Daily Archives: January 9, 2022

The pioneering work of physicist Stephen Hawking is honored in a Google Doodle today (Jan. 8), including a video with Hawking's quotes concerning everything from cosmology to disability.

On what would have been Hawking's 80th birthday, the cosmologist was cited not only with his work in probing the fate of the universe and the nature of black holes, but also his quick wit, his ability to engage popular audiences around the world, and his living example to people with disabilities.

"Todays video Doodle celebrates one of historys most influential scientific minds, English cosmologist, author, and theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking," Google said in a statement about the Doodle, which was created by Matthew Cruickshank.

"From colliding black holes to the Big Bang," Google added, "his theories on the origins and mechanics of the universe revolutionized modern physics while his best-selling books made the field widely accessible to millions of readers worldwide."

Related: Famous Stephen Hawking theory about black holes confirmed

Stephen William Hawking was born in England on Jan. 8, 1942, 300 years to the day after the death of the astronomerGalileo Galilei.While studying cosmology (or the universe's history and composition) in 1963 at the University of Cambridge, Hawking was diagnosed with motor neuron disease, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease oramyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Hawking, then just under 21 years old, was only expected to live two more years, but he completed his doctorate in 1965 and continued his work at Cambridge. Just nine years later, Hawking discovered that particles could escape black holes. The 1974 discovery of Hawking radiation "is widely considered his most important contribution to physics," Google said of the scientist.

In 1979, Hawking was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, the most famous academic chair in the world. His career work also covered aspects of the ending of the universe, as well as Albert Einstein'sTheory of General Relativity.

Hawking eventually shifted his activities to a wheelchair, and in 1985, lost his speech due to an emergency tracheometry. For the rest of his career, a speech-generating device made at Cambridge, along with a software program, became his electronic voice. (Hawking picked the words he wanted to use, using muscles in his cheek.)

You can hear Hawking's now-famous voice in a YouTube video (Google owns YouTube) accompanying the Google Doodle, which replays some of the cosmologist's most notable phrases. One of the included quotes is his pithy observation of how his life turned out: "My expectations were reduced to zero at 21. Everything since then has been a bonus."

Later in his career, Hawking authored numerous popular books and appeared frequently in the media, including appearances on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and a cameo on the television show "Big Bang Theory."

Hawking died at his Cambridge home on March 14, 2018, at the age of 76. "His courage and persistence, with his brilliance and humour, inspired people across the world," children Lucy, Robert and Tim said in a statement at the time.

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Google Doodle celebrates the life of cosmologist Stephen Hawking for his 80th birthday - Space.com

Google is announcing no fewer than 13 different new software features at CES 2022, ranging from AirPods-like fast switching to promised software that will mirror your Android text apps on a Chromebook. Its part of an initiative that Google calls Better Together but that the rest of the industry is more likely to refer to as catching up to Apples ecosystem.

The biggest updates come to Googles Fast Pair framework, an Android UI designed to make pairing Bluetooth headphones easier. This year, Google will extend it to support auto-switching between devices, faster pairing to Android TV and Google TV, and more. It will also adopt the Fast Pair framework for installing new smart home devices using the upcoming Matter standard, which should mean that getting a new smart lightbulb or door lock going will be a lot easier.

Google will also enable smartwatches running Wear OS 3 to unlock paired Android phones or Chromebooks, much in the same way an Apple Watch can unlock an iPhone. That feature will arrive in the coming months, and hopefully, there will be more Wear OS 3 watches available when it launches. Right now, the only major smartwatch running the new OS is Samsungs Galaxy Watch 4.

All of the features Google is announcing today are planned to arrive later this year, in timespans ranging from in the coming weeks to in the coming months to later this year. They will hit Android phones via software updates (that may not require full OS updates), Chromebooks, Android TV, Bluetooth headphones, and even some Windows laptops from Acer and HP.

That last detail may turn out to be one of the more important announcements from Google: HP, Acer, and Intel are partnering with Google to support some of its Better Together features on their laptops. Users will be able to use Fast Pair, sync text messages, and use Androids Nearby Share feature to share files to their upcoming Windows PCs. Alongside Googles announced plans to bring Google Play games to Windows, its another sign that the company wont cede Android integrations on Windows entirely to Microsofts software and partnerships.

The Windows integrations are notable, but there are, of course, more planned features for Chromebooks beyond Fast Pair. Google says it will create a system so that any messaging app on your phone can be mirrored on a Chromebook, allowing users to directly use their messaging apps. It will also add a feature called Camera Roll on Phone Hub that will make it easier to move photos from your phone to your Chromebook.

Chromebooks will also be getting a new setup flow if you have an Android phone pair them during setup, and some settings and account information will be transferred over automatically. Theyll also be unlockable via Wear OS watches.

