Google

Google takes on Apple’s “blunt”, “ineffective” privacy approach

Written by

Anthony Chavez, VP, Product Management, Android Security & Privacy at Google:

Currently over 90% of the apps on Google Play are free, providing access to valuable content and services to billions of users. Digital advertising plays a key role in making this possible. But in order to ensure a healthy app ecosystem — benefiting users, developers and businesses — the industry must continue to evolve how digital advertising works to improve user privacy.

Can’t help but be reminded of the quote, “If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.”

The quote is often attributed to Steve Jobs, but I believe the original lies here.

Today, we’re announcing a multi-year initiative to build the Privacy Sandbox on Android, with the goal of introducing new, more private advertising solutions. Specifically, these solutions will limit sharing of user data with third parties and operate without cross-app identifiers, including advertising ID. We’re also exploring technologies that reduce the potential for covert data collection, including safer ways for apps to integrate with advertising SDKs.

From the section titled, “Blunt approaches are proving ineffective”:

We realize that other platforms have taken a different approach to ads privacy, bluntly restricting existing technologies used by developers and advertisers. We believe that — without first providing a privacy-preserving alternative path — such approaches can be ineffective and lead to worse outcomes for user privacy and developer businesses.

Seems pretty clear that Chavez is referring to Apple here. Blunt? Yes. Ineffective? Hardly. Just ask Facebook.

Google’s “ineffective” claim comes from this study, with the title “Effectiveness of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency”. Feel free to read it, but you might first click through to the company page, where they hawk a pair of privacy products of their own: Firewall and Secure Tunnel VPN. Free and open source, but with some in-app purchases:

  • One Month of Lockdown VPN — $8.99
  • One Year of Lockdown VPN — $59.99
  • One Month of Lockdown VPN Pro — $11.99
  • One Year of Lockdown VPN Pro — $99.99

Not judging the products (I haven’t used them), but feels a little disingenuous for Google to base their “ineffective” claim on a study so closely tied to an app designed to capitalize on that claimed ineffectiveness.

While we design, build and test these new solutions, we plan to support existing ads platform features for at least two years, and we intend to provide substantial notice ahead of any future changes.

So no privacy for at least two years. Got it.

Facebook loses users for the first time in its history

Written by

Washington Post, on yesterday’s quarterly Meta/Facebook earnings report:

Facebook lost daily users for the first time in its 18-year history — falling by about half a million users in the last three months of 2021, to 1.93 billion logging in each day. The loss was greatest in Africa and Latin America, suggesting that the company’s product is saturated globally — and that its long quest to add as many users as possible has peaked.

And:

Facebook Reality Labs, the company’s hardware division that builds the Oculus Quest headset, lost $3.3 billion in the quarter, despite bringing in $877 million in revenue.

And:

Meta’s stock price plummeted more than 20 percent in after-hours trading following the news.

And from CNBC:

Facebook parent Meta said on Wednesday that the privacy change Apple made to its iOS operating system last year will decrease the social media company’s sales this year by about $10 billion.

“We believe the impact of iOS overall is a headwind on our business in 2022,” Meta CFO Dave Wehner said on a call with analysts after the company’s fourth-quarter earnings report. “It’s on the order of $10 billion, so it’s a pretty significant headwind for our business.”

Interestingly, Google/Alphabet are not having the same issue:

A day before Facebook’s results, Alphabet blew past estimates with its fourth-quarter numbers, and cited strength in e-commerce ads, an area where Facebook saw weakness.

Wehner suggested that Apple’s changes aren’t having the same impact on search as they are on other types of apps. He referenced how much money Google makes for Apple as the default search engine on the Safari browser.

“Given that Apple continues to take billions of dollars a year from Google Search, the incentive clearly is for this policy discrepancy to continue,” Wehner said.

Lots of fingerprinting and political posturing here.

Google Analytics declared illegal in the EU

Written by

Tutanota (via Hacker News):

Max Schrems, the lawyer who successfully sued Facebook for privacy violations against European citizens, has scored another victory, this time against Google: In a landmark court ruling, Austria’s data protection authority has found that Google Analytics is illegal to use on European websites.

As to how this came about:

On August 14, 2020, a Google user had accessed an Austrian website about health issues. This website used Google Analytics, and data about the user was transmitted to Google. Based on this data, Google was able to deduce who he or she was.

