Category Archives: Technology

silicon valley & technology news

Nike’s Plan for Better-Fitting Kicks: Show Us Your Feet

Nike wants to meet your feet.

The sneaker seller will launch a foot-scanning tool on its app this summer that will measure and remember the length, width and other dimensions of customers’ feet after they point a smartphone camera to their toes. The app will then tell shoppers what size to buy each of its shoes in, which Nike hopes will cut down on costly online returns as it seeks to sell more of its goods through its websites and apps. 

 

But Nike will also get something it has never had before: a flood of data on the feet of regular people, a potential goldmine for the shoemaker, which says it will use the information to improve the design of its shoes. Nike mainly relies on the feet of star athletes to build its kicks.

“Nikes will become better and better fitting shoes for you and everyone else,” said Michael Martin, who oversees Nike’s websites and apps. 

 

Nike won’t sell or share the data to other companies, Martin says. And he says shoppers don’t have to save the foot scans to their Nike accounts. But if they do, they’ll only have to scan their feet once and Nike’s apps, websites and stores will know their dimensions every time they need to buy sneakers. Workers at Nike stores will also be equipped with iPods to do the scanning, replacing those metal sizing contraptions. 

The challenging part for Nike is convincing people they need to measure their feet in the first place. Most think they already know what their shoe size is, says Brad Eckhart, who was an executive at shoe store chain Finish Line and is now a principal at retail consultancy Columbus Consulting, 

 

But Nike says it gets half a million complaints a year from customers related to fit and sizing. And it admits what many shoppers have already suspected: Each of its shoe styles fit differently, even if they are in the same size. A leather sneaker may be tighter and require a bigger size. Knit ones may be more forgiving. And shoelaces can throw everything off.

 

Shoe size is “effectively a lie,” said Martin. “And it’s a lie that we’ve perpetuated.”

Matt Powell, a sports industry analyst at NPD Group Inc., says the tool might be most valuable for people who want to run or play basketball in their sneakers, since the wrong fit can cause injury. But Powell says most people buy sneakers just to walk around in.

Still, finding the right size is a problem for shoppers: “There really is no industry standard for what is a size 10,” Powell said. 

China Mobile’s Bid to Offer US Phone Service Rejected

U.S. communications regulators are rejecting a Chinese telecom company’s application to provide service in the U.S. due to national-security risks amid an escalation in tensions between the two countries.

 

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted unanimously, 5-0 across party lines, to reject China Mobile International USA Inc.’s long-ago filed application. The Commerce Department had recommended that denial last year.

 

The company, which the FCC says is ultimately owned by the Chinese government, applied in 2011 to provide international phone service in the U.S.

 

The Trump administration has been pushing against China in several ways. It has been pressuring allies to reject Chinese telecom equipment for their networks, citing security risks from Chinese telecom giant Huawei.

 

The U.S. and China are also in the middle of high-stakes trade talks.

 

 

China Mobile’s Bid to Offer US Phone Service Rejected

U.S. communications regulators are rejecting a Chinese telecom company’s application to provide service in the U.S. due to national-security risks amid an escalation in tensions between the two countries.

 

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted unanimously, 5-0 across party lines, to reject China Mobile International USA Inc.’s long-ago filed application. The Commerce Department had recommended that denial last year.

 

The company, which the FCC says is ultimately owned by the Chinese government, applied in 2011 to provide international phone service in the U.S.

 

The Trump administration has been pushing against China in several ways. It has been pressuring allies to reject Chinese telecom equipment for their networks, citing security risks from Chinese telecom giant Huawei.

 

The U.S. and China are also in the middle of high-stakes trade talks.

 

 

Co-Founder Chris Hughes: Time to Break Up Facebook

Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes says it’s time to break up the social media behemoth.

He says in a New York Times opinion piece that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has allowed a relentless focus on growth to crush competitors and “sacrifice security and civility for clicks.”

Hughes says Facebook is a monopoly and should be forced to spin off WhatsApp and Instagram. He says future acquisitions should be banned for several years

Hughes roomed with Zuckerberg at Harvard and left Facebook in 2007 to campaign for Barack Obama.

He says he liquidated his Facebook shares in 2012, the year he became publisher of The New Republic.

Last year, Hughes published a book advocating a universal basic income. In 2017, Forbes put his net worth at more than $400 million.

Co-Founder Chris Hughes: Time to Break Up Facebook

Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes says it’s time to break up the social media behemoth.

He says in a New York Times opinion piece that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has allowed a relentless focus on growth to crush competitors and “sacrifice security and civility for clicks.”

Hughes says Facebook is a monopoly and should be forced to spin off WhatsApp and Instagram. He says future acquisitions should be banned for several years

Hughes roomed with Zuckerberg at Harvard and left Facebook in 2007 to campaign for Barack Obama.

He says he liquidated his Facebook shares in 2012, the year he became publisher of The New Republic.

Last year, Hughes published a book advocating a universal basic income. In 2017, Forbes put his net worth at more than $400 million.

Is 5G Chinese Technology a Threat to US National Security?

Earlier this month, officials from a group of 30 countries agreed to take a more coordinated approach to secure the next generation of fast mobile communication networks, known as 5G. The United States and others worry that technology companies located in countries with governments like China’s could be subject to state influence, making the networks insecure. Elizabeth Lee reports on the security concerns over 5G, and what it means to consumers.

