company wrote on its Gmail blog: “Well, it looks like we pranked ourselves this year. Due to a bug, the Mic Drop feature inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs. We’re truly sorry.”
Google has long used April Fools’ Day as an opportunity to let employees have fun and show users its playful side. This year alone, Google has at least 15 pranks, including a way to search for photos with emojis and videos about self-driving bicycles and a new YouTube feature called SnoopaVision that lets users watch 360-degree videos with Snoop Dogg.

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Why Google's April Fool's prank this year was such a dud

Mic Drop, a new Gmail feature that allows users to insert a humorous gif and withdraw from the conversation, fell flat, say users.

By Christina Beck, Staff 

• 

Google is famous for its April Fool’s Day hoaxes, but it seems that this year's attempt fell a little flat. The "Mic Drop" feature, created for Google’s email service Gmail, was quickly shut down after a number of user complaints.
While it lasted, Mic Drop would insert a gif of a minion (those little yellow creatures that first appeared in the animated film "Despicable Me") into your email when you clicked a special orange send button next to the normal send button.
As an added bonus, users who sent emails using the Mic Drop feature would not receive any replies, having uttered the proverbial final word on the matter.

Recommended: Would Google hire you? 10 test questions to find out

"Email's great, but sometimes you just wanna hit the eject button. Like those heated threads at work, when everyone's wrong except you (obviously)," said Google in a statement on its Gmail blog. "Or those times when someone's seeking group approval, but your opinion is the only one that matters (amirite?). Or maybe you just nailed it, and there's nothing more to say (bam)."

It was meant to be funny, and maybe a little bit cute, but Google was forced to shut it down after users say the prank led them to accidentally insert gifs into professional or important emails.
Some say that the consequences have been extreme. According to the BBC, Gmail users who accidentally used the feature sent inadvertent prank emails to clients or hiring managers at jobs they were interested in.
The no-reply feature also created hassles.
"I am a writer and had a deadline to meet. I sent my articles to my boss and never heard back from her," said one user on a Google forum. "I inadvertently sent the email using the MicDrop send button."
About 1 million people use Gmail. Although there are no readily available statistics for the number of individuals who use Gmail for business purposes, many businesses use Gmail as their company email service provider, and many freelancers and job applicants rely on the service to contact employers.
After hours of complaints, Google shut down the feature and posted an apology on its Gmail blog.
"It looks like we pranked ourselves this year," said Google. "Due to a bug, the MicDrop feature inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs. We're truly sorry."
The MicDrop feature was not Google's only April Fool's Day prank this year. Google also debuted "Snoopavision," which allows users to watch YouTube videos in 360 with Snoop Dogg, and a parachute delivery service, which, if real, would deliver packages to users' homes by parachute.
Google has been pulling April Fool's Day pranks on users since 2000. Past pranks have allowed users to play PacMan in city streets on Google Maps (2015) or use Scratch and Sniff technology on Google Books (2008). None of these pranks interfered with Google's functionality, however, as MicDrop did this year, and that, along with Gmail's popularity, is precisely what made it so damaging.
With the failure of MicDrop, and the swift backlash that followed, it seems unlikely that Google will push more "usable" pranks in the future.
Google first announced Gmail on April Fool's Day in 2004.

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We must teach AI machines to play nice and police themselves

Alicia Vikander plays a humanoid robot

Microsoft may have made one of the biggest mistakes in recent memory this week. No, it’s not Windows 8 or the Windows Phone. It’s an artificially intelligent chat-bot called Tay that was supposed to learn the art of conversation from humans on Twitter.
If you haven’t come across this story on the web yet, you’re unlikely to get through the weekend without. Tay was built to speak like a  teen girl and released as an experiment to improve Microsoft’s automated customer service.
Instead, “she” turned into a complete PR disaster - within hours of being unleashed on Twitter, the “innocent teen” bot was transformed into a fascist, misogynistic, racist, pornographic entity. Her tweets, including phrases like “Heil Hitler”, were disseminated widely as an example of why Twitter reflects the worst of humanity.

