Google

Google: Note to employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

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Sundar Pichai, responding to the memo that went viral this past week:

First, let me say that we strongly support the right of Googlers to express themselves, and much of what was in that memo is fair to debate, regardless of whether a vast majority of Googlers disagree with it. However, portions of the memo violate our Code of Conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace. Our job is to build great products for users that make a difference in their lives. To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK. It is contrary to our basic values and our Code of Conduct, which expects “each Googler to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination.”

Follow the link to read the whole thing.

Jean-Louis Gassée: Who killed Windows Phone

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Jean-Louis Gassée, Monday Note:

Just back from three weeks in the Country of Good Sin’s heartland, I see Microsoft’s fresh and well-received Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2017 Results. The numbers acknowledge what was already notorious: Windows Phone is dead.

Country of Good Sin? That’s France, though I’d love to know the origin of that particular nickname. Hopefully, some kind reader will enlighten me.

UPDATE: From Jean-Louis:

https://twitter.com/gassee/status/889852346049601536

Moving on:

The gross failure of what once was the most powerful and richest tech company on the planet led to a search for a platform killer. Detectives didn’t think they had to go far to nab a suspect: Android. Microsoft’s Windows Phone was murdered by Google’s smartphone OS. How could Redmond’s money-making software licensing business model survive against a free and open source platform? Case closed.

No so fast.

And:

Microsoft’s smartphone troubles started well before the birth of Android. In a reversal of the famous dictum Victory Has Many Fathers But Defeat Is An Orphan, Windows Phone’s collapse seems to have had many progenitors deeply embedded in the company’s decades-old culture.

This is a great read. Jean-Louis engages in some interesting fiction, speculating on what would happen if Microsoft were to give away Windows Phone, à la Android. Still possible!

Siri creator, now with Samsung, on the future of AI assistants

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Arjun Kharpal, CNBC:

Adam Cheyer was one of the people behind Siri which was acquired by Apple in 2010. Since then, Cheyer has created a next generation voice assistant called Viv which was acquired by Samsung in 2016. Viv is [now] a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung with the South Korean titan looking to integrate the technology into future products.

Watch the video embedded at the top of the article. Interesting to hear Cheyer’s point of view. Interesting that he specifically leaves out Google in his list of companies competing in this space.

Android vs. iOS: Are iPhones really safer?

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The article leads off with this:

In a new Apple ad, a thief breaks into “your phone” but struggles to get into an iPhone. Here’s how it plays out in the real world.

I was all set to read about how the ad was wrong, that Android phones were actually just as safe. But:

There are several reasons why iPhones are more secure than the various phones running Android software, according to Mike Johnson, who runs the security technologies graduate program at the University of Minnesota.

Side note: That’s no small-time opinion. The University of Minnesota has one of the best computer science programs in the US.

Moving on:

The old rule about PC viruses seems to be holding true with mobile phones, as well. Android phones make up more than 80% of the global smartphone market, and hackers are more likely to succeed if they write programs for these devices, just because of sheer numbers.

The Windows vs Mac logic. Certainly true.

Plus, he says, the process of “patching” security holes is easier on iOS devices. Apple’s iOS operating system only runs on iPhones, while Alphabet’s Android software runs on phones made by numerous manufacturers. It’s more complicated to deliver patches, or bug fixes, that work across so many device makers and carriers. Android can release a patch, but it won’t necessarily be available on all devices right away.

“Fragmentation is the enemy of security,” Johnson says.

And:

Last year, Wired magazine reported that one security firm was offering up to $1.5 million for the most serious iOS exploits and up to $200,000 for an Android one, a sign that iOS vulnerabilities are rarer.

Add to that Apple’s underlying review process, designed to restrict the use of private APIs, controlling techniques that could end-around Apple’s security processes. Not perfect, but world’s better than the more wild-west Android ecosystem.

What do 50 million drawings look like?

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Google:

Over 15 million players have contributed millions of drawings playing Quick, Draw! These doodles are a unique data set that can help developers train new neural networks, help researchers see patterns in how people around the world draw, and help artists create things we haven’t begun to think of. That’s why we’re open-sourcing them, for anyone to play with.

Load the Quick, Draw! data page and click on a drawing to see a ton of sketches of that same subject. The data underlying Google’s Quick, Draw! game is fascinating and it is now open sourced.

