Category Archives: Google

Google is going to start paying for its use of Wikipedia information to help power its knowledge panels in Google Search. The search giant, along with the digital library the Internet Archive, are the first customers for the still relatively new commercial product launched by the Wikimedia Foundation the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia. Its new service, Wikimedia Enterprise, offers access to Wikimedia content to companies that reuse and source Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects at a high volume.

For years, Google has used information from Wikipedia to offer web searchers quick answers and basic facts through the use of what it called knowledge panels, first introduced in 2012. This feature pulls information from freely available online resources, including Wikipedia, Google Books and other sources. Other tech giants have also leveraged Wikipedias information in their own products. Facebook, for example, in 2020 had tested Wikipedia-powered information panels similar to Googles. Apple today returns Wikipedia-powered results in its Spotlight Search feature.

Various tech companies large and small have also relied on Wikipedia data to enhance their own products and services.

The Wikimedia Enterprise service has been live for a year, servicing commercial customers on an opt-in basis. However, it hadnt announced its first customers until now. With Wikimedia Enterprise, customers of any size gain access to the services offerings including customer support and Service Level Agreements at prices based on their volume of use, much like any other product aimed at businesses. Theres also a self-serve free trial offering 10,000 on-demand requests and unlimited access to a 30-day Snapshot.

The organization says the product is now covering its current operating costs and has a growing list of users who are exploring its use. But it is not a requirement to use the commercial product, even if the customer accessing the data is large, like Google. All Wikimedia projects, including its suite of publicly available datasets, tools and APIs the Wikimedia Foundation offers will continue to be available for free use to all users, the foundation said in a June announcement.

As a result of their deal, Google and Wikimedia said theyre working together to make the content sourcing process more efficient.

Wikipedia is a unique and valuable resource, created freely for the world by its dedicated volunteer community, said Tim Palmer, managing director, Search Partnerships at Google. We have long supported the Wikimedia Foundation in pursuit of our shared goals of expanding knowledge and information access for people everywhere. We look forward to deepening our partnership with Wikimedia Enterprise, further investing in the long-term sustainability of the foundation and the knowledge ecosystem it continues to build.

Meanwhile, the Internet Archive, which runs the digital archive known as the Wayback Machine, will leverage the commercial service as well to improve its own offerings.

The Wikimedia Foundation and the Internet Archive are long-term partners in the mission to provide universal and free access to knowledge. By drawing from a real-time feed of newly added links and references in Wikipedia sites in all its languages, we can now archive more of the web more quickly and reliably, said Mark Graham, director of the Internet Archives Wayback Machine.

The commercial product was a part of the Wikimedia Foundations long-term strategy, which included recommendations involving advancing knowledge equity and knowledge as a service, it said.

Correction, 6/29/22, 5:36pm et: The Internet Archive will be leveraging the enterprise service but will not be a paying customer, we understand. Weve updated to correct this.

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Google and the Internet Archive are the first customers to gain commercial access to Wikipedia content - TechCrunch

Googles Android Automotive OS has been gaining traction in the industry, and this week, BMW announced it will be adopting the platform for some future vehicles. The company plans to develop their BMW Operating System 8 infotainment software using Android Automotive for some vehicle models beginning in March 2023 but also maintain the current Linux-based version for others.

BMW Groups lead developer for the digital driving experience, Stephan Durach, said its about having a second technological approach. We are integrating the best aspects of all worlds that could be our own in-house developments, Open Source or commercial software products, depending on what the specific solution looks like, said Durach.

Android Automotive is a full-on vehicular operating system that can be embedded into car infotainment and instrument clusters. Not to be confused with Android Auto, which is Googles phone-to-dash connection system equivalent to Apples CarPlay.

Durach said they make sure customers always have a unique, customized digital experience in their vehicle, and the approach for two software platforms can vary based on what BMW series its running on, though the company did not provide any details beyond that. The new OS will also have over-the-air software updating capability, a crucial feature that let the company recently ship customers vehicles with missing features like Apple CarPlay due to supply chain issues.

BMW is usually ahead of the curve in adopting new connectivity technologies. It was one of the first automakers to include wireless Apple CarPlay, and it also was early getting in on Apples version of a phone-as-a-key feature that lets you drive away without a fob. BMW was late on adopting Android Auto, though, since the majority of BMW owners were found to be iPhone users. But with Android Automotive, BMW is dipping into a relatively empty pool that includes Polestar, some Volvo models, GMC Hummer EV, Honda, and some future Ford and Lincoln vehicles.

With Android Automotive, Google is looking to take its software mass-market into many cars. And with BMW on board, the clock is ticking for Apples next-generation CarPlay to catch up. But if BMW decides to support Apples latest integrations in the future, hopefully it wont try to make it a subscription service again.