Is 5G Chinese Technology a Threat to US National Security?

Earlier this month, officials from a group of 30 countries agreed to take a more coordinated approach to secure the next generation of fast mobile communication networks, known as 5G. The United States and others worry that technology companies located in countries with governments like China’s could be subject to state influence, making the networks insecure. Elizabeth Lee reports on the security concerns over 5G, and what it means to consumers.

Official: Executive Order Not Needed to Ban Huawei in US 5G Networks

A senior U.S. State Department official said there is no need for President Donald Trump to sign an executive order to explicitly ban Chinese telecommunication company Huawei from taking part in the buildout of the U.S. 5G networks.

The four largest U.S. telecom carriers — Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint — have agreed not to use Huawei in any part of their 5G networks, said Ambassador Robert Strayer, deputy assistant secretary of state for cyber and international communications and information policy.

Strayer spoke with VOA about U.S. 5G policy and security concerns over Huawei. He also said the United States will only use trusted vendors, including South Korea’s Samsung, Sweden’s Ericsson and Finland’s Nokia, in the buildout of the U.S. 5G networks.

 

WATCH: Is 5G Chinese Technology a Threat to US National Security?

​The following is an edited excerpt of the interview:

VOA: VOA broadcasts to many countries in Africa and Asia. These are places eager to develop their economies with high-tech communications. What does the U.S. say to those countries, which are eager for 5G and see the most attractive equipment and financing packages for those networks are all Chinese? If countries resist the Huawei offer, how many years back does that set their 5G networks? What would be the alternatives?

Deputy Assistant Secretary Robert Strayer: All around the world, we’re all very excited to see the promise of 5G technology. It’s going to empower things like telemedicine, autonomous vehicles, autonomous manufacturing, and including autonomous transportation networks in general.

So it’s going to be very important that network be incredibly secure because of all the critical infrastructure that’s going to ride on top of it. We know that there are a number of vendors besides Chinese technology vendors that are providing the equipment, the underlying infrastructure for 5G networks.

Those include Samsung in South Korea, Ericsson in Sweden and Nokia in Finland. So we believe those are trusted vendors.

We have grave concerns about the Chinese vendors because they can be compelled by the National Intelligence Law in China as well as other laws in China to take actions that would not be in the interests of the citizens of other countries around the world. Those networks could be disrupted or their data could be taken and be used for purposes that would not be consistent with fundamental human rights in those countries.

VOA: But it’s going to be a difficult choice. China is offering a great deal, in some cases 0% interest loans, 20-year payment plans, and what are the alternative plans like? Is there an analogy that you have that can show how turning down that kind of offer for something like 5G is actually in their long-term interest?

Strayer: We think that there should be commercially reasonable terms applied to financing deals. There’s obviously private financing available from telecom companies, but there are also a number of multinational, multilateral development banks providing potential sources of financing for infrastructure deals around the world.

We don’t think that countries need to adhere to, be left with only the predatory lending terms that are often offered by the Chinese Development Bank and other financing mechanisms that the Chinese companies are offering. Zero percent interest for 20 years is not commercially reasonable. It comes with huge strings attached. In fact, many of these things aren’t even transparent enough for countries to know what they’re signing up to.

We’re encouraging countries to think carefully about how they will move into 5G, make sure that they’re applying and signing up to financing terms that are commercially reasonable and ones that they can pay back in the long term.

We know of stories, of course, of ports being used as collateral in some of these financing deals, so countries could lose access to their very critical infrastructure under the terms of some of these deals. So we think that while 5G has huge promise and we should move quickly to it, we’re not in any way slowing ourselves down by going with vendors that are more trustworthy, and under financing conditions that are probably concessionary but are not at the level of some of these deals that are in no way reasonable in any type of commercial sense.

VOA: If Washington is asking other countries to ban Huawei from their 5G networks, why hasn’t the U.S. done so? I mean, the president has not signed an executive order on a comprehensive ban on Huawei, not just in the government, but in the private sector as well. Is the U.S. credibility at stake? How certain are you that the U.S. will ban Huawei equipment from its 5G network?

Strayer: So in our view, we don’t need to have a legal mechanism to ban Huawei in our private sector networks. The four largest U.S. telecom carriers have already agreed that they will not use Huawei or ZTE in any part of their 5G networks and they’re not using it in their 4G networks. So we don’t think that we need a legal tool to force them to do so. In addition, last year in the National Defense Law that was enacted at the end of the year, the government was prohibited — our U.S. government is prohibited from using these high-risk vendors.

VOA: Chinese Vice Premier Liu He is coming to Washington this week for the latest round of trade negotiation with the U.S. There are allegations against Huawei for stealing U.S. intellectual property. How should Huawei and 5G be discussed in the bilateral trade talks? Could they be hurdles for the two nations to reach a deal?

Strayer: I just want to be very clear that everything we’re talking about with countries around the world is about a national security threat that we see facing now, and that we think could have significant economic implications for them as well.

We are not talking about this in the context of trade. And I would just mention, too, that the concerns we have about Huawei that are well-documented are related to corruption, related to the theft of intellectual property, and related to defying sanctions, and using basically money-laundering schemes, have raised great concern about that company itself, but they’re not part of our trade discussions.

VOA: Is the U.S. lagging China in developing 5G infrastructure?

