YouTube bans ‘hateful’ videos from making money

YouTube has announced tougher guidelines on hate content in videos, strengthening its response to three categories. Following a backlash around brand advertising on controversial content, the social media platform is making a move to clean up which videos are part of its ad network. It first promised to take action in March, ensuring that hateful content cannot be monetized. The move was in response to an ad boycott after major brands found their ads embedded in – or appearing alongside – offensive videos. The Google-owned platform has updated the guidelines that govern…

Read More

Over 36.5 million Android users get infected by Judy Malware

A new malware named ‘Judy’ has been found in over 41 apps on the Google Play Store, and it has infected between 8.5 million to 36.5 million users. This is according to a report from security research firm Check Point, which discovered the malware and alerted Google. The search giant has started removing these infected apps from the Play Store. According to researchers from Check Point, the apps were available on the Play Store for years, but have been clean and virus-free for most of the time. It appears that…

Read More

Google Docs phishing attack is fixed

Google Docs users were hit by a widespread phishing attempt everywhere being spammed with what appeared to be malicious invitations to log on to their Google accounts. Unlike your garden-variety cyberattack, many of the telltale signs that could tip off that something was awry are absent. What made this attack so tricky to detect was that it took advantage of Google’s legitimate tool for sharing data with responsible third-party apps. Since the bogus invitation was being routed through Google’s real system, nothing was misspelled, the icons looked accurate, and it’s hard to know something’s…

Read More

Google Wifi now available in Canada

Google Wifi, the mesh router that Google unveiled first last October, is now on sale in Canada. The router sells either individually for $179 CDN, or in a 3-pack for $439 CDN, which is pretty close to U.S. pricing given current exchange rates. The Wifi solution’s mesh networking approach means it can seamlessly pair with other units to extend coverage throughout a house, without sacrificing signal strength, and while also handing off connections from one device to the next with such smooth transitions that you won’t notice the change even if…

Read More

Google launches in Cuba as first foreign internet company

Google’s servers in Cuba went live on Wednesday, making the internet giant the first foreign internet company to host content within the long cut-off country. The internet giant opened a new data centre in Cuba yesterday where it will store information such as popular YouTube videos. In a move that indicates Cuba is opening its doors to modernisation and greater access to information, the on-island servers will make it easier for Cuban people to access Google’s services.  Until now information from across the internet had to travel to the island through a submarine cable from Venezuela,…

Read More

Apple looking to put broadband-beaming satellites into orbit

Apple Inc. is testing self-driving cars and exploring augmented reality. Recent hires suggest the company is now also looking to the skies. The tech giant is getting involved in launching satellites that would beam down broadband Internet access. Recently, Apple poached two Google satellite executives to form a new hardware team within the company. John Fenwick led Google’s spacecraft operations and Michael Trela was head of satellite engineering. Google on the other hand has tempered its own broadband plans as of late. In 2015, the company was simultaneously laying high-speed fiber…

Read More

Google to limit offensive & inaccurate search results

Google Developers space

Google is looking forward to impementing changes to its Search Quality Ratings Guidelines in an effort to limit offensive and inaccurate results on its search engine. The tech giant has recently updated its Search Quality Rater Guidelines, which human evaluators use to gauge the quality of search results. The updated guidelines provide clearer examples of low-quality results, including “misleading information, unexpected offensive results, hoaxes and unsupported conspiracy theories,” engineering VP Ben Gomes wrote in the blog post. Google has also tweaked its algorithms to prioritize authoritative results. Human evaluators use…

Read More

Google to refresh play store

Google has recently started testing a Google Play Store “Refresh” button which allows users to manually check for updates for their Android apps. The button is a part of a larger set of experimental changes that the Mountain View-based tech giant is currently testing and is only available to select users. Provided that the company greenlights the change, the Refresh button will likely roll out to users worldwide in a few months, presumably during the second quarter of the year. The video and screenshots showcasing the latest experimental version of…

Read More

Google Translate mobile apps now available for users in China

Farmers

Google has reintroduced its Translate mobile apps to China, where they can now be accessed and used without the need for software to bypass local censorship. Google left China more than seven years ago when it redirected its local search engine to Hong Kong and many of its services are censored in the country. Today’s low-key relaunch marks the first time it has revived a service specifically for users in China. The google translate apps will be maintained by Google’s joint-venture in China, which runs the services it has remaining there, and will be subject…

Read More

Google disables Gchat to foist Hangouts

One of the best parts about using Gmail is Gchat, the instant-messaging function that lets you chat with other Google users and still look like you’re the most productive person in the room. Google is replacing Google Talk. Google released Hangouts back in 2013 as a more feature-filled chat service to take the place of Talk in the Gmail sidebar, but users have been able to stick with the older, more basic service if they chose. Google has been touting Hangouts features, which include group video calling and integration with…

Read More