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Tag: Google

Adam Engst 10 comments

Taming Email Overload: Google’s CC Daily Briefing Agent

Feeling buried in email? Google’s experimental CC tool uses AI to send daily briefings about your most important messages and calendar events. Here’s what worked in Adam Engst’s testing, what didn’t, and who might benefit.

Adam Engst 9 comments

Google Allowed to Keep Chrome and Continue Paying Apple $20 Billion for Search Placement

A federal court’s remedies ruling allows Google to retain its Chrome browser and continue paying Apple billions for Safari search placement while recognizing the growing influence of generative AI on the search landscape.

Adam Engst 6 comments

Reddit Blocks Indexing by Search Engines Other Than Google

Seemingly as a result of Google’s deal to license Reddit content, Reddit is now blocking crawlers from other search engines, ensuring that new Reddit content can be found only through Google or other search engines that pay Google.

Adam Engst 15 comments

CNET Deletes Thousands of Old Articles to Juice SEO

Gizmodo writer Thomas German has discovered that CNET is deleting thousands of old articles in an effort to improve search engine optimization for newer articles, despite Google saying it’s a bad idea.

Adam Engst 22 comments

Apple Avoids Big Tech Layoffs, Other Tech Giants Focus on AI

Amidst nearly 75,000 tech industry layoffs in the last year, Apple alone has avoided cutting headcount. Why? And what does it mean that the other tech giants all reference AI in their letters to employees?

Josh Centers 8 comments

Google Lets Legacy G Suite Users Keep Their Email for Free

After initially demanding that legacy G Suite users upgrade to the paid Google Workspace keep their custom email addresses, Google has relented and is now offering individuals and families a free option, but you only have until 27 June 2022 to claim it.

Google Chrome 99 Agen Schmitz 11 comments

Google Chrome 99

Security update responding to new zero-day vulnerability affecting Chromium-based browsers. (Free, 182 MB, macOS 10.11+)

Julio Ojeda-Zapata 8 comments

Center Stage Keeps You in the Video Chat Frame

Apple recently unveiled an iPad camera feature called Center Stage that keeps one or more people within the frame during video chats even when they move around. Julio Ojeda-Zapata gave Center Stage a try and compared it to smart displays from Amazon, Facebook, and Google.

Josh Centers Adam Engst 9 comments

Is Apple Building Its Own Search Engine?

Search in iOS 14 is a bit less reliant on Google, leading some to consider the possibility that Apple is building its own search engine.

Josh Centers No comments

US Justice Department Files Antitrust Suit Against Google

The US Justice Department has launched an antitrust lawsuit against Google. In a rarity for 2020, the lawsuit has broad bipartisan support.

Glenn Fleishman 26 comments

Apple and Google Partner for Privacy-Preserving COVID-19 Contact Tracing and Notification

The tech rivals are working together on a secure, opt-in, and privacy-focused method of letting people report a COVID-19 diagnosis that would be pushed to everyone they passed near in the previous two weeks.

Glenn Fleishman 35 comments

Videoconferencing Options in the Age of Pandemic

We will be spending a lot more time communicating with co-workers, friends, family, therapists, educators, and other people using video than ever before in the digital era. Which solutions best fit your needs?

Josh Centers 3 comments

Cloud Computing More Energy Efficient Than Initially Thought

Environmentalists were concerned that the move to cloud computing and the prerequisite enormous data centers would prove to be an energy hog, but data centers have become incredibly efficient in the past decade.

Adam Engst 8 comments

Google Keystone Update Damages File System on SIP-Disabled Macs

An update to Google’s automatic update software contained a bug that would damage key system files on Macs that weren’t safeguarded by Apple’s System Integrity Protection. Happily, it’s easy to recover with a set of Terminal commands run from macOS Recovery.

Josh Centers 41 comments

Less… Is More? Apple’s Inconsistent Ellipsis Icons Inspire User Confusion

Apple’s own software, as well as apps produced by independent developers following Apple’s lead, are increasingly reliant on ellipsis buttons that have no clear meaning or consistent action.