19 September 2019

iOS 13 pushes the envelope across the board


Apple released iOS 13, the new major version of iOS. This isn’t a groundbreaking release that is going to change the way you use your phone. But Apple has done some tremendous work across the board to improve some low-level features as well as most Apple apps.

In many ways, iOS 13 feels like a quality-of-life update. In developer lingo, quality-of-life updates are all about refining things that already work. It helps you save a second here, do something more easily there.

I’m going to talk about many of those small refinements, but I want to focus on two things that are going to matter more than the rest — Dark Mode and Apple’s focus on privacy.

Dark Mode is here

At some point, smartphone manufacturers started making bigger phones. And if you don’t want to become blind at night, Dark Mode is a must. It took a while, but it is finally here and it looks great.

Dark Mode on iOS 13 is a system-wide trigger. You can activate it from the Settings app or by opening up the Control Center panel and long-pressing on the brightness indicator. And it completely transforms the look and feel of your iPhone.

While some third-party apps have been updated, many developers still have to release updates to make their apps work with this new setting. I hope in six months, you’ll be able to turn on Dark Mode and jump from one app to another without any white interface.

I would recommend turning on the automated mode in the settings. iOS uses your current location to time the change with sunset and sunrise — your iPhone goes dark at night and it lights up in the morning.

Dark Mode doesn’t just affect apps. Widgets, notifications and other buttons in the user interface become dark. Apple uses pure black, which looks great on OLED displays. And you can optionally dim your custom wallpapers at night.

The privacy hammer

Many geeks have tried iOS 13 over the summer. But it’s going to be a completely different story when tens of millions of people download it this fall. iOS 13 brings some much-needed changes on the privacy front, and it’s going to be nasty for some companies.

Apple is adding more ways to control your personal information. If an app needs your location for something, you can now grant access to your location just once. The app will have to ask for your permission the next time.

Similarly, iOS 13 can tell you when an app has been silently tracking your location in the background with a map of those data points.

Apple is shaming app developers directly by saying “This app has used 40 locations in the background in the past 2 days” and showing you a map. You can turn off location tracking directly in the popup. Facebook is already freaking out and wrote a blog post last week to tell you that it cares about your privacy.

iOS 13 also blocks Bluetooth scanning by default in all apps. Many apps scan for nearby Bluetooth accessories and compare that with a database of Bluetooth devices around the world. In other words, it’s a way to get your location even if you’re not sharing your location with this app.

You now get a standard permission popup for apps that actually need to scan for Bluetooth devices. Some apps actually need Bluetooth to communicated with connected devices, initiate peer-to-peer payments with nearby users, etc.

But the vast majority of them have been abusing Bluetooth scanning. To be clear, you can disable Bluetooth scanning and still use Bluetooth headphones. Audio will still be routed to your headphones just fine.

I hope many app developers will review the third-party SDKs that they use. Many ad-supported apps embed code from adtech companies. But they don’t always that those SDKs are hostile to your privacy.

Finally, Apple is adding “Sign In with Apple”. It is an alternative to “Sign In with Google” or “Sign In with Facebook”. Customers can choose whether or not to share their email address and developers get little personal data. It’s going to be interesting to see if it takes off.

Low-level improvements

There are a few changes at the operating system level. First, in addition to optimizations, animations have been slightly sped up. Swiping, opening and closing apps feels faster.

Second, the keyboard now supports swipe-to-type. If you’ve used Android phones or third-party keyboards in the past, you already know how it works. You can move your finger across the display from one letter to another without lifting it. It feels like magic.

Third, the share sheet has been updated. It is now separated in three areas: a top row with suggested contacts to send photos, links and more depending on your most important contacts.

Under that row of contacts, you get the usual row of app icons to open something in another app. If you scroll down, you access a long list of actions that vary from one app to another.

When it comes to automation, the Shortcuts is installed by default with iOS 13. Many people are going to discover Shortcuts for the first time by opening the app. Voice-activated Siri Shortcuts are now also available in the Shortcuts app.

More interestingly, you can now create automated triggers to launch a shortcut. For instance, you can create scenarios related to CarPlay, a location or even a cheap NFC tag. Here are some examples:

  • Launch a music playlist when I connect my phone to CarPlay or to my car using Bluetooth.
  • Dim my screen and turn on low power mode when I activate airplane mode.
  • Turn off my Philips Hue lights when I put my phone on an NFC sticker on my nightstand.

New app features

I’m going to go through some of the major changes in Apple’s apps.

Apple Arcade is here. You have to download iOS 13 to access it. I’ll let you read our first impressions in our separate article.

iOS 13 5

Photos has received some of the biggest improvements. The main tab has been completely redesigned. You now get four sub-tabs that lets you see a curated photo library.

In addition to ‘All Photos’, you can tap on ‘Years’ to jump straight to a specific year, ‘Months’ to see some smart albums based on dates and locations. You can then open those events. It’ll jump to the ‘Days’ tab and show you the best photos.

I’m not sure I like the wording of those sub-tabs, but it’s definitely a lot more efficient if you’re looking for an old photo from a few years.

Photo editing is also much better on iOS 13. It feels like you can do pretty much all the basic editing you’d do with a third-party app.

Maps is an interesting app. While Apple has been working on improved mapping data, it’s going to be hard to notice if you don’t live in California. But Look Around, a feature that works pretty much like Google Street View, is quite impressive. This isn’t just 360 photo shots — those are 3D representations of streets with foregrounds and backgrounds. I’d recommend finding a street in San Francisco and opening Look Around.

Messages now works a bit more like WhatsApp. By that, I mean that you can pick a profile name and picture and share those with your friends and family. Apple also tells you to use Memoji, but you can pick any photo. Search in Messages is also much better.

Health has been slightly redesigned. But the big addition is that you can track your menstrual cycles in the Health app. You don’t need to install any third-party app.

Reminders has gained some new features. There’s a quick toolbar to add times, dates, locations and more. You can indent items, create smart lists and more. To-do apps are highly personal, but I’m sure some people will like it.

Find My is the new name for Find My Phone and Find My Friends. Maybe you’ll be able to find your objects soon when Apple launches Tile-like trackers?

Mail, Notes and Safari received small improvements, such as rich-text editing in Mail, a gallery view in Notes, a new site settings popup in Safari to request the desktop site, disable a content blocker or enable reader view.

Files works with Samba file servers and you can zip/unzip files directly in the app — no shortcut needed. You can also install custom fonts.

As you can see, there are a lot of big and tiny improvements across the board with iOS 13. Sure, this version feels buggy at times. It’s an ambitious update with Apple telling everyone that they’re not ready to slow down the pace of iOS releases. And Apple is making some welcome progress on the privacy front.


