Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer who started his career on PC World and has written for dozens of computer and technology magazines, as well as numerous national newspapers, business and in-flight magazines. He has also written two novels.
He thinks wires are evil and had a custom desk made to hide them, known as the OC Desk for obvious reasons.
He considers 1000 miles a good distance for a cycle ride, and Chernobyl a suitable tourist destination. What can we say, he’s that kind of chap.
He speaks fluent English but only broken American, so please forgive any Anglicised spelling in his posts.
You’ve long been able to use Android Device Manager to locate a lost smartphone, but Google just made it a whole lot easier. Next time you can’t remember where you left it, simply Google find my phone. Provided you’re logged-in, Google will display the phone’s location on a map and give you the option to call it.
You’ll still need to use Device Manager to lock or erase the phone if someone has walked off with it, but this is a quick and convenient method when you’ve just forgotten where in your home you put it down.
Google also recently added Android Wear support to Device Manager, enabling you to locate your phone from your smartwatch.
If you’ve ever uploaded a file to Google Drive specifically to share it, Google is about to make the process easier: it’s adding a share button to the upload confirmation. As soon as a file is uploaded, just hit the Share Link button.
The updated version of the app will be rolling out over the next week, with a few other improvements thrown in.
Ability to access a contact’s extended information from the sharing section of the details pane of a file in Drive
Ability to remove a parent of a file from the details pane when a file is multi-parented
Support for 23 new languages (Afrikaans, Amharic, Armenian, Basque, Bengali, Chinese (Hong Kong), Estonian, French (Canada), Galician, Georgian, Icelandic, Kannada, Khmer, Lao, Malayalam, Marathi, Mongolian, Nepali, Sinhala, Swahili, Tamil, Telugu, Zulu)
PDF viewer improvements (better scrolling and handling of multi-layout PDFs)
Google has updated its Android apps for editing Google documents on the move. Google Docs now allows you to accept, reject or comment on suggestions, as well as track changes and comments in Word files; Google Sheets lets you move, resize and delete spreadsheets; and Google Slides now offers you the ability to reorder objects on slides.
Google said that PowerPoint presentations will also be faster to load and scroll.
The company previously updated Google Docs with improvements to its Office Compatibility Mode. All three apps are a free download from the Google play store.
As expected, the EU has formally accused Google of abusing its dominant position in search to favor links to its own products over those offered by competitors. The complaint takes the form of a Statement of Objections: a formal method of announcing that it believes Google has acted illegally and that a full investigation is underway.
The Commission’s preliminary view is that such conduct infringes EU antitrust rules because it stifles competition and harms consumers. EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said that “Google now has the opportunity to convince the Commission to the contrary. However, if the investigation confirmed our concerns, Google would have to face the legal consequences and change the way it does business in Europe.”
Google has not wasted any time in attempting to convince the Commission otherwise, arguing in a blog post that the evidence shows that Google has not harmed traffic to competitor websites … Expand Expanding Close
Google said that the listing, first spotted by Marketing Land, was originally verified for a snowboard shop of that name elsewhere, with the location subsequently edited. Either the prankster or others have added reviews, one of which says that it’s a “great source of classified information.”
Google says that it has removed the listing, but it was still showing up (as above) in Google Maps at the time of writing.
Google Fiber’s VP of access services Milo Medin says that while the company is a strong supporter of net neutrality, what consumers really need is legislation that enables greater competition in the broadband market. FierceTelecom reported Medin’s remarks in a keynote speed at the Comptel conference.
No consumers are seeing higher speeds than before the order was passed; no consumers are paying less for their Internet services than what they were paying for; no consumers are seeing higher volume caps that they had before; and no consumers have additional choice of providers than they had before.
Governments cannot legislate for better customer service, he said, but they can pass laws that increase competition in the market, and this is what will make the most difference to consumers … Expand Expanding Close
SolarCity has partnered with Nest to offer a free Nest Learning Thermostat to the next 10,000 customers in California to sign up for solar panels.
This special offer combines two home energy solutions that can cut power bills as well as homeowners’ carbon footprint, and allows homeowners to experience these benefits with one easy package through SolarCity.
The offer includes the company’s no-upfront-cost deals – the only conditions are that you have a Nest-compatible air-conditioning system and that you agree to connect Nest to SolarCity, most likely to allow it to collect anonymized data … Expand Expanding Close
The LastPass password manager app has been given a Material Design makeover, and the company has partnered with Samsung to provide Galaxy S6/edge owners with between three and six months of free Premium membership, allowing cross-device use.
On smartphones with fingerprint sensors, you can unlock the app with your fingerprint and then enter passwords automatically. Autofill of passwords and form data is available in the Android version of Chrome, as well as the LastPass browser.
If you’re an S6 owner, check the LastPass app to see the local Premium offer for your region.
Samsung has posted a video of its new Galaxy S6 and S6 edge smartphones being put through drop-testing. It will come as no surprise, in a manufacturer promo video, to see that both handsets come through unscathed.
