Unfortunately, carriers have been slow to implement the technology, looking to differentiate themselves from the Google-led standard with their own take on the technology. Google decided it was done waiting when it rolled out the technology in the Android Messages app for the UK, France, and Mexico earlier this year. Now it’s doing the same in the US — its largest market. As a recap, RCS adds features like read receipts, WiFi connectivity, high-res media, and better group messaging to your texts – essentially bringing the functionality of full-fledged messaging apps to the most basic way of communicating via written messages on our phone....

Starting today, Google is rolling out a message to let you know when its not confident in its search results. According to the company. You’ll still get results and try to find the answers you want, but Google is basically warning you that it’s having trouble finding reliable results. On the other hand, it will also provide advice on how you might want to rephrase your query to yield better results....

That runner, friends, is Google. To sprinkle some context on the tale of self-pugilation: Google has discontinued its flagship tablet, the Pixel Slate. 9to5 Google noticed the tablet — which was launched in 2018 — was no longer listed on the company’s website. The Pixel Slate is dead. Google discontinuing a product or service isn’t much of a surprise, I mean, there are websites solely dedicated to keeping track of all the things the company has prematurely shuttered....

The glasses extract visual information from images of people, belongings, and public transport, and then speaks about them out loud. It can read text from books, name friends by analyzing their faces, and describe surroundings such as train signs and street hazards. The wearer could use the glasses to read a recipe from a cookery book, get to the grocery store, find ingredients on the shelves, and then return home to prepare the dish....

The Read Along app helps children with reading and speaking of a language through visual and audio cues. The app assists in learning a language with storybooks containing dozens of chapters on different themes. It has a virtual assistant named Diya, which uses speech recognition to identify if a student is struggling with pronouncing a word or a phrase, and help them accordingly. [Read: Body-worn sensors to predict COVID-19 infections in US military hospitals] The app was originally launched in India last year — where it is named Bolo — with an aim to help kids speak English and Hindi....

Just last month, if you were to type ‘lesbian’ into Google, you’d be faced with a wall of pornographic imagery. However, after months of campaigning, Google has finally changed its algorithm for the better. According to PinkNews, the search engine will now show informative results when you search for ‘lesbian’ including recent news stories and Wikipedia entries — even if Safe Search is not activated. The campaign to change the unnecessary sexualization of lesbians was led by the Twitter account @SEO_lesbienne and the French news site Numerama’s reporter, Marie Turcan....

A woman’s search history, location data, and app information can easily be used by authorities to find out if she’s pregnant, considering, or going through with an abortion. While big tech companies have been alarmingly silent over potential actions to mitigate these concerns, Google is taking a step to protect its users. On Friday, the company announced it’ll automatically erase visits to abortion clinics, domestic violence shelters, weight loss clinics, and other potentially sensitive locations from users’ location history in the coming weeks....

That means their culture is usually all about the product, with founders and core teams rarely having any interest in, or giving thought to, their marketing and sales strategy. While this focus can be a strength in product development, it’s an issue when it comes to one hugely important area: pricing. Many deep tech startups fail to fully develop or consistently leverage an effective pricing strategy, especially first-time founders in their business’s early stages....

Dreams are patterns of sensory information that occur when the brain is in a resting state – as in asleep. It is generally assumed that dreams only occur during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep – this is when the brain appears to be in an active state but the individual is asleep and in a state of paralysis. But studies have shown that they can also happen outside of REM....

By and large, fitness wearables are focused on those with an interest in exercise. If you’ll forgive the pun, the Honor Band 5 Sport takes that a step further. It emphasizes the quality of exercise, while including metrics that help users avoid sports injuries. While the Honor Band 5 Sport comes with a wristband (which, incidentally, is made entirely of recycled drinks bottles), users can also clip it to their footwear....