On August 18, 2020, the Google user complained to the Austrian data protection authority with the help of the data protection organization NOYB.

And:

Google is “subject to surveillance by US intelligence services and can be ordered to disclose data of European citizens to them”. Therefore, the data of European citizens may not be transferred across the Atlantic.

Lots of changes happening around the world, both for and to the detriment of privacy.

Google Maps adds “busyness”, other features

Written by

Google Maps blog:

Whether you’re heading to your hometown or exploring a new city, you can use Area Busyness, a new feature that combines live busyness trends to help you instantly spot when a neighborhood or part of town is near or at its busiest.

And:

Want more info? Tap on a neighborhood to see how busy it is at different times of day, along with the restaurants, shops and recreational places (like a museum) within it, so you can decide if you want to visit.

And for malls, airports, train stations, etc.:

To help you find your way around large buildings fast, we’re expanding the Directory tab globally on Android and iOS for all airports, malls and transit stations around the world. Now, when we have this data available, you can quickly see what types of stores are in a building (like toy stores or jewelry boutiques), airport lounges, car rentals, parking lots and more. And within each category, you can see a list of the relevant businesses, in addition to helpful information about whether it’s open, its rating and what floor it’s on.

And “pickup with Google Maps”:

Once you place your order from the retailer, pickup with Google Maps lets you track your order status, share your ETA and let the store know you’ve arrived, all from the app.

And:

As of today, it’s now available in over 2,000 store locations in more than 30 states across the U.S. People who use pickup with Google Maps typically wait less than five minutes for their groceries, meaning you can grab exactly what you need and get right back to your day.

This all feels like a challenge for Apple Maps, especially the funneling of store order pickup relationships to Google Maps.

Analyst: Google’s “default search engine” FY21 payments to Apple might reach $15B

Written by

Philip Elmer-DeWitt, quoting an analyst note:

We now estimate that Google’s payments to AAPL to be the default search engine on iOS were ~$10B in FY 20.

And:

We now forecast that Google’s payments to Apple might be nearly $15B in FY 21.

And this, full of juicy tidbits:

We see two potential risks to GOOG’s payments to AAPL: (1) regulatory risk, which we believe is real, but likely years away; we see a potential 4-5% impact to Apple’s gross profits from an adverse ruling; & (2) that Google chooses to stop paying Apple to be the default search engine altogether, or looks to renegotiate terms and pay less. We have noted in prior research that GOOG is likely paying to ensure Microsoft doesn’t outbid it. That said, with payments likely to approach $18 – $20B in FY 22, it not implausible that Google could revisit its strategy.

Imagine Microsoft becoming the default Apple search engine. That would be an odd experience. And might antitrust regulators have some say in this? I’d imagine there’d be a lot of lobbying on all sides if that issue heated up.

Google Maps adds Home Screen iPhone widget

Written by

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

There are two separate widget options. The first allows users to check traffic conditions, store opening times, restaurant reviews, and more for a given location, while the second is designed to let users find places that are nearby like restaurants, gas stations, and grocery stores.

And:

The Google Maps widget can be accessed using the “+” button either in the Today View or on the ‌Home Screen‌ after downloading the latest version of the app.

If you are not finding the Google Maps Widget, make sure you have the latest version of Google Maps (follow this link, tap Update), then, in the Home Screen, long press to enter wiggle mode, then tap the “+” in the upper left corner. The Google Maps widget should show up there.

A look inside Google’s first store, opening in NYC’s Chelsea neighborhood today

Written by

Brian Heater, TechCrunch:

There have been plenty of pop-ups over the years, but tomorrow Google’s first store opens in NYC’s Chelsea neighborhood. The brick and mortar model finds the company joining peers like Apple, Microsoft, Samsung and even Amazon, all of whom have a retail presence in Manhattan, including several just around the corner from Google’s new digs.

The new space, which opens tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. local time, fills 5,000 square feet of selling space in Google’s big, pricey West Side real estate investment. The retail location was previously occupied by a Post Office and Starbucks, which vacated the premises once their leases expired under their new corporate landlord.

The new space opened at 10a ET this morning. It’s a block from the Apple Store. 5,000 square feet of prime Chelsea real estate.

Watch the video below for a teaser from Google. Follow the headline link, scroll down for a photo gallery. Definitely going to check this place out.