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Wing will test drone delivery in the US with Walgreens and FedEx


Wing, the drone delivery company that started its life within the Google X lab before spinning out into its own thing under the Alphabet umbrella, is prepping for takeoff.

The company announced this morning that it’s launching a test program in Virginia with Walgreens, FedEx, and local retailer Sugar Magnolia.

As part of the program, Wing will be able to deliver kids snacks (goldfish, water, gummy bears, and yogurt were mentioned as examples) and over-the-counter meds (like Tylenol or cough drops) from Walgreens, select packages from FedEx Express, and sweets and stationary from Sugar Magnolia.

Alas, unless you’re one of the roughly 22,000 people in Christiansburg, Virginia and happen to be in a neighborhood they’ve deemed eligible, you’re not going to be able to check it out just yet. Wing says the pilot program is limited to the small Montgomery County town for now as they work with locals to figure out what works and what doesn’t. The company declined to give any sort of timeline for when the program might expand to other parts of the US.

So how does it work?

When the customer places an order, one of Wing’s delivery drones heads for a pickup location. As Wing’s drones are only allowed to take-off or land in specific locations, pickups and deliveries are handled via a tether, with the drone itself hovering about 20 feet in the air. Once at the pickup location, a tether is lowered and a human operator hooks the package onto the line. The drone winches the package into the air, secures it, and heads for its destination.

Once in flight, Wing says its drone cruises at about 60-70mph, with a range of about 6 miles each way. Once the drone arrives at the delivery location, the same tether line lowers the package. When the drone detects that the package has reached the ground, the package is released and the drone heads back home. All in all, Wing estimates that they can make a delivery within about 10 minutes of a customer finalizing their order.

And if the tether gets stuck on something, or someone tries to grab it and tug it down? The drone is designed to detect the resistance and release the tether, dropping the line to the ground.

wing fedex

Wing says its drone can currently handle a payload of about 3 lbs, with the drone itself weighing roughly 10 lbs.

Wing won’t charge pilot program customers for delivery; customers will pay the store’s sticker price, and delivery during this test phase will be free.

Wing says the first deliveries should start next month.


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YouTube overhauls its problematic verification program


YouTube’s verification program is getting a massive overhaul, the company announced today, which will likely result in a number of less prominent creators losing their verification status. Previously, YouTube allowed any channel that reached 100,000 subscribers to request verification. That limit is being removed, with a change to the verification program that rolls out in late October. Going forward, YouTube will focus its efforts on verifying channels that have more of a need to prove their authenticity — like those belonging to a brand, public figure, artist or another creator who might be subject to impersonation, for example.

YouTube says the earlier verification system was established when the site was smaller, but its ecosystem has since grown and “become more complex.”

Instead of looking at a number of subscribers — a metric than can be gamed by bots — the new system will have more murky requirements. YouTube says it’s about “prominence,” which it defines in a number of ways.

For starters, YouTube will determine if the channel represents a “well-known or highly searched for creator, artist, public figure or company.” It will also consider if the channel is widely recognized outside of YouTube and has a strong online presence, or if it’s a channel that has a very similar name to many other channels.

We understand YouTube will use a combination of human curation and algorithmic signals to make these determinations. When asked, the company declined to discuss the specifics, however.

Creators V3

There were several reasons YouTube wanted to change its system, beyond raising the threshold for verification.

The company had run into a similar problem that Twitter once faced — people mistook the verification badge as an endorsement. On Twitter, that issue reached a tipping point when it was discovered that Twitter had verified the Charlottesville rally organizer. Twitter stopped verifying accounts shortly afterward. Its system today is still being fixed, but the project has been put on the back burner.

Similarly, YouTube’s research found that over 30% of users misunderstood the verification badge’s meaning, believing the checkmark indicted “endorsement of content,” not “identity.”

This is problematic for YouTube for a number of reasons, but mainly because the company wants to distance itself from the content on its platform — content that is often racist, vile, false, dangerous, conspiracy-filled and extremist. YouTube wants to be an open site, with all the troubles that entails, but doesn’t want to be held accountable for the terrible things posted there — like the 14-year-old girl who grew to online fame by posting racist, anti-Muslim, anti-LGBTQ videos, or the high-profile star who made repeated racist comments, then gets honored by YouTube with special creator rewards. 

There were other issues with the prior system, as well.

Some creators would fake their verification status, for instance. Before the changes, a verified channel would display a checkmark next to its channel name. This could be easily forged by simply adding a checkmark to the end of a channel name.

Plus, the checkmark itself only really worked when people viewed the channel’s main watch page on desktop or mobile. It didn’t translate as well to interactions in live chats, on community posts or in stories.

Music V3

By revamping the verification system, YouTube is clarifying that the verification isn’t an endorsement — it’s a neutral statement of fact. It’s also less difficult to forge, and works everywhere the creator interacts with fans.

The updated verification system drops the checkmark in favor of a gray swipe across the channel name (see above).

This applies to both channels and artists. With regards to the latter, it will replace the music note.

The system will roll out in late October, and the new criteria will apply for all channels.

Those who meet the new requirements won’t need to apply — they’ll automatically receive the new verified treatment. Others who didn’t qualify for re-verification will be notified today and will have the option to appeal the decision before the changes take place.

Information on the appeals process will be available in YouTube’s Help Center.


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iOS 13 is now available to download


Apple has just released the final version of iOS 13. This update brings many much needed quality-of-life improvements — and there are also a bunch of new features. The update is currently rolling out and is available both over-the-air in the Settings app, and by plugging your device into iTunes for a wired update.

Many people try to download these major updates at the same time. Apple usually implements a queue system to ensure speedy downloads once you’re at the front of the queue.

iOS 13 is compatible with the iPhone 6s or later, the iPhone SE or the 7th-generation iPod touch. If you have an iPad and you are looking for iPadOS 13, it’ll be available on September 30 with the release of iOS and iPadOS 13.1.

But first, backup your device. Make sure your iCloud backup is up to date by opening the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad and tapping on your account information at the top and then on your device name. Additionally, you can also plug your iOS device to your computer to do a manual backup in iTunes (or do both, really).

Don’t forget to encrypt your backup in iTunes. It is much safer if somebody hacks your computer. And encrypted backups include saved passwords and health data. This way, you don’t have to reconnect to all your online accounts.

Once this is done, you should go to the Settings app as soon as possible to get in the queue. Navigate to ‘Settings,’ then ‘General’ and then ‘Software Update.’ Then you should see ‘Update Requested…” It will then automatically start downloading once the download is available.

Here’s a quick rundown of what’s new in iOS 13. This year, in addition to dark mode, it feels like every single app has been improved with some quality-of-life updates. The Photos app features a brand new gallery view with autoplaying live photos and videos, smart curation and a more immersive design.