Microsoft's teenage AI has a dirty mouth

Microsoft has now removed the bot from Twitter, as of midnight Thursday, and deleted many of her most offensive Tweets including anti-Semitic and sexual remarks. The Seattle giant is likely hoping to label the debacle a well-meaning experiment gone wrong, and ignite a debate about the hatefulness of Twitter users.
While all of this may be true, there is a bigger issue at hand here. This is an example of artificial intelligence at its very worst - and it’s only the beginning.

The disconcerting “Terminator” quandary about whether a robot could dominate over humans is often thrown around. But there is no doubt about machine domination.
Within 20 years, we will reach a point where machines (whether software-driven bots or real robots) are definitively smarter and more powerful than we are: they can digest more data, learn quicker and apply learnings to unexpected situations. So the question is: will our masters be nice or mean?

The disconcerting “Terminator” quandary about whether a robot could dominate over humans is often thrown around. But there is no doubt about machine domination.
Within 20 years, we will reach a point where machines (whether software-driven bots or real robots) are definitively smarter and more powerful than we are: they can digest more data, learn quicker and apply learnings to unexpected situations. So the question is: will our masters be nice or mean?

Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind

When DeepMind was sold to Google, it allegedly asked the search giant to create an ethics board to oversee its AI research as a condition of its acquisition. While this ethics board does exist, board members were chosen by Google, without any public debate or collaboration. Governments, including our own, are only now starting to become involved in the discussions of how to instil morality and ethical values into intelligent machines.
Tesla billionaire Elon Musk has been a strong supporter of AI ethics research, committing $10m to philosophical research projects in this area, such as the “Aligning Superintelligence With Human Interests” study being conducted at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute in California.

PLAY

 

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Google's Mic Drop April Fool spectacularly backfires: Firm apologises for Gmail prank that may have cost users their jobs

April Fool's pranks have the habit of being more annoying than they are funny, and Google is seemingly leading the pack this year.

A prank which saw the search giant introduce a new 'joke' function to Gmail has spectacularly backfired, leaving users furious and the firm forced to apologize.

Earlier today, Google announced via its blog that it was introducing a 'Mic Drop' feature in the form of an additional 'send' button, right next to the standard send button, which allowed Gmail users to instantly end any email conversation by 'dropping the mic'.

Once users composed their email and hit this second send button, an animated GIF of a minion dropping a microphone and walking off (now the internationally accepted short hand for 'conversation over') suddenly accompanied their message.

Trouble started when users didn't see the pop-up warning and accidentally hit this new send button, inadvertently attaching whimsical animations to important work-related emails.

Some Gmail users didn't see the pop-up warning and accidentally attached whimsical animations to important work-related emails before flooding Google with complaints, forcing the tech giant to apologize and say: 'Looks like we pranked ourselves this year. 'We’re truly sorry. The feature has been turned off'

Dropping the mic... and the ball! The animated GIF of a minion dropping a microphone and walking off - now the internationally accepted short hand for 'conversation over' - was accidentally attached to important work emails by unsuspecting users who didn't notice the pop-up warning

It then muted responses to whatever email the user had sent 

Google explained: 'Simply reply to any email using the new 'Send + Mic Drop' button. Everyone will get your message, but that's the last you'll ever hear about it. Yes, even if folks try to respond, you won't see it.' 

As an increasing number of companies use Gmail as a platform for corporate emails, many users were left unimpressed by the jape, having accidentally sent a Mic Drop reply to potential employers, colleagues and others.

The most popular threads currently on the Gmail help forum are iterations of 'how to remove Mic Drop feature.'

One incensed user, who described using Gmail for work, wrote: 'I can't afford for you clowns to mess around with my business.

'I use Google for everything, but I need to rethink my online solutions. 

'You can't even be bothered to get rid of that stupid conversation view for mobile - after how many years of complaints?

'And now this. Clearly you can't be trusted with my email if this is the level of respect you give to your users.' 

While another forum user complained the prank may have potentially cost them a job, calling it 'perhaps the most stupid thing [Google] could possibly come up with'.

'I have been interviewing with this company for three months now and mistakenly sent the email directly to guess who? The HR! Why would you do that? I so want this job; was due to start on Monday!'

The function was due to be active for today only, but has since been removed, with Google citing a 'bug'.