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Google's Android Automotive OS is coming to BMW cars next year - The Verge

Googles Freshness Update was a significant ranking algorithm change that introduced the trend of making the search results more precise and responsive to user intent.

The result of the update was the ability to add time as a relevance measure for search queries. This enabled Google to surface content that is trending, regularly occurring (like a yearly event), or subject to frequent updating (like new product models).

The Freshness Update was made possible by the infrastructure changes introduced by the Caffeine Update, which enabled Google to scale up web indexing at an unprecedented scale, enabling Google to surface the most up-to-date content that is literally up-to-the-minute relevant.

The algorithm update was announced on November 3, 2011.

Googles official blog post announcement stated that the change impacted about 35% of search queries and noticeably affected approximately six to 10% of search queries.

That is a significant change in how webpages are ranked.

The freshness name for this update is directly taken from the official Google announcement:

Google Search uses a freshness algorithm, designed to give you the most up-to-date results.

A reason why Google released the Freshness Update was that the new Caffeine indexing system provided Google the ability to process more webpages faster.

The Caffeine infrastructure made it possible for Google to provide fresh results with a higher degree of relevance by using a more granular definition of what freshness means.

Specifically, Google determined that some queries have three different kinds of time-related relevance factors.

The three kinds of time-related queries are:

Google shows fresh results for certain queries, particularly if they are trending.

Heres an example with the keyword LIMoE, which is the name of a Google algorithm:

When the algorithm was released there was no such thing as the Top Stories news section for current events.

Google simply showed news results related to recent events at the top of the search results.

Today, Google will show a Top Stories section when a search query has a recent event type of relevance component.

For example, a search query for Ukraine surfaces the following search result:

This kind of freshness relates to events that happen on a regular basis but arent necessarily trending.

Google used the example of a search query that is related to sports as a recurring event type of search query.

A search for NBA surfaces recent sports scores:

A presidential election recurring event will have to be updated every four years.

The third type of freshness is related to search queries about topics that are always updated, like queries related to product reviews.

For example, the Samsung Galaxy phone has been around for many years and has cycled through multiple models.

Ideally, when searching for Samsung Galaxy Review, the best result will be reviews about the latest models.

This is a search result for that search query:

Googles Freshness Algorithm update was not the first time Google used time-related relevancy ranking factors.

In 2007, Amit Singhal (then a Google engineer and a senior vice president), introduced the Query Deserves Freshness (QDF) algorithm in an interview with the New York Times.

In a New York Times interview he explained what QDF was:

Mr. Singhal introduced the freshness problem, explaining that simply changing formulas to display more new pages results in lower-quality searches much of the time.

He then unveiled his teams solution: a mathematical model that tries to determine when users want new information and when they dont.

(And yes, like all Google initiatives, it had a name: QDF, for query deserves freshness.)

THE QDF solution revolves around determining whether a topic is hot.

If news sites or blog posts are actively writing about a topic, the model figures that it is one for which users are more likely to want current information.

The difference between QDF and the Freshness Algorithm Update is that the QDF algorithm appears to have been more limited in scope and less nuanced than the Freshness Algorithm.

As mentioned earlier, the Caffeine web indexing system, introduced five months before the Freshness Algorithm, provided Google the ability to provide search results that were relevant to the minute.

The fact to remember about QDF is that the 2007 Query Deserves Freshness algorithm preceded the 2010 Freshness Algorithm.

What can cause confusion is that Googlers continued to make references to the concept that a Query Deserves Freshness well past 2010. So even in 2012, Matt Cutts was referencing the concept in a Google Webmaster Video that certain queries deserve freshness.

Nevertheless, they are two different algorithms that were introduced three years apart and apparently did different things, since the technology that made the Freshness Algorithm possible in 2010 (the Caffeine web indexing system) didnt exist in 2007.

Not all search queries require fresh results. Many search queries are evergreen.

Evergreen, in relation to the information needs of search queries, means that the answer to some queries doesnt change much, if at all.

An example of evergreen content is a recipe. The method for how to make chocolate cookies stays relatively the same for many years.

Sometimes, there are cultural changes that affect evergreen content, such as a trend to low fat or low sugar cookies, which might change how cookies are made.

But the cookie recipe is still evergreen.

The Freshness Algorithm only kicks in when the search query fits into one of the following three categories:

There is an SEO strategy that recommends changing the date of publication or the modification date every week, month, or year because, according to the strategy, Google loves fresh content.

There are even WordPress plugins that will bulk update the post-update dates.

But the truth has always been that the Google loves fresh content idea is a myth.

Even three years after the launch of the Freshness Algorithm, Matt Cutts, a Google engineer, was still explaining that freshness is not always a ranking signal.

Matt explains this in a 2013 video where he answers how important freshness is for ranking.

How important is freshness?

So theres a little bit of an interesting twist in this question where its not just the case that something is frequently updated in terms of the pages on your blog or on your site, that you automatically should be ranking higher.