This version has a big emphasis on privacy as well thanks to a new signup option called “Sign in with Apple” and a bunch of privacy popups for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi consent, background location tracking. Apple Maps now features an impressive Google Street View-like feature called Look Around. It’s only available in a handful of cities, but I recommend… looking around as everything is in 3D.

Many apps have been updated, such as Reminders with a brand new version, Messages with the ability to set a profile picture shared with your contacts, Mail with better text formatting options, Health with menstrual cycle tracking, Files with desktop-like features, Safari with a new website settings menu, etc.


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Google chases businesses to maintain its payments lead in India


Google said today it is bringing its mobile payments app — Google Pay — to businesses in India as the Android-maker rushes to maintain its payments lead in one of its key overseas markets before its global rival Facebook sets off a similar play in the nation.

Even as more than 400 million users in India are online today, most businesses in the nation remain unconnected, Google executives said at their annual event in New Delhi. Google, which has previously launched a handful of tools in India to help businesses build some presence on the web, is having another crack at it.

“India has more than 60 million small and medium-sized businesses, however only a fraction of them support digital payments. Imagine the transformation that is possible if more of these merchants could access payments online,” said Ambarish Kenghe, director and product manager for Google Pay.

One of the big challenges that is preventing these businesses to support online payments is the tedious process that is currently required for them to on-board a digital payments solution. “An agent is supposed to come to your shop and then they do the verification for you,” he said. Google has figured out a better way to address this challenge.

Google Pay for Business

The company today unveiled Google Pay for Business, a standalone app that will enable businesses to accept online payments without having to deal with an agent. “Merchants will now be able to support digital payments at their own convenience through a remote video process within minutes,” he said.

The company also unveiled a software platform called Spot that will allow businesses to easily create their own branded commercial fronts that will be accessible to customers through Google Pay app. So for instance, if a restaurant has built its store front, users will now be able to see their offerings in the Google Pay app itself. The company said several businesses in India like UrbanClap, Goibibo, MakeMyTrip, RedBus and Eat.Fit are already making use of this feature.

“We hope these initiatives will help merchants adopt digital payments with more confidence, and help contribute the long-term growth of online financial services for the benefit of every Indian,” said Kenghe.

The company has also developed Spot codes, which are like QR codes, that a business could use to allow people in its store to quickly scan and pick the items from the store they wish to order and pay for it. “A customer can come back later and pick up their orders without waiting in long lines,” explained Arjita Madan, a product manager at Google.

Jobs discovery

The company is also bringing a feature that will enable users to discover entry-level and white-collar jobs through the Google Pay app. “Jobs will be available as a Spot on Google Pay to help job seekers find and prepare for entry-level positions that fit their needs,” said Caesar Sengupta (pictured above), VP of Next Billion Users Initiative and Payments at Google.

He said Google is using machine learning to better understand its users, so that it recommends the right kind of jobs to them. A user only needs to provide two sets of information to get started with the feature: What kind of job are they looking for? And, how soon they want to land the job.

google pay jobs

About two dozen companies, including Swiggy, Zomato, Dunzo in delivery and logistics and 24Seven and Healthkart in retail are early partners of Google to use Pay’s jobs discovery feature, the Mountain View giant said.

India’s digital payments market

Google launched its payments app Google Pay (called Tez then) in 2017. Pay is built on top of Indian government-backed UPI payments infrastructure and rivals Flipkart’s PhonePe app for the tentpole position. The company said today Google Pay has amassed 67 million monthly active users in India and has processed transactions worth $110 billion in the last year.

The payments market in India — which is projected to be worth $1 trillion by 2023, according to Credit Suisse — is becoming aggressively crowded and competitive. Google today competes with PhonePe, Amazon Pay and Paytm, the country’s most popular mobile wallet app, whose parent company has raised more than $2.3 billion from investors.

Google also announced that it is bringing tokenized cards for debit and credit cardholders in India, which will allow them to pay for things using a digital token instead of their actual card number. The company said it will roll out the feature to Google Pay users in the coming weeks, starting with Visa cards for HDFC, Axis, Kotak and Standard Chartered banks. The feature also will support Mastercard and Rupay at a later stage.

The addition of new features is crucial for Google Pay, which prior to today’s announcements did not have many differentiating elements. It is also racing against time as Facebook’s WhatsApp, which has over 400 million users in India, is set to expand its UPI-based payments service to all its users by the end of the year.

In the meantime, Paytm is working to expand its reach in the nation, too. The company, which posted a yearly loss of over $500 million last year, said earlier this month it intends to invest another $3 billion into its business in the next two years.


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Google is bringing Assistant to people without internet access


Google Assistant, the digital assistant from the global search giant, is available to users through their smartphones, laptops and smart speakers. Earlier this year, the company partnered with KaiOS to bring Assistant to some feature phones with internet access. Now Google is going a step further: Bringing its virtual assistant to people who have the most basic cell phone with no internet access. It’s starting this program in India.

At an event in New Delhi on Thursday, the company announced a 24×7 telephone line that anyone in India on Vodafone and Idea telecom networks (or Vodafone-Idea telecom network, as Vodafone owns Idea) could dial to have their questions answered. The company said it tested the phone line service with thousands of users across Lucknow and Kanpur before making it generally available.

Users will be able to dial 000-800-9191-000 and they won’t be charged for the call or the service. Manuel Bronstein, a VP at Google, said through this program the company is hoping to reach hundreds of millions of users in India who currently don’t have access to smartphones or internet.

google assistant 2g calls

Even as there are more than 500 million users with access to internet and about 450 million with smartphones in India, more than half of the nation’s 1.3 billion people remains unconnected.

India has emerged as one of the last great growth markets for Silicon Valley companies that are looking to find their next billion users worldwide. But to reach these users, companies are required to put in some extra work: build and customize services to address the local challenges.

On Wednesday, Amazon said its digital assistant service Alexa now understands and speaks Hindi. Only 10% of India’s 1.3 billion people speak English. There are over half a billion people in India who speak Hindi, however. Google said today that Hindi had already become the second most popular language for its digital assistant service.

Interpreter mode

Google also unveiled a new Google Assistant feature called interpreter mode that will serve as a real-time translator between two people speaking different languages. Google said the feature would support translation between English and Hindi and will roll out in the coming months.

Google Assistant, which supports nine Indian languages, now also allows users to ask their commands in a language that is not set as their preferred device language. “Many users often prefer to set the phone language to English, while choosing to speak to their device in their local language. That’s where language decoupling comes in — Indian users can now simply ask to change their Assistant language,” the company said.

“Starting today, you can talk to your Assistant in the nine Indian languages for example, for talking in Hindi –you can simply say ‘Hey Google, talk to me in Hindi’ to start using the Assistant in the language, without needing to dig around in settings.”