Finally, there are a few smaller announcements. On the audio side, Bose speakers and soundbars will begin supporting Chromecast in the coming weeks, and spatial audio with head tracking is coming for Android.

Google is also still working on adding support for unlocking cars via UWB (currently available on Samsung phones and the Pixel 6 Pro), and as always with these car locking announcements, the first partner will be BMW. Volvo, which uses Android Auto as its native system for running the dashboard computer, will integrate with the Google Assistant so you can use your smart speaker for functions like remote start.

Stepping back and looking at the features as a whole, its difficult not to draw nearly one-to-one parallels to Apple ecosystem features. Headphones are extending Bluetooth to support auto-switching and head-tracking spatial audio, just like AirPods. iPhone users with Mac have long had their default texting experience fully synced. Nearby Share is very similar to AirDrop. Unlocking with a smartwatch is also a big Apple ecosystem benefit.

Normally at CES, Google has emphasized the power of the Google Assistant. This year, its hoping to get you to believe that Android can work better with your other devices. The challenge for Google is to actually get lots of different devices and manufacturers to support all of these features. That will be no easy task and its likely one of the main reasons there are no firm dates or even specific hardware products attached to any of these announcements.

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Google will spend 2022 trying to match Apples ecosystem integrations - The Verge

Apple has an agreement with Google that it won't develop its own internet search engine so long as Google pays it to remain the default option in Safari, a new class action alleges.

Filed in a California court earlier this week against Apple, Google, and their respective CEOs, the lawsuit alleges the two companies have a non-compete agreement in the internet search business that violates US antitrust laws.

Specifically, the complaint charges Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai of participating in "regular secret meetings" in which Google agrees to share its profits with Apple if it is given preferential treatment on devices like the iPhone and iPad.

The class action also alleges that Google pays Apple annual multi-billion-dollar payments based on an agreement that Apple won't launch its own competing search engine, and that the non-compete agreement includes plans to actively suppress smaller competitors and acquire actual and potential competitors.

The complaint claims that advertising rates are subsequently higher than rates would be in a competitive system. It therefore seeks an injunction prohibiting the non-compete agreement between Google and Apple, a cessation of the profit-sharing agreement and preferential treatment, and an end to the multi-billion dollar payments.

Lastly, the complaint calls for "the breakup of Google into separate and independent companies and the breakup of Apple into separate and independent companies in accordance with the precedent of the breakup of Standard Oil company into Exxon, Mobile, Conoco, Amoco, Sohio, Chevron, and others."

It's no secret Apple and Google have a considerable monetary agreement that ensures Google's position as the default search engine on Apple devices. Neither company has ever confirmed exactly how much Google pays to be the default search engine on Apple devices in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries, but it's rumored to be in the billions.

In 2020, The New York Times reported that Apple receives an estimated $8-12 billion per year in exchange for making Google the default search on its devices. According to one analyst, Google's payment to Apple in 2021 to maintain this status quo may have reached up to $15 billion.

This is believed to be the single biggest payment Google makes to anyone, and could account for up to a fifth of Apple's annual profits. But it has also drawn scrutiny in the past, in particular from the US Justice Department, which claims that the deal is representative of illegal tactics used to protect Google's monopoly and stifle competition.

The UK Competition and Markets Authority has also called the arrangement a "significant barrier to entry and expansion" for rivals in the search engine market, and in 2020 asked for enforcement authorities to be provided with a range of options to address the deal between Apple and Google to provide a more level playing field for other search engines.

Bringing the antitrust case to a San Francisco court this week, lawyer Joseph M Alioto said: "These powerful companies abused their size by unlawfully foreclosing and monopolizing major markets which in an otherwise free enterprise system would have created jobs, lowered prices, increased production, added new competitors, encouraged innovations, and increased the quality of services in the digital age."

Apple and Google would likely argue that while the payments are indeed for Google to remain the default search option, users can select other search engines in Safari including Microsoft's Bing, Apollo Fund's Yahoo, and independent search engines DuckDuckGo and Ecosia.

Apple would also likely point out that it is already in the search engine business and maintains an active web crawler, called Applebot. The crawler chiefly operates in the background to improve Siri and Spotlight search results, although past reports have interpreted Applebot's increased activity as Apple "stepping up efforts" to develop its own search technology should its agreement with Google become incompatible with antitrust laws.

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Google Basically Pays Apple to Stay Out of the Search Engine Business, Class Action Lawsuit Alleges - MacRumors

Googles $500 million acquisition of Israel-based startup Siemplify is supposed to help the company bolster its own cloud security initiative, Chronicle, according to a report from Reuters. In a blog post announcing the deal, Google describes Siemplify as a security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) organization and plans to integrate its capabilities into Chronicle.