Apple is shoring up Siri for its next generation of intelligent devices

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John Mannes, TechCrunch:

Siri is a critical component of Apple’s vision for the future, so integral that it was willing to spend $200 million to acquire Lattice Data over the weekend. The startup was working to transform the way businesses deal with paragraphs of text and other information that lives outside neatly structured databases.

And:

Apple paid roughly $10 million for each of Lattice’s 20 engineers. This is generally considered to be fair market value. Google paid about $500 million for DeepMind back in 2014. At that time, the startup had roughly 75 employees, of which a portion were machine learning developers.

That math is fascinating. Machine learning seems a fantastic path for developers to explore.

Apple relies on a number of partnerships, including a major one with Yahoo, to provide Siri with the facts it needs to answer questions. It competes with Google, a company that possesses what is largely considered to be the crème de la crème of knowledge graphs. Apple surely has an interest in improving the size and quality of its knowledge graph while unshackling itself from partners.

And:

When you use Siri to search iTunes, the results have to come from somewhere. A knowledge graph makes it possible to draw complex relationships between entries. Today, Siri on Apple TV allows for complex natural language search like “Find TV shows for kids” followed up by “Only comedies.” A surprising amount of information is required to return that request and some of it might be buried in the summaries of the shows or scattered on the internet.

Terrific read. I’ve done some work with neural nets, AI, and machine learning. If I was just starting out, this is definitely where I’d focus, dive deep.

RIP Blobs: Google redesigns emojis

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Emojipedia:

Having appeared in various shapes and sizes since Android 4.4; the amorphous blob that defined Google’s emoji appearance since 2013 is being retired.

In its place: a redesign of every emoji in Android, coming as part of Android “O” which was announced today at Google I/O.

Follow the link, take a look at the new artwork. It’s certainly an improvement. Given the fragmentation of Android updates, not sure how big an impact this will have.

Also mentioned by Google is functionality which would allow users to download newer emoji fonts to support the latest emojis even on older Android versions.

So that’s something. But it requires specific action on the part of the user. If they’ve not moved to update to a newer phone or newer version of Android, not sure how effective this will be.

How Google took over the classroom

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From this The New York Times article:

In the space of just five years, Google has helped upend the sales methods companies use to place their products in classrooms. It has enlisted teachers and administrators to promote Google’s products to other schools. It has directly reached out to educators to test its products — effectively bypassing senior district officials. And it has outmaneuvered Apple and Microsoft with a powerful combination of low-cost laptops, called Chromebooks, and free classroom apps.

And, most importantly:

Today, more than half the nation’s primary- and secondary-school students — more than 30 million children — use Google education apps like Gmail and Docs, the company said. And Chromebooks, Google-powered laptops that initially struggled to find a purpose, are now a powerhouse in America’s schools. Today they account for more than half the mobile devices shipped to schools.

Those are some impressive numbers. Kids are growing up with an intimate understanding of how to use Google apps. Apple certainly is a player in this space, both with iPads and low-end MacBooks, but no matter the hardware, a major chunk of our kids are using Google Docs and Gmail.

Apple has iWork apps, has ported them to all the major platforms, true, and there are iCloud versions of the apps. But Google’s approach requires no app downloads, is driven by a link. There are no app installs to manage, just links to share back and forth. I’d argue the overall approach is simpler. For education, that is a vital difference. If a school district switches over from Chromebooks to iPads, there is no compelling reason for them to switch from Google Docs.

Microsoft: Lessons from last week’s cyberattack

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Microsoft Blog, on the WannaCrypt ransomeware attack:

The WannaCrypt exploits used in the attack were drawn from the exploits stolen from the National Security Agency, or NSA, in the United States. That theft was publicly reported earlier this year. A month prior, on March 14, Microsoft had released a security update to patch this vulnerability and protect our customers. While this protected newer Windows systems and computers that had enabled Windows Update to apply this latest update, many computers remained unpatched globally. As a result, hospitals, businesses, governments, and computers at homes were affected.

And:

This attack demonstrates the degree to which cybersecurity has become a shared responsibility between tech companies and customers. The fact that so many computers remained vulnerable two months after the release of a patch illustrates this aspect. As cybercriminals become more sophisticated, there is simply no way for customers to protect themselves against threats unless they update their systems.

