Google, Facebook, Twitter must do more against fake news: EU

Google, Facebook, Twitter and Mozilla must do more to combat fake news as Europeans head towards an election or the companies will face the threat of regulatory action, the European Commission said on Tuesday. 

Companies and trade bodies representing the advertising industry signed up to a voluntary code of conduct in October to ward off more heavy-handed legislation. Critics say not

Meet Howard Sueing, Google Engineer and Instructor in New Diversity Program - Exclusive Interview

MOUNTAIN VIEW — Howard Sueing has found a place in an industry that’s largely closed off to people like him. A black employee at Google, raised on food stamps in Section 8 housing, he’s a relative rarity in a company and a sector where African Americans make up a very small percentage of the workforce.

Howard Sueing

And now he’s doing his best, as a software engineer and instructor in Google’s new “Howard West” computer science program for students from historically black colleges, to make his company more diverse and inclusive to people of color.

Howard West takes its name — and for now its students — from Washington, D.C.’s historically black Howard University. The 12-week program puts students through courses in software engineering, algorithms, machine learning and mobile app development. The initiative was unveiled earlier this month in a two-story building near Google’s headquarters complex in Mountain View.

Each class is co-taught by a Google employee and a Howard University computer science professor. Students receive course credits toward graduation from Howard. Google plans to involve other historically black colleges in the future, and expand the student cohort beyond the current number of 26.

Sueing sat down with this newspaper at Howard West to discuss the program and his work. His comments have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Google is 2 percent black overall and in leadership roles, only 1 percent in tech jobs — what causes these low diversity rates?

Google loses Android appeal in Russia

Google has failed to overturn a Russian ruling that said it broke competition laws by tying together its Android services to ensure its apps were pre-installed on smartphones and tablets.

The original case followed a complaint by its Russian rival Yandex.

 

Google had denied forcing device-makers to install its YouTube, Maps and Photos software alongside Android.

It now faces having to reword its contracts with manufacturers and paying a fine based on its local earnings.

However, it can still lodge a further appeal against the Moscow arbitration court's ruling.

Chief Executive of Google Highest-Paid in US

The Chief Executive of Google, Sundar Pichai, has been awarded $199m (£138m) in shares, a regulatory filing has revealed.

 

It makes him the highest-paid chief executive in the US.

Mr Pichai became chief executive of the search engine giant following the creation of its parent, Alphabet.

Google's £130m UK Tax Settlement was "Not A Glorious Moment" For The Government- Sajid Javid

Business Sajid Javid

The UK tax authorities' agreement with Google has fuelled a "sense of injustice" that big businesses receive preferential treatment, he said.

His comments come a week after Chancellor George Osborne called the settlement a "major success".

Google said it was in favour of reforms to make international tax clearer.

'Injustice'

However, shadow chancellor John McDonnell warned the fallout from the tax row had damaged Google's brand.

"The reputational damage to Google, I think, is immense," he said, and suggested the "saving they have made in tax is not worth the reputation damage they have had".

Mr McDonnell also repeated a call for Google and HMRC to release details of how the agreement was struck.

Google Paid Tech Apple $1bn in 2014 to keep search on iPhone'

A transcript of court proceedings from a copyright lawsuit against Google allegedly contains reference to a deal between the Silicon Valley firms.

The alleged agreement involves Google paying Apple a percentage of revenue - as much as 34% - gained through iOS devices.

 

Both companies declined to comment.

The BBC has not been able to verify the claims independently.

Bloomberg added that the referenced document has since been removed from the web.

"The transcript vanished without a trace from electronic court records at about 15:00," the report noted.

Google Cardboard is a Lifesaver for a Baby Facing a Grim Diagnosis

A throwaway virtual-reality gizmo has given a dying baby the precious and priceless gift of life.

 

Google Cardboard, $20 toy-like goggles, gave cardiac surgeons the perspective they needed to repair four-month-old Teegan Lexcenher’s heart and lung.

Born with half a heart and one lung, she faced a dire prognosis.

Doctors in Minnesota, where Teegan’s parents Cassidy and Chad and her twin sister, Riley, live, told the family they couldn’t operate.

Chad’s sister reached out to Redmond Burke, M.D., a cardiovascular surgeon at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami, known for his innovative techniques.

“Teegan had the worst set of defects you can imagine,” Burke told the Daily News. “I’ve been doing surgery for 30 years. This is the first time I’ve seen a case like hers.”

Lamar Odom and Caitlyn Jenner top Google’s 2015 ‘Year in Search’

Look back at what you looked up.

Lamar Odom and Caitlyn Jenner top Google’s 2015 “Year in Search” report released on Wednesday, which lists the people, places and events that trended the most over the past year.

 

Lamar Odom and Caitlyn Jenner 

People were keeping up with Khloe Kardashian’s ex, Odom. The former NBA player began 2015 mired in a contentious divorce with the reality star before suffering near-fatal brain damage in a November booze and drug binge at a Nevada brothel. He topped the lists for Top Trending General Searches and Top Trending People (Not Including Deaths) globally and in NYC.

Google’s library survives lawsuit

A DECADE ago, Google announced plans to scan and make searchable the world’s books, and it has been fighting lawsuits from authors and publishers ever since.
After a seven-year legal battle, in 2012 the major US publishers reached a settlement with Google that allows them to keep copyrighted books from being displayed. On October 16, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld a lower court ruling in favour of Google and against the Authors Guild, meaning writers cannot stop the search giant from adding their work to its online library of more than 20-million books.

 
The saga has had enough twists and turns to fill a — well, you know.
"Google’s unauthorised digitising of copyright-protected works, creation of a search functionality and display of snippets from those works are noninfringing fair uses," Judge Pierre Leval wrote in the appellate decision.
Even though the company stands to profit from the project, its digital library is different enough and its excerpts limited enough in comparison with the original books that it does not need to license the material, Leval says.

Google appointed Sundar Pichai as the Company's new CEO.

From Tim Cook to Satya Nadella, tech giants congratulated India-born Sundar Pichai on his "well deserved" elevation as Google's new CEO on Tuesday. 

Pichai, 43, was named CEO of a newly organised Google, becoming only the third chief executive of the company after Schmidt and cofounder Larry Page.