To be fair to the S6, though, it did fare well in a recent independent drop test when put up against Apple’s iPhone 6 (video below) … Expand Expanding Close
The YouTube Kids app, launched in February to provide access to family-friendly videos on both Android and iOS, has been accused by around a dozen consumer groups of being “deceptive to children” in the way it mixes ads into programming. The NY Times reports that a formal complaint to the Federal Trade Commission is expected to be filed today.
[The complaint] argues, in essence, that YouTube is using advertising tactics like “host selling” – having cartoon characters sell products inside their show – that would be illegal if they were on television instead of online.
The groups argue that the app should be held to the same standards that apply to TV shows … Expand Expanding Close
Users trying to connect to many websites in China through Chrome will soon see a message that the website’s security certificate is not trusted, advising against proceeding.
In a far-reaching response to a recently security breach, Google plans to cease recognizing all web security certificates issued by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) – which includes many government, banking and ecommerce sites in the country … Expand Expanding Close
ATP head Regina Dugan with some of her 100-strong team
Google’s mobile-focused research group, Advanced Technology and Projects (ATP), gives projects a maximum of two years’ work before they are killed, adopted as official Google products or sold to outside companies, reports the WSJ.
The deadline was created by former DARPA head Regina Dugan in an attempt to counter the normal tendency of companies to grow less nimble and more bureaucratic as they grow in size, said Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt.
Product cycles slow down as a company gets larger. All of us believe we could execute faster […]
We like this model because it puts pressure on people to perform and do relevant things or stop. I’ve spent an awful lot of time on projects that never end and products that would never ship.
The company is ruthless about killing off projects which don’t deliver notable results, said Dugan, who was hired by Google in 2012, and it doesn’t always let them run as long as two years … Expand Expanding Close
Senator Mike Lee, who chairs the Senate’s antitrust panel, will conduct a “preliminary inquiry” into whether conversations Google had with FTC investigators influenced the commission’s decision to clear the company of anti-competitive behavior, reports the WSJ.
The senator could later expand his inquiry to include conversations people in the White House had with the FTC and Google, people in his office said.
The FTC last week denied that its decision had been “a close call” following leaked documents suggesting that it had been. The documents also provided some fascinating insights into Google’s business model.
Google declined to comment on this latest development, but has previously said that its meetings in the White House were not related to the FTC investigation.
Huawei, the second largest telecoms manufacturer in the world, saw its profits rise 33% last year, reports Reuters.
Global revenue rose 21 percent from a year ago to 288.2 billion yuan ($46.51 billion) in 2014 for Huawei and is expected to jump another 20 percent this year, the Shenzhen-based company said.
The growth has been mostly driven by LTE expansion within China, its home market being responsible for the bulk of its sales.
The company announced an Android Wear smartwatch at Mobile World Congress earlier this month (where we got a hands-on). No pricing was given, though the company has denied suggestions that it would be as high as $1000.
If Google’s recent job listings for Google Glass has tempted you to consider a move to the US, data from the Office of Foreign Labor Certification may provide a guide to your chances. Applications for H-1B visas–those allowing overseas workers to accept job offers in the US–reveal that top tech companies like Google mostly sponsor the visas for five main roles, reports TechCrunch.
By examining the most common professions among H-1B applicants for Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft, five consistent career paths emerged across each company. Software engineers, systems software engineers, financial analysts, computer systems analysts and marketing managers make up a large part of H-1B visa applications.
The salary data shows that the average salary paid to foreign workers employed in the USA by the five tech companies is highest at Facebook, at $135k, with Google second-placed at around $127k.
Update: A class action suit has now been funded by a major US law firm, allowing any qualifying UK user to join the action at no cost. You can complete a qualifying questionnaire here.
A not-for-profit company, Google Action Group Ltd, has been set up to manage the case which is seeking to win between £400 and £4000 in compensation for each claimant who used a . It has appointed Hausfeld, Europe’s leading claimant firm, to challenge Google on behalf of all those Apple users in England and Wales who used the Safari browser on Apple computers, iPod Touches, iPads, and iPhones during the infringing period of Summer 2011 to about 17th February 2012.
The Google Action Group is seeking more members of the public to sign up for the legal action. The public can join the action for free, because the costs will be met by a £2.5m pot of money being put up by a major US litigation funding firm.
UK Apple users have been given the go-ahead to sue Google for continuing to drop cookies on their devices even after they had refused permission through their Safari browser settings.
It was revealed in 2012 that Google bypassed the setting in Safari which instructed sites not to drop cookies, enabling it to deliver personalized ads. The FTC in the US fined the company $22.5M for the practice, with millions more in additional fines levied by 38 US states. There was no government action in the UK, but a group of British iPhone users took Google to court, seeking compensation for breaching their privacy.