Amen. This has long been a bugaboo shared by Windows and Android and to a far lesser extent by macOS and iOS. Getting your users to update to the latest OS is a non-trivial problem.

More from Microsoft:

This attack provides yet another example of why the stockpiling of vulnerabilities by governments is such a problem. This is an emerging pattern in 2017. We have seen vulnerabilities stored by the CIA show up on WikiLeaks, and now this vulnerability stolen from the NSA has affected customers around the world. Repeatedly, exploits in the hands of governments have leaked into the public domain and caused widespread damage. An equivalent scenario with conventional weapons would be the U.S. military having some of its Tomahawk missiles stolen. And this most recent attack represents a completely unintended but disconcerting link between the two most serious forms of cybersecurity threats in the world today – nation-state action and organized criminal action.

This should be a wake up call. But just as the OS installed base is hopelessly fractured, the decision making mechanic behind these exploits is similarly fractured, mainly due to the need for secrecy. What are the chances the NSA, CIA and Microsoft are going to collaborate to work towards a solution?

[H/T John Kordyback]

Check who has access to your Google account

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Yesterday, we posted about a widely spread, relatively sophisticated Google Docs phishing attack. Google has taken steps to disable the accounts behind the attack, but that is a bit of a whack-a-mole problem. Attacks like this are a part of life.

One thing you can do is periodically check out what apps and sites have access to your Google account by clicking on this link:

https://myaccount.google.com/security?pli=1#connectedapps

See anything there you don’t recognize? Click the Manage Apps link and revoke that sucker.

Google reports a big gain in Android Nougat adoption, um…

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Android Police:

Google has updated the developer dashboard for May, giving us an overview of the Android device ecosystem. Nougat continues to inch upward at a respectable rate—it’s now over 7% of devices.

True, that is significant growth for Nougat, absolutely, but compare to iOS 10 adoption, which last reported (back in February) at 79%.

iPad vs Chromebook, a battle for the education dollar, not even close.

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Brian Foutty, SwiftTeacher.org, on the differences between an iPad and a Chromebook in the classroom:

The iPad’s camera is the BIGGEST curricular differentiator. The ability to use the iPad’s camera to take high quality pictures or video to record evidence for a presentation in Keynote or Explain Everything is invaluable in the classroom.

And:

When I taught math, my students would use the camera to take video to track the trajectory of a football being thrown one day and a pumpkin being dropped from 45 feet the next day. Students would then use the Venier Video Physics app on another day to chart the paths of the football and the pumpkins. The app generates mathematical equations.

And:

Having a small, lightweight, and maneuverable device (think iPad) with a great camera is what made it possible for me to provide my students an interesting, engaging, and memorable educational experience. And this is but one of many examples that my colleagues and I are doing in my district on a weekly basis.

Camera, powerful processor tip the scales to the iPad.

More from Brian:

The iPad’s microphone is also a key asset of the iPad. The microphone allows students to record their thoughts, questions, and observations as part of class notes using Notability or class projects using Explain Everything, a voice recorder app, or a student feedback app such as Recap. Audio gives the students yet another vehicle to express their ideas and their learning in order for teachers to keep them involved and engaged in learning. Combining the microphone, the camera, and iMovie gives teachers a really powerful curricular tool to engage students in a way that allows students to create content both academically and creatively that results in deeper, more meaningful learning experiences for students.

And:

As I previously mentioned, my district did, at one point, decide to purchase Chromebooks, which we still have because of their light use and another reason I will mention later. When my district received our Chromebooks, we unboxed them, deployed them, and that was it. We, as teachers, had to figure it out without any support or help other than internet research. Google’s direct support of Chromebook is non-existent because they did not manufacture the product. Let’s not forget that Google’s top business is Search! They collect data about our use and sell it to advertisers.

And finally, on affordability:

Many Chromebooks are cheap(er). Many of them are plastic and not well made, but that cheapness comes at a cost: durability and residual value. The conventional wisdom (in education) has been that Chromebooks cost schools less money to deploy. I do not believe this conventional wisdom to be actual wisdom or even true. The new iPad definitely renders this argument for choosing Chromebook completely null and void.

This is a great piece, from an educator with real world teaching experience, on the myriad advantages of the iPad.

