Google Go App Launched, Files Go Comes to All Android Devices, Oreo Go Edition Goes Live

  Ravi Sharma, 05 December 2017

Highlights

• Google Go combines YouTube, Search, Maps, Facebook, Instagram, and more
• The Files Go app helps manage storage and share files
• Google Assistant for Jio Phone also announced at the event

A new app, named Google Go, has been launched to give the unified Google experience to Internet users on low-end handsets. The app provides access to Google services such as Search, Voice Search, GIFs, YouTube, Translate, and Maps and includes a search bar to provide a unified experience. Google Go also offers search trends and top stories from the Web on any particular topics. It was launched by the company at its Google for India event on Tuesday. Also announced was the Android Oreo (Go Edition) for entry-level smartphones, as well as the official launch of Files Go.

Shashidhar Thakur, VP engineering, Google, said at the event, "We gathered feedback from hundreds of Indian cities to make the power of Internet accessible for new users through Google Go."

Apart from Google services, the new Go app provides users access to Facebook, CricBuzz, and Instagram. It includes a button that helps users translate their search queries with one tap. Weighing less than 5MB size, Google Go consumes 40 percent less data and is optimised for devices with less than 1GB of RAM. It will be available for download for all Android devices starting Tuesday and will come pre-installed on Android Go devices.

For smartphones with 512MB-1GB of RAM, Google announced Oreo Go, a version of Android 8.0 Oreo optimised for low-end smartphones. It will become available over the next few months, while its code is now available for developers through Android 8.1. Devices running on Oreo Go will have an average 15 percent faster app startup time, the company said, and preloaded apps will be optimised will take up 50 percent less space on the available storage. Google said an average Oreo Go device will be able to store an extra 1,000 photos with these optimisations.

"Android Oreo (Go edition) will help improve the experience on entry-level phones while new apps like Files Go will ensure their experience is smooth and they consume less data," Caesar Sengupta, Vice-President, Next Billion Users, said. He told PTI that he expects handset makers to bring smartphones based on Android Oreo (Go) edition in early 2018.

Oreo Go will come with get the same security features as available on the standard version, including Google Play Protect. Go edition devices will come with Data Saver features active by default. The users will be able to download any apps, but there is a new section that includes optimised apps especially for the Go edition devices, such as Facebook Lite and Flipkart. Google apps have been worked upon as well to work better on low-end devices, and the Go versions of Assistant, Gmail, Chrome, Search, Maps, YouTube, and Gboard will be preloaded on all Oreo Go devices.

Apart from Google Go and Oreo Go, the Files Go app was officially launched at the event, after being spotted in testing last month, and will also be pre-installed on Go edition devices. It has been custom built for Go edition devices and helps free up space on the phone, find files faster, and share files offline with people in the vicinity. The app prompts users to delete heavy files or files from a particular sources (for example, WhatsApp), and allows them to delete the said files in just two taps. With advances in computer vision, the Files Go app will let users delete certain images (such as images received in 'good morning' messages on instant messaging apps).

It will also let users create a closed network accessible only by approved smartphones in the vicinity to share files by creating a hotspot, which the company says is 200 times faster than Bluetooth transfers. Files Go is also designed to help users find files faster, by segregating files by type and allowing quick uploads to the cloud.

A special edition of Google Assistant was also announced for the Jio Phone at the event, the first AI-based digital assistant for a feature phone.

[Source site: https://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/news/google-for-india-announcements-go-file-apps-launched-oreo-edition-1783809]

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Android 8.0reo is here: Here are some of the major updates in the newest operating system

Android 8.0 officially landed on 21 August, during first total solar eclipse in the US since 1917. The launch was conducted through a livestream. Developers have had access to a preview version of Google's latest mobile operating system since mid-March, with updated versions releasing in May, June and July. Hints from the code and promotional videos have previously indicated that the operating system could be named Android Oreo or Android Oatmeal Cookie. We now know that Android 8.0 is officially called Oreo. [Read More]

Human rights, dialogue and the Sardar Sarovar project

There are several layers to the Narmada dam issue, besides that of economic and political considerations being bereft of human rights considerations

A file photo of the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam across the Narmada river in Gujarat. Photo: Sam Pathaky/AFP

The Narmada dam project or technically the Sardar Sarovar Project has again emerged as a human rights cause célèbre over the past month, with government coming down on protesters, in particular against Medha Patkar, leader of the rehabilitation and resettlement watchdog Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), on 7 August.