Unlimited Google Photos storage ended today. Some export to iCloud options

Written by

Michael Potuck, 9to5Mac:

After launching in 2015 with free unlimited storage and marketing the service around that key feature, Google Photos has become a popular option even for Apple users. However, that’s changing as the company announced last fall that the free unlimited storage is ending on June 1.

That’s today.

Instead of free unlimited storage, a 15GB limit will apply to photos and videos added from June 1, 2021. So your content that’s been previously added will remain safe. However, this will probably make some Apple users reconsider their photo strategy and take a look at the Apple One bundles.

Read the post for specifics on porting over to iCloud, if the math works in your favor. And if you are an Amazon Prime member, take a look at the last unlimited plan standing, Amazon Photos.

Google LaMDA, Siri, and conversation

Written by

Google AI blog:

While conversations tend to revolve around specific topics, their open-ended nature means they can start in one place and end up somewhere completely different. A chat with a friend about a TV show could evolve into a discussion about the country where the show was filmed before settling on a debate about that country’s best regional cuisine.

That meandering quality can quickly stump modern conversational agents (commonly known as chatbots), which tend to follow narrow, pre-defined paths. But LaMDA — short for “Language Model for Dialogue Applications” — can engage in a free-flowing way about a seemingly endless number of topics, an ability we think could unlock more natural ways of interacting with technology and entirely new categories of helpful applications.

LaMDA was shown off in the Google I/O keynote, embedded below (it’s the second video). The discussion starts at about 17:03 in. Obviously, this is a demo, and not a shipping product. It’s interesting to me how free Google is in showing off internal technologies, contrasted with Apple’s focus on products that are for sale or coming soon. Of course, there are exceptions on both sides, but the trend is clear.

LaMDA is a tantalizing demo, showing off a technology that is so very close to Apple’s original Knowledge Navigator personal assistant concept, first shown off back in 1987. If you’ve not seen it, check it out below (it’s the first video).

The differences between Knowledge Navigator, the LaMDA demo, and Siri are stark. Of course, Siri is a shipping product, and has both limited context (once you move on, the stuff you asked about is forgotten) and a limited domain set (Siri knows about a limited set of things. If Siri doesn’t have the topic built-in, it defaults to a web search, or an “I can’t help you” response).

LaMDA, on the other hand, is a highly controlled demo, used internally, an R&D project. Again, not a shipping product.

But, that said, both Knowledge Navigator and LaMDA really make me want much more from Siri. I want more sophisticated language, more context, more understanding. Something more human, more beyond-the-moment interaction. I’d like a little more conversation.

In this one instance, I’d love to see what experiments the Siri team is working on, get a little taste of where Siri is headed.

Man creates ‘traffic jam’ on Google Maps using kart full of mobile phones

Written by

Unilad:

The experiment, which was filmed in Berlin, shows a man dragging 99 mobile phones across an empty bridge, alongside a real-time screen recording of Google Maps’ traffic feature.

Like magic, as the phones make their way across the bridge, the map gradually updates to show an orange, then a red line extending along the road. Within seconds, Google Maps has created a major jam in an otherwise traffic-free neighbourhood.

I’m amazed this sort of hack hasn’t happened more often. This sort of crowdsourcing is ripe for disruption.

Also, I’m wondering if the same sort of thing could be done to Apple Maps.

Here’s the video:

Google TV vs Apple TV

Written by

Steven Aquino, Forbes:

Until a few weeks ago, the Apple TV 4K had not seen an update since the device was introduced in September 2017. The software it runs, tvOS, obviously has been updated in the time since, but the additions have more iterative than transformative.

And:

As tvOS is build atop an iOS foundation, Apple has adroitly ported a plethora of familiar accessibility features from its mobile software to the living room. For a disabled person who is willing (and able) to pay the Apple TV’s premium price, the investment pays off in spades if one of the reasons for choosing the high-end streamer is gaining access to its best-of-breed assistive technologies.

As far as price is concerned, Google TV wins hands down, with Chromecast priced at $50 and the new Apple TV 4K starting at $179.

