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Google to delete ‘incognito’ data records

The lawsuit, initiated in 2020, was brought forth by Google account holders who alleged that the tech giant was unlawfully tracking their online activities through the private browsing feature…reports Asian Lite News

In a significant development regarding online privacy, Google has agreed to a proposed class action settlement, aiming to address concerns over the collection of web browsing data in its private browsing mode, known as ‘Incognito mode.’

Filed on Monday in the case of ‘Brown vs Google’, the settlement includes provisions for the destruction or de-identification of billions of records of web browsing data collected through Incognito mode, according to a report by The Verge.

The lawsuit, initiated in 2020, was brought forth by Google account holders who alleged that the tech giant was unlawfully tracking their online activities through the private browsing feature. The proposed settlement, valued at USD 5 billion, encompasses greater transparency measures from Google regarding its data collection practices in Incognito mode and imposes limits on future data-gathering efforts.

If approved by a federal judge in California, the settlement could impact approximately 136 million Google users. According to court filings, the USD 5 billion valuation reflects the value of the data Google would be required to eliminate or de-identify, along with the data it would be prohibited from collecting in the future.

As per The Verge, the plaintiffs stated in the proposed settlement filing that the “settlement ensures real accountability and transparency from the world’s largest data collector and marks an important step toward improving and upholding our right to privacy on the Internet.”

Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda expressed satisfaction with the settlement, emphasizing the company’s belief in the meritless nature of the lawsuit. Castaneda clarified that despite the plaintiffs’ valuation of the settlement at USD 5 billion, they would not receive any monetary compensation. However, individuals retain the right to file claims for damages.

As part of the agreement reported by The Verge, Google commits to enhancing disclosures regarding the limitations of its private browsing services.

Furthermore, the company pledges to enable users to block third-party cookies by default in Incognito mode for five years, preventing Google from tracking users across external websites during private browsing sessions.

The settlement also permits individuals to pursue damages through claims filed in California state court, with 50 claims already submitted. Google asserts its commitment to user privacy, stating, “We never associate data with users when they use Incognito mode,” and affirming its readiness to delete outdated technical data unrelated to individual users.

With these developments, the settlement marks a significant stride towards bolstering user privacy rights and fostering greater accountability in the digital sphere. (ANI)

ALSO READ: Racist, Sexist: Musk Slams Google Gemini

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Racist, Sexist: Musk Slams Google Gemini

Elon Musk.(photo:IANS/Twitter)

The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX criticized Google Gemini as highly discriminatory…reports Asian Lite News

 X owner Elon Musk on Wednesday continued his tirade against Google, saying its artificial intelligence (AI) model Gemini is super racist and even “sexist”.

The billionaire responded to a follower who said that Google Gemini replied to his prompt that “white people should absolutely acknowledge their white privilege”.

“Google Gemini is super racist and sexist,” said the Tesla and SpaceX CEO.

Another follower commented to Musk’s post that “Gemini holds Asians to similar standards as Whites when it comes to privilege”.

“This just shows more and more how Gemini is programmed with the exact same narratives that our higher education teaches,” an X user posted.

Musk recently accused Google of running “racist, anti-civilisational programming” with its AI models.

“Given that the Gemini AI will be at the heart of every Google product and YouTube, this is extremely alarming,” he had posted earlier this week.

One of his followers commented on his latest post on Google Gemini, saying “just remember who is programming it.

“There’s your problem and your answer. If the left can control the narrative, we will never have honesty again. Truth will be censored or not even added to the database. It will only be left talking points. That’s scary.”

Musk had claimed that a senior Google executive called him after screenshots of Gemini’s response to “misgender” Caitlyn Jenner to avoid a nuclear apocalypse went viral on social media.

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Google Funds European AI Training

The company announced the funding as part of its AI Opportunity Initiative for Europe…reports Asian Lite News

Google on Monday announced the 25 million euros ($26.98 million) funding from Google.org to support artificial intelligence (AI) training and skills for people across Europe, with a particular focus on vulnerable and underserved communities.