Strayer: No. We think we’re leading the world. By the end of this year, we’ll have 90 trials rolled out across the United States. We’ve already seen them being rolled out by Verizon and AT&T. We think we are actually leading the world in this field and we’re using only vendors from those three countries I mentioned that are trusted vendors, not the ones in China.

VOA: Thank you for talking to VOA.

Strayer: Thank you.

Official: Executive Order Not Needed to Ban Huawei in US 5G Networks

A senior U.S. State Department official said there is no need for President Donald Trump to sign an executive order to explicitly ban Chinese telecommunication company Huawei from taking part in the buildout of the U.S. 5G networks.

The four largest U.S. telecom carriers — Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint — have agreed not to use Huawei in any part of their 5G networks, said Ambassador Robert Strayer, deputy assistant secretary of state for cyber and international communications and information policy.

Strayer spoke with VOA about U.S. 5G policy and security concerns over Huawei. He also said the United States will only use trusted vendors, including South Korea’s Samsung, Sweden’s Ericsson and Finland’s Nokia, in the buildout of the U.S. 5G networks.

 

WATCH: Is 5G Chinese Technology a Threat to US National Security?

​The following is an edited excerpt of the interview:

VOA: VOA broadcasts to many countries in Africa and Asia. These are places eager to develop their economies with high-tech communications. What does the U.S. say to those countries, which are eager for 5G and see the most attractive equipment and financing packages for those networks are all Chinese? If countries resist the Huawei offer, how many years back does that set their 5G networks? What would be the alternatives?

Deputy Assistant Secretary Robert Strayer: All around the world, we’re all very excited to see the promise of 5G technology. It’s going to empower things like telemedicine, autonomous vehicles, autonomous manufacturing, and including autonomous transportation networks in general.

So it’s going to be very important that network be incredibly secure because of all the critical infrastructure that’s going to ride on top of it. We know that there are a number of vendors besides Chinese technology vendors that are providing the equipment, the underlying infrastructure for 5G networks.

Those include Samsung in South Korea, Ericsson in Sweden and Nokia in Finland. So we believe those are trusted vendors.

We have grave concerns about the Chinese vendors because they can be compelled by the National Intelligence Law in China as well as other laws in China to take actions that would not be in the interests of the citizens of other countries around the world. Those networks could be disrupted or their data could be taken and be used for purposes that would not be consistent with fundamental human rights in those countries.

VOA: But it’s going to be a difficult choice. China is offering a great deal, in some cases 0% interest loans, 20-year payment plans, and what are the alternative plans like? Is there an analogy that you have that can show how turning down that kind of offer for something like 5G is actually in their long-term interest?

Strayer: We think that there should be commercially reasonable terms applied to financing deals. There’s obviously private financing available from telecom companies, but there are also a number of multinational, multilateral development banks providing potential sources of financing for infrastructure deals around the world.

We don’t think that countries need to adhere to, be left with only the predatory lending terms that are often offered by the Chinese Development Bank and other financing mechanisms that the Chinese companies are offering. Zero percent interest for 20 years is not commercially reasonable. It comes with huge strings attached. In fact, many of these things aren’t even transparent enough for countries to know what they’re signing up to.

We’re encouraging countries to think carefully about how they will move into 5G, make sure that they’re applying and signing up to financing terms that are commercially reasonable and ones that they can pay back in the long term.

We know of stories, of course, of ports being used as collateral in some of these financing deals, so countries could lose access to their very critical infrastructure under the terms of some of these deals. So we think that while 5G has huge promise and we should move quickly to it, we’re not in any way slowing ourselves down by going with vendors that are more trustworthy, and under financing conditions that are probably concessionary but are not at the level of some of these deals that are in no way reasonable in any type of commercial sense.

VOA: If Washington is asking other countries to ban Huawei from their 5G networks, why hasn’t the U.S. done so? I mean, the president has not signed an executive order on a comprehensive ban on Huawei, not just in the government, but in the private sector as well. Is the U.S. credibility at stake? How certain are you that the U.S. will ban Huawei equipment from its 5G network?

Strayer: So in our view, we don’t need to have a legal mechanism to ban Huawei in our private sector networks. The four largest U.S. telecom carriers have already agreed that they will not use Huawei or ZTE in any part of their 5G networks and they’re not using it in their 4G networks. So we don’t think that we need a legal tool to force them to do so. In addition, last year in the National Defense Law that was enacted at the end of the year, the government was prohibited — our U.S. government is prohibited from using these high-risk vendors.

VOA: Chinese Vice Premier Liu He is coming to Washington this week for the latest round of trade negotiation with the U.S. There are allegations against Huawei for stealing U.S. intellectual property. How should Huawei and 5G be discussed in the bilateral trade talks? Could they be hurdles for the two nations to reach a deal?

Strayer: I just want to be very clear that everything we’re talking about with countries around the world is about a national security threat that we see facing now, and that we think could have significant economic implications for them as well.

We are not talking about this in the context of trade. And I would just mention, too, that the concerns we have about Huawei that are well-documented are related to corruption, related to the theft of intellectual property, and related to defying sanctions, and using basically money-laundering schemes, have raised great concern about that company itself, but they’re not part of our trade discussions.

VOA: Is the U.S. lagging China in developing 5G infrastructure?