Back to Steven:

While it is true tvOS is highly accessible—particularly for reducing cognitive load thanks to its strong family resemblance to iOS—the icon-driven interface still can be problematic. The issue is finding what to watch. For the most part, users have to jump from app to app to app to find content; this can be troublesome if you have a cognitive delay of some sort and can’t easily remember that The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is on Prime Video or that Dickinson is an Apple TV+ property. Apple’s TV app tries to consolidate everything into one place—there’s a reason the TV app is positioned on the “top shelf” by default—but it’s nonetheless still an app. Netflix, for example, infamously refuses to support the TV app; to watch it, you must find the bespoke app.

There’s the rub. If the goal of all the players (Netflix, Amazon, Apple, HBO Max, Paramount+, Peacock, etc.) was to maximize the user experience, every app would operate the same way and would share all info with Apple so there could be one app to rule them all.

Apple has done the best they can here, but if Netflix doesn’t support the TV app, not much Apple can do.

Google TV takes the inverse approach. There are still apps that you can launch, but they’re secondary. Again, Google’s premise is it is better to suggest content to you as opposed to forcing you to seek it out. Granted, the Google TV UI is busier and not as polished as tvOS, but a legitimate argument can be made that it is more accessible. To wit, instead of trying to remember where a show is, Google does it for you. To continue watching something on Netflix is just a few clicks away on the For You screen.

Read on. Great piece from Steven (IMO, he’s the bright shining light at Forbes), exploring accessibility on both platforms, but usability as well, pros and cons on both sides.

Apple, Amazon, and Google back alliance to certify smart home devices that work together

Written by

Stephen Shankland, CNET:

An industry alliance sponsored by Apple, Google, Amazon and other tech companies will begin certifying smart home devices later this year, a potentially important step toward making the technology easier to develop and use and therefore more widely accepted.

Matter, the name of the alliance, will let smart devices, such as lightbulbs you turn on with Amazon Alexa or a video doorbell you monitor with Google Home, use its logo on their packaging.

And:

Getting all of these devices to get along — especially with Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri and Google Assistant competing to be your preferred interface — can be difficult. Matter is designed to unify the network domain, ensuring devices will work with any of those three main voice control systems. It should work even if you use more than one control system.

This has potential to unify the various standards, or at least raise the likelihood that a smart home device you buy will work with multiple standards from multiple manufacturers.

Here’s a link to Matter’s home page.

Google Maps raises the bar

Written by

Google Maps blog:

Sixteen years ago, many of us held a printout of directions in one hand and the steering wheel in the other to get around— without information about the traffic along your route or details about when your favorite restaurant was open.

Jarring to watch a movie or TV show where a character peers at a paper map or, for a brief slice of time, makes their way through a list of MapQuest turn-by-turn directions.

This year, we’re on track to bring over 100 AI-powered improvements to Google Maps so you can get the most accurate, up-to-date information about the world, exactly when you need it. Here’s a snapshot of how we’re using AI to make Maps work better for you with a number of updates coming this year.

A notable feature here is Live View, to make it much easier to navigate indoors, say, in a mall:

We all know that awkward moment when you’re walking in the opposite direction of where you want to go — Live View uses AR cues to avoid just that. Live View is powered by a technology called global localization, which uses AI to scan tens of billions of Street View images to understand your orientation. Thanks to new advancements that help us understand the precise altitude and placement of objects inside a building, we’re now able to bring Live View to some of the trickiest-to-navigate places indoors: airports, transit stations and malls.

Check out that first animated image to get a sense of this.

Read the whole post. Google Maps is raising the bar.

Google to stop selling ads based on your specific web browsing

Written by

Wall Street Journal:

Google plans to stop selling ads based on individuals’ browsing across multiple websites, a change that could hasten upheaval in the digital advertising industry.

The Alphabet Inc. company said Wednesday that it plans next year to stop using or investing in tracking technologies that uniquely identify web users as they move from site to site across the internet.

The decision, coming from the world’s biggest digital advertising company, could help push the industry away from the use of such individualized tracking, which has come under increasing criticism from privacy advocates and faces scrutiny from regulators.

So much to unpack here. Start with the obvious: This is a good thing.

Google accounted for 52% of last year’s global digital ad spending of $292 billion, according to Jounce Media, a digital ad consultancy.

That 52% is a massive number. Imagine the impact on journalism if you could remove Google and Facebook from the advertising equation. Advertising dollars wouldn’t go away, they would flow to many more places. And journalism would flourish.

“If digital advertising doesn’t evolve to address the growing concerns people have about their privacy and how their personal identity is being used, we risk the future of the free and open web,” David Temkin, the Google product manager leading the change, said in a blog post Wednesday.

