Monthly Archives: May 2022

What if you never had to type in a password again? Imagine. An international day of celebration. Children dancing in the streets. Soldiers laying down their arms and hugging tearfully across the battlefield.

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Or, at least, a mild improvement in your daily life. Thats what Apple, Google and Microsoft are offering, with a fairly rare triple announcement that the three tech giants are all adopting the Fido standard and ushering in a passwordless future. The standard replaces usernames and passwords with passkeys, log-in information stored directly on your device and only uploaded to the website when matched with biometric authentication like a selfie or fingerprint. From Apples announcement:

Users will sign in through the same action that they take multiple times each day to unlock their devices, such as a simple verification of their fingerprint or face, or a device PIN. This new approach protects against phishing and sign-in will be radically more secure when compared to passwords and legacy multi-factor technologies such as one-time passcodes sent over SMS.

The three companies will roll out Fido support over the course of the coming year. The Fido2 standard is actually already public, and some companies support it already, largely for internal authentication. But the standard has long lacked the final step necessary for ubiquity: making it easy to get started.

Thats what this latest announcement is about. With the help of the platform owners, users will be able to sync their Fido passkeys, without needing to log in fresh on each new device. That takes it from a service that is nice addition to passwords, to one that can be fully used to replace them.

Ease of use is only part of the reason for the switch. Passkeys, secured with biometric identification on your phone, are faster than manually entering passwords, but if you use a password manager (and you should use a password manager) youll be able to enter passwords and login to most websites at the tap of a (fingerprint sensing) button anyway.

But the bigger reason is that passwords suck. They suck because of how they are used in practice: people make short, easy-to-guess passwords, and then re-use them across the internet. For many users, the more important a website is, the more likely the password is to be short and easy-to-guess, because while you may tolerate entering a long, secure password once or twice, you wont bother doing it several times a day.

And the ways weve tried to fix passwords also suck. Requirements to add complexity to passwords, in an attempt to make it harder to break them by brute force, are notoriously infuriating, and frequently inept at securing the actual outcome theyre seeking: if P@ssword1 is a valid password but doubloon prorogue tunnel (to offer a passphrase randomly generated by my password manager just now) isnt, youve just reduced the security of someones account.

Two-factor authentication, which asks you to link a second factor to your account such as a phone number which gets texted, or another device, which you use to approve the login has its own problems. The most popular forms of two-factor authentication all involve the use of one-time passcodes, either texted to you or generated by an app on your phone or computer. And those one-time passcodes are just as open to phishing as a conventional password, albeit with a shorter expiration date if theyre successfully stolen.

And so, if the Fido thing takes off, the world should get slightly more secure, slightly less frustrating and slightly smoother to move through.

What will it look like for you? Probably not that different in practice. One day, youll be making an account on a website and just wont be asked for a password. You might not even notice it happens. But rest assured: the children will be dancing in the streets anyway.

If you want to read the complete version of the newsletter please subscribe to receive TechScape in your inbox every Wednesday.

Read more from the original source:

TechScape: Apple, Google and Microsoft are about to make passwords a thing of the past - The Guardian

Google will allow ads for stem cell treatments that are approved by the US Food and Drug Administration a change from its previous policy, which banned all ads for this experimental category of medical care. The policy update was first reported by Gizmodo and will go into effect in July.

The company said in the policy update that it will also allow cell or gene therapy ads that are exclusively educational or informational in nature, even if they reference products or applications that are not approved by the FDA. Its not clear how Google would define educational or informational or what type of advertisements would be allowed under that umbrella.

Stem cell therapy is a broad term for medical treatments that use stem cells, which can develop into any cell type. There are some evidence-based applications for the cells, like to treat some cancers, and there are around two dozen FDA-approved cell- and gene-therapy products (which Googles new policy would allow ads for).

But most uses for stem cells are unproven, experimental, and can be dangerous. Clinics claim the cells, taken from donated umbilical cords or from patients fat, can treat things like joint pain or eye conditions. People have developed infections and died after getting those types of procedures. The FDA has tried to crack down on businesses offering these types of procedures, but theyve proliferated over the past few years.

