This is us. Up til recently they just gave out too much stuff. At this point I have given chargers away to homeless people because I have so many. My husband and I buy phones every two years generally (because android’s update BS until now). It’s ridiculous. And we never used the headphones when they came in the box.
Spoiler alert. They cheated. They changed their own rules in order to prevent the users from using the service the way they had up til then been told was perfectly okay. And the didn’t even really win. User engagement with ads might be up, but the people who contributed to the subreddits are falling still.
". Back in May of this year, Google announced that it would launch the “Find My Device” network for Android, which would allow for AirTag-like tracking on Android devices. But, over the summer, Google announced that it would delay the “Find My Device” network until Apple implemented tracking protection in iOS, and now, amid the busiest travel season of the year, Google is still leaving Android users at the mercy of Apple.
The “Find My Device” network, whenever it debuts, will use millions of Android phones, regardless of manufacturer, to help pinpoint the location of a tracker, lost headphones, and more. While Apple’s network is very strong in the US market, Google’s Android-based network would immediately outrank Apple’s on a global scale as Android devices are far more widely used internationally. That’s why the launch was so exciting, and Google even had hardware on board immediately.
In May, a few key partners signed up for Google’s “Find My Device” network, including Tile, Pebblebee, and Chipolo. All three brands were set to offer AirTag-like trackers that tapped into Google’s network, and there have been persistent rumors of Google releasing a first-party tracker too.
But back in July, Google announced that it would delay the launch of the “Find My Device” network and gave a specific reason for that. Google would hold off until Apple had implemented tracking protection into iOS for trackers using the Android-based network.
We explained at the time:
<span style="color:#323232;">Google is not launching the Find My Device network “until Apple has implemented protections for iOS.” By making sure iPhone owners can find FMD-compatible trackers, this should hopefully reduce and help prevent the Google network from being used to track Apple devices without awareness from their owners.
</span>
Objectively, this is the right decision. Apple was hit with major criticism following the launch of the AirTag that the tags could be used for, and ultimately are often used for, tracking individuals without their knowledge. That was especially bad for Android users, as Apple’s device, at launch, gave an Android user absolutely no way to know if a tracker was on their person. That eventually changed, and in July Google and Apple launched “unknown tracker alerts” on Android, which would be able to detect an AirTag, no separate app needed.
That system is based on a new industry specification and, eventually, should also be able to detect trackers from other networks, including Samsung’s SmartThings Find network for the Galaxy SmartTag series, as well as third-party options from Chipolo, Tile, and others.
Google did mention that the new spec would be finalized “by the end of 2023,” which is coming up quickly. But even then, in the months since that announcement, it’s all been silent, and that silence is only getting more frustrating.
Apple hasn’t implemented tracker detection in iOS outside of protection for its own AirTag, and as far as has been said publically, there’s no word on when that will change since the spec isn’t finalized. Given that Apple’s updates are usually structured around big updates, that could mean we still have months more to wait if Apple doesn’t implement this change in a minor iOS update.
As a result, Android users are still just waiting. Pre-orders of the Chipolo and Pebblebee trackers that were specific to Google’s network are still on delay, and users are stuck settling for the third-party networks that aren’t as widely supported, especially now as Apple’s Find My network has been adopted by many third-party brands.
Samsung’s SmartThings Find network and the revamped Galaxy SmartTag 2 are currently among the best options for Android users, but the whole system is still restricted solely to Samsung devices. As Samsung is the top-selling smartphone brand in the world, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it makes the tracking far less capable than a more open network that encompasses all Android devices.
Really, it’s just a rough situation, and the timing couldn’t be worse.
As COVID-19 lessens its impact across the globe, travel is returning stronger than ever. In November, the TSA said that it expected the 2023 holiday season to top the records, with nearly 3 million passengers traveling around the Thanksgiving holiday, which surely led to plenty of lost luggage and items. As the BBC reports, 5.7 million pieces of luggage were lost or “mishandled” in the first half of 2023 alone. That’s a number that’s going down, thanks to better systems from airlines, but personal trackers go a long way in helping to better pinpoint the geolocation of a lost item.
Our colleagues over at 9to5Mac have detailed in-depth the benefits of Apple’s AirTag, which offers excellent tracking features and pinpoint accuracy, thanks to the wide use of iPhones. Earlier this year, Chance Miller called the AirTag a “must-have travel accessory,” citing the countless cases of people being reunited with lost or stolen items, thanks to an AirTag being in place.
Again, Google is technically doing the right thing by holding this network back until protections are in place.
