Daily Archives: May 3, 2021

- The two companies sign six-year strategic partnership to build powerful new integrated data platform and distributed system for Vodafone, supporting the creation of new digital products and services for customers

- Vodafone to host its SAP environment and all big data and business intelligence workloads on Google Cloud

SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 3, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Vodafone and Google Cloud today announced a new, six-year strategic partnership to drive the use of reliable and secure data analytics, insights, and learnings to support the introduction of new digital products and services for Vodafone customers simultaneously worldwide.

Google Cloud Logo (PRNewsfoto/Google Cloud)

In a significant expansion of their existing agreement, Vodafone and Google Cloud will jointly build a powerful new integrated data platform with the added capability of processing and moving huge volumes of data globally from multiple systems into the cloud.

The platform, called 'Nucleus', will house a new system - 'Dynamo' - which will drive data throughout Vodafone to enable it to more quickly offer its customers new, personalised products and services across multiple markets. Dynamo will allow Vodafone to tailor new connectivity services for homes and businesses through the release of smart network features, such as providing a sudden broadband speed boost.

Capable of processing around 50 terabytes of data per day, equivalent to 25,000 hours of HD film (and growing), both Nucleus and Dynamo, which are industry firsts, are being built in-house by Vodafone and Google Cloud specialist teams. Up to 1,000 employees of both companies located in Spain, the UK, and the United States are collaborating on the project.

Vodafone has already identified more than 700 use-cases to deliver new products and services quickly across Vodafone's markets, support fact-based decision-making, reduce costs, remove duplication of data sources, and simplify and centralise operations. The speed and ease with which Vodafone's operating companies in multiple countries can access its data analytics, intelligence, and machine-learning capabilities will also be vastly improved.

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By generating more detailed insight and data-driven analysis across the organisation and with its partners, Vodafone customers around the world can have a better and more enriched experience. Some of the key benefits include:

Enhancing Vodafone's mobile, fixed, and TV content and connectivity services through the instantaneous availability of highly personalised rewards, content, and applications. For example, a consumer might receive a sudden broadband speed boost based on personalised individual needs.

Increasing the number of smart network services in its Google Cloud footprint from eight markets to the entire Vodafone footprint. This allows Vodafone to precisely match network roll-out to consumer demand, increase capacity at critical times, and use machine learning to predict, detect, and fix issues before customers are aware of them.

Empowering data scientists to collaborate on key environmental and health issues in 11 countries using automated machine learning tools. Vodafone is already assisting governments and aid organisations, upon their request, with secure, anonymised, and aggregated movement data to tackle COVID-19. This partnership will further improve Vodafone's ability to provide deeper insights, in accordance with local laws and regulations, into the spread of disease through intelligent analytics across a wider geographical area.

Providing a complete digital replica of many of Vodafone's internal support functions using artificial intelligence and advanced analytics. Called a digital twin, it enables analytic models on Google Cloud to improve response times to enquiries and predict future demand. The system will also support a digital twin of Vodafone's vast digital infrastructure worldwide.

In addition, Vodafone will re-platform its entire SAP environment to Google Cloud, including the migration of its core SAP workloads and key corporate SAP modules such as SAP Central Finance.

Johan Wibergh, Chief Technology Officer for Vodafone, said: "Vodafone is building a powerful foundation for a digital future. We have vast amounts of data which, when securely processed and made available across our footprint using the collective power of Vodafone and Google Cloud's engineering expertise, will transform our services, to our customers and governments, and the societies where they live and serve."

Thomas Kurian, CEO at Google Cloud, commented: "Telecommunications firms are increasingly differentiating their customer experiences through the use of data and analytics, and this has never been more important than during the current pandemic. We are thrilled to be selected as Vodafone's global strategic cloud partner for analytics and SAP, and to co-innovate on new products that will accelerate the industry's digital transformation."

Technical Note to Editors

All data generated by Vodafone in the markets in which it operates is stored and processed in the required Google Cloud facilities as per local jurisdiction requirements and in accordance with local laws and regulations. Customer permissions and Vodafone's own rigorous security and privacy by design processes also apply.

On the back of their collaborative work, Vodafone and Google Cloud will also explore opportunities to provide consultancy services, offered either jointly or independently, to other multi-national organisations and businesses.

The platform is being built using the latest hybrid cloud technologies from Google Cloud to facilitate the rapid standardisation and movement of data in both Vodafone's physical data centres and onto Google Cloud. Dynamo will direct all of Vodafone's worldwide data, extracting, encrypting, and anonymizing the data from source to cloud and back again, enabling intelligent data analysis and generating efficiencies and insight.

