google

Wed
10
May
John Lister's picture

Chrome to Cut Down on CAPTCHA Tests

Google is testing a Chrome feature that could heavily reduce the time users spend completing CAPTCHA tests. The tests are designed to reduce spam and other automated mischief but can irritate genuine human users. CAPTCHA stands for "Completely ... Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart". It's designed to use a test that's relatively simple for a human to do, but difficult for a computer. Often such tests take advantage of the fact that humans are better at recognizing images and patterns, for example spotting pictures with varying backgrounds that contain a bicycle. Other ... (view more)

Wed
03
May
Dennis Faas's picture

Google to Reveal Foldable Phone

Google is set to release its first foldable smartphone dubbed the "Pixel Fold" scheduled for May 10th. According to reports, Google has been working on a foldable phone for years. The Pixel Fold is expected to take the form of a book-style foldable ... with two screens, resembling the squarish shape of Oppo's foldable phone, the Find N. Pixel Fold: Camera According to 9to5Google, the Pixel Fold will have two front-facing 8-megapixel lenses, one presumably on the cover and one for the interiors, as well as a 12-megapixel rear camera. The main sensor is expected to be a step down from the Pixel 6 ... (view more)

Mon
17
Apr
John Lister's picture

Severe Android Voicemail Bug Hijacks Phones Remotely

Google has warned users of some Android handsets to turn off some voice call features. A series of vulnerabilities could mean attackers can compromise a handset just by knowing its phone number. The problem involves four vulnerabilities in a ... Samsung-made component called an Exynos chipset. It's used for voice calls made over mobile data rather than the voice network. At the time of writing, Google says the affected products include phones made by Samsung (A04, A12, A13, A21s, A33, A53, A71, M12, M13, M33, S22), Google itself (Pixel 6 and 7) and Vivo (S6, S15, S16, X30, X60, X70) along with ... (view more)

Wed
08
Mar
John Lister's picture

Microsoft Hijacks Chrome Download Page with Banner Ad

Microsoft has experimented with one of its most audacious attempts yet to persuade users to prefer the Edge browser over Google Chrome. It appears the plan, which effectively involved full-size banner "ads" on the Chrome website, will not proceed ... after the tests. Technically speaking, the Microsoft Edge browser is built using "Chromium" code (which is open source), which is the exact same code that Google's Chrome browser uses. The only difference between Edge and Chrome is that Edge has been customized with its own set of unique features and is branded as being Microsoft Edge. That ... (view more)

Wed
01
Mar
John Lister's picture

Gloss Wears Off ChatGPT and AI Rivals

Microsoft and Google have both put plenty of effort into artificial intelligence in recent months. After an initial wow factor, they've been plagued with a host of problems. Interest in AI-text shot up with the public release of ChatGPT, a tool that ... can not only simulate conversations with the user and answer questions, but also write articles and other text in a variety of styles. While it appears extremely clever, it's effectively an extremely souped-up version of the auto-predict feature many phones offer when sending text messages. ChatGPT is produced by an independent developer called ... (view more)

Fri
10
Feb
John Lister's picture

Android To Block Older Apps

The next version of Android may make it much harder to install and run apps from third party sources. The change will mainly affect older apps that haven't been updated in some time. Unlike with Apple's iPhones, Android handsets aren't restricted to ... apps from the official App Store. Users may either use other app stores (other than the Google Play Store), or download and manually install apps from the web in a process known as "sideloading." Doing this doesn't require any "hacking" of the device, though users do have to change the phone's settings and confirm they understand the ... (view more)

Thu
05
Jan
John Lister's picture

Millions Will Lose Chrome Updates

Google's Chrome browser will soon be unsafe to use on Windows 7, 8 or 8.1. Google is about to finally ditch support for the systems, meaning no more updates. Version 109 of Chrome, scheduled for a full public release on January 10th, 2022, will be ... the last available for those editions. Starting with version 110, expected in February, new versions will only be available for Windows 10 and later. (Source: google.com ) Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 users can still run Chrome 109 (or earlier versions) but the browser will become increasingly outdated with no new features or performance fixes. More ... (view more)

Thu
01
Dec
John Lister's picture

Android Unlock Bug Fixed

Android users have been urged to check their phone has the latest security patches. It follows a researcher accidentally uncovering a significant flaw in the screen lock. The researcher discovered the problem on a Google Pixel 6 and replicated it on ... a Pixel 5. The problem appears to affect phones running Android 10 or later that use a SIM card, not just those made by Google. However, some reports suggest it doesn't affect Samsung handsets. The problem is with the personal unblocking key (PUK). That's a way to regain access to a handset that's been locked after forgetting the phone's passcode ... (view more)

Wed
19
Oct
John Lister's picture

Study: Smart Assistants May Hamper Development

Two researchers say voice controlled "assistant" devices could harm children's development. The claims are more of a warning than proven results at this stage. The claims come from Ananya Arora and Anmol Arora, both of the School of Clinical ... Medicine at the University of Cambridge. They were writing in the publication Archives of Diseases in Childhood. (Source: bmj.com ) The pair say they have three main fears about the uses of devices such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home, along with Apple's Siri. In all three cases, the researchers say it appears some parents may have mistaken ... (view more)

Mon
03
Oct
John Lister's picture

Malwarebytes Labels Google As Malware

A popular malware-fighting tool left users unable to access Google and YouTube after a blunder. It's the second time Google has been hit by false positives in the past few weeks. This problem affected Malwarebytes, one of the more popular security ... tools other than those built in to operating systems. Specifically, the problem was with the premium version of Malwarebytes that integrates with web browsers, checks links the user might visit, and blocks the link if it points to a domain believed to pose a security risk. Such risks can include look-alike sites used for phishing scams to try to ... (view more)

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