Google’s ingenious tool to fight patent trolls, a tool Apple could use

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TechCrunch:

Google and Intertrust today announced the launch of PatentShield, a new program that aims to help defend startups from patent litigation — in return for a stake in those companies.

The basic idea here is to give startups that join the program ownership of a selection of patents from Google’s and Intertrust’s portfolio that they can then use as a deterrent against potential patent litigation from established players in their fields. Google is seeding the program with a selection of its own patents and Intertrust, which itself has built up a patent portfolio around media streaming, IoT, security and other areas, will also give these startups access to some of its own patents and its intellectual property team.

If a startup gets sued, it can then choose patents from the PatentShield portfolio to defend itself by countersuing its opponents.

This truly is ingenious, a terrific use of Google’s patent portfolio. The cost to Google is relatively small, and it gives a big club and shield a startup can use to defend itself against patent trolls. There is potential for misuse, certainly, a chance for a startup to turn bully. Time will tell if that becomes an issue.

The benefit to Google is immense, leveraging existing patents to bring in a steady trickle of startup equity. Smart business. I think Apple should do the same thing. A perfect act of benevolence that’s well in Apple’s wheelhouse.

The new, improved Google Earth

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Google Earth requires the Chrome browser on the Mac side. I think it’s well worth it. There’s something magical about spinning the globe and slowly homing in on a favorite unexplored spot. The creep in from up in space to the closest zoomed in view is much more continuous, less jarring as you move to different map levels.

Worth a few minutes to explore. Don’t miss the tool bar on the left side of the window. You’ll want to take advantage of that search icon.

YouTube won’t allow ads until videos hit 10,000 view threshold

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Starting today, we will no longer serve ads on YPP videos until the channel reaches 10k lifetime views. This new threshold gives us enough information to determine the validity of a channel. It also allows us to confirm if a channel is following our community guidelines and advertiser policies. By keeping the threshold to 10k views, we also ensure that there will be minimal impact on our aspiring creators. And, of course, any revenue earned on channels with under 10k views up until today will not be impacted.

Apple reports iOS 10 adoption up to 79%. Android Nougat? Barely 1%.

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From Apple’s developer site:

Interesting to compare that pie chart to the official Android adoption pie chart:

That little bitty sliver on the right? That’s Nougat, the most recent version of Android. To get to more than half of that pie chart, you have to include Nougat, Marshmallow and Lollipop. Lollipop was released in 2014.

It’s tough when you don’t control all the hardware.

Google and fact checking the news

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Last October, Google introduced something called the Fact Check tag. The idea is, publishers include the tag in a story for it to be considered for the tag. When the story is posted on Google News, a fact check-approved story will appear with the Fact Check label.

Here’s the original post about the Fact Check tag. And here’s an update from Google on the current state of Fact Check.

This is a great start. But it is far too limited. We need fact checking to spread beyond the Google News bubble. We need a Fact Check standard to spread to every single source of news, across the political spectrum.

When you go food shopping, you know you can check the standardized ingredients label to see how much sodium or fat is in a product. We need a reliable, verifiable label like that for the news. Sites could achieve an “All Fact” label if they achieve a set minimum percentage of fact checked stories.

Apple has an opportunity here. Join with Google to spread the fact check concept to Apple News. And beyond. My two cents? This is incredibly important.

Google Map adds shareable place lists

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Google blog:

Starting today, you can create lists of places, share your lists with others, and follow the lists your friends and family share with you—without ever leaving the Google Maps app (Android, iOS).

And:

Open the Google Maps app and find that BBQ spot you’ve been wanting to try. Tapping on the place name and then the “Save” icon adds the place to one of several pre-set lists like “Want to Go” or “Favorites.” You can also add the restaurant to a new list that you name yourself, like “Finger Lickin’ BBQ.” To recall the lists you’ve created, go to Your Places (in the side menu) and then open the saved tab. Icons for the places you’ve saved to lists will appear on the map itself.

I love the concept. Only issue I have is that I tend to move between different Google accounts and if I am logged in to the wrong account, I won’t see my place lists. One workflow is to always share place lists with all accounts, then each added place will automatically appear in all accounts.

