Beware Google, Facebook! Amazon sets sights on the $88 bn online ad market

Verizon doesn’t sell its mobile phones or wireless plans over Amazon. Nor does it offer Fios, its high-speed internet service. But Verizon does advertise on Amazon.

On Black Friday last year, when millions of online shoppers took to Amazon in search of deals, a Verizon ad for a Google Pixel 2 phone — buy one and get a second one half off — could be seen blazing across Amazon’s home page. And on July 16, what Amazon calls Prime Day, an event with special deals for its Prime customers, Verizon again ran a variety of ads and special offers for Amazon shoppers, like a mix-and-match unlimited service plan.

Amazon, which has already reshaped and dominated the online retail landscape, is quickly gathering momentum in a new, highly profitable arena: online advertising, where it is rapidly emerging as a major competitor to Google and Facebook.

The push by the giant online retailer means consumers — even Prime customers, who pay $119 a year for access to free shipping as well as streaming music, video and discounts — are likely to be confronted by ads in places where they didn’t exist before.

Siri, Alexa may have made your lives easier, but can they also educate you?

Convenience is atop the list of benefits Siri and Alexa have brought to millions. But is it possible that they’re promoting literacy, too?

Certainly, it’s not a benefit that immediately comes to mind. After all, we speak and Siri writes. We ask a question and Alexa enters the search terms for us. Load your iPhone up with podcasts, or ask Siri or Alexa to find you the bestseller you’ve been wanting from Audible.com, and you might never need to read a book again. With each voice-to-text improvement, we seem to be moving backward — toward a culture that relies less and less on letters or the ability to read and write.


History tells a different story. As the scope for oral communication expands, we can take comfort, and some instruction, from the variety of forms literacy has taken since its beginning in the West.

Fake news: Companies say top bosses may quit over persecution fears

The blow-hot-blow-cold relationship between the government and social media and technology-backed firms seems to have taken a turn for the worse. Some companies now fear exits of their India heads and senior management if the government goes ahead with its plans to carry out criminal proceedings against top bosses over spread of fake news via their platforms.

Apart from global technology giants Google and Facebook (which together have four to five social media platforms), Twitter, LinkedIn, smaller social media portals and payments apps with chat capabilities are planning to approach the government on putting back its plans of booking their top bosses.

While it has not been decided if they would form a common front, the public policy teams in these firms are getting ready for a long discussion with the government. “We are constantly in touch with government officials. We want them to know that we are taking steps to prevent spreading of fake news and such drastic actions are unnecessary,” said a senior public policy executive at one of the tech firms.

Facebook and Google chase a new trillion-dollar payments market in India

Surendrasingh Sucharia always has a few thousand rupees in his pocket, but can’t recall the last time he used cash. The 29-year-old product manager in Bangalore uses a string of smartphone apps including ones from Google and India’s Paytm to pay for everything from $40 bags of groceries to street food that costs pennies.

A bewildering array of digital payment businesses from global names like Facebook Inc.’s WhatsApp to Google are in a slugfest to win Indian users. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is acquiring a stake in the company behind payments leader Paytm.

Meanwhile, a string of other big-name players are also expanding in the country’s digital payments market including its banks, its postal service, and its richest man, Mukesh Ambani.

India saw a brief spurt in digital payments two years ago when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government banned most of the nation’s existing bank notes, although the spike petered out as new bills were printed. But over the past year, a string of new apps have made payments increasingly easy, and the discounts and cash bonuses they offer are proving irresistible to young, urban users like Sucharia.

12 Odisha start ups to get Google's technological, financial support

Twelve startups from Odisha have qualified to receive technological and financial support from Google for three years.

Under the initiative, free credits will be provided to these startups so that they can focus on building their business and let Google take the responsibility of scaling and securing their infrastructure.

“The search engine has selected 12 startups across sectors to use services of Google like AdWords, application programming interfaces (API), cloud services. Google will provide these startups with a credit of $3000 to use these services in the first year,”, said an official sources

For three years, start-ups will get $100,000 from Google provided they fulfil certain criterions, he added.

The state government is also planning to sign a pact with Google to get its help in nurturing the startups.

As many as 48 startups from Odisha had applied for the programme but only 12 could meet the criteria set by Google.

Facebook, Google's digital advertising dominance crushing ad firms: Report

The dominance of Google and Facebook of digital advertising has led to the number of independent and smaller ad tech companies falling 21 per cent since 2013 to 185 in the second quarter of 2018, the media reported.