Google had attempted to have the case dismissed, claiming that there was no case to answer as the plaintiffs had not suffered any financial harm, but the UK’s Court of Appeal has rejected this argument, allowing the case to proceed …
The Federal Trade Commission has issued a statement denying the WSJ‘s suggestion that the decision to clear Google of anti-competitive behavior was “a close call.”
The WSJyesterday obtained part of one of the investigative reports, which included a sentence reading “Although it is a close call, we do not recommend that the Commission issue a complaint against Google for this conduct.”
As we stated when the investigation was closed, the Commission concluded that Google’s search practices were not, “on balance, demonstrably anticompetitive.”
Contrary to recent press reports, the Commission’s decision on the search allegations was in accord with the recommendations of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, Bureau of Economics, and Office of General Counsel.
Google is one of ten tech giants to once again call on the US Government not to reauthorize the Patriot Act in its current form. The Act expires on 1st June unless it is renewed by Congress. Google was joined by Apple, AOL, Dropbox, Evernote, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter and Yahoo.
In an open letter to President Obama, NSA Director Admiral Rogers and other prominent government figures, the companies urge Congress to end the bulk collection of communications metadata–the logs that determine how and when ordinary citizens contact each other.
The letter says that mass surveillance must end, and that a revised bill must contain mechanisms to ensure that future government surveillance is both transparent and accountable … Expand Expanding Close
Half of a 2012 FTC report on Google’s business practices has been “inadvertently disclosed” in an open records request by the WSJ. Bizarrely, what was leaked was every other page of the report. MarketingLand’sDanny Sullivan has been busy reading the report and tweeting some of the things revealed by it.
The FTC eventually concluded that Google had not violated antitrust laws by favoring its own services over that of rivals, but found it was “a close call.”
While Google’s driverless cars have notched-up over 700,000 miles without causing a single crash (one car was rear-ended and another crashed while being driven manually), it seems Google plans to cover all the bases. It has today been granted a patent on external cushioning to protect pedestrians in a collision.
External airbags are not a new invention–as Quartz notes, Volvo already has these on some vehicles. Google’s patent takes the idea a stage further, combining bumper-mounted airbags with foam bumpers behind them. The idea is to ensure that after the airbag has deployed, pedestrians aren’t then bounced off the car body.
A system for protecting a pedestrian during impact with a vehicle, the system having a bumper adapted for attachment to an end of the vehicle, wherein the bumper is comprised of a plurality of air sacs, wherein the bumper has a horizontal thickness extends from the end of the vehicle, wherein at least some of the plurality of air sacs stretch and then burst during impact between the bumper and a pedestrian causing deceleration along the horizontal width of the bumper during the impact, wherein the bumper undergoes plastic deformation during impact with the pedestrian as the at least some of the air sacs burst during impact, and wherein the bursting of some of the plurality of air sacs reduces spring back of the bumper on the pedestrian.
Given likely nervousness about the idea of driverless cars, Google may also be thinking about ways to reassure both the public and regulatory authorities.
Google isn’t the only tech giant exploring autonomous cars: Apple is believed to be working on its own version too.
The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has put online video clips from real car crashes caused by 16-19 year old drivers using smartphones while driving. The videos, which show both the view through the windscreen and a view of the driver, are designed to make real the dangers of distracted driving.
None of the crashes featured in the above clip feature injuries, but almost 3,000 people a year are killed in crashes involving drivers in this age-range, the majority of them caused by the driver being “inattentive or engaged in some other non-driving-related activity.” A further 383,000 people a year are injured.
Researchers at the University of Iowa examined carcam footage from 1,691 crashes involving drivers aged 16-19 to determine the cause. Distracted driving was found to be the cause in 58% of crashes, with 12% of them due to using a phone while driving. For crashes involving the car leaving the road, a full third of crashes were attributed to cellphone use.
UK tests conducted earlier this month suggested that smartwatches are even worse than smartphones for driver distraction.
Google has worked with a gender equality campaign group to raise the profile of achievements by women in both its Field Trip app and future Google Doodles, reports TNW.
The campaign group SPARK (Sexualization Protest: Action, Resistance and Knowledge) pointed out to Google that its doodles featured women only 17% of the time, prompting the company to promise to do better in future and to add notable women from history to its Field Trip app.
Field Trip was first launched by Google back in 2012, as a background app that alerts you to interesting things around you as you travel. The original vintage UI was replaced by a Material Design refresh earlier this year. The app is also available on Google Glass.
If you want to take advantage of the new alerts, you need to check the Spark: Women on the Map option in the app. Field Trip so far features only 100 women, but anyone can nominate someone they feel should be included, suggesting that it may quickly grow.
If you haven’t yet treated your TV to a Chromecast stick to stream content from your Android devices, Google would really like you to do so. The company has been playing with its mix of freebies again, with $80 worth on offer if you buy between today and 19th April.
Current offers include three-month trial subscriptions to Google Play Music, DramaFever and Sesame Street GO, as well as one month of Qelio Concerts and a free Play Movies rental thrown in – and you can even save a few bucks on Amazon at the moment … Expand Expanding Close