So I wouldnt have that interpretation of freshness. not every query deserves freshness.

So if its a navigational thing, if its evergreen content, sometimes people are looking for long-form content or doing more research, then freshness wouldnt be counting as that much.

we have over 200 signals that we use and the thing that I would not do, the pitfall, the trap that I would not fall into is saying, okay, I have to have fresh content, therefore Im going to randomly change a few words on my pages every day and Ill change the byline date so that it look like I have fresh content.

Thats not the sort of thing thats more likely to actually lead to higher rankings.

And if youre not in an area about news, if youre not in a sort of niche or topic area that really deserves a lot of fresh stuff, then thats probably not something that you need to worry about at all.

theres some content thats evergreen that lasts and stands the test of time. It might be better to work on those sort of articles

if you write about video games, theres a lot of like topical breaking news, then it is good to try to be fresh and make sure that you have, you know, content thats especially relevant.

Publishing new content regularly is generally a good strategy for many kinds of websites.

However, publishing up-to-date content for websites on certain topics is especially important.

Websites on topics related to rapidly changing consumer trends, topics surrounding regularly occurring events, and sites about products that are frequently updated require a steady stream of fresh content.

The upside of publishing news and trending content is that it can result in high levels of traffic, sometimes immense amounts of traffic.

The downside is that after a couple of weeks it may no longer be fresh or relevant to the same search queries that triggered the massive traffic when the topic was trending.

The best thing to do is to understand if your content topics fit into one of the three freshness categories and if so, get writing.

If the content topic doesnt fit into those categories, then the topic is evergreen.

And its not a bad idea to have a mix of both fresh and evergreen topics so that visitors arriving for the freshness have the opportunity to stay for the evergreen.

Knowing what the Freshness Update was about is still useful for developing a content strategy because Google today is better able to understand which queries deserve freshness, which creates opportunities for publishers to gain more traffic.

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Featured Image: A.Azarnikova/Shutterstock

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Google Freshness Algorithm: Everything You Need To Know - Search Engine Journal

The Nexus Q was such a misguided product that Google decided to pull the plug before the device was ever released to consumers. Ten years to the day after its introduction at I/O 2012, the $299 media player positioned as a social streaming device remains a unique debacle in Googles hardware story. Say what you will about Google Glass, but the companys first foray into wearable tech at least got people talking. The Nexus Q, in contrast, was an example of what can happen when a company becomes very lost in its own walled garden.

There were promising aspects to the Q; in hindsight, you can clearly see the groundwork and early DNA of Googles Chromecast within it. But everything about the execution was fundamentally shortsighted and a little weird. In the below promo video that Google released on the day it announced the Nexus Q, someone describes the product as this living alien object.

Theres something inside it. It wants to get out. Totally normal stuff. Sixty seconds into the video, youve still got no clue what this thing is or what the hell it even does. Eventually, we learn that the Nexus Q is a small, Android-powered computer that can play music or videos from the cloud.

Over-the-top marketing aside, the Nexus Q wasnt well-received. David Pogue wrote in The New York Times that it was baffling and wildly overbuilt. We gave it a 5. Reviews from CNET, Engadget, and others all shared the same consensus: for however impressive its hardware was, the Q just didnt do enough to justify a price so much higher than a Roku or Apple TV at the time. A device that only worked with Google services just wasnt practical or appealing for many people.

But damn did it look cool. The Nexus Q genuinely gave off sci-fi vibes (especially when banana plugs and other A/V cables were running out of it) thanks to its orb-shaped industrial design and glowing LED ring. This was long before Amazons Echo came along, remember. The Q looked like something that could jack you into the matrix. And it was all original. Unlike other Nexus devices, which were collaborations with partners like LG, Samsung, Asus, Huawei, and others, the Nexus Q was conceptualized entirely by Google.

Most surprising of all is that it was designed and manufactured in the United States. Google never really highlighted or played up the US manufacturing bit perhaps to avoid any notion that it would become a trend but it undoubtedly contributed to the Qs planned $299 price. (The original Moto X would later be assembled in the US, but that initiative didnt last long.)

Inside the sphere was an audiophile-grade 25-watt amplifier that could power passive speakers this remains the Qs most unique hardware component along with connections for optical, Micro HDMI, and ethernet. A Micro USB port was present to encourage general hack-ability, according to hardware director Matt Hershenson. The Nexus Q was powered by the same smartphone chip as the Galaxy Nexus. You could rotate the upper half of the sphere to control volume or tap it to mute whatever was playing. All the makings of a great living room device were there. But confining software limitations ruined that potential.

The Nexus Q only supported Google services including Play Music, Play Movies & TV, and YouTube. There was no Netflix or Hulu, and no Spotify. Google went to the trouble of putting in an amplifier, yet audiophiles had no way of getting lossless audio from the analog connectors.

