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Google for Education Is Making the Life of Teachers Easier

June 28, 2016 By Brandi McCants Leave a Comment

Google for Education is a new tool designed to make the life of teachers easier and education more accessible. The new concept released by Google aims to make the classroom a much more immersive environment that will make children want to engage more in classroom activity.

There are multiple uses for the new Google for Education tool. The overall idea is that children learn better when they are visually stimulated, and teachers are now able to share their screens on the devices of the students, play VR educational videos, and offer feedback and quizzes easier.

Screen Sharing Made Easy

The new Google for Education tool allows teachers to demonstrate the lesson by sharing their screen on the students’ devices. This grants the classroom the possibility of viewing any presentation much easier, their attention being focused on the screen in front of them.

The tool is easy to use in the sense that the teacher only has to launch the Google Cast, which is a Chrome app, and start their lesson. The app supports video and audio content, allowing teachers to hold control of the classroom activity even when a student joins the presentation.

Currently, the app is free to download, and it is compatible with Google Classroom. A beta version is already on the market, and it can be used on Chrome OS, Window, and Mac devices.

Paperless Feedback and Quizzes

Thanks to the new improvements to the Google Forms tool, teachers will now be able to give paperless feedbacks and quizzes to their students. The new format for examinations offers easy-to-design multiple-choice questions and tick-boxes, making the life of teachers considerably easier.

Field Trips in 3D

Field trips are usually a nightmare for teachers and a load of fun for students. The latter enjoy themselves by exploring new environments, while the first are regularly checking up on the kids, making sure that everybody is ok, and nobody is missing.

Thanks to Google Expeditions, which is an integrated part of the Google for Education tool, a classroom can visit historical landmarks or famous museums all from the comfort of their classroom.

The good news is that Google partnered up with TES to provide educational and valuable content compatible with Google Cardboard.

Check out the Google for Education presentation video featured below to find more details about the tool.

Image source: Wikipedia

Two Step Authentication From Google is Better in Every Way

June 21, 2016 By David Crozier Leave a Comment

Two Step Authentication no longer uses the SMS.

Two Step Authentication is quicker, easier, and safer.

Google announced that their two step authentication service will be receiving an update. The update is meant to make the authentication process simpler, easier, but also much safer.

Presently, the two step authentication process consists of an SMS being sent to the registered number of a user whenever a login attempt with the correct username and password is made. The SMS contains a six-digit authentication code which then needs to be used in order to allow access.

The current two step authentication service implies that even if hackers have the user’s account and password, they will not gain access because they do not have the user’s smartphone, a device which the majority of people keep close to them, and with additional safeguards as well.

There are several databases with usernames, e-mails, and passwords that were either datamined, hacked, or just leaked. A strong password usually contains lowercase letters, uppercase letters, numbers and one symbol. The majority of users have one password which they use for several accounts and rarely change their passwords.

Nevertheless, hackers realized that they do not need the user’s phone to receive the two step authentication SMS. All they have to do is call the phone network’s customer service, pretend they are the user and change the number of the SIM to one that they have in their possession.

In order to claim that they are the user, hackers will be required to have the user’s social security number, a piece of data that has repeatedly been proven that is easily obtainable in a multitude of illicit ways.

All phone networks have the options of adding an extra security feature, such as a spoken password or PIN, but it is not implemented by default, and users do not often consider in being so thorough when it comes to the security of all their accounts.

Google’s new two step authentication will no longer be sending an SMS. Instead of a 6-digit secondary authentication code via SMS, users will now be prompted with a notification. Once anyone attempts to connect to a protected account with the correct username and password, the user’s smartphone will display the notification and give the user a simple Yes/No prompt.

The authenticator is a different app with a different unique retrieval serial key. Hackers will not be able to gain access to accounts just with changing the user’s SIM number to one of theirs via illicit customer service manipulation. To gain access, they would need the user’s phone.

All Google users are advised to install the new two step authentication app once it becomes available in their region. It is safer than the old version, easier to set-up, and quicker to use.

Image Courtesy of YouTube.

Google’s Wireless Speed Will Be As Fast As Its Wired Connection

June 10, 2016 By Daniel Giordano Leave a Comment

Google's wireless connections speed will be as fast as its wired connections. Future generations will never believe dial-up existed.