Googles initial ban on stem cell ads hasnt done much to keep the clinics from popping up in search, Paul Knoepfler, a professor at the UC Davis School of Medicine, wrote in Stat in March. Even if they cant advertise, the companies have designed websites that appear at the top of search results for searches related to stem cells above more reputable medical resources, like the National Institutes of Health.

These companies are savvy and have been able to skirt policies to push out their products even in the face of a total ban. Now, that ban is set to relax, opening up new avenues for groups to distribute information. Googles continuing stem cell problem is emblematic of a serious, broader problem with unproven biomedical offerings the company needs to address, Knoepfler wrote.

See the article here:

Google relaxes ban on stem cell therapy ads - The Verge

Ken Colburn| Special for The Republic

QUESTION: I love Google Chrome, but it seems like its bogging down a lot lately. Any suggestions?

ANSWER: No matter which browser youre using, over time things can bog down especially if you like to have lots of websites open at the same time.

There was a time when you could only have one active session running in a browser and the use of the Back button was how you switched to something that you previously opened.

That all changed with the adoption of tabbed browsing back in the early 2000s, which allowed for additional web pages without closing the current one.

This incredibly useful feature has led to what many are calling a tab hoarding problem that can lead to numerous issues, including sluggish browser performance.

Getting junk text messages?: Here's how you can stop receiving so many of them

Each browser session you open via a new tab takes additional working memory (RAM) which taken to the extreme can deplete this precious resource for everything on your computer.

Many web pages have active sections of video as content or as an advertisement, which can lead to an even greater amount of memory being sucked up for something you arent currently viewing.

If you see a lot of tabs open when things get slow, try closing as many as possible to see if thats contributing to the slowdown.

This is why you have so many browser tabs open

Whether on our personal or work computer, we all may be guilty of this one bad habit. Having way too many browser tabs open at once, to the point that it can become overwhelming. Susana Victoria Perez has more.

Buzz60

Chrome has a Task Manager tool that will allow you to see how much memory each open tab is using and close them if they are memory hogs.

You can open the Task Manager by using the keyboard shortcut of Shift+Esc or click on the three dots in the upper right corner of Chrome, then on More tools, then on Task Manager.

To see the tabs that are using the most memory, click on the Memory footprint heading until you see a black down arrow, which indicates memory usage in descending order.

Look for anything that starts with Tab: to start your evaluation of the memory hogs so youll know which ones to avoid keeping open in the background.

Getting tired of political ads?: Here's how to manage your Facebook settings

Google includes a basic tool for removing harmful or rogue software that may have snuck into your browser.

To open the tool, click on the three dots in the upper right corner of your browser window, then on Settings and then on the Advanced tab.

Look for the Reset and clean up option to get to the Clean up computer function.

A great reason for choosing Chrome as your browser is the plethora of add-on tools better known as extensions that can dramatically improve functionality.

But, just as with tabs, too many can add unnecessary overhead to Chrome that can contribute to slower performance issues.

Extensions are often like smartphone apps that seem to be something youll use often but turn out to only get used when you first install them.

Look for an icon that looks like a puzzle piece in the upper right corner of Chrome to access the Manage extensions option which will allow you to disable or remove the ones that you dont use regularly.

If these tips didnt help, try alternative browsers such as Firefox, Opera, Brave, Safari (macOS) or Edge (Windows).

Ken Colburn is founder and CEO of Data Doctors Computer Services, datadoctors.com. Ask any tech question at facebook.com/DataDoctors or on Twitter @TheDataDoc.

See the original post here:

Google Chrome bogging down? Try these tips to speed it up - The Arizona Republic

Googles Economic Impact Report for Utah also shows that the company provided $5.6 million in free advertising to Utah nonprofits

(Google) Cameron and Jacquelyn Muir, founders of The Baby Cubby in American Fork, have used Google tools to help them achieve a 300% increase in online sales since 2019.

| May 10, 2022, 12:42 p.m.

| Updated: 6:04 p.m.

A report released in April shows Google provided $9.67 billion of economic activity in Utah during 2021.

Googles Economic Impact Report for Utah shows that more than 192,000 Utah businesses received requests for directions, phone calls, bookings, reviews and other direct connections to their customers through Google.

