Category: News

Google Maps

Google Maps shows weather information now on Android

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Google is rolling out a new feature on Google Maps that shows weather information on Android. Whether this is going to take away usage from dedicated weather apps remains to be seen.

Google Maps on iOS displays information about the temperature and air quality index already. Google is now rolling out the same feature to Maps on Android.

A small and easy to overlook widget in the left corner of the screen displays the current temperature and air quality index when enabled. An icon depicts the weather condition, e.g., rain, sun or clouded, and the temperature in either Fahrenheit or Celsius. Below that is the air quality index, again with a quality indicator.

A tap on the widget displays additional information. You get the weather forecast for the next hours among other information, including the chance of rain.

A tap on the air quality section displays an overlay on the map that uses colors to highlight the quality of air in the region.

Google Maps: weather information widget

The weather widget is only displayed when nothing is selected. Once you make a selection, e.g., by tapping on a place, you won’t see the information in Google Maps.

Google seems to roll out the feature over time. If it is not available on a device, you may want to see if you have the latest Google Maps version installed. Also, weather information is not displayed if you select anything on Google Maps or have any character in the search field. You need to clear any character in the search field before the weather widget is displayed.

The display of weather information on Google Maps is useful but also limited. It can be useful, even when you check out a place that is nearby. While the actual temperature or air quality index may not be that useful, the forecast may be. You can now check how the weather is going to be in a few hours.

As for places far away, it can be useful as well, but not as much. The main limitation is that the forecast is limited to the next few hours. It does not help much if you want to visit the place tomorrow or next week.

Tip: users from the European Union may allow or disallow the sharing of data between Google services.

Closing Words

The Android version of Google Maps features the same weather widget as the iOS version now. The information is useful, but it is also limited, which makes it less useful than it could be. A forecast for the next one or two days would improve the usability significantly.

The information seems to be pulled from weather.com, at least that is what Google links to when you open the details view.

The web-based version of Google Maps shows weather information as well.

Now You: do you use Google Maps?

Amazon launches the AI Clerk Rufus

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Amazon launched Rufus to a small audience in the United States today. Rufus, a “generative AI-powered expert shopping assistant”, adds something to the shopping experience on Amazon that has been missing until now.

Online shopping, as comfortable as it is, lacks interactions with clerks. Even simple questions may remain unanswered on Amazon and other shopping sites.

Amazon maintains a question and answers section on its site for products, and these help sometimes. While it may be easy enough to find out if a particular shoe is available in a specific size, questions about the difference between AMD and Intel laptops may not be answered at all on Amazon’s website at the moment.

Getting the answer or information is often not a problem at local stores. Ask the clerk, and if the clerk is knowledgeable, you will get an answer.

Amazon introduces Rufus for exactly this. Rufus is a conversational AI that is designed to help shoppers on the site shop and buy products.

The AI was trained on Amazon’s product catalog, customer reviews, the questions and answers of the community, and information from “across the web”.

In other words, it may answer some of the questions that users may have about a particular product on Amazon. It is still necessary to look closely at the AI before you start using it.

Rufus, the AI clerk

Amazon Rufus
source: Amazon

Rufus may “answer customer questions on a variety of shopping needs and products, provide comparisons, and make recommendations based on conversational context” according to Amazon.

Amazon announced Rufus on its About Amazon website. Rufus may help shoppers in several ways. It may answer broad questions, such as “what to consider when buying running shoes” to very specific questions, e.g., if a pair of running shoes are durable.

Amazon gives a few general examples regarding Rufus’ capabilities:

  • Learn what to look for while shopping product categories
  • Shop by occasion or purpose
  • Get help comparing product categories
  • Find the best recommendations
  • Ask questions about a specific product while on a product detail page

Rufus is available in the official Amazon mobile app for a small subset of U.S. customers. Amazon plans to roll out Rufus to all U.S. customers in the coming weeks. No word on expansion to other markets outside the United States at this point.

Amazon published a short video on YouTube that announces the AI.

Closing Words

Rufus adds something to Amazon that was missing until now: the option to communicate with “someone” to get answers to questions or advice. Whether Rufus is capable of filling the missing role of clerks at Amazon remains to be seen. It may take years before it is mature enough to be of use to the majority of Amazon shoppers.

AI’s like Rufus may replace store clerks in the long run. Think of talking to an Android instead of a human when shopping at Footlockers or another store.

AI introduces the risk of false information. While human clerks may also give bad advice, AI may hallucinate and this introduces another dimension to interactions.

There is also the risk that shopping sites manipulate AIs to push certain products. Again, this may also happen in Stores, but with AI, it is turning into large scale operations.

Now You: would you communicate with AI tools while shopping?

European Union

Microsoft Edge and Bing insignificant for regulation in the EU

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) will come into force in March 2024. The EU identified several products and services as gatekeepers. These fall under the new regulation.

One of the main goals is to level the playing field and avoid abuses of power. Six companies and 22 services and products are gatekeepers according to the EU.