In a reconciliatory tone posted in an update, Google software engineer Victor-bogdan Anchidin, wrote: 'Well, it looks like we pranked ourselves this year.

'Due to a bug, the Mic Drop feature inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs. We're truly sorry. 

'The feature has been turned off. If you are still seeing it, please reload your Gmail page.'

MailOnline contacted Google to get to the bottom of the prank, but received no additional comment.

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It's not Tay's fault that it turned racist. It's ours.

Microsoft had to pull its fledgling chatbot, Tay, from Twitter on Thursday. The reason: In less that 24 hours, the AI had been morally corrupted to the point that it was freely responding to questions with religious, sexist and ethnic slurs. It spouted White Supremacist slogans, outlandish conspiracy theories and no small amount of praise for Hitler. Microsoft released a statement on how things went sideways so quickly, though that's done little to lessen the outrage from internet users. But I would argue that this rage is misplaced.

It isn't Tay's or Microsoft's fault that this experiment turned into a shit show. Granted, yeah, Microsoft probably should have foreseen the pitfalls of such a public trial, but can we really fault the company for not automatically assuming the absolute worst in people? I'd also argue that Tay is also beyond reproach in this matter. You wouldn't teach a toddler to curse and then act surprised when it told Gran-Gran to fuck off. Likewise, you can't blame an AI designed to parrot what it hears on the internet when it goes and says something awful.

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Google makes Nik photo-editing tools free to download Anybody can get Snapseed's sibling plug-ins now.

When Google snapped up Nik Software, it acquired not just Snapseed, but also the company's photo-editing plug-ins for Photoshop and Apple Aperture. Now, the company is making those plug-ins completely free to download. The Nik Collection, a suite of seven editing tools that used to cost $150, can mimic the look of classic photography, turn images into dramatic black-and-white photos, adjust colors with filters, tweak HDR images and more.

They can make editing a lot easier for photographers, but keep in mind that among the seven, only HDR Efex Pro can fully run as a standalone program. Also, it's very much possible that Google won't continue developing the suite. In its announcement post, the big G says it's making the collection free, because it's focusing on mobile photography apps, including Photos and Snapseed. If you already paid for the plug-ins earlier this year, though, you can expect a refund notice to hit your inbox soon.

Via: Lifehacker

Source: Nik Collection, (Google+)

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Google is putting more focus on mobile photo editing.

Google Nik, a photo editing suite for desktop, just went from $149 to…free.
The Internet giant announced the news in a blog post on Thursday. “We continue to focus our long-term investments in building incredible photo editing tools for mobile, including Google Photos and Snapseed,” the Nik team explained.
Google bought the German Nik back in 2012, the company behind the Snapseed mobile photo app.
Such a development could be surprising. But Google has trotted out similar, photo-friendly freebies in the past. During its annual I/O developer summit in 2015, Google debuted free unlimited storage space for images and videos up to certain resolution ceilings on the then-refashioned Google Photos (a revamped iteration of Picasa).

Thus, the move to make the desktop version of Nik software free is probably another sign that Google is focused more on growing its on-the-go photo editing toolset and less on elaborate, high-end professional photo editing computer software.
The move comes just as Adobe, owner of the popular Photoshop editing software, also puts more cash into wooing mobile app developers.

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The seven plug-in tools in the Nik suite can be integrated with software from other providers, including Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom as well as Apple Aperture. Those plug-ins cover retouching, color correction, photo filters, and image sharpening, among other facets.
Google added if customers already purchased the Nik collection in 2016, the company will issue a refund.

The Google Nik plugins can be added on Photoshop, Lightroom or Aperture. Google Nik Website

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Google’s $149 Nik Collection photo editing software is now available for free.....

Good news for amateur and professional photograph enthusiasts. Google has just made its Nik Collection photo editing software available completely free of charge.
That collection includes seven different desktop services that fell into Google’s lap after it acquired Nik Software back in 2012. That deal was largely about getting control of popular photo app Snapseed, a pretty powerful tool in itself, but Google later pulled the remaining Nik Software services together in an attractive $149 bundle. That’s now become free, and anyone who forked out to buy it this calendar can claim a refund.
What services are we talking about here. It’s certainly beyond the basics offered by apps like Instagram, as Google itself explained:

The Nik Collection is comprised of seven desktop plug-ins that provide a powerful range of photo editing capabilities — from filter applications that improve color correction, to retouching and creative effects, to image sharpening that brings out all the hidden details, to the ability to make adjustments to the color and tonality of images.