Not even the Jetsons had Wi-Fi at 1 gigabit per second!

On Wednesday, June 8^th, Alphabet Inc. hosted its annual stockholder meeting. Eric Schmidt, the Executive Chairman of the Alphabet, took the opportunity to announce that the company is currently working on a new endeavor: Google’s wireless speed will be as fast as its wired connections.

Alphabet believes that wireless speeds could even outmatch the wired speeds thanks to current technological processes which yielded results in improving wireless signal accuracy as well as results in the advancement of computer chips.

Google’s Executive Chairman also hinted at the fact that aside from the advantages of higher speeds aside, superior wireless technology would allow users not to bother with cable installment and cable clutter, being easier to install, use, and requiring less maintenance.

The present time technology could allow wireless speed to possibly reach up to 1 gigabit, or 1,000 megabits, per second was the general consensus, after an in-depth discussion between Eric Schmidt, Chief Executive Officer of Alphabet Inc. Larry Page, as well as Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat. Google Fiber, Alphabet’s current wired service also has a speed of 1,000 megabits per second. For comparison, the average Internet speed via a wired connection in the U.S. in late 2015 was hitting the gauge at 14.2 megabits per second.

Although the entire planning conversation took place on Tuesday, Alphabet has already started its efforts and trials in Kansas, the first location to see the general instalment of Google Fiber. Alphabet believes that they will be able to present an operational demo of a functioning planned wireless speed some time in 2017.

If Alphabet’s wireless speed will be as fast as its wired connection mobile technology and the way most users utilize their phones, tablets, and laptops will be forever changed for the better. Current upload and download limitations would be shattered and the cloud storage capacity of the generic Internet user would have to increase exponentially.

This is currently not the only Internet connection and speed service Google is working on, as they are are also making progress on Project Fi, a service which aims to allow users of certain Android phones to be granted Internet access by combining cellular coverage with Wi-Fi network resulting in overall better connectivity and performance.

The future of a world where wireless speed will be as fast as its wired connections, if not faster, appears to be on the horizon and the future of a world where this technology will be available for general use is not far behind.

Image Courtesy of YouTube.

Hate Speech Regulations Adopted by Major Social Media Platforms

May 31, 2016 By Brandi McCants 1 Comment

Free speech is not synonymous with the right to promote hate speech.

Social media platforms have become a place in which people vent their frustrations. Unfortunately, not all of them are upset by a late delivery, or a favorite team losing a match. Some users use social media outlets for racist propaganda or the promotions of terrorism. This is where the new hate speech regulations come in.

As of today, Goggle, Microsoft, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter have agreed to the new European Union hate speech regulations. According to them, every time the platforms receive a notification regarding hateful content they must check it in a maximum of 24 hours.

These new regulations are meant to minimize the impact of racist, homophobic, and terrorist propaganda that has been spreading on on-line social outlets.

Furthermore, the new guidelines are promoting the use of “independent counter-narratives” as a means of fighting on-line hate speech.

The European Union has become increasingly concerned with hate speech after the recent Paris and Brussels terrorist attacks. Also, Europe is currently undergoing an unprecedented refugee crisis that sparked the racial tensions in many of its countries.

Facebook has been collaborating with German official government representatives in an attempt to combat in a proactive manner any xenophobic or on-line racist behavior. Google and Twitter have joined the effort and are now respecting the new European Union hate speech regulations when managing the German platforms.

“The recent terror attacks have reminded us of the urgent need to address illegal online hate speech. Social media is, unfortunately, one of the tools that terrorist groups use to radicalize young people and spread violence and hatred,” the European Union commissioner for justice, Vĕra Jourová, declared.

The new hate speech regulations are putting the social media giants on the spot. By promising to abide by the new regulations, they are also promising to limit the free speech of some people. While it is okay to speak your mind, these tensions will create a new paranoid wave of population that will report any statement that they don’t agree with, leading to a new set of problems.

On the other hand, seeing as the political stability in the EU is rather fragile after all of the terrorist attempts and the refugee crisis, the support of the social media platforms is a welcomed aid in the fight against hate and the violence it generates.