NUCLEUSVodafone maintains vast troves of valuable business data, and it needs to be able to extract and blend data from one system with data from another, and to move data between multiple business systems.

Nucleus is Vodafone's global integrated data platform with a standard data model and common processes, data sourcing and data products.

Google Cloud and Vodafone are co-developing this entirely new platform to help Vodafone reinvent its approach to data, analytics and business intelligence. It will make business insights available more quickly and empower informed decision making. Nucleus will use data that can be trusted, thanks to clear lineage and robust data governance capabilities from Google Cloud.

DYNAMODynamo is the part of Nucleus that extracts and manages data from source systems and distributes the data to where it is used. This market-first hybrid data integration system will help Vodafone reduce costs, re-use data artefacts, and simplify and centralise operations across its global footprint.

It uses the latest hybrid cloud technologies to facilitate the movement of data in a standard format using a single technology that runs as one system in Vodafone and Google data centres.

Key benefits include:

Encouraging re-use of data and compliance with standards across multiple markets by basing all the user interfaces on common API's and strong security and compliance protocols.

Supporting the movement of 5,000 data feeds per day to the cloud the equivalent of 50 terabytes per day or more than 10 petabytes each year and growing.

Avoiding duplication of data extraction efforts by building reusable connectors to systems like SAP etc and reusable data pipelines, halving the time taken to extract data and reducing the time taken to generate insights.

Increasing the speed at which new data pipelines are built by 25%. These pipelines move the data from the source where it is generated to a warehouse or data hub for storage and analysis.

Automatically controlling the capacity of a data pipeline depending on time of day and demand.

Improving zero-touch automation with smart alerts and self-healing capabilities.

NEURONLeveraging Google Cloud's data and analytics technologies like BigQuery and Dataproc, the platform, called Neuron, enables Nucleus. Announced in November 2019, Neuron is now operational in multiple Vodafone markets.

SAP Google Cloud's scalable, reliable, and secure infrastructure will underpin Vodafone's SAP environments, enabling Vodafone to augment its SAP systems with Google Cloud's analytics and AI capabilities, and helping to derive more value out of its SAP data. Accenture will act as Vodafone's SAP migration partner, helping Vodafone seamlessly transition business critical SAP environments onto Google Cloud.

About Google CloudGoogle Cloud provides organizations with leading infrastructure, platform capabilities and industry solutions. We deliver enterprise-grade cloud solutions that leverage Google's cutting-edge technology to help companies operate more efficiently and adapt to changing needs, giving customers a foundation for the future. Customers in more than 150 countries turn to Google Cloud as their trusted partner to solve their most critical business problems.

About VodafoneVodafone is a leading telecommunications company in Europe and Africa. We are the largest mobile and fixed network operator in Europe and a leading global IoT connectivity provider. Our M-Pesa technology platform in Africa enables over 45m people to benefit from access to mobile payments and financial services. We operate mobile and fixed networks in 21 countries and partner with mobile networks in 48 more. As of 31 December 2020, we had over 300m mobile customers, more than 27m fixed broadband customers, over 22m TV customers and we connected more than 118m IoT devices.

For more information, please visit http://www.vodafone.com, follow us on Twitter at @VodafoneGroup or connect with us on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/company/vodafone.

Cision

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Vodafone and Google Cloud to Develop Industry-First Global Data Platform - Yahoo Finance

Google Photos will now allow users to create different themed movies. The feature relies on Googles identification of people and things in photos. Google Photos is considered to be one of the most popular photo apps for managing and sharing your photos, as the platform offers a host of features and AI-based functionality.

The app comes pre-loaded on most Android phones and users can also download it on iOS devices. Google Photos allows users to make custom movies that make use of Googles AI by choosing different images and videos and automatically creating a clip for you.

Google Photos will now offer options to create themed movies including selfie movies, Mothers Day movies, memorial day movies, and movies on cats and dogs, among others.

1. Open Google Photos.

2. Tap on Library at the bottom right-hand side of your screen.

3. Tap on Utilities and then select the Movie option on your screen.

4. In the Movie option youll find Meow Movie, Doggie Movie, and selfie movie among others. Select the kind of movie you want Google to create.

5. Google will then ask you to select a person, people, or animal, as appropriate.

6. The movie will be created in the background and once its completed, you will get a notification

Google Photos allows you to edit the automatically created movie. When you play the movie on the app, theres an edit option at the bottom of the page. This will allow you to change the soundtrack, add or remove images and change the order of images.