Additionally, it shows that Google provided $5.6 million in free advertising to Utah nonprofits through the Google Ad Grants program.

The company has had Google Fiber offices in Provo and Salt Lake City for over five years, according to a news release.

Samantha Heyrich, a public affairs spokesperson for Google, said the Economic Impact Report for Utah was calculated by estimating the economic activity provided to businesses, publishers, nonprofits, creators and developers by Google Search, Google Play, YouTube, Google Cloud and Google advertising.

Our estimate is conservative in this regard and we dont include the economic impact of our employees in the state or other Google products, she said.

Googles full methodology report is available at bit.ly/3vHCrlx.

Heyrich also said Googles economic impact varies depending on the state and how businesses, nonprofits, publishers, creators and developers are using Google tools.

For instance, Google provided $1.1 billion in economic activity to Idaho, $10.06 billion to Arizona, $9.23 billion to Colorado and $5.4 billion to Nevada.

The U.S. Impact Report also shows that Google invested over $7 billion nationally into data centers and offices, and donated $263 million to local nonprofits.

Economic impact reports for other states are available at bit.ly/3scfViA.

Googles Economic Impact Report for Utah highlighted several local businesses who have benefitted from using Google tools, including The Baby Cubby in American Fork.

Founders Cameron and Jacquelyn Muir began the business in 2013 when they felt unsatisfied with their experience shopping for their kids.

Their brick-and-mortar store (586 N. 900 W., American Fork) plus their e-commerce site aims to make baby gear decisions and shopping easier.

With help from tools like Google Ads and a Google Business Profile, theyve achieved a 300% increase in online sales since 2019.

The Muirs have also created over 500 YouTube videos that offer product reviews and how-to guides for parents.

Cameron said they use a variety of Google tools in their business, from Google Analytics to Google Docs and Sheets.

Jacquelyn added that Google tools are extremely seamless and easy to use.

Cameron said the unique value in The Baby Cubby is found in creating a shopping experience that mirrors the huge life transitions parents go through when they have a child.

With so many baby products out there, choosing which ones to buy can be overwhelming, he said. Thats why The Baby Cubby tries to be a resource for parents navigating the baby products market for the first time.

Ive talked to lots of moms who have legitimately had panic attacks when they started shopping for their kids, Cameron said. So we want to create that experience where instead of being discouraged or overwhelmed, parents can be excited about that step in their lives.

Google has been a big part of marketing that type of experience to their customers, Jacuelyn said.

For instance, their YouTube channel, which theyve been running for about five years, has over 23,000 subscribers and gets 185,000 views a month. The channel has a total of over 11 million views.

Jacquelyn also gave some advice to aspiring business owners: make sure your heart is in what youre doing.

Make sure youre passionate about it, she said. If your main goal is to make a quick buck here or there, then youre not going to find joy in what youre doing.

Editors note This story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.

More here:

Google provided $9.67 billion of economic activity in Utah during 2021 - Salt Lake Tribune

Thomas Kurian, chief executive officer of cloud services at Google LLC, speaks during the Google Cloud Next event in San Francisco on April 9, 2019.

Michael Short | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Google's cloud unit is forming a team to build services for developers running blockchain applications as the company tries to capitalize on the surging popularity of crypto and related projects.

Amit Zavery, a vice president at Google Cloud, told employees in an email Friday that the idea is to make the Google Cloud Platform the first choice for developers in the field.

"While the world is still early in its embrace of Web3, it is a market that is already demonstrating tremendous potential with many customers asking us to increase our support for Web3 and Crypto related technologies," he wrote.

Pioneers of Web3 have created a set of decentralized and peer-to-peer systems that they hope will form the next generation of the internet. It's a philosophy that challenges the current state of the web, controlled by massive corporations like Amazon, Google and Facebook parent Meta Platforms.

Google wants to offer back-end services to developers interested in composing their own Web3 software as the company battles for market share in cloud infrastructure against Alibaba, Amazon and Microsoft.

"We're not trying to be part of that cryptocurrency wave directly," Zavery told CNBC in an interview. "We're providing technologies for companies to use and take advantage of the distributed nature of Web3 in their current businesses and enterprises."