The company announced the funding as part of its AI Opportunity Initiative for Europe. Google will start by dedicating 10 million euros to equipping workers with the skills they need to avoid being left behind.

“AI has enormous potential to transform the world for the better. Yet research shows that the benefits of AI could exacerbate existing inequalities — especially in terms of economic security and employment,” Adrian Brown, Executive Director, Centre for Public Impact, which is running the nonprofit scheme alongside Google, said in a blogpost.

“This new programme will help people across Europe develop their knowledge, skills and confidence around AI, ensuring that no one is left behind,” he added.

The initiative will also include a new series of Google for Startups Growth Academies across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

“The equity-free programme is to support startups using AI to solve society’s biggest challenges, in health, education and cybersecurity,” Google said.

The company is now open for applications for the Growth Academy: AI for Health.

Under the AI Opportunity Initiative, the tech giant is also expanding its AI foundational courses to 18 languages. The courses are free of charge and available to everyone, offering a series of modules on introductory AI skills to help people and businesses get practical skills and knowledge.

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Google to combat misinformation ahead of EU polls

All advertisers who wish to run election ads in the EU on Google platforms are required to go through a verification process and have an in-ad disclosure that clearly shows who paid for the ad…reports Asian Lite News

Google has announced to support the European parliamentary elections by surfacing high-quality information to voters, safeguarding its platforms from abuse and equipping campaigns with the best-in-class security tools and training.

On June 6-9, voters across the 27 member states of the European Union will take to the polls to elect Members of European Parliament (MEPs).

“Across our efforts, we’ll have an increased focus on the role of artificial intelligence (AI) and the part it can play in the misinformation landscape — while also leveraging AI models to augment our abuse-fighting efforts,” said Annette Kroeber-Riel, Vice President, Government Affairs and Public Policy for Europe.

In the coming months, when people search for topics like ‘how to vote,’ they will find details about how they can vote — such as ID requirements, registration, voting deadlines, voting abroad and guidance for different means of voting, like in person or via mail

“We’re collaborating with the European Parliament which aggregates information from Electoral Commissions and authorities in the 27 EU member states,” said Google.

All advertisers who wish to run election ads in the EU on Google platforms are required to go through a verification process and have an in-ad disclosure that clearly shows who paid for the ad.

“These ads are published in our Political Ads Transparency Report, where anyone can look up information such as how much was spent and where it was shown. We also limit how advertisers can target election ads,” the company informed.

The company said that to help enforce its policies, AI models are enhancing abuse-fighting efforts. “With recent advances in our Large Language Models (LLMs), we’re building faster and more adaptable enforcement systems that enable us to remain nimble and take action even more quickly when new threats emerge,” Google said.

Like any emerging technology, AI presents new opportunities as well as challenges. For example, generative AI makes it easier than ever to create new content, but it can also raise questions about trustworthiness of information, like “deepfakes.”

“We have policies across our products and services that address misinformation and disinformation in the context of AI,” Google added.

Google joins coalition to bring transparency to digital content

The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), a global standards body advancing transparency online through certifying the provenance of digital content, on Friday announced that Google has joined as a steering committee member and support Content Credentials to bring transparency to digital content in the AI era.

Google will collaborate with other steering committee members like Adobe, BBC, Intel, Microsoft, Publicis Groupe, Sony, and Truepic to develop the technical standard for Content Credentials.

Content Credentials is the C2PA’s technical standard for tamper-resistant metadata that can be attached to digital content, showing how and when the content was created or modified.

“In the critical context of this year’s global elections where the threat of misinformation looms larger than ever, the urgency to increase trust in the digital ecosystem has never been more pressing,” Dana Rao, General Counsel and Chief Trust Officer, Adobe and Co-founder of the C2PA, said in a statement.

“Google’s membership will help accelerate the adoption of Content Credentials everywhere, from content creation to consumption,” he added.

Additionally, Google’s participation, which includes YouTube, will help increase awareness of Content Credentials as a key resource to help people understand the content they’re viewing and trust the digital ecosystem.