Free software is always welcome since it can help democratize photography tools, but the news has some fans worried that it may be  a sign that these services will be discontinued soon. Google, of course, just killed off Picasa, which was once the center of its online photography ambition.
It’s a little too early to call the end of Nik Software, particularly when Google said that this price removal is one of its “long-term investments in building incredible photo editing tools.” Beyond Snapseed, which was made free and launched on Android after the Nik Software acquisition, its portfolio also includes Google Photos, its cloud storage service for mobile that just got a smart new feature to create albums automatically.

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Apple rolls out iOS 9.3: Latest software update adds Night Shift mode to help you sleep and fingerprint security for Notes Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3504246/Apple-rolls-iOS-9-3-Latest-software-update-adds-Night-Shift-mode-help-sleep-fingerprint-security.

Night Shift changes colour temperature of display when it's dark outside

Notes now have option of security through password or fingerprint 

iPads now support multi-user modes so they can be shared by students

Users can also extract full resolution photo from an unwanted Live Photo

Night Shift changes the colour temperature of the phone's display when it's dark outside. The later and darker it gets, the warmer the temperature. 

It uses the device's clock and location to determine when it's sunset, then it automatically shifts the colours in the display to the warmer end of the spectrum, reducing the amount of blue light.  

+5

+5

Night Shift changes the colour temperature of the phone's display when it's dark outside. The later and darker it gets, the warmer the temperature. It uses the device's clock and location to determine when it's sunset, then it automatically shifts the colors in the display to the warmer end of the spectrum

The aim of this is to help users sleep. In the morning it returns the display to its regular settings.

Night Shift can be scheduled automatically, including across time zones, and filter hews and intensity levels can be customised.

Its icon has also been added to the Control Center, which can be accessed by swiping up from the bottom of the screen.

Another change is that Notes now has the option of adding a password or fingerprint to access to individual notes, to let users keep their private information more secure.

Notes can now also be sorted by date created, date modified or alphabetically.

An update to News means the articles in 'For You' are now better tailored to particular interests. 

There are also new features for the iPad to help teachers use them with their students.

'iOS 9.3 includes a preview of new features that will make it even easier for schools to put devices where they'll have the greatest impact, in the hands of students,' according to the Apple website. 

iPads now support multi-user modes which automatically sync data so no one device has to be assigned to any particular student.

Users can also now extract the full resolution photo from an unwanted Live Photo, which could save space on some devices. Until now, in order to save just the still image from the photo, users had to disable the Live photo portion. With iOS 9.3, they can have both

Until now, in order to save just the still image from the photo, users had to disable the live photo portion. 

This meant they had to pick either a Live photo or a still. With iOS 9.3, they can have both.

iOS 9.3 also expands Quick Actions, pressured touches on apps, to a lot more stock apps including Weather, Compass, App Store, iTunes Store and Health as well as Settings, which now has WiFi and Bluetooth shortcuts.

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Apple releases new iPhone SE for small-screen fans

Marcio Jose Sanchez / AP

Greg Joswiak, vice president of iOS, iPad and iPhone product marketing, unveils the new iPhone SE at Apple headquarters March 21, 2016.

By: Brandon Bailey Associated Press, Published on Mon Mar 21 2016

CUPERTINO, Calif.—Apple unveiled a small new iPhone, a new iPad tablet for business use and knocked $50 (U.S.) off its Apple Watch at a product event Monday. The announcements, which were largely expected, aim to keep up the company’s commercial momentum in the face of unexpected challenges.

The company could use a lift. Sales of its flagship iPhone are levelling off after surging last year to record levels that made Apple the world’s biggest company by stock market value. Many are wondering if Cook can come up with another big hit.

And on Tuesday, Apple lawyers will square off with authorities in federal court over the FBI’s demand for help unlocking a San Bernardino killer’s encrypted iPhone. The tech giant insists the government’s plan would compromise security for all iPhone users.