Strayer: No. We think we’re leading the world. By the end of this year, we’ll have 90 trials rolled out across the United States. We’ve already seen them being rolled out by Verizon and AT&T. We think we are actually leading the world in this field and we’re using only vendors from those three countries I mentioned that are trusted vendors, not the ones in China.

VOA: Thank you for talking to VOA.

Strayer: Thank you.

US Indicts 2 Israeli Operators of Darkweb Gateway

U.S. law enforcement officials announced on Wednesday the indictment of two Israeli operators of a website that referred hundreds of thousands of users to underground internet marketplaces to purchase drugs, weapons and other illegal products.  

 

Tal Prihar, 37, an Israeli citizen living in Brazil, and Michael Phan, 34, who lives in Israel, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Western Pennsylvania with money laundering in connection with operating DeepDotWeb, a website that served as a gateway to the Darkweb, the internet’s dark underbelly where users can purchase and exchange illegal products.

 

Prihar was arrested by French authorities in Paris Monday and faces likely extradition to the U.S. Phan was arrested on Monday in Israel and faces charges there.  Prosecutors declined to say whether they’ll seek Phan’s extradition to the U.S.

 

The two Israeli nationals operated DeepDotWeb from 2013 to late last month when it was taken down by the FBI, collecting more than $15 million in commissions for directing users to various marketplaces such as the now defunct AlphaBay.

 

The users, in turn, purchases hundreds of millions of dollars worth of illegal drugs, firearms, malicious software, hacking tools, and stolen financial information and credit cards, according to prosecutors.

 

About 24 percent of all orders on AlphaBay, which was one of the largest Darkweb marketplaces before it was seized by the FBI in 2017, were associated with an account created through a referral link provided by DeepDotWeb.

 

Scott W. Brady, the U.S. attorney for Western Pennsylvania, said DeepDotWeb’s takedown represents a major blow to the Darknet economy.

 

“This is the single most significant law enforcement disruption of the Darknet to date,” Brady said at a press conference in Pittsburgh.  “While there have been successful prosecutions of various Darknet marketplaces, this prosecution is the first to attack the infrastructure supporting the Darknet itself.”

 

Darknet marketplaces operate on Tor, a computer network that facilitates anonymous communication and transactions over the internet.   Tor marketplaces can’t be found via a Google search. To access a marketplace, a user needs the site’s exact .onion url, a top level domain suffix designating an anonymous service reachable via the Tor network.

 

To address this problem, DeepDotWeb provided pages of hyperlinks to various marketplaces such as AlphaBay Market and Hansa Market, allowing users to navigate the marketplaces and collecting a commission each time a user made a purchase.

 

Waymo, Lyft Take on Uber with Rides in Self-Driving Car

Google’s self-driving car spinoff, Waymo, is teaming up with Lyft in Arizona to attempt to lure passengers away from ride-hailing market leader Uber.

The alliance announced Tuesday will allow anyone with the Lyft app in the Phoenix area to summon one of the 10 self-driving Waymo cars that will join the ride-hailing service by end of September.

Waymo’s robotic vehicles will still have a human behind the wheel to take control in case something goes awry with the technology. But their use in Lyft’s service could make more people feel comfortable about riding in self-driving cars.

Self-driving to a profit

Both Lyft and Uber consider self-driving cars to be one of the keys to turning a profit, something neither company has done so far. Meanwhile, Waymo has been slowly expanding its own ride-hailing service in the Phoenix area that so far has been confined to passengers who previously participated in free tests of its self-driving technology.

“We’re committed to continuously improving our customer experience, and our partnership with Lyft will also give our teams the opportunity to collect valuable feedback,” Waymo CEO John Krafcik wrote in a blog post.

Lyft President John Zimmer described the Waymo partnership as “phenomenal” in a Tuesday conference call. Uber didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The new threat to Uber is emerging as the San Francisco company pursues an initial public offering of stock that could raise $9 billion when the deal is completed later this week. Lyft raked in more than $2 billion in its own IPO in March, only to see its stock fall nearly 20% below its offering price amid concerns about its ability to make money, a challenge magnified by another loss of $1.1 billion during the first three months of the year.

Waymo invests in both

Waymo’s corporate parent, Alphabet Inc., is in line to be among the biggest winners in Uber’s IPO just as it was in the Lyft IPO. Alphabet owns a 5% stake in Uber that will be worth as much as $3.6 billion if Uber realizes its goal of selling its stock for as much as $50 per share. It also holds a 5% stake in Lyft that is currently worth $761 million.

Despite their financial ties, Waymo and Uber have had an acrimonious relationship since becoming entangled in a thorny case of alleged high-tech theft.

Waymo accused Uber of orchestrating a scheme to steal some of its autonomous driving technology. That came after Uber’s former CEO Travis Kalanick began to suspect Waymo was planning to use its self-driving cars in a rival ride-hailing service.

The two sides settled that dispute last year in a deal that required Uber to give Alphabet another bundle of stock that was worth $245 million at the time the truce was reached.

The agreement also requires Uber to submit to reviews by a software expert to ensure it isn’t misusing any of Waymo’s technology in its effort to build its own self-driving cars, a process that recently uncovered some potentially “problematic” issues, according to discloses made as part of Uber’s IPO. Uber warned the problems could require it to pay a licensing fee to Waymo or delay its efforts to introduce self-driving cars in its service.