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Facebook expands its playable and AR ad formats


Ahead of Advertising Week, Facebook is the announcing the expansion of three interactive ad formats.

First, it says that poll ads (which you may already have seen in Instagram Stories) are moving to the main feed of the Facebook mobile app. Second, the augmented reality ads that Facebook has already been testing are moving into open beta this fall. Third, Facebook is making playable ads available to all advertisers, not just gaming companies.

The company showed off each format at a press event yesterday in New York City.

E!, for example, says it ran ads with interactive polls to promote one of its TV shows, leading to a 1.6x increase in brand awareness. Meanwhile, Vans created a playable ad where players could guide skateboarder Steve Van Doren down a mountain, resulting in a 4.4% lift in ad recall. And WeMakeUp ran an AR ad campaign allowing users to virtually try on new shades of makeup, leading to a 27.6% lift in purchases.

Mark D’Arcy, Facebook’s chief creative officer and vice president of global business marketing, said that while the initial playable ad examples had “very literal gaming mechanics, doing brands in a game,”  there could be “a whole range” of different interactions over time.

D’Arcy also acknowledged that including polls, games and AR in ads aren’t exactly new ideas, but he suggested that in the past, they’ve generally been “heavy” experiences, requiring things like a separate microsite. By bringing them front-and-center on Facebook, the company is making them “super lightweight, fun and super scalable.”

As result, he suggested that each of these formats will evolve as more advertisers get to experiment with them: “In 12 months, even six months, we’re going to look at these examples and they’ll be fundamentally different.”

And if you’re wondering how these new formats will handle user data, the Facebook team said that only the aggregate results of polls — not individual user data — will be shared with advertisers. Similarly, any images created by users through an AR ad can be saved to their camera roll, but won’t be shared with advertisers.


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4 questions you should always ask your doctor | Christer Mjåset

4 questions you should always ask your doctor | Christer Mjåset

"Doctor, is this really necessary?" Backed by startling statistics about overtreatment, neurosurgeon Christer Mjåset explains the power of this and other simple questions in the context of medical treatment and surgery -- and shares how patients can better work with doctors to get the care they need.

Click the above link to download the TED talk.

Facebook expands its playable and AR ad formats


Ahead of Advertising Week, Facebook is the announcing the expansion of three interactive ad formats.

First, it says that poll ads (which you may already have seen in Instagram Stories) are moving to the main feed of the Facebook mobile app. Second, the augmented reality ads that Facebook has already been testing are moving into open beta this fall. Third, Facebook is making playable ads available to all advertisers, not just gaming companies.

The company showed off each format at a press event yesterday in New York City.

E!, for example, says it ran ads with interactive polls to promote one of its TV shows, leading to a 1.6x increase in brand awareness. Meanwhile, Vans created a playable ad where players could guide skateboarder Steve Van Doren down a mountain, resulting in a 4.4% lift in ad recall. And WeMakeUp ran an AR ad campaign allowing users to virtually try on new shades of makeup, leading to a 27.6% lift in purchases.

Mark D’Arcy, Facebook’s chief creative officer and vice president of global business marketing, said that while the initial playable ad examples had “very literal gaming mechanics, doing brands in a game,”  there could be “a whole range” of different interactions over time.

D’Arcy also acknowledged that including polls, games and AR in ads aren’t exactly new ideas, but he suggested that in the past, they’ve generally been “heavy” experiences, requiring things like a separate microsite. By bringing them front-and-center on Facebook, the company is making them “super lightweight, fun and super scalable.”

As result, he suggested that each of these formats will evolve as more advertisers get to experiment with them: “In 12 months, even six months, we’re going to look at these examples and they’ll be fundamentally different.”

And if you’re wondering how these new formats will handle user data, the Facebook team said that only the aggregate results of polls — not individual user data — will be shared with advertisers. Similarly, any images created by users through an AR ad can be saved to their camera roll, but won’t be shared with advertisers.


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How to Customize Google Search Results (And Add Extra Features)


customize-google-search

Google is famous for its no-frills approach to displaying search results. At various times, it has tried introducing extra features (the Discussion button and Instant Preview, anyone?), but they’ve always fallen by the wayside eventually.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t change both the look and the functionality of Google’s search results. You just need to head to the Chrome Web Store and download some extensions.

So, here are the best Chrome extensions for customizing your search results.

1. Google Search Filter

google search filter results

Most people have a selection of sites that are their go-to domains for specific types of content (such as MakeUseOf for technology, hint hint!). Similarly, you probably have a few sites that you’ve mentally blacklisted (like certain newspapers or domains with low-quality content).

Google Search Filter is a way to make sure that your favorite sites are always noticeable in your list of results. It also simultaneously hides any results from the sites you dislike. Your preferred sites will be highlighted in green.

In the configuration file, add a + before a domain to highlight it, add a # to take no action, and type the domain “as is” to remove it.

Download: Google Search Filter (Free)

2. Discussions Button for Google Search

Discussions Button for Google Search message board search

Until a few years ago, Google used to offer a Discussions tab at the top of its list of results (alongside Images, Videos, News, etc.). It used to filter your results so they only showed hits from forums, message boards, blog post comments, and other similar content. Then, in typical Google fashion, it mysteriously disappeared.

The Discussions Button for Google Search extension brings back that tab. It doesn’t work in the same way as the original tab; Google has completely removed the feature from its backend. Instead, the extension uses a selection of filters and Boolean operators to find search matches from discussion-based sites.

Download: Discussions Button for Google Search (Free)

3. Google Results Previewer

Google Results Previewer results

Remember when you used to be able to see a preview of a site directly from the list of search results merely by hovering your mouse over the entry? Google Results Previewer restores that functionality. If you’re a tab hoarder, it’s a must-have extension.

To make the preview appear, hover your mouse over the link in the list of results. Note that to make the preview disappear, you’ll need to click elsewhere on the screen manually. Presumably, this is to make sure previews aren’t constantly opening and closing based on small mouse movements, but we do wish there was an option to disable it.

Note: You may need to clear your cookies to make it work.

Download: Google Results Previewer (Free)

4. Unpinterested!

unpinterested toggle

Look, we like Pinterest. It’s a great way to find inspiration for DIY projects, interior design, meals, and a whole lot more.

But due to the site’s popularity, it now dominates the list of Google Image Search results in certain topics. At times, that can be annoying, especially considering you can’t do much with the images you find unless you have a Pinterest account.

Unpinterested! removes all Pinterest pages from your search results—in both image searches and regular searches. The filter can be enabled and disabled with a simple toggle, so if there are times when you want to see the Pinterest results, it is easy to do so.

Download: Unpinterested!