The above set of words sum up most of 2020. With the physical world of retail becoming less accessible, the convenience of online shopping has made the former even less attractive and has driven consumers to expect on-demand delivery for almost everything (if not all) they need. [Read: Meet the 4 scale-ups using data to save the planet] Given that amount of surge in last-mile delivery demand, it quickly cascades down to an increased number of trips (mostly motorized vehicles), especially in cities....

We read them in books, hear them on podcasts, see them online – they’re practical things we know make sense, yet we often go back to our old ways because that’s the grind we know. For me, one bad decision changed my life. And that decision has and will affect how I make choices and live my life – both personally and professionally. My story In June of 2019, my family and I arrived at my friend’s vacation home in Merritt Island, Florida — and here’s what happened....

The invention of the first Chinese computer would be a major victory, a ‘gift’ from capitalism to the Chinese people. It would score a ‘Free World’ technological and cultural victory, while also raising the possibility of a new infrastructure for the global dissemination and translation of Chinese-language material. Whoever possessed such a device could flood the world with Chinese texts at a rate never before seen – potentially a major propaganda advantage....

When it comes to low emission vehicles, broadly speaking, there are three categories: battery-electric, alternative fuel, and hybrid-electric. Today, we’re going to take a look at hybrid-electric vehicles, what they are, and the different types of them, because they’re not quite as simple as they sound. In the hybrid vehicle world, there are three types: mild hybrid (MHEV), plug-in hybrid (PHEV), and regular hybrid-electric (HEV). [Read: Why AI is the future of home security] Despite key differences between the different types of hybrid, they all have one thing in common, that they use an electric motor alongside a combustion engine to assist how the vehicle is powered....

In a blog post, Sean Coonce, engineering manager at security-oriented cryptocurrency startup BitGo, has detailed how he lost $100,000 in an unfortunate SIM-swapping hack, which saw his entire Coinbase balance drained. It all began on a Tuesday night, when Coonce noticed that his phone didn’t have any cellular service. Moments later, he received a notification that someone is trying to log into his Google Account. He tried entering his password to no avail; ultimately, he decided to deal with the situation in the morning – as it was already pretty late....

Typically, students want a good education to get a good job — yet schools sorely underdeliver. As Goldie Blumenstyk wrote in her book American Higher Education in Crisis? What Everyone Needs to Know: “More than ever, a college education is seen less as a process and more as a product, a means to an end. And customers are not entirely convinced that what they are buying is worth the price....

I bought my Apple iPad mini 2 way back in 2014 for around ₹22,000($289), to listen to songs, watch videos, try and uncheck long articles off my reading list, and play a game occasionally. I was working in the software industry back then, and entertainment was my primary concern. I especially liked the size as I could lay in bed, and hold the device with one hand. I didn’t care about having a super gigantic screen....

A few players such as Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo mail have dominated the email service business for a long time. Then there are some privacy-focused email providers such as Proton Mail and Tutanota with a few million users. All email services largely behave in a similar manner in terms of how you receive an email and who can email you. This whole process has introduced the stress of reading and replying to emails in daily workflow....

Shark bites are incredibly rare Incidents of sharks biting humans are infrequent. According to the International Shark Attack File, 137 alleged shark bites occurred last year. Most attacks are related to surfing (51%). Just 11 resulted in death – that’s less than a third of US beach drownings so far this year. But our approach to shark bites is far more reactive than in drowning prevention. Shark nets and culls are outdated Traditionally, responses to shark bites involve a heavy-handed approach of culling, such as using shark nets....

Rijkswaterstaat, the department tasked with managing and maintaining this gargantuan system, was founded in the late 1700s, and relies on thousands of employees to keep the Dutch waterways running smoothly. While inspections and maintenance used to take up a large percentage of the department’s person-hours, more and more monitoring is now done remotely, sometimes using innovative new technology — and sometimes with downright ingenious workarounds. What’s challenging here is that bridges and locks are sometimes tendered by the responsible province or municipality, explains Therry van der Burgt, solution architect at Rijkswaterstaat....