A Robotic Leg That Can Learn to Move Like A Baby and Be Trained Like a Dog

Imagine a robot that can learn to walk by itself in about five minutes. Researchers at the University of Southern California have developed a robotic leg that can do just that with potential applications that range from helping in disaster areas to outer space. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.

Google Annual Event to Showcase New Hardware, AI

Google CEO Sundar Pichai is expected to showcase much-anticipated updates to the company’s hardware lines and artificial intelligence.

Google will also likely address privacy updates as concerns about data sharing continue to plague the tech industry. Facebook dedicated much of its own conference last week to addressing privacy.

Rumors suggest that Google may unveil a mid-range Pixel phone as a cheaper option to the flagship model currently on sale for $800.

Pichai has a keynote scheduled Tuesday at the company’s annual I/O conference for software developers in Mountain View, California.

Google says more than 7,000 developers will attend. The conference is focused on updates for the computer engineers that build apps and services on top of Google technology. I/O has also become a stage to announce new consumer products.

Google Annual Event to Showcase New Hardware, AI

Google CEO Sundar Pichai is expected to showcase much-anticipated updates to the company’s hardware lines and artificial intelligence.

Google will also likely address privacy updates as concerns about data sharing continue to plague the tech industry. Facebook dedicated much of its own conference last week to addressing privacy.

Rumors suggest that Google may unveil a mid-range Pixel phone as a cheaper option to the flagship model currently on sale for $800.

Pichai has a keynote scheduled Tuesday at the company’s annual I/O conference for software developers in Mountain View, California.

Google says more than 7,000 developers will attend. The conference is focused on updates for the computer engineers that build apps and services on top of Google technology. I/O has also become a stage to announce new consumer products.

Google’s AI Assistant Aims to Transcend the Smart Speaker

When Google launched its now distinctive digital assistant in 2016, it was already in danger of being an also-ran.

At the time, Amazon had been selling its Echo smart speaker, powered by its Alexa voice assistant, for more than a year. Apple’s Siri was already five years old and familiar to most iPhone users. Google’s main entry in the field up to that point was Google Now, a phone-bound app that took voice commands but didn’t answer back.

Now the Google Assistant – known primarily as the voice of the Google Home smart speaker – is increasingly central to Google’s new products. And even though it remains commercially overshadowed by Alexa, it keeps pushing the boundaries of what artificial intelligence can accomplish in everyday settings.

For instance, Google last year announced an Assistant service called Duplex, which it said can actually call up restaurants and make reservations for you. Duplex isn’t yet widely available yet outside of Google’s own Pixel phones in the U.S. Alexa and Siri so far offer nothing similar.

Google is expected to announce updates and expansions to its AI Assistant at its annual developer conference Tuesday.

Although voice assistants have spread across smartphones and into cars and offices, they’re currently most commonly found in the home, where people tend to use them with smart speakers for simple activities such as playing music, setting timers and checking the weather. Amazon’s Echo devices maintain a strong lead in the market, according to eMarketer ; the firm estimates that 63% of all U.S. smart speaker users will talk to an Amazon device this year, compared to 31% that will use Google. Apple’s HomePod is a mere afterthought, lumped in the “other” category which has a combined 12%.

More broadly, though, the competition is much more difficult to assess. Google claims the Assistant is now available across more than a billion devices, although many of those are smartphones whose owners may never have uttered the Assistant’s wake-up phrase, “OK Google.”

Google Assistant doesn’t record users commands by default – differing from Alexa – but recording must be turned on to access some of Assistant’s features, including a popular one that allows it to recognize different users by voice.

​Amazon and Google may one-up each other on different metrics, but the real measurement is how well they’ve achieved those own goal, said Gartner analyst Werner Goertz.

Amazon’s deep ties in shopping make Alexa the go-to assistant for adding items to your grocery list or putting in a quick re-order of dish soap. Google’s decades of deep search technology make it the leader in looking up or answering questions you might have and personalizing its responses based on what else Google knows about you from your previous searches, your movements or your web browsing.

All that, of course, reinforces Google’s key advertising business, which is based on showing you ads targeted to your interests.

At first, the Assistant on Home mostly just acted as a vocal search engine; it could also carry out a few additional tasks like starting your Spotify playlists. Over time, however, it has added dozens of languages, partnered with more than 1,500 smart home companies to control lights, locks and TVs and learned to identify members of any given household by voice.

It’s also expanded the number of apps and other companies it works with and moved into Google Maps as a way to send text messages while driving.

Both Google and Amazon plan further expansions. Last year, Amazon unveiled a number of home gadgets with Alexa built in, including a “smart” microwave. At the CES gadget show this year, it showed off a phone-connected device that brings Alexa to cars. 

Google countered with updates to its expanding Android Auto system, which got Assistant capability last year.

As Assistant and Alexa get smarter, faster and more personalized, analysts expect their reach to become broader and more ubiquitous. The speakers, said eMarketer analyst Victoria Petrock, are “getting people used to talking to their devices.” Eventually, she says, if you can speak to your microwave and TV and lights directly, you won’t need the speakers – except maybe to play music.

In these emerging areas Google is hoping to outflank rivals with its strong inroads with Android smartphones and cars. But it faces competition in many of these areas not just from Amazon, but also Apple and Microsoft.