Zavery, a former Oracle executive, joined Google's cloud group in 2019, months after Google tapped Thomas Kurian, Oracle's president of product development, to be the next head of its cloud unit.

In building an in-house team for Web3 tools, Google is taking its next step to prove its commitment to the market. In January, Google's cloud unit revealed plans for a Digital Assets Team to work with customers, following the emerging growth of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. The company said it was looking at how customers could make payments with cryptocurrencies.

Going forward, Google could devise a system other companies could employ to make blockchain data easy for people to explore, while simplifying the process of building and running blockchain nodes for validating and recording transactions, Zavery said. He added that Google's tools can work in other computing environments, such as Amazon Web Services.

Enthusiasm around bitcoin, the most established cryptocurrency, has tapered off this year as investors have turned away from risky assets. As of late Thursday, bitcoin was down 21% so far in 2022, underperforming the S&P 500, which has dropped about 13%.

But blockchain applications continue to find their way into the mainstream and have increasing relevance in industries such as financial services and retail, said Zavery.

Nike CEO John Donahoe told analysts on a conference call in March that the shoe company plans to build Web3 products and experiences. Warner Music Group is also interested.

"From collectibles to music royalties, Web3 represents an exciting future for the music industry that will help our artists reach millions upon millions of new fans in interesting and innovative ways," CEO Steve Cooper said on the company's first-quarter earnings call.

James Tromans, a former Citigroup executive who arrived at Google in 2019, will lead the product and engineering group and report to Zavery. The team will bring together employees who have been peripherally involved in Web3 internally and on their own, Zavery said.

Google trails Amazon and Microsoft in cloud computing, but the business is growing faster than its core advertising unit. Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat said last week that the fastest growth in head count is inside the cloud division.

WATCH: Crypto-based web3 remains in 'dial-up' phase, says Unstoppable Domains' Sandy Carter

Link:

Google's cloud group forms Web3 team to capitalize on booming popularity of crypto - CNBC

One thing that attracts many entrepreneurial-minded spirits to the SEO industry is its dynamic design.

Strategies are changing continuously based on each clients focus and industry, preventing proverbial cookie-cutter practices.

This is especially true when approaching keyword research.

There are many keyword research tools available, and each requires a unique creative focus to produce the best search opportunities.

For this article, Ill home in on one tool from the internet Mothership that sometimes gets sidelined for SEO due to its ad-based focus: Google Keyword Planner.

Here, youll find nine Keyword Planner research tips that can help you target more profitable terms in organic and paid campaigns.

First and foremost, you want to know which products, services, and keywords deliver the most profit.

With this information, you can create a list of seed keywords to launch your first plan of attack.

Generally, I focus on quality over quantity, which typically equates to low volume over high volume.

For example, one of our clients is an environmental consulting company, so getting someone to convert an organic piece of content for an SWPPP Plan could yield that company thousands of dollars in one sale.

As you can see, search competition for many of these keywords is low, and volumes are rising for many relevant keywords in that space.

Due to increasing environmental concerns, keywords like these will continue to grow and make money for whoever captures their organic share.

Bonus Tip: If youre looking for more accurate keyword volumes, use another keyword planner like Semrush or create a high bid using the max CPC on a keyword to better understand its total volume and monthly impressions.

Next, compile a list of keywords for each campaign and sort by intent.

Unfortunately, Googles Keyword Planner doesnt provide any filters for intent, such as commercial, informative, or navigational intent.

However, we can glean commercial intent from other keyword phrases by filtering keywords by Top of Page Bid in ascending or descending order.

For example, pages with higher Top of Page Bids typically have highly competitive commercial intent and imply relatively good conversion rates if advertisers are willing to bid so highly on these terms.

LinkedIn content marketing is a highly sought-after term with lots of competition based on this research.

However, you can flip this list in ascending order to discover keyword terms with greater informational intent.

Using our previous example of SWPPP Plans, we find informational keywords with low bids in ascending order.

Bonus Tip: Using phrases like buy, coupon, sale, etc., will help you separate keywords by commercial intent.

On the other hand, terms like best practices, top, and question phrases will signify informational intent.