Apple created a terrible privacy situation by launching the AirTag without such protections in place for iOS and Android users alike, but it doesn’t change the sting that comes from Android having this tech being actively developed and seemingly ready to go for months now but leaving its launch, at least partially, at the mercy of a competitor that has shown time and time again that it couldn’t care less about Android users. “Buy your mom an iPhone.” "
To see them or set them? Well. Turns out they do mean to see them.
“Currently in the Google Contacts app for Android (used on Pixels and some other Android devices), users can set a custom ringtone for incoming calls and messages for contacts through the contact listing itself. It’s not a difficult process, but over time it can be a little overwhelming as there’s no easy way to know which contacts have custom ringtones and which ones do not.
That’s what Google is about to change.
As spotted by @AssembleDebug on Twitter/X, Google Contacts is preparing a new “Ringtones” section of the app that lists any contacts with a custom ringtone and makes it very easy to set a new ringtone. Users are able to simply tap “Add contact ringtone” which, apparently, opens a list of your contacts and allows you to select one to set a custom ringtone for.
It’s much more straightforward and obvious compared to the current solution.”
You aren’t crazy. I remember this being posited as a wifi alternative too. They claimed you could have a Bluetooth signal that wouldn’t reach beyond the walls of your home, preventing outside people (neighbors etc) from piggybacking on your network even if they had a password or the network was open because of the short range. And that tech does sort of exist today. A lot of mesh wifi routers use Bluetooth to connect to each other and provide that wifi to you in whatever part of your home you happen to be in. IOT devices do this as well. I believe this was called a piconet. But it never caught on, and I think it was more a theoretical idea than an actual real push.
At visiting my parent’s this holiday weekend I tired to gently tell my parents that their coffee brew is very bitter. The response I get back is something like, " I like it strong."...
Have you tried adding a few granules of sea salt to your cup? To counteract the bitterness a little. One or two usually does the trick for me when I have to drink the coffee at work.
Shave gel. Some soaps. Some said Old Baby Bay seasoning and I am 100% behind them on that. Toilet paper. Menstrual pads. Ritz crackers (the consistency, the flavour, the texture/mouth feel). Certain electronics. Definitely tools (I’ve broken so many pairs of diagonal side cutters and the ones that have held up the best and had the best warranty are knipex). And yeah. I buy Advil (the candy coating makes it easier for me to swallow dry and I’m pretty prone to need it for lots of pains because I’m basically a walking talking broken vessel).
Have you ever gotten on a bus? My car is in the shop and I’ve been riding the bus to and from work for about a month now. The bus smells of pee, a fair few of the denizens who ride with me smell of pee, and last week a guy got pepper sprayed or maced by the police for being high (near as I could tell) at the bus stop. I’ve ridden transit all my life (quite literally grew up riding public transit to school and so on), and I gotta tell ya, I’ll ride share before I’ll actively ride a bus. Especially considering the ride share would get me to work in half an hour and the bus takes about an hour and 45 minutes.
Better public transit than Seattle, NYC, Philly, Chicago, and San Francisco? Seriously. Seriously. I’ve lived all of these places and I gotta tell you, it’s bad everywhere in the US and the problem isn’t the transit. It’s people.
So your suggestion is to attack transit in America in a way that would not work for American because of America’s unique problems with scale. Good to know. Do you know what would happen in most major cities in the US if all the car drivers suddenly had to take public transit? It would overwhelm any system you put in place. And the pollution would be astronomical.
I’m all for walkable cities and suburbs, and I’m even good with reducing the number of people who need to drive and therefore cars on the road. But this isn’t a zero sum game. So unless you can show me a plan that is viable to take the place of the system I don’t really want to hear naysaying about electric robotaxis or any of that.
Just out of curiosity where are you from. Because when I said scale I meant people vs available usable land vs cost to update the infrastructure. America has a similar population to the entire EU. But the EU is 1,707,642 sq mi, and the US 3,794,100 sq mi. We have almost three times the size to cover with transit. Japan has 145,869 sq mi and 125.7 million people.
If you had read the article posted you would perhaps have a better understanding of why it is a scale problem and a funding problem. Those aren’t the only problems but they are some of the big ones.
It cost Japan something like $1BN USD of today’s money to implement high speed rail.
Just to cover San Francisco to Los Angeles in California was estimated to cost $9BN in 2008. It’s now estimated to cost between $88BN and $128BN. That’s just to cover 350 miles.