According to a report in The New York Times on Sunday, venture capital money going into ad-tech start-ups is falling sharply.

"Online advertising companies have struggled for several years as Google and Facebook solidified their grip on digital dollars, slowing revenue for the others," added the report, citing global marketing research firms including LUMA Partners.

While spending for online ads was more than $88 billion last year, over 90 per cent of that went to Google or Facebook.

"Amazon is also making inroads into advertising, with a new advertising arm, raising the possibility that it will become a top competitor," said the report.

The company generated $2.2 billion in revenue from its advertising business in the second quarter this year.

Google's upcoming smartphone Pixel 3 XL's design, specs leaked online

Google is far from announcing its next-in-line Pixel 3 XL device, but an excited blogger from Ukraine appears to have released the photos of the upcoming flagship smartphone.

The blogger has posted the photos of the Pixel 3 XL, complete with its packaging, and wired USB-C Pixel Buds, leaving almost nothing to the imagination of Pixel fans.

As spotted by Android Police, the images hint at a big notch on the top front of the smartphone. Another image shows that the Pixel 3 XL will run Android 9.0 Pie out-of-the-box, and come powered by octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC with 3.46GB of RAM. It is little surprising to see such a meagre amount of RAM in the flagship model.

What will mark a shift in Google's packaging is the inclusion of the headphones in-the-box. It appears to be the first wired version of the Pixel Buds.

From AI to enhanced security, here is what's new in Google Android 9 Pie OS

Search engine and technology giant Google on August 6 announced the Android 9 Pie, a next iteration of its operating system for smart devices. The new OS is currently rolling out as an update to Google Pixel phones and other phones from brands such as OnePlus, Nokia, Xiaomi, Sony, Oppo, Vivo and Essential would get it by this fall.

Android Pie, Android 9, Google
The Android 9 Pie brings major improvements in terms of usability and user interface. Importantly, it brings native support for artificial intelligence, which learns usage patterns to predict tasks, optimise battery consumption by apps and show relevant information. The new OS also bring native gesture-based navigation control that would allow phone manufacturers to remove aged old key-based navigation.

Android Pie with better privacy features, AI now available on Google Pixel

Tech giant Google today released Android 9 Pie, the latest version of its Android operating system that promises better user experience and enhanced privacy features.

The rollout comes at a time when users across the globe, including in India, are concerned about privacy and security of information on their smart devices.

The new OS version will start rolling out as an over-the-air update for Pixel phone users, while companies like Sony Mobile, Xiaomi, HMD Global, Oppo, Vivo, OnePlus and Essential Phones as well as qualifying Android One will receive the update by the end of the year, Google said in a blogpost.

"We are also working with a number of other partners to launch or upgrade devices to Android 9 this year," it added.

US senators ask Sundar Pichai about Google's plan of censored China version

Six US senators have written to Google CEO Sundar Pichai asking about the tech giant's reported plan to create a censored Chinese version of its search engine.

"What has changed since 2010 to make Google comfortable cooperating with the rigorous censorship regime in China?" asked the senators, including Florida Republican Marco Rubio, Fortune reported on Sunday.

According to the letter, Google's project is "deeply troubling and risks making Google complicit in human rights abuses" in China.

Google in 2010 "refused to comply with Chinese government censorship requirements on ethical grounds, and essentially abandoned the market," said the report.

Media reports surfaced last week that Google is planning a censored search engine for China.

Curbing Facebook, Google's access to data may not affect their monopoly

Google’s recent record €4.3 billion (£3.9 billion) fine is the latest action in a growing movement to tackle the dominance of big tech firms. Until now, most attention has been on the impact of this dominance on privacy, for example, the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal that saw Facebook criticised for failing to tackle the unauthorised use of user data by a political campaigning firm. As a result, some analysts and commentators have called for users to be given more control over their information. But this is a serious mistake.

Google and Facebook make money from their monopoly of our attention, not their access to our personal data. Even if, starting tomorrow, they had no access to our personal data for the purposes of targeting ads, they would still be dominant and hugely profitable because they can advertise to so many people, just like TV networks once were.