Samsung files for a ‘Samsung Hello’ trademark

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The way I read this, this is Samsung striking out on their own, moving to brand their own voice personality, apart from “OK Google”, and competing with Siri and Alexa (and to a lesser extent, Cortana). The main difference is, Apple and Amazon have complete control over the hardware on which their voice assistants run. Google is, at some level, dependent on third party hardware (thought Google Home and the Pixel phone are Google from the ground up). Samsung does control its hardware, but is dependent on Google for Android.

All very interesting.

Google AMP and the original URL

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Google Developers Blog:

Today, we’re adding a feature to the AMP integration in Google Search that allows users to access, copy, and share the canonical URL of an AMP document.

My biggest issue with AMP is the difficulty in turning a Google-AMP formed URL back into a non-AMP URL I can share. For example, here’s an AMP formed URL from the Google News page:

https://news.google.com/news/amp?caurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Famphtml %2Flocal%2Feducation%2Fsenate-to-vote-today-on-confirmation-of-betsy-devos%2F2017%2F02%2F06%2Ffd4b7e9c-ec85-11e6-9662-6eedf1627882_story.html#pt0-135000

As you can plainly see, the original URL is encoded, then wrapped. Only way to easily pass this along is to send your recipient through Google’s site, not to the site that wrote the story in the first place. The biggest issue I have here is that of supporting the creator here. They deserve the page views.

More from the Google blog:

Today, we’re adding support for this functionality in form of an anchor button in the AMP Viewer header on Google Search. This feature allows users to use their browser’s native share functionality by long-tapping on the link that is displayed.

This is an excellent first step. Basically, even if the URL is encoded (as shown above), you can still click on the anchor button to copy the original URL. However, if you click in Safari’s address bar, you’ll still see the encoded URL.

My 2 cents: I’d love it if Apple offered a way to opt out of AMP. As Google says in the blog, AMP opens the door to confusion, makes URL phishing harder to detect since all URLs are harder to read, and the original URL hidden from the user.

Apple said to join Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, Google, Facebook in AI best practices group

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From the partnership page:

In support of the mission to benefit people and society, the Partnership on AI intends to conduct research, organize discussions, share insights, provide thought leadership, consult with relevant third parties, respond to questions from the public and media, and create educational material that advance the understanding of AI technologies including machine perception, learning, and automated reasoning.

As much as we’ve learned about artificial intelligence, we’re still on the steepest part of the learning curve. We’re still working out the mechanics, just barely touching on the important philosophical issues.

Glad to hear news that Apple looks to be joining this group. Keep an eye on the partner page. You’ll know this is a done deal when Apple’s name joins the list.

Android’s emoji problem

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Jeremy Burge, Emojipedia:

The Google design team were months ahead of Apple with new emoji in the past year. Support for the latest emojis came to Android in the major Nougat release in August of 2016.

Yet the vast majority of Android users still can’t see these new emojis.

What they see, instead, are empty rectangles. Why? Lack of timely Android updates.

New emojis are bundled with system updates for iOS and Android, as emoji fonts and relevant Unicode support is provided at an OS level1.

This system should work well, but the weak link is relying on manufacturers to provide updates in a timely manner.

Vlad Savov reported in September2: most phones at IFA (large tech show in Europe) were running a year-old version of Android.

And:

These aren’t old phones not getting updates: they’re brand new phones running an out of date OS. It’s not a good sign.

Great post from someone who really knows the emoji business. One takeaway? Know that if you are including emoji in a text heading to an Android phone, the recipient might be getting rectangles.

Microsoft’s OS supremacy over Apple to end in 2017

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Gregg Keizer, Computerworld:

Apple will steal a march on Microsoft this year when for the first time this century shipments of devices powered by its operating systems outnumber those running Windows, research firm Gartner said today.

In 2017, Apple’s combination of iOS and macOS — the former on iPhones and iPads, the latter on Macs — will take second place from Windows on the devices shipped during the year. The gap between the two will widen in 2018 and 2019, with Apple ahead of Microsoft both years.

Not terribly surprising, given the rise of mobile and Apple’s dominance in that space. But still, just a little bit satisfying.

Not clear from the article but, presumably, first place is held by Android.