The discredit for it collectively rests at the doors of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance government, the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh, and the political imperative of the incumbent BJP government in Gujarat, which faces general elections to its assembly in end-2017. (Maharashtra and Rajasthan, the other beneficiaries of the project, currently have BJP governments.)

At another level, it is the latest salvo in an ongoing battle. Narendra Modi had as chief minister of Gujarat dramatically declared in April 2006 that India would have to choose between “Medha Patkar and megawatt”.

Gujarat remains the greatest intended beneficiary of the Narmada project after Madhya Pradesh in terms of increased irrigation; and after Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra in hydroelectricity. However, the bulk of the displaced along the Narmada river are in Madhya Pradesh, with the project’s ambit of 30 dams. The Sardar Sarovar dam (commonly referred to as the Narmada dam) in Gujarat near its border with Maharashtra is the biggest. Modi at the time was insistent that the height of this dam be raised to 121.92 metres.

Over the years, the dam’s height has been periodically raised after review by the apex Narmada Control Authority (NCA). That has accompanied much wrangling in the Supreme Court over the persistently vexed issue of shabby resettlement and rehabilitation, or R&R, of those continually displaced by every raising of the dam’s height, and their homes and livelihoods submerged even as that very submergence has been projected as providing greater benefits in irrigation and hydroelectricity.

Within weeks of Modi becoming Prime Minister, on 12 June 2014, NCA announced its approval for raising the Narmada dam’s height to 138.7 metres. Patkar and her colleagues, meanwhile, claimed that raising the height of the dam by nearly 17 metres would affect two hundred thousand people in Madhya Pradesh. Besides, they maintained the decision was taken without considering valid contrary opinion.

NBA, led by Patkar, has consistently led protests against the dam, first flagging the enormous potential dislocation of people—more than three hundred thousand—as far back as 1985. The steady upswell of protest, among other things, led to the World Bank pulling out of the project in 1993. NBA’s key plank has subsequently remained shabby and forceful R&R, in particular in Madhya Pradesh.

NBA has also consistently argued at the Supreme Court and various forums that the height of the dam should not be increased without those already displaced being adequately recompensed, relocated and rehabilitated. That issue is live. In February 2017, the Supreme Court proposed setting up a three-member committee to review compensation and R&R for the project-displaced in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat.

On 7 August, along with several colleagues, Patkar was forcibly removed by Madhya Pradesh police from their place of protest at Chikhalda in Dhar district, near the Narmada river.

It was Patkar’s 12th day of hunger strike to protest against incomplete and inadequate R&R for what her organization claims are 40,000 citizens in Madhya Pradesh. There was no dialogue beyond chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan tweeting a request for Patkar to end her fast and expressing concern about her health; and Patkar’s “handle” tweeting back, thanking him, but urging dialogue.

That remained the extent of exchange. “No offer was made for a dialogue,” Hindustan Times quoted NBA leader Rahul Yadav as saying, after police packed Patkar off to a hospital in Indore.

There are several layers to the issue, besides that of economic and political considerations being bereft of human rights considerations.

More on the Narmada project’s back stories and nuances next week.

Sudeep Chakravarti’s books include Clear.Hold.Build: Hard Lessons of Business and Human Rights in India, Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country and Highway 39: Journeys through a Fractured Land. This column, which focuses on conflict situations and the convergence of businesses and human rights, runs on Thursdays.

First Published: Thu, Aug 10 2017. 04 07 AM IST

[Read More]

Google Maps update adds traffic predictions - A Must For Cape Town Drivers

BY KARISSA BELL

JUL 18, 2017

Google Maps just got better at helping you avoid traffic.  

Similar to Google's "popular times" feature for avoiding lines, the new update for the Google Maps Android app shows when there’s likely to be traffic to a specific destination. 