Note: To create a themed movie you will have to have a number of photos in your Google Photos collection that are recognised. For example, if you only have one picture of your cat its not going to work. You will also need to update the Google Photos app to the latest version.

Original post:

Google Photos will now allow you to create themed movies: Heres how it works - The Indian Express

Roku said it has removed the app for Google's streaming service YouTube TV after its contract to carry it expired.

The company said current subscribers to YouTube TV will continue to have access to the app unless Google chooses to fully remove it from Roku devices.

Roku spokesperson Dallas Lawrence told USA TODAY in an email the company is "disappointed" Google has allowed the contract to lapseand has not sought additional financial consideration to renew its deal.

"It is well past time for Google to embrace the principles that have made streaming so popular for millions of users by giving consumers control of their streaming experience, by embracing fair competition and by ceasing anticompetitive practices," said Lawrence.

The Roku Ultra.(Photo: Roku)

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Roku plans to email customers about the removal of YouTube TV.

In a blog post published Friday, Google claims the company wanted to renew its deal with Roku under current conditions, but Roku sought to renegotiate a separate deal expiring in December involving its main YouTube app.

"Despite our best efforts to come to an agreement in the best interests of our mutual users, Roku terminated our deal in bad faith amidst our negotiation," reads the statement. "Unfortunately, Roku has often engaged in this tactic with other streaming providers."

Earlier this week, Roku warned its users recent negotiations over YouTube TV had broken down over "unfair terms" from Google that the company believed could harm its users.

YouTubeTV spokesperson Mariana De Felice told USA TODAY in a statement emailed Monday the servicehas been working in good faith with Roku on a deal that benefits its viewers and Roku customers.

"Were disappointed that they chose to make baseless claims while we continue our ongoing negotiations," she said. "All of our work with them has been focused on ensuring a high quality and consistent experience for our viewers."

Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.

Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/04/30/roku-youtube-tv-google-streaming-service-pulled-channel-store/7408577002/

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Can you still watch YouTube TV on your Roku? What the channel removal means for users - USA TODAY

Before the pandemic, Googles sprawling campus of airy, open offices and whimsical common spaces set a standard for what an innovative workplace was supposed to look like.

Now, the company is creating a workplace for the Covid era, with a concept perhaps best described as Ikea meets Lego.

Instead of rows of desks next to cookie-cutter meeting rooms, Google is designing Team Pods. Chairs, desks, whiteboards and storage units on casters can be wheeled into various arrangements, and in some cases rearranged in a matter of hours. It is building outdoor work areas to respond to concerns about the coronavirus.

At its Silicon Valley headquarters, it has converted a parking lot and lawn area into a camp, with clusters of tables and chairs under open-air tents. The area is a fenced-in mix of grass and wooden deck flooring about the size of four tennis courts with Wi-Fi throughout.

David Radcliffe, Googles vice president for real estate and workplace services, said that while moving more than 100,000 employees to virtual work last year was daunting, now it seems even more daunting to figure out how to bring them back safely.

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Ikea meets Lego: Google redesigns its office space. - The New York Times

I have some old telephones lying around - few of them fully functional anymore. I was going to throw out one of them when I realized I could replace the inner wiring with a Raspberry Pi, and have the Google Assistant running on it.

While its certainly easier to call hey google across the room, theres something fun about picking up the phone, asking it a question, and having it immediately respond. This is how to install the Google Assistant on an old rotary telephone with a Raspberry Pi Zero.

This Raspberry Pi project is quite extensive and can take a bit of time, so Ive split it up into four distinct parts:

Before we use a Raspberry Pi as a Google Assistant, we must register the device with Google. This process can be a bit confusing if youve never used Google Cloud Platform before, but the steps should be easy enough to follow.

1. Clone this repository to your raspberry pi.

2. Navigate to https://console.actions.google.com in your browser. This site allows us to manage Google Assistant Actions, as well as register custom Google Assistant devices.

3. Click New Project and fill in the required information. The name doesnt matter - just pick something you can remember.

4. In a new tab, visit this link to Google Cloud Platform, and confirm that the name of the project you just created appears in the top bar - if not, select it. Then, click the Enable button to turn on the API.

5. In your original tab, scroll to the bottom of the page and click Are you looking for device registration? Click here

6. On the next page, click Register Model.

7. Fill in the required information and copy down the Model ID to file - you will need it later.

8. Click Download OAuth 2.0 credentials to download the credentials file your Raspberry Pi will use to make requests.

9. Rename the downloaded file to oauth_config_credentials.json and transfer it to your pi. Place it into the repository folder you cloned in step 1.