Google is betting big on cloud services to woo Indian companies

In the face of rising competition from Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, global tech giant Google is betting big on its cloud services to woo 44 million small and medium enterprises (SMEs), more than 20,000 start-ups and hundreds of major companies. Google’s cloud customers in India include Ashok Leyland, goibibo.com, Hero MotoCorp, Policybazaar.com, Quikr, Yaatra, SBI Cards, Hike Messenger, Vistara and ShareChat. The company, which currently has three data centres in Mumbai, is on an expansion spree. Knowing that the demand is set to increase from the fintech sector in over the next couple of months as banks and non-banking financial institutions hurry to meet Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) directive to bring financial data back to India, the company is hoping for a rise in demand.

Former Google exec Nikesh Arora named CEO of Palo Alto Networks

Former Chief Business Officer at Google, Nikesh Arora has been named the CEO and Chairman of the US-based security firm Palo Alto Networks. After leaving Google in mid-2014, the high-profile executive became president of SoftBank and was heir apparent to its charismatic founder Masayoshi Son. But Arora left two years later amid some controversy, recode.net reported on Friday. Arora has replaced Mark McLaughlin, who will now serve the cybersecurity company as Vice Chairman. Arora said that while he had long wanted to become a CEO, he would be working closely with McLaughlin and also co-founder and CTO Nir Zuk, the report said. "I may not have a background in security, but with my background as an engineer, I can sit down with Zuk to help guide the next generation of products we can offer," recode.net quoted Arora as saying. McLaughlin said that the decade-old Palo Alto Networks now serves 50,000 companies globally and has 5,000 employees.

Google steps into Facebook's turf with hyperlocal query app Neighbourly

Google is stepping into social networking giant Facebook’s territory with its new app called Neighbourly that will allow users to ask queries and get them answered by other users in their vicinity.

The internet giant on Thursday launched the beta version of the hyperlocal app for the users in Mumbai, and said it would take a call on rolling out in other cities based on the response the company receives. Available on Google Play Store, the app supports smartphones with Android Jelly bean and higher versions operating systems.

While Google has existing platforms like Search, Assist and Local Guides to cater to a number of different queries that users may have, the new app will be a standalone platform without integrating any of these services for the time being, said Josh Woodward, Group Product Manager at Google’s Next Billion Users team.

“Google Search got started by connecting people to information on the web. We found that most of life happens within one km radius of where you live, so we created an experience from the collective knowledge within the range,” said Woodward. Neighbourly lets people share their own expertise and keep up with their neighbourhood safely through multiple queries they can post and view on the app.

Microsoft bans cryptocurrency ads on Bing; calls it a risk for its users

After Facebook and Google, Microsoft has now banned advertisements showing cryptocurrencies and related products from its Bing search engine.

"Because cryptocurrency and related products are not regulated, we have found them to present a possible elevated risk to our users with the potential for bad actors to participate in predatory behaviours, or otherwise scam consumers," Melissa Alsoszatai-Petheo, Advertiser policy manager at Microsoft, said in a blog post on Wednesday.

"To help protect our users from this risk, we have made the decision to disallow advertising for cryptocurrency, its related products, and un-regulated binary options," she added.

Bing Ads will implement this change globally in June, with enforcement rolling out in late June to early July.

Google in March announced that it would ban advertisements for cryptocurrencies and other "speculative financial products" across its ad platforms.

Walmart's Flipkart deal gets rude welcome from market, shares plunge 4%

Walmart Inc.’s deal to buy a controlling stake in India’s biggest online seller is meeting skepticism on Wall Street.

The world’s largest retailer will acquire a 77 percent holding in Flipkart Group for $16 billion, the companies said earlier Wednesday. Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal and other shareholders will hold the remainder. The tie-up values the Indian e-commerce giant at about $20.8 billion and marks a blow against rival Amazon.com Inc. as the battle for e-commerce supremacy goes global.

The deal -- Walmart’s biggest ever -- gives it greater access to India’s e-commerce market, which Morgan Stanley has estimated will grow to $200 billion in about a decade. But it will take some time for the business to turn profitable, and analysts on a Wednesday morning call about the deal adopted a cautious tone. S&P Global Ratings changed its outlook on Walmart to negative.

“As Flipkart is expected to generate meaningful losses for at least the next few years, this is clearly an investment for the future,” Moody’s analyst Charlie O’Shea wrote in a note.

Walmart shares dropped as much as 4.2 percent to $82.12 as of 10:28 a.m. in New York -- the lowest intraday price since October. The company’s stock was already down 13 percent this year through Tuesday’s close.

