You can now say ‘Hey Siri, Ok Google’ to use Google Assistant on the iPhone …
An update to the Google Assistant iOS app means that you can now issue ‘Ok Google’ commands on your iPhone – albeit having to invoke Siri first …
Author
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.
Google announces $700M data center in Denmark, 100% powered by renewable energy
A new Google data center will be built in Denmark at a cost of almost $700M. The company first said that it wanted to have the option of doing so exactly a year ago.
Google got as far as purchasing land right next door to one of Apple’s two data centers in the country. Although this one is in a different location, Google likely chose Denmark for the same three reasons …
FCC allows iPhones and other devices to receive European GPS data for the first time
A new FCC order will allow US smartphones to receive European GPS data for the first time …
Jack Dorsey says Twitter is trying to figure out how to edit a tweet
The Google search ‘How to edit a tweet’ currently results in 321 million different ways of telling you that you can’t. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said that he recognizes people want the ability to fix typos, but allowing edits is complicated …
PSA: Check your browser extensions as private Facebook messages exposed
Rogue browser extensions appear to be responsible for Russian hackers obtaining private messages from as many as 120 million Facebook accounts …
US Spotify Premium subscriptions continue to grow, now at 38% of users
Spotify Premium subscriptions are continuing to grow, according to the latest data from CIRP. The company says that 38% of US Spotify subscribers now have a premium account, up from 36% in the previous quarter …
Twitter revenue up, users down, as it sold more ads and detected more bots
Twitter revenue for Q3 was higher than expected, at $758M versus $702.6M in the previous quarter. Year-on-year revenue was up 29% thanks to an identical jump in ad sales …
Voter registration tool in Snapchat helped 400,000+ people get their vote
Snap says that the Snapchat app has helped 418,000 people register to vote in the upcoming midterms. Snap added a voter registration tool to the app last month …
WhatsApp may get less annoying, half its users don’t know who owns it
If you belong to a number of WhatsApp groups, it can be irritating to get alerts from them during times when you only want personal messages. That’s a problem WhatsApp appears to be looking to solve …
Spotify app gets streamlined navigation, personalized search, endless artist radio
The Android Spotify app has been updated to make it quicker and easier to play music you love.
First up is streamlined navigation, with three clear tabs.
Subscribers can get great recommendations on Home, discover something new with Search, and access favorite songs, artists, playlists, and podcasts in Your Library …
Facebook Portal privacy walkback: company admits will collect data for ad-serving
When Facebook entered the smart speaker business last week, it was keen to stress that it understood potential concerns about the privacy of Facebook Portal and Portal+ devices.
The company said then that four forms of protection were employed …
New Pokémon added to Pokémon GO – but you may need to hop a plane to catch some
New Pokémon are starting to appear in Pokémon GO, imported from the Diamond, Pearl and Platinum games, but you may have to travel to find some of them …
Facebook takes down fake accounts with millions of followers in run-up to US midterms
Facebook says it has taken down hundreds of fake accounts with millions of followers in the run-up to the US midterm elections …
You can now compose a tweet comprising 140 emoji – but please don’t
Using emoji in your tweets could use up a lot of your 280 characters – up to 14 characters each for some of them. But Twitter has now announced a change ensuring that all emoji are equal under the law, using two characters each …
PSA: WhatsApp security flaw could be triggered simply by answering a call – fix available
A WhatsApp security vulnerability could allow attackers to crash the Android app as soon as you answer a call, and could potentially be used to hack your smartphone …
Dropbox search capabilities now let it scan images and PDFs for text – for some …
Dropbox search capabilities have been given a significant boost for the second time in as many months. The company says that it can now search for text inside PDFs and even image files like JPG and PNG …
Instagram’s latest anti-bullying initiative uses AI to detect bullying in photos
Instagram has announced that it is stepping up its anti-bullying efforts by using AI to detect signs of bullying in photos and captions …
UK High Court blocks $1.3B class action claim against Google by iPhone users
The UK High Court has blocked a £1B ($1.3B) class action claim filed against Google on behalf of iPhone users. The lawsuit resulted from the so-called ‘Safari bypass,’ where Google continued to install cookies on iPhones despite this being blocked in the browser settings …
259 people died while trying to take extreme selfies, says US report
The desire for ever more extreme selfies has so far resulted in 259 deaths, says a new report by the US National Library of Medicine …
Today’s presidential alert test: what, when, where, how and why
Anyone who hasn’t heard about today’s presidential alert test is going to be startled by a loud noise on their phone this afternoon. Here are all the details on FEMA’s emergency alert tests that you’ll be seeing soon.
Wi-Fi finally swaps those fiddly letter codes for numbers; Wi-Fi 6 on the way
Checking whether a device supports the latest Wi-Fi standards has always involved remembering some rather obscure letter codes: a, b, g, n and ac. But that’s now all set to change …
Facebook hack update: no evidence of any access to third-party apps
One of the concerns raised by the recent Facebook hack was whether access tokens might have provided access to third-party apps. The company now says there is ‘no evidence’ that this has happened …
Twitter rules, detection methods and enforcement against fake accounts all boosted
Twitter rules have been updated as the company continues its work to guard against foreign government attempts to influence the US midterm elections in November …
Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee wants to give us control over our personal data
Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, has announced that he has put most of his work on hold to develop a way for web users to regain control of their personal data.
The concept, first developed at MIT, is known as Solid. A Solid POD is effectively a secure repository for all our personal data, and from there we can choose what access to grant to other companies and apps …