10. Back in the browser, after downloading and renaming the credentials, click the Next button.

11. On the Specify traits tab, click Save Traits without adjusting any settings to complete the setup.

Weve now registered a device with Google. Next, its time to authenticate this device so it has access to our Google account and personalized assistant.

1. Navigate to https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/credentials/consent ensuring that the project matches the name you decided in Step 3 of Registering With Google.

2. Select External and click the Create button.

3. Fill in an App name. Once again, this doesnt really matter - but to keep it simple I went with the same name as before.

4. Select your email from the dropdown in User support email. This is in case any users of your app need to contact you, but since we wont be making the app public, theres no need to worry.

5. Add that same email under Developer contact information and click Save and Continue.

6. On the next page, click Add or Remove Scopes to bring up the scopes sidebar.

7. Search for Google Assistant API in the search bar, and check the /auth/assistant-sdk-prototype scope. Then click update, followed by Save and Continue at the bottom of the page.

8. On the next page, click Save and Continue to skip Optional Info.

9. With the setup complete, click OAuth Consent Screen in the sidebar to refresh the page - then Add User under Test Users.

10. Add your Google accounts email, and click save.

11. Next, on your pi navigate to the downloaded repository and run the following command:

12. Follow the link it gives you and complete the Authentication process in your browser. Once the process is complete, copy the code and paste it back in your terminal.

13. If successful, youll see a message indicating credentials saved: followed by a path to the credentials. Use this path to move the credentials into the current directory. Transfer these credentials to your repositorys root directory

Depending on your rotary phone, this process will vary widely. These are the steps that I used, but likely this will require a fair bit of trial and error on your part. Make sure you use a phone you dont care about, as it wont be able to work normally after this.

1. Take the cover off the telephone. You may need to loosen a screw on the bottom.

2. Find and strip the wires connected to the hook switch. Well connect these wires to the pis GPIO pins to determine if the receiver has been picked up or set down.

3. Connect the hook switch wires to GPIO Board pin 18 and ground. You may need to solder the wires from the hook switch to jumper wires to connect them easier, or just attach them together with a bit of electrical tape.

4. Connect your USB audio adapter to the raspberry pi zero. You will need a USB-micro to female USB-A adapter to do this.

5. Solder the microphone and speaker in the handset to two separate 3.5mm cables. These will carry the signal from the pi to the speaker, and from the microphone to the pi. You should be able to connect these within the phone case and use the original handset cord. This will take a bit of trial and error to determine which wires belong to the speaker, and which to the microphone.

6. Connect the 3.5mm cables to the USB audio adapter being mindful to connect them in the proper order.

7. Tuck the pi into the phone, and close up the cover - or keep it open while you debug setting up the assistant. Run the power adapter connected to the pi out the back of the case where the original telephone wire would go.

1. Run the installation script. Itll take care of base and python requirements. If you have a Raspberry Pi Zero, the compilation process can take hours and will appear stuck on a step installing grpc (it just moves very slowly). Id recommend leaving it running over night.

2. Configure your USB audio by running the following command. It will take care of editing your alsamixer config, setting your USB card as your default audio output, and setting volumes for the speaker and microphone.

3. Test and adjust your volumes by running the following command, speaking, and listening through your phones handset. If your volume is not high enough on your microphone or speaker, set it with the alsamixer command.

4. Export your project ID to an environment variable. You can retrieve your project ID by visiting this URL, selecting your project, clicking the three dots next to your profile photo in the top right, and clicking Project Settings

5. Export your model ID from the Registering With Google steps to an environment variable.

6. Run the make run command. It will take care of registering this device, and saving the configuration to disk so you wont need the environment variables in the future.

7. Test your assistant by picking up the phone, and asking it a simple question, like What is the capital of Canada? If all goes well, youll see some logs in the terminal, and the assistant will respond. To ask another question, hang up the receiver and pick it up again.

8. Finally, run the following command to configure the assistant to run on boot.

Visit link:

How to Turn a Rotary Phone into Google Assistant with Raspberry Pi - Tom's Hardware

Americas top tech lobby Internet Association has backed retaliatory tariff action against India, if New Delhi does not roll back the unilateral and discriminatory equalisation levy or Google Tax.

It has also urged the US to help build a global consensus around developing a modern, fair, and global approach to taxing digital services to prevent such unilateral measures from countries like India.