Image source: Wikipedia

Facebook’s Google Two Big Ears Move

May 24, 2016 By Daniel Giordano Leave a Comment

Facebook’s Google Two Big Ears Move

Facebook has just purchased VR audio company Two Big Ears (TBE), and they’re putting the technology up for takes.

Yesterday, Oculus’ parent, the social media giant, Facebook, announced it has bought the Edinburgh-based company Two Big Ears and will be letting everybody use it for free as part of the new Facebook 360 Spatial Workshop. They’ve just “Googled” TBE. No, not in the traditional sense.

It looks like someone’s been reading “What would Google do” because it sure seems like a move only Google would do and has done numerous times, the latest being their open source learning machine technology. Recently, “to Google something” has taken the meaning of sharing or making open source and it looks like Facebook is stepping on the giant tech’s steps big time.

The terms of this newest transaction were not disclosed. Two Big Ears, who has been around since 2013 creates spatial three-dimension audio in gaming and cinematic experiences.

In a blog post, TBE details the acquisition and its bigger picture vision stating they’ve worked hard at creating the tools and technology needed for how the immersive audio is experienced in virtual reality and audio reality. Their mission is to make “VR audio succeed across all devices and platforms” and “serve billions of people across the world.”

The company focuses especially on how the sound is played in three-dimension spaces or how the sound interacts with the surfaces in the space in which the user is immersed. This progress in building ultra-realistic three-dimension audio is a major steppingstone for Facebook, its video, and the Oculus platform.

Both Oculus Rift and Gear VR support the immersive audio performance, but to make Two Big Ears’ 3Dception technology available for developers, it’s a smart move that will make Facebook grow even bigger.

Previously, the company has had two audio products solutions for both cinematic and gaming VR; while the cinematic one is integrated into the Facebook 360 Spatial Workstation, the two teams will now work to integrate the immersive audio in the gaming software.

Giving the compatibility issues with only Oculus Rift and Gear VR, TBE has said it will “continue to be platform and device agnostic,” so developers, worry not.

With this new Two Big Ears acquisition, the social media mogul is helping a lot of developers and also making sure Facebook will be the default hub for VR content. Well played, Facebook, well played.

Image source: Lloyd Digital

Chromebooks Outsell Macs and Hits Hard at Microsoft

May 22, 2016 By Nicholas Anderton 2 Comments

Google’s Chromebooks Outsell Macs and Hits Hard at Microsoft

For the first time, Google Chromebooks outsold Apple’s Macs in the recent quarter, and Microsoft is feeling much more that a little heat.

Manufacturers like HP, Dell, and Lenovo have sold around two million Chromebooks combined, versus the seemingly lone wolf, Apple (approx. 1.7 million).

It’s not all that bad for Apple. Quarter after quarter, the company has shrunk the PC industry with its sales growth. Plus, Apple has always been satisfied with having just a piece of the larger pie. However, for Microsoft, the pressure is on.

It looks like Google is attacking Microsoft with its slow-but-steady strategic move. With the new Chromebooks, Android and Chrome are smashed together. Chromebooks have full access to Google Play store, which means the possibility to use 1.5 million Android applications.

Chromebook’s main concept is simplicity. Portability is its second key concept. The Chromebook devices have an ultra-lightweight Chrome operating system that offers a bit more than a web browser.

The gig seems to work just fine, especially in the educational space, since everything is cloud-based (nothing can be lost), and the performance is reasonable for laptops under $200. With the availability of the Android apps, the offer becomes irresistible, and the numbers are showing it.

Microsoft is taking a different approach with the new Windows 10 OS. The company is trying to convince developers to bring their services to the Windows store taking advantage of the lead Microsoft has in desktop operating systems.

It’s an interesting tactic, but will it work?

The Redmond-based company has attracted some powerful players like Facebook, Uber, and Hulu, but it does not have the growing ecosystem Android has; and is all probably because of Microsoft’s lack of presence in the smartphone environment.

For now, that’s not so bad, especially considering Windows 10 is still running all the software consumers and businesses are used to, but in the future, everything will be written for the smartphone and the web.