While several competitive research tools are available, including Ahrefs, Semrush, Majestic, etc., you can conduct competitive keyword research right in Googles Keyword Planner.

In fact, right when you log onto Keyword Planner, they offer options to search for keywords using a seed keyword or a competitor website.

Google will provide a list of all keywords this website ranks for, and you can filter out keywords by brand name to get a good list of keywords a website is ranking for.

Bonus Tip: Click Organic Average Position in Custom Columns to see where this website ranks for specific keywords to generate ideas for success.

You may notice that Google Keywords Planner provides a keyword overview of your competitors website and page-specific content in the image above.

If you were searching for topics and keywords for top or mid-funnel content that drives traffic to your website, you could use any of your favorite competitor research tools to see which pages are driving traffic to a website.

Of course, you could also manually input any webpage that your competitor outranks you for and discover other keyword ideas and variations.

For example, using Semrush, I found that this article on alternative search engines pulls in the highest annual traffic for Search Engine Journal.

I can see the most relevant keywords driving traffic to that web page by copying and pasting the link in Keyword Planner.

You could even bid on these keywords if youre so inclined, whether youre marketing an alternative search engine or an awesome piece of content.

Bonus Tip: Conducting page-by-page keyword research, you can discover other keyword variations Google ranks that page for that you otherwise would not have inputted in your content.

Informative content answers as many user questions as possible.

This provides several advantages for your SEO and content strategy, including:

Fortunately, Googles Keyword Planner provides easy filters to input question phrases, such as what, when, where, why, and how to help create stellar content that satisfies user intent and educates users.

Bonus Tip: AnswerthePublic is a free tool that provides common user questions in an easily visualized format to help you answer as many questions as possible.

In addition, Googles answer box and commonly searched results at the bottom provide good indicators of what questions users are researching.

Another great feature of Googles Keyword Planner is the ability to filter ads and impression shares to specific locations.

Google even lets you filter keyword search volumes down to the city level.

In addition, you can access search volume data by state or region to find out where most of your traffic and customers originate in Googles Forecast tab.

For example, below, I looked up the search volume for SWPPP plans.

Using this data, you could create location-specific landing pages for SWPPP plans for California, Texas, Florida, etc.

Bonus Tip: Filtering searches by location also provides a good baseline for the amount of reach local ads on Facebook and other networks will garner.

For example, if most searches are regionally specific, this could help you avoid wasteful spending across all ad platforms.

In addition to location and intent, optimizing web pages for different devices is also critical.

I created an ad campaign targeting roof repair in the Dallas metro area in the example below.

Not so surprisingly, most of these searches occur on mobile devices and are most likely done as near me searches.

Based on this evidence, optimizing landing pages for mobile devices, inserting a click-to-call CTA, curating a strong brand presence on local directories, and optimizing the Google Business Profile (previously Google My Business) with clear contact information will net the most conversions for most ad campaigns.

Bonus Tip: Understanding which device users search for products allows you to target users on those devices with retargeting ad-based campaigns across social media and other websites.

Advertisers mostly use this strategy, but it provides a rich information resource for SEOs and content marketers.

By searching for keywords in Grouped View, instead of Keyword View, Google organizes keywords directly for you by category.

For example, by using the seed phrase homemade kombucha and best kombucha, you can see the number of keywords and topic ideas generated with two simple keywords.

By grouping these keywords by category, you could create page-specific content for each group, utilizing each keyword in the group to help optimize your content.

Bonus Tip: If you notice up top, Google provides relevant keyword and topic ideas to expand your marketing efforts further.

Finally, one converting strategy for advertisers is if youve run out of keyword ideas, consider bidding on the branded keywords and redirecting user searches to your website.

You can use this strategy genuinely if you sell brand-name products on your website, such as Nike shoes, if you sell apparel, or if you want to gain more clicks for your own branded keywords.

There are several advantages to bidding on branded keywords, including:

Bonus Tip: You could also bid on competitors keywords to be competitive. While this strategy is not foolproof, sometimes its a good way to steal away traffic and clicks from competitors.

However, this plan could always backfire, and your competitor could do the same to you.