Um. Not sure Google is leading the privacy charge there. Just a guess, but Apple’s move to ensure transparency might have something to do with this.

Still, glad to see this. Question is, is this very public move by Google because they have found another path to make sure their ownership of the ad space is secure?

Apple TV+ is now available on Google TV

Written by

Google blog:

Starting today, the Apple TV app, including Apple TV+, is now globally available on the new Chromecast with Google TV, with more Google TV devices to come.

And:

With Google TV in the U.S., you can browse Apple Originals in your personalized recommendations and search results. And with Google Assistant, you can also use your voice to ask Google to open the Apple TV app or play an Apple Original title. If you aren’t ready to watch right away, you can add Apple Originals to your Watchlist for later. These features will roll out globally in the coming months.

This does raise the question: Is there still a reason to buy an Apple TV?

One clear reason, for me, is trust. Do you care what Google does with your tv viewing habits? Do you trust them with your access credentials? If trust is not an issue for you, take a read of this Twitter thread from Steven Aquino, one of the first takes I’ve seen on the move from tvOS to Apple TV on ChromeCast.

I’m definitely going to give this a try.

Behind a secret deal between Google and Facebook

Written by

New York Times:

Facebook was going to compete with Google for some advertising sales but backed away from the plan after the companies cut a preferential deal, according to court documents.

And:

Facebook never said why it pulled back from its project, but evidence presented in an antitrust lawsuit filed by 10 state attorneys general last month indicates that Google had extended to Facebook, its closest rival for digital advertising dollars, a sweetheart deal to be a partner.

And:

The agreement between Facebook and Google, code-named “Jedi Blue” inside Google, pertains to a growing segment of the online advertising market called programmatic advertising.

And:

In the milliseconds between a user clicking on a link to a web page and the page’s ads loading, bids for available ad space are placed behind the scenes in marketplaces known as exchanges, with the winning bid passed to an ad server.

And:

A method called header bidding emerged, in part as a workaround to reduce reliance on Google’s ad platforms. News outlets and other sites could solicit bids from multiple exchanges at once, helping to increase competition and leading to better prices for publishers. By 2016, more than 70 percent of publishers had adopted the technology, according to one estimate.

Seeing a potentially significant loss of business to header bidding, Google developed an alternative called Open Bidding, which supported an alliance of exchanges. While Open Bidding allows other exchanges to simultaneously compete alongside Google, the search company extracts a fee for every winning bid, and competitors say there is less transparency for publishers.

This whole piece is riveting, and highlights the utter lack of transparency in the advertising market. Google called Facebook’s potential adoption of header bidding an “existential threat”. Sound familiar? That’s the same term Facebook used when referring to Apple’s push for transparency in ad tracking. Tiny sympathy violins here.

Google workers announce plans to unionize

Written by

Zoe Schiffer, The Verge:

A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize with the Communications Workers of America (CWA). The Alphabet Workers Union will be open to all employees and contractors at Google’s parent company. Its goal will be to tackle ongoing issues like pay disparity, retaliation, and controversial government contracts.

And:

Arranged as a members-only union, the new organization won’t seek collective bargaining rights to negotiate a new contract with the company. Instead, the Alphabet Workers Union will only represent employees who voluntarily join. That structure will also allow it to represent all employees who seek to participate — including temps, vendors, and contractors (known internally as TVCs) who would be excluded by labor law from conventional collective bargaining.

This seems a pretty big deal. Google’s response:

“We’ve always worked hard to create a supportive and rewarding workplace for our workforce. Of course our employees have protected labor rights that we support. But as we’ve always done, we’ll continue engaging directly with all our employees.”

Which contrasts with this:

The news comes one month after the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint alleging Google illegally fired two workers who were organizing employee protests. The employees, Laurence Berland and Kathryn Spiers, were organizing against the company’s decision to work with IRI Consultants, a firm famous for its anti-union efforts.

It also follows the firing of prominent AI ethicist Timnit Gebru in December. In a press release announcing the union, the Alphabet Workers Union wrote: “The firing has caused outrage from thousands of us, including Black and Brown workers who are heartbroken by the company’s actions and unsure of their future at Google.”

Here’s the Alphabet Workers Union announcement.

Drag yourself out some four voice harmony. Fun.