“At Google, a critical part of our responsible approach to AI involves working with others in the industry to help increase transparency around digital content,” said Laurie Richardson, VP of Trust and Safety at Google.

“It builds on our work in this space — including Google DeepMind’s SynthID, Search’s About this Image and YouTube’s labels denoting content that is altered or synthetic — to provide important context to people, helping them make more informed decisions,” she added.

Content Credentials are essentially a “nutrition label” for digital content — showing when a piece of content is created and modified.

Content Credentials are free, open-source technology leveraging the C2PA open technical standard that anyone can incorporate into their own products and platforms. 

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Google ‘changing’ Bard name to Gemini in big AI push

The company’s however, did not make an official comment on changing Bard’s name to Gemini…reports Asian Lite News

Google is planning some big changes to its artificial intelligence (AI) models, including reportedly changing the name of Bard to Gemini.

Android app developer Dylan Roussel has apparently leaked a company change-log that says “Bard is now Gemini” which is the new model to compete with OpenAI’s GPT-4.

“Bard is now Gemini. Gemini is the best way to get direct access to Google Al. All the collaborative capabilities you know and love are still here, and will keep getting better in the Gemini era,” reads the change-log.

The company’s however, did not make an official comment on changing Bard’s name to Gemini.

“We’ve also evolved the Ul to reduce visual distractions, improve legibility, and simplify the navigation,” according to the document.

The log said that Google will debut voice chat with Gemini, as well as a new “Ultra 1.0” model with “Gemini Advanced,” a paid plan that offers ChatGPT Plus-like file uploading features.

“Gemini Advanced gives you access to our most capable Al model, Ultra 1.0. With our Ultra 1.0 model, Gemini Advanced is far more capable at highly complex tasks like coding, logical reasoning, following nuanced instructions, and creative collaboration,” read the Google document.

Gemini Advanced will continue to expand with new and exclusive features in the coming months, including expanded multi-modal capabilities, even better coding features, as well as the ability to upload and more deeply analyse files, documents, data, and more.

Gemini Advanced is a paid plan available in over 150 countries and territories. The Gemini app is coming soon, starting with English.

Google, which brought Gemini Pro into its AI chatbot Bard in English last December, has now made it available in more than 230 countries and territories in over 40 languages, including nine Indian languages.

The nine Indian languages include — Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati, and Urdu.

ALSO READ-Google Cloud AI to power new Samsung phones

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Google officially ends its ‘cached’ web page feature

In the past, this feature allowed you to view a webpage as Google sees it, which can be useful beyond just checking if a page is loading slowly…reports Asian Lite News

Google has officially retired its ‘cached’ web page feature as the company said that it was ‘no longer required’.

Google’s search liaison confirmed the development, saying, “It was meant for helping people access pages when way back, you often couldn’t depend on a page loading. These days, things have greatly improved. So, it was decided to retire it.”

In the past, this feature allowed you to view a webpage as Google sees it, which can be useful beyond just checking if a page is loading slowly.

Many users use this tool to verify the legitimacy of a website, and SEO managers can use it to examine their sites for problems. A lot of users, especially those in the news industry, check websites’ caches to determine if any content has been added or removed recently.

Earlier, an “about this result” dialogue with the Cached button at the bottom right would pop up on clicking on the three-dot menu next to a result.

Last month, Google removed some underutilised features in Google Assistant “to focus on delivering the best possible user experience”.

As per the list shared by the company, Google removed 17 features.

Some features being removed include — the functionality that allows users to use their voice to send an email, video, or audio message. Users will also not be able to use their voice to perform tasks such as making a reservation, sending a payment, or posting on social media.

ALSO READ-Google’s latest AI Lumiere creates videos from images

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Google’s latest AI Lumiere creates videos from images

The design facilitates a wide range of content creation tasks and video editing applications, including image-to-video, video inpainting, and stylised generation…reports Asian Lite News

Google has introduced a new video generation AI model called Lumiere that uses a new diffusion model called Space-Time-U-Net, or STUNet. Lumiere creates 5-second videos in one process instead of putting smaller still frames together.