Siemplify is an intuitive workbench that enables security teams to both manage risk better and reduce the cost of addressing threats, Sunil Potti, the vice president of Google Cloud Security, states in the blog post. Siemplify allows Security Operation Center analysts to manage their operations from end-to-end, respond to cyber threats with speed and precision, and get smarter with every analyst interaction.

Siemplify got its start in 2015, and as Reuters notes, it has raised a total of $58 million from investors to date. A source close to the situation told Reuters that the Alphabet-owned Google became interested in purchasing the startup after it heard Siemplify was gearing up for another round of funding. Siemplify will now join Chronicle under the Google Cloud umbrella.

Chronicle was first launched in 2018 after spinning off of X Development (formerly Google X), Alphabets moonshot factory, and is supposed to help large enterprises detect, analyze, and store security-related information. According to Vice, security experts were excited about the up-and-coming company when it first launched, as it was supposed to use innovative machine-learning technology and telemetry data to boost companies cybersecurity. But after becoming an arm of Google Cloud in 2019, Vice reports that some employees quit including co-founder Mike Wiacek as a result of feeling that the company lost its original purpose.

Googles acquisition of Siemplify doesnt come long after the tech giant promised to spend over $10 billion over the next five years to help improve US cybersecurity. In May, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to help strengthen national cybersecurity in light of the major attacks on the Colonial Pipeline and Microsoft Exchange Server.

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Google is buying a company for half a billion dollars to boost cloud security - The Verge

Google is giving four of its top execs a significant pay bump, raising their salaries from $650,000 to $1 million, just weeks after the company told staffers it wouldnt automatically adjust salaries to account for inflation. The new executive salaries were disclosed in an SEC filing.

The executives receiving the $1 million base salaries are chief financial officer Ruth Porat, senior vice president Prabhakar Raghavan (who is in charge of Google search); senior vice president and chief business officer Philipp Schindler; and president of global affairs and chief legal officer Kent Walker. All four executives are eligible to participate in a maximum $2,000,000 annual bonus program, based on contributions to Googles performance against social and environmental goals for 2022, according to the filing. Each person has also been granted stock awards with target values in the millions of dollars.

Google has been very financially successful as of late it posted its fifth quarter in a row of record profits in October. But in contrast to giving the four execs huge pay raises, Googles vice president of compensation told workers at an all-hands in December that the company doesnt plan to make broad salary adjustments to account for the rising inflation rate in the US.

The raises were also given as Google is embroiled in a legal battle with employees over charges that they were illegally fired in 2019. The employees are planning to call one of the recipients of a new $1 million salary, Kent Walker, to testify as an adverse witness. Employees are also reportedly dissatisfied with the companys seemingly different remote work policies for higher-ups. In July, senior vice president for technical infrastructure Urs Hlzle announced he was moving to New Zealand, which two employees told CNET was emblematic of a double standard for executives.

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Google will pay top execs $1 million each after declining to boost workers' pay - The Verge

Google has announced that cars with its services built-in will be getting the ability to play YouTube videos while parked later this year, starting with Volvo. For those with a V90, XC40 Recharge, or other supported cars, this should make waiting in a parking lot more bearable since youll be able to see videos on your cars built-in screen, which is probably going to be slightly larger and more ergonomic than a phone.

Google also seems to leave the door open for other video apps as well, so its possible other developers could let you access their content from your cars infotainment system.

Youll also be able to control some Volvo cars using Google Assistant from outside the car in a video embedded in its blog, Google shows the example of someone using a Nest Audio to turn on their cars heat without having to brave the snow outside. The blog also says the Assistant will be able to lock or unlock the car and tell you its battery status. While some Volvos have had in-car control with Assistant for a while, its nice to get some functionality that wont require you to make the journey out to the garage or parking lot.

Google says its also expanding what youll be able to do with your voice inside the car as well this spring, Volvos with Android Automotive will let you access things like lane-keeping assist and service information with the Assistant.

Google details more car-related features coming in its blog post. It says that later this year, its digital car key feature will be coming to even more Android phones and vehicles (its currently only supported on Pixel 6 and Galaxy S21 handsets). Google also says that the unlock feature will get support for Ultra Wideband later this year, so people wont have to take their phones out and tap them to their car to unlock with NFC.

Finally, Lyft and Kakao Mobility will be adding Android Auto support to their driver apps, which should let people working for these rideshare apps choose which riders to pick up from their cars touchscreen.

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Some Volvos will get a YouTube app and Google Assistant-controlled AC - The Verge

Google is bringing an update to older Pixel devices to fix a dangerous bug that prevents users from calling 911, as noted by a post on a Google support page. The bug stems from an unintended interaction between the Android OS and Microsoft Teams it only affects devices with Android 10 or later and could occur if you have Teams installed but arent signed in.

