Google Wishes To Secure Its Users

Google wishes to ensure the safety of its users via “Safe Browsing” initiative.

According to Alphabet Inc. t is pushing efforts to protect the privacy of customers.  The company wishes to protect users from deceptive content that is present online via an update known as the “Safe Browsing” initiative.

The search engine giant will now warn and flag users when they come in contact with such websites which they term as “social engineering” advertisements. These are  basically advertisements that try to cheat on users by portraying themselves as a message observed from a trusted platform such as a software update, notification from a web browser, through the website, or an error message from the PC.

A step ahead in this, the tech giant will flag all those websites that perpetuate such advertisements or host them. The Google users will now be warned so that they do not proceed.

Most of us have encountered such a message while browsing so it actually points out that the company is devoted to ensure the safety of its users. The tech giant does not directly navigate users directly to the site but a red page pops up. Users are then asked if they wish to continue or the session is added there and then.  Thus the final decision is on the user. The company can only warn while users have the choice of deciding what they wish to do.

Over the past it has been observed that the company is making use of warning messages so that traffic gets cut off from sites that are involved in malware or phishing attacks along with other things.

Previously, the company made an announcement claiming that they wanted to expand the reach of its Safe Browsing program so that social engineering attacks can be protected. This means that the search giant started to acknowledge users in case wrong means were used to trick the masses. It also stops users from providing personal data to wrong sites. So now the recent update will also cater to advertisements.

Most of us are well aware of the type of advertisements. Where a few make baseless claims that the software we use is out of date or needs an upgrade. They then trick the user forcing them to install unwanted and futile content.

Some of them also pretend to be Play or Download buttons posing an image that once a user clicks on them they will be able to stream or download the content they desire.  This issue is mostly faced by the online video streaming platforms that are illegal in nature and immensely popular for free content. Users do not really know that they are being tricked and thus make the wrong move.

At times, it gets really hard to identify such embeds and advertisements even by the most tech savvy individuals of the lot. This is merely because they are designed in a manner which is extremely hard to distinguish. Thus it seems like they are part and parcel of the website which they aren’t.

 The tech giant will now show warning on those websites that make use of such malicious tactics. These are usually working close with advertisers. It will flag that the content seems “to act, or look and feel, like a trusted entity” and thus looks like social engineering content. This will ensure safety of users in the long run.

Alphabet To Invest In Artificial Intelligence

Alphabet to deploy its resources in artificial intelligence.

Alphabet Inc. the parent company of Google is all keen to expand in cloud machine learning generally known as artificial intelligence (AI) suite to certain handpicked developers. The platform at this point of time is in “limited review” but it is a big step to expand the services beyond storage. Some of the company’s core applications are already using "cloud machine learning," such as “Photos (image search), the Google app (voice search), Translate, and Inbox (Smart Reply)." However, now this platform will be accessible by business.

In a blog post, Fausto Ibarra, the Google Cloud Platform director of product management stated, "We're on a journey to create applications that can see, hear and understand the world around them.” The Cloud Machine Learning is an easy way for the masses to come up with large scale, sophisticated machine learning model in a relatively short span of time. the platform is fully regulated, portable and can be scaled as per choice.

The search engine giant has come up with a massive breakthrough by giving its cloud based infrastructure the ability to get customized. This will add to its present functionality and can eventually turn out to be a game changer. This will not just enable consumers to move resources and data offsite to the cloud but will also offer diversified artificial intelligence functionalities. This is similar to the one stop solution provided by Microsoft and IBM. However, the question is what took the company so long to implement this change?

Alphabet is very well acquainted to artificial intelligence. This can be governed by the fact that the company has tweaked its search algorithm to make use of RankBrain. With no to little fanfare, the company came up with search results last annum. However, studies claim that the results are not really profitable. RankBrain is just one service by GOOG that has been deployed featuring AI to enrich user experience. So now, the tech giant has adopted a different path where it will deploy its Artificial Intelligence technology in its products.

IBM is spending almost $5 billion on its analytics solutions which runs via cloud computing powered by cognitive computing breakthrough, Watson. On the other hand, the CEO of Microsoft, Mr. Satya Nadella emphasizes on the cloud pillar for the company’s "mobile-first, cloud-first" initiatives. Both the initiatives are doing quite well and have garnered popularity. Through cloud services, IBM is already generating an yearly run rate of $4.5 billion. On the other hand, Microsoft is acing in this domain with annual run rate of $9.5 billion.