The Steel Manufacturers Association in the US has also strongly backed imposition of retaliatory tariffs against India to address concerns related to unfair trade practices by Indian steel producers. It sought inclusion of over 200 additional tariff lines related to the steel sector in the retaliatory tariffs proposal.

Meanwhile, jewellers and jewellery associations in India and the US have strongly opposed a US proposal to impose tariff, arguing that this will result in diversion of trade to China besides having a major impact on small and medium enterprise and artisans.

In its comments to the US Trade Representative (USTR) over the retaliatory tariffs proposal, the association, which represents over 40 of the worlds leading internet companies, including LinkedIn, Netflix, Microsoft, and Google, expressed hope that the central government will roll back this discriminatory tax before any escalation occurs.

The Biden administration has threatened India with retaliatory tariffs of up to 25 per cent ad valorem on a slew of Indian products, including shrimp, basmati rice and gold, among others, over the 2 per cent equalisation levy on e-commerce operators introduced in April 2020. It is applicable on non-resident digital entities with a turnover of ~2 crore. It had invited comments on the proposal on retaliatory tariffs.

It is the goal of the digital industry for India to end its discriminatory tax before any additional duties would enter into force. Thus, the proposed duties will not have to be put into place, the association said in the comments to USTR s proposal, the window for which closed on April 30. The public hearing on the matter is on May 10.

Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) has, in its comments, objected to the proposed tariffs on the sector arguing that it will cause severe harm to Indian and US businesses.

About 17 of the 40 product lines in the proposed tariff list pertain to the gems and jewellery sector.

Our sector had earlier been significantly impacted with the abrupt withdrawal of the generalised source of preference (GSP) benefits. We are now deeply disturbed with the threat of further action against our niche sector, the association said. It urged the USTR to remove all 17 heads related to the gems and jewellery sector from the proposed tariffs list. This would help prevent diversion of trade to other countries especially to China.

SEEPZ Gems & Jewellery Manufacturers Association said that the proposed action will impact Indias and US economies. The only beneficiary would be China, it said.

American jewellery, leather, apparel and footwear associations have also opposed retaliatory tariffs against India as it will make imports expensive, impacting their businesses.

The 40 sub-heads proposed for tariffs include Rattan furniture (a type of furniture) and parts, precious stone articles, gold rope necklaces and neck chains, cultured pearls, yarn, cigarette paper, and corks and stoppers.

India's collection from equalisation levy nearly doubled to ~2,035 crore in 2020-21 from ~1,138 crore in the previous year.

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Google tax: American IT and steel lobbies back action against India - Business Standard

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Take Two

Google seems perennially mired in litigation these days. The latest legal salvo hurled at the tech giant is a $4.16 billion class action lawsuit in the UK alleging that Google illegally tracked 4.4 million iPhone users nearly 10 years ago in England and Wales. Consumer advocate Richard Lloyd, who initiated the suit, claims Google employed a workaround for tracking on Safari between August 2011 and February 2012, which allowed Google to use cookies to track peoples browser activity without their permission. This is not allowed under British data protection laws. Business Insider reports that Google is, of course, attempting to block the suit, claiming that the latest allegations are a decade old and have already been addressed. The class action suit comes after years of legal wrangling and was initially rejected by the UK courts in 2018. But this isnt Googles first rodeo or, shall we say, safari? Google was already forced to pay a $22.5 million fine to the Federal Trade Commission in 2012 over deploying a tracking workaround on Safari.

Toned Down

The Senate Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust is keeping the heat on big tech. But its latest hearing, held on Tuesday, was less combative than other recent hearings and spared the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter and Google another grilling. This round of inquiries zeroed in on the way in which social media companies make money and how that can be problematic. The policy leads at Facebook, Twitter and YouTube answered questions about how their respective platforms use algorithms and how algorithms in general can modify human behavior. Still, the hearing wasnt without its share of political theater. Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), chair of the Senate Judiciarys subcommittee on privacy and tech, declared that algorithms are designed to attract our time and attention on social media, and the results can be harmful to our kids attention spans, to the quality of our public discourse, to our public health and even to our democracy itself. Still, this latest hearing demonstrates that bipartisan agreement is possible, which could help buoy the chances of a tech reform bill passing the Senate. Several such bills include changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law that protects social media companies from liability for user-created content. TechCrunch has more.