The EU opened four market investigations into Bing, Edge, Microsoft Advertising and iMessage to determine if these services will be added to the list of gatekeepers.

A Bloomberg report now claims that all four won’t be considered gatekeepers by the European Union. The report cites “unnamed officials at the EU as “people familiar with the matter” as its source.

According to Bloomberg, the four mentioned services are “dominant enough to be hit by the regulation”. While some of the services are popular in other regions of the world, Apple’s iMessage or Microsoft’s Bing are popular choices in the United States, they are not dominant enough in the European Union.

Microsoft Bing, for instance, has a market share of less than 4% in Europe according to Statcounter. Similarly, Microsoft’s Edge web browser has a market share of less than 6% in Europe according to the company.

While these stats are not 100% accurate, they make the argument for adding these services to the list of gatekeepers difficult.

The final verdict is expected in February 2024.

No free pass for Microsoft

Microsoft’s Windows operating system and its LinkedIn social network are gatekeepers, according to the EU.

Microsoft announced changes that it plans to make available to users from the European Union and European Economic Area exclusively in the coming months.

The changes give users control over certain features of the operating system. They include the ability to remove Microsoft Edge and Bing Search in Windows, among other changes.

Microsoft’s Windows operating system ships with Microsoft Edge as the default browser and Bing Search included. Some links open only in Edge by default, but this is changing soon for users from the EU.

To sum it up, Windows users from the EU and EEA will gain control over Edge and Bing, even though both services are not (likely) considered gatekeepers.

The EU’s target is Windows. Specifically, Microsoft’s use of the operating system to favor its services, Bing Search and Edge are just two examples, over others.

Would Microsoft’s web browser stand where it is standing right now market share wise, if not for the integration and pushing in Windows?

Closing Words

Some Google and Meta products and services are also considered gatekeepers. Meta announced this week that it will give EU users control over data sharing between some of its services.

Google too is disabling data sharing between its services by default for users from the EU.

It is unfortunate that the rest of the world is not getting the same improvements.

Now You: what is your take on gatekeepers and the DMA?

facebook

Unlink Facebook, Instagram and Messenger accounts in the EU

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Facebook, Instagram and Messenger users from the EU, EEA and Switzerland may soon unlink their accounts to stop data sharing.

Meta, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp parent company, announced that users from the EU, EEA and Switzerland will soon have the option to unlink some of their services. The announcement includes some surprises, among them an option to unlink Facebook data from Marketplace activities, and Facebook Messenger from Facebook data.

The improvement comes as a response to Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). The EU identified gatekeeper companies that dominate certain services on the Internet or on user devices. New regulations for these companies aim to improve user rights and competition in the market.

Google users from the EU may also unlink services to stop the automatic exchange of data between them. Now, it is Meta that announces similar functionality for some of its main services. The company says that it has “assembled a large cross-functional team staffed by senior employees from around the globe and across our entire family of apps” to introduce these changes to the platforms.

Meta products affected by the change

Meta mentions Facebook and Instagram only in the announcement. WhatsApp, also owned by Meta, is also considered a core platform service by the DMA, but not mentioned by Meta.

Facebook and Instagram users who connected their accounts will see an option to unlink these in the coming weeks. They can:

  • Keep the two accounts linked and have information shared between Facebook and Instagram.
  • Unlink the accounts to manage them as separate accounts. This ends data sharing between the two accounts.

Facebook Messenger users may choose to use Messenger as a standalone product. They may create a new account in the application to use it as a standalone messenger app.

Core services, including private messaging and chat, and voice and video calling are available then.

Facebook Marketplace users may unlink Marketplace from their Facebook information. Users who do that may continue to use Marketplace to buy and sell products. Communication between buyer and seller, on the other hand, happens exclusively via email and no longer Facebook Messenger or Chat.

Facebook users who play games on the site may block games from accessing their Facebook information. This limits availability of games. Only “some single-player games” may be played in that case. Multiplayer games, personalized game suggestions and in-game purchases are not available in these cases.

Closing Words

Facebook plans to roll out these changes in the coming weeks. Only users from the European Union, European Economic Area and Switzerland will get these options. The changes will roll out gradually and users will be notified about them once they reach their accounts or devices.

Taking Microsoft’s Copilot app for Android for a test drive

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Microsoft unveiled the Copilot app for Android and iOS this week officially. While it released the app earlier, it is now officially available according to Microsoft.

How good is the app for Android and how does it compare to the web-based version? To find out, I decided to install Microsoft Copilot for Android on a Samsung handheld.

Microsoft describes its Copilot app in the following way:

Improve Your Productivity with Copilot–Your AI-Powered Chat Assistant
Copilot is a pioneering chat assistant from Microsoft powered by the latest OpenAI models, GPT-4 and DALL·E 3. These advanced AI technologies provide fast, complex, and precise responses, as well as the ability to create breathtaking visuals from simple text descriptions.
Chat and create all in one place—for free!