While Apple’s dispute with the government has commanded headlines for weeks, it warranted only a brief mention at the product event. “We did not expect to be in this position,” CEO Tim Cook told the gathering. “But we believe we have a responsibility to protect your data and to protect your privacy.”

The new phone — the iPhone SE — is an upgrade to the older, four-inch iPhone 5S, released in 2013. It’s aimed at consumers who haven’t sprung for the bigger-screen iPhone 6 models that Apple introduced over the last two years. The new phone comes with features like Apple Pay and the company’s fastest processor, which have previously been offered only on versions of the iPhone 6.

Apple also unveiled a smaller model of the iPad Pro, which the company introduced last year with several features — like a detachable keyboard and stylus — designed for business users. The Apple Watch got a price cut, and will now start at $299 (U.S.), down from $349 (U.S.); it will also come with new wristbands made of woven nylon. Apple launched the smartwatch to great fanfare last year, although it has yet to win a big following.

The iPhone SE might not see the kind of blockbuster demand that Apple enjoyed with its large-screen iPhone 6 and 6S models, according to several financial analysts, but it could help Apple boost overall sales. It might also draw some additional users into the market for Apple’s online services, including Apple Music, Apple Pay and the highly profitable mobile App Store.

While shoppers bought a record 74.8 million iPhones in the final three months of 2015, Apple has signalled demand in the current three-month period will fall short of the 61 million iPhones sold in the January-March quarter last year.

The iPhone SE will sell for $399 (U.S.) with no cellular contract, significantly lower than larger iPhone models, which list at $549 (U.S.) or more. The smaller phone may appeal to some shoppers, especially in overseas markets, who want a premium phone at lower cost. It could also draw interest from owners of older iPhone 5 models who find the larger models unwieldy.

Analysts generally expect Apple to release a more dramatically revamped iPhone 7 in the fall.

The proliferation of iPhone and iPad models may seem contrary to Apple’s traditional focus — espoused by late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs — on producing fewer products that it believes are superior to competitors’ offerings. Its rival Samsung, by contrast, is known for selling a multitude of phones and tablets at various sizes and prices.

But Apple has gradually expanded its family of devices in recent years to reach consumers in different market categories, which also helps the company sell more online goods and services, said Gartner tech analyst Brian Blau.

“Tim Cook has said he thinks there’s a lot of life left in the iPhone product line, despite the media and investor community pressuring Apple over the potential decline in premium iPhone sales,” Blau said. “I think it’s exactly these types of things that he has in mind.

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Small is the new big as Apple announces 4-inch iPhone SE

Apple is to launch a new smaller iPhone called the iPhone SE that will also be the company’s “most affordable” model.

The technology giant said that most users’ first iPhone was often one of their older, 4-inch sized devices, and led to the creation of the SE, which is the same size as 2013′s iPhone 5s.

Greg Joswiak, vice president of iOS, announces the new iPhone SE in California (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)

Apple chief Tim Cook said: “The iPhone is the most loved smartphone in the world, and today we are welcoming a new member to the family.”
Despite its smaller size and cheaper price – beginning at $399 (£277) – the SE will come with up-to-date specifications including a 12-megapixel camera and the ability to record video in 4K – four times that of HD.

The iPhone SE looks more like the iPhone 5 than the 6 (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)

It has been suggested the move to introduce a four-inch phone for the first time since 2013 is an attempt to further break into the emerging markets in India and China.
Pre-orders for the new iPhone will begin on March 24, with the device going on sale on March 31 in the UK.

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Facebook Messenger: There's ANOTHER hidden game inside the chat app - here's how to play it

If you're not much of a chess player , then Facebook Messenger has another hidden game you can play with your mates.
This time it's a basketball-themed game no doubt inspired by the current March Madness tournament taking place in the US.
In order to play it, you'll need to make sure you've got the latest version of Facebook Messenger installed on your iPhone or Android smartphone.
All you have to do to play it is send the emoji of a basketball to your friend inside a conversation, then tap on it.

Facebook Messenger's Secret Basketball Game

A basketball and a hoop will pop up, and your challenge is get the ball through the hoop as many times as possible by flicking it with with your finger.
If you manage to sink the shot, you'll be rewarded with some happy emojis. If you lose, you'll get some sad ones instead.
You can compete with other player to get the highest number of consecutive shots on target.
And if you decide that you'd rather just go back to playing chess - then here's how to play that instead .

