Category: google

Many others staffed company events, working registration desks, taking photographs, playing music, providing massages and serving wine. For these events, Google regularly bought wine from an Oregon House winery owned by a member of the Fellowship, according to the lawsuit. Mr. Lloyd claimed he was fired last year because he complained about the influence of the religious sect. His suit also names Advanced Systems Group, or ASG, the company that sent Mr. Lloyd to Google as a contractor. Most of the Google Developer Studio joined the team through ASG as contractors, including many members of the Fellowship. The suit, which Mr. Lloyd filed in August in California Superior Court, accuses Google and ASG of violating a California employment law that protects workers against discrimination. It is in the discovery stage. The New York Times corroborated many of the lawsuit’s claims through interviews with eight current and former employees of the Google business unit and examinations of publicly available information and other documents. These included a membership roster for the Fellowship of Friends, Google spreadsheets detailing event budgets and photos taken at these events.

But now a Reddit user is claiming they actually bought Google’s as-yet-unreleased Pixel 7 Pro smartphone on Facebook Marketplace — and then used it for three weeks without realizing it. (Because the seller had listed it as a Pixel 6 Pro without a box.)

From the Verge’s new report today:
Google pre-announced the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro at its I/O keynote last month, revealing what the devices will look like and… not much else. They’ll very likely make their formal debut in October with Android 13. These alleged prototypes haven’t shed much more light on what we can expect from the phones, either — just confirmation that it’s using a different modem than the Pixel 6 series and that it appears to come in a variant with 256GB of storage and 12GB of RAM.

There probably won’t be much more we can learn from it, either. The purchaser of the alleged prototype said that the phone had been functioning fine until a few days ago when it seems to have been remotely wiped.

Most notably, you can “continue using your custom domain with Gmail.” […] Besides the custom Gmail domain, you will “retain access to no-cost Google services” and “keep your purchases and data.” […] However, you must confirm to Google that your usage is for non-commercial personal use: “Google may remove business functionality from this offering and transition businesses to Google Workspace. Additionally, this option will not include support.”

Google implemented a return-to-office policy starting in early April, requiring employees to go to physical facilities at least three days a week. Staffers pushed back on the mandate and the prospect of navigating traffic jams, after they worked efficiently for so long at home while the company enjoyed some of its fastest revenue growth of the past 15 years….

Google had delayed its return plans on multiple occasions, due mostly to surges in Covid-19 case numbers. But this time, the company stuck to its reopening schedule. In the early days back, employees were greeted with marching bands on campus, as well as photo booths, celebratory food and visits from prominent politicians.

“Thank you for being back!” Lizzo said. “Thank you for surviving! Google, we back, bitch!!” […] She inserted the company’s name into her popular song “Boys,” changing the lyrics from “I heard you a freak, too” to “I heard you a freak, Google!”

After two and a half years “of protecting others and ourselves but also being very disconnected,” Lizzo told the crowd, “It’s so incredible to see how connected we are right now!” CNBC reports.
Someone in the crowd shouted back, “Propaganda! Propaganda!”

Jeanette Manfra, director of risk and compliance for Google’s cloud services and a former top U.S. cybersecurity official, said Thursday that the government’s reliance on Microsoft — one of Google’s top business rivals — is an ongoing security threat.

Manfra also said in a blog post published Thursday that a survey commissioned by Google found that a majority of federal employees believe that the government’s reliance on Microsoft products is a cybersecurity vulnerability. “Overreliance on any single vendor is usually not a great idea,” Manfra said in a phone interview. “You have an attack on one product that the majority of the government is depending on to do their job, you have a significant risk in how the government can continue to function.”

Microsoft pushed back strongly against the claim, calling it “unhelpful.” The study comes as Google is positioning itself to challenge Microsoft’s dominance in federal government offices, where Windows and Office programs are commonly used….

The blog post comes as hackers continue to discover critical software vulnerabilities at an increasing pace across major tech products, but especially in Microsoft programs. Last year, researchers discovered 21 “zero-days” — an industry term for a critical vulnerability that a company doesn’t have a ready solution for — actively in use against Microsoft products, compared to 16 against Google and 12 against Apple. he most prominent zero-day was used against Microsoft’s Exchange email program, which cybersecurity experts say was first employed by Chinese cyberspies and then quickly adopted by criminal hackers, leading to hundreds of companies becoming compromised.

If you weren’t too fond of the official YouTube app, there were many alternatives at your disposal. One of them was YouTube Vanced — a modded version of the original app that added features like ad blocking, background playback, and many more without charging users like YouTube’s Premium tier. We even put it on our list of the best indie apps you can get. It further gained popularity by bringing back dislike counts in videos just as Google removed them from their service…

The folks behind the project announced Sunday in the app’s official Telegram channel and on the Vanced Twitter account that it will be discontinued. No clear reason was given as to why it was killed off, so we can only speculate — but it’s likely due to Google’s legal department taking notice of Vanced…

Vanced was never the only alternative YouTube app. Others include open-source NewPipe, which is more lightweight than the official app. But YouTube Vanced had a huge user base, and we’ll miss it. It won’t be updated anymore, but you can still get the last version. Do it quickly, though — the download links will soon be gone.

Left Field said restaurants are charged up to 30% of each order in fees by delivery sites, and therefore see “little (if any)” profits from them. Google never received permission to sell the restaurants’ food, designed the storefronts to look like they were restaurant-appproved, and placed a large “Order Online” button under restaurant search results to lure users to its storefronts, according to Left Field. […] The lawsuit accuses Google of deceiving customers and violating federal trademark law starting in 2019. It asks for an undisclosed amount of money damages on behalf of Left Field and similarly affected restaurant owners and a ban on Google’s alleged misuse of their trade names. In response to the lawsuit, a Google spokesperson said that the “Order Online” feature is meant to “connect customers with restaurants they want to order food from,” and that it lets restaurants “indicate whether they support online orders or prefer a specific provider, including their own ordering website.”

“iMessage should not benefit from bullying,” the official Android Twitter account wrote. “Texting should bring us together, and the solution exists. Let’s fix this as one industry.” Google SVP Hiroshi Lockheimer chimed in, too, saying, “Apple’s iMessage lock-in is a documented strategy. Using peer pressure and bullying as a way to sell products is disingenuous for a company that has humanity and equity as a core part of its marketing. The standards exist today to fix this.”

The “solution” Google is pushing here is RCS, or Rich Communication Services, a GSMA standard from 2008 that has slowly gained traction as an upgrade to SMS. RCS adds typing indicators, user presence, and better image sharing to carrier messaging. It is a 14-year-old carrier standard, though, so it lacks many of the features you would want from a modern messaging service, like end-to-end encryption and support for non-phone devices. Google tries to band-aid over the aging standard with its “Google Messaging” client, but the result is a lot of clunky solutions that don’t add up to a good modern messaging service. Since RCS replaces SMS, Google has been on a campaign to get the industry to make the upgrade. After years of protesting, the US carriers are all onboard, and there is some uptake among the international carriers, too. The biggest holdout is Apple, which only supports SMS through iMessage. “Google clearly views iMessage’s popularity as a problem, and the company is hoping this public-shaming campaign will get Apple to change its mind on RCS,” writes Amadeo in closing. “But Google giving other companies advice on a messaging strategy is a laughable idea since Google probably has the least credibility of any tech company when it comes to messaging services. If the company really wants to do something about iMessage, it should try competing with it.”

Further reading:
Eddy Cue Wanted To Bring iMessage To Android In 2013
Apple Says iMessage On Android ‘Will Hurt Us More Than Help Us’