The checkup and cleaning of busses, trains and so on is a thing. It’s called preventative or scheduled maintenance and it is being done. But to expect that every route would get that kind of maintenance after every single completed run? While being actively used by 207 million people daily? That’s a fever dream. We don’t have the kind of man power that would take with the expertise it would take. It sounds better yes. But I want to see the plan you (or anyone) has to make it work. Where would these people board these buses and trains? Who is going to clean them? Who is going to service them? The automotive industry as a whole has a shortage of technicians. The aviation industry has a shortage of technicians. The average age of an aviation tech is 55. These people are retiring and nobody is replacing them.
I’m not blaming them for stinking. I fully understand that homeless people ride public transit because it’s dry and warm and relatively safe. I understand that most homeless people work and aren’t homeless on purpose. I also don’t blame them for their lot in life. But people will absolutely pay money to use rideshare when and if it is available to forgo having to deal with having their senses assaulted. They absolutely will forgo spending their valuable time on public transit in order to get to and from work faster because the average work hour here isn’t 8 hours for a full time employee. It’s 10. And adding an additional hour or more to that per day for transportation? It adds up.
According to this article Seattle (where I live) has a good score for its public transit and the median income of drivers to transit commuters and still only accounts for something like 9% of transit users. And that’s with a city that is “super walkable”.
That really sucks. Kind of a shame that google can’t give them backup data from some point at least to help facilitate a factory reset with minimal loss.
Well I for one love Both Hank and John Green, Smarter Everyday, Lock Picking Lawyer, Nilered, Jdraper, Kyle Hill, Electroboom, Project Farm, Dr Gloucomflecken, Casual Geographic, Villain Support, Tested, Tom Scott, Frog Leap Studios, Natural Habitat Shorts, Oxventure, Kerzgeszagt, and Glen and Friends Cooking to name a few.
My wife hasn’t talked to me since Monday. She’s mad at me and last night she said we’re not friends anymore. I’m out of ideas. I’m going to offer her cash to be friends again. Wish me luck guys.
Did they restrict it or is this more app stores restricting it for their app store users? Or have those app stores put so much. Pressure on telegram that the CEO finally caved and did this in the select countries those app stores operate in to comply with legal requirements or app store TOS requirements?
Thursday on X (Twitter), all users saw the same pinned topic under the “What’s happening?” sidebar. As part of a “timeline takeover” — which gives advertisers “priority access to logged-in users’ first impression of the day” — conservative media nonprofit PragerU is promoting the hashtag “#DETRANS” to...
That’s kind of moving the goal posts. The shareholders definitely put pressure on the CEO and leadership of a company. And I think they should be held responsible in some cases for the fallout of badly enacted anti-consumer policies. On the other hand though, the CEO is the leadership who is held responsible for enacting policy.
I mean, I dont actually mind ads… within reason. But over the past few years I have watched less and less youtube content due to the ratio of ads to the actual bloody content I wanted to view....
Their adblock blocker doesn’t work in incognito mode. The overlay and whatnot just will not populate if you use an incognito browser window. You have to sign in every time you open a new tab, but this has been working fine for me on Firefox.
Apple has turned toward the google business model. They’re a data collection company who hoards that data to target their users with ads. Can we stop saying apple is a computer company. It and Microsoft have been taking whole chapters out of Google’s book for more than a decade now.
We have Ziply Fiber at my house (used to have Comcast) and I am kind of blown away by the service. I’ve had problems with outages twice and each time they notified us via text or email. It’s pretty awesome and we torrent all the time.
On Comcast even with the pro blast super plan we were constantly hitting the cap and getting throttled. I don’t even know what the cap is on our plan now. Never seen any evidence of throttling.
Yes. It’s a plant. Made of plant things. In the same way that plants that are fertilized by dead bodies would also be vegan. You aren’t eating meat. The plant is receiving sustenance from breaking down that organic material but you aren’t.
Bought it when it first came out to continue playing with my friends who played from Destiny 1. It got old really quick. I didn’t really enjoy it as much as the first game and I was really confused by the lack of character building in game. It felt really directionless after finishing the main quest. And I learned pretty quick that I wasn’t attached to any of the in game characters the same way. So I quit playing after about a year. Never picked it back up.
Google Messages giving RCS chats a background wallpaper (9to5google.com)
This is why your phone doesn't have a matte display - GSMArena.com news (www.gsmarena.com)
How Reddit Crushed the Internet's Largest Protest (youtube.com)
Amid busy holiday travels, Apple still holds back Android’s ‘Find My Device’ network (9to5google.com)
Short(er) people of Lemmy--what are some lifehacks you figured out that've helped you out?