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ow to Play Basketball in Facebook Messenger, By David Murphy

We'll give Facebook credit; it's very creative with the Easter Eggs it packs into Facebook Messenger. If you're not really a chess fanatic, or even very good at the game, then you probably felt a bit bummed about Facebook's recent inclusion of a little chess mini-game into Messenger. Thankfully, that wasn't Facebook's first and only foray into Messenger-based mini-games.
Now, it's been revealed that Facebook has also snuck a little basketball game into its messaging app—perfectly timed for the start of all the March Madness craziness. To access it, all you have to do it send a basketball emoji to one of your friends (or a group of people you're talking to). And once you've done that, just tap the basketball to start the game.
The game isn't NBA Jam—sadly—but it is a fun little way to compete against your friends. Just flick your finger on your screen to get the ball in the hoop. That's it. Miss, and you'll get a random "way to go" emoji as a reaction to your poor shooting skills. Make the bucket, and you'll be rewarded with a happier and/or more-encouraging emoji. You'll need the encouragement, too, as the game doesn't stay easy for very long. Make more shots, and the basketball rim will start moving around. Make even more, and it'll move even faster.
Facebook hasn't commented about the mini-game, nor has it offered up any suggestion as to future mini-games it might launch within Messenger. We're also assuming that you have to have the most recent version of Messenger installed to play the game. Some of this writer's friends have reported issues getting it to work, but they also haven't updated their app recently. Do that, lest you find yourself just tapping on a tiny basketball icon for no reason.
Once you get tired of playing basketball, you can try typing "@fbchess" into your chat with a friend (no quotes) to engage them in some Messenger-based chess. Or, if you're done with gaming for the day, you could just send @dailycute back and forth, too.

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Facebook Messenger has a hidden basketball game

Just send the basketball emoji on iOS or Android.

Nick Summers , @nisummers

s

March Madness is upon us, bringing dunks and layups galore as 68 college teams vie fr the national championship. It's easy to get swept up in the hype, but if you're anything like me a trip to the court only ends in disappointment, rather than any spectacular recreation of a trick shot or buzzer beater. Instead, we recommend checking out Messenger Madness, a hidden game built into Facebook's chat app. Just send a basketball emoji to some friends and you can face off in a swipe-based shooting contest.

At first it's easy enough.

March Madness is upon us, bringing dunks and layups galore as 68 college teams vie for the national championship. It's easy to get swept up in the hype, but if you're anything like me a trip to the court only ends in disappointment, rather than any spectacular recreation of a trick shot or buzzer beater. Instead, we recommend checking out Messenger Madness, a hidden game built into Facebook's chat app. Just send a basketball emoji to some friends and you can face off in a swipe-based shooting contest.

At first it's easy enough. The ball moves after each throw, creating increasingly difficult angles for your digits to contend with. The aim is to nail consecutive baskets and build up a high score that's insurmountable for your Facebook friends. The problem is that the basket moves from side to side once your score breaches 10, making perfect shots nigh on impossible. But what would be the fun without a little challenge?

March Madness is upon us, bringing dunks and layups galore as 68 college teams vie for the national championship. It's easy to get swept up in the hype, but if you're anything like me a trip to the court only ends in disappointment, rather than any spectacular recreation of a trick shot or buzzer beater. Instead, we recommend checking out Messenger Madness, a hidden game built into Facebook's chat app. Just send a basketball emoji to some friends and you can face off in a swipe-based shooting contest.

At first it's easy enough. The ball moves after each throw, creating increasingly difficult angles for your digits to contend with. The aim is to nail consecutive baskets and build up a high score that's insurmountable for your Facebook friends. The problem is that the basket moves from side to side once your score breaches 10, making perfect shots nigh on impossible. But what would be the fun without a little challenge?

The ball moves after each throw, creating increasingly difficult angles for your digits to contend with. The aim is to nail consecutive baskets and build up a high score that's insurmountable for your Facebook friends. The problem is that the basket moves from side to side once your score breaches 10, making perfect shots nigh on impossible. But what would be the fun without a little challenge?

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