If Google will outsell Microsoft, it’s not yet clear – it might be just another challenge for Microsoft to take and beat – but what is clear is that Chromebooks are growing strongly amid the current market conditions and the tech giant is a fearful opponent.

Image source: Exeo

Google vs. French Right to Be Forgotten Law

May 21, 2016 By Micheal Baptiste Leave a Comment

Google goes against “the right to be forgotten” french law

Google is currently appealing the French right to be forgotten (RTBF) law in France’s highest administrative court, the Conseil d’État.

The French privacy regulators, CNIL, are EU’s data protection regulators, and they enforce privacy data laws across all Europe. In 2014, the court established that inaccurate or out-of-date data about people must be delisted. In fact, the right to be forgotten law is actually “the right to be delisted” law.

Search engines were being obligated to remove those links with unwanted information at a request, thus respecting people’s privacy.

Last years, the CNIL authority communicated Google that it ought to eliminate the listing of the undesirable information not only from European sites like Google.fr or Google.de but from domains all over the world, including “.com.”

After fighting for a while, Google gave up and said it would remove links from its domains, but only if the registered users were from European countries.

Deciding Google’s action was not enough, the CNIL fined Google with $112,000 in March.

In March, the CNIL wrote that only by applying “the right to be forgotten law” on all of the “search engine’s extensions, regardless of the extension used or the geographic origin of the person performing the search,” Google can adequately respect the right to privacy.

As a reaction, Google’ general counsel, Ken Walter said if the French data regulators decide that their law should apply globally, it shouldn’t take long for less democratic countries to demand the same thing and lead “to a global race to the bottom.”

He continues saying other governments have imposed similar laws on various grounds, but even if it had resulted in the blocking of their services, they have resisted. It justifies Google’s measure of taking the order to the Supreme Court.

It’s a case of contradiction between two equal rights enlisted in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: the right to privacy (Article 12) and the freedom of expression (Article 19).

These rights must be balanced, but sometimes you have to put one before the other and prioritize, there’s no other way. In this particular case, Google seems to put the “loose” freedom of expression right before the “rigid” right of privacy; the two rights cannot apply at the same time in the same place.

It remains to be seen how Google will convince the French Supreme Court to vote for freedom of speech and eliminate CNIL’s “right to be forgotten” global order.

Image Source: Kremlin

Viv – the Newest Artificial Intelligence Personal Assistant

May 10, 2016 By Brandi McCants Leave a Comment

Possible Depiction of Viv, the Newest Artificial Intelligence Personal Assistant

Viv is the newest artificial intelligence personal assistant in what is now the boom of AI personal assistance technology.

Although we’re still waiting for Steven Spielberg’s humanoid David from the 2001 movie A.I. to be truly impressed, this promising new AI personal assistant doesn’t disappoint.

Created by the Dag Kittlaus, co-founder of Siri – another great AI assistant, Viv breaks down the code and understands natural aspects of language to reply to your requests.

Viv’s intelligence is based on a new technology called “Dynamic Program Generation” and according to its creator, it can write itself in under a second.

But, before we go into more details about Viv, it’s good to know what other different artificial intelligence personal assistants are on the market now.

People seem to be already making jokes about Siri – Apple’s brassy AI assistant, Cortana – Windows 10 assistant, and Viv – the latest, but a not yet available assistant. Still, it should be known that Hound, another one of these self-writing software assistants, might steal the show.

Created by SoundHound and launched in March this year, Hound also has a strong understanding of complex queries and a third-party platform available for developers to plug into. And as we said, Hound is already available.

Viv was showed off Monday, in New York, at the TechCrunch Disrupt when Kittlaus took the mic and demonstrated the app’s tricks. It was Viv’s first public demonstration.

The artificial intelligence personal assistant connects with third-party services and complies with voice commands to book rooms, hail rides and send money to friends.

What makes Viv so different than the other AI personal assistants is that it can grow much faster and learn at a pace that will thrill developers tapping into its technology.

Although it’s not entirely sure when Kittlaus plans to launch Viv, the entrepreneur did say the company’s goal is to “roll launch” the artificial intelligence personal assistant at the end of the year, with phone apps and other “surprises” he and his partners are working on.