ATT Worth It

Apple had a record second quarter, with revenue increasing54% YoYto$89.6 billion. But some of the biggest headlines this week had less to do with hardware and more to do with the release of iOS 14.5 on Mondayand the start of AppTrackingTransparency enforcement. Asked during Apple's earnings call on Wednesday evening what the response has been from developers, CEO Tim Cook replied in his usual fashion that the focus is on user choice. Cook said thatfeedback from users before and after ATTwent livehas been tremendous and that Apple is proud of its full implementation. We're really standing up on behalf of the consumer here, Cook said. But Cook declined to get specific when asked about opt-in rates for the ATT prompt. "Frankly, even if it's a very low [number] of people that don't want to be tracked," he said, "it's worth doing because those people should make their own mind up, whether they would like to be tracked or not. [Related in AdExchanger:"IOS 14.5 Is Live, ATT Enforcement Begins And Heres How We Got Here"]

Post-Cookie Context

Third-party cookies are out. First-party data is in and ad tech companies are ramping up their offerings to stay ahead of the curve. Among them is Criteo, which rolled out a new product that connects first-party commerce data with real-time contextual signals so that marketers can drive and measure incremental revenue in a post-cookie world. Read the release. Criteo has been working to reduce its exposure to the end of third-party cookies. Although retargeting is, and will continue to be, core to its business, Criteos top priority is to build targeting products that serve its growing base of ecommerce and retail media customers. The new contextual targeting tool is one of the solutions that Criteo has been developing for its commerce media platform, including beefing up its first-party data assets. [Related in AdExchanger: Commerce Is Criteos Eject Button For The Third-Party Cookie Problem]

But Wait, Theres More!

Bell, Canadas largest communications company, has teamed up with Xandr to create Canadas first self-serve advertising platform for TV and digital. [release]

Looks like the holdcos are turning a corner after being pummelled by the pandemic: IPG and WPP both reported a return to organic revenue growth in Q1 2021. [WSJ]

Heres how the top 100 highest-grossing games are displaying iOS 14.5 ATT prompts. [LinkedIn]

Video advertising and monetization provider Aniview has extended its CTV and OTT services to additional on-demand formats. [release]

Google is adding COVID-related information to searches for travel to help people figure out whether quarantine or proof of vaccination is required at their destination. [The Verge]

SpotX has integrated with TVSquared as a preferred measurement and attribution partner for CTV. [release]

Spotify is following Apple with an ad-free podcast subscription service. [The Drum]

Youre Hired!

DoubleVerify has tapped Google veteran James Cashmore as SVP of global client and agency partnerships. [release]

Edelman has hired Karima Zmerli as global head of performance and predictive intelligence. [CampaignUS]

ID5 has appointed Joseph Quaglia as VP of sales and business development. [release]

More:

Google Hit With Suit In The UK Over Illegal Tracking; Lawmakers Dig In On Algorithms - AdExchanger

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Third-party cookies are going extinct, but that doesnt mean tracking is going away. Google is introducing a new tracking method called Federated Learning of Cohorts, or FLoC, as part of the privacy sandbox initiative it announced in 2019. Google claims its replacement for cookies will better protect user data, but many people remain unconvinced.

With tracking cookies on the declinepartially due to many browsers blocking third-party cookies by defaultGoogle wants to come up with another way to track user data for targeted ads. Thats where FLoC comes in.

FLoC lets advertisers use behavioral targeting without cookies. It runs in Googles Chrome browser and tracks a users online behavior.

Then, it assigns that browser history an identifier and adds it to a group of other browsers with similar behaviors called a cohort. Supposedly, advertisers would be able to see the behaviors that people in a cohort share without being able to identify individuals within that cohort, because each persons browser is given an anonymized ID.

Users cohort IDs would be recalculated on a weekly basis, providing a new summary of their online behavior every week. Google claims that since there would be thousands of people in each cohort, no single person could be picked out of the group and paired with their unique browsing data.

Google says that FLoC will allow personalized ads without the collection of data that can be tied to specific people using its products. By assigning each browser an anonymized ID and then adding that ID into a large group where only the overall patterns are accessible to advertisers, the idea is that your privacy will remain intact while advertisers still get your eyeballs.

If their proof of concept test is anything to go by, FLoC will use an algorithm called SimHash to create user IDs and assign people to cohorts. SimHash was originally created for use by Google web crawlers to find nearly identical web pages.

Since this happens on your computer, your data wouldnt get stored on a server, which is one of the privacy concerns associated with third-party cookies. Massive amounts of user data that could be paired to individual people were harvested and then stored under unclear security protocols for an indeterminate length of time.

Google also claims that cohorts with highly sensitive content wont be used. If someone frequently visits a medical website or a site that routinely publishes religious or political content, that information wont be used to add them to a cohort and will remain private.