The Q lacked any on-screen user interface and didnt come with a remote; you could only control it using a dedicated Android app. Some of that will sound familiar to Chromecast owners. But there were major differences between the Nexus Q and Chromecast, which arrived a year later, that made the $35 streaming dongle such a success. Having learned a hard lesson from stubbornly favoring its own software, Google corrected course and made a heavy push for popular third-party apps to adopt casting. And crucially, the Chromecast also supported iOS.

Aside from the Nexus Qs core functionality of playing music and videos, Google also tried to pitch the product as a social experience. Multiple people would be able to contribute to music playlists without passing someones phone around or jostling over control of a Bluetooth speaker. Friends could share YouTube or Play Movies content on the TV screen in a similar fashion as long as they were on your Wi-Fi.

That all sounds fine in theory, but again, this was pre-Chromecast. The process for social streaming was... lets say, inconvenient. If you actually wanted to make the everyone at the party can DJ scenario happen, all of your friends would also need to download and install the Nexus Q app before they could add songs to the queue. Even then, reviews complained about the software being unintuitive when it came to managing music playlists. It was too easy to accidentally play a song and blow up the collaborative mix that was in the works.

Fast forward a few years and, eventually, the top streaming music services figured out they could just solve this on their own. Now, you can make a collaborative playlist on Spotify (or YouTube Music) no special device or random apps required.

Google heard the negative reviews and thats all it does? criticisms of the Nexus Q loud and clear. By late July 2012, just a month after its announcement, the company announced it was postponing a consumer launch of the product while we work on making it even better. Early preorder customers would receive the device for free as a show of thanks for their early interest.

But the Nexus Q never made it to store shelves. By the end of 2012, Google quietly removed the product from its website. In 2013, the companys apps started breaking compatibility with the device altogether. With so few Q units out in the world, Google didnt waste time leaving it in the rearview mirror.

After Google abandoned the hardware, tinkerers and mod developers spent a few years trying to give the Nexus Q a new lease on life. It made it onto the CyanogenMod circuit, and one person even managed to turn it into a USB audio device to take advantage of that integrated amp. But there just arent many devices in circulation, so those efforts have largely faded into history.

The Nexus Q was a complete failure of a product, but Google wasnt wrong about a third wave of consumer electronics that would make greater use of the cloud to keep all of your entertainment (music, movies, TV) close at hand. Were seeing that everywhere today, and now you can add gaming to the equation. It was an embarrassing misstep, but Googles canceled $299 media player showed that consumers have high expectations of living room entertainment devices and not even giant tech companies can afford to go it alone.

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Google's worst hardware flop was introduced 10 years ago today - The Verge

From time to time, Ill grab a random device out of the Verge reviews closet and spend a week or two with it. Its mostly out of random curiosity and for the sake of comparing old products against the latest and greatest. Most recently, I was drawn to Googles Pixel 5. So I gave it a factory reset, updated the phone to Android 12, and have been using it as my daily driver for the past several days.

The experience has been fantastic. Ive got very large hands an iPhone 13 Pro Max doesnt look out of place in them and I prefer large screens, so I dont think I could fully switch over to the Pixel 5. But its such a good small phone (by 2022 standards) that Ive certainly been tempted. The Pixel 5 makes it easy to do anything I need one-handed. Its midrange processor performs better than ever on Android 12, and this phone still looks unique next to the competition.

Above all else, Ive come away disappointed that Google gave up on the Pixel 5s style and size after just one year. The smallest phone in the companys lineup is currently the Pixel 5a, which has a 6.3-inch display. To its credit, Google is shrinking things down slightly with the upcoming 6A. But with the A-series models, youre giving up niceties like the 90Hz display and wireless charging. In those ways, the Pixel 5 might be the last of its kind in Googles lineup. So much for the even bezels, too.

I now find myself wishing that Google would keep the 5 around as an iPhone SE-style product that gets brought up to speed with hardware upgrades every couple years without losing what makes it good. Lets cover some of the Pixel 5s strengths.

Design and materials: The Pixel 5s 6-inch OLED display is surrounded by thin, symmetrical bezels that go a long way in making the phone comfortable and usable in one hand. And the textured bio resin coating on the 5s body results in a unique feel and reassuring grip when youre holding it throughout the day. The volume rocker shares this texture, while the power button is glossy metal making it easy to distinguish between the two by touch. Owing to its feel and palm-able size, the Pixel 5 is one of those phones that can go caseless without causing much consternation.

Before Google went all in on the common glass sandwich design with the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, previous models in the series often used distinctive materials and textures that helped the phones stand out. With the Pixel 2, it was the almost-coarse rear shell of the black model. The Pixel 4 had grippy side rails. But after the 5s bio resin Im still a big fan of the Sorta Sage green colorway with this finish Google opted for a more basic in-hand feel with last years flagships.