Apple expands self driving programme, nearly doubles fleet in California

Registering 18 new vehicles since January, Apple has expanded its self-driving car programme rapidly and now has 45 autonomous vehicles registered with California's Department of Motor Vehicles.

The company had 27 self-driving cars until late January.

"Apple has nearly doubled the number of self-driving cars in its California test fleet. The number of cars is more than companies like Google, Waymo, and Uber have and is second only to General Motors which performs tests with Cruise -- its self-driving division," the Financial Times reported late on Tuesday.

Behind Apple is Tesla which currently has 39 self-driving vehicles, and Uber which has 29 cars.

Codenamed "Project Titan", Apple's self-driving programme's fleet is reportedly made up of Lexus RX450h SUVs each of which is fitted with huge racks of LIDAR and radar sensors as well as cameras.

Google removes 60 gaming apps with pop-up porn malware from Play Store

Alphabet Inc’s Google said on Friday it took down 60 gaming applications after security firm Check Point said it had discovered new malicious software in the apps available to both children and adults at Google Play Store.
The malicious software displayed pornographic ads and tried to trick users into buying premium services, according to Check Point.
“We’ve removed the apps from Play, disabled the developers’ accounts, and will continue to show strong warnings to anyone that has installed them,” a Google spokesperson said.
Dubbed “AdultSwine”, the malware hides inside game apps that Google Play data says have been downloaded 3 to 7 million times, Check Point said in blog post on Friday.
The apps weren’t part of the family collection, which is based on a programme to help parents discover age-appropriate content on the Play Store.
The company clarified that the inappropriate ads within the apps were not Google ads.
The malware also sought to trick users into installing fake security apps, and could open the door for other attacks such as theft of user credentials, Check Point said.
It said games and apps intended for children were a new target for cyber criminals that targeted hospitals, businesses and governments in the past.

NRI Google techie held for molesting US woman at 5-star New Delhi hotel

A 22-year-old NRI, working as a software engineer for Google on contract basis, has been arrested for allegedly molesting a US woman in a five-star hotel in New Delhi, police said on Friday.

Police said Anmol Singh Kharbanda met and struck a conversation with the 52-year-old woman at the hotel bar around 10 p.m. on January 8.

"Kharbanda, a California-based Non-Resident Indian, met the victim in the lounge and introduced himself to her. He offered her drinks and a smoke in his hotel room," Additional Commissioner of Police B. K Singh told IANS.

"Kharbanda took her to his room and groped her.

She pushed him away and ran out," Singh said.

The shocked victim, staying in another room of the hotel, locked herself in for the entire night. The next day, she went away for a meeting in Jaipur and returned in the evening.

After her return from Jaipur, she complained against Kharbanda to the Chanakyapuri police station and hotel security.

"We registered an FIR under Sections 354 and 328 of the Indian Penal Code and got her statement recorded before the City Magistrate under Section 164 of the CrPC," the officer added.

Unaware of the legal action against him, Kharbanda was busy in his official work. He visited the Gurugram office (Google head office in India).

"When he returned to the hotel room on January 9 night, the hotel security informed the police and he was arrested," the ACP added.

He has since been sent to judicial custody.

Google employees lose nearly 250 Gbikes a week: Report

Technology giant Google loses between 100 and 250 of its colourful employee bicycles a week from its campus, the media reported.

Google maintains roughly 1,100 free, two-wheelers with yellow frames, red baskets and green and blue wheels, known as Gbikes, for its employees to get around its sprawling campus.

However, according to company estimates, its bikes consistently go missing from its campus-between 100 and 250 a week, typically costing $100 to $300.

The bikes have shown up at local schools, in neighbours' lawns, at the bottom of the town creek and on the roof of a sports pub.

"The disappearances often aren't the work of ordinary thieves, however. Many residents of Mountain View, a city of 80,000 that has effectively become Google's company town, see the employee perk as a community service," the Wall Street Journal reported on January 5.

A decade ago, Google started Silicon Valley's first corporate bike programme, which was adopted by at least 16 others across the US, including at Apple, Facebook, and Walmart, the report said.

The company recently equipped about a third of its 1,100 bikes with GPS trackers, which revealed that the two-wheelers take an average 12 trips and travel six miles a day.

It now also has a team of 30 Google contractors and five vans who are tasked with retrieving Gbikes. They carry waders and grappling hooks for pulling bikes out of a creek.
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