Written by

Google Experiments:

Create your own opera inspired song with Blob Opera – no music skills required ! A machine learning experiment by David Li in collaboration with Google Arts & Culture

Follow the headline link, tap the Launch experiment button. Click and drag to create some operatic harmony.

Sound will play, so consider this before you start.

Google: Apple Music is now available on the new Nest Audio

Written by

Google Blog:

Starting today, Apple Music is rolling out to Google Assistant-enabled devices like Nest Audio, Nest Hub Max, Nest Mini, and more. Apple Music subscribers can search and play songs (more than 70 million!), albums and playlists—all ad-free—just by using their voice.

To play music from Apple Music, first link your Apple Music account in the Google Home app. You can also select Apple Music as your default music streaming service. Then, all you have to do is say, “Hey Google, play New Music Daily playlist,” or “Hey Google, play Rap Life playlist.”

Interesting break in the ecosystem on both sides. Google has opened the door to Apple Music being the main music service, and Apple has allowed Google to be the music hardware provider and Siri replacement.

Available now in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and Japan.

Google Photos will end its free unlimited storage on June 1st, 2021

Written by

Dieter Bohn, The Verge:

After five years of offering unlimited free photo backups at “high quality,” Google Photos will start charging for storage once more than 15 gigs on the account have been used. The change will happen on June 1st, 2021, and it comes with other Google Drive policy changes like counting Google Workspace documents and spreadsheets against the same cap. Google is also introducing a new policy of deleting data from inactive accounts that haven’t been logged in to for at least two years.

And:

Google already counts “original quality” photo uploads against a storage cap in Google Photos. However, taking away unlimited backup for “high quality” photos and video (which are automatically compressed for more efficient storage) also takes away one of the service’s biggest selling points. It was the photo service where you just didn’t have to worry about how much storage you had.

This is certainly a major change to Google’s longstanding policy, but it does give you plenty of time to move your photos to other options if you don’t want to pony up for a monthly payment.

Apple only offers 5GB free before you start paying. Though Apple’s policy has never gone from offering free storage to charging you for same.

Financial Times: Apple search engine efforts ‘stepping up’ as Google deal under threat

Written by

Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac:

Google currently pays Apple an estimated $8-12 billion per year to be the default search engine on iOS devices. In 2018, for example, the sum was estimated at a little under $10 billion – around 20% of the company’s Services income for the year. However, antitrust regulators are now putting this deal in the spotlight, and arguing that it may be anticompetitive.

And:

A report in the Financial Times claims that Apple is now ‘stepping up’ efforts to create its own search engine as its lucrative deal with Google comes under threat

Ben takes the Financial Times report apart, brick-by-brick. The FT report could be correct but, as Ben points out, it’s unlikely that Apple would build a search engine that generated any sort of revenue:

The single biggest argument against Apple creating a search engine is the company’s strong privacy stance, and its less-than-flattering commentary on ad-funded services like Google.

Interesting read.

Google’s parallel path to Apple Watch

Written by

[VIDEO] Google blog:

The heart of Jacquard is the Jacquard Tag, a tiny computer built to make everyday items more helpful. We first used this on the sleeve of a jacket so that it could recognize the gestures of the person wearing it, and we built that same technology into the Cit-E backpack with Saint Laurent. Then, we collaborated with Adidas and EA on our GMR shoe insert, enabling its wearers to combine real-life play with the EA SPORTS FIFA mobile game.

Project Jacquard was announced back in 2015, and Google has touted it as a smart controller you can wear to control various devices.

I can’t help but see a parallel to Apple Watch. Apple pushed their remote control capabilities into the Apple Watch (think answering the phone, controlling music/podcasts, curating notifications, etc.), Google is going in a different direction, splintering the control into a sprinkling of Jacquard Tag embeds.

The newest of these is the just announced Konnect-I Backpack series:

Whether it’s touch or movement-based, the tag can interpret different inputs customized for the garments and gear we’ve collaborated with brands to create. And now we’re sharing that two new backpacks, developed with Samsonite, will integrate Jacquard technology. A fine addition to our collection, the Konnect-I Backpack comes in two styles: Slim ($199) and Standard ($219).

