Google is again delaying plans to phase out Chrome’s use of third-party cookies — the files websites use to remember preferences and track online activity. In a blog post, Anthony Chavez, Google’s VP of Privacy Sandbox, said that the company is now targeting the “second half of 2024” as the timeframe for adopting an alternative technology.
It’ll be a long time coming. Last June, Google said it would depreciate cookies in the second half of 2023. Before then, in January 2020, the company pledged to make the switch by 2022.
“We’ve worked closely to refine our design proposals based on input from developers, publishers, marketers, and regulators via forums,” Chavez wrote. “The most consistent feedback we’ve received is the need for more time to evaluate and test the new … technologies before deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome.”
Google’s efforts to move away from cookies date back to 2019, when the company announced a long-term roadmap to adopt ostensibly more private ways of tracking web users. The linchpin is Privacy Sandbox, which aims to create web standards that power advertising without the use of so-called “tracking” cookies. Tracking cookies, used to personalize ads, can capture a person’s web history and remain active for years without their knowledge.
Privacy Sandbox proposes using an in-browser algorithm, Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), to analyze a users’ activity and generate a “privacy-preserving” ID that can be used by advertisers for targeting. Google claims that FLoC is more anonymous than cookies, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation has described it as “the opposite of privacy-preserving technology” and akin to a “behavioral credit score.”
Privacy Sandbox has also prompted regulators to investigate whether Google’s adtech aims are anticompetitive. In January 2021, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the U.K. announced plans to focus on Privacy Sandbox’s potential impacts on both publishers and users. And in March, 15 attorneys general of U.S. states and Puerto Rico amended an antitrust complaint filed the previous December saying that the changes in the Privacy Sandbox would require advertisers to use Google as a middleman in order to advertise.
Google earlier this year reached an agreement with the CMA on how it develops and releases Privacy Sandbox in Chrome, which will include working with the CMA to “resolve concerns” and consulting and updating the CMA and the U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s Office on an ongoing basis.
In the meantime, Chavez says that Google will expand a trial of its Privacy Sandbox technologies to “millions” of Chrome users beginning in August. It’ll then gradually increase the trial population throughout the year into 2023, offering an opt-out option to users who don’t wish to participate.
Google now expects Privacy Sandbox APIs to be launched and generally available in Chrome by the third quarter of 2023.
“Improving people’s privacy, while giving businesses the tools they need to succeed online, is vital to the future of the open web,” Chavez wrote. “As the web community tests these APIs, we’ll continue to listen and respond to feedback.”
Google delays move away from cookies in Chrome to 2024
Архив метки: Google
Samsung will unveil its latest foldables on August 10
The days of the Galaxy Note Unpacked events are sadly gone, but Samsung’s foldables are more than happy to fill a phablet-sized hole in the company’s annual release schedule. Over the last couple of years, the company has made good on its promise to fully commit to the form factor, and we expect to see the latest additions to the Fold and Flip lines arrive in a matter of weeks.
Samsung this morning dropped an official invite for its late-summer Unpacked event, confirming an August 10 date for the virtual event. This is a Samsung event, so that means the big announcements have been leaked in part — or in full — over the last several weeks. As anticipated, the big news centers around the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4, along with Galaxy Watch 5.
Image Credits: Samsung
Both foldables are said to include the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chip, along with some new color options. The new Galaxy Watch, meanwhile, represents Samsung’s latest Wear OS partnership. That one’s certainly worth keeping an eye on, as Google begins a newfound push for the wearable operating system, ahead of the fall Pixel Watch launch.
Meanwhile, Samsung’s super early pre-show product reserve is going even earlier this year, featuring the following discounts if you want to buy the mystery products (jkjkjkjk), site unseen:
$200 credit toward Galaxy phone, watch and buds bundle
$150 credit toward Galaxy phone and watch bundle
$130 credit toward Galaxy phone and buds bundle
$80 credit toward Galaxy watch and buds bundle
$100 credit to use on Samsung.com toward eligible products when you reserve a Galaxy phone
$50 credit to use on Samsung.com toward eligible products when you reserve a Galaxy watch
$30 credit to use on Samsung.com toward eligible products when you reserve Galaxy buds
All said, it should make for an interesting event, and a nice jolt of news amidst the late-summer hardware doldrums. The event kicks off at 9AM ET/6AM PT August 10. We’ll be there (virtually).
Samsung will unveil its latest foldables on August 10
HTC looks to the metaverse for answers
LG officially pulled the plug on its smartphone division in April of last year. It was another signpost in a dramatically changing mobile market that had left the electronics giant behind. HTC tends to be lumped into that conversation, though the Taiwanese manufacture has — in spite of everything — continued to press on, even after Google acquired around half of the company’s phone talent and IP in 2017.