Google I/O kicks off at 10 a.m. Tuesday in Mountain View, California. The company is expected to announce a less expensive Pixel phone and updates to its smart home devices.

Google’s AI Assistant Aims to Transcend the Smart Speaker

When Google launched its now distinctive digital assistant in 2016, it was already in danger of being an also-ran.

At the time, Amazon had been selling its Echo smart speaker, powered by its Alexa voice assistant, for more than a year. Apple’s Siri was already five years old and familiar to most iPhone users. Google’s main entry in the field up to that point was Google Now, a phone-bound app that took voice commands but didn’t answer back.

Now the Google Assistant – known primarily as the voice of the Google Home smart speaker – is increasingly central to Google’s new products. And even though it remains commercially overshadowed by Alexa, it keeps pushing the boundaries of what artificial intelligence can accomplish in everyday settings.

For instance, Google last year announced an Assistant service called Duplex, which it said can actually call up restaurants and make reservations for you. Duplex isn’t yet widely available yet outside of Google’s own Pixel phones in the U.S. Alexa and Siri so far offer nothing similar.

Google is expected to announce updates and expansions to its AI Assistant at its annual developer conference Tuesday.

Although voice assistants have spread across smartphones and into cars and offices, they’re currently most commonly found in the home, where people tend to use them with smart speakers for simple activities such as playing music, setting timers and checking the weather. Amazon’s Echo devices maintain a strong lead in the market, according to eMarketer ; the firm estimates that 63% of all U.S. smart speaker users will talk to an Amazon device this year, compared to 31% that will use Google. Apple’s HomePod is a mere afterthought, lumped in the “other” category which has a combined 12%.

More broadly, though, the competition is much more difficult to assess. Google claims the Assistant is now available across more than a billion devices, although many of those are smartphones whose owners may never have uttered the Assistant’s wake-up phrase, “OK Google.”

Google Assistant doesn’t record users commands by default – differing from Alexa – but recording must be turned on to access some of Assistant’s features, including a popular one that allows it to recognize different users by voice.

​Amazon and Google may one-up each other on different metrics, but the real measurement is how well they’ve achieved those own goal, said Gartner analyst Werner Goertz.

Amazon’s deep ties in shopping make Alexa the go-to assistant for adding items to your grocery list or putting in a quick re-order of dish soap. Google’s decades of deep search technology make it the leader in looking up or answering questions you might have and personalizing its responses based on what else Google knows about you from your previous searches, your movements or your web browsing.

All that, of course, reinforces Google’s key advertising business, which is based on showing you ads targeted to your interests.

At first, the Assistant on Home mostly just acted as a vocal search engine; it could also carry out a few additional tasks like starting your Spotify playlists. Over time, however, it has added dozens of languages, partnered with more than 1,500 smart home companies to control lights, locks and TVs and learned to identify members of any given household by voice.

It’s also expanded the number of apps and other companies it works with and moved into Google Maps as a way to send text messages while driving.

Both Google and Amazon plan further expansions. Last year, Amazon unveiled a number of home gadgets with Alexa built in, including a “smart” microwave. At the CES gadget show this year, it showed off a phone-connected device that brings Alexa to cars. 

Google countered with updates to its expanding Android Auto system, which got Assistant capability last year.

As Assistant and Alexa get smarter, faster and more personalized, analysts expect their reach to become broader and more ubiquitous. The speakers, said eMarketer analyst Victoria Petrock, are “getting people used to talking to their devices.” Eventually, she says, if you can speak to your microwave and TV and lights directly, you won’t need the speakers – except maybe to play music.

In these emerging areas Google is hoping to outflank rivals with its strong inroads with Android smartphones and cars. But it faces competition in many of these areas not just from Amazon, but also Apple and Microsoft.

Google I/O kicks off at 10 a.m. Tuesday in Mountain View, California. The company is expected to announce a less expensive Pixel phone and updates to its smart home devices.

WSJ: Google Set to Launch Privacy Tools to Limit Online Tracking 

Alphabet’s Google is set to roll out a dashboard-like function in its Chrome browser to offer users more control in fending off tracking cookies, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Cookies are small text files that follow internet users and are used by advertisers to target consumers on the specific interests they have displayed while browsing.

While Google’s new tools are not expected to significantly curtail its ability to collect data, it would help the company press its sizable advantage over online-advertising rivals, the newspaper said.

Google’s 3 billion users help make it the world’s largest seller of internet ads, capturing nearly a third of all revenue, ahead of rival Facebook’s 20%, according to research firm eMarketer.

Total digital ad spending in the United States will grow 19%  to nearly $130 billion in 2019, according to eMarketer.

Google has been working on the cookies plan for at least six years, in stops and starts, but accelerated the work after news broke last year that personal data of Facebook users was improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica.

The company is mostly targeting cookies installed by profit-seeking third parties, separate from the owner of the website a user is actively visiting, the Journal said.

Apple in 2017 stopped majority of tracking cookies on its Safari browser by default and Mozilla’s Firefox did the same a year later.

Google did not immediately respond to a Reuters’ request for comment.

WSJ: Google Set to Launch Privacy Tools to Limit Online Tracking 

Alphabet’s Google is set to roll out a dashboard-like function in its Chrome browser to offer users more control in fending off tracking cookies, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Cookies are small text files that follow internet users and are used by advertisers to target consumers on the specific interests they have displayed while browsing.