Googles Keyword Planner is free to use with a Google Ads account and provides users with most of the tools needed to start keyword research and begin a multi-faceted digital campaign.

Furthermore, what Keyword Planner lacks in functionality can be made up for in third-party tools and a bit of creativity.

More resources:

Featured Image: Nikolay Klimenko/Shutterstock

More here:

9 Creative Ways To Use Google's Keyword Planner Tool - Search Engine Journal

Google Maps has become a fixture of 21st-century lifebut typically, one doesnt use it to plan transcontinental journeys. But in 2010, when Yu-Wen Wu couldnt afford the airfare from Boston to Taipei to visit her sick grandmother, she typed in the addresses to their respective homes and asked for walking directions.

It actually gave me instructions for 155 days to Taipei City, Wu told Artnet News.

It was an impossible tripthe directions included kayaking across the Pacific ocean for some three months, with a stop in Hawaii. It was also the beginning of an epic art project that would take Wu a decade, transforming the outlandish journey into a 20-foot long collage in the tradition of a Chinese landscape scroll, stored in a traditional wooden box.

Its a trip of longings in some ways, Wu said. Only in my mind have I followed these directions.

To transform a Google glitch into a work of art, Wu first printed out the directions, which she had saved as a PDF, on rice and mulberry paper. That proved a fortunate decision, as she was never able to get Google to suggest the fantastical journey again.

Yu-Wen Wu, Walking to Taipei (2021). Photo by Dan Watkins, courtesy of Praise Shadows Art Gallery, Boston.

It was gone within seconds, she said.

Wu cut each of the 2,052 steps of the directions into strips, and pasted them onto a 20-foot scroll. To fully experience the piece, the viewer has to be ready to stretch their legs, as each line stretches the full length of the artwork.

I wanted you the viewer to walk the distance if you were to read it, Wu said. I was thinking about it as a contemporary landscape and also a data structure.

Yu-Wen Wu, Walking to Taipei (2021). Photo by Dan Watkins, courtesy of Praise Shadows Art Gallery, Boston.

The work, titled Walking to Taipei (2021) and on view with Boston gallery and first-time Independent exhibitor Praise Shadows at the New York art fair, is priced at $50,000. The hope is to attract an institutional buyer for the piece, which includes a custom-built table on which to display the scroll, and a large panel of acrylic to keep the portion on display lying flat.

Fortunately, some months after her fateful Google Maps querymade on April 10, 2010, according to the PDFWu was able to visit her grandmother, who died not long after. But the image of a transcontinental journey made on foot, crossing the ocean in a solitary vessel, would stay with her for years to come, even as she struggled to complete the painstaking cutting and pasting that the project required.

Yu-Wen Wu, Intentions II, III ,IV (2022). Photo courtesy of Praise Shadows Art Gallery, Boston.

Its presented at the fair with a suite of sculptures and works on paper by Wu, including her series Intentions, chains ofBuddhist meditation beads made from bundles of gilded Taiwanese tea leaves wrapped with red thread, hanging from the ceiling to the floor. Other works on paper are embellished with gold leaf.

All of this is based on my immigrant story, said Wu. When I came, I thought the streets would be paved in gold. I was sevenwhat did I know?

But even if they were, it probably still wouldnt be possible to use them to walk back to Taipei.

Read more from the original source:

Yu-Wen Wu Asked Google How to Walk From Boston to Taipei. She Spent the Next 10 Years Turning the Directions Into an Incredible Artwork - artnet News

Before Google jumped on the boring bandwagon of numerical nomenclature for its annual Android releases, it stood out from the pack of three by giving its annual OS updates "sweet" names, such as Pie, KitKat, Oreo, etc.

The practice started in 2009 with the release of Android 1.5, or Android Cupcake. Since then, Google's Android releases have sported the names of popular sweetmeats, in alphabetical order. For the first few years, Google's release schedule was a mishmash, with new versions replete with new names releasing every few months. Eight major versions of Android were released in a 40-month period between April 2009 and July 2012 before settling into an annual pattern.