While they might look like regular backpacks, the left strap unlocks tons of capabilities. Using your Jacquard app, you can customize what gestures control which actions—for instance, you can program Jacquard to deliver call and text notifications, trigger a selfie, control your music or prompt Google Assistant to share the latest news. For an added level of interaction, the LED light on your left strap will light up according to the alerts you’ve set.

Will we see a similar device (the rumored AirTags) from Apple? If so, will AirTags parallel the Jacquard tag in functionality?

While you think about all this, here’s a commercial (video embedded in main Loop post) for the new Konnect-I backpack. So very odd.

A tip from a kid helps detect iOS and Android scam apps’ 2.4 million downloads

Written by

Dan Goodin, ArsTechnica:

Researchers said that a tip from a child led them to discover aggressive adware and exorbitant prices lurking in iOS and Android smartphone apps with a combined 2.4 million downloads from the App Store and Google Play.

And:

To prevent users from uninstalling them, the apps hid their icon, making it hard to identify where the ads were coming from.

Hmm. I wonder how an iOS app gets away with that. This purely the Android versions?

The apps came to light after a girl found a profile on TikTok that was promoting what appeared to be an abusive app and reported it to Be Safe Online, a project in the Czech Republic that educates children about online safety. Acting on the tip, researchers from security firm Avast found 11 apps, for devices running both iOS and Android, that were engaged in similar scams.

And:

A Google spokesman said the company has removed the apps, and Web searches appeared to confirm this. Several of the apps for iOS appeared to still be available in the App Store as this post was being prepared.

Definitely a hole in iOS App Store oversight.

From Avast press release:

The iOS and Android apps appear to be developed by the same person or group. The links promoted on the social media profiles lead to the iOS or Android versions of the apps, depending on the device the link is being accessed from.

Seems like once they got one of these apps, they should ban all the rest from the same developer.

Google Maps for Apple Watch is now available on the App Store

Written by

Abner Li, 9to5Google:

On the Apple Watch, Google Maps is focused on providing step-by-step directions, as well as estimated arrival times. The app’s primary screen shows your “Current trip,” while there’s a list of “Travel times” below. This includes Home, Work, and any other saved shortcuts/destinations.

To get the Google Maps app on your Apple Watch, just make sure you’ve got the latest update installed to the iPhone version of Google Maps. The Apple Watch app should just appear automagically.

One thing that’s kept me from using Google Maps when I’m driving, especially driving alone, is the lack of turn-by-turn on my wrist. Curious if the Google Maps app can take advantage of haptics and tap me to turn right or left as I approach the intersection, as my Apple Maps app does.

Gonna take this for a spin.

Google sends “open letter” to Australians, Australia responds

Written by

Google, in their Open letter to Australians:

We need to let you know about new Government regulation that will hurt how Australians use Google Search and YouTube.

A proposed law, the News Media Bargaining Code, would force us to provide you with a dramatically worse Google Search and YouTube, could lead to your data being handed over to big news businesses, and would put the free services you use at risk in Australia.

There is so much to read into these words. There’s a feeling of worry, of being under threat. There’s the sense that Google is warning us, a sense of alarm. And there’s the irony of one of the biggest companies on the planet alerting us about losing our data to “big news businesses”.

Read the piece, draw your own conclusions. But do read about Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code.

From the announcement:

The Government has instructed the ACCC to develop a mandatory code to address commercial arrangements between digital platforms and news media businesses. Among the elements the code will cover include the sharing of data, ranking and display of news content and the monetisation and the sharing of revenue generated from news.

The mandatory code will also establish appropriate enforcement, penalty and binding dispute resolution mechanisms.

The way I read this, the News Media Bargaining Code is trying to shift control of the news back into the hands of the publishers and creators. Is this a good thing? Will this hurt Google and other aggregators? Will this help push money back into journalism? That last bit is what I am hoping for.

This morning, the ACCC (creators of the News Media Bargaining Code) responded to Google’s open letter:

Google will not be required to charge Australians for the use of its free services such as Google Search and YouTube, unless it chooses to do so.

Google will not be required to share any additional user data with Australian news businesses unless it chooses to do so.

The draft code will allow Australian news businesses to negotiate for fair payment for their journalists’ work that is included on Google services.

This will address a significant bargaining power imbalance between Australian news media businesses and Google and Facebook.

A healthy news media sector is essential to a well-functioning democracy.

This is important stuff.