5. Night Mode for Google Search

Night Mode For Google Search example page

Dark modes and night modes are becoming increasingly popular among users. They help to reduce eye strain, especially if you’re using your machine in the small hours.

If you use dark modes on your operating system and apps, it can be jarring when an app that doesn’t offer night modes suddenly presents you with a light screen. Google Search is one of the biggest culprits.

Night Mode for Google Search fixes the problem. There’s a switch to quickly toggle between a light and dark display, and various settings you can adjust to customize your experience.

Download: Night Mode for Google Search (Free)

6. WhenX for Google Search

WhenX for Google Search

Sometimes, it’s useful to know when you last visited a webpage. It makes it easy to recognize a site that you found valuable if you want to revisit it in the future.

WhenX for Google Search provides an elegant solution to the issue. It simply adds a tag with your last visit on the right-hand side of the link in the search results. The label contains both the time and date. And importantly, WhenX for Google Search works with sites that you visited before you installed the extension.

All the extension’s browsing history data is saved locally; nothing is sent to WhenX’s servers.

Download: WhenX for Google Search (Free)

7. Infinite Scroll for Google

Are you tired of clicking through endless pages of results to find the answer to the question you’re researching? Infinite Scroll for Google could be the answer.

When you get to the bottom of the first page of results, the extension will automatically load the next page below, all without any input from you.

Download: Infinite Scroll for Google (Free)

8. Google Search Date Range Shortcut

Google Search Date Range Shortcut

When you’re researching something, you might want to find something from a specific period. Content such as old articles and new stories spring to mind.

Natively, Google provides a date filter, but you have to click on Tools to open it, and the list of preset ranges is quite limited.

If you install the Google Search Date Range Shortcut extension, two things happen. Firstly, the Tools menu will always be open and visible. Secondly, you can add additional date ranges to the dropdown menu and customize the existing ones.

Download: Google Search Date Range Shortcut (Free)

9. Straight to Full-Size for Google Images

Straight to Full-Size for Google Images

If you do a lot of Google Images searches, you will be familiar with how Google opens a preview of the image rather than the original source when you click on a thumbnail.

The Straight to Full-Size for Google Images extension kills that intermediate step. If you click on an image result, Chrome will automatically load the image’s URL.

Download: Straight to Full-Size for Google Images (Free)

10. myGoogle

We end with myGoogle. It is a fun extension that adds a dash of personality to your search results; it doesn’t have any practical benefit.

The extension simply lets you replace the Google name with a word or phrase of your own choosing. The word(s) you choose will follow Google’s famous blue, red, yellow, and green branding.

Download: myGoogle (Free)

Discover More Great Google Extensions

The Chrome extensions we’ve discussed will help you to make Google work exactly the way you want. If we’ve missed your favorite extension for customizing Google Search results, make sure you let us know in the comments.

And if you’d like to discover even more awesome Google Chrome extensions, do read our articles on the best extensions to speed up your browsing and the best Chrome extensions for Gmail.

Read the full article: How to Customize Google Search Results (And Add Extra Features)


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How to Use Chrome OS on a Raspberry Pi


chromeos-raspberrypi

Fancy a look at Chrome OS without spending money on a new computer? Wondering if a cloud operating system might improve the Raspberry Pi’s performance as a productivity tool? Wonder no more—it’s possible to install Chrome OS on the $50 computer and find out how well it runs.

Why Install Chrome OS on the Raspberry Pi?

Various operating systems are available for the Raspberry Pi. While the default option is favored by many, a wealth of Linux-only Raspbian alternatives.

Pre-installed Chrome OS apps

But Chrome OS offers something different: cloud computing. The relatively low specification of the Raspberry Pi makes it ideal for Chrome OS. The operating system is designed to run most of its software as web apps, relying on servers for the processing.

If your Raspberry Pi is set up with an Ethernet or wireless internet connection, you’ll benefit from this computing dynamic. This could enable you to set up your Raspberry Pi as a productive yet low budget desktop PC!

Another reason to install Chrome OS on the Raspberry Pi is that it is easy to use. Google has spent years polishing and perfecting the operating system. These changes have been felt in the official release as well as the open source Chromium OS.

The Open Source Chrome OS

While Google manages and releases Chrome OS, the operating system is based on an open source project, Chromium OS. This has been released on various devices, and thanks to the FydeOS project can be installed on the Pi.

Note that several other versions of Chromium OS have been released on the Raspberry Pi. These are now discontinued; there is every chance that FydeOS might be abandoned in future. As such, you may prefer to download and build from the original source code available at www.chromium.org.

For this tutorial, we’re going to use the preconfigured code available in FydeOS.

Grab These to Install Chrome OS on Raspberry Pi

To install and run Chrome OS on a Raspberry Pi computer, you’ll need:

Along with a mouse, keyboard, HDMI cable, and spare display, you’ll be ready to get started with Chrome OS.

Prepare Your SD Card for Chrome OS

The downloaded IMG file is compressed in XZ format, so you’ll need to expand this with a suitable tool. 7-Zip is your best option on Windows; XZ can be expanded natively on Linux systems.

Next, the IMG file needs to be written to the SD card. The simplest option here is the excellent Etcher tool, which will also format your SD card. Download, install, and run Etcher, then click Select image to browse for the Chromium IMG file.

Use Etcher to install your Raspberry Pi OS

Following this, confirm that the microSD card is detected by Etcher. If not, reinsert the media in your PCs SD card reader and wait until it shows up.

Finally, click Flash to write the data. A few minutes later, Chrome OS will be installed on the microSD card, ready to boot.

Booting Chrome OS on the Raspberry Pi

After safely removing the microSD card from your PC it will be ready to boot in your Raspberry Pi.

The first boot may take a while to complete. You’ll then be prompted to complete the set-up steps. If you’ve used a Chromebook or Android device, you’ll recognize this. It’s basically a case of inputting (or creating) your Google account details.

Once logged in, you’ll see a bare desktop, ready to be configured. You’ll find the launcher in the bottom-left corner and the notifications in the bottom-right. Everything should feel in some way familiar.

You will notice that Chrome OS on the Raspberry Pi does not quite resemble the version seen on a Chromebook. For example, the Launcher icon on the Shelf is a circle, rather than a 3×3 grid. This is largely cosmetic, however, and makes no difference to the functionality of the OS.

Wondering what your first step should be? Right-click the desktop and select Set wallpaper.

Set wallpaper on Chrome OS

With a stunning background set, you’ll be ready for anything!

Will Chrome OS Software Run on the Raspberry Pi?

Various apps will come pre-installed with the Raspberry Pi version of Chrome OS, as they would with the main release. For example, when I signed in with my usual Google account, I had the Photos app, Google Keep, and more.