According to a statement published by Marshall Vale, the product manager of Googles privacy sandbox:

Before a cohort becomes eligible, Chrome analyzes it to see if the cohort is visiting pages with sensitive topics, such as medical websites or websites with political or religious content, at a high rate. If so, Chrome ensures that the cohort isnt used, without learning which sensitive topics users were interested in.

While it may seem benign on the surface, many are speaking out against FLoC. In a post entitled Googles FLoC Is a Terrible Idea, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) says that Google is using a false dichotomy when it comes to privacy.

Instead of re-inventing the tracking wheel, we should imagine a better world without the myriad problems of targeted ads, writes the articles author Bennett Cyphers. He argues that our options shouldnt be reduced to You either have old tracking or new trackingthere just shouldnt be tracking, period.

And others appear to agree. Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox web browser, has said that it wont adopt FLoC, although it is looking into other advertising options that preserve privacy. Browsers that have branched from Chrome, like Brave and Vivaldi, arent going to implement it. Apple has also said that it wont use it in its Safari browser. As of April 2021, Microsoft has disabled the feature in Microsoft Edge, its Chromium-derived browser.

Cyphers writes that although FLoC can keep users semi-anonymous, it creates new privacy concerns by trying to address old ones while still keeping targeted ads. One of those concerns is fingerprinting.

Browser fingerprinting is the ability to take separate pieces of information from someones browser and construct them into a reliable identifier for a specific person. The more unique your browsing behavior, the easier you are to fingerprint because that behavior sets you apart from the group.

Since FLoC takes your browsing behavior and uses it to create an identifier before assigning you to a group, Cyphers argues that whoever wants to track you already has a lot of the work done for them. Someone trying to track a pre-FLoC Chrome user would have to pick them from a pool of millionsa cohort is only a few thousand.

In order to work for advertisers, FLoC has to share your cohort data. Sometimes, it will share that data with companies that can already identify you from, say, your login information.

If youve logged in to a site with Google to use a service, for example, information like your name and login credentials will already be saved. That information can be used to tie your cohort ID, which is supposed to be anonymous, to your user profile.

Cyphers argues that this sort of cross-contextual information may actually help illicit trackers be more effective. He also says that it just doesnt make sense for every site you visit to know everything about you on first contact:

You should have a right to present different aspects of your identity in different contexts. If you visit a site for medical informationtheres no reason it needs to know what your politics are.

Google is already running a trial of FLoC on about 0.5% of users in regions that include Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, and the United States. You can check to see whether youre one of those users at the EFFs site Am I FLoCed?

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What Is Googles FLoC, and How Will It Track You Online? - How-To Geek

Bob O'Donnell, Special to USA TODAY Published 9:00 a.m. ET April 26, 2021 | Updated 1:55 p.m. ET April 26, 2021

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As glimmers of hope driven by increased vaccinations and an improving economic environment get people thinking more about their future, many are in the process of evaluating their current work situations. In fact, recent studies suggest that the pandemic has driven more people to contemplate job changes than has been witnessed in a long time.

One seemingly obvious target for many people is a job in the tech industry. After all, tech companies not only survived but thrived in the pandemic and most people realize that our reliance on tech-related products and services (and the companies that supply them) are only going to grow over time.

Plus, the tech industry is generally known for offering more attractive wages and benefits than many other industries.

The problem, however, is that breaking into the tech industry has traditionally been seen as difficult to do particularly if you dont have a 4-year college degree. Thankfully, the situation is starting to change in a dramatic fashion.

Many of the latest efforts are driven in part by the reality that there simply arent enough people with the right skills and/or experience to fill all the jobs the tech industry currently has, much less the jobs it will continue to create.

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Theres widespread recognition that many groups, including Blacks, Latinos, and women of all races, are woefully underrepresented in tech, leading to a wide range of product, strategy, personnel, and perspective issues that have started to come to the fore.

Many big tech companies have been aware of these concerns for some time (see "New job search: Tech companies tackle shifting jobs environment with reskilling efforts for more). However, new programs designed to take people from all types of ethnic, socioeconomic and educational backgrounds and provide them with the skills and opportunities they need to succeed in the tech world are growing at a rapid pace.

As part of its Upskilling 2025 initiative, for example, Amazon has launched a new program inside its Amazon Technical Academy thats specifically designed to take people without any technical background or training and turn them into software engineers in ninemonths. The only requirement is a high school diploma or GED, though the program is also open to those with a college degree in other unrelated areas.

Given that the industrywide median annual salary for software developers as of 2019 was $107,510, thats bound to be an attractive option to many especially because of the 98% success rate that previous programs at the Amazon Technical Academy have achieved in placing graduates into jobs.