All that stopped in 2019 with the release of Android 10. Since then, Google has stuck to numbers for its yearly releases, but it appears someone at Google has a sweet tooth, as the practice of using dessert-based internal codenames for Android-in-development has continued. Android 10 was internally referred to as Quince Tart, Android 11 was "Red Velvet Cake", Android 12 had the codename of "Snow Cone", while Android 13, which will be unveiled tomorrow at the Google I/O conference at Mountain View in California, was nicknamed "Tiramisu".

Google has yet serve Android "Tiramisu" as it will no doubt be popularly referred to its customers, but reports suggest that the tech giant has already started cooking up the next, sweet version of its operating system. Or at least, someone at Google already has a name for it.

According to 9to5Google, an eagle-eyed observer has spotted the name "Upside Down Cake" in the codebase of Android 14 (or Android U, if you prefer). An upside down cake is exactly what it sounds like a cake baked upside down. Now, I can't bake to save my life, so I had to look up the method online. According to the all-knowing internet, an upside down cake is baked "in a single pan, with its toppings at the bottom of the pan. When removed from the oven, the finished upside-down preparation is flipped over and de-panned onto a serving plate, served 'right side up'."

Looks like a coder at Google not only has a sweet tooth, but also a sense of humour by reverting to numerical releases, Google flipped its naming scheme on its head.

Dessert-based Android releases till date

The release date of Android 13 "Tiramisu" is likely to be announced at Google I/O tomorrow and should be between August and October this year. As has been the case every year since the Pixel lineup made its debut in 2016, Google's own smartphones will be the first to get Android 13, followed by other manufacturers over the course of the next several months. Google has already released the list of eligible Pixel smartphones Pixel 4, 4 XL, 4a, 4a 5G, Pixel 5, Pixel 5a, Pixel 6, and Pixel 6 Pro.

Flagship smartphones released since 2021 by Samsung, OnePlus, Oppo and Vivo will get the latest Android iteration, whileChinese smartphone makers Xiaomi, its Redmi brand, and POCO too released a list of their smartphones that will be eligible for Android 13.

(Edited by : Abhishek Jha)

First Published:May 10, 2022, 03:45 PM IST

Continued here:

Android Tiramisu yet to be served but the next version of Google OS already has a name - CNBCTV18

Deep in the Sahara, far from any towns, roads, or other signs of life, is a row of markings in the sand. There are dozens of them stretching for miles in a straight line in central Algeria, each consisting of a central point surrounded by a circle of 12 nodes, like numbers on a clock. And when we started making this video, no one seemed to know what they were.

We first saw the circles back in September 2021, after finding a Reddit post on r/WhatIsThis with coordinates asking what the circles could be. With just two upvotes and two commenters, it wasnt exactly a lively discussion. But seeing the circles themselves on Google Earth was fascinating: They were eerily perfect in their shape and regularity, but so deeply isolated in the desert. We were hooked on finding an answer.

So we decided to make a video out of trying to solve the mystery, no matter where it took us. We documented every step of the process from Zoom calls and web browser screen recordings to vlogs and field shoots to show the reporting process from the inside out. We talked to historians, geographers, and professors. And when we maxed out what we could learn on the internet, we handed over this story to a team in Algeria to take it all the way.

You can find the entire library of Voxs videos on our YouTube channel.

Visit link:

Who left these circles in the Sahara, visible from Google Earth? - Vox.com

PHOTO:Greg Bulla on Unsplash

In case you haven't heard, a decision by the Austrian data protection authority, DSB, ruled that the use of Google Analytics in all circumstances violates the GDPR.

While many Universal Analytics (the previous generation of Google Analytics) users debated whether they should switch to the platforms newest iteration, Google Analytics 4, Google decided for them.

As of July 1st, 2023, UA properties will stop collecting data and historic data will be deleted six months later.

One might ask why everyones making a big deal about the transition to GA4. The biggest issues for UA users include:

Additionally, there is a big difference between GA4s and UAs interfaces, meaning a learning curve while teams adjust.

Google started talking about upcoming changes to GA in its Marketing Platform blog back in Oct. 2020, referring specifically to the privacy issues that eventually forced the issue. In short, a violation of the European GDPR laws forced Google to make changes sooner rather than later.