Alpahbet presently does not share the revenues from cloud computing. But considering the performance last year or last quarter, then it is nowhere close to IBM or Microsoft.  In the fourth quart of FY14, Alphabet generated $2.1 billion through its "other revenues," which is 10% of the company’s overall total sale of $21.18 billion. Other revenues are made up of Fiber, Google Play and cloud computing sales whose 10% revenue are almost negligible. Thus, there is a lot of potential for them to tick out of it.

Google Nest Exodus Continues

An anonymous employee of Nest shares about the worst working conditions at Nest.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google Nest has been in the limelight since quite some time now where two major employees have bid farewell to the company which highlights the chances of an exodus. The tech giant made the acquisition of Nest in 2014 for an amount of $3.2 billion but the company has not monitored much growth since then.

The working conditions are extremely tough and the company also lacks innovation in terms of product developments has ignited employee dissatisfaction under the leadership of Mr. Tony Fadell. The Chief Executive Officer of the company was initially associated to Apple Inc. as the design head for the iPods. The issue with him is that he demands perfection in the products which is a good thing. However, he constantly demands changes in the prototypes which burdens the engineers.

A user on Reddit whose chose to be anonymous on the sub-Reddit /r/Nest talked about how difficult it is to work in Nest due to its present working conditions. As per the engineer, the venture is experiencing a “deathwatch” where revenues and profits are heating up. As per the user, “throwawaynest,” has revenue worth $340 million but its budget is $500 million. So since its acquisition, the company has not come up with any new products and the sales digits are a miss.

News has been circulating in the industry where engineers are willing to switch as soon as their budget deals get over. The company is not providing them the monetary incentives to motivate them to work any further. On the other hand a few aren’t bothered about their withheld money and have already quitted.

The user referred to the CEO and his teammates as “Tony and his goons” who have prescribed deadlines that are unrealistic. Even if engineers come up with good products, the executives then intervene and completely change the course for the product. Right after the change, Mr. Fadell and his mates reprimand the engineers for not getting the specifications correct and label them as incompetent.

As per the engineers, he/she has to be a part of meetings that are absurd and then he has to defend them. The work environment is actually bad where workers overcome their sleeps in corners and cry in washrooms. This has also has an impact on their family life and health. The news regarding the company’s working conditions have spread far and wide which has forced Nest to recruit below par talent to compensate for the employees they’ve lost. It is quite clear that good engineers are not willing to work at Nest whatsoever.

As per the user, the only way Nest has succeeded in making some revenue is via the acquisition of Dropcam. The post was ended with a conclusion that “Now off to the other 4 meetings I have today.”

At this point the search engine giant needs to take charge, if things continue the way they are then Mr. Fadell would also be jobless in the times to come. Alphabet has plans to sell Boston Dynamics (its robotics arm) out since it was not useful for them. They might just repeat this with Nest if required.

A Glimpse At Apple 40 Years

The tech giant has been in the industry for four decades and it still has a lot more to conquer.

Last Friday, Apple Inc. turned 40. Since the company is celebrating its big day by hanging a flag at the Cupertino headquarters, rolling out an inspirational video; dubbed as “40 Years in 40 Seconds,” and launching “special Apple 40” playlist which offers four decades worth song.

Back in 1976, Apple Inc. was established by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak with a passion to design a computer which can be conveniently used at homes. After few initial experiments, the company gained momentum and launched “Apple II” which revolutionized and popularized the personal computers. Later, the company launched “Mac” computers which blazed the trail of the graphical interface –for instance, the drop down menus. In this technological era, the graphical interface is taken as granted but back then it was a huge innovation in the field of computers. Later, Microsoft Corp. also adopted the same technology in their products.

The innovative and creative minds of the founders awed the world by launching an “iPod” in 2001 –a slim and sleek portable media player. The gadget laid down the strong foundation for the company which transformed it into a “highly innovative, hugely influential, and highly intriguing” technology company. In 2007, Steve Jobs launched the evolutionary smartphone –the iPhone. The smartphone revamped the mobile phone industry. It changed the way mobile carrier used to deal with the mobile phones makers; by shoving down their high demands because they were larger brand than a phone maker but Jobs had uncompromising nature. He built Apple to be a bigger brand than the carrier. Today, after 40 years of hard work, the company stood at over $600 million market capitalization and has been crowned as “the world’s most valuable company.”