A better screen: The Pixel 6s OLED panel might seem perfectly fine based on first impressions. But in all honesty, its mediocre. There are plenty of threads on Reddit complaining about uniformity issues, an unsightly green tint at lower brightness levels, and other imperfections. The Pixel 6 Pros gorgeous LPTO panel exhibits none of these problems, so its clear that Google settled for less as part of reaching the 6s $599 price.

Even the Pixel 5s screen seems of a slightly higher quality to me than the 6 that replaced it. Theyre both 90Hz displays, but the 5s white point, uniformity, and overall image are just a bit nicer to my eyes. This can sometimes come down to variance between individual units, but I hope to see better from the Pixel 7.

Pixel Imprint rear fingerprint sensor: Im still let down that phone makers decided in unison to relocate the fingerprint reader from the back of the phone, where your index finger often naturally rests while holding it, to underneath the display. Googles Pixel Imprint scanners were perhaps the fastest and most consistent in the entire Android ecosystem, and, well, lets just say the in-screen sensor on the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro has never matched it even after Google improved the performance through software updates.

Consistent camera performance: Google spent several years optimizing its computational photography for the 12-megapixel main camera shared by the Pixel 5 and its predecessors. And while it lacks the dynamic range of the Pixel 6 / 6 Pro and doesnt offer features like Real Tone or Magic Eraser, the Pixel 5 is a consistent shooter. You know what youre going to get, which cant always be said of the Pixel 6 line. I dont love the unpleasant-looking background blur you sometimes get from the 6s larger sensor, but this is something Google will no doubt improve.

Although Im mostly satisfied with the smooth performance and general responsiveness of the Pixel 5 on Android 12, there are still occasions where the midrange Snapdragon 765G processor hits a wall and gets bogged down. Snap a photo, and the frustrating delay while the phone processes the shot remains present. The 5 can also get hung up if you get overly ambitious with multitasking.

While Im sold on the Pixel 5s look and feel, Googles hardware quality assurance isnt always the best. Many units have a slight gap between the display and body. After the phones release, the company said the gap wasnt anything to worry about but its exactly the sort of minor detail that I find annoying.

And then theres that dreadful under-screen speaker, which still sounds tinny in most cases even after Google tried to improve it with an adaptive sound setting. Those symmetrical bezels didnt come without tradeoffs.

But even with those downsides factored in, theres still something special about this phone. Ive come close to buying one from Woot, which is selling new, unopened Pixel 5s for $450. Apparently Google mustve stumbled across some extra inventory in a warehouse somewhere. With Apples mini iPhone rumored to be cut from the upcoming iPhone 14 lineup, it seems small phones are on the way out (again). That makes this a tempting moment to buy. The only asterisk to consider in Googles case is that software support for the Pixel 5 will end in October 2023.

But maybe by then, Google will reintroduce a small Pixel that doesnt skimp on hardware features and doesnt so blandly take after its larger siblings.

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Google's Pixel 5 was the last of its kind - The Verge

Bloomington, Ind.Mayor John Hamilton announced today that the City of Bloomington will receive pro bono support from a team of Google.org Fellows to deploy CiviForm, a tool to simplify and centralize online applications for government assistance programs. CiviForm is an open-source tool developed originally by the City of Seattle with support from Google.org to make applying for government programs easier and faster.

A team of 12 Google employees will work full-time with the City of Bloomington for six months as part of a Google.org Fellowship, providing pro bono technical expertise to nonprofits and civic entities. The City of Bloomington ITS Department (Information & Technology Services) will lead this initiative in partnership with Parks & Recreation.

The CiviForm pilot program will focus on improving the application processes for public benefits programs like the Parks Foundation Youth Scholarship program and the ITS Surplus Computer Request process. After the Fellowship ends, City staff can continue using CiviForm further to improve online access to other City services.

This partnership can help our residents access and apply for City programs. It can help City departments review applicants in an equitable and consistent manner. Thats a win-win, said Mayor Hamilton, and good local democracy into action.

Google and the City of Bloomington share a commitment to creating opportunity for everyone, said Rob Biederman, Director of External Affairs for Google. By bringing together the best of Googles tech expertise with the Citys knowledge of the communitys needs, we hope to simplify the benefits application process for Bloomington residents.

During a project coordinating site visit last week, at the direction of the City, Google researchers conducted user interviews with residents to gain a better understanding of customer needs and experiences related to program access and online applications. This input will help the City improve its online experience for customers.

PROJECT SUMMARY

The City of Bloomington views CiviForm (initially built through a Google.org Fellowship with the City of Seattle) as a means of supporting the Citys goal of providing sustainable, resilient, and equitable economic opportunity for all City residents by enabling residents to apply for City services.

