Search Results for: advanced

I’ve written many times about the importance of enabling 2-factor authentication on your Google accounts (and other accounts, where available) as a basic security measure, e.g. in “Do I really need to bother with Google’s 2-Step Verification system? I don’t need more hassle and my passwords are pretty good” — https://plus.google.com/+LaurenWeinstein/posts/avKcX7QmASi — and in other posts … Continue reading “Understanding Google’s New Advanced Protection Program for Google Accounts”

Claims of “cancel culture” seems to be everywhere these days. Almost every day, we seem to hear somebody complaining that they have been “canceled” from social media, and pretty much inevitably there is an accompanying claim of politically biased motives for the action. The term “cancel culture” itself appears to have been pretty much unknown … Continue reading “The Big Lie About “Cancel Culture” and Demands to Change Section 230″

UPDATE (April 4, 2019): Google has announced that due to the furor over ATEAC (their newly announced external advisory panel dealing with AI issues), they have dissolved the panel entirely. As I discuss in the original post below, AI is too important for our typical political games — and closed-minded unwillingness to even listen to … Continue reading “Pressuring Google’s AI Advisory Panel to Wear a Halo Is Very Dangerous”

Within hours of the recent horrific mass shooting in New Zealand, know-nothing commentators and pandering politicians were already on the job, blaming Facebook, Google’s YouTube, and other large social media platforms for the spread of the live attack video and the shooter’s ranting and sickening written manifesto.  While there was widespread agreement that such materials … Continue reading “Don’t Blame YouTube and Facebook for Hate Speech Horrors”

UPDATE (February 4, 2019): Google Users Panic Over Google+ Deletion Emails: Here’s What’s Actually Happening UPDATE (February 2, 2019): Google’s Google+ Shutdown Emails Are Causing Mass Confusion UPDATE (February 1, 2019): If Google Cared: The Tool That Could Save Google+ Relationships – – – For weeks now, I’ve been pounding on Google to get more explicit about their … Continue reading “Google Finally Speaks About the G+ Shutdown: Pretty Much Tells Users to Go to Hell”

Several weeks ago, in the wake of Google’s shameless and hypocritical abandonment of loyal Google users and communities with the announced rapidly approaching shutdown of consumer Google+ (originally scheduled for August, then — with yet another kick in the teeth to their users — advanced to April based on obviously exaggerated security claims) I created … Continue reading “A New Invite-Only Forum for Victims of Google’s Google+ Purge”

I consider Google to be a great company. I have many friends who are Googlers. I am dependent on many Google services and products. But if you’ve gotten the sense that Google has been flailing around in a seemingly uncoordinated fashion lately, like a chainsaw run wild, you’re not the only one. And I’m not … Continue reading “Can We Trust Google?”

Of late we’ve seen both leaked and open evidence of many employees at Internet tech firms in the U.S. rebelling against their firms participating in battlefield systems military contracts, mostly related to cloud services and AI systems. Some reactions I’ve seen to this include statements like “those employees are unpatriotic and aren’t true Americans!” and … Continue reading “Why Internet Tech Employees Are Rebelling Against Military Contracts”

UPDATE: (May 11, 2018): Teachable Moment: How Outrage Over Google’s AI “Duplex” Could Have Been Avoided UPDATE (May 9, 2018): Calls From Google’s “Duplex” System Should Include Initial Warning Announcements – – – Google today demonstrated a project of theirs under development called “Duplex” — which permits their Google Assistant infrastructure to conduct unassisted two-way voice phone … Continue reading “Google’s New “Duplex” Voice System Creates Some Troublesome Questions”

“And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space, ’cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth.” — “The Galaxy Song” (“Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life” – 1983). – – – It’s very popular to trash “artificial intelligence” (AI) these days. While reasoned warnings regarding how AI-based systems could be abused (and/or generate … Continue reading “How AI Could Save Us All”

UPDATE (June 1, 2018): Google has reportedly announced that it will not be renewing the military artificial intelligence contract discussed in this post after the contract expires next year, and will shortly be unveiling new ethical guidelines for the use of artificial intelligence systems. Thanks Google for doing the right thing for Google, Googlers, and … Continue reading “The Ethics of Google and the Pentagon Drones”

The monsters are everywhere — self-righteous sickos who laugh at other people’s misfortunes — the same kind of diseased personalities who slow down in traffic to take photos of horrific accidents and urge distressed persons on the edges of buildings to jump to their deaths. And they’re online as well. Oh man, are they online. … Continue reading “The Monsters Who Laugh at Injury and Death on YouTube”

I continue to be an enormous fan of Google Home — for example, please see my post “Why Google Home Will Change the World” —https://lauren.vortex.com/2016/11/10/why-google-home-will-change-the-world — from a bit over a year ago. But as time goes on, it’s becoming obvious that a design decision by Google in the Home ecosystem is seriously disadvantaging large numbers … Continue reading “Google Home Is Leaving Elderly and Disabled Users Behind”

The European Union is threatening massive fines against firms like Google, Facebook, and Twitter if contents that the EU considers to be “forbidden” aren’t removed quickly enough. The EU (and now some non-EU countries) are demanding the right to impose global censorship on Google, proclaiming that nobody on Planet Earth can be permitted to view … Continue reading “How the Alt-Right Plans to Control Google”

UPDATE (May 1, 2019): A Major New Privacy-Positive Move by Google UPDATE (April 24, 2017):  Quick Tutorial: Deleting Your Data Using Google’s “My Activity” – – – There’s a page at Google that dedicated Google Haters don’t like to talk about. In fact, they’d prefer that you didn’t even know that it exists, because it seriously … Continue reading “The Google Page That Google Haters Don’t Want You to Know About”

I am one of YouTube’s biggest fans. Seriously. It’s painful for me to imagine a world now without YouTube, without the ability to both purposely find and serendipitously discover all manner of contemporary and historical video gems. I subscribe to YouTube Red because I want to help support great YT creators (it’s an excellent value, … Continue reading “How Google’s YouTube Spreads Hate”

Originally posted February 11, 2016. Reposted today after a weekend of struggling to support a variety of older and not-so-old users via Chrome Remote Desktop. – – – No. Google doesn’t hate old people. I know Google well enough to be pretty damned sure about that. Is Google “indifferent” to old people? Does Google simply not … Continue reading “Does Google Hate Old People?”

Much has recently been written about Google Home, the little vase-like cylinder that started landing in consumers’ hands only a week or so ago. Home’s mandate sounds simple enough in theory — listen to a room for commands or queries, then respond by voice and/or with appropriate actions. What hasn’t been much discussed however, is … Continue reading “Why Google Home Will Change the World”

When most Internet users think about the security and privacy of their communications, they tend to think mainly about the associated practices of the sites they visit on the Net. Rarely do they think much about their ISPs in this regard, even though by definition the ISP has access to the entirely of their communications usage over … Continue reading “How Some ISPs Could Subvert Your Local Network Security”

Many of us tend to assume that here in U.S. we have the most advanced technologies on the planet. So it may be startling to learn that by global Internet standards, numerous experts consider us to be living in something of a Stone Age Internet nation. The reality is stark. Many countries in the world pay far less for their … Continue reading “How Ancient Monopolies Keep You from Getting Decent Internet Service”