Maybe because of these innovations and creativity, the investors and analysts have high hopes for the company whenever, it announces a product launch. It can be said that because of the revolution, iPhone brought in the mobile phone industry, the analysts couldn’t digest the “slowing growth of the tech giant’s prestigious and core product.” Therefore, many analysts, earlier this year, said that Apple had had reached its peak.

Many analysts opined that the company isn’t “revolutionizing” or “bringing innovation” to its products. The latest iPhone 6S/Plus didn’t have any exceptional features. The smartphone consumers are currently looking for more upgraded features and options. Moreover, the company’s launch event last month was not able to give a “blockbuster” product. 

Apple’s core product sales might decline but the company still has other sources of generating revenues. The “unlooked” area of the company is its continuous growth in the services offering. A long time after CEO, Tim Cook, justified why slowing growth in sales is not “concerning,” the analysts have finally seen the silver lining. Additionally, Apple’s co-founder, Steve Wozniak, during an exclusive interview to CNBC, expressed that computing power is not likely to increase at the similar pace as it had since the time he and Jobs established the company however there are certain “other areas” which hold great potential for the Apple’s growth. He cited that the areas like virtual reality, machine learning, and self-driving cars can potentially raise the growth prospects of the tech giant.

Naturally, the tech behemoth works relating to these areas are coveted for the time being. Rumors have it that the tech giant is working on secretive project of self-driving cars dubbed as “Project Titan.” However, the company’s likely transition to virtual and augmented reality is no secret. Therefore, it can be confidently said that the company who had revolutionized the work with its 40 years of operation will continue to appall the world in the next forty or more years to come.

Facebook Free Basics- Questioned For Its Credibility

Free Basics by Facebook has been facing a backlash for its credibility.

Facebook Inc. seems to be in despair since it will never get a chance to offer free Internet to underprivileged emerging nations. The Free Basics app was launched after it came up with its Internet.org service that was halted in Egypt in 2015. Thus, a few months later it observed a similar incident in India.

As per the report published by Reuters, the reason why the Free Basics service by the social media giant has been halted in the region is that Facebook did not agree to the barriers set by the Egyptian government. The government asked the company to spy on the local populace through its platform. The service was launched in Egypt which was targeting the groups with low incomes who owned a smartphone which allowed them to have Internet access. Other than that, a few other services were also being offered free of cost. Thus at this point, Free Basics is stumbling since the advocates of net neutrality is only believe that the service targets the platforms associated to Facebook only. This disregards a free and fair experience over the Internet.

On December 30, the government of Egypt suspended the operation of Free Basics. This was right after the company’s local network carrier; Etisalat got the approval to offer the service for a time span of two months. The reason behind this is that the social media behemoth refused to conduct surveillance for the government. So far the demands of the government aren’t clear.

This is not it since the local authorities have a different story to narrate. Reuters was reported by the spokesperson belonging to the Ministry of Communications that the suspension of Free Basics is merely because it causes a dent on the operations of local companies by incentivizing. The service is being offered in 37 countries, where it does not sell any advertisements so far. But what it does is collaborate with wireless carriers to offer data to enable browser. As per Facebook, three million individuals were taking advantage of the service before it got halted. Amongst those one million were new users using the Internet for the first time.

The decision put forward by the Egyptian government clearly indicates that the Free Basics service is not welcome all over the globe. India, which is said to be the second largest population across the globe, was also taken on board but after a lot of drama by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), it was finally decided that the service will be abandoned in the region fighting against the other zero rate service. On the other hand, the debate in Egypt was extremely publicized.

The good part pertaining to the news is that Facebook is certainly not the privacy intruder who is ready to compromise on your data for its own purpose. As per a study, the company abides to almost 80% of the demands set by the government of United States. However, it still continues to fight for the consumers wherever it is possible.

Employees Lose Confidence As Boeing Announces Job Cuts Again

Boeing has to make a tough decision of cutting job to save extra costs and give Airbus a tough fight.

Boeing Corporation is making almost 8000 job cuts by June this year, which is 10% of its commercial unit consisting of 80,000 workers. The airplane maker will be able to save approximately $1 billion when it comes to labor costs. The cut down of the workforce will be witnessed in almost all of the areas from executives to managers without any involuntary cuts.