Here is what they said in a blog post about GA4:

Because the technology landscape continues to evolve, the new Analytics is designed to adapt to a future with or without cookies or identifiers. It uses a flexible approach to measurement, and in the future, will include modeling to fill in the gaps where the data may be incomplete. Vidhya Srinivasan, VP/GM Buying, Analytics and Measurement, Google Ads.

Srinivasan added that with major shifts in consumer behavior and privacy-driven changes to longtime industry standards, current approaches to analytics arent keeping pace. [GA4 is] privacy-centric by design, so you can rely on Analytics even as industry changescreate gaps in your data.

While these changes were already in discussion, things came to a head on Dec. 22, 2021, with the decision by DSB. The data protection agency decided that the medical news company, NetDoktor, violated GDPR by using Google Analytics on its website, resulting in the transfer of personal information. How so?

Because the data from GA is processed by Google on US servers, meaning the data is being "exported" to the US. And since Google is legally a "provider of electronic communications services," it is subject to oversight by various United States intelligence agencies. Although its very unlikely, Google may be required to disclose European citizens' data including IP addresses, user IDs and browser parameters to these intelligence agencies.

Related Article: The GDPR Consequences We Haven't Talked About

Brian Clifton, co-founder of Verified Data, author and former head of analytics EMEA for Google, spoke with CMSWire about GA4 and explained why Google is encouraging UA users to make the switch now rather than later.

They want people to use GA4 now, so that they have at least 12 months worth of historical data for when Universal gets switched off. This way, users can continue using GA without interruption.

There is no way of migrating or importing from Universal Analytics to GA4. It's a completely different data model, explained Clifton.

For many brands, the transition isnt going to be easy, as it likely involves many properties. An enterprise may struggle, said Clifton. They generally have more than one website and multiple product websites. There's a lot to move over but the challenge is if you're an agency and youre maybe looking after 20 enterprise clients and you've got to do this all ASAP, because they all want 12 months worth of data.

As reported by CMSWires Dom Nicastro in Oct. 2020, GA4 provides several distinct advantages:

GA4 also brings together app and web data, allowing marketers to view it side-by-side in the same reports, and it gathers data thats not currently collected by UA.

UAs data collection is based on user sessions, the interactions a user has with a website in a specific amount of time. GA4, on the other hand, records the interactions a user has with a website as events. These interactions can include data not found in a session model, allowing for more metrics to be compared against one another.

Previously in Universal, if you were collecting page views, you only have two parameters available to you, said Clifton. There were some custom dimensions you could use, but essentially, you only had two parameters: one was the URL of the page and one was the page titleinteresting information, but not that useful on its own. Now you have up to 25 parameters.

GA4 has dramatically improved the data model used. However, it also makes it harder for users to find the information they need.

Clifton said about the new data model, If you're a user or an implementer like me, it's very important. But users don't really care about that. They just want to find their data.

Thats where the problem comes in. How do you find your data? he asked. How do you understand what's going on? How do you build your story and find your insights in GA4 it is, quite frankly, horrendous.

These user interface issues may become the reason why people use GA4 as part of a larger suite of tools instead of a sole solution.

BigQuery, [a cloud data warehouse], is a big upsell for this product, it's provided by Google for free, said Clifton, referring to GA4s ability to export data to BigQuery at no cost. It can then push the data into data visualization tools such as Google Data Studio. BigQuery has a free pricing tier and paid plans for additional functionality.

Clifton sees GA4 becoming more like a data warehouse with the data exported into a tool like Google Data Studio. There, marketers could create purpose-built reports. I can't see [Google] replacing the [GA4] user interface. They've invested so much in it but it just does not work. And I think people are turned off by that.

Still, he doesnt believe these issues will lead to businesses abandoning Google the ecosystem is too intertwined with digital advertising. But I think that people won't be using the interface. I think they'll be building reports with Data Studio or some other tool.

Related Article: How to Prepare for the Switch to Google Analytics 4

Regardless of the benefits or losses that come with GA4, what it comes down to is that users dont have a choice when it comes to upgrading unless they move to another analytics platform.

By 2023, brands must choose: upgrade or stop relying on Google Analytics.

Original post:

Google Is Forcing the Switch to GA4 and Many Brands Arent Happy - CMSWire