(Photo: Getty Images)

The full-time virtual program and its curriculum were developed by Amazon engineers and is open both to people who work at Amazon as well as those outside the company, thanks to a partnership Amazon formed with two schools, Kenzie Academy and Lambda School.

For Amazon employees, there is no tuition, and the company even provides a stipend for living costs and a subsidy for health benefits. This helps avoid the financial burden of having to be without a paycheck during the ninemonths of training.

Kenzie Academys tuition is $20,000, though there are scholarships and flexible payment plans available. In the case of Lambda, the school uses an increasingly common approach of not charging for tuition upfront, but then taking a portion of a graduates earnings (something called an Income Share Agreement) until the tuition is paid, but not until the student gets a software engineering job. Again, this removes the critical financial burden, which might prevent people from lower-income households from even considering these programs.

At IBM, the company has created a free online training program, open to anyone, called SkillsBuild. It offers a variety of different online classes many of which are powered by the companys Watson AI technology.

The SkillsBuild program is targeted both at individuals and nonprofits that want to provide tech skill-focused training classes for their members. The program has an online assessment tool that can provide guidance on the types of courses to take, as well as the types of opportunities to pursue. In addition, theres an online job board thats matched up to the classes being taught and the badges you earn as you take them.

Google also offers online skill building tools called Career Certificates that are specifically designed to build the skills required for a variety of different entry level IT (Information Technology) jobs positions that have an average starting salary of $63,600. Most of Googles courses are taught through Coursera, which charges $39/month to access them.

As Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently wrote in a blog about the program, however, the company is in the process of offering 100,000 scholarships for the Career Certificates through nonprofits, workforce development boards, and other organizations that are specifically targeting underrepresented groups.

Many other big tech companies also have training programs that are designed to open the tech industrys previously closed doors to a wider range of people, including Ciscos Networking Academy and Microsofts Global Skills Initiative, which was recently extended to offer free online tech skill certification programs through the end of 2021.

While the pandemics toll has been horrific, one positive outcome beginning to appear is the opportunity for people to make a change and get a fresh start on their careers. Given the huge demand and wide range of financially rewarding opportunities in the tech field, there's never been a better time to take a look at these types of programs and see if you can find a match for your interests and goals. This is particularly true if youre part of a community that hasnt typically been able to enjoy the tech industrys successes.

There is no question that tech-related job skills have become important, so its great to see so many of the tech industrys largest companies doing their part to extend the pool of potential workers. If youre ready for a job change, it looks like now is a very good time.

USA TODAY columnist Bob O'Donnell is the president and chief analyst of TECHnalysis Research, a market research and consulting firm that provides strategic consulting and market research services to the technology industry and professional financial community. His clients are major technology firms including Microsoft, HP, Dell, Samsung and Intel. You can follow him on Twitter @bobodtech.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of USA TODAY.

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Looking to level up? Amazon, Google, Microsoft and more offer training programs - USA TODAY

Our search histories are our secret shame. From ridiculous medical emergencies to tutorials on how one could kill a person - Google and its brethren know us better than almost anybody else. This data, when collated, can present some rather disturbing trends hinting at, among other things, rising domestic violence, suicide, and femicide amid the COVID-19 pandemic. But there is more to it than what meets the eye.

Earlier this year, a study published in the Journal of General Psychology contended that if Google searches were any indication, domestic violence and attacks against women had increased manifold as the pandemic raged. The study by the deputy director of New Zealand's University of Otago had tracked Google searches in the US to come to its conclusion. Reportedly, the study contends that the phrases "How to control your woman" and how to hit a woman so no one knows" were each googled 165 million times. Similarly problematic phrases such as "Help me, he wont leave" was allegedly Googled over 1.2 billion times.

While the National Commission for Women in India had said something much along the same lines in 2020, the study does not hold up when one checks Google Trends. Indeed a quick perusal of the trends for the problematic phrases mentioned in Katerina Standish's study show no fluctuations. Some are uncommon enough that Google had no available trends for it. We conducted the Trends search for both the US and worldwide, seeing no major fluctuations of changes.

Published online in January this year, the study had drawn widespread news coverage in many foreign media platforms. But as the scrutiny grew, along came the fact checks. More recently, the story has been picked up by Indian media platforms, triggering fresh outrage. A Twitter handle, believed to be Standish's own has also also clarified that her methodology was "flawed".

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The flaw in trying to 'control your woman' on Google search - Free Press Journal