While Google’s new tools are not expected to significantly curtail its ability to collect data, it would help the company press its sizable advantage over online-advertising rivals, the newspaper said.

Google’s 3 billion users help make it the world’s largest seller of internet ads, capturing nearly a third of all revenue, ahead of rival Facebook’s 20%, according to research firm eMarketer.

Total digital ad spending in the United States will grow 19%  to nearly $130 billion in 2019, according to eMarketer.

Google has been working on the cookies plan for at least six years, in stops and starts, but accelerated the work after news broke last year that personal data of Facebook users was improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica.

The company is mostly targeting cookies installed by profit-seeking third parties, separate from the owner of the website a user is actively visiting, the Journal said.

Apple in 2017 stopped majority of tracking cookies on its Safari browser by default and Mozilla’s Firefox did the same a year later.

Google did not immediately respond to a Reuters’ request for comment.

Microsoft’s Offers Software Tools to Secure Elections

Microsoft announced an ambitious effort it says will make voting secure, verifiable and subject to reliable audits. Two of the three top U.S elections vendors have expressed interest in potentially incorporating the open-source software into their proprietary voting systems.

 

The software kit is being developed with Galois, an Oregon-based company separately creating a secure voting system prototype under contract with the Pentagon’s advanced research agency, DARPA.

 

Dubbed “ElectionGuard,” the Microsoft kit will be available this summer, the company says, with early prototypes ready to pilot for next year’s general elections. CEO Satya Nadella announced the initiative Monday at a developer’s conference in Seattle.

 

Nadella said the project’s software, provided free of charge as part of Microsoft’s Defending Democracy Program, would help “modernize all of the election infrastructure everywhere in the world.” Microsoft also announced a cut-rate Office 365 application suite for political parties and campaigns for what it charges nonprofits. Both Microsoft and Google provide anti-phishing email support for campaigns.

 

Three little-known U.S. companies control about 90 percent of the market for election equipment, but have long faced criticism for poor security, antiquated technology and insufficient transparency around their proprietary, black-box voting systems. Open-source software is inherently more secure because the underlying code is easily scrutinized by outside security experts.

 

Two of the leading vendors, Election Systems & Software of Omaha, Nebraska, and Hart InterCivic of Austin, Texas, both expressed interest in partnering with Microsoft for ElectionGuard. A spokeswoman for a third vendor, Dominion Voting Systems of Denver, said the company looks forward to “learning more” about the initiative.

 

Anyone with an existing voting system or developing a new one will be able to incorporate the ElectionGuard development kit — at the state or local level in the U.S. or national level for jurisdictions abroad.

 

“It can be used with a ballot-marking device. It can be used with an optical scanner, on hand-marked paper ballots,” said Josh Benaloh, a senior cryptographer at Microsoft Research and key contributor to the ElectionGuard project.

 

Benaloh helped produce a National Academies of Science report last year that called for an urgent overhaul of the rickety U.S. election system, which faced serious threats from Russian hackers who in 2016 attempted to infiltrate voting administration systems in several states.

 

That report called for all U.S. elections to be held on human-readable paper ballots by 2020. It also advocated a specific form of routine post-election audits intended to ensure that votes are accurately counted. While U.S. officials say there is no evidence of hackers tampering with election results, experts say systems used by millions of U.S. voters remain susceptible to tampering.

 

One election official who has been in informal conversations with the ElectionGuard project leaders is Dean Logan, who runs elections for Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous, and is building an open-source voting system for it.

 

Election integrity activist Susan Greenhalgh of the National Election Defense Coalition said she hoped the project would encourage innovative thinking at the level that elections are actually managed.

 

ElectionGuard aims to provide “end-to-end” verification of voting in two ways, Benaloh said. First, it lets voters confirm that their votes are accurately recorded.

 

Second, the unique coded tracker it produces registers an encrypted version of the vote that keeps the ballot choice itself secret while ensuring votes are accurately counted. Outsiders such as election watchdog groups, political parties, journalists and voters themselves can verify online that votes were properly counted without being altered.

 

The system would also allow for reliable post-election audits and recounts. Microsoft executives say they also plan to build a prototype voting system for reference.

 

A spinoff of Galois called Free & Fair developed the sophisticated post-election audits , known as “risk-limiting,” for Colorado, which was the first U.S. state to require the audits recommended in the National Academies of Sciences report.

 

ElectionGuard is not designed to work with internet voting schemes — which experts consider too easily hackable — and does not currently work with vote-by-mail systems.

 

ES&S told The Associated Press via email that it was excited to partner with Microsoft and “still exploring the potentials” for incorporated the software kit its voting systems.

 

Hart InterCivic, the No. 3 vendor, said it planned a pilot project with Microsoft to “incorporate ElectionGuard functionality as an additional feature” layered over its core platform.

 

A spokeswoman for Dominion, the No. 2 vendor, said “We are very interested in learning more about the initiative and being able to review the various prototypes that are being planned, along with hearing more about other federally-supported efforts in the elections space.”

 

Edgardo Cortes, a former Virginia elections commissioner now with New York University’s Brennan Center, welcomed additional private sector support for election systems.

 

“I think it’ll take a while to catch on and see how beneficial (ElectionGuard) ends up being,” he said. “But I think it certainly does have a great deal of potential.”