Many Bloomington residents have limited awareness of City programs and must navigate complicated enrollment steps to apply -- some of which are still offline. Google.org Fellows will collaborate across City Departments to deploy CiviForm to enable low-income residents to enter their information once to apply to many programs securely and efficiently.

The City of Bloomingtons goals using CiviForm:

ABOUT GOOGLE.ORG FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM

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City of Bloomington Partners with Google.org to Improve Access to Government Services - City of Bloomington

Google is telling users of the Android Auto for Phone Screens app that itll no longer work soon via an in-app pop-up message (via 9to5Google). The app enables a simplified in-car interface of Android that is safer to use while mounting the phone on a car dashboard, a great feature for those who dont own newer cars with the version of Android Auto that runs on the infotainment screen.

This is actually not Googles first warning that it was putting Android Auto for Phone Screens in exile. It was already deprecated last year when the company disabled Android Auto for Phone Screens on newer Android 12 devices. People with older devices could still access the app, but Google didnt give a timeline on how long it would last, stating it has no further details to share at this time. Google regurgitated a similar message to 9to5Google this week, again omitting a timeline on when the app will cease to work.

This whole debacle is happening because of Googles confusing plans in 2019; it wanted users to transition from an on-phone Android Auto experience to the then-upcoming Google Assistant driving mode. But the feature got delayed and wouldnt see a release until 2020. During that delay, the Android Auto for Phone Screens app became the stop-gap solution for using your Android while driving if you didnt have a newer supported car.

The Android Auto for Phone Screens app is an accessible solution that anyone can use in any car and get all of the benefits of Android Auto. Now, users will have to either get a costly new head unit installed that supports Android Auto or buy a newer car if they want the Android Auto experience.

Google Assistant driving mode is not a one-to-one replacement solution either; its a linear solution with prompts that could get distracting compared to the Android Auto interface. It could also lead users to fumble with a hand-held phone while driving if Google Assistant gets a voice request wrong.

Google has ambitious plans for the automotive industry though, and Android Auto for Phone Screens probably dilutes it. It has a full car operating system called Android Automotive thats in cars like the Polestar 2, and it will make its way into Ford vehicles as well. Google also upgraded the connected Android Auto experience this year, focusing on responsiveness and making better use of different car infotainment screen sizes.

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The Android Auto for Phone Screens app is getting shut down soon on all devices - The Verge

Applying academic research to help accelerate low-carbon innovation, Princetons ZERO lab has created a new coalition, bringing together corporations and researchers focused on scalable clean energy technologies. The consortium, aligned with the corporate membership program Princeton E-ffiliates Partnership, includes founding members Google, GE and ClearPath.

Jesse Jenkins, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment and principal investigator of the ZERO lab, helped design and launch the new consortium with the goal of helping organizations transform their businesses and, in turn, make key energy technologies more commercially viable and quicker to be deployed.

We want to provide practical insights and roadmaps that can support decision-making, guide investment and accelerate innovation, Jenkins said.

The consortium creates an opportunity for big players grappling with a clean energy future to connect.

The consortium aims to help leaders from diverse parts of the energy sector accelerate novel clean energy technologies. Jenkins provided a rationale for why he recruited these first members.

Google was the first global corporation to pledge to match the energy demand from its data centers and officesaround the world with local carbon-free power on an hour-by-hour basis, referred to as 24/7 carbon-free electricity procurement. The company also has a longstanding track record of investing in clean technology startups and using its purchasing power to transform markets for clean electricity.

GE is an equipment manufacturer with a broad portfolio of energy technologies, including on and offshore wind turbines, gas turbines and advanced nuclear power. Through this technology, the company helps generate one-third of the world's electricity. The company is also developing new technologies, such as hydrogen-fueled gas turbines, carbon capture solutions, offshore wind superconducting generators and advanced nuclear with small modular reactors.

ClearPath develops and advocates for clean energy policy, with a focus on breakthrough innovations in the energy and industrial sectors.

Jenkins said the consortium will support two research areas in his group developing models and methods to help inform decision-making and evaluating technologies for economic, environmental and other impacts. As part of its technology evaluation pillar, ZERO Lab researchers are conducting ongoing research on long-duration energy storage, flexible geothermal energy systems, carbon capture and sequestration, and commercial fusion power plants.

One of the consortiums goals, Jenkins said, is to pool funding and maximize the research that can be done in this area when supported by organizations with similar interests. The structure of the program and the flexible funding allow researchers to quickly pivot to tackle the most important and interesting research questions, without having to wait for specific funding cycles or proposal calls from grant-making agencies. It also creates an opportunity for big players grappling with a clean energy future to connect, he said. Jenkins hopes to recruit other members to round out the group, such as a private venture capital group focused on clean energy or the investment arm of a utility.