The aerospace company is aiming to increase its efficiency and productivity at its manufacturing centers by making job cuts. 4500 workers will lose their jobs in June as the airplane maker tries to consequently cut price for its clients and best aircrafts while giving tough competition to its major rival in the market, Airbus. Its rival offers lower prices for jets, which Boeing has taken into consideration and now is taking the necessary action for it. The job cuts are going to be done through attrition and voluntary buyout packages for around 1600 workers.

Boeing Co. considers this as a success in the long-run. It announced plans to make many changes in order to succeed in the market and work as a healthy company. A step to reach this goal would be to save extra expenditures, which also include labor costs. The aerospace giant has spent huge sums of money in automation of its products. It tried to cut down development costs and renegotiating contracts with suppliers, but executives of the company believe that this still is not enough.

Prices of the products being high give the airplane maker lesser flexibility, forcing its clients to go to other companies to purchase jets. This is not good for the business and the company is seeking to change it through job cuts. This is not the first time Boeing is making such an aggressive move, as it did so in 2001, September cutting approximately 30,000 jobs and later 7000 more due to international financial problems.

Boeing did win last year from Airbus in terms of delivery of jets, but the European rival managed to capture 57% of the markets orders. Boeing is being diplomatic when it comes to alerting investors; it says they do not have much to worry about, while it warns its workers about its market shares. 550 job cuts will take place in the flight and lab testing division. For now, many rivals of the company have an upper hand on it mainly because of the low prices they offer, which it plans to change.

This news might be highly damaging for the workers of Boeing, who will lose confidence in job security, as the company has made job cuts in the past too. Recruiting workers later might turn out to be difficult for the business in the future.

Apple iPhone 7 - New Concept Or Killer Upgrade

Apple iPhone 7 is scheduled to be released later this year and the company has to capitalize on opportunity to introduce moderate upgrade.

According to the planet’s best Apple analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities, the tech company is paving the way for a substantial reconstruction with the 2017 iPhone, which is more likely to be dubbed as iPhone 7s or iPhone 8. The modernized smartphone structure will have few changes and it will adopt a casing with metal and glass fusion instead of complete metal. Additionally, it is proposed to include wireless charging, extra biometric functions, and more.

This precisely sounds like the significant overhaul, which might have been anticipated with the version of iPhone that is set to be launched later this year. Remarkably, the mere projection that the Cupertino, Calif. firm is gearing up to bring a change to the 2017 iPhone has allowed both – Apple watchers the investors – to question whether iPhone 7 will eventually turn out to be a minor update of iPhone 6s.

Motley Fool analysts, however, envisions that apparently the anticipated iPhone 7 may end up looking like iPhone 6s slimmer version with less annoying antenna, even then it has a lot of potential to be demonstrated as a significant enhancement from the 6s. Following are some of the reasons, which the analysts believe will substantially upgrade iPhone 7 from the preceding device.

Both the 6s and 6s Plus display features are in the urgent need of some modifications. Even though the exceptional alternative, which the 2017 iPhone might have, is the huge transition to an OLED display, according to Kuo, the company has the capability to upgrade the display while having the traditional LCD technology.

Analysts expect the following upgrade in the devices’ display: improved contrast ratio, low screen light reflectance, wider color gamut for richer, more vivid colors; True Tone technology – for more natural look of the images, and higher display resolution which can provide greater sharpness.

Apple’s latest 9.7-inch iPad Pro has already demonstrated four out of five upgrade. It is an open secret that iPhone holds more importance for Apple than the iPad; therefore, it is likely that the latter’s technologies step into the iPhone.

Apple is not shifting the entire focus on making the screens better. The U.S. tech leviathan will certainly work on upgrading multiple key technologies. Analysts expect the organization to launch a third generation Touch ID, which will be faster than the already lightning speed Touch found in the preceding device.

More importantly, Apple is gearing up to essentially upgrade the camera for iPhone 7 series. Sources privy to the matter has leaked that the iPhone 7 will have larger frame, meaning that the company will be deploying a larger sensor than the one in the iPhone 6/6s. Moreover, the larger screen smartphone will be accompanied with both single and dual camera lens configuration.

Lastly, the most valuable company will be deploying A10 processor, which will run faster and have more memory. The current iPhones are world class as well but for the first time in a very long time, the company witnessed the slow rate of growth in the sale of its core product. Therefore, the company has to actively watch out for the “golden opportunities” through which the business can bring about appropriate changes and demonstrate the iPhone 7 as a top-notch product.