This technology figures out where things are in a video (space) and how they simultaneously move and change (time).

“We introduce Lumiere — a text-to-video diffusion model designed for synthesising videos that portray realistic, diverse and coherent motion — a pivotal challenge in video synthesis,” said Google researchers in a paper.

“We introduce a Space-Time U-Net architecture that generates the entire temporal duration of the video at once, through a single pass in the model,” they wrote.

The design facilitates a wide range of content creation tasks and video editing applications, including image-to-video, video inpainting, and stylised generation.

Lumiere can perform text-to-video generation, convert still images into videos, generate videos in specific styles using a reference image, apply consistent video editing using text-based prompts and create cinemagraphs by animating specific regions of an image.

The Google researchers said that the AI model outputs five-second-long 1024×1024 pixel videos, which they describe as “low-resolution.”

Lumiere also generates 80 frames compared to 25 frames from Stable Video Diffusion.

“There is a risk of misuse for creating fake or harmful content with our technology, and we believe that it is crucial to develop and apply tools for detecting biases and malicious use cases to ensure a safe and fair use,” said the paper authors.

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‘Expect More Job Cuts’

Pichai said that latest “role eliminations are not at the scale of last year’s reductions, and will not touch every team”….reports Asian Lite News

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has reportedly warned employees to brace themselves for more job cuts this year.

Google, which has let go over a thousand employees across various departments in the last one week or so, is likely to go for more job cuts, reports The Verge, citing an internal memo.

“We have ambitious goals and will be investing in our big priorities this year,” Pichai told employees in the memo.

“The reality is that to create the capacity for this investment, we have to make tough choices,” he added.

In the memo, Pichai said that latest “role eliminations are not at the scale of last year’s reductions, and will not touch every team”.

“But I know it’s very difficult to see colleagues and teams impacted,” the Google CEO added.

The layoffs this year are about “removing layers to simplify execution and drive velocity in some areas”.

“Many of these changes are already announced, though to be upfront, some teams will continue to make specific resource allocation decisions throughout the year where needed, and some roles may be impacted,” Pichai further wrote.

After laying off nearly 1,000 employees last week, Google is also reportedly slashing “a few hundred” more jobs in its advertising sales team as part of an ongoing restructuring exercise.

Philipp Schindler, Google’s chief business officer, told staff in a memo that the fresh job cuts “were the result of changes to how Google’s sales team operated”, Business Insider reported.

A Google spokesperson also confirmed that “a few hundred roles globally are being eliminated” as part of the restructuring.

In January last year, Google cut its workforce by 12,000 people, or around 6 per cent of its full-time employees.

The layoffs will primarily affect Google’s Large Customer Sales (LCS) unit, a team that sells ads to large businesses.

The Google Customer Solutions team (GCS), which sells ads to smaller clients, will now become the “core” ad sales team.

Google laid off some employees on its LCS team in October last year.

“Every year we go through a rigorous process to structure our team to provide the best service to our Ads customers,” a company spokesperson was quoted as saying.

“We map customers to the right specialist teams and sales channels to meet their service needs. As part of this, a few hundred roles globally are being eliminated and impacted employees will be able to apply for open roles or elsewhere at Google,” the spokesperson added.

Google had recently laid off workers in several departments, including hardware, central engineering teams, and Google Assistant.

In January last year, Google cut its workforce by 12,000 people, or around 6 per cent of its full-time employees.

The tech giant also made other job cuts to its recruiting and news divisions later in the year.

YouTube Trims Teams

Google-owned YouTube is reportedly laying off at least 100 employees from its creator management and operations teams.

YouTube Chief Business Officer Mary Ellen Coe announced the layoffs internally, reports Tubefilter. “YouTube will bring its content creator management teams together under dedicated central leadership in each individual country,” the report noted.

YouTube’s music and support teams are also being reportedly reorganised. In an internal staff memo, Coe said that these changes are intended to streamline YouTube’s business.

She, however, did not divulge how many employees are being affected. “As we have seen the past few years, our creator base is broadening and diversifying, from our most experienced creators to a new generation of casual creators posting on YouTube for the first time,” Coe wrote.