GE, Google and ClearPath also join thePrinceton E-ffiliates Partnership, the corporate membership program administered by the Andlinger Center. This will allow the organizations to build collaborations with faculty members across a range of topics, including optimizing power architecture in data centers, securing the power grid and transforming waste streams into carbon-rich resources.

The consortium provides an exemplar of the value of collaboration between our E-ffiliates members to maximize the impact of Andlinger Center research. The different perspectives that these consortium members offer improves the quality of the research and enhances the impact of the research for their individual organizations and for the broader national decarbonization effort, said Chris Greig, acting associate director for external partnerships at the Andlinger Center. This has been a key objective of the Andlinger Center and E-ffiliates since their founding, said Greig, who is also the Theodora D. '78 & William H. Walton III '74 Senior Research Scientist at the Andlinger Center.

The collaboration builds on work Jenkins has done with Google, which quantified the electricity systembenefits of 24/7 carbon-free electricity procurement. The research found that using carbon-free, local power can prevent significantly more carbon pollution than purchasing enough renewable energy to meet annual needs, though it comes at a cost premium. The strategy also accelerates deployment of advanced energy technologies, providing a critical niche market to scale up and drive down their cost over time, which encourages full-scale transformation of electric grids.

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Google, GE, ClearPath have joined a new Princeton research consortium focusing on low-carbon technology - Princeton University

Jonathan Pruiett, a geospatial analyst with Cognizant, is part of a team that updates Google maps. They pushed back against a policy that would have required them to be in the office full-time and won a 90-day reprieve. Jonathan Pruiett hide caption

Jonathan Pruiett, a geospatial analyst with Cognizant, is part of a team that updates Google maps. They pushed back against a policy that would have required them to be in the office full-time and won a 90-day reprieve.

To Jonathan Pruiett, it just didn't make sense.

A geospatial analyst who updates Google maps for a living, Pruiett had been called back to his company's offices in Bothell, Washington, five days a week, starting June 6.

Like many on his team, Pruiett had only worked remotely, having started the job in the pandemic. He'd adapted well to it, finding efficiencies such as multitasking during virtual meetings, using the time to process data.

And yet, now he was being told to report to office. Anyone who failed to report within three days of the return date would be processed as having abandoned their job.

"Nothing will change other than having a couple snacks in our office and having an in-person meeting," Pruiett said. "We're kind of starting to think that this job isn't worth it."

More than two years into a pandemic that has no clear end, the debate over remote work has only intensified. Working from home isn't possible in many jobs. But for those who have the option, it's now evident that it is feasible, even beneficial.

But how beneficial is a point of contention between workers and their bosses. Some bosses are deciding too much is lost when people aren't in the office and it's time to come back.

Tesla boss Elon Musk is one of them. He recently emailed his employees with the subject line "Remote work is no longer acceptable." He reasoned that Tesla creates and makes "the most exciting and meaningful products of any company on Earth. This will not happen by phoning it in."

Musk told them anyone wishing to do remote work "must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean *minimum*) of 40 hours per week."

Apple too wanted to bring people back to the office three days a week. But just last month the company decided to postpone its plan after more than 1,000 current and former employees signed an open letter called the plan inefficient, inflexible and a waste of time.

"Stop treating us like school kids who need to be told when to be where and what homework to do," they wrote.

It was yet more evidence of the shift in the balance of power between management and rank and file, as demand for workers has hit record highs in the past year. Companies are finding it hard to enforce unpopular policies and mandates when they fear their workers could just walk away.

The Google maps workers, who are employed by the tech company Cognizant, also decided to fight back. They connected with the Alphabet Workers Union and signed a petition citing COVID fears, the costs of commuting amid $5 gas, and the increase in productivity and morale that employees have experienced while working from home.

With just days to go before the June 6 return to office deadline, Pruiett said he wasn't sure whether he and others would show up in the office on June 6. Members of his team started preparing for a strike vote.

Hours later, Cognizant did what other companies have done in recent weeks: Granted a reprieve.

"Our first day back to the Bothell office full-time will now be September 6," the company said in a statement released on Thursday.

Pruiett called it a 90-day Band-Aid and vowed to continue the fight.

Even as some companies seek to bring back some semblance of office life, others are asking: What is the office for anyway?

At the management consulting firm Eagle Hill Consulting in Arlington, Virginia, the offices have been open since the fall of 2021, but on most days, there are just a smattering of employees on site mostly from IT and human resources.

No one has been ordered back full-time or even close to it. Desks and conference rooms, named after Washington, D.C., landmarks such as the Kennedy Center and Navy Yard, sit empty.

It's a dramatic contrast from pre-pandemic times, when every seat would be full despite the fact that flexible work was offered then, too.

"Could I have worked from home four days a week before the pandemic? I think I easily could have. It just wasn't the environment," says Jason Carrier, a senior associate who used to spend four days a week in the office and one day at a client site.

Although he lives just a few minutes' walk from the office, he now comes in just once a week, which is more than most of his coworkers, he says.