Google Keep running on Chrome OS on the Raspberry Pi

This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. The Chrome OS is based on Linux and supports primarily web applications. “Web apps” are platform-agnostic, relying on a web browser to run.

Almost all Chrome OS apps will run on the Raspberry Pi—none have been found so far that don’t. Looking for suggestions beyond the usual Chrome OS options? Try our list of essential apps for your new Chromebook.

Does It Feel Like a $50 Chromebook?

Chromebooks are affordable computers, typically in the $150-$1500 price range. Installing Chromium OS on the Raspberry Pi with FydeOS gives you the opportunity to build your own Chromebook.

Browsing the web with Chrome OS

What’s more, you’re likely to only need to spend $50 for a new Raspberry Pi. While it won’t be as fast as the top end Chromebooks, Chromium OS on the Raspberry Pi is certainly on par with the cheaper Chromebook devices.

Once you’ve installed all your preferred productivity apps for Chrome OS, you’ll be ready to go. Need help? Try our Chrome OS cheat sheet for tips.

A Budget Productivity Pi With Chrome OS

The Chromebook range of computers and Chrome OS have been the biggest challenge to Microsoft and Apple over the past decade. Could they really replace standard desktop and laptop computers?

It remains difficult to tell. But you can certainly find out if Chrome OS is something you’re interested in. Simply follow the steps above to install the parent operating system, Chromium OS, on your Raspberry Pi with FydeOS.

Don’t want to use Raspbian but like the Raspberry Pi? Check our list of other operating systems for the Raspberry Pi.

Read the full article: How to Use Chrome OS on a Raspberry Pi


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The 7 Best Study Planning Apps for All Students

3 New Apps You Need in Your macOS Workflow


There is no doubt that macOS has some great features. Apple even gives you a range of useful apps for getting things done; but for some tasks, you might look for a little outside help. It only takes one great third-party app to transform your workflow for the better — but here are three on sale right now at MakeUseOf Deals.

MacX DVD Ripper Pro

When you already own a great movie on DVD, it makes no sense to purchase a digital download. MacX DVD Ripper Pro helps you enjoy your disk collection on any device at full quality.

The app lets you rip a full-length DVD in just five minutes and decrypt protected disks. You can then trim, crop and merge the content, add subtitles and captions, and export the footage in numerous formats. Ripper Pro even lets you upload clips to YouTube and grab individual frames. Worth $67.95, a single lifetime license is now just $19.99.

Youzign Design App

With a range of easy-to-use tools and almost 2,000 high-definition templates, Youzign offers a great alternative to Photoshop and Canva.

The platform allows you to design logos, social media posts, business cards, blog images, and more. You get access to 1.7 million free images, a huge range of fonts, and image filters. Smart guides show you how your designs will appear on any platform, and you can render previews almost instantly. Youzign even allows you to remove backgrounds — ideal for product photos. Order now for $39 to get a lifetime Youzign subscription, worth $468.

DearMob iPhone Manager for Mac

Trying to manage your iOS files via iTunes has always been a nightmare. Thankfully, there is a better solution. With DearMob iPhone Manager for Mac, you can easily transfer photos, music and video through a simple drag-and-drop interface. The app auto-converts non-Apple formats on the fly, and you can compress large videos by 50%.

To protect your data, everything is exported via military-grade encryption. It’s fast too — DearMob can download 1000 4K photos in just 60 seconds. Order now for $19.99 to get a lifetime license, worth $67.95.

Like this deal? Check out Vault — you’ll get four premium tools, including NordVPN and Dashlane, to supercharge your online security. Try it free for 14 days now!

Prices are subject to change.

Read the full article: 3 New Apps You Need in Your macOS Workflow


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Google completes controversial takeover of DeepMind Health


Google has completed a controversial take-over of the health division of its UK AI acquisition, DeepMind.

The personnel move had been delayed as National Health Service (NHS) trusts considered whether to shift their existing DeepMind contracts — some for a clinical task management app, others involving predictive health AI research — to Google.

In a blog post yesterday Dr Dominic King, formerly of DeepMind (and the NHS), now UK site lead at Google Health, confirmed the transfer, writing: “It’s clear that a transition like this takes time. Health data is sensitive, and we gave proper time and care to make sure that we had the full consent and cooperation of our partners. This included giving them the time to ask questions and fully understand our plans and to choose whether to continue our partnerships. As has always been the case, our partners are in full control of all patient data and we will only use patient data to help improve care, under their oversight and instructions.”

The Royal Free NHS Trust, Taunton & Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust all put out statements yesterday confirming they have moved their contractual arrangements to Google.

In the case of the Royal Free, patients’ Streams data is moving to the Google Cloud Platform infrastructure to support expanding use of the app which surfaces alerts for a kidney condition to another of its hospitals (Barnet Hospital).

One NHS trust, Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, has not signed a new contract — and says it had never deployed Streams, suggesting it had not found a satisfactory way to integrate the app with its existing ways of working — instead taking the decision to terminate the arrangement. Though it’s leaving the door open to future health service provision from Google.

A spokeswoman for Yeovil hospital sent us this statement:

We began our relationship with DeepMind in 2017 and since then have been determining what part the Streams application could play in clinical decision making here at Yeovil Hospital.

The app was never operationalised, and no patient data was processed.

What’s key for us as a hospital, when it comes to considering the implementation of any new piece of technology, is whether it improves the effectiveness and safety of patient care and how it tessellates with existing ways of working. Working with the DeepMind team, we found that Streams is not necessary for our organisation at the current time.

Whilst our contractual relationship has ended, we will remain an anchor partner of Google Health so will continue to be part of conversations about emerging technology which may be of benefit to our patients and our clinician in the future.

The hand-off of DeepMind Health to Google, which was announced just over a year ago, means the tech giant is now directly providing software services to a number of NHS trusts that had signed contracts with DeepMind for Streams; as well as taking over several AI research partnerships that involve the use of NHS patients’ data to try to develop predictive diagnostic models using AI technology.

DeepMind — which kicked off its health efforts by signing an agreement with the Royal Free NHS Trust in 2015, going on to publicly announce the health division in spring 2016 — said last year its future focus would be as a “research organisation”.

As recently as this July DeepMind was also touting a predictive healthcare research “breakthrough” — announcing it had trained a deep learning model for continuously predicting the future likelihood of a patient developing a life-threatening condition called acute kidney injury. (Though the AI is trained on heavily gender-skewed data from the US department of Veteran Affairs.)

Yet it’s now become clear that it’s handed off several of its key NHS research partnerships to Google Health as part of the Streams transfer.