“Gen AI tools will further fuel new forms of creativity and bring even more creators to the platform,” she added. At the same time, “our subscription businesses have momentum, powered by partnerships with music, sports and media companies”.

“As the business evolves, we have an even greater need to ensure we’re running the business effectively and meeting the needs of all of our users,” Coe told the employees. Those being laid off will have a chance to apply for other roles at YouTube. However, “it was not clear if they are guaranteed new positions within the company”.

“Each one of you has been a valued and meaningful part of our team, and we’ll be here to support you as you consider next steps,” said Coe.

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Google Cloud AI to power new Samsung phones

Qualcomm announced its premium Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform for Galaxy is powering latest flagship Galaxy S24 Ultra globally and Galaxy S24 Plus and S24 in select regions...reports Asian Lite News

Samsung and Google Cloud have announced a new, multi-year partnership to bring Google Cloud’s generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology to its smartphones, starting with the new Galaxy S24 series.

Samsung will be the first Google Cloud partner to deploy Gemini Pro and Imagen 2 on Vertex AI via the cloud to their smartphone devices. “We’re thrilled that the Galaxy S24 series is the first smartphone equipped with Gemini Pro and Imagen 2 on Vertex AI,” said Janghyun Yoon, Corporate EVP and Head of Software Office of Mobile eXperience Business at Samsung. Gemini can generalise and seamlessly understand, operate across, and combine different types of information including text, code, images, and video. Starting with Samsung-native applications, users can take advantage of the summarization feature across Notes, Voice Recorder, and Keyboard. Gemini Pro on Vertex AI provides Samsung with critical Google Cloud features, including security, safety, privacy, and data compliance.

Galaxy S24 series users can also immediately benefit from Imagen 2, Google’s most advanced text-to-image diffusion technology from Google DeepMind to date. With Imagen 2 on Vertex AI, Samsung can bring safe and intuitive photo-editing capabilities into users’ hands. These features can be found in Generative Edit2 in S24’s Gallery application. “With Gemini, Samsung’s developers can leverage Google Cloud’s world-class infrastructure, cutting-edge performance, and flexibility to deliver safe, reliable, and engaging generative AI powered applications on Samsung smartphone devices,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud. Meanwhile, chip giant Qualcomm announced its premium Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform for Galaxy is powering latest flagship Galaxy S24 Ultra globally and Galaxy S24 Plus and S24 in select regions.

“Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy instills its advanced AI capabilities in the Galaxy S24 series, to enable new experiences with AI features to empower users’ everyday life,” said Chris Patrick, senior vice president and general manager of mobile handset, Qualcomm. It also fuels advanced professional-quality camera, gaming experiences and ultra-fast connectivity including Wi-Fi 7, he added.

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Google plans to bring AI image generator to Bard

This tool should be powered by Google’s Imagen family of models, the report mentioned…reports Asian Lite News

Google is reportedly planning to add its own image generator directly to its AI chatbot Bard. As shared by developer Dylan Roussel on X, an unpublished Google Bard changelog — dated for January 18 — showed how you can “Create images with Bard”, reports 9to5Google.

“Here’s what’s coming next in Bard. . . tomorrow. Image generation with Bard will use Imagen, Google’s Text-to-Image “diffusion technology,” Roussel wrote.

However, the developer also noted that the “content of this changelog may still be changed until officially released”.

Similar to other tools, it will allow users to create images by simply describing their imagination in words to the chatbot.

This tool should be powered by Google’s Imagen family of models, the report mentioned.

Meanwhile, Google has added a new feature in Maps that will let users navigate in tunnels or other satellite dead zones. The company added support for ‘Bluetooth beacons’ and has rolled out widely on Google Maps for Android, however, it still missing in the iOS version of the app.

Bluetooth beacons are not new as the Google-owned Waze has long supported the technology in tunnels globally, including major cities like New York City, Chicago, Paris, Brussels, and many more.

Those beacons, though, have only ever functioned within the Waze app.

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