With all the autonomous technology and AI being developed by giants like Google, Facebook, Apple and Tesla and last year being the best year for humanity, what kind of year will this one be?

Will the future artificial intelligence personal assistant spread through the world the way the smartphone did? What do you think?

Image source: Pixabay

Google Plans an Injected Device for Your Eye

May 4, 2016 By Mary Duncan Leave a Comment

Google Intra-Ocular Injected Device Plans

Google Plans an Injected Device for Your Eye, yet we do not have the “brain power” to decipher those plans, nor, to be honest, do they specify the purpose of such device. Should we speculate? If you’re a sci-fi enthusiast like me, you will want to!

Listen to this: because it will be “configured to be surgically installed within an eye”, they will further refer to it as an “ophthalmic electronics platform.”

Last week, Kind Cole U.S. Patent Application made inventor’s Andrew J. Conrad file patent with the name Intra-Ocular Device, for Google, available to the general public.

What is it made of? How will it look? What will it do? The long patent file details the mechanism of a programmed wireless device, controlled by optical power and bio-interactive biometric components to focus, scan, and receive commands via an antenna, but we don’t know yet what will it do.

I can already picture myself as a Google mind controlled hybrid – half man, half robot. However, let’s not rush into dystopian fantasies for the eye injected device might be the solution for vision problems or better yet, congenital blindness.

The device can be hooked to a smartphone, a tablet, a laptop, can send GPS, NFC, and LTE signals, the antenna could be attached to the frame of the eye glasses and thus, this Google injected device can relief or actually fix problems related to the optical nerve or other birth defects or acquired problems for the eye components. Even though we know a lot of progress has been made in this field. What kind of surprise is Google preparing for us?

The fragileness of humanity can surely benefit from human ingenuity. And why not, Google’s intra-ocular injected device might help us in this respect. Bill Maris, Google’s Venture Chief is known to believe that the tech industry would have surprising results from the health and life science sectors. So it’s no wonder Google would invest and file for a patent for the health sector.

Again, these are all suppositions, ideas sometimes infused with a pamphlet character and other times with a hopeful air. Though with Google planning an injected device for your eye, the bottom line is: the immortality future is near! We are building it by components.

Image courtesy of: Wikimedia

Google Skybox Renamed to Terra Bella and Back in Action

March 9, 2016 By Daniel Giordano Leave a Comment

The satellite company Skybox Imaging that Google acquired back in 2014 seems to be one of the new focuses of the tech giant as new plans regarding it are being revealed, along with a fateful name change into Terra Bella. Ever since its acquisition, Google attached two primary objectives to its name: the first was to improve the Internet connectivity around the world – one of the primary objectives of Google at the time – while the second was to improve the company’s mapping products.

Now, Google’s focus is shifted back on it, as Google plans for Terra Bela to go beyond satellite imagery and focus on image analysis more than before in order to locate patterns and meanings instead. Since Skybox Imaging’s first satellite launch – SkySat-1 – which took place two years ago, soon after Google’s acquisition of the company, approximately 100,000 images have been taken. With more than a dozen satellites in development status, which Google hopes to launch over the next few years, things seem to be getting even more serious.

Founders Dan Berkenstock, Ching-Yu Hu, and John Fenwick have said that they see a new use in satellite imagery that lies beyond the raw utility that the company has seen in the now dubbed Terra Bella project until now. They believe that by attempting to focus on understanding the true nature of geospatial information, humanity can use this kind of data to try and solve the challenges of our age. They believe that this information can assist in resolving economic, societal and humanitarian challenges.

Naturally, just satellite imagery alone cannot help dissolve the mysteries and workings of the world alone, but merely represents a part of it. By extracting and providing entire series of data that can be drawn out of Terra Bella’s activity and processed by AI, Google believes that it could soon provide organizations and individuals alike with the missing key in a number of different issues.

There is a broad range of data that can be drawn out of the dozens of thousands of images that the satellites employed by former Skybox; or, at least, the type of data that could be beneficial to a large number of businesses and organizations. This could include things such as port traffic, disaster effects or mining development.

However, this does not mean that Google’s focus is shifting completely towards this new area. The former contributions that Skybox has brought will continue to unfold, with this becoming the new but non-invasive goal.

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