The workforce at Eagle Hill is young, mostly twenty- and thirty-somethings. Before the pandemic, people liked being in the office together. They liked the energy. They stayed late for office happy hours at the end of the day.

Now off-site happy hours are becoming a regular thing alongside virtual bingo nights, thanks in part to Carrier who leads the workplace fun team. So the idea of working from the office, all day, every day?

"Probably very close to a deal breaker at this point," he says.

Eagle Hill's chief marketing officer Susan Nealon says she'd like to see people in the office when it makes sense. She recently took advantage of an in-person event a photo shoot her team had organized to gather a few members of her team for their first face-to-face meeting in more than two years.

"I view the office changing," says Nealon. "It'll be less about the individual work getting done, and more about the group work getting done."

She believes workers may be happier and more productive doing their individual work in the quiet of their homes and only coming into the office for team meetings at optimal times. Instead of fighting rush-hour traffic to sit in the office from 9 to 5, you might just pop in from 11 to 1, she says.

It's an idea that would have been unthinkable just a couple years ago. But already, it's proving to be a selling point for new hires at Eagle Hill.

"It's hard to even fathom going into the office 100%," says Fara John-Williams, who started in human resources in May. "I don't think I could do it ever again."

Read more:

Bosses wanting a return to office face off with workers who want to stay home - NPR

Google announced today that its combining two of its video-calling apps, Duo and Meet, into a single platform. Pretty soon, there will be only Google Meet, and Googles hoping it can be the one calling app users need for just about everything in their lives.

By bringing them both together, Googles hoping it can solve some of what ails modern communication tools. Whats been really important is understanding how people make the choice as to what tool theyre going to use, for what purpose, in what circumstance, says Javier Soltero, the head of Google Workspace. Our digital lives are filled with a million different chat apps, each with its own rules and norms and contact list, some for work purposes and some for personal ones. Googles hoping it can use Gmail addresses and phone numbers to bring all that together. Its really important and powerful to be able to reach you that way, Soltero says, and allow you then to decide whether you want to be reached or not, as opposed to having to manage all of these different identities and deal with the consequences.

Soltero has been preaching this idea of reachability for most of his tenure at Google, and it has led Google to integrate Meet and Chat into so many of its other services. Its a good goal, but it comes at a cost: adding everything to everything has made some of Googles services cluttered and complicated. You can start a meeting from anywhere! But... do you actually want to? Streamlining your communication choices is a good idea, but haphazardly cramming everything together doesnt work.

Over the last couple of years in particular, Meet has become a powerful platform for meetings and group chats of all kinds, while Duo has stayed more of a messaging app. Google promises its bringing all of Duos features to Meet going forward and seems convinced it can offer the best of both worlds.

Its not quite right to say that Duos being killed, though. The app, which Google originally launched in 2016 as an easy way to make one-to-one video calls, does a number of useful things that Meet doesnt. For one thing, you can call someone directly including with their phone number rather than relying on sending links or hitting that giant Meet button in your Google Calendar invite. Duo has always been more like FaceTime than Zoom in that sense. (Google also launched an iMessage competitor, Allo, at the same time as Duo. Allo didnt turn out so great.)

As the two services become one, Google is leaning on Duos mobile app as the default. Pretty soon, the Duo app will get an update that brings an onslaught of Meet features into the platform; later this year, the Duo app will be renamed Google Meet. The current Meet app will be called Meet Original, and eventually deprecated.

This sounds... confusing, but Google claims its the best way forward. The Duo mobile app had a lot of sophistication, especially under the hood, says Dave Citron, the director of product for Googles video products. Especially in emerging markets, where network connectivity was sparse or highly variable. On the web, its different; Meet is the much more developed web platform, so that forms the base of the new combined system. But in both cases, the idea is 100% of the functionality, Citron said, combined forces, and no users left behind.

This is yet another effort from Google to unify some of its previously disparate parts, making the Google suite of services make more coherent and cohesive sense. Soltero said that as Meet has grown during the pandemic, it became the obvious place for Google to concentrate its voice and video efforts going forward. And hes hopeful that over time, the Meet brand can come to mean more than just meeting.

Getting this right will be tricky for Google. If it wants to build a cross-platform, cross-purpose platform for audio and video calls, it has to get a lot of little things right. Should every single device and browser tab youre signed into ring every time you get a call? (Google says no, and that its getting better at recognizing which device youre actually using and sending calls and notifications to that one.) Should you be able to get calls on your personal and work device at the same time? (No good answer yet, but Soltero said hes leading the charge to figure it out.)

Meet is already baked into so many Google services that it could become a meaningful WhatsApp and FaceTime competitor practically overnight, but only if it can integrate without being annoying or complicated.

Originally posted here:

Google is combining Meet and Duo into a single app for voice and video calls - The Verge