Here’s some of mine:...
What arguments most convince you that the earth is flat?
Google Contacts will make it easier to see custom ringtones (9to5google.com)
New BLUFFS attack lets attackers hijack Bluetooth connections (www.bleepingcomputer.com)
Keep Notes preps Google AI-powered 'Help me create a list' (9to5google.com)
Parent's Bitter Coffee
At visiting my parent’s this holiday weekend I tired to gently tell my parents that their coffee brew is very bitter. The response I get back is something like, " I like it strong."...
What is a product that you won’t accept a generic alternative for?
For example, if you insist on buying Advil instead of store brand ibuprofen. I mean, you’d be wasting your money in that example, but you do you
The Cobra Effect: Why Anti-Adblock Policies Could Hurt Revenue Instead (www.youtube.com)
Best Nova Launcher substitute?
I’m looking for something as close to Nova Launcher as possible.
Could Cruise be the Theranos of AI? And is there a dark secret at the core of the entire driverless car industry? (garymarcus.substack.com)
Elon Musk’s X Has Started Selling Off Old Twitter Handles For $50,000 (www.forbes.com)
This is what desperation looks like.
Google Chrome updates will stop coming to some Galaxy phones - SamMobile (www.sammobile.com)
YouTube Premium Price Raised in Seven Countries Following Crackdown on Ad Blockers | Technology News (www.gadgets360.com)
The countries where YouTube Premium is getting more expensive include Argentina, Australia, Austria, Chile, Germany, Poland, and Turkey.
Cyberattack Disrupts Ace Hardware’s Operations (www.securityweek.com)
Cyberattack cripples Ace Hardware’s internal systems, resulting in shipment delays, suspended online orders.
Pixel owners with Android 14 storage issue can sign up for test OTA update (9to5google.com)
YouTube's plan backfires, people are installing better ad blockers (www.androidauthority.com)
cross-posted from: lemdro.id/post/2883134 (!android)
My wife's been mad at me for a week. So im going to offer her a tenner to be friends again. Wish me luck. (i.imgur.com)
My wife hasn’t talked to me since Monday. She’s mad at me and last night she said we’re not friends anymore. I’m out of ideas. I’m going to offer her cash to be friends again. Wish me luck guys.
Telegram restricts access to Hamas channels on Google, Apple stores (www.aljazeera.com)
Telegram, the encrypted messaging app, has quietly restricted access to several channels affiliated with the Palestinian armed group Hamas....
X runs ‘timeline takeover’ ad promoting anti-trans film (techcrunch.com)
Thursday on X (Twitter), all users saw the same pinned topic under the “What’s happening?” sidebar. As part of a “timeline takeover” — which gives advertisers “priority access to logged-in users’ first impression of the day” — conservative media nonprofit PragerU is promoting the hashtag “#DETRANS” to...
Amazon made $1 billion through secret price raising algorithm -US FTC (www.reuters.com)
'Crypto King' Sam Bankman-Fried guilty of FTX fraud (www.bbc.co.uk)
Do you feel, as I do, that this adblocker ban by Youtube will harm all of Alphabet's companies? [discussion]
I mean, I dont actually mind ads… within reason. But over the past few years I have watched less and less youtube content due to the ratio of ads to the actual bloody content I wanted to view....
Apple calls Android a 'massive tracking device' (9to5google.com)
The people who ruined the internet (www.theverge.com)
Ziply Fiber launches 50-Gig residential service for $900 per month (www.lightreading.com)
YouTube's ‘War’ on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet (www.404media.co)
Another great article from 404 Media highlighting the power that the tech giants have amassed over how how we use the internet....
YouTube is now fully blocking ad blockers around the world (9to5google.com)
cross-posted from: lemdro.id/post/2787773 (!google)
CCleaner says hackers stole users' personal data during MOVEit mass-hack | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com)
Pixel 7 Pro has worse battery life than S23 base (m.gsmarena.com)
Settle a debate: would eating a Venus fly trap be considered vegan?
Is Destiny 2 Still Worth Playing in 2023? - IGN (www.ign.com)
Threads third-party app support could become a reality (www.theverge.com)
Mosseri says Threads is working on an API.
ChatGPT's Scary Good at Getting People to Click Phishing Emails, IBM Finds (futurism.com)
IBM researchers said a ChatGPT-generated phishing email was almost as effective in fooling people compared to a man-made version.