 

Columbia University will be partnering with Microsoft to audit the pilots.

Microsoft’s Offers Software Tools to Secure Elections

Microsoft announced an ambitious effort it says will make voting secure, verifiable and subject to reliable audits. Two of the three top U.S elections vendors have expressed interest in potentially incorporating the open-source software into their proprietary voting systems.

 

The software kit is being developed with Galois, an Oregon-based company separately creating a secure voting system prototype under contract with the Pentagon’s advanced research agency, DARPA.

 

Dubbed “ElectionGuard,” the Microsoft kit will be available this summer, the company says, with early prototypes ready to pilot for next year’s general elections. CEO Satya Nadella announced the initiative Monday at a developer’s conference in Seattle.

 

Nadella said the project’s software, provided free of charge as part of Microsoft’s Defending Democracy Program, would help “modernize all of the election infrastructure everywhere in the world.” Microsoft also announced a cut-rate Office 365 application suite for political parties and campaigns for what it charges nonprofits. Both Microsoft and Google provide anti-phishing email support for campaigns.

 

Three little-known U.S. companies control about 90 percent of the market for election equipment, but have long faced criticism for poor security, antiquated technology and insufficient transparency around their proprietary, black-box voting systems. Open-source software is inherently more secure because the underlying code is easily scrutinized by outside security experts.

 

Two of the leading vendors, Election Systems & Software of Omaha, Nebraska, and Hart InterCivic of Austin, Texas, both expressed interest in partnering with Microsoft for ElectionGuard. A spokeswoman for a third vendor, Dominion Voting Systems of Denver, said the company looks forward to “learning more” about the initiative.

 

Anyone with an existing voting system or developing a new one will be able to incorporate the ElectionGuard development kit — at the state or local level in the U.S. or national level for jurisdictions abroad.

 

“It can be used with a ballot-marking device. It can be used with an optical scanner, on hand-marked paper ballots,” said Josh Benaloh, a senior cryptographer at Microsoft Research and key contributor to the ElectionGuard project.

 

Benaloh helped produce a National Academies of Science report last year that called for an urgent overhaul of the rickety U.S. election system, which faced serious threats from Russian hackers who in 2016 attempted to infiltrate voting administration systems in several states.

 

That report called for all U.S. elections to be held on human-readable paper ballots by 2020. It also advocated a specific form of routine post-election audits intended to ensure that votes are accurately counted. While U.S. officials say there is no evidence of hackers tampering with election results, experts say systems used by millions of U.S. voters remain susceptible to tampering.

 

One election official who has been in informal conversations with the ElectionGuard project leaders is Dean Logan, who runs elections for Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous, and is building an open-source voting system for it.

 

Election integrity activist Susan Greenhalgh of the National Election Defense Coalition said she hoped the project would encourage innovative thinking at the level that elections are actually managed.

 

ElectionGuard aims to provide “end-to-end” verification of voting in two ways, Benaloh said. First, it lets voters confirm that their votes are accurately recorded.

 

Second, the unique coded tracker it produces registers an encrypted version of the vote that keeps the ballot choice itself secret while ensuring votes are accurately counted. Outsiders such as election watchdog groups, political parties, journalists and voters themselves can verify online that votes were properly counted without being altered.

 

The system would also allow for reliable post-election audits and recounts. Microsoft executives say they also plan to build a prototype voting system for reference.

 

A spinoff of Galois called Free & Fair developed the sophisticated post-election audits , known as “risk-limiting,” for Colorado, which was the first U.S. state to require the audits recommended in the National Academies of Sciences report.

 

ElectionGuard is not designed to work with internet voting schemes — which experts consider too easily hackable — and does not currently work with vote-by-mail systems.

 

ES&S told The Associated Press via email that it was excited to partner with Microsoft and “still exploring the potentials” for incorporated the software kit its voting systems.

 

Hart InterCivic, the No. 3 vendor, said it planned a pilot project with Microsoft to “incorporate ElectionGuard functionality as an additional feature” layered over its core platform.

 

A spokeswoman for Dominion, the No. 2 vendor, said “We are very interested in learning more about the initiative and being able to review the various prototypes that are being planned, along with hearing more about other federally-supported efforts in the elections space.”

 

Edgardo Cortes, a former Virginia elections commissioner now with New York University’s Brennan Center, welcomed additional private sector support for election systems.

 

“I think it’ll take a while to catch on and see how beneficial (ElectionGuard) ends up being,” he said. “But I think it certainly does have a great deal of potential.”

 

Columbia University will be partnering with Microsoft to audit the pilots.

Ride a Roller Coaster with No Wheels, No Track

Virtual Reality had a fantastic year in 2016, with the release of several anticipated VR glasses, including the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive. Gaming and technology fairs presented the new toys proudly, but the boom quickly declined, leaving the technology to only niche applications. Now, a southeastern Chinese city has opened an entertainment park that intends to show VR’s potential as a future technology. Markus Meyer-Gehlen reports.

Ride a Roller Coaster with No Wheels, No Track

Virtual Reality had a fantastic year in 2016, with the release of several anticipated VR glasses, including the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive. Gaming and technology fairs presented the new toys proudly, but the boom quickly declined, leaving the technology to only niche applications. Now, a southeastern Chinese city has opened an entertainment park that intends to show VR’s potential as a future technology. Markus Meyer-Gehlen reports.