On the support page, Google notes that the update resolves the issue preventing emergency calls in certain conditions while some third-party apps are installed. Its available on devices running Android 12 (including the Pixel 3 and up), but the update hasnt rolled out to the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro yet. Google paused updates for these devices following reports of dropped calls when it released the December update but says a fix will arrive later this month. Last month, Teams also issued an update to its app to fix the bug, however, its unclear whether Google will release a patch for other Android devices that could be affected as well.

Aside from the 911 calling bug, the Pixel update also fixes an issue that causes the navigation bar to disappear when the device orientation is changed, a picture-in-picture (PIP) window rendering glitch, and a memory leak in the system UI. A fix for the problem that causes the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro to drop calls over Wi-Fi is also listed, but that still hasnt been rolled out due to the aforementioned delay.

Google also released a separate security update, offering some fixes for Pixel devices running Android 11 and above, and once again excludes the Pixel 6. This includes a problem that causes certain apps to restart intermittently, an issue that blocks users from making calls on specific MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) networks, and also improves auto-rotation response in certain device orientations.

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Latest Google Pixel update fixes bug that prevents 911 calls with Teams installed - The Verge

HP's Elite Dragonfly Chromebook looks like a winner for hybrid workers.

When it comes to CES, the most exciting announcements are usually centered around new devices that are expected to be released in the coming year. For Chromebooks at CES 2022, while there was some new hardware announced, the best news was Google's plans for new features coming to Chrome OS later this year.

For example, a new Fast Pair feature will make it easier for Android phone users to set up a new Chromebook by quickly transferring over all of the information like your Google login and your Wi-Fi password. Also, while you can currently unlock your Chromebook with your Android phone, you'll also be able to use a Wear OS smartwatch to unlock it as well.

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Read more:Google's vision for Android at CES 2022 promises one of Apple's best qualities

Also, the Phone Hub feature on Chromebooks is being expanded to do more. You can currently do things like view and respond to chat notifications, toggle Do Not Disturb, set off the ringtone to find your phone or continue browsing recent Chrome tabs. You'll be able to access your Android phone's chat apps on your Chromebook and access to your Camera Roll, even if you're phone is in another room than where you're working. Check out all the details on Google's CES 2022 announcementfor Android and Chrome OS.

There wasn't a huge number of Chromebooks announced for CES 2022 -- just five by my count, and three were from Acer. But what we got looks pretty good, especially HP's Elite Dragonfly Chromebook which might be the premium Chromebook to beat this year. And in amongst Asus' bevy of ROG gaming and Zenbook laptop announcements was the Chromebook Flip CX5 that looks like it'll be amazing.

HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook

This premium business Chromebook is modeled off of HP's ultralight Elite Dragonfly for Windows. The Chrome version, a convertible two-in-one, weighs in at 2.8 pounds (1.3 kilograms) and has features that will make it perfect for hybrid work like a 5-megapixel webcam with a shutter that blocks it when you want some privacy. HP will also offer its integrated privacy screen for the display to help stop people from seeing what's on your screen from off-angle.

It's also the world's first Intel vPro Chromebook giving it IT and security features thatare even better than the strong protection Chromebook Enterprise already offers.

Read more about the HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook.

Acer Chromebook Spin 513

The Spin 513 is a two-in-one with a 13.5-inch 2,256x1,504-resolution display with a 3:2 aspect ratio which means less scrolling when you're trying to get work done. Inside you'll find an octacore MediaTek Kompanio 1380 processor, up to 8GB of dual-channel memory and up to 128GB of eMMC flash storage.

Read more about the Acer Chromebook Spin 513.

Acer Chromebook 314

The 314 is a widescreen 14-inch model expected to start at $300 when it arrives in June. Made for students, it'll have either an Intel Pentium Silver N6000, Celeron N4500 or N5100 processor, up to 8GB of dual-channel memory and 64GB or 128GB of eMMC flash storage. Acer also used an OceanGlass touchpad that's made from plastic waste and has a glass-like texture.

Read more about the Acer Chromebook 314.

Acer Chromebook 315

The 315 trades a little mobility for screen space; instead of the 314's 14-inch display, it has a 15.6-inch display. It still only weighs about 3.5 pounds (1.6 kilograms), though, and with the extra screen space you get a full keyboard with a number pad.

It'll be available later in January starting at $300.

Read more about the Acer Chromebook 315.

Asus Chromebook Flip CX5

While there have been several 15.6-inch Chromebooks available, this is the first I've seen with a 16-inch 16:10 display, and it's a two-in-one no less. Asus dropped in a 12th-gen Intel Core i7 processor and 16GB of memory, so this thing should have great performance. Plus it has a full-HD webcam with a privacy shutter, which with everything else in it should make this an excellent pick for business or school. Asus didn't say when it will be available or pricing but I would expect this premium model to be up near $1,000.

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Here are the Chromebooks and big Chrome OS news from CES 2022 - CNET