[Read More]

Firefox update will add WebVR support for virtual reality viewing

BY KYT DOTSON

UPDATED 15:37 EST . 07 AUGUST 2017

Web browser developer Mozilla Corp. will bring virtual reality viewing capabilities to its flagship product Firefox by default with its planned update Tuesday.

This addition will bring Firefox in line with its major competitors, Edge and Chrome, which already support some parts of the standard for online virtual reality viewing. The Firefox 55 update launching tomorrow will include the WebVR standard, which will open up VR viewing capability for web and mainstream VR Windows-enabled headsets as well as a 2-D capability in the browser.

“WebVR is the big platform feature shipping in Firefox 55,” Mozilla wrote in its update roadmap. “Firefox users with an HTC Vive or Oculus Rift can experience VR content on the web.”

Mozilla’s Firefox has lagged behind other leading browsers for Windows over the years with the inclusion of the WebVR standard. Google Inc.’s Chrome browser added WebVR capability in February and Microsoft Corp. added application programming interface hook support to Edge build 15007 in January – full default support in Edge will roll out with the Windows 10 Creators Update.

Mozilla first announced its intention to bring VR to all Firefox users in June.

“WebVR transforms virtual reality into a first-class experience on the web, giving it the infinite possibilities found in the openness and interoperability of the web platform,” Sean White, Mozilla senior vice president of emerging technologies, wrote at the time. “When coupled with WebGL to render 3-D graphics, these APIs [application program interface] transform the browser into a platform that allows VR content to be published to the Web and instantaneously consumed from any capable VR device.”

[Read More]

Should we fear Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial Intelligence is not going to go ‘rogue’ and turn on humans, at least in the near future, but there are other very real issues raised by AI.

A recent, relatively minor, spat between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk erupted online over the dangers of Artificial Intelligence. To briefly recap, in a Facebook Live session a couple of weeks back, Zuckerberg railed against people who talk about Artificial Intelligence-related “doomsday scenarios”, clearly hinting at fellow Silicon Valley leader Musk. Musk replied by stating that Zuckerberg’s “understanding of the subject is pretty limited”.

While the exchange itself did not move beyond this, Zuckerberg and Musk personify broadly the two sides of an ongoing debate on the dangers of Artificial Intelligence, ironically brought back into popular consciousness by recent (mostly incorrect) reports that Facebook shut down an Artificial Intelligence programme after it invented its own language.

But what is the key takeaway of the debate for policymakers and non-billionaires? Should one fear Artificial Intelligence?

As with most things, the answer is both yes and no. Beginning with why one must not “fear” Artificial Intelligence, such systems are actually pretty dumb. The much vaunted AlphaGo, for instance, would find it impossible to pick out a cat from a data set of animal pictures, unless it was reprogrammed completely and made to forget how to play Go.

This is because even the most intelligent systems today have artificial specific intelligence, which means they can perform one task better than any human can, but only that one task. Any task that it is not specifically programmed for, howsoever simple it may seem to us, such a system would find impossible to undertake.

This is also not the sort of Artificial Intelligence Musk is talking about. His warnings pertain to a type known as artificial general intelligence, which is a system that has human-level intelligence, i.e., it can do multiple tasks as easily as a human can and can engage in a “thought” process that closely resembles humans. Such artificial general intelligence, however, has so far remained theoretical, and is possibly decades away from being developed in any concrete manner, if at all. Therefore, any fear of a super-intelligent system that can turn on humans in the near future is quite baseless.

This, however, does not mean that there is nothing to fear when it comes to Artificial Intelligence. There are three broad areas where one should fear the effects and consequences, if not the technology itself.

First, and most importantly, jobs. While the possible negative effect of Artificial Intelligence on jobs has been a trending topic recently, there has been no academic or policy consensus on what the exact effect will be. A May 2017 study by Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute, for example, argues that in the past, automation did not have any negative effect on the job market, but actually increased the number of available jobs.