In its statement about the move yesterday, UCLH writes that “it was proposed” that its DeepMind research partnership — which is related to radiotherapy treatment for patients with head and neck cancer — be transferred to Google Health, saying this will enable it to “make use of Google’s scale and experience to deliver potential breakthroughs to patients more rapidly”.

“We will retain control over the anonymised data and remain responsible for deciding how it is used,” it adds. “The anonymised data is encrypted and only accessible to a limited number of researchers who are working on this project with UCLH’s permission. Access to the data will only be granted for officially approved research purposes and will be automatically audited and logged.”

It’s worth pointing out that the notion of “anonymised” high dimension health data should be treated with a healthy degree of scepticism — given the risk of re-identification.

Moorfields also identifies Google’s “resources” as the incentive for agreeing for its eye-scan related research partnership to be handed off, writing: “This updated partnership will allow us to draw on Google’s resources and expertise to extend the benefits of innovations that AI offers to more of our clinicians and patients.”

Quite where this leaves DeepMind’s ambitions to “lead the way in fundamental research applying AI to important science and medical research questions, in collaboration with academic partners, to accelerate scientific progress for the benefit of everyone”, as it put it last year — when it characterized the hand-off to Google Health as all about ‘scaling Streams’ — remains to be seen.

We’ve reached out to DeepMind for comment on that.

Co-founder Mustafa Suleyman, who’s been taking a leave of absence from the company, tweeted yesterday to congratulate the Google Health team.

DeepMind’s NHS research contracts also transferring to Google Health suggests the tech giants wants zero separation between core AI health research and the means of application, using its own cloud infrastructure, of any promising models it’s able to train off of patient data and commercialize by selling to the same healthcare services providers as apps and services.

You could say Google is seeking to bundle access to the high resolution patient data that’s essential for developing health AIs with the provision of commercial digital healthcare services it hopes to sell hospitals down the line, all funnelled through the same Google cloud infrastructure.

As we reported at the time, the hand-off of DeepMind Health to Google is controversial.

Firstly because the trust that partnered with DeepMind in 2015 to develop Streams was later found by the UK’s data protection watchdog to have breached UK law. The ICO said there was no legal basis for the Royal Free to have shared the medical records of ~1.6M patients with DeepMind during the app’s development.

Despite concerns being raised over the legal basis for sharing patients’ data throughout 2016 and 2017 DeepMind continued inking NHS contracts for Streams — claiming at the time that patient data would never be handed to Google. Yet fast forward a couple of years and it’s now literally sitting on the tech giant’s servers.

It’s that U-turn that led the DeepMind to Google Health hand-off to be branded a trust demolition by legal experts when the news was announced last year.

This summer the UK’s patient data watchdog, the National Data Guardian, released correspondence between her office and the ICO which informed the latter’s 2017 finding that Streams had breached data protection law — in which she articulates a clear regulatory position that the “reasonable expectations” of patients must govern non-direct care uses for people’s health data, rather than healthcare providers relying on doctors to decide whether they think the intended purpose for people’s medical information is justified.

The Google Health blog post talks a lot about “patient care” and “patient data” but has nothing to say about patients’ expectations of how their personal information should be used, with King writing that “our partners are in full control of all patient data and we will only use patient data to help improve care, under their oversight and instructions”.

It was exactly such an ethical blindspot around the patient’s perspective that led Royal Free doctors to override considerations about people’s medical privacy in the rush to throw their lot in with Google-DeepMind and scramble for AI-fuelled predictive healthcare.

Patient consent was not sought for passing medical records then; nor have patients’ views been consulted in the transfer of Streams contracts (and people’s data) to Google now.

And while — after it was faced with public outcry over the NHS data it was processing — DeepMind did go on to publish its contracts with NHS trusts (with some redactions), Google Health is not offering any such transparency on the replacement contracts that have been inked now. So it’s not clear whether there have been any other changes to the terms. Patients have to take all that on trust.

We reached out to the Royal Free Trust with questions about the new contract with Google but a spokeswoman just pointed us to the statement on its website — where it writes: “All migration and implementation will be completed to the highest standards of security and will be compliant with relevant data protection legislation and NHS information governance requirements.”

“As with all of our arrangements with third parties, the Royal Free London remains the data controller in relation to all personal data. This means we retain control over that personal data at all times and are responsible for deciding how that data is used for the benefit of patient care,” it adds.

In another reduction in transparency accompanying this hand-off from DeepMind to Google Health, an independent panel of reviewers that DeepMind appointed to oversee its work with the NHS in another bid to boost trust has been disbanded.

“As we announced in November, that review structure — which worked for a UK entity primarily focused on finding and developing healthcare solutions with and for the NHS — is not the right structure for a global effort set to work across continents as well as different health services,” King confirmed yesterday.

In its annual report last year the panel had warned of the risk of DeepMind exerting “excessive monopoly power” as a result of the data access and streaming infrastructure bundled with provision of the Streams app. For DeepMind then read Google now.

Independent experts raising concerns about monopoly power unsurprisingly doesn’t align with Google’s global ambitions in future healthcare provision.

The last word from the independent reviewers is a Medium post penned by former chair, professor Donal O’Donoghue — who writes that he’s “disappointed that the IR experiment did not have the time to run its course and I am sad to say goodbye to a project I’ve found fascinating”.

“This was a fascinating exploration into how a new governance model could be applied to such an important area such as health,” he adds. “It’s hard to know how this would have developed over the years but… what is clear to me is that trust and transparency are of paramount importance in healthcare and I’m keen to see how Google Health, and other providers, deliver this in the future.”

But with trust demolished and transparency reduced Google Health appears to have learnt exactly nothing from DeepMind’s missteps.


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Private search engine Qwant’s new CEO is Mozilla Europe veteran Tristan Nitot


French startup Qwant, whose non-tracking search engine has been gaining traction in its home market as a privacy-respecting alternative to Google, has made a change to its senior leadership team as it gears up for the next phase of growth.

Former Mozilla Europe president, Tristan Nitot, who joined Qwant last year as VP of advocacy, has been promoted to chief executive, taking over from François Messager — who also joined in 2018 but is now leaving the business. Qwant co-founder, Eric Leandri, meanwhile, continues in the same role as president.

Nitot, an Internet veteran who worked at Netscape and helped to found Mozilla Europe in 1998, where he later served as president and stayed until 2015 before leaving to write a book on surveillance, brings a wealth of experience in product and comms roles, as well as open source.

Most recently he spent several years working for personal cloud startup, Cozy Cloud.

“I’m basically here to help [Leandri] grow the company and structure the company,” Nitot tells TechCrunch, describing Qwant’s founder as an “amazing entrepreneur, audacious and visionary”.

Market headwinds have been improving for the privacy-focused Google rival in recent years as concern about foreign data-mining tech giants has stepped up in Europe.

