This morning at AT&T Spark, the mobile data company named a bunch of cities to which it planned to bring 5G data speeds. This comes on top of news that AT&T deployed its first mobile 5G cell site and expanded its 5G reach from its first 7 cities to an additional 5, all inside the year 2018. Come 2019, AT&T's reach with 5G will spread to a bunch more cities across the United States.
Google Go now reads aloud lengthy batches of text in natural language on your smartphone. This essentially allows you to listen to massive blog posts as audio while you're driving your car to work. The ability to "Listen to Webpages" is easily one of the most helpful things AI's done for the common user since Skynet. And it's far less violent in the long run, I hope.
Google's data-saving app Datally has received an update that adds two new ways to reduce data usage: Emergency and Bedtime. Both names hint at each feature's purpose, one helping reduce the amount of data that may be passively used at night while the device owner sleeps, the other reserving a certain amount of data specifically for emergencies.
The Santa Clara Fire Department has revealed that Verizon throttled its unlimited data during a wildfire, forcing it to upgrade to a different plan at more than double the original rate. The issue came to light in an addendum to a brief submitted to the attorneys general of 22 states, with the fire department stating that it had informed Verizon that the throttling was impeding its ability to respond.
Moving your data between internet services is something that isn't always easy or fast. This is especially true when you're doing something like moving photos between social networks or music libraries and playlists between music streaming services. Today, some of the biggest companies in the world announced that they're going to do something about it, announcing the Data Transfer Project.
With Google working its way into many different facets of every day life, it can be pretty difficult to keep tabs on all of the data it has on you. Perhaps brought on by controversy that has hit Google's competitors in recent months, such as Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal, or the EU's new laws on data privacy and protection, the company is looking to make it easier to access the wealth of information in your Google Account. Among other things, this means a redesigned Account page aimed at ease of navigation.
In keeping with the strict General Data Protection Regulation laid down by the European Union, Valve has rolled out a new data portal to Steam users that can only be described as "exhaustive." This portal puts pretty much every piece of information about your Steam account in one place, serving up boatloads of data you probably never even cared to look at in the first place. While some of this data was accessible in one way or another before GDPR became law, this new portal organizes it and makes it easier to find specific information.
Several years ago, Microsoft got the ball rolling on a very interesting project: undersea data centers. It's been a while since we last heard from this initiative, called Project Natick, but now Microsoft has announced a major milestone for it. The company has sunk a new data center off the coast of Scotland's Orkney Islands, and assuming everything goes smoothly, it'll be on the ocean floor for at least the next five years.
Back in 2015, Apple announced plans to build a new data center in Athenry, Ireland. The small town was an attractive destination for Apple because of West Ireland's green energy resources, and the company planned to invest as much as $1 billion in its construction. It's been a while since we last heard about this data center, but more news about the project is surfacing today and it isn't good.
Google's going to present themselves as a responsible force for good at Google IO 2018. They'll be rolling with a message that centers on not just the responsible handling of data, but the measured, reasonable use of smart devices. They're going to do this in several ways - one of which is with the concept "Federated Learning."
Today Mark Zuckerberg publicly denied knowledge of the term "Shadow Profile" at a congressional hearing. Zuckerberg did not deny knowledge of the definition of Facebook's shadow profiles, but he did attempt to cut ties between the definition and the commonly-known name for the subject. Today we've got a quick primer on the Facebook-made Shadow Profile.
Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal seems unending, but this week, users are finally getting some answers about whether or not their data was shared. Yesterday, Facebook began surfacing links at the top of News Feeds to help users understand what kind of data they're sharing with third-party apps. Today, the company took things one step further and launched a new tool that allows users to see if their information was shared with Cambridge Analytica.