HTC’s mobile division has spent the last several years searching for the right angle to recapture some of that magic. In 2018, it was the HTC Exodus, which was undoubtedly ahead of the curve as a blockchain/crypto-focused handset. That device, predictably, failed to make a dent. Now the company’s back with another trend-surfing handset, the HTC Desire 22 Pro, a “metaverse” focused device it’s been teasing for a few weeks now.
This time, at least, the company’s got a leg up in that department, as one of the primary manufacturers of VR headsets through its Vive line. HTC is positing the Desire 22 Pro as “the phone to carry you into the future” and “the perfect companion with Vive Flow VR glasses.” On the face of it, however, it’s a fairly middling mid-range device with limited claims to actual metaversiness.
The product sports a 6.6-inch 1,080 x 2,412 display with a 120 Hz refresh rate. Inside you’ve got Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 695 5G, coupled with 8GB or RAM and 128GB of storage. Any actual metaverse functionality appears to be little more than marketing from a company struggling to rediscover its footing in the cruel and unforgiving world of mobile phones.
Image Credits: HTC
It does, however, apparently sport a digital wallet and an NFT, as evidenced by the above images of cats posing as classical artwork. Though, as noted, such functionality appears to be limited to select markets.
If all of that sounds good for some reason, the handset is up for preorder now and set to start shipping August 1.
HTC looks to the metaverse for answers
Meta has reportedly shelved its watch with in-built cameras
Last year, leaked photos of Meta’s smartwatch with a camera made the rounds. But the product may never make it to the light of day: according to a report in Bloomberg, the parent company of Facebook has halted its development.
The report does not give a reason for the about-face, but in April, the tech giant said that it lost $3 billion in Q1 in metaverse development.
Meta (and before it Facebook) has been looking for years for a route into hardware to diversify its business and to fill out a more vertically integrated approach to building tech products, not unlike Apple and Google.
While Facebook-owned Oculus has produced the company’s biggest hardware hits, the watch becomes the latest in a line of stops and starts in Facebook’s hardware efforts. Others have included an ill-fated attempt to break into smartphones, the Portal screen, and a many-years-long effort with glasses (still not launched).
One reason for the shift could have been also due to design issues. Bloomberg said that a prototype of the watch had two cameras — a five-megapixel on the front and one rather oddly placed 12-megapixel camera on the back.
The company wanted to use electromyography and convert nerve signals into digital commands, which could be helpful in games and virtual world experiences. But the second camera proved to be a roadblock to that feature, and the firm decided to stop its development.
Meta had been aiming at releasing the watch next year with a $349 price tag.
According to photos and videos of the prototype, apart from the camera, the smartwatch had features that are now fairly standard for smartwatches and wrist wearables, such as activity tracking, notifications and cellular connectivity through eSIM. The device, codenamed Milan, was touted to have an 18-hour battery life.
This is not the end of the line for some of the tech it has built, it seems. Bloomberg’s report suggested that Meta is still working on other wrist-based wearables. The company showed off an AR-controller prototype last year — before it renamed itself Meta — that could be worn on your wrist.
Meta declined to comment on the story.
Meta has reportedly shelved its watch with in-built cameras
Власти призывают Google и Apple удалить приложения отслеживания постов ДПС
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Генеральные прокуроры штатов Делавэр и Мэриленд обратились к Apple и Google с просьбой удалить приложения для смартфонов, которые предупреждают водителей о приближении к контрольным постам дорожной полиции, проверяющие наличие алкоголя в крови.
Генеральный прокурор штата Делавэр Боу Байден (Beau Biden) и генеральный прокурор штата Мэриленд Доуг Гэнслер (Doug Gansler) отправили письма компаниям Apple и Google с просьбой удалить приложения отслеживания постов дорожной полиции из магазинов App Store и Android Market, соответственно. По мнению властей, приложения, указывающие местоположение контрольных постов дорожно-патрульной службы и позволяющие водителям обмениваться информацией о координатах постов с другими пользователями, препятствуют ликвидации пьянства за рулем.
«Мы призываем Apple и Google к правильным действиям и предлагаем помочь нам не допустить вождения в нетрезвом вине и не предоставлять пьяному водителю карту расположения постов, цель которых – защитить наши семьи», — сообщает Байден. Гэнслер отмечает, что приложения главным образом являются руководством по уклонению от постов, вычисляющих водителей, управляющих транспортным средством под воздействием алкоголя или наркотических средств: «Это открытый способ обхода закона, специально введенного для спасения жизней граждан».
Apple пока не ответил на просьбу властей. В заявлении Associated Press Google сообщил, что из Android Market удалению подлежат приложения, содержащие контент открытого сексуального характера и оскорбления человеческого достоинства, добавляя, что поскольку генеральные прокуроры не указали конкретных приложений, приложения, описанные в письме, не нарушают правил компании. Associated Press также сообщает, что Research in Motion (RIM) уже удалили подобные приложения из своего магазина BlackBerry App World по просьбе сенаторов США.