Apple News+ in iOS 14 opens article web links in Apple News, intercepting traffic from websites

Written by

Juli Clover, in this MacRumors article:

Apple News in iOS 14 and macOS Big Sur has a toggle that’s designed to open web links from ‌Apple News‌+ publishers directly in ‌Apple News‌, which has the effect of directing users who tap to read a news story in Safari to the ‌Apple News‌ app instead of to the publisher’s website.

And:

Many ‌Apple News‌+ users have been asking for a way to open up web links in ‌Apple News‌+ to avoid paywalls on the web, so ‌Apple News‌+ subscribers that pay for the service are likely to be appreciative of the new feature.

Obviously, iOS 14 is still in beta, so there’s a chance that Apple will change this behavior, or at least turn the toggle off by default, before the official public release.

I’d love to see Apple News+ make it much easier to recover the original link to an article. I can get there by digging through the share panel, but it is certainly not obvious. And Google makes this just as difficult, often offering up a link to a link that takes you to Google’s servers.

This gatekeeping behavior is not helping solve the ” news decline” problem. It’s not helping get publishers paid, and that’s not good for reporters/writers.

iOS 14’s best privacy feature? Catching data-grabbing apps

Written by

Alex Lee, Wired:

Last week, Instagram became the latest app to be called out by iOS 14’s privacy notifications feature after users began noticing that the green light indicator—which alerts users that the camera has been activated—kept turning on—even when the camera was not in use. Addressing the behavior, Instagram said that the activation of the camera was just a bug and that it was being triggered by a user swiping into the camera from the Instagram feed.

You’ve no doubt seen a steady stream of privacy-related “outings” as apps are called out for their inappropriate snooping, all revealed by iOS 14.

But this was an interesting perspective:

It’s wise to remember that most permissions abuse happens on Google’s Android operating system. Last year, researchers from the International Computer Science Institute found that up to 1,325 Android apps were gathering data, despite the researchers’ apps denying them permission to access that data. But whether Google decides to implement privacy notifications, however, is a different story.

And:

Maximilian Golla, a security researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy says that the business model on Android is different from iOS. “I wonder whether the app developers really want to change this, or Google really wants to implement such a feature, because they depend on this kind of tracking,” he thinks. “Google makes its money from Google AdSense, and I would be surprised if Google implements such a tracking notification.”

It would definitely be interesting to see Google copy this behavior from Apple. Both from a business perspective (not really in their interests to do so) and to see what it would reveal about snooping behavior of its apps.

Google has already discontinued the Pixel 4 and 4 XL

Written by

The Verge:

Google has discontinued the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL, its flagship phones that were released in October of last year. Both devices are out of stock in Google’s store in the US, though some variants are still available in other regions for the time being.

And, from Google:

“Google Store has sold through its inventory and completed sales of Pixel 4 [and] 4 XL,” a Google spokesperson confirms to The Verge. “For people who are still interested in buying Pixel 4 [and] 4 XL, the product is available from some partners while supplies last. Just like all Pixel devices, Pixel 4 will continue to get software and security updates for at least three years from when the device first became available on the Google Store in the US.”

When I first read this, I was shocked. But this seems to be the industry trend now, as advances in supply chain management and just in time inventory makes it easy to shift sales to the newest models only.

Take a look at the Apple Store iPhone page. The only models listed are the iPhones 11, the SE, and the “ancient” iPhone XR. New normal?

Google One app now lets you backup your iPhone, store photos on Google’s servers

Written by

Google blog:

Last year, we launched automatic phone backup for members on Android devices. So no matter what happens to your phone, you won’t lose the important stuff like texts, contacts and apps, and photos and videos. To bring this peace of mind to more people, we’re making some Google One features—phone backup and a new storage manager tool—free for Google users wherever Google One is available. You can back up your devices and clean up your files across Google Photos, Google Drive, and Gmail—all in the new Google One app for Android and iOS.

Two things leap out at me:

First, this feels like a push to expand Google’s pay-for-storage business. You get 15Gb for free, but once you buy into the model, you’ll inevitably want more storage, which means more money flowing to Google, less to Apple.

Second, what are the privacy rules here? I’ve not found specifics yet, but before you go down this road, be sure to read the EULA and know if Google has the rights to data mine your data, or use your photos in any way.

If the storage pricing is better, and if there’s no privacy concerns on your end, this might be a net positive, apply pressure on Apple to lower their storage prices.