Gartner: By 2019, 20 percent of smartphone interactions will be via VPAs (like Siri)

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Gartner:

Advances in various technologies will drive users to interact with their smartphones in more intuitive ways, said Gartner, Inc. Gartner predicts that, by 2019, 20 percent of all user interactions with the smartphone will take place via virtual personal assistants (VPAs).

And:

Apple’s Siri and Google Now are currently the most widely used VPAs on smartphones. Fifty-four percent of U.K. and U.S. respondents used Siri in the last three months. Google Now is used by 41 percent of U.K. respondents and 48 percent of U.S. respondents.

Interesting that Apple has not joined the Amazon Echo and Google Home party. The trend for voice is clearly rising. Though my Apple Watch is always listening, there is a core difference between Siri and Echo/Home. While both are always on, Echo and Home are more traditionally conversational. I ask about the weather and a voice responds, all without my having to tilt my watch to look at the screen or pull my iPhone out of my pocket.

Will Apple go this route?

Mystery online Go player crushing all the top human competitors turns out to be a Google AI

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Ars Technica:

DeepMind’s AlphaGo is back, and it’s been secretly crushing the world’s best Go players over the past couple of weeks. The new version of the AI has played 51 games online and won 50 of them, including a victory against Ke Jie, currently the world’s best human Go player. Amusingly, the 51st game wasn’t even a loss; it was drawn after the Internet connection dropped out.

What I find most intriguing about this is that artificial intelligence is still in its relative infancy. AI can get so much better and humans have to wait for evolution.

The difference between Google Assistant and Siri

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[VIDEO] Matt Birchler on putting Google Assistant and Siri through their paces:

The tech narrative is that Siri sucks and Google Assistant is the second coming. I have been using Siri for years, and have been going 100% in on Android over the last few weeks and have given Google Assistant a solid effort. My experience has been a little different than the popular narrative.

Watch the video for the details. Bottom line, I recognize this experience. Siri does a lot really well. To maximize your Siri satisfaction, learn the boundaries, get a sense of what Siri does reliably that fits in your day-to-day workflow.

In my experience, Siri does a lot that’s pretty bulletproof. One example is reminders. If I need to remember something, the first thing I do is figure out an ideal time to be reminded, then pull out my iPhone or “Hey, Siri” my Apple Watch and ask Siri to remind me. If there’s failure here, it is always up front and obvious. And that’s easily repaired.

Where Siri is less reliable, I find another path. If I ask Siri a question she can’t answer, I don’t get frustrated. These are early days still, for Google, Amazon, and Apple’s Siri.

Google Home vs. Amazon Echo: The ecosystem divisions are getting deeper

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Dan Moren, Six Colors:

At present, there’s certainly not much to recommend the Home to people who already own an Echo or Echo Dot. Most of what the Home can do, the Echo can do just as well, with the exception of translation and Chromecast support.

Those on the fence about which smart speaker to buy have a less enviable decision. Both are attractive, well-made devices in their own way, and both will scratch that itch of a ubiquitous assistant at your constant beck and call. To date, the Echo remains the heavyweight champion of the market, thanks to its deep bench of features and third-party skills, but it would be unwise to underestimate Google’s resources and expertise if the company decides this is a field where it wants to devote its energy.

It’s early days for the always-on, stay-at-home assistant. One thing that is clear: Google Home and Amazon Echo are extensions of their relative ecosystems. If and when Apple builds one, I expect their fixed assistant to favor Apple’s ecosystem, too.

A pity, that. If I were to hire an assistant, I would never hire someone who had to check the branding involved before they could help me with a particular task. The divisions are getting deeper.

Apple, Google respond to fatal crash with promise to add rail crossing warnings to Maps

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Daisuke Wakabayashi, New York Times:

Following directions from Google Maps on a smartphone last year, Jose Alejandro Sanchez-Ramirez turned a Ford truck, hauling a trailer, where he thought the app was telling him to go. But he ended up stuck on the railroad tracks at a poorly marked California crossing.

Soon after Mr. Sanchez-Ramirez abandoned the truck, a commuter train barreled into it, killing the engineer and injuring 32 others.

And:

On Monday, after investigating the crash for almost two years, the National Transportation Safety Board issued a safety recommendation asking technology and delivery companies to add the exact locations of more than 200,000 grade crossings into digital maps and to provide alerts when drivers encounter them.

Apple, Google and Microsoft have promised to add rail crossing data to their maps.