However, this study has also come under some valid criticism, not least because it does not account for differences in the nature of automation between the period of its study and now. There can be no doubt that at least some jobs will be negatively affected by Artificial Intelligence, but the nature of these jobs and the nature of the jobs that may replace them, if at all, is hazy at best. It is this lack of clarity that one must be wary of.

Second, the use of Artificial Intelligence in weapons leading to ‘autonomous weapons’ raises a number of difficult questions in international law. Whether a machine that has been given the ability to make life and death decisions on the battlefield can adequately account for subjective principles of war such as proportionality and precaution is an issue that has been consistently taken up by civil society groups over the past few years. The underlying issue here is not that weaponized Artificial Intelligence would be smart, but that it would not be smart enough. The consequences of this have been deemed serious enough for the UN to begin deliberating on this issue in an official group of governmental experts forum this November.

Third, privacy and data security. It must be remembered that the entire Artificial Intelligence ecosystem is built on the availability of great amounts of data and enhancing efficiency requires continued availability of such data. Constant inputs and feedback loops are required to make Artificial Intelligence more intelligent.

This raises the question of where the required data comes from, and who owns and controls it. Facebook, Google, Amazon and others depend on the immense data generated by their users every day, and while the availability of this data may lead to better Artificial Intelligence, it also allows these companies, or anybody else who has access to the data, to piece together a very detailed picture of individual users, something which users themselves may not have knowingly consented to. The possible authoritarian implications of this, ranging from indiscriminate surveillance to predictive policing, can be seen in the recent plan released by China’s state council to make China an Artificial Intelligence superpower by 2030.

It is necessary to be open-eyed and clear-headed about the practical benefits and risks associated with the increasing prevalence of Artificial Intelligence. It is not going to go “rogue” and turn on humans (at least in the near future), and talk of such a theoretical existential risk must not blind policymakers, analysts, and academics to the very real issues raised by Artificial Intelligence.

R. Shashank Reddy is a research analyst with Carnegie India, New Delhi.

First Published: Mon, Aug 07 2017. 04 16 AM IST

(Source Site : http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/41pHBAFL5kSavHHJ4hJToN/Should-we-fear-Artificial-Intelligence.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter)

'Desi' GPS system may soon become reality as ISRO, CSIR-NPL join hands for services

As per the plan, the desi GPS will formally get synchronised with the Indian Standard Time (IST) maintained by Delhi-based NPL - India's timekeeper, the report said.

By Zee Media Bureau | Last Updated: Friday, August 4, 2017 - 00:02

New Delhi: An indigenousNow 'desi' GPS may soon become reality as ISRO, CSIR-NPL join hands for services GPS system may soon become a reality as India's premiere space research organisation ISRO and the CSIR-NPL plan to launch a time and frequency traceability service, a media report said on Thursday.

The Indian Space Research Organisation and the CSIR-National Physical Laboratory were expected to sign an MoU on Friday for this indegenous system named as Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC), the TOI reported.

As per the plan, the desi GPS will formally get synchronised with the Indian Standard Time (IST) maintained by Delhi-based NPL - India's timekeeper, the report said.

Time synchronisation is key for a variety of purposes such as financial transactions, stock handling, digital archiving, time stamping, national security and prevention of cyber crimes, it said, adding, the move would help in making the indegenous system operational in the market for commercial purposes.

"We can't depend forever on the US-based National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). After signing the MoU, the space clocks will be syncronized to that of the Primary National Atomic Clocks at National Physical Laboratory and therefore will have independence," TOI quoted NPL director Dinesh Aswal as saying.

"Though millisecond or microsecond accuracy is sufficient for day-to-day activities, the ISRO needs accuracy up to nanoseconds level for navigation, surveillance and other national missions," he added.

Citing MoS for space & atomic energy Jitendra Singh, the report however said the NavIC may take several years before it becomes operational in the market.

A constellation of seven satellites will comprise the NavIC, which will provide Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) services in India and the adjoining region up to 1,500 km, the report said.

The NavIC will provide two types of services - Standard Positioning Service (SPS) and Restricted Service (RS), it added.

(Sources Site : http://zeenews.india.com/india/desi-gps-system-may-soon-become-reality-as-isro-csir-npl-join-hands-for-services-2030050.html )