Last year the French government announced it would be switching its search default from Google to Qwant. Buying homegrown digital tech now apparently seen as a savvy product choice as well as good politics.

Meanwhile antitrust attention on dominant search giant Google, both at home and abroad, has led to policy shifts that directly benefit search rivals — such as an update of the default lists baked into its chromium engine which was quietly put out earlier this year.

That behind the scenes change saw Qwant added as an option for users in the French market for the first time. (On hearing the news a sardonic Leandri thanked Google — but suggested Qwant users choose Firefox or the Brave browser for a less creepy web browsing experience.)

“A lot of companies and institutions have decided and have realized basically that they’ve been using a search engine which is not European. Which collects data. Massively. And that makes them uncomfortable,” says Nitot. “They haven’t made a conscious decision about that. Because they bring in a computer which has a browser which has a search engine in it set by default — and in the end you just don’t get to choose which search engine your people use, right.

“And so they’re making a conscious decision to switch to Qwant. And we’ve been spending a lot of time and energy on that — and it’s paying off big time.”

As well as the French administration’s circa 3M desktops being switched by default to Qwant (which it expects will be done this quarter), the pro-privacy search engine has been getting traction from other government departments and regional government, as well as large banks and schools, according to Nitot.

He credits a focus on search products for schoolkids with generating momentum, such as Qwant Junior, which is designed for kids aged 6-12, and excludes sex and violence from search results as well as being ad free. (It’s set to get an update in the next few weeks.) It has also just been supplemented by Qwant School: A school search product aimed at 13-17 year olds.

“All of that creates more users — the kids talk to their parents about Qwant Junior, and the parents install Qwant.com for them. So there’s a lot of momentum creating that growth,” Nitot suggests.

Qwant says it handled more than 18 billion search requests in 2018.

A growing business needs money to fuel it of course. So fundraising efforts involving convertible bonds is one area Nitot says he’ll be focused on in the new role. “We are raising money,” he confirms.

Increasing efficiency — especially on the engineering front — is another key focus for the new CEO.

“The rest will be a focus on the organization, per se, how we structure the organization. How we evolve the company culture. To enable or to improve delivery of the engineering team, for example,” he says. “It’s not that it’s bad it’s just that we need to make sure every dollar or every euro we invest gives as much as possible in return.”

Product wise, Nitot’s attention in the near term will be directed towards shipping a new version of Qwant’s search engine that will involve reengineering core tech to improve the quality of results.

“What we want to do [with v2] is to improve the quality of the results,” he says of the core search product. “You won’t be able to notice any difference, in terms of quality, with the other really good search engines that you may use — except that you know that your privacy is respected by Qwant.

“[As we raise more funding] we will be able to have a lot more infrastructure to run better and more powerful algorithms. And so we plan to improve that internationally… Every language will benefit from the new search engine. It’s also a matter of money and infrastructure to make this work on a web scale. Because the web is huge and it’s growing.

“The new version includes NLP (Natural Language Processing) technology… for understanding language, for understanding intentions — for example do you want to buy something or are you looking for a reference… or a place or a thing. That’s the kind of thing we’re putting in place but it’s going to improve a lot for every language involved.”

Western Europe will be the focus for v2 of the search engine, starting with French, German, Italian, Spanish and English — with a plan to “go beyond that later on”.

Nitot also says there will also be staggered rollouts (starting with France), with Qwant planning to run old and new versions in parallel to quality check the new version before finally switching users over.

“Shipping is hard as we used to say at Mozilla,” he remarks, refusing to be fixed to a launch date for v2 (beyond saying it’ll arrive in “less than a year”). “It’s a universal rule; shipping a new product is hard, and that’s what we want to do with version 2… I’ve been writing software since 1980 and so I know how predictions are when it comes to software release dates. So I’m very careful not to make promises.”

Developing more of its own advertising technologies is another focus for Qwant. On this front the aim is to improve margins by leaning less on partners like Microsoft.

“We’ve been working with partners until now, especially on the search engine result pages,” says Nitot. “We put Microsoft advertising on it. And our goal is to ramp up advertising technologies so that we rely on our own technologies — something that we control. And that hopefully will bring a better return.”

Like Google, Qwant monetizes searches by serving ads alongside results. But unlike Google these are contextual ads, meaning they are based on general location plus the substance of the search itself; rather than targeted ads which entail persistent tracking and profiling of Internet users in order to inform the choice of ad (hence feeling like ads are stalking you around the Internet).

Serving contextual ads is a choice that lets Qwant offer a credible privacy pledge that Mountain View simply can’t match.

Yet up until 2006 Google also served contextual ads, as Nitot points out, before its slide into privacy-hostile microtargeting. “It’s a good old idea,” he argues of contextual ads. “We’re using it. We think it really is a valuable idea.” 

Qwant is also working on privacy-sensitive ad tech. One area of current work there is personalization. It’s developing a client-side, browser-based encrypted data store, called Masq, that’s intended to store and retrieve application data through a WebSocket connection. (Here’s the project Masq Github page.)

“Because we do not know the person that’s using the product it’s hard to make personalization of course. So we plan to do personalization of the product on the client side,” he explains. “Which means the server side will have no more details than we currently do, but on the client side we are producing something which is open source, which stores data locally on your device — whether that’s a laptop or smartphone — in the browser, it is encrypted so that nobody can reuse it unless you decide that you want that to happen.

“And it’s open source so that it’s transparent and can be audited and so that people can trust the technology because it runs on their own device, it stores on their device.”

“Right now it’s at alpha stage,” Nitot adds of Masq, declining to specify when exactly it might be ready for a wider launch.

The new CEO’s ultimate goal for Qwant is to become the search engine for Europe — a hugely ambitious target that remains far out of reach for now, with Google still commanding in excess of 90% regional marketshare. (A dominance that has got its business embroiled in antitrust hot water in Europe.)

Yet the Internet of today is not the same as the Internet of yesterday when Netscape was a browsing staple — until Internet Explorer knocked it off its perch after Microsoft bundled its rival upstart as the default browser on Windows. And the rest, as they say, is Internet history.

Much has changed and much is changing. But abuses of market power are an old story. And as regulators act against today’s self-interested defaults there are savvy alternatives like Qwant primed and waiting to offer consumers a different kind of value.

“Qwant is created in Europe for the European citizens with European values,” says Nitot. “Privacy being one of these values that are central to our mission. It is not random that the CNIL — the French data protection authority — was created in France in 1978. It was the first time that something like that was created. And then GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation] was created in Europe. It doesn’t happen by accident. It’s a matter of values and the way people see their life and things around them, politics and all that. We have a very deep concern about privacy in France. It’s written in the European declaration of human rights.

“We build a product that reflects those values — so it’s appealing to European users.”


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