The app contains ads according to the description on Google Play. Ads may be displayed in responses of the AI, but not elsewhere, at least for now.

First thing you may notice is that you do not need to sign-in to use the app. This is similar to Copilot, formerly known as Bing Chat, which also works without account. Still, if you sign-in to a Microsoft account you get “longer conversations” and may ask more questions. The latter refers to the number of turns between you and the AI. Anonymous users get 5 turns, which is sufficient for many interactions.

The Copilot interface and capabilities

Microsoft Copilot App Android interface

The application’s interface feels a bit overladen on launch. There is a slider to use GPT-4, some examples to get you started, a microphone icon, the refresh button to start anew, a photo and a keyboard icon. You also get a sign-in link and may vote or copy content the AI produces.

You may interact with the AI by typing, speaking or through images that you capture with the device’s camera or search on the Web. The functionality is similar to the one provided by the Copilot website.

Some features may work better on the web, others on mobile. Typing may work better with a dedicated keyboard, but voice and image inputs may work better on mobile in many cases.

Note that you still need to type or speak when you capture images.

A tap on the “sign-in” icon displays the Settings. This is not ideal, as it may mean that users who do not want to sign in from opening the preferences.

The settings list a few interesting options. You may change country/region, display language and speech language, as well as the theme there.

The privacy options display just a few options, including the ability to block ads. Note that this won’t disable the ads that Microsoft’s Copilot AI may display in its responses. It is unclear which ads the ad-blocker is blocking. There is no explanation on the page regarding that.

Using the Copilot App

It makes almost no difference if you use the Copilot app or Copilot on the web. Typing may be slower for many users, but that is to be expected. It would be interesting to know how many interact with the AI through text and how many use their voice.

Copilot requires an active Internet connection and it may take some time before you get results, especially if you enable GPT-4.

There is little that the current version of Copilot can do that other Internet services can’t. You can use it to translate images that you capture, get recommendations based on your location, or information about art in a museum. One of the advantages of the AI is that you get all of this from a single app.

One of the downsides is that it may hallucinate and produce information that are inaccurate or false. This is also true for other web services and AIs and it may be necessary to verify the output before making use of it.

It works reasonably well most of the time and may be useful because of that. Much depends on how it is used though.

Closing Words

Whether it is better than regular non-AI apps and services is for the individual user to decide. You could ask the AI to create a sightseeing trip that lasts 4 hours and should include all major sights in the vicinity. It may produce a good list faster than you’d be able to create using Google Maps or other services. Then again, it may also lead you to sights that do not exist, or do not exist anymore.

All in all, AI is a promising technology, but it is in its infancy. While technology has leaped forward significantly in the past year, it still has a long way to go before it reaches Star Trek Data or Star Wars 3C-PO levels.

Now you: do you use AI services or tools?

Don’t worry too much about Google deleting inactive accounts

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Google announced an update to storage policies in November 2020. Back then, the company informed users that it changed which files count against a user’s storage quota.

The change affects high quality photos uploaded to Google Photos and also new Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms or Jamboard files. One of these services, Jamboard, a whiteboarding app, has been shut down in the meantime.

A help page on Google’s support website lists data that counts against a user’s quota. Apart from what is listed above, this also includes the following:

  • Meet call recordings.
  • Files in Google Drive.
  • Gmail messages and attachments.
  • Original quality photos and videos backed up to Google Photos.

Users may experience issues when they are over quota. Broken down, it limits the ability to save new files to the cloud storage in many Google products.

Inactive Google accounts

In the same update, Google announced new policies for inactive accounts and accounts that are over the limit.

Accounts inactive for 24 months may have content deleted in the aforementioned services. Google explicitly refers to “product(s) in which you’re inactive”.

The wording is confusing, as users may interpret it as having to use all of these services at least once in a 2 year period to avoid having their data deleted.

This appears to not be the case. Google suggests to “periodically visit Gmail, Drive or Photos on the web or mobile, while signed in and connected to the internet” to avoid the banhammer.

Google reassures users that it will notify users multiple times by email and notifications prior to deleting content or deleting the entire account.

Accounts that exceed their storage quota for a 2 year period also risk deletion, according to Google.

Most accounts are safe

Some news outlet painted the new policy in dramatic terms. While it is true that Google may delete inactive accounts, it is relatively easy to do something about it.

One could argue that users who have not used their account for 2 years may not hold it in high value and that most may not mind the deletion.

In any event, here is what I recommend:

  • If you store valuable files or emails in your Google account, create a backup.-You can use Google’s Takeout service to export the data. Another option is to save files locally or use a local email client, e.g., Thunderbird, to synchronize the emails.
  • To make sure the account is not deleted, sign-in to one of the supported Google products at least once every 24 months.

Closing Words

Google is not the only company that threatens to delete inactive accounts. Microsoft, for example, has similar policies in place. Microsoft users who have not signed-in